It was the beach where I used to live. Where I remember a different childhood life. Ten minutes drive from the main road that fell through the suburb of Wattalla. From the turn-off where a statue of Mary stood somewhere alongside the highway that connected the only International airport in the country to the rest of Colombo. The highway, as long as my childhood memory can remember, that used to be obstructed with military checkpoints; but not anymore.
It was the beach where I saw your footsteps. The sea was covering the traces, but the deep giant damp steps were yours. I could always identify the path you walked like recalling the national anthem of my motherland even though I’ve never heard it for almost all of my adult life. My childhood memories are now stubborn. They no longer listened to my request of recall. We’ve had words, we’ve had conversations about bitterness, and they don’t seem to like my adult self. But there were still things left behind that I could pick up and recognise without much trouble. Your black leather shoes were on the dry sand waiting for their occupant; you never wore socks – at least this was what I can remember. I felt your presence close by, you were back from a very, very long walk; just that the sun had business somewhere else, and I was having trouble spotting you amongst the crowd in the distance. There is a notebook in my hand so I’ll write till I wait for you. Till you come into closer view, I will spend my time with a blue ball point pen, an exercise book (double ruled in blue and red) and words.
The name I chose to address you was established before my birth. From my older sister, five years after, I unknowingly stole the term. The same name my grandmother addressed her father. As my memory holds, my mother followed to use the same with her grandfather. My sister picked up the same for you; for our grandfather.
I still remember how you most passionately wielded into your body with waving arms, the classical music you listened to in awe. In those moments I saw aspirations hovering above your head, there were dreams of being a conductor. When your music surrounded you, at home, despite wearing your white sleeveless t-shirt and striped blue sarong you would have fit effortlessly into the middle of an epic orchestra.
Only now I understand that the walks you took were no easy feat. They were always a couple of days long, few cities apart. And always to visit someone in need of your smile prescribed through your stethoscope. They needed your presence and advice; though they never realised. We were always commissioned to rub your feet after they were weak from many kilometres of street. You always paid us with forgotten gems from history which were never brief and chocolates to keep us from falling asleep. Now my sister has your old stethoscope. She has taken over the task of prescribing your smiles. The patients who still come looking for you find cures from her.
My walking habit maybe something I picked up from you, I think. I’ve been walking the paths that you would have wanted to see, and been learning the history you wanted to teach.
The coffee cup that was made for you always lasted many more takes before it was all pure water. The kitchen always had a fresh brew in a flask dedicated to you. Good food and drink you appreciated, we always knew when you enjoyed a meal when your right eyebrow gave its approval of excellent taste. My caffeine habit I picked up from my father, but having it strong and black, I think came from you.
The low wooden ceiling of your room made it look like a captain’s cabin on an ancient ship. There I used to speak to you when I wanted the world to disappear and the universe to fade out of sight. It smelled of old books and spilled coffee. Your books were alive when no one was around. They listened to your thoughts and constructed maps to places in the world you couldn’t travel to. I used to think and still do that all the books you read were an inhuman feat. In your room, I wandered alone sometimes when you were not around. There was a squeaky bed in the middle of the room and where maybe I’ve taken nap or two. It may have been the books whispering to me because the dreams I had were always about me sailed into the Siberian Sea.
You warned me of the poison that came out of the television screen. You pulled out the chess board and invited me to play whenever you saw my mind blurring to the rays of a cathode tube. I always lost the game of chess I played with you. There was no mercy for the single digit old me. Your smile of victory was proof that you were into the game and didn’t leave room for mistakes. But your greatest challenge was to make sure I learned. It was always challenging to go to war with you and humbling to lose my king to you. You told me to always protect the queen but also warned me to not to get fooled by her power. There was that one afternoon in the house in Kotte I managed to finally win a game from you. And you suddenly realise the teenage grandson had finally beaten you. Your smile of defeat was proof that you didn’t let me win. There no more bulky cathodes filling up the living rooms of middle-class homes. But lately, I’ve been addicted to new type of screens. I keep changing channels looking for reality and truth. I’m constantly feeling more and more under someone else’s control. I may have forgotten my chess moves, I think you will beat me soon.
The evening before your last long walk you were sitting on a hospital bed. For a soul who was always making everyone else well, you were looking out of place in that place. You wore your upside down smile; the last time I saw you. You asked why I looked upset. The weight of impossible Sri Lankan advanced level math exams, my Shakespeare character practices in ‘Comedy Of Errors’ and organising an English-Day school function was spinning webs in my head. There was confusion in my mind and the lack of sense to understand what was really going on in your space. I think, as usual, you knew something heavy was crawling inside my head. At that moment, you lent me your upside down smile; my last prescription from you. Though I don’t realise, I still occasionally use your borrowed smile; it’s still in good shape. But on that night fear caged my words and numbed my face. The evening before your last long walk, all I could do was nod my head.
It’s getting darker now. I can see the fishermen loading their boats for another night out at sea. I can see a small ship anchored close by near the Pegasus reef. An ancient but sturdy ship. One which would have a wooden cabin for the captain, just like your old bedroom. A captains room with the speaking books and the squeaky iron bed. The type of ship which would withstand the Russian seas and break through the Arctic ice. Its hull and body were painted with black stripes over pale blue. Stripes running around similar to the pattern of your blue sarong. I can see the dim yellow electric lamp inside; illuminating the brown walls of the ship’s bridge. There is a mug of steaming black coffee next the instrument panel.
I know you may know some of this, but I thought I should repeat. If I don’t meet you soon, I’ll write these down, slip the paper inside an empty brown ginger-beer bottle, seal it and throw it into the sea. I still try to believe that magic exists in this crazy place and old souls among us are just visiting from a future state. And there are tricks in words inside air tight bottles floating in the sea. They sail tirelessly looking for the person to whom they were written to or a mind they can sufficiently fill.
The pale blue ship, it’s beginning to vanish out of sight. There is a shadow of a tall man waving a Nila-Kuura (a sparkler) in the dim room. He’s wearing your old watch with a black leather strap. He keeps shifting his wrist to look at the minutes on his hand. The ship’s not moving but blurring into the winds of the Indian Ocean. It seems like wizardry or some new kind of technology. It’s blurring like it’s trying to travel forwards and backwards in time. The captain in the shadows, I think it’s you. You have patients in out-of-space, in history or in some future place they eagerly wait.
This message in a bottle will ask directions from the whales whose minds you have cured. It will jump through time with the help the stars you’ve walked under. They will follow broken maps and even take miniature flights to the universes you wander. They will come swimming to the sea you anchor.
This was a dedication piece to my late grandfather, written a year or so ago. It has been almost 20 years since he passed.