May. It’s the month of the themagula. Hard to miss. Vesak is also the name of the month. In English, ‘May.’ It is the name of a month, a tree and its flowers: maei gas, maei mal. Brings to mind Milton Mallawaarachchi.
Phoenix Flower, Flame of the Forest, Flamboyant and Maei Mal.
Appropriate names, all. It’s already June, but even the recent
torrential rains haven’t exactly doused the flames. Flames, yes, but not
the kind that burns. Delights instead.
Thanks to the majestic
and flaming tree in the garden of my neighbours, Angelo and Nilu, I get a
red carpet welcome as I come home. Sometimes I walk out of the house
just to look at the redness that has tinged the gravel road. The tree,
as I said, is majestic. It is beautiful. I am sure a good photographer
with the right kind of camera and at the right time of day and angle
could capture it well. I cannot. I just think of the blessings.
There
are things that no fence or wall can contain. Good and bad. It’s all
good in my case. I receive largesse intended and unintended, loveliness
that reaches up and over the wall of my neighbours and droplets of
delight that fall as though determined to paint the section of the lane
just outside my gate.
This morning, I took some pictures of the
red carpet. I couldn’t capture ‘welcome’ but felt it certainly. I didn’t
call Angelo or Nilu. I don’t have to. They know.
One day, I was
sitting at the back of his house (which is on a higher elevation with
an entrance from a different lane), having a cup of tea with Angelo.
This is what he had to say:
‘I come here and it is so soothing to look towards your house. It’s all green.’
True.
There are the walls of course, but there are so many trees that our
house is hardly visible. It wasn’t always like that. A largely empty
property, overgrown with weeds, was transformed over the years thanks to
the diligence of my wife. So many fruit trees, so many leafy greens,
vegetables, spices, jak, breadfruit, coconut, puvak and all kinds of
herbs. Some planted and some growing wild. Butterflies, bees, birds and
other creatures too. And the occasional reptile as well.
Angelo
and Nilu offer us red. My wife has given them green. We don’t say ‘here,
this is for you.’ We don’t say ‘thanks for the colours.’ We don’t have
to. The butterflies, bees and squirrels don’t thank her for the
mangoes, pinijambu, ambarella and other fruit. We don’t say
‘thank you for dropping by,’ and yet we delight in their presence, ever
conscious that we and not they are the transgressors.
Another
neighbour, the late T D K Dharmadasa, chatting with me not long after he
moved into their new house, asked me about neighbourhood crime.
‘There are thieves. There are some kudukaarayas.
Walls, however, will not stop them. It’s the hitha-honda-kama that
might.’ Essentially, good neighbourliness. That was my contention. He
smiled, understood and agreed.
Our place is flanked by two
lanes. Angelo and Nilu lie across one of them, Dharmadasa Aiya and his
family lived across the other. There are others too, all good
neighbours. Their hitha-honda-kama doesn’t come with a shout, but
there’s assuredness that’s unspoken. It is not stopped at the gate. It
is not detained by a wall.
June will end. I don’t keep track of
these things, but I know there are red-less seasons. No red carpet
welcome. But I know Angelo and Nilu live next door. I know Dharmadasa
Aiya is no more, but he is ever-present in his family, his home.
Hitha-honda-kama wafts over walls, dressed in green. It descends from above, soft as the softest rain, red-tinged and lovely.
Other articles in this series:
Reflections on waves and markings
Respond to insults in line with the Akkosa Sutra
The right time, the right person
The silent equivalent of a thousand words
Crazy cousins are besties for life
The lost lyrics of Premakeerthi de Alwis
Consolation prizes in competitions no one ever wins
Blackness, whiteness and black-whiteness
Inscriptions: stubborn and erasable
Deveni: a priceless one-word koan
Recovering run-on lines and lost punctuation
'Wetness' is not the preserve of the Dry Zone
On sweeping close to one's feet
Kumkum Fernando installs Sri Lanka in Coachella, California
To be an island like the Roberts...
Debts that can never be repaid in full
An island which no flood can overwhelm
A melody faint and yet not beyond hearing
Heart dances that cannot be choreographed
Remembering to forget and forgetting to remember
Authors are assassinated, readers are immortal
It is good to be conscious of nudities
Saturday slides in after Monday and Sunday somersaults into Friday
There's a one in a million and a one in ten
Kumkum Fernando installs Sri Lanka in Coachella, California
Hemantha Gunawardena's signature
Architectures of the demolished
The exotic lunacy of parting gifts
Who the heck do you think I am?
Those fascinating 'Chitra Katha'
So how are things in Sri Lanka?
The sweetest three-letter poem
Teams, team-thinking, team-spirit and leadership
The songs we could sing in lifeboats when we are shipwrecked
Jekhan Aruliah set a ball rolling in Jaffna
Awaiting arrivals unlike any other
Teachers and students sometimes reverse roles
Colombo, Colombo, Colombo and so forth
The slowest road to Kumarigama, Ampara
Some play music, others listen
Mind and hearts, loquacious and taciturn
I am at Jaga Food, where are you?
On separating the missing from the disappeared
And intangible republics will save the day (as they always have)
The circuitous logic of Tony Muller
Rohana Kalyanaratne, an unforgettable 'Loku Aiya'
Mowgli, the Greatest Archaeologist
Figures and disfigurement, rocks and roses
Sujith Rathnayake and incarcerations imposed and embraced
Some stories are written on the covers themselves
A poetic enclave in the Republic of Literature
Landcapes of gone-time and going-time
The best insurance against the loud and repeated lie
So what if the best flutes will not go to the best flautists?
There's dust and words awaiting us at crossroads and crosswords
A song of terraced paddy fields
Of ants, bridges and possibilities
From A through Aardvark to Zyzzyva
Words, their potency, appropriation and abuse
Who did not listen, who's not listening still?
If you remember Kobe, visit GOAT Mountain
The world is made for re-colouring
No 27, Dickman's Road, Colombo 5
Visual cartographers and cartography
Ithaca from a long ago and right now
Lessons written in invisible ink
The amazing quality of 'equal-kindness'
The interchangeability of light and darkness
Sisterhood: moments, just moments
Chess is my life and perhaps your too
Reflections on ownership and belonging
The integrity of Nadeesha Rajapaksha
Signatures in the seasons of love
To Maceo Martinet as he flies over rainbows
Fragrances that will not be bottled
Colours and textures of living heritage
Countries of the past, present and future
Books launched and not-yet-launched
The sunrise as viewed from sacred mountains
Isaiah 58: 12-16 and the true meaning of grace
The age of Frederick Algernon Trotteville
Live and tell the tale as you will
Between struggle and cooperation
Neruda, Sekara and literary dimensions
Paul Christopher's heart of many chambers
Calmness gracefully cascades in the Dumbara Hills
Serendipitous amber rules the world
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