It is quite likely that there are people, even millions of them, who have never made paper boats. Or paper airplanes for that matter. Not everyone lives in places where winds are kite-worthy. Some do, though.
I
have never made a kite. That was the preserve of my elder brother. Come
kite season, the house would be cluttered with kite-making material. I
helped him make them airborne. Once they were up and faraway, I would be
allowed to hold the string, but always under his supervision. I adhered
to the strict conditions he imposed on me. For the most part, though, I
delighted in watching brightly coloured kites of different shapes
floating over rooftops and tree lines.
I’ve made paper airplanes. The rise, dip and swerve of paper airplanes never failed to enchant me. Not all of them flew. Adjustments had to be made. I knew that if I got it half-way right, hours of pleasure would follow. There were occasions when I did get it right.
Paper boats were of a different order. I suppose any body of water would do, even a bathtub or basin, but in my case it was the rainwater drain that skirted my maternal grandparents’ house in Kurunegala.
Rain, at times, was spectacular, especially if there was wind as well. The rain would come as waves. It would sweep across the landscape. Loud and insistent. Typically the drain would be full of fast moving water. Paper boat time.
So my brother, sister and I would make paper boats, colour them and even make tiny flags which we stuck on them. We placed them gently and watched them speed away. We were ship captains, all of us. We rushed from room to room, window to window, cheering our ‘ships’ on, until they floundered in the large pool that formed where the drain ended.
For those few minutes or hour or two, we sailed high seas, braved enormous waves and terrible storms. We were sailors.
It all came back to me yesterday when Anjana Ariyarathna, my friend and sometime colleague at Phoenix Ogilvy showed me an album of photographs which he had posted on Shutterstock. Anjana is not a professional photographer. It’s one of the many things he does for the pure joy of it all. A Senior Art Director who has worked in advertising for almost 15 years, Anjana is more a painter than a photographer. He shares his experiments with brush, colour and canvas on his YouTube channel ‘Kandyan Art.’
Not being a student of photography myself, I couldn’t really go too far away from ‘hmm’ and ‘lassanai (pretty),’ but one capture stopped me. It was of a little boy seated on an oruwa, probably on the beach, watching a boat out at sea in Trincomalee.
What captured me was the boy and the boat. What thoughts crossed his mind, I wondered. I wondered if he, as I had done a long time ago, imagined himself as the captain of a splendid ship.
I know of a boy Kumara Bandarage Chamod Pasindu Dilshan who studies at the Mercmarine Seafarer Training Institute (MSTI). An only child, his parents had wanted him to get a degree in Information Technology. A quiet, sober, obedient boy, Pasindu had agreed. It was later that the parents had found out that the boy wasn’t too keen on IT. He wanted to be on a ship.
Apparently, that particular seed had been planted in his imagination by the older brothers of school friends who worked on ships. He had learned about ships and seamen through YouTube videos. Most significantly, that early interest had been rekindled when he took the train to Dehiwala to attend lectures. He would see the ships off the Colombo coast. He convinced his parents that he should pursue his oceanic dream. Eventually they had agreed.
A few days ago. Young Pasindu returned from his first voyage. It was a six-month internship that was part of the degree program. He had tales to tell.
A little boy in Trincomalee happened to be looking at the sea just as a boat was passing. Someone who he didn’t know at all, happened to be passing by. That stranger saw the boy and the boat. The boat was at sea. The boy was probably in the clouds. Some dreams can be captured, it occurred to me. Some dreams come true too, I know.
My seaman fantasy died when the monsoon was done. It was resurrected when it rained again. Died again. I never went out to sea. I didn’t fly kites, but loved watching them. I have watched the lights of ships off the Western coast on certain nights. I’ve wondered what they carry and where they are going.
I’ve made paper airplanes. The rise, dip and swerve of paper airplanes never failed to enchant me. Not all of them flew. Adjustments had to be made. I knew that if I got it half-way right, hours of pleasure would follow. There were occasions when I did get it right.
Paper boats were of a different order. I suppose any body of water would do, even a bathtub or basin, but in my case it was the rainwater drain that skirted my maternal grandparents’ house in Kurunegala.
Rain, at times, was spectacular, especially if there was wind as well. The rain would come as waves. It would sweep across the landscape. Loud and insistent. Typically the drain would be full of fast moving water. Paper boat time.
So my brother, sister and I would make paper boats, colour them and even make tiny flags which we stuck on them. We placed them gently and watched them speed away. We were ship captains, all of us. We rushed from room to room, window to window, cheering our ‘ships’ on, until they floundered in the large pool that formed where the drain ended.
For those few minutes or hour or two, we sailed high seas, braved enormous waves and terrible storms. We were sailors.
It all came back to me yesterday when Anjana Ariyarathna, my friend and sometime colleague at Phoenix Ogilvy showed me an album of photographs which he had posted on Shutterstock. Anjana is not a professional photographer. It’s one of the many things he does for the pure joy of it all. A Senior Art Director who has worked in advertising for almost 15 years, Anjana is more a painter than a photographer. He shares his experiments with brush, colour and canvas on his YouTube channel ‘Kandyan Art.’
Not being a student of photography myself, I couldn’t really go too far away from ‘hmm’ and ‘lassanai (pretty),’ but one capture stopped me. It was of a little boy seated on an oruwa, probably on the beach, watching a boat out at sea in Trincomalee.
What captured me was the boy and the boat. What thoughts crossed his mind, I wondered. I wondered if he, as I had done a long time ago, imagined himself as the captain of a splendid ship.
I know of a boy Kumara Bandarage Chamod Pasindu Dilshan who studies at the Mercmarine Seafarer Training Institute (MSTI). An only child, his parents had wanted him to get a degree in Information Technology. A quiet, sober, obedient boy, Pasindu had agreed. It was later that the parents had found out that the boy wasn’t too keen on IT. He wanted to be on a ship.
Apparently, that particular seed had been planted in his imagination by the older brothers of school friends who worked on ships. He had learned about ships and seamen through YouTube videos. Most significantly, that early interest had been rekindled when he took the train to Dehiwala to attend lectures. He would see the ships off the Colombo coast. He convinced his parents that he should pursue his oceanic dream. Eventually they had agreed.
A few days ago. Young Pasindu returned from his first voyage. It was a six-month internship that was part of the degree program. He had tales to tell.
A little boy in Trincomalee happened to be looking at the sea just as a boat was passing. Someone who he didn’t know at all, happened to be passing by. That stranger saw the boy and the boat. The boat was at sea. The boy was probably in the clouds. Some dreams can be captured, it occurred to me. Some dreams come true too, I know.
My seaman fantasy died when the monsoon was done. It was resurrected when it rained again. Died again. I never went out to sea. I didn’t fly kites, but loved watching them. I have watched the lights of ships off the Western coast on certain nights. I’ve wondered what they carry and where they are going.
There are kids, boys and girls, who dream
longer and whose determinations don’t go dry. They give life to the
notions of exploration and adventure. They go to far away places. They
sail towards magical horizons, they fly to splendid skies. I am thankful
that they do. And I am grateful to my friend Anjana Ariyarathna for
allowing me to use his time-travel machine, and taking me to distant
places that are either from a long ago that’s unreachable or a mystical
space I seldom thought of visiting.
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