Van Uncle ” a short story from “Rainbows in Braille” – A collection of short stories – By Elmo Jayawardena
Piyaratne had come to Colombo in search of fresher pastures. Never mind what colour – green, blue or dirt brown; he was forced into relocation and that was the reason for his hardly-explained migration. It was almost a year ago when Vidanalage Somasiri Piyaratne and his ‘not so’ soul partner, Monkey Face, left Kekirawa and moved lock, stock and dirty-linen to Colombo.
“Not that I was unhappy, but don’t you know,” he tried to explain to any and sundry who made inquiries and perversely prompted answers.
The “don’t you know” was a reply in limbo. That has been the agreement with Monkey Face. She gets to move to Colombo in exchange for her silence and he retains his dignity and the world was told a made up fairy-tale to cover the truth.
It is a pity Monkey Face caught him almost in the act. How do you explain to your wife why you were creeping through the fence of the neighbor’s house at midday?
How was one to know that the bus broke down and the pilgrims cancelled their trip to the shrines they planned to visit and Monkey Face was forced to come home at noon in frustration?
“Couldn’t the gods have been a little more understanding and allowed Monkey Face’s group to continue on their journey,” thought Piyaratne.
“They could have looked from heaven or wherever they perched with their high and mighty powers and done something about the bus if they wanted to,” he whispered to himself, being careful, lest the gods would hear him complain and take offence and punish him more.
“After all, are they not powerful gods?” Piyaratne wasn’t questioning, but merely measuring the capabilities of his seraphic celestial hierarchy.
“Why frustrate and disappoint a team of ardent fans coming to kneel and bow and offer fresh flowers in homage? Why deny them the delight of lighting their silly candles and burning jossticks with purified thoughts to please every divinity they could think of?”
Piyaratne sometimes thought the gods themselves were a bit confused about what they really wanted from the poor souls they puppeteered with. Otherwise why would they break down buses and send their own devotees home in irritation simply to make matters worse by catching their husbands doing things they were not supposed to do?
It was all too confusing. Devine behaviour was too much for Piyaratne to comprehend. That is why he meekly agreed when Monkey Face laid out her conditions for a non-negotiable ceasefire.
No more Kekirawa, no more creeping through fences and tasting the forbidden fruit; instant exodus was announced. Where else? But to Colombo where Monkey Face had grown up and strutted around as a young monkey before she foolishly married her seemingly rich lover from Nuwara Kalaviya and came to live in his ancestral home in Kekirawa.
That was the time of romance, when flowers adorned the hair and even came jutting out of her monkey ears. Tender talk and soft touches had been the order of the day. That was how it was when they first met in Colombo. Well! The years had taken their toll and now home is a small rented annex in Rajagiriya with a bashed up leased Toyota sixteen-seater; a new life, a new job. Goodbye Kekirawa and enter the Dragon, Van Uncle Piyaratne.
The day started early, long before the sun began its clumsy paint job in the eastern sky. It was always dark when Piyaratne left home. The school run was from Rajagiriya to Bambalapitiya, zigzagging through Nawala and Thibirigasyaya. Twin destinations, Visaka Vidyalaya and Holy Family Convent where he unloaded his twenty-seven crisp uniformed little ‘Yak Pataw’ who chatted like budgerigars from the time they got into the van to the time they got off. Most children had pickup points where four or five gathered and waited for the van with their non-working Mother Hubbards or a designated lesser-mummy from the domestic department. The few who had single pickups were a pain in the arse, but they were the ones who came first when Piyaratne wasn’t sure whether he could get the numbers to fill his Toyota. Sixteen seats and at least twenty five little customers.
“Can’t win them all,” that’s how Van Uncle Piyaratne consoled himself whenever he detoured for a solitary brat. He always made a mental note that these solo pickups would cease at the end of the year. He knew he was in demand and there was no need for extended courtesy. In fact he was planning to pack a few more and transport about thirty two little devils. That is what all the others did with the same type of van and the same number of seats.
But then he had to admit he was new in the business, almost a novice, which is why he stopped for lone rangers and postponed until next year to increase the Yak Pataw numbers and pack a few more little arses to his sixteen seats.
“First get them, next pack them,” Piyaratne convinced himself that there was acceptable credence to such philosophy.
The “Yak Pataw” part was pure Van Uncle talk; said more in fun than in annoyance in the Van Uncle fraternity when referring to their passengers as little devils they picked up and dropped. The kids were nice, far from being angelic, but nice enough, except for one or two who occasionally made attempts to live up to their proverbial Yak Pataw fame and became annoying little she-devils.
By eight in the morning all the picking and dropping was over. The next call to duty was at two in the afternoon to do the return run. The hours had to be killed and killed wisely. That’s the time the Van Uncle job collected most of its merits.
“Nothing like our daily meetings,” Piyaratne boasted to Monkey Face.
“Must be better than creeping through fences,” the crime was done and forgiven, but never forgotten. Monkey Face always kept score.
Bar none they all gathered on a vacant lot beside the Beach Road where schoolboys came to play tennis ball cricket in the afternoon. The land was a few hundred yards away from the Wadiya Restaurant where they served unimaginably tasty devilled crab to tourists from all over the world. That was on the northern side. In the south, a little further down along the beach one could see the Kinross Swimming Club hiding behind the beach- bumming Watakeiya trees. This is where daytime lovers came to exchange sweet tales and promise double moons and multiple stars while holding hands and asking for more pickles and plums, knowing very well they had no other place to go even if the answers were “yes”.
From morning to little past noon, this was the Van Uncle haunt, the plot by the beach separated from the sand and the waves by the rail-track and the once spindly road now widened like a pregnant woman. The broadening of the beach road was to lessen the bumper-to-bumper traffic jams on the main trunk-route going south from Colombo to Galle. Good thing the beach road was wide, gave enough room for the Van Uncles, the Sterling Mosses, the Juan Manual Fangios and the Schumachers to come in the morning and park their dented Ferraris and paint-peeling Masaraties without hindering anyone. Adjacent to the road, it was the Farter’s Fairyland. That’s what the Van Uncles called the empty plot where they gathered every morning to gossip and chortle over anything and everything.
Often they held council, making their best attempts to solve Sri Lanka’s perennial and pressing problems. It was their staple for communication. The Van Uncle conversation usually rotated around the war in the north and the corruption that made a few very rich and some super rich while keeping the proletariat well below the poverty line; in essence, the absurdity of it all. They spoke cricket too, equally important as politics, criticising heavily the selectors for anything they did. Whether the chosen eleven won or lost the match was another matter, the selectors never knew what the hell they were doing.
Sometimes, when time permitted or when the need was great and important, they even took up world-affairs. Not that they knew much, just snippets. But then the world-leaders themselves seemed to know very little of what was happening.
“So tell me, why is the diesel price going up?”
“Because there is a war in someplace where they make diesel.”
“So what has that got to do with us?”
“War means diesel prices goes up and our leaders raise it even more to fatten themselves and their children and grand children.”
“Aren’t the leaders very rich? Then why steal?”
“Machang, they are rich but poor; we are poor but rich.”
By afternoon the world’s problem-solvers and the seaside plot became a miniature Lord’s for the future Mahela Jayawardenas and Muralitharans. They came with their worn-out tennis balls and home-carved pakis petti bats. The games went on until the sun dipped and disappeared in the far horizon, turning the sky into pastels, coloured by the gods themselves. That is when the fast bowler, the wicket keeper and the dashing batsmen all trudged home.
The Van Uncles and the willow wielders all enjoyed their temporary occupation of this breezy beach plot thanks to the old fart who had lived in the adjoining house and had bidden goodbye to the world without leaving a will. That’s how the name came, Farter’s Fairyland. The prime property’s will was locked in a lawyer’s officer in Hulftsdorp while a long and haranguing court battle was being fought between the fart’s children and his grandchildren and the ones who married into his family.
“Long live court battles, long live Idan Nadu,” the Van Uncles and the budding cricketers echoed in unison whenever anyone mentioned the possibility of their eviction from this sea breezed and palm shaded haven which had become their own self-proclaimed Valhalla, thanks to the “no- will” fart and his fighting descendants.
It was to the Beach Road that Van Uncle Piyaratne drove every morning after dropping off his Yak Pataw. He sat in the driver’s seat and ate his sandwich and sipped warm black coffee from the thermos, courtesy of Monkey Face’s early dawn generosity. Then it was time to join the van clan and see what was on the agenda for discussion and what new stories had cropped up for tittle-tattle and laughter.
“How was the Montero today?” That was Batik Boteju addressing Kakiri Piya, which was what the Van Uncles now called Piyaratne.
Kekirawe Piyaratne had been cut down to Kakiri Piya and further condensed to Kakiri, which was to Piyaratne’s relief. The name shortening business was a daunting ordeal; Kakiri was ok, any more shortening could have been embarrassing, especially if they had erased the ‘ki’ part from Kakiri in vulgar mischief.
As for Batik Boteju, the name was a bit unfair on the man. Boteju also known as Boththa had both arms full of ‘aluhan’ – discoloured skin patches due to a fungus. Looked almost like some prankster’s idea of a crude batik; hence the name ‘Batik Boteju’, which was cannibalised by his Van friends to Batik Boththa or simply Batik or Boththa.
The Montero talk first thing in the morning was almost a ritual among the Van Uncles.
“Missed the jackpot machang,” Kakiri deflatedly announced. “Only saw the usual drum roll.”
“Cha cha chaaa! Wha a hame!” Mukkan Raniya declared disappointment in his word clipping hair-lipped rendition. “Haybe humorrow we hill be hucky!”
Most days the Van Uncle gathering began in this fashion. The Montero story was not about the expensive Mitsubishi SUVs used by high-ranking government officials, but about a mother who came to drop her child to Kakiri Piya’s van.
“The housecoat could barely cover them, let alone hide,” Piyaratne fantasised with his friends.
“Just like those Montero mudguards, the buttocks simply ooze out.”
The lady stood by the gate and waved goodbye and turned and walked back to her house; such was the daily routine. That’s when she collected the newspaper lying on the lawn. Piya pushed the clutch and pretended gear changes and sometimes switched off and re-started the engine merely to kill time to ogle the sight when Lady Montero bent to pick up her newspaper.
“It’s the bending that made the mudguards become the morning’s delight,” Kakiri Piya explained.
“Her wattakka-gedi buttocks strain everyday through that flimsy housecoat,” Kakiri Piya exaggerates in lust, “as if to rip open and jump.”
“They are so round and full-blown like two parachutes tied together,” he further describes. “To see that in the morning machang,” he gleefully exclaims, “is nothing less than hitting the jackpot and winning the lottery and the Epsom Derby, all in one shot.”
The Montero mudguard story became a daily liturgy in the Van Clan; something nice and vile to start the day with.
“Some days are disappointing,” Kakiri Piya sometimes admitted in defeat.
“She picks the paper on the way to the gate.” No buttock show, that was a drum roll day where Piya watched her walk off with her backside rolling like Kongo Drums.
“Ham hing is hetter han hathing,” Mukkan contributed to the consolation prize.
“I tell you, she sure is no oil painting, but those mudguards! That definitely is a ‘moona katchal puka surathal’ fairy tale,” Kakiri bellowed in laughter with his analogy, which loosely translates to say the face is a mess but the arse is an enticingly sweet thing.
“Machang, whether those buttocks are jack potting or drum rolling, they sure can send a short circuit straight from my balls to my brain.”
“I sure could die in peace,” he whispered the final wish with a wolfish smile.
“If only I could get a chance to barbecue that arse in the back seat of my van!”
Batik Boteju too was disappointed that today’s morning show was only the drum roll. But then there were the cricket stories to update and the local politics and the world problems to solve. The mudguard matter was postponed till the next morning.
“Suddanta puka pallenna dunna,” Batik boasted.
“Winning all five one-day matches is a world record,” Milton joined the cricket talk. The Sri Lankans had made a clean sweep in England.
“It wasn’t Kenya or Bangladesh we played, it was the lords themselves.” Batik Boththa qualified his first remark on how the Lankans shredded the White man’s arse in the past English summer encounter.
“Hext hime he hill hin her horld hup,” Mukkan Raniya prophesised.
“Where is the next World Cup, machang?” Pikot asked. No one knew his real name. He was Pikot, named after the master jockey, Lester. This Pikot had lost everything to right bets and wrong horses and ended up in the Van Clan.
“Don’t know machang, maybe Dubai,” says Kakiri.
“They have no team.”
“They have the money machang, they have already paid a lot of dollars and bought the umpires,” Kakiri elaborates the ‘would be’ World Cup game plan of Dubai. ‘That is why all the match umpires nowadays wear those ‘Fly Emirates’ shirts.”
“What’s the point in having a good team; it is better to have the umpires playing for you. Buy the umpire and the match referee, that’s a sure win,” adds Batik Boththa.
“One thing our Arjuna Bada, he was the best. Remember the way he played. He didn’t even run, only walked.”
A train went hooting by, footboard travellers clinging onto handrails and digging to toe holds like mountain climbers, all for dear life to get home off in one piece.
A couple crossed the rail track: the young man in faded jeans and the girl in a drab grey blended blue uniform, probably some factory worker’s issue. They looked around for privacy and went into hiding in the Watakeiya bushes, perhaps with stolen fantasies in mind.
A sweep-ticket seller dribbled slowly on a ramshackle bicycle shouting at the top of his voice through a makeshift microphone, telling everyone it was their last chance to become instant multi-millionaires. The Van Clan ignored him; they have heard him before.
“That sweep fellow could become a top politician. Maybe even a minister,” Milton voiced. “He knows how to promise.”
“But does he know how to steal?”
Another train went in the opposite direction. It was a goods-train with closed cars full of who knows what? Gloomy grime-coated carriages following one after the other in the constant rail rattle that dopplered the noise as they passed the Van Uncles. The train ignored them and the Uncles reciprocated.
“Did you see that big crowd yesterday?”
“What crowd?”
“They were all shouting and trying to break into a closed office in Bambalapitiya,” Mile Menda related what he had seen the day before. Mile never buttoned his shirt. His chest was filled with two-tone hairs, grey and black, thick and bushy, more like as if his upper body was wrapped in some poor man’s cheap worn out doormat. Contrary to the wild weeds on his torso, his head was like a brass doorknob, bald as a coconut.
“The place had been an agency that sent workers to Saudi.”
“They took the money and vanished,” Mile Menda had heard the talk.
“Couldn’t those idiots go to the police?”
“For what?”
A Wall’s Ice Cream man came by, yodelling his music, the call of the ice cream. It was a bit of a vain effort, perambulating all over in the hot sun on a heavy three-wheeled bicycle. The children were at school and the housewives who were home were either too fat for ice cream or suffered from diabetes.
“Bloody fool, who’s he making all that noise for?”
The Wall’s man gave the Van Clan a “buy my ice cream” smile and rode on polluting the late morning with his mournful music which no one wanted to hear.
“That kudu Kumar was caught yesterday with two kilos in his car.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know, but he was taken to the Borella police station, and before they could get off the jeep the case was closed; kaput.”
“How?”
“One phone call and the orders had come from the high floors.”
“Not only was he released, but went home with the two kilos.”
“But he didn’t jump a traffic light like we do,” Batik protested the injustice.
The sweep-seller was on the return and had stopped to chat with the Wall’s Ice Cream man; maybe they were discussing targets and marketing strategies, how to sell nothing to no one. Maybe they were looking for the best lies to tell their bosses for the lack of sales.
“Two lakhs to get a child into an international school.”
“Hifty housand hor a hocal hool.”
“That is the problem, our children, no school.”
“Ho money, ho hool,” Mukkan Raniya had the last wise word.
“Don’t worry; she is now in charge of all the children in Asia. Our Satellite is getting some big job with the big ones who run the world; she will have all the poor children in international schools.”
“She might even send them to a school in the moon,” they all laughed at Mile Menda’s space-oriented celestial prophecy. There had been talk that their former President was tipped to get some luminous international role to take care of the children in Asia.
Van Uncles shifted gears from schools.
“Heard he made millions in one deal,” it was about someone sleazy who sold so many things to the government for the top people to be safe wherever they go, bullet-proofed from head to toe.
“What tender? It was tender loving care with a share for all.”
“Not only that, he runs a special fun factory, only Russians and Chinese.”
“That’s how he gets the tenders – Russia with love, China with love; all done with guaranteed protection and the customers go all the way up to the highest places.
“That’s a good thing for the country, machang. Nothing like our leaders getting friendly with the Chinese and the Russians,” so says Kakiri Piya.
There was a commotion; a Police van sped screaming by and stopped where the Wall’s Ice Cream man and the sweep-seller were having their marketing conference.
Some people were coming from the beachside, police constables in khaki uniforms and in plainclothes, supplemented by an ever-present shoal of onlookers who frequent the beach. They all crossed the rail-track herding half a dozen lawbreakers. Three couples with drooping heads were making their best attempts to shy away from prying eyes that ogled at them in condemnation. The crimes not clear, but arrested to be punished for being Watakeiya-bush lovers. The culprits were herded into the back of the van.
The young man in faded jeans with his factory uniformed girlfriend were the last to board.
The vehicle sped off; the notorious criminals were being taken to the Wallawatte police station to be locked up and charged for indecent behavior in public places. Good story for some smartarse reporter who writes the truth to cleanse the world of its unwanted vermin.
The Wall’s man moves on with his mournful melody and the sweep-seller switches on his makeshift mike to find his “would-be” millionaires. Its past noon, time for the Van Uncles to gun their motors for the return pickup and drop run.
“Hey Hakiri Hiya,” Mukkan shouts, “humorrow ‘ope she hends and hor ‘er honheho hudhards,” with this wish he drives off with a toot of the horn.
Kakiri eases his paint-peeled Masarati and goes in search of his Yak Pataw. He could get home long before the sun goes down. Monkey Face will be waiting. Maybe he is lucky enough to eat Wall’s ice cream; maybe he is lucky enough and will win the sweep.
Maybe!!!!!!!!
Minor glossary
Yak Pataw – little devils
Pakis Petti – cheap wood
Idan Nadu – land cases in the legal courts that drag for years
Machang – good friend
Wattakka -Gedi – pumpkin
Kudu Kumar – Drug dealing Kumar
Mukkan Raniya – Raniya with the hair lip
Watakeiya – A shady tree that grows on the beach edge
