Gas Maaru Pethi Choru by Capt. Elmo Jayawardena
When I was a kid, (which was a very long time ago), I grew up in the serenity of an old style Moratuwa. The western border of the town was the beautiful beach and the eastern, the picture-perfect Bolgoda that emptied to the sea from the southern extreme that demarcated Panadura. To the North was the Ratmalana International Airport where one could hear the whine of big propeller engines as they revved up to take off to faraway places, mind you, intercontinental, their tails painted in brilliant colours depicting the then giants of aviation, KLM, BOAC and TWA.
As for Moratuwa the biggest event the town enjoyed was the “big match” in March, “Battle of the Golds”. Then there was a gentlemen’s election crusade between the Fernando opponents, Merril and Ruskin, vying for a place as to who should represent us in the parliament. That was the political scene. Other news flashes included the occasional stabbing of someone in a drunken brawl or a “kukul hora” being caught stealing chicken. The town certainly was very different then from what it is at present.
People too were dissimilar, I guess, a lot gentler. As kids, we woke up in the morning and walked to school and came home in the afternoon and then it was play-time till the sun dipped and coloured the sky in varied pastels. Nobody heard of the loathsome word “tuition” and it was all fun and frolic after school. We plucked mango from trees and shot catapults at crows and squirrels and delighted at an occasional “Aleric’s popsicle” or a little crisp, white “bombai-mutai’. Such were our far and wide-spread silver linings. We rode ramshackle bicycles to the beach to watch fishermen pulling the nets. When the trains hooted in the nearby track, we hooted back in return as if to match the yodel of the iron monsters. That was life.
Every house had somewhat a garden and some more than others. Nobody enrolled in cricket schools. Most home yards were big enough to set wickets and play cricket. The so-called sixes we hit “thumped thumped” on the roofs in the surrounding houses and dropped down. As for the neighbours, of course some were friendly and some not so, I mean the people who lived around our makeshift stadiums. The ball would go to the next garden, and we would jump over the fence and retrieve. In rare cases there were those who hid the ball or shouted at us. Such boundaries were well-defined by the players as “out” if you hit into that yonder garden. But the games went on, great competition and great fun with “Shy balls” and “Hora Out” with whimsical umpires who could possibly have grown to become great politicians. That is another story, maybe I will write about that on a fairer day.
As for now, it is all about “Gas Maru” which begins with the tender years of our young days where we saw times that were simple and soft and maybe in many ways magical. Such is what I remember. A pure gift of life.
Remembrance wakes within me and sadly brings me to the reality that there isn’t a semblance of that past remaining today. That’s to be accepted as the world has got older and more corrupt and politicised with irritatingly arrogant leaders. Big Bush started the scavenge of Iraq and little Bush and Blair expanded adding Afghanistan too. Terrorism got expanded and exported and the carnage continues which includes our own Paradise Isle which got bombed on Easter Sunday. We thought everything was over after Nandikadal. Sadly, the fuses are still burning and no one has the faintest idea when the next explosion will come. And we call ourselves civilised? There are committees appointed to do this and inquire into that to protect us and the good earth. This is a time where one does not know what is right and what is wrong anymore and whom to believe and whom to disregard. As Sri Lankans we sure are in Limbo without a clue as to whom we should follow. I guess that is the new world order which certainly is in some ways personified on the Sri Lanka shores with a capital ‘D” for disaster. We are the Ali Babas, and the forty thieves are always there, multiplying like ticks on a bitch, sucking the very life of decency in our country. No wonder everyone is confused, that’s for sure; I am too, not knowing what to believe and where lies the truth or at least half the truth. Hadn’t we suffered enough for thirty years? Isn’t it time that Diyawanna Oya got vaccinated with some honesty and then given a booster too just so that they can all be brought to some semblance of integrity?
Which brings me to the headline of my story, “Gas Maaru Pethi Choru” that’s what we played as kids. A garden with well-spaced coconut trees and we each would pick a trunk and one of us would be blind folded with a black cloth and the game began. We would taunt and shout and promise and the “blind catcher” followed the voices and came charging to grab us and get his reward. Alas! That’s when we jumped to the other tree and the voice faded and a new voice rose from another corner for “Citizen Jayawardena” to believe and chase another dream. The blind-folded catcher of yesterday had many a similarity with the powerless “us” of today. He was lost in his blindness and groped and stumbled in search of playful solace, but the voices faded and the positions changed and he was left to go from promise to promise muddled in somewhat a mindless incontinent sentimentality. He knew his misery was short-lived, such was the game and there he differed from the “us” who know very well that the proverbial “light at the end of the tunnel” in real life for us is simply a mythological mirage. The trees are there and the voices are heard, and there ends the fairy tale. At least, that is how I see it.
The question then to us, the prototype occupant of beloved Lanka, is where do we go now? How do we survive and what do we do to ensure that the generations that come after us would have better dawns? That they would breathe fresh air and see butterflies in the sky and walk to a beach and hoot at trains. Or do we just play the game and chase the voices and linger in hope that we know for certain would become hopeless. Is it a foregone conclusion that the demons would win the battles against the ordinary man and woman as they have won for 73 years? Is there anything that we can do from the “do nothing” seat to change the tide or do we stay sorrowfully silent with our mouths permanently padlocked? Not much choice either way, that’s for sure. We are all like jugglers on a circus rink, coloured balls flying, sadly not knowing which promising ball to follow and which ball to catch. Aren’t we?
Maybe it would be a good idea for all of us to come together and promote “Gas Maaru Pethi Choru” as a national sport. Maybe elevate it to be accepted at the Olympics. We certainly could do well, maybe even go to Paris, the next venue and compete in the games as a seeded entry. Considering the vast number of perpetually “root-balling” performers we have in the midst of us who strut the stage in gay political abandon. It is not only the ‘Big Guns’ but their ardent followers, the ‘Kade Yana’ crowd (going marketing) and the ‘Kude Allana’ (holding the umbrella) second string are all playing the same ‘Gas Maaru’ game. As for us the voters we never learn. We only follow Pierre de Coubertin’s immortal words of ‘not to win but to take part’ and light crackers and feed on ‘kibibath’ at road intersections and cheer like fools the saints as they go marching in to Diyawanna Oya.
Just another thought! Maybe? Only time will tell.
Capt Elmo Jayawardena
