When you don't need an invitation, it's 'home' ~ Malinda Words

['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 the 230th article in the new series that began in December 2022. Links to previous articles are given below]

There are probably thousands of quotable quotes about ‘home.’ Each house has a story. Indeed there can be many stories resident in or referring to the same house. It’s the same with homes. So this is not the home story; it’s a home story. One of many. In fact it is a composite of home stories, all relating to homes I’ve belonged to and homes that have made me feel belonged.

The defining feature of our home in Pamankada, to me, was that it was a place we could bring anyone to. The children, that is, my brother, sister and myself, were never told, ‘bring home your friends.’ We knew we could. And we did. I did, for the most part, actually.

While still in school, they stayed until their respective curfew hours, stated or otherwise, compelled them to leave. Later, as an undergraduate at the University of Peradeniya, the friends I brought home stayed the night. Sometimes several nights.

There were some occasions, very rare they were, when our mother was clearly not too happy about a bunch of young boys descending on her home without prior warning. She didn’t say anything though. She would become the warm and friendly host quickly enough.

So we adjusted. They ate whatever there was and were compensated for the deficiencies by the hospitality. They were all, without exception, treated as sons and brothers. It wasn’t for those few hours or days. Sometimes I wonder how on earth so many people could share that room at the same time. Typically it was two or three friends but sometimes even ten. It was a lifetime compact. It was a refuge for several of them during the bheeshanay of the late eighties. They arrived, they were welcomed and they stayed for more than a year. The risks were obvious, but they were never mentioned by my parents. Even today, many decades later, my father asks about them. They visit when they can.

There was something about that home and it had nothing to do with me or the friend I invited over without warning my poor parents. This I found out only at my mother’s funeral. Her favourite student, Arjuna Parakrama, who was like an older brother to all of us and who I invited to speak a few words, spoke about her, ‘Madam’ to him and all students, even those she never taught but who benefited from her kindness and generosity over the years, even after she retired. He spoke about that house. That home.

‘Everyone was welcomed in that house, without exception.’

In good times and bad. Two of her students, who for different reasons didn’t have a place to stay, would share our room for many months. Maybe over a year, I can’t remember.

The house was full of our neighbours in the green-black days of July 1983. I remember my mother informing my father, ‘they say that Sinhala houses where Tamils have taken shelter will also be attacked.’ Just information with an unspoken question. He replied, ‘They are our neighbours, that question does not arise.’

Today, forty years later, I am writing this from my sister’s house in Philadelphia. Her daughters are living in three different countries. They know that it’s a place anyone can be invited to. They say this to their friends, especially those who are in trouble of one kind or another.

‘Anyone can come here,’ she told me once. And people do come. I’ve seen them. They eat whatever there is. The deficiencies are compensated by warmth and generosity. They stay.

There’s that ‘home-vibe’ here. This is why her niece, my daughter, feels it’s alright to invite new found friends to her aunt’s place for Christmas ‘because they are from countries that are too far away.’ She has, as has her sister, brought friends home. They’ve asked ‘is it ok?’ even though they know the answer. Of course it’s ok. Anytime.

I’ve known and responded to this same home-vibe in the houses of my friends. Kusuma Goonerawdena, the mother of my childhood friend (from Grade 7) Kanishka, treated his friends as though they were her sons. In fact she would treat the friends of these friends also like sons.

I’ve walked into homes and hearts in Gampola, Wathurakumbura, Kiribathkumbura, Digana, Madadombe, Divulgane, Kuliyapitiya, Jambugahapitiya, Bowatte (Bingiriya), Dodangaslanda, Muruthalawa, Kumarigama (Uhana), Rambawa, Kelegama and Palugama (Galgamuwa), Balapitiya, Delft Island, Jaffna, Haldemmulla, Balangoda, Hakirilla (near Ibbagamuwa), Narangamuwa, Ampitiya, Meemure and other places I will remember shortly. I was Welcomed like a brother and a son, sometimes by people I had never known before.

A few years ago, on one of the many excursions with my friend Tharindu Amunugama, after exposing the monastic remains at Kaudagala in the Polonnaruwa District, we decided it would be nice to ease ourselves into the cool waters of the adjacent vaeva. Kaudagala Vaeva.

It was late evening and the sun was setting. The elements were ready to retire, it seemed. There was a young girl washing clothes. She was with a little boy, her brother. As is custom, there was conversation. A second year student reading for a degree in Sinhala and the Colombo University, she said. I asked her if there’s a place for us to stay, since we never made plans during such journeys.

‘The temple,’ she said.

‘How about her?’ I asked, referring to the young woman who was traveling with us.

‘Eyaa inne ape gedarane,’ she said, simply opening her home and heart to her.

Clearly she didn’t have to ask her parents if that would be alright. It was known that it was alright.

‘Home is a place you can go to and they have to take you in.’ I’ve encountered that quote often.

I have known such homes.

04 October 2023

When you don't need an invitation, it's 'home'

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