Continued From - A Miraculous Escape
My entire childhood and a good part of my youth I have spent at Ambalangoda my mother's home town along the Southwest coast some 50 miles south of Colombo. Naturally I consider it to be my home town although it is neither my birthplace nor the home town of my father who hailed from Beruwala. From 1943 until 1960 we lived at Ambalangoda, arguably the best part of my growing up period. My mother comes from a large family typical of those times. She had two brothers and six sisters all living in Ambalangoda. Their children numbered up to 22 and with the 4 of us the group of 26 cousins formed a formidable crowd. My maternal grand mother lived until the ripe age of 90 and kept all her family members and their children bound together. Except for three, all of us had at least our primary education at Dharmasoka College. In my case it was perhaps my only school extending from the kindergarten to the university entrance class. It would have catered for my entire school career if not for the final nine months I spent at Sri Sumangala College, Panadura from where I gained admission to the university.
During my primary education, school was part of my home. We have lived very close to school, just five minutes walking distance to the primary section. We also have been the immediate neighbors of the principal of Dharmasoka College at that time Mr. D. T. Wijeratne. When I was four years my parents often found me missing from home in the mornings when my elder brothers were at school. Eventually they located me either at the principal's house or in the primary school. During those good old days school admission was a routine practice. My mother used to tell me that I was allowed to go and sit in the kindergarten class of my immediate elder brother while I was 3 years, well below the age of formal admission. I do not know how it has happened, but remembers that my elder brother and I were classmates from Grade 3 in the primary school until we sat our university entrance examinations.
I remember only two incidents from my primary school days. Both my brother and I used to wear gold bangles, perhaps a symbol of middle class affluence. At school this was utterly embarrassing as we were humiliated and the other children used to make fun and called us girlies. Quite unreasonably our parents insisted that we should continue to wear them. It finally became unbearable and both of us conspired to bury the bangles under a bush of banana plants in the backyard. Within days our parents noticed that the bangles were missing and although we maintained that they were lost at school, they refused to believe us. Having discussed the matter with our grand mother and aunts mother decided to seek the help of a soothsayer. Unfortunately for us this fellow went into a trance and declared that we have swallowed the bangles. Immediately both of us were given purgatives and made to empty ourselves into potties. This treatment never brought the bangles back. It only made us to suffer and become weaker by the hour. Finally unable to bear the torture we showed where the bangles were hidden. The end result however was good and we were allowed to go to school without these ladies ornaments.
The other incident took place when I was in grade 4. By this time both of us have established ourselves as guys with influence (the principal being next door) and generally commanded some respect among the classmates. I was also told that I was the more aggressive of the two and had a hold over the rest in the class largely made up of local children. Around this time a new comer came to the class, one Upali Jayasekera from Ahungalla a village some 6 miles away, quite a distance for local kids attending Dharmasoka at that time. The immediate reaction of most kids in the class was to ignore the new boy completely and he was virtually sent to Coventry. After a couple of days I felt sorry for him and took the initiative to become friends. He turned out to be an extremely decent, highly principled affectionate friend and to this day we continue our friendship. As I had some influence on the class my friendship helped Upali to chum up with others and throughout his career at Dharmasoka he became a very popular guy. Upali and I became best friends and today we are more than brothers to one another. He was the Bestman at my marriage and I accompanied him during his 1st visit to seek a bride whom he eventually married and they are living happily to this day. The primary school life up to Grade 5 was interesting and enjoyable. Being a mixed school we had to participate in activities like concerts with girls, which all the boys abhorred. Of course these attitudes changed as we approached adolescence.
Continued - Chilhood Days 2
