Magic carpet to Dutuwewa ~ Malinda Words

‘Whoever sitteth on this carpet and willeth in thought to be taken up will, in the twinkling of an eye, be borne thither, be that place nearhand or distant many a day's journey and difficult to reach.’

Thus does Richard Burton describe the magic carpet which Prince Husain purchases from Vijayanagara in his version of The Thousand Nights and a Night.

Solomon is supposed to have had one. Goscinny and Uderzo borrowed the item for Asterix and the Magic Carpet. Magic carpets are the stuff of imagination. They enliven children’s stories. They take adults back to times when anything was possible.

So where would you go if you did have such a carpet which could fly, ignoring of course silly and trivial matters such as height, vertigo, safety belts, on-flight entertainment, air pressure, turbulence and bad weather?

'Dutuwewa,' says Tharindu Amunugama. Why? How? I wanted to know. He explained:

‘Sometimes when I am passing through the Fort area, I walk about the bus stand, because there are interesting characters and interesting buses to interesting locations. It fires my imagination. I can do a metaphorical trip.’

Coincidentally, I was having a conversation with a friend about traveling in Sri Lanka. I was thinking about the places I’ve visited with Tharindu and mentioned ‘off-grid archaeological sites.’

‘Thing with SL is that you need private transport for almost all the places. Our public transportation network is extremely poor, sadly.’

The public transport system isn’t the best, yes. Nevertheless there are trains and buses to most places; I mean you can take a train and then a bus. After that a three-wheeler or a bicycle. You could also walk.

The only issue with public transport is that you are a prisoner of someone else’s schedule. On the other hand, it depends on how you deal with it. The long rides, the traffic and in certain areas poor roads can tax, but there are things to see. As Tharindu would put it, there are always ‘interesting characters.’ Interesting characters, interesting people, interesting places and interesting things to see, hear, smell, taste, touch or reflect upon.

Dutuwewa. I’ve never been there. I do know where it is. I know a friend who was from Menikdiwela in the Mahanuwara District but whose first teaching appointment was in Dutuwewa. He taught there for around seven years. How Rangawadi Gedara Wickramasuriya conducted himself in that ‘dushkara palaatha difficult area)’ became evident only 19 years later when people who had been on the same teaching staff, some who he had actually taught, hired a van and came all the way to Menikdiwela to attend his father’s funeral.

That’s my Dutuwewa story. I am not flying on a magic carpet to Dutuwewa or any other place, not right now, anyway. I am not taking a metaphorical trip. I can, though.

Dutuwewa. Dutu-wewa. Breaking down and it could be taken to mean a weva (‘reservoir’ is a poor translation because a ‘weva’ is not just a body of water but part of a social, ecological, economic and political landscape — it is privy to innumerable stories and histories even as it is a platform from which imagination can take flight to inimitable futures). Well, a weva that (has been) seen. Dutu-wewa.

There are wevas that can be seen. Metaphorically, at the main bus stand in Pitakotuwa, and literally too, all over the country, yes, even in the Colombo District. You can replace ‘weva’ with highway, road, guru paara, paddy field, bazaar, railway track, railway station, platform at a railway station, intersection in a city, a handiya or junction that is ‘downtown’ in the most rural village, someone helping an old person cross the street and vehicles waiting patiently even though the light is green, spectators silenced to disbelief at an unfortunate turn of events at a sports encounter or anything else you like. Magic carpets are everywhere, in short.

There are stories in Dutuwewa, the one that’s in the Rajarata, I’m sure of it. I plan to go there, hopefully with Tharindu. We might end up somewhere else, but I’m sure there will be many wevas that will delight us. And, we will, as we always do, carry our magic carpets with us.

['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 270th article in the new series that began in December 2022. Links to previous articles are given below]

18 November 2023

Magic carpet to Dutuwewa

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