Postcard from Nanu Oya :

A solitary hamlet in the sky

Aditha DISSANAYAKE

I pause, momentarily on my trek uphill and watch with bated breath, Dawn with her golden fingertips brushing the Eastern sky. I am up early today, earlier than even the sun who still seems to be languishing under a blanket of clouds, reluctant to leave his cosy bed and step into this cold morning.

My companion and guide Thiagaraja, my five year old buddy, Patch the Dalmatian (make that 60 percent Dalmatian, 40 percent unknown pedigree, and, I are on a winding mud track ten minutes away from the Nanu Oya town. Our mission: purchase two loaves of fresh baked bread. Our time limit: thirty minutes. If we do not reach the bakery by six in the morning the van would have left on its rounds leaving “nay a morsel for us to devour” as the hungry hermit might have said in “Ivanhoe”.

By 5.40 I find my hand slipping into my pocket to check the time on my phone. Could it really be only ten minutes since we left home? Yes, says Thiagaraja glancing at the sky.

“The time must be somewhere around 5.40 now” he predicts peering into my phone with a suspicious look on his face. “If your phone shows a different time then it must be broken” he insists knowing with undoubted accuracy his guess has to be correct. “How far is it to the bakery?” I ask him for the umpteenth time. “Not far. Just round the corner” he assures me also for the umpteenth time.

When we finally reach a stretch of flat ground my weary feet refuse to move a single step further unless I take a break. Luckily, diversion comes in the form of a soft murmur like the music in a song by maestro Amaradeva beyond the next bend.

The ice cold water flowing gracefully down a rock tastes like the best champagne in the world. While Patch and I refresh ourselves Thiagaraja looks on, impatiently. “What’s the big deal?” he seems to be muttering to himself. “Why make such a fuss over the water coming from the spring deep inside the pine forest?” If only he knew how precious this pure spring water is to the city dwellers who have tasted water purified with chlorine all their lives; if only he knew when this same water is encased in a plastic bottle one has to pay exorbitant amounts to drink it.

We move on checking the time once more. Me on my phone. Thiagaraja by reading the imaginary digits only he can see, in the sky. “After this bend we will be there” he assures me yet again. And this time, finally, his words come true. We make it to the bakery just as the driver of the delivery van starts the engine.

When I finally hold the two loaves of bread in my hands I feel the same ecstasy Columbus would have felt when he discovered America. This journey before sunrise across the eastern mountains of Nanu Oya had been as tedious as Columbus’ journey across the Atlantic.

Though, like Columbus the three of us will not go down in history for discovering this isolated bakery in the middle of a hamlet called Parakumpura, the joy and relief we feel will live in our memories for years to come.

When Thiagaraja suggests we explore the town (if you can call the two shops selling tiny packets of biscuits and paracetamol a town)now that we have come all this way, I nod my head in agreement. We climb several more steps and reach the temple hoping the chief incumbent will explain to us how the “town” came into being in such an isolated spot. But alas, the Hamuduruwo has gone to Anuradhapura and except for Harrison, who abandons his field of cabbages and comes running to investigate who is trespassing on the temple precincts, no one else is at the temple. Hoping to make amends Harrison suggests we visit the station.

The bakery in total isolation

The station

Off we go, climbing another dozen steps and walking by the railway track to reach the smallest station I have ever seen. Except for the white board with the name Parakumpura painted on it, the building is so run down and derelict it could easily have been used as a station in a ghost town in a Western movie. There are no ghosts though, here at Parakumpura. “I am the only ghost around” assures Pradeeth Thilina, giving us a lazy smile when I tell him the place looks haunted to me. I try not to shudder or gaze too hard at Pradeeth for it occurs to me all of a sudden he might not be joking, he might indeed be a ghost, a ghost with a sense of humor. My worries are dispelled when a mobile phone begins to ring inside Pradeeth’s shirt pocket. Not even modern day ghosts will carry phones in their pockets, I assure myself.

Is this all there is to Parakumpura? A derelict station, an empty temple and two grocery stores no bigger than matchboxes? “There is a postbox, there is a school Parakumpura Vidyalaya and of course there is the bakery; the only bakery in the whole of Nanu Oya.” Thiagaraja tells me. “What more could you want?”

“Nothing more” agrees Thiruchelwam. “Except good prices for our vegetables”. Having left his hometown Nayabadde more than twenty years ago Thiruchelwam says he has been cultivating a piece of land in Parakumpura to eke out a living sufficient to clothe and feed his son and daughter, for almost twelve years now. “I grew cabbages this season and lost quite a lot of money. It is hard to believe that a kilo of cabbages is bought by the Mudalali in Nanu Oya for a mere ten rupees. A kilo of leeks too cannot be sold for more than ten rupees. Carrots are slightly better. They fetch Rs. 20 a kilo” laments Thiruchelwam.

His friend Raja hovers around us waiting for a moment to break into the monologue. When finally Thiruchelwam pauses for breath Raja explains how the land is cultivated in Parakumpura. “In order to lease an area in which fifty kilos of seed potatoes can be planted a farmer has to pay the owner of the land Rs. 4,000 a year”. The only complaint Raja has against living in such an isolated town is the lack of proper transport. “We have to either come by train or travel from the Nanu Oya town in a three wheeler. A trip in a three wheeler costs Rs.450”. But Thiagaraja, the eternal optimist interjects. “Don’t forget a railway ticket costs only ten rupees”.

As we trudge our way back home we inhale the crisp cold air mixed with the smell of cabbages, turnips, leeks and fresh baked bread. It is surely high time the tale of the city mouse and the country mouse is rewritten. In the new version the city mouse would agree the country, if it happens to be a lonely hamlet in the hills like Parakumpura is far better than the city, if the city happens to be a congested mud strewn town like Nanu Oya without even a bakery.

Time for breakfast. But before that, three cheers to the baker of Parakumpura. Keeping his ovens warm in the most isolated “town” in the hills is an endeavour that deserves a chapter in any book on breakthrough thinking. Like how William Blake said, “”Great things are done when men and mountains meet”.