Postcard from Talawakelle:

My kingdom for a sunny day

Aditha Dissanayake

Ever woken up in the morning to find A4 paper pasted on your windowpanes? Ever stepped out of bed to find your feet on cubes of ice which later turn out to be the cold wooden planks on the floor? Ever listened to the 'plop-plop' sound of rain drops on the roof and yearned to see the sun?

Nothing can make you wish you were far, far away from where you are right now when you wake up to a gloomy, mist laden morning. I know. I have been living in the midst of the monsoons for weeks and weeks now, here in Talawakelle, and woken up every morning wishing I was...uhm...in the Bahamas, or Hawaii or even 'sunny' Colombo.

So, on a morning when visibility is zero, when the brooding cypress tree in the garden, planted by a British gentleman way back in the early twentieth century,and the tea factory beyond seem to be draped in white silk, when there is nothing better to do than to go back to sleep, knowing this too, is impossible when you have already been floating in dreamland for nine hours, when my Significant Other suggests we go in search of the sun I grab the chance with both hands. Our destination? Bandarawela. We figure if the sun has any sense he would be there.

The mist lifts slightly as we begin the first lap of our journey on the Talawakelle, Nuwara Eliya road. But the temperature refuses to rise. We switch on the heater but shiver involuntarily as we see the wind playing games with the trees, the grass in the meadows, the manes of the ponies grazing by the side of the road.

Once on the Mahagastota hill climb, watching the old men dressed in black coats, huddled on benches, watching us, I imagine I am traveling through Tolstoy's Russia.

Eureka. In Welimada we catch the first glimpse of the sun. Sweaters and mufflers come off. The heater is switched off. Shutters are lowered. Soon it feels as if we had stepped from the Arctic to the Sahara. The result: intense thirst. We begin to yearn for a drink.

Honey coloured. Comforting as well as refreshing. Tea. Would we find this elixir in the stone building by the main road of the Bandarawela town? Not a soul is in sight except us and the lady at the counter.

Could the empty tables and chairs mean the price is far too exuberant for Citizen Pereras like us? But the lady has already taken out the tea set. It is too late to retreat. We enjoy the steaming hot tea gazing at the view of the street below and the old stone church in the distance. Back in the vehicle I ask my companion how much it had cost. He tells me to guess. Five hundred? He shakes his head. Thousand? No. Two thousand? Silence. ?What else could you expect in such beautiful surroundings? The cost of living is so high these days, this is nothing. After all the price of milk powder too was increased recently.? I think of reasons to justify an exorbitant bill till I see the grin on his face. ?Fifty rupees per cup.? ?We are heading for utopia? I decide.

Almost. There is time yet for utopia. Especially when there are orphanages like the one in the middle of the town, lacking basic medical supplies. ?There are only a few drops of Betadine solution left in the bottle donated to us by the army? says the Matron. She could also do with clothes for the new born babies and a hair trimming machine for the older ones. We buy the things on her list from the Bandarawela town even though the pharmacy charges double the normal price for our purchases, knowing quite well the goods are for the orphans. Shylock's kinsmen are still around.

Next stop, Hakgala. By the time we purchase tickets as local adults, the wind had discovered us once more and begun to follow us. When we step inside an alcove for shelter we come across a slight acquaintance, an old gentleman we had seen often in the Talawakelle town. He had brought his grandsons, (British citizens), to show them the botanical wonders of their motherland.

As we wait for the rain to cease, he recalls other monsoons, other companions. Once he had driven a girl to see the gardens in his Volkswagen Beetle, forgetting this was July and the weather would be nasty. Half way on the journey it had started to rain and the lady's hairstyle, piled high on her head to resemble a beehive, had started to stream down her face and neck. Wasn't she angry? She was he says. She said from now on she will never trust a man in a... (guess the adjective she used) Volkswagen Beetle?

It's six in the evening now and I am back in my room. The rain on the windowpanes is like the sound of steam rising from a boiling kettle, amplified. Somewhere in the distance a door keeps banging against the wall.

I feel like Heathcliff at Wuthering Heights, I feel like King Lear in the storm, I feel like Charles Ryder on his voyage home from New York...hold it. Is this what they call monsoon madness? Well, time to sign off.

If you happen to see the sun remind him to show up here in Talawakelle one of these days.