Architectures of the demolished ~ Malinda Words

There’s always a ‘house next door,’ even in rural areas with a population density considerably lower than in cities. Often there are two. If you live down a narrow lane even the house or houses on the other side of the lane would qualify to be included in the ‘next door category.’

We lived down a narrow lane off Havelock Road. It's now called Gomes Drive, but was nameless when we were kids. There were lots of ‘next doors’ including one behind our house. Access to that house was from Havelock Road. The two houses were separated by a wall. There was hardly any interaction between the two families. We knew who lived there. We would see them occasionally walking down Havelock Road or at one of the retail shops close by. Knew the name. Knower. That’s about it.

Except for two things. A massive ehela tree a few feet away from the wall, clogging the gutters on the roof with dead leaves and showering the tiny strip of land that counted for a back garden with yellow flowers. And the music.

Brian Knower was a few years older than us. Someone said he played in a band called ‘Unwanted Generation.’ Apparently he did play in a band. It was called ‘Cancer’ and was led by Prasanna Abeysekera. We would nod in recognition and say ‘good morning’ when we ran into each other at the small boutique next to the Eros Cinema. That’s about it.

A couple of days ago I remembered Brian. I remembered the last time I saw him. His parents had passed away. I don’t know if he had any siblings and therefore even if he did I didn’t know where they were or what they did. The house was sold, I heard. Brian lived somewhere else. But on that day, while having a cup of plain tea in the boutique we both frequented, I saw him at the entrance to the small pathway that led to his house.

He had come on a bicycle. He had got off and was holding it, looking towards what had been ‘home’ to him. Then he got on the bike and left. I never saw him again.
That was the day the Knower house was demolished. I only saw some men and machines. I only heard demolition noises. It was not music to my ears.

I remembered all this because a few days ago I saw a house being demolished. A small house. An old house. In fact, 24 hours later I saw that it had been razed to the ground and the house next door was also in the process of being brought down.

The location. As you turn into W A Silva Mawatha, earlier known as High Street, from the Pamankada junction, you’ll find an apartment complex on your left. Next to it is a retail shop. Next to the retail shop is a small restaurant. Sirisanda is the name. Next to it is a narrow lane without a name, leading to a house. A small house. Old. In disrepair. That house had to be brought down for any outsider to learn that there was another house behind it. And perhaps another one beyond.

The inhabitants had left. Had sold, taken their belongings and left. And I, an outsider, stood there watching someone manoeuvring a formidable machine to clear the rubble, watching some men moving chunks of concrete, watching some other men taking apart the roof of the second house. And thinking of Brian Knower. And houses that were but now aren’t.

Spaces that have suddenly opened up reveal skies never seen before, at least until a new building is constructed. In the spaces created only memories can remain of places that once existed. Thoughts of what was, who was there, what happy and sad moments there were, what tensions, what emotions and a resurrection of times, people, events, moments that had perished in the mind’s corners reserved for the less prioritised. They all must emerge as apparitions from debris and neglect, at least for a while, at least off and on. Just like they do in the case of places we’ve left whose historical trajectories thereafter are unknown simply because we’ve gone too far away in distance and time.

We don’t reconstruct anything perfectly. Indeed, we cannot. We remember and mis-remember, we get the names wrong, we imagine non-existent windows and leave out doors we’ve walked through hundreds of times. And so we reconstruct architectures of things that do not exist any more. Close enough approximations or things remembered out of proportion where you diminish what someone else might amplify and you magnify that which for someone else could be so inconsequential that it doesn’t even make it to the footnotes of recollection.

And when we are gone, they go missing. The world moves on. There must have been something in the space that used to be Brian Knower’s home. Another house, perhaps. Other people, perhaps. Or just some trees. Or a marsh, for that’s what Colombo was.

Sabbe saṅkhārā aniccā. All conditioned, interdependent, relative things and states, both physical and mental, are transient.

['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is a new series. Links to previous articles in this new series are given below]

03 April 2023

Architectures of the demolished

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