Iwas struggling to hold back my tears and gave up. Kadayamma’s coffin was slowly lowered into the ground at the church cemetery. I was heartbroken that I would never see my Kadayamma again. All kinds of memories of Kadayamma were in flashback; memories of her care for me as a toddler and how she took me to school every day when I was in junior school. So here I was, a teenager, on Sunday, 27th October 1974, trying to hold onto my memories of my favourite grandmother, who was part of my life from infancy. It did not matter that I was the only person in the large crowd with tears down my cheeks. Boys were supposed not to cry, but did I care? No, I had lost my Kadayamma, the only grandmother who understood me. My world had come apart.
Kadayamma had only two sons; my father was her younger son. So Kadayamma had no daughters to fuss over her and cried at her passing. I made up for them by breaking down. It was no secret that I was her favourite among her seven grandsons and was the son of her favourite son.
My friend Cyril stood beside me through the burial, put his hand around my shoulder and held me. At the end of the ceremony, Cyril put me on his bicycle saddle and rode me home with comforting words. I cried all the way home on his bicycle. It was a sad evening. I could not look bed and belongings at home. The house did not look the same without her.
This was Kadayamma’s bed. I often slept by her side when I was little. Kadayamma took her last breath on the same bed. This bed is over 100 years old and lovingly maintained at my Sydney.
A mercy meal was offered to the visiting relatives who came to say farewell to Kadayamma and the poor. I was tired, not having slept in the last 24 hours. My father did not believe in the age-old silly custom in Sri Lanka of keeping all-night vigils for seven days after a death. He shut our house, and we slept, defying the established norm.
Kadayamma died of old age at the age of 79, on the night before at home. My parents nursed Kadayamma in her last days. She had been ailing with breathing difficulties and spent most of her time on her bed. When she died, my father, mother and my neighbour, William, were by her bedside helping her to breathe her last. I wanted to be near Kadayamma in her final moments. My father asked me to stay outside the room. Perhaps he thought I was too young and vulnerable. I waited outside near the door, confused and listening to Kadayamma as she breathed her last.
William and his wife, Mary, helped my mother to wash Kadayamma’s body. Then finally, the undertakers came in, wrapped Kadayamma and placed the coffin in the centre of our home. My father did not believe in grandiose ceremonies and decided to bury Kadayamma with a simple Catholic burial the next day. Kadayamma’s body, therefore, was not embalmed.
My father informed Kadayamma’s brothers and relatives of the funereal details by telegram and by messengers on foot.
Funerals in Sri Lanka involve a lot of logistics. I took over decorating the street for Kadayamma’s final journey, leading to the church and the cemetery in under 24 hours. It was a big responsibility for a 19-year-old. I reached out to my friends from the neighbourhood for help. Cyril and about ten of my friends gathered immediately to help. It was exhaustive work, lasting through the night, to make the decorations and hang them on both sides of the street. My friends stayed up till early morning helping and giving me company. Decorating the streets for my dear Kadayamma was the last thing I did for her.
The next day, I was busy at home with funereal rituals. I had no time to grieve for her. My loss hit when her coffin was being lowered into her final resting place.
Decorations made from young coconut palm leaves adorned the streets during Kadayamma’s last journey.
My relationship with Kadayamma started from the day I was born. She lived with us. She was part of my early life until she passed away. I grew up in her shadow.
Kadayamma carried me with my parents, taken in 1956.
Kadayamma with my parents and me as an infant.
When I started schooling at age five, Kadayamma sacrificed her day to escort me to school every day. It was a tiresome journey, transiting in two rickety buses, a distance of about seven kilometres each way, with long walks in between. She stayed back in school until I finished. Kadayamma did this for over six years until I was independent enough to travel alone.
Kadayamma fed me rice, making them into balls to entice me to eat. Then, she narrated children’s stories at night against the backdrop of lamps. She had a limited number of stories, about four or five, that she repeated repeatedly. There were enchanting stories of a cunning fox, a crooked crow and a laundrywoman. Listening to her brand of unique stories was entertaining. I fell asleep listening to her bedside stories.
Kadayamma was firm in her convictions. The government was on an anti-Catholic crusade in Sri Lanka in the early sixties. It ordered the expulsion of foreign priests and nuns; ordered Catholic schools to be taken over by the government. The Catholic community stood up firmly against this injustice organising sit-ins and erecting barricades in front of the churches and schools. Kadayamma boldly took part in these protests and sit-ins.
Kadayamma took me to see the funereal motorcade of an assassinated prime minister she politically supported. When the world’s first astronaut, Yuri Gagarin, visited Sri Lanka from Russia, she took me to see his motorcade. Kadayamma took me along to attend campaign rallies during the elections for the country’s parliament. She had strong civic and social affiliations and was not afraid to expose her young grandson to these citizen responsibilities.
Our ancestral home where we grew up
Kadayamma followed indigenous music. Her favourite artist composed the national anthem of Sri Lanka when it gained independence in 1948. She was his fan.
Kadayamma was great with animals. She got a puppy and named him Rover. She raised chickens in our backyard and the occasional pig. Eggs at home were from Kadayamma’s barn. Then there was a cat too. Pigs were sold to butchers, and she saved the money from the sales. She was good with money.
Kadayamma cooked perfect hoppers and coconut Rotis, unique Sri Lankan delicacies. She grew vegetables, spices, betel creepers and even a few coffee plants. To be human and immersed in work and the kitchen seemed the simplest thing in the world to Kadayamma.
She cut bunches of reeds from the surrounding paddy fields and, after drying them in the sun, made colourful sleeping mats for the family. Kadayamma’s talented hands weaved all mats used at home.
Kadayamma dressed in a wraparound cloth and a white kabaya-type jacket. This is what she is wearing in the photograph. When she went out, she wore a silver hairpin decorated with semi-precious stones.
Kadayamma relied on natural treatments for her minor ailments, often taking me with her when she visited her Ayurvedic doctor. On her left knee, she had squishy lymph in her skin colour, the size of a coin. I loved the soft feel of her lymph when she allowed me to touch it.
Kadayamma’s signature; W Barbara Saram in Sri Lankan language
Don’t you think she was a great, bold, talented multi-tasker even in her sixties and seventies?
Wait to hear more!
This is what had happened before I popped into her life, how she beat adversity when she was a young mother.
Kadayamma’s name was Weerathunga Arachchige Barbara Saram. She was born in 1895 in Giriulla, her ancestral village, about 70 kilometres from Colombo. Kadayamma was the eldest in the family and was a natural leader. She had three younger brothers and a sister. She married at twenty-five. Tragedy struck when she was made a widow at a young age when her husband, my paternal grandfather, died when my father was just fifteen years old.
Following her husband’s death, she ran a grocery shop to raise her two teenage sons. She was independent, headstrong and depended on nobody to raise her children. She did not sell her properties and protected them for her sons. She built another house on high ground to escape floods that would engulf her family home during frequent floods in the 1940s.
Kadayamma had a high social standing in the neighbourhood due to her successful small business, independence and strong character. The village folks called her Kadayamma, made up of two words, Kade meaning shop and Amma meaning mother. I grew up calling her Kadayamma. None of her nine grandchildren called her Achchie, grandmother in Sri Lankan. For her grandchildren, Kadayamma was their grandmother.
My father became independent at a very young age, influenced by a hard-working mother with a model work ethic. Kadayamma got up early morning to make food for sale. In the mornings, my father, before going to school, worked in the family shop. He distributed food orders in the neighbourhood.
Kadayamma’s only younger sister died at a young age leaving a young boy. Kadayamma adopted that boy, Samare. Samare uncle and my father were very close, like brothers.
Kadayamma never spoke of her husband’s death and her troubles raising the two boys alone. Instead, she spoke of the difficulties due to food rationing during World War II. She and her two sons lived in fear during the height of the war when Japan bombed Colombo.
Kadayamma was particularly proud of my father, her younger son, who, despite financial obstacles, studied hard, mastered English and became a successful career civil servant. She chose to live with him when he married my mother.
Let us return to my childhood again: not everything was home. My other grandmother, Achchie came to live with us when I was ten. Achchie was a mental patient and had been in an asylum most of her life. Achchie had recovered partly when she was brought in from the asylum and dumped at our home. Our house, with three young children, was not the place for an unstable mental patient.
Within a short time, tensions arose between Kadayamma and Achchie. While my mother tolerated her mother’s antics and abnormal behaviour, Kadayamma could not. Sometimes there would be arguments between my mother and Kadayamma due to Achchie’s actions. In the midst of all this, my father was transferred to a remote town, leaving my mother to deal with three young children and her mentally sick mother.
Life at home got worse after my father was away. It was traumatic. Kadayamma was unhappy. Achchie regularly accused her of various things, creating havoc in our once peaceful family. My mother was exhausted after dealing with Achchie. The situation distressed me, and I had often wished this was not the case.
My mother was helpless and torn; her brother was absconding from family responsibilities despite enjoying financial benefits from the family estate left behind by Achchie’s husband, my maternal grandfather. It must have been agonising for my mother to choose between her children and a sick mother. A sense of duty was imposed by society on daughters to care for their mothers at all costs.
That was not the end of the elderly at home. My maternal grandfather’s sister, who had no children on her own and looked to my mother as her next of kin and decided to descend to our home and live with us with her husband. Now, we had three older women and a grand-uncle at home, more than the number of small children. We were outnumbered. I detested the situation at home, which was rapidly changing. Inherent family responsibilities and dynamics drowned my little den and my life with Kadayamma.
Kadayamma got fed up and left for her elder son’s home. Meanwhile, I was tired of watching the antics of Achchie. I wanted to escape the chaos at home. It was easy for me to get fascinated by the glamour of the Christian brothers. I wanted to be one of them.
When I turned twelve, I joined the a formative boarding school for young boys who aspired to become Christian brothers. My parents, being die-hard Catholics who believed in their God without any doubt, reluctantly agreed. I now know I broke my father’s heart because of that decision. I lived away from home for the next four years. This is also a story for another day.
My mentally ill, Achchie was in and out of the mental asylum and continued to disrupt my home, although I escaped the brunt of it, being away. Kadayamma restarted her shop at my uncle’s property and rebooted her life again. She did not forget me, visiting me frequently and bringing my favourite foods. Kadayamma often enquired about me from my classmates who lived near her shop. They acted as news carriers between her and me.
During the school holidays, I visited Kadayamma regularly at my uncle’s home. I saw Kadayamma in full action in her shop. She was busy and was in control. She maintained her ledger books for accounts. She sold betel leaves, tobacco, cigarettes, cigars, sugar and bread. Kadayamma generously treated me to sweets and drinks from her shop. She was delighted that her favourite grandson was visiting her.
Kadayamma in 1968, aged 73; This is her last remaining photograph
When I was a bit older, at fifteen, I left the formative boarding and came back to live at home. Achchie was in and out of the mental hospitals, disrupting our tiny home at every interjection.
Kadayamma came back to live with us again, bringing back sanity to my life. When she could not tolerate Achchie anymore, she returned to my uncle’s home for a few days' break.
A few short years later, I got a head start in life and started working. As I became independent and liberated, I started discovering the wider world. Unfortunately, I did not spend much time with Kadayamma. That, I regret. I was only young and did not know any better.
I did not get a chance to tell Kadayamma profoundly how much I appreciated what she had done for me. It is one regret I have in life.
That’s why I broke down at her funeral.
Kadayamma, you should know that I have done you proud. May your descendants live with your free spirit.
I love you, Kadayamma!
The Betel Tray (Heppuwa) that belonged to Kadayamma
Kadayamma’s betel deep pestle and stick pipe
Kadayamma’s money box. She stacked her savings in this box, hidden in a secret compartment in her cupboard, almirah.
As fate would have it, my best friend from junior school was ordained as a Christian brother on the day of Kadayamma’s death. I was one of the few people invited to the ceremony in Colombo. I got on a bus to travel to get to the ceremony. A hunch told me to go back home, and I got off the bus immediately. Half an hour after my return home, Kadayamma’s health deteriorated, and that is how I was there listening to her last cry when my Kadayamma passed away.
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