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| Wednesday, 22 September 2004 |
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The Dragon in the village Thomas Aiya's tea boutique under the huge spreading flamboyant trees was the meeting place, gossip centre, hangabout and a kind of wisdom parlour of the men in the village. Thomas Aiya, apart from his enormous tummy - which was always bare, with a massive Bulath-Patiya holding up his sarong - had three other assets in his boutique that attracted the men, both old and young and of course brats like me too.
I dare say Thomas Aiya's tea ceremony might not compete with the famous Tea Ceremony of Japan, but it could have given J. T. C. (Japanese Tea Ceremony) a good run in speed and dexterity at least! The second asset in here was the fantastic, mouth-watering 'karawala hodda' with which one could gulp down even a loaf of bread - provided the bread was there (specially in the Dragon days of the war) and provided one could effort it. The third asset, or rather attraction, was the well-worn Daan Leella or chess board which occupied centre space of the main bench in the boutique front. There were veterans of the chess game. A well matched duo would sometimes spend as much as two hours on a single game. The young men, after having their daily portion of a quarter of a loaf with the 'karawala hodda' washed down with a hot cup of Thomas Aiya special, would just stand and watch the elders at play, absorbing I am sure, the intricacies and the tricks of the game. One hardly ever took a bet on the winner. This may have been out of respect for the veterans who were elderly men. Bet of the fly But there were the occasional 'side bets' so to say, those had nothing to do with the chess game. One peculiar bet was the bet of the fly. Two young men would pick up a common object each. It could be a little stone, a banana peel or even a crust of bread. These objects would then be placed on a bench. The one that attracted a fly first, would be the winner. Strangely enough there were not many flies around in Thomas Aiya's little tea boutique and the contestants had to wait a while until a fly favoured one of them. The more favourite object was a banana peel, freshly peeled, not by the contestants but by some other neutral persons and handed over to the contestants then and there. This was to avoid manipulations such as daubing fly-bait on the surface. And there was plenty of fly bait in the boutique like dry fish, sugar and hakuru. The bet was a cent or two, in hard cash, or a cup of tea with a seeni-murukku, in kind. Talking of seeni-murukku makes my mouth water even now. Thomas Aiya had two specialities, for us, the children. They were his seeni-murukku special and his viskirinna special. I am not sure how he made the former, but the latter was made out of long strips of crusted bread dripped in a kind of sugar sauce. The bread may have come from left overs, but the sugar certainly was not. Who cares anyway. Not the children certainly. All this, I must say, was before the Dragon invaded our little village. People had plenty of time in their hands then. Yes, they tilled their plots of paddy, tended their koratuwas, bathed their cattle, sent their children to school, tended their betel vines and did a host of other things. There was no hurry. Everything was done quietly, in each individual's stride. And they still had time for a game of chess, a little bit of gossip and a cup of coffee at their favourite rendevouz - Thomas Aiya's tea boutique under the spreading flamboyant trees. The war The Dragon changed all that. We did know and we did hear of this war thing rather vaguely. It seems that the Jarman Kaaraya wanted to annex some adjoining land and that the Ingrisi Kaaraya was against this land grab. Somehow the Japan Kaaraya also had got involved in this thing and it was said that everybody was bombing each other. The Rusian Kaaraya was also in this melee and the Amerikan Kaaraya was just joining the fun. We kids heard bits and pieces of this thing called the Yudde at Thomas Aiya's boutique and a little bit more, at home, when my father and the big brothers got together on an evening. But then, they talked much more wisely with knowing heads nodding which put us off the subject. It was much more interesting and much more fun to watch the old men in the boutique holding forth, sometimes with a freshly bought newspaper in hand which object was wagged with great effect. And then the soldiers started walking our dust paths, not in a rush, but quietly, one by one. These soldiers in uniform were our own young men from the village. At first we hardly recognised them and we hardly believed the transformation. But they were our own village lads, hardly out of their teens. Yes they were our own Amares and Palas and Erebinus and our own Wijes. They trod our dust paths in their new khaki uniforms, with caps and heavy boots - I can't, for the life of me understand how they got used to those heavy boots! But there they were, looking serious and determined as if they were going to kill the Dragon single-handed. Some of them were tillers of our land, some, not so well employed young men, and some, to our utter disbelief, were the fly-betting hangers on in Thomas Aiya's digs. Whoever they were, whatever their reasons, the Dragon, had entered our village. **** Back **** |
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They were, the excellent (or so we thought) hot tea which he poured out
in an unerringly exuberant ceremony in three stages. Open boiler tap,
steaming hot water through a tea-weary sieve into a waiting tea-crusted
container which could be made of gold, silver or copper for all you cared,
a vigorous session of rattle-rattle-rattle which synchronised rather
attractively with the undulations of Thomas Aiya's enormous belly, and
then... hey presto the golden tea in a long golden stream into the waiting
glass, 'freshly' washed in the basin of water under his arm.
