Scenes from the past
Males in tails of gallant midnight blues
Females in veils or high heeled shoes
Shadows in blouses,
Thin fellows in trousers.
Students with red complexions,
Red ties, gaudy shirts
Unshaven beards, frustration unconcealed,
Arguing vehemently
In street corners and tramcars
Railway stations and at the cinema......
Clerical servants in government offices
Sitting under fans
Scribbling under fans
Scribbling and typing
Disgusted with boarding house food...
And Matriculates in constables uniform
Doing sentinel duty at the Secretariat
Their Chemistry, Physics and Botany
Already forgotten............
European planters from upcountry estates
Clothed in Lancashire tweed
Walking down Galle face Green
Females and poodles by their side.
Rickshaw pullers, semi starved,
Nude to the waist
Underdogs of economic circumstances
Proving that man without wealth must sweat.
And factory hands
Returning at dusk to comfortless tenements
In rowdy infested slums
Redolent of rotting fish and country refuse.....
J.P. Pathirana |
