Oliver’s Story

That’s a love story, some would remember.  Sequel to Erich Segal’s tear-jerker, ‘Love Story’, that was made into a film.  I am not sure if ‘Oliver’s Story’ was made into a film. A third (unrelated to these two), ‘Man, Woman and Child’ was turned into a film, I remember.  This is then AN Oliver’s Story.  It has a love element of course but is not set in Boston, Massachusetts. 

On May 10, 1969, in Kumarigama (a settler village under the Gal Oya Irrigation Scheme) one M.D. Babynona gave birth to a lovely little boy.  He was her fifth child and fourth son.  The baby was named Nimal Karunatillake.  Werawellalage Gedara Nimal Karunatillake.  He didn’t have any hair at birth.  The boy’s father, W.G. Nandasena, nicknamed him ‘Oliver’, after former Governor General Oliver Gunatilleka, who was also bald.  The happy father played with the little one, stroking the hairless head with love, crooning, ‘mage chooti oliverrrr gunathilaka’ (My little Oliver Gunatilleka). 

I didn’t know that his real name was Nimal. He was just 17 when I first met him.  He was introduced to me by his brother, a batchmate from Peradeniya, as ‘Oliver’, with a strong stress on the ‘r’.  I was told that his real name was ‘Oliver’ only last week when I visited Kumarigama.  I was visiting the village after 9 years, i.e. after attending the funeral of their father, Nandasena.  I reminisced. Wrote.  I told my friend’s mother that I had written about all of them, including Oliver.  She laughed and informed me that Oliver was not his real name. She told me how he got that nickname.

I remember meeting Oliver on August 31, 2001 at his father’s funeral.  At the time he was in the Police.  He was young. Smart. Distraught.  Proud. All this I remember.  

Last week, when I wrote about my visit, Oliver was not at home.  He was out in the fields, harvesting, along with his brother Kumara.  Their nephew, Isuru, too me there.  I wasn’t sure if I would recognize him.  They were taking a break.  Sipping water.  I didn’t recognize Oliver. I saw instead his father, Nandasena. No, it wasn’t a ghost.  At 41, Oliver looked exactly like his father (at the age of 55 or so). Balding.  Greying. The same smile. Betal-stained teeth.  Weather-beaten face full of wrinkles.  The same with his older brother Kumara.  It was all very pleasant to talk about old times and catch up.  Then it was back to work.

Oliver started the machine, a ‘Combine’, i.e. it cut the paddy and separated the grain from stem immediately.  Kumara and I followed. Kumara collecting that which had escaped the machine; cutting clean with sickle and tossing it in the way of the returning ‘Combine’. 

We spoke about the weather, about the harvest, the prices and prospects.  They were cheerful as has always been their way.  ‘We are finished,’ Oliver said softly.  The issue was the price of paddy.  ‘It is down to 16-17 rupees per kilo,’ he said.  The previous year, under the guaranteed price and purchasing scheme, they had managed to sell at around 28 rupees per kilo.  This time around the Government is not purchasing, I was told, because there was no place to store the paddy.  Three good harvests in a row (in two Maha seasons and one Yala season) and the cultivation of lands previously left alone due to the conflict has caused this, I was told. 

Under the aforementioned scheme, the Government purchased between 1000-5000 kg of paddy from the farmers. On average a 2.5 acre plot of land would yield about 5500 kilograms.  The farmers don’t have the facilities to hold on to such quantities in anticipation of better prices and indeed cannot afford to since they often have loans to pay off.

Let’s get some perspective here.  We buy a kilo of rice at around 70 rupees.  A kilo of rice is obtained from 1.5 kilos of paddy, roughly.  Someone is making big bucks between paddy field and your plate.  There is no mechanism in place to protect the farmer.  It has been always a system that favoured the trader.  The consumer came next.  The farmer last of all. 

Ampara (where Kumarigama is located) is reporting the lowest paddy prices today. The price of long grain white varieties of rice (Nadu) hover around Rs. 15-16, the long-grain red rice around 20-23 rupees and the Samba varieties around 22-23 rupees per kilogram.  I was told that the prices are even lower in Thirukkovil.

I was told that earlier there was a scheme to encourage farmers and traders to enter into forward trade contracts, which helped give farmers a better deal and acted as a form of insurance.  This is yet to take off and part of the problem is post-harvest storage facilities or lack thereof.

The Paddy Marketing Board was resurrected some time ago, but it is still to get on its feet.  Its virtual dismantling probably played a part in the sad situation that farmers in Ampara and probably in other places have to suffer.  I remember the early 1990s when farmers committed suicide because they couldn’t secure a fair price for their produce. 

Oliver didn’t indulge in suicide-speak.  He said ‘at this time last year there were 2 or 3 lorries going past our house, asking if we had paddy to sell; this year I am yet to see a lorry.’ 

‘The Government has to do something.  They win because of people like us.  Sixteen rupees is nothing.’  That was Babynona, Oliver’s mother, speaking. 

This is serious. More serious than possible impact on an election that would take place years from now.  I am thinking of an advertisement by a mobile phone service provider, where a bunch of national cricketers say in proud tones, ‘I am Sri Lanka’.  Oliver didn’t make any claims, but if anyone is ‘Sri Lanka’, he is.  Someone, something, some process which I cannot put my finger on, but which I am sure can be figured out by experts in the relevant fields, has a knife at Oliver’s throat.  It is ‘Sri Lanka’ that’s being threatened.    

[first published in the Daily News, August 2010]