These magical events occurred in the sixties and the seventies in my home village in Sri Lanka.
Once upon a time, if I were ever feeling bored, I’d shout out across my fence to my neighbour and good pal, Linton, getting his attention. While chit-chatting with Linton, we leaned over and shouted to Lal, Linton’s neighbour on the opposite side. Not satisfied with the three-way chatter, long-distance, across three properties, Linton and Lal crossed over the fence markers to my garden. The three of us, now face to face, got into a rapid exchange of news, what we had been up to since our last meeting less than 24 hours ago.
My parent's home was on a large property with many open spaces. It had a huge garden, wide and long. It was the gathering space of choice for the neighbourhood young out to enjoy a sunny afternoon. Lightly erected fences let kids slide through easily between properties, bypassing the narrow gravel street.
Our loud, boyhood noises attracted more neighbouring kids. Merrill and Elmo, Linton’s first cousins across the street, joined us. Suddenly, we had a small team of young kids ready to play and hang out.
More chatter continued. Justin, Linton’s elder brother, now joined the group. Justin was the eldest among the boys’ group. He was the big brother, many years older than the rest of us. Everyone respected him, calling him ayya, meaning elder brother in the local language. Justin ayya was resourceful and skilled in many crafts. He made his kites by sticking colourful papers, bamboo, and gum together. He made catapults out of wood and their slings from discarded tyre tubes from bicycles. Justin caught fish from the nearby waterways in the paddy field using homemade fishing rods.
My friends rarely wore a top; the boys were bare-chested and wore colourful cotton shorts stitched by their doting mamas. That was the only way village boys could beat the 30-degree summer heat every day of the year in sunny and tropical Sri Lanka.
Nobody asked permission to pluck one was hungry. In our garden were guava and naminan trees with ripened fruits on hand reach. When the boys felt like it, they plucked the fruits and ate them on the spot. Washing fruits was unheard of back in the day. For drinks, boys walked up to our open well, pulled a bucket of fresh water and drank the cleanest water one could ever drink off the metal bucket.
Among my garden's many s were colourful butterflies and dragonflies. Justin caught a dragonfly from the garden and tied a light string to its tail controlling its flight. After a short while, he carefully released the thread from the dragonfly, returning it to its freedom. Coloured butterflies flew everywhere, sucking my mother’s garden’s flowers.
Among the plentiful green grass that grew naturally were large hordes of small and large grasshoppers. Lal caught a grasshopper and put it in a glass bottle. Boys gathered around, admiring the trapped grasshopper. After getting tired of admiring and watching its plight, Lal released it back to the wild.
Jayanthi, Pearly and Kanthi, our friend Lal’s elder sisters, joined us. The three sisters loved playing a game of Batta, a unisex hopscotch game played with one leg. It was a popular game among the girls.
Susan, who lived on the left of our house, joined us to play. Susan and Linton were first cousins. Susan was great at enacting role plays. She pretended to be a Catholic priest and celebrated mass. Enacting mass rituals with everyone, she involved Linton and me as altar servers. She gave us small pieces of bread, and everyone pretended to receive communion, a Catholic ritual. When election campaigning was on, she pretended to be a politician and enacted a fiery speech, imitating local politicians of the day.
Linton ran home, creeping under the fence and bringing a marbled jar. Everybody assembled on our wide footpath, filled with white sands. The marble game started. With his accurate shooting, Linton ended up winning the most marbles at the end of the game.
Then everybody decided to walk up to Ashley’s large garden, three properties away, creeping under the joint fences. Ashley’s grandfather, John and my maternal grandmother were first cousins. Ashley and his siblings, Ranji, Leena, and Ashley’s cousin, Jude, joined the kids’ group. Their large garden was full of fruit trees, and their produce was freely available to us. We ate Mauritius plums fruits until our teeth got discoloured with a stained yellow. In their front yard was a large breadfruit tree with a swing. We took turns swinging ourselves, hoping to reach the sky with every move up in the air.
In John’s backyard was a huge cashew tree. We hurled sticks plucking pear-shaped cashew fruits, red and yellow coloured, fresh from the tree. When we successfully hit our targets, everybody rushed to devour them, then and there, under the tree. Behind John’s kitchen was a bilin tree, which produced green fruits with a limey flavour. Our stomachs were full from all of the fresh tropical fruits freely available.
The group now inflated to about fifteen boys and girls, and negotiations commenced on what games we could play. We had many choices: football, cricket, marbles, hide and seek, or Elle, the local indigenous game.
Every gaming instrument was homemade except the universal tennis ball for ball games. The bat for Elle was a bamboo stick, about a meter long. The cricket bats were made of raw wood; wickets were made of discarded sticks. The markers were thrown away coconut husks. Every sporting tool was improvised from local, easily available eco-friendly materials that cost nothing. They were green to the core.
We played until it started getting dark for sundown. Passing the gravel street was my father on foot, having finished his work. On seeing him, I pulled out of the games, bidding farewell to my neighbourhood friends, promising to join them the next day. I ran to my father and walked by his side, proudly carrying his leather work bag. I returned home happily with him.
A bit later, as my father was scrubbing my playground dirt off my body with soap at our open well, I could hear mothers from our neighbourhood calling out for their children to return home from playing. It was time to pack up.
Not everything about the young kids was rainbows and sunshine. But the best thing was how easy it was to socialise. No formal plans; just shout over the fence or turn up at their front doors, which were always open for neighbourhood kids. It sounds like an imagination of a children’s cartoon, but these magical events occurred in the sixties and seventies in my home village in Sri Lanka.
Over a half-century later, in 2021, I admit what was done to the dragonflies and grasshoppers was wrong. But we did not know any better back then.
Cyril Stanley A story of gratitude — Denzil recalls a friend who looked out for him in his budding years in Sri Lanka Denzil Jayasinghe 11 min read · Aug 27, 2022 1 Give us a bit of background on how you met Cyril. It was the seventies in the sleepy village of Dalugama , my ancestral hometown, some ten kilometres from Colombo. With their flared bell bottoms and Afro-style hair, it was easy to notice Cyril and his younger brother Edward. I’d bump into the duo in the neighbourhood as I walked home after a day at college. A casual hello greeting turned into a conversation and an evolving friendship with the duo at an age when making friends was effortless. However, it was Cyril who reached out to me first. What did the brothers look like? C yril was a younger version of Smokey Robinson and his brother, Edward, a junior Lionel Richie but darker. Both had curly hair, grown long, copying the Afro-American idols of the seventies. Smokey Robinson, Cyril Stan...
A Child of Curiosity How inherent inquisitiveness became a key driver in learning experiences. Denzil Jayasinghe · B orn in the mid-20th century, I am a product of the post-World War II era. My parents, who were teenagers when the war commenced, married in the 1950s. As a representative of the baby boomer generation, I was born under the astrological sign of Capricorn, the tenth sign of the zodiac. My birth took place at Zoysa Nursing Home, a renowned institution in Colombo, Sri Lanka, around 5 in the morning. Sri Lanka, known for its tropical climate, is a beautiful island nation south of India. This climate appealed to me, and I sought similar weather in my twenties, spending them in Dubai, where the winter resembles an Australian summer. Raised by religious parents, I held them in deep affection. However, the church teachings posed a paradox for a young mind, instructing one to love God more than one’s parents. I initially adhered to the Ten Commandments and other societal norms in ...
20 quick-fire questions * If you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be? Your life would not turn the way that you planned. It is OK to be naïve and stupidly young. What do you like doing in your spare time? Writing and reading. Both complement each other. What would you change your name to? My family's name is Jayasinghe. ජයසිංහ in Sinhala in the original script. Phonetically, it is pronounced Jaya-Sinha in Sri Lanka. But in English, through generations, it was spelt Jayasinghe, which sounds differently in English. I would change its spelling to Jaya-Sinha to align it with its original sound. Perhaps my grandkids in Australia could do it. What’s your favourite time of day? The morning hours. I am most productive in the mornings. What is your biggest weakness? I could get carried away with what I could be doing. Sometimes, I must pinch myself to stop what I am doing. What is your favourite colour? Green. Always from my kid days. Would you believe I had...
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