My Friend Leo Gamini
My friend Leo Gamini
Itwas a family ritual to attend the church feast at Mabima and spend the day at the home of my grand-uncle. Mabima Seeya’s palatial home had special significance in our family. It was where my grandmother was born, and she married my grandfather at the local church. Mabima Seeya was the family patriarch, and his home was open to all relatives, close and far. So every year in August, many gathered to celebrate this formal event and enjoy hospitality at my ancestral home.
Mabima Seeya was big on contacts and relationships. There were hordes of granduncles, grandaunts, uncles, aunts, cousins, second cousins and third cousins in abundance. Everybody shared a fraternity at this annual reunion. Mid-day, they were served a great and delicious lunch prepared by his wife.
While adults were busy with their social chatter, kids were left alone to play in the large yard. Mabima Seeya introduced me to a tall thin boy, explaining our mutual relationship. His name was Leo Gamini. Gamini had an infectious and innocent smile. Kids were in short supply at this family gathering, particularly the teenage types. While adults were enjoying themselves in family chatter, we both hung out in Mabima Seeya’s large garden. Gamini and I talked about our school life and boyhood experiences. Gamini was adventurous by nature. He climbed fruit trees with ease and picked fruit in Seeya’s garden. After lunch, we walked to the adjacent church complex and combed the area peeping into temporarily erected shopping stalls assembled for the feast.
Within a few hours, Gamini and I became good friends. We agreed to correspond by exchanging addresses. We promised to visit each other at our local church feasts.
A few months later, I kept my word to Gamini and visited him in his hometown in Kandana during his church feast. His church was dedicated to St. Sebastian, a saint many Sri Lankan Catholics revered. The grand feast included a carnival. In the evening, we toured the church grounds and the adjoining festival. First, we rode on the Merry Go Round and the Ferris Wheel to the sound of Sri Lankan pop music. Then, we watched the dangerous act of Pit of Death, where motorbike riders circle inside a well made of wooden planks.
By late evening we returned to Gamini’s home to sleep. His house was full of visiting relatives now occupying every available corner. The only open space for both of us was in his living room. Gamini spread a mat under the large dining table in the middle of his house and made our bed. We continued our chit-chat till early morning until we fell asleep.
The following day, we attended the festive high mass at Kandana church. By midday, a group of Gamini’s friends from his school turned up at his home. They brought with them a bottle of arrack, a local liquor. All started drinking except me. I had no intention of drinking. They were encouraging me to join them in partying. I did not want to be seen as a city boy unfamiliar with their worldly ways. After some hesitation, I agreed to taste a bit of the drink. I drank one peg of light concentration. It was my first real taste of alcohol. Gamini had experimented with alcohol before and continued to consume with confidence. After a while, I took another peg. All were looking at me and smiling. Soon after my second shot, the entire surrounding seemed to be revolving. Gamini put his hand around my shoulder to indicate that he cared for me. When Gamini’s friends finished the bottle, we were served a red-hot festive meal with rice, exotic pork and other Sri Lankan delicacies.
My drink was too much for my tiny frame. I felt drowsy after lunch. Gamini realised my plight and arranged for me to nap on his bed. Later in the afternoon, Gamini, accompanied by his friends, walked to the bus stop and waited until I safely boarded a bus home.
Two weeks later was the church feast at my home village. It was my turn to host friends. Gamini came home as planned, followed by my buddy and close friend, Ajit Martin. The three of us had a gala at the church carnival, mixing with the crowd and enjoying the party atmosphere. I bought a half bottle of bootleg arrack from a local bar, despite my underage, peddling my influence in my neighbourhood. We drank it despite its awful taste and terrible smell.
When we returned home late that night, my family and visiting relatives were sleeping. We set up camp in our front verandah. Ajit started playing his guitar. Gamini was silent and a little disengaged from me. He probably realised that Ajit and I were from different social and that there was a disparity between us. I did not think much about it at the time. A little later, we fell asleep on the open verandah.
Four years after I last met Gamini, I left Sri Lanka for good to work in booming Dubai. In 1992, some twenty years after I had last seen Gamini, I was about to migrate to Australia to make a home for myself and my young family. I arrived in Sri Lanka from Dubai on our way to Australia; I was curious to meet Gamini, check on him and say farewell. So I travelled to his hometown, retraced my steps, and found Gamini’s home at St Sebastian Road, Kandana.
I expected to see my boyhood friend resembling the image I had in my memory. But, unfortunately, I did not recognise Gamini when he appeared before me. He was vastly different to the good-looking and happy boy I had last said farewell to in 1972. He was unkempt, unhealthy and smelt of liquor. His face was battle-hardened, and his teeth were black. Moreover, he spoke a street dialect, vastly different from how he conversed as a young boy.
It was a terrible shock and one I could not get over. He and his wife had four children. His eldest son had Down’s syndrome. Gamini was addicted to liquor. Poverty has devastated him and his young family; cheap alcohol was how he dealt with it. Gamini still had the bright smile, now on his black teeth and was grateful to see his old friend.
It broke my heart, and I was lost for words. It was hard for me to accept what I was witnessing. It was grossly unfair. We both have had very different trajectories in the intervening twenty years. Life had been very cruel to Gamini. I was shocked to the core.
I recovered quickly, sprang into action and asked his wife what would make a difference to uplift them. Gamini’s siblings wanted them evicted from the ancestral home they were living in. However, Gamini and his wife owned a small piece of land elsewhere. They could move there if they could build a house on it and start afresh. I did not think twice before offering to help build a basic house. Gamini’s wife anticipated moving away from the surroundings would help Gamini escape addiction and rebuild their family life.
I made financial arrangements with my father to help build Gamini’s house, introducing him to my father. Weeks later, I travelled to Australia, leaving my father to help Gamini. My father followed up on my commitment.
Leo Gamini Perera did not live for long and died fifteen years later. I came to know about his death from a letter from his daughter.
Fortunately for him and me, my small efforts to uplift his family had paid off. His wife and children rebuilt their lives in the new surroundings. Although Gamini did not live to see his grandchildren, they have a better life today. Gamini’s son and daughters do not fail to remind me regularly that I had changed their lives forever with a single act of kindness to an old friend. So, naturally, I did not think much of my act. I think that was what friends were for.
Differences between Gamini and me in class and outlook were vast, although I failed to see them as a young lad. Gamini’s expectations of life were simple. He lived a different life from mine and attended a village school without exposure to western culture. Yet, despite the differences in social status, he was my friend. He introduced me to the simple joys of friendship. And my first sip of liquor at the cusp of adulthood. Funnily enough, I am grateful that I had my first experience with liquor with a caring friend.
Looking back, I did not have a long friendship with Leo Gamini. It was limited to a few interactions in my teen years. But nevertheless, I learned a lot about life, luck and circumstances that could change lives forever.
Thank you, Leo Gamini Perera, for being my friend. You will always be dear to me.
The day I met you after the twenty-year gap changed my life forever. You made me a better human.
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