Petromax to the rescue!

Until the Principal of Poramadulla Central College pointed out none of us had realized that we had no electricity in the school! In fact, there was no electricity in the whole area. All this time we had done all our rehearsals during day time and it had not occurred to any of us that we will need lights for the performance of the play in the night.

It had not occurred to even wise-man Mr. Anthony. Not even to practical-man, Mr. Pelis. It had not occurred to me at all! I was so much engrossed in other aspects of the production.

When the Poramadulla Principal - one Mr. Gunawardhana if I am not mistaken - jumped that question on me “Mr. Jayasena, do you have electricity here?” I really saw stars! There was thunder and lightening within my brain.

Still I managed to put up a straight face to Mr.G and managed to say that we were getting some petromax lamps by evening. I don’t think I fooled Mr. G. He sort of smiled tolerantly and departed immediately saying that he’ll be bringing at least two lamps from Poramadulla.

I asked Mr. Pelis to carry on with the immediate work and ran to Mr. Anthony. I told him about our predicament and asked him to round up as many petromax lamps as possible from the neighbourhood.

Mr. Anthony listened to me with wide-eyed concern, nodded his wise head and immediately set about the task of finding lamps. I came back to Mr. Pelis to relate the story to him. “Deyyo Saakki!” he uttered as if he was taking the whole ‘blame’ on himself. “Don’t worry Ingirisi Mahattaya,” he assured me. “Anthony Mahattaya will find the lamps even if he has to go to Sakra himself to get them...!” I was amazed at their calm and blamed myself for the lapse.

“I should have thought about it. After all I am the one who boasted of experience...” I said crestfallen. “Don’t let these little things upset you, Ingirisi Mahattaya. Anthony Mahattaya will look after all that. You just concentrate on the rest of things...” My good friend Mr. Pelis assured me and assured I was!

Petromax lamps

True to his words, by evening we had six petromax lamps at our command. Each lamp had its caretaker too, so to say. That was a good thing since petromax lamps are generally very moody things. I was glad that there was someone who could handle each lamp efficiently. Not much later Mr. Gunawardhana too came in smiling broadly, swinging two lamps on his arms. Now we had eight lamps and that was more than enough. Nothing could go wrong now!

Our school was a hive of activity that afternoon. Miss Piyaseeli and her friend Mrs. Kumarasinghe - a teacher from a neighbouring school - was getting the girls ready - putting on costumes and make-up on them, combing and tiering up their hair and the girls were looking so round and contented to be participants in this marvellous occasion! The male characters were being dressed and made-up by other helpers, once again from neighbouring schools.

There were giggles from the girls when Messars Wijesuriya, Anthony and Pelis were given their moustaches and beards. They were mildly admonished by the lady teachers. There was so much love and happiness in that little school that evening...

I did not wear a mustache as Rama. I was clean-shaven but sported a ‘kumara-konde’ - a princely wig. So I was spared the giggles. In any case I was the director - the big man here - and they dare not laugh at me!

Gate sales

The Arachchila (yes, the man whose sis-in-law let us done at the last moment) himself had come to be in charge of the gate sales, together with a couple of his friends. That was a good thing since all of us teachers, except the Head Master, were performers and we could hardly have managed the gates and with the Arachchila in charge, no one would dare to ‘cheat the gates’!

We got running reports from the older boys about ‘gate-sales’. Tickets, priced at Re. 1 and cts. 50 that had moved rather sluggishly at the beginning were being snapped up by late evening. Mr. Charles Barton, our chief guest had arrived sharp on time and his chauffer came in to tell us that he had arrived.

We were not quite ready and I ran down the steps in my costume to plead for his indulgence at our delay. “Young man, I don’t like delays, but you are excused for now because you are a novice and I can see that you are doing a service to the school...” Mr. Barton declared shaking my hand warmly. I thanked him profusely and ran back.

Ten minutes later a boy came running to say that our tickets were sold out! I pretended not to be surprised and nodded a wise head. Now we were ready to go on stage.

Meanwhile, our Head Master, Principal, Poramadulla Central, our school inspector Mr. T. B. Ratnayake (later Director of Examinations) the village Arachchila and a few others had accompanied Mr. Barton, to the hall, in a sort of mini-perahera and we rang a first bell.

Right at that moment, a strange thing happened - something I had never rehearsed or expected. All the children, in their costumes, came in a disciplined row to where I was and each one bent down in salutation.

They were followed by the three men teachers and Miss Piyaseeli. Mr. Wijesuriya must have seen the utter surprise in my eyes and he smiled his charismatic smile to say “Meva ape Chaariththarane Ingirisi Mahattyo..’ (These are our traditional customs, young friend) For a second time he nearly moved me to tears.

I gulped the emotion down and said “May you all be blessed by the Triple Gem and may the Devas be kind to you...” The third bell rang and the Namaskara song was sung by a bevy of little girls and boys, all dressed up beautifully under the charming amber lights of the Magic Lanterns - the petromax lamps!

Thought of the week

So many things of extreme importance have been happening during the past couple of weeks. The signing of the P-TOMS agreement, the break-away of one of the coalition partners, a likely general election or even a Presidential election and so many ‘Sandhanayas’ in the offing to beat P-TOMS etc.

My thoughts, however, are with an event that happened almost a year ago - the passing away of my dear wife, Manel, on the 24th of July, last year. It’s been a trying year for me, to say the least.

And I seek the reader’s permission to devote my next column - that of 20th of July - to Manel mostly and other related matters such as the Trust Fund set up in her name. (for any details you may like to know you could contact me at [email protected])

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