Loser pays for the bananas ” a short story from “Rainbows in Braille” – A collection of short stories – By Elmo Jayawardena
The month of Madin changed to Bak. Flame trees burst out in blood red flowers like carnival flares. These seasonal blossoms sprout in thousands vastly outnumbering the scanty green leaves. The trees look as if they are covered with a Bolshevik flag. The shedding petals, aged and burnt, make a maroon carpet of the ground below. Such happens when the Flame tree flowers bloom in the month of Bak, which is April in the common Gregorian calendar.
April days are clear and crisp with cloudless skies. A pre-monsoonal dryness is everywhere. It is a time when nature remains undisturbed, painting the landscape in technicolour before the rains come crashing down.
In the villages where nothing much happens, everyone anxiously awaits the Aluth Avurud-dha which falls in the middle of the month of Bak. It is the ancient harvesting festival, auspiciously calculated by rudimentary astronomy to be the exact time when the path of the sun apparently crosses the equator on its upward journey to reach the summer solstice.
The weeks leading to the Aluth Avurud-dha are lazy, when time crawls into days and nights in an uneventful bliss. As the countdown to the festival begins everyone makes preparations to celebrate. This is the premier event of Sri Lanka. Apart from other minor religious festivals, the Aluth Avurud-dha is perhaps the most significant celebration that is marked in the happy mood calendar of the land.
Justiya ran the tea boutique that faced the village green. It was the only thing he inherited from his father who had done his apprenticeship in tea making under Justiya’s grandfather. You could call it a family business of sorts. It was no different from those big companies that posted big signboards on their roofs proclaiming names like “Cooray and Sons” or “Jayaratna and Sons” and so forth. Justiya had no such board to tell the world about his lineage. But his business too was a father-son combination that had passed from one generation to another, a tea-shop opposite the village green.
Justiya’s shop was well known as a gathering place. It had seen its first days with just a water boiler under a takaran roof, a bench to sit on and a few cups to serve the tea. That was during Justiya’s grandfather’s time. The boutique had gradually improved through the years, each generation adding its bit of expansion to bring it to its present state. One has to visualise what this Tea Boutique was all about. The takaran roof replaced with asbestos, the sheets lavishly over lapping each other in parallel lines for the rainwater to flow and collect in a square gutter. There were benches for the customers to sit on; unpolished, but solid. Narrow ones for two and longer ones for four, each kept alongside cheap rexine covered tables that matched the size of the seats. As for food, there was roas paan, malu paan and banis plus many varieties of banana-combs that hung like dead men from the front roof-beam. There was always boiler-brewed tea, whichever way one preferred. Golden brown with no milk and a lot of sugar was the common choice of most that came to drink tea. There were other preferences too, with little milk, lots of milk and on rare occasions some drank their tea without the sweetness of sugar. The slow-burning coir rope too was also present, rolled and fixed to the side for people to light their cheap local cigars or their hand-rolled smoke leaves called beedi.
Justiya also had a few dry rations for sale. Jack Mackerel sardine tins, Sunlight soap, Pink coloured Gopal tooth-cleaning powder, packeted or loose Maliban biscuits plus a few other needs such as Hanuman razorblades and Elephant brand safety-matches.
The tea boutique was primarily a meeting place for the village folk than merely a place to eat and drink and buy odds and ends. The gatherings here were basically a men only show, mainly village elders. Justiya’s place hardly had women who loitered around like the men did, except for old Asilin who sold betel, which everyone loved to chew.
The first wave of the regular customers came around mid-morning. It was more a habit, a part of their day to day routine, to drink tea and chat. They hung around till the sun was over their heads. Then it was time to go, when the heat of the day burnt through the asbestos roof. Everybody went away to do whatever chores they had to do that day. The afternoons at the boutique were lull times, quiet, except when a long distance bus stopped at the junction for the driver to take a break. The passengers were given time to stretch their legs on the village green or gulp down a cup of tea at Justiya’s. The bus commuters did their business quick. No conversation, just ate, drank and ran when the bus started. They were just temporary visitors who simply came and went adding a few much needed rupees to Justiya’s kitty.
The second round of the regulars came with the onset of twilight. They lingered till the village went to sleep, of course, depending on who was holding fort and how palatable the gossip was.
At the shop Justiya was the master tea-maker, waiter, cleaner and boss-man, all rolled into one. He had no son to carry on the tradition so there was no apprentice. His attempts at procreation had resulted in giving him three offspring of the ‘wrong’ sex. No more producing, the doctor at the hospital had put a permanent knot to his delivery-line. No more hope of handing down the business from father to son. Well! that was Justiya’s version of the story.
The tea boutique was an important place. It stood in all its prominence in front of the village green where the buses stopped. Justiya was an important man who supplemented his income by being an occasional pawn-broker cum loan-man to ease the day to day burdens of his regulars. That made him somewhat an important and sought after person in the hierarchy of the village. People came to his boutique to sit on the benches, sip tea and swap stories, enjoying the gossip while watching those who walked across the village green.
The regulars at Justiya’s were all experts who could contribute to any conversation that was being swirled around. They sat on the benches and shared information on what happened to whom and who did what in the village and its vicinity. This was common talk, rich with laughter or deadly serious when the subject was no laughing matter. Very little of what happened in the community escaped the discussions that took place on Justiya’s benches. The subject matter was always people orientated, mainly about the denizens of the village. Sometimes the conversation was taken to higher levels and expanded to the politics of the land.
‘They should have nationalised the buses a long time ago’
‘Bloody rogues, all these bus Mudalalis, made us stand in the rain for their ramshackle buses and charged the moon to move a mile.’
That’s how they praised the government’s takeover of the bus business.
He cannot be trusted. He changes colours like a katussa and keeps jumping from one political party to another like a grasshopper.’ They dissected the questionable path of some political luminary who had changed allegiance once too often to stay in power.
Whatever the conversations were about, there was always laughter. It was the theme. That was life to them. Forever looking for humour in what took place in their day to day simple existence that they had learned to call life.
Georgi Mudalali was a regular at Justiya’s boutique; a super-senior expert among those who gathered in front of the village green.
Georgi was a light-hearted and loveable man, a bit of a Bohemian, a flamboyant character if ever there was one. An unusually tall man with a brownish red-face and snow-white hair that was parted in the middle and combed back in perfect waves like freshly-cooked lavariya. He was the hairy type, tufts of hair sprouted out of his open-necked shirt and little bushes decorated his ears when he had neglected to shave. He was very well known in the village and its outskirts. Georgi had spent some years in the Welikada Prison for some semi-shady deal that went sour. It was a short sentence and he had got off early due to good behaviour. Georgi came out using the jail term as a qualification in life. He was often heard boasting of escapades in jail in typical jail jargon, stories of heroism, perhaps of others, which he often conveniently credited to himself.
The name Georgi was a modification. He was born during the colonial times and was probably named after the most famous man in Britain, King George. Somewhere along George was chipped down and simplified to Georgi, perhaps in somewhat a soft attempt to go colloquial.
The Mudalali part was different. It was a commonly used reference to shop owners which at times was extended to those who deserved respect, one way or the other. The Mudalali accolade had been extended to Georgi for no particular reason. He was simply Georgi Mudalali, even though his pitiful celebrity status had been earned as a government guest at Welikada Prison convicted of wheeler dealing.
‘Ay Daasa, I have a friend,’ Georgi addressed whilst sipping tea, seated on a four-seater bench all by himself.
‘This friend and I can easily finish two full bunches of those “Anamalu” in one sitting,’ boasted Georgi Mudalali to Daasa who was peeling a large banana and popping half into a mouth opened as wide as a crescent moon.
Daasa ignored, concentrating solely on rolling the banana half around his surviving teeth.
‘No bullshit, we can do that, my friend and I have done it before,’ Georgi spiced up and opened the conversation to all.
Sergeant Perera the ‘know all’ invited himself.
‘Nonsense, I can hardly eat two of these big bananas, how can you finish a whole bunch that has more than a hundred, and that too, two of them, at least two hundred bananas, voiced Perera. Many years ago Perera had been a cleaner in a police station and had risen through the ranks to become a police constable before he retired. The sergeant part was a promotion he had given himself. Nobody objected. He could have lofted himself to Inspector General Perera for that matter. Nobody cared.
Kota Berti squeeze sucked the remnants of his beedi butt, pulled deep and chiminized his nostrils. ‘Never mind a bunch, if you can wallop ten of these big bananas, I’ll eat my shit,’ he added, making a rude noise with his mouth as if he was munching excreta.
Georgi grinned.
‘I am not talking of tens and twenties,’ Georgi countered. “Two full kana on any given day, me and my friend,’ Georgi sounded very serious.
‘Let’s take a bet on it. No shit eating business. I’ll put a hard-earned hundred rupees as a wager that my friend and I will wallop two big bunches.’
“You can’t be serious,” says Simion.
Simion took many minutes to get one word out. He stammered badly.
‘Yes I am, you name the date and place and I’ll come with my friend and show you how serious I am. But only for a bet.’
They talked awhile, argued awhile and they all agreed. It was a sure hundred loss for Georgi and an easy hundred gain for the others. The wage was clearly defined. Georgi Mudalali and his friend would eat every banana on two bunches of Anamalu in one sitting. The bet was a hundred rupees plus the loser had to pay the cost of the bananas.
What better date for Georgi’s banana contest than the day of the Sinhala Aluth Avurud-dha. The venue – where else but the village green.
There were many events that took place when the Avurudhu celebrations began. This was a fun time for everyone with events to suit all ages. There was pillow-fighting and grease- pole climbing for the young men. Scraping coconuts and weaving coconut leaves for young and old women and a host of other entertaining local competitions full of fun and frolic to highlight the Sinhala Avurudhu celebration.
They all agreed that Justiya would be the best to keep the bets and judge the competition. He was appointed chief organiser and master of ceremonies. Justiya was to fix the time and make available two huge bunches of Anamalu that had more than a hundred bananas in each.
The auspicious day dawned with the sky painted in crystal blue splashed with wisps of cirrus lines drawn right across. It was Avurudhu time. The festivities began with loud crackers that burst from every house when the clock hands hit the auspicious time. In every home, the oil lamps were lit and the traditional age old customs of the Aluth Avurudhu were completed in exact detail. The drums were beating everywhere, raban rhythms filled the air, expert ladies soft tapping the huge raban that rested on their laps. The village exploded in jollity that was shared by everyone who added their worth to the fun. As the day moved on in gay abandon, everybody was everywhere, dressed in Avurudhu colours in carnival mood, laughing and displaying a rare spirit of blithe that only the simple knew how.
The sun ascended to noon and afternoon and was now lighting the western sky in a slow good-bye. The festivities were coming to an end. The pillow fighter and pole climber had settled who won, so had the coconut scraper and the leaf weaver. A few drunks were swaying and stumbling about. Women chatted in their little gardens and children ran about going from house to house eating sweet-meats.
It was time now for the grand finale, time to settle bets on Georgi and his friend and their promised banana feat.
Two bunches of Anamalu, the largest variety of bananas available, were placed in the middle of the green. Each had a hundred or more ripe bananas of the long green kind. A large crowd had gathered. Many tried to get side-bets but the takers on Georgi’s side were rather limited. A few Georgi fans who braved the odds hung around together, perhaps seeking consolation in numbers for their miscalculated faith in Georgi. The stage was set, the bananas were there, and the excited crowd awaited the arrival of Georgi Mudalali and his friend.
“Georgi Mudalali, Georgi Mudalali,” the cry rang out loud amidst the ‘ooos’ and the ‘aahhs’ and a few whistles and cat-calls. The champion arrived through the crowd that melted to the side to give room. His friend followed, led by a rope tied around its thick neck, which Georgi gently tugged. The large Cape cow entered the green, looked up and mooed loud at the many ‘donkeys’ gathered.
Georgi grinned at the crowd, plucked a banana and gave to his friend. The cow greedily swallowed it, followed by another and then another. The crowd went silent, still trying to fathom what was happening and commented in confused whispers. The bananas made a slow and steady disappearance into the ample belly of the Cape cow. Georgi too joined, selecting and peeling a banana and popping it into his mouth to munch and chew, adding his little bit to the team effort.
The crowd started to clap, some giggled, the contestants went on, one eating and the other feeding. Spurts of laughter started like coughs and then erupted and raised into a crescendo of hooting and whistling wild cheer.
It didn’t take long. The Anamalu finished, Georgi grinned and the cow mooed. The crowd went bananas, including the ones who had lost their bets. There were neither winners nor losers. Just participants and spectators of a happy village chronicle. These were good times at their best, expressed by the simplicity of the simple.
That night, banana talk filled Justiya’s tea boutique. There were many gathered and the spirits were high, spurred with the inclusion of some home brewed moonshine. The Cape cow had been taken back to the field, our friend Georgi held centre stage, revelling in the brilliance of his imagination.
The Aluth Avurud-dha had come and gone, another memory had been added to the folklore of the village. Another story had come to life to be recalled and remembered and passed onto future generations.
That was then.
Georgi Mudalali is no more. A few years after the banana bash he died of neglected hepatitis. He was buried in the cemetery reserved for those that had no allegiance to any super power in the celestial dome. His friend the Cape cow would have strayed away. No one knows nor remembers. Her celebrity status faded no sooner than the contest was over. Banana eating cows soon lost their prominence being the flavour of the day.
Daasa, died in a road accident and Berti, Sergeant Perera, and the sta-sta-stammering Se-Se-Seemion had followed him to the happy hunting grounds in different modes of transport. Justiya and his tea boutique are no more either, maybe drinking tea and swapping tales perhaps went out of style or the shop may have closed down because there was no son to carry on the tradition. The place where the boutique was, has given way to a modern bakery called Oven Fresh where they wrap loaves of bread in cellophane. The bus station has widened to hold a greater number of vehicles and the trunk road too has expanded and now runs directly over where the village green once stood and where the banana eating took place.
Things certainly have changed.
But, memories do remain. People in the area still talk about Georgi Mudalali. Not often but sometimes, especially when the Sinhala Avurudhu came around. That’s when the Georgi story is recalled and told and retold, how he won an impossible bet by eating bananas with his Cape cow friend.
Those light times are no more; they have almost vanished like yesterday’s laughs. The world is more complicated now. The simple events of life are no more, like daft bets and Cape cow buddies and how the loser paid for the bananas. Those were some of the good times the villagers liked to recall, perhaps the best they cared to remember – times when laughter came easy, straight from the soul, and then there was so much to laugh about.
Mini Glossary
Aluth Avurud-dha – Sinhala and Tamil New Year – which falls in April.
Madin – month of March
Bak – month of April
Takaran – galvanised sheets used for roofing
Roas Paan – roasted bread
Banis – buns
Malu Paan – Fish buns
Kana – a bunch of bananas
Raban – a drum played by four women
Lavariya – A sweet snack
Katussa – a chameleon
Mudalali – A manager in a shop or important man
Ana malu – variety of long green banana
