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It’s exactly 150 years since the song was written. That grandfather of the song was probably already dead when Henry Clay Work wrote it. The lyricist died in 1884. The song lives on.
My grandfather, Felix Herat, lived to be 91. It’s 34 years since he passed away. As is often the case, he lives in the memory of loved ones and in the character-traces he left behind genetically and through the process of nurturing, intended or otherwise.
I have grandfather-memories but the one that I return to often and with gratitude is that of his morning read.
My brother, sister and I spent all our holidays at his place in Kurunegala. Every morning, after breakfast, he would pick up the Daily News, which was duly delivered around 7 o’clock or perhaps even earlier. Monday was our day because the Sinhala children’s weekly, Mihira, would be delivered along with the Daily News. Even then, one of us had to ‘go through’ the Daily News first. This is how it happened.
My grandfather was at the time in his early seventies. His eyesight was failing, but he had a pair of spectacles. He even had a magnifying glass which he would use to read the paper and his favorite books. In other words, he could manage on his own. He nevertheless solicited the help of his grandchildren.
One of us had to sit with him and read out the headlines, first the local news and then the foreign news. If he heard anything that interested him, we would have to read out the entire story. We had to read the editorial in full on most days.
I didn’t enjoy this. News, local or foreign, was irrelevant to me at that age. I read mechanically. He would correct me if I mispronounced. Once he was done, the paper was mine. This was when I got to the pages which alone interested me. Sports.
Somehow, at some point that I cannot remember now, the information began to interest me. I didn’t look forward to reading about the happenings around us or overseas, but the exercise became less and less mechanical as time went on. And there came a day that I cannot remember exactly when I considered ‘news’ to be as interesting as ‘sports.’
It became an important part of my day. There were occasions when I couldn’t get my hands on a paper because I was away from home, camping or hiking with my friends. The first thing I did upon returning home was to read the ones I had missed.
Back then, we didn’t have much of a choice when it came to news. We didn’t have a radio. Television came later, but we didn’t get one until I was in the university. There were three newspapers, the Daily News, The Sun and The Island. On Sundays there were three, the Sunday Observer, Weekend and the Sunday edition of The Island. My parents had subscribed to the Daily News and the Sunday Observer and shifted to The Island when Upali Newspapers launched that paper. I would buy Divaina on Sunday.
So, obviously, ‘news’ came filtered. Nevertheless, it was better than no news at all. In time, I learned to read between the lines. Thereafter it didn’t matter. I could generally figure out what was not said by noting the way the narratives shifted. Today, for example, my ‘reading’ of the war on Iran (mis-named ‘Iran War’) is mostly from pro-West media outfits such as CNN, BBC, Reuters and Al Jazeera. The duplicity, contradictions, exaggeration and rank bias tell me a lot about what is happening, what is likely to happen and what Trump and Co are terrified would happen.
I owe it to my grandfather. He wound a reading-clock in my mind more than 50 years ago. Keeps me ticking. I miss my ‘Mihira Days’ but I still devour the sports ‘pages,’ less in newspapers as online. I read newspapers not in print but on my phone or laptop. And I think of my grandfather, Felix Herat, and offer what merit I have in the hope that his sojourn through sansaara is brief.
Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer. malindadocs@gmail.com.
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