Denzil's Stories

  J Jambu (rose apple) tree Love of a Boy with a fruit tree and an Experiment with ChatGPT Denzil Jayasinghe 6 min read·Jan 31 T he fruit tree next to our home is my refuge. It is my escape. It creates ripples in me when the fruit season is on. The tree’s pink rose apple fruits are full of hidden desires for a boy. The rose apple tree is intergenerational, planted by my grandfather decades ago. Its roots are spread and deep. It is tall, around 20 feet, five times my height. Making chirping noises, birds feast on the rose apple fruits at all hours. Under the tree is a concrete block used as a resting place for a water basin. I wash in the morning there before school, under the rose apple tree. I look above and am determined to eat rose apples in the afternoon after school. I mark the fruits and their location mentally as I wash. I learned to climb on this tree. But it was not all smooth sailing, this learning to climb. To balance your feet, one’s body weight, figure out the strength...

  Secrets of a bedroom A lad’s bedroom was his fortress in the 1970s Denzil Jayasinghe 4 min read·Jan 30 50 1 A boy on the threshold of adulthood has this strange capacity to experience sensations that escape the notice of others. His bedroom becomes his fortress. That’s what it’s like, the door to a boy’s room through which generations ooze and drip. First, long before me, it was my grandfather’s room, then a generation later, his son’s room, and now it is mine. The door to my room remains closed no matter what; there are constraints on those who enter it. It is always locked. There are many secrets to hide, diaries holding intimate journal entries, coded notes, and centrefolds under the hard mattress made of coconut fibre. Regarding arrival, advance notice or knocking before entry is a strange concept for islander Lankans. Locking it with a brass key is the only way to control access. However, it is not absolute control, for my mother has a spare key, although she hardly uses it....

  Randy — and Nathur Part 3 of 3-part series Denzil Jayasinghe 4 min read·Jan 29 B efore I go any further on this story, if you did not read the earlier stories of this three-part series, their opening lines go something like this. Randy and I go a long way back in Sri Lanka to school-going days. He is my partner’s elder brother. I knew him long before I met my partner. Randy is this cheerful guy. He knows to laugh at anything. Simple things. He is a great company. When he visits us, we have fun, go shopping and eat out . Alternatively, you can click on this  hyperlink . The building complex we live in is circular-shaped. Our apartment is on the top floor. The car park and the watchman’s living quarters are on the ground floor. The complex is on Al Ghubaiba road, leading to the then Falcon roundabout in Bur Dubai. The car park is an open atrium with no roof, open to the blue skies. When I look down from my apartment to the atrium, six floors down, I can see the car park on the...