Fascinating odyssey
Capt Elmo Jayawardena
If you are looking to buy one book during this festive season, pick
Bradman Weerakoon’s Kalutara. It is a winner, a wonderful collection of
history, folk-lore, sociology and literature all combined together and
presented accurately, logically and nostalgically to satisfy anyone’s
absolute reading pleasure.
The narration extends from the vulnerable outlook of a young boy, the
son of the Kalutara District ASP to the mature expertise of the supreme
civil servant who served eight Heads of State in Sri Lanka.
 The
book is vast in character and descriptive of location, a rich parade of
people of major and minor relevance jump out of the pages to give a
distinct Kalutara colour to the story. Events span from anything to
everything that happened in the area; local patents such as how jaadi is
made and stored is told along with travel stories where people walked
vast distances resting in ambalan.
The bullock cart era is highlighted in transportation, the river
riding kollawa catamaran gets mentioned and the almost forgotten
Swarnapali bus of yesteryear is ‘born-again’ describing how it carried
passengers from Panadura to Monaragala bisecting the Kalutara District.
There is a variety of subjects available like a sumptuous buffet to
suit the pallet of any literature lover, a history buff or simply
someone who wants to know how things happened in various hamlets of Sri
Lanka at a more innocent time.
The local Don is now eighty years old. When lesser batsmen have
retired and are resting, this Bradman bats on and that too in cavalier
fashion creating a fascinating book that has every possible stroke of
the pen and a lot more of his own creation. Snippets are many and
assorted, adding matter and meat to each page.
Pahiyangala story is mentioned, of the fourth century Fa Hsien’s
cave. Append to that is the annual pilgrimage by people following the
footsteps of the ancient Chinese monk who walked from Bulathsinhala to
Adam’s Peak. Then the advent of the Muslims in the eighth century is
described, Beruwala and how the name originated when ancient seamen from
Aden picked the monsoon winds to sail latitudes across the Arabian Sea
to the fabled land of Serendib.
The Dutch Portuguese battle in 1656, another forgotten significant
skirmish is recalled accurately. How General Hulft marched from Maggona
and fought the Portuguese in the vicinity of the Panadura Moya Kata is
chronicled in detail, including the number of soldiers who died on the
southern Moratuwa beach.
Iban Batuta takes his place among the visitors to the district and
for more modern times Ernesto Che Guevara comes on stage on his visit to
Yahalawatte to see how rubber was made.
Didn’t I tell you the characters in the book are fascinating?
The author gives a vivid explanation of Portuguese names that became
a commonality on the western seaboard, the Fernandos, Silvas, the
Pereras and the many others that took root among the Sinhalese. He
cleverly places his research on how Casado settlers were directly
related to this phenomenon contrary to the belief that it was only the
conversion to Christianity that brought about the name change. The
author makes his point here not as an authority but as a man who speaks
with logic.
That concept is clear throughout the book, a point of view of a
learned man on subjects that raise arguments and not a declaration of a
‘know all’ who is preaching from an infallible pulpit. In one breath he
talks about rulan viskotu at Monis bakery which has become a pit stop in
Maggona for Galle Road travellers and changes direction to quote from
the Gira Sandesaya and narrates the sad seepada voiced by plumbago
miners in their underworld hell and the kavi often heard on river banks
recited hauntingly by weary sand diggers pole-driving their laden paru
in the shallows of the Kalu Ganga.
Yes, everything is in two hundred pages, covering an area bordered in
the north by Moratuwa and south by the Bentara Ganga, and the circa goes
as far as the mention of the Balangoda man and related events to the
happenings in twentieth century where Rosemary Rogers pours her
childhood love for hometown Panadura.
Along with the renowned Rosemary come anecdotes of flamboyance
variegated by the vernacular of Kassippu Kamala and Ganja Padmini and
the bucket shops that took rupee bets in village corners for horses that
ran in Epsom. This certainly is a book worth reading and storing for the
generations to come as it is timeless in appreciation. How great it
would be if other districts too were brought into record in the same
manner as the Kalutara Odyssey?
That would be fascinating historical literature, a must for a place
like Sri Lanka where a thousand tales of people and places pass from
generation to generation without being properly recorded, only to be
buried in the sands of time and lost forever.
Yes, there must be more books like Kalutara, but the problem would be
to find another Bradman to bat for us. That would certainly be a big
problem.
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