Now I am a patient, an invalid confined to a bed, whose sheet and mattress stinks with my urine. A couple of months ago, I suffered a stroke which left me paralyzed. Today I feel like a breathing corpse. If only that stroke had taken my life without leaving me to this endless suffering in this stinking, squalid room! Maybe, I am destined to suffer more. Sometimes I think death will not be half as dreadful as this miserable life I spend as a bed- ridden invalid. Nevertheless, there are times when I dread the Unknown which I will have to explore sooner or later after death has released me from these mortal agonies. The Mysterious Realm which is believed to be lying beyond death might perhaps be little better than these terrible sufferings. Apart from those natural human fears about the Unknown, however, I am also suffering from a terrible sense of guilt dogging my every thought. The painful consciousness of a past error gives me even greater pains than this bedsore, which no medicine can alleviate let alone cure! Now I want you to hear my sad painful story, and I wish to make a clean breast of it, before death can have me in its relentless grip.
It all happened even more than three decades ago when I was a sturdy, middle-aged man. But I can recall the details of it as vividly as if it was just yesterday that this tragedy took place. Then I was working as a clerk at the Zonal Education Office, Narammala. I had six children, three daughters and three sons. At the time, none of them was married. My elder son, a rice merchant then, had a big rice mill. He had employed several guys who performed the laborious task of boiling and drying paddy on the basis of daily wages. Nimal was one of those guys, employed at my elder son’s rice mill.
We were a respectable family in the village. My late father who was a stern confident man inspired the villagers’ respect. At the time, literacy was not nearly as high as it is today. Education, free as it was, was still limited to wealthy influential families. So the majority of villagers were illiterate peasants who just lived from hand to mouth. It was small wonder, therefore, that the fairly literate families like ours could command their respect whether we deserved it or not. Besides, I had land of about twenty acres inherited from my father, which yielded a fairly large crop of coconut. He had also accumulated a fortune of around 100000 rupees by the time he passed away. I know you will scorn at my reference to a fortune of 100000 rupees, because today even small children know that amount is scarcely a fortune. But it was then more than 30 years ago, before the price level had begun to skyrocket under the influence of inflation. Then it was fairly accurate to call such amount a fortune. My late father was a money-lender, not quite unlike that usurer ‘Sherlock’ in Shakespeare’s ‘Merchant of Venice’, a play I would still love to read though I can hardly manage to read anything today. I can still quote some lines from it.
“I am a tainted wether of the flock,
Meetest for death; the weakest kind of fruit
Drops earliest to the ground”
Let me quote another excerpt from it.
“And I beseech you,
Wrest once the law to your authority;
To do a great right, do a little wrong
And curb this cruel devil of his will”
I have digressed a little from the story that I am narrating. But you may see that like many of my peers, I am still a worshipper of that literary genius, Shakespeare, and pride myself on being able to quote him so accurately.
My position as a clerk at the Zonal Education Office was rather enviable even among the people who were not so poor. Nowadays I know few people wish to become clerks, but again times were different then. I always tried to live up to the reputation that my late father had earned. I wanted my children to follow my steps and preserve the tradition without tarnishing our family’s good reputation. Moreover, we were from a high caste, so I hardly mingled with those poor villagers from low castes; nor did I want my children to do so. But what I failed to realize was the extent to which they themselves wanted to follow my sound advice. Now I wonder if they ever wanted to follow my judicious advice and whether they just nodded their heads in reluctant approval while totally dismissing my advice in their intercourse with people for the simple reason that they were too decent to contradict me, their bigoted, self-opinionated father.
These days I often hear my elder son say ‘Caste is nothing next to wealth and social position.’ But those days, caste signified a great deal especially when it came to marriage. The parents who overlooked such matters as caste and creed in their children’s marriages were disowned by their relatives. Or maybe I thought so. As I have already said, I wanted my children to follow my steps, but did they really want to live in the same way as I wanted them to do? Or did they just listen to my advice for no other reason than that I was their father who had begotten them and brought them up? These are the questions that I today ask myself, having been confined to this smelly room, this filthy bed. I sincerely doubt if I ever can find answers to these mind-boggling questions. However, now I know my youngest daughter did not want to follow my advice. But I also know that I have seen the truth rather too late.
Every family has at least one recalcitrant child. In our family, unfortunately, that recalcitrant happened to be my youngest daughter, Priyani whereas my second son, Wimalasiri, now a senior lecturer in Kelaniya University was the epitome of obedience. How is it possible that two children, fathered by the same man, brought up by the same parents under the same circumstances, living under the same roof, studied at the same school, receiving the same advice, being accepted and treated in the same way can be as far different from each other as day is different from Night or Fire from Ice? Why I repent today is because I wanted the other five children of mine to be like Wimalasiri. That each child was unique in his own way did not cross my mind until all was gone and I had little choice but to regret my irrational desire.
Priyani was the pet of our family. Maybe she was surfeited with affection since she was the youngest and the loveliest. I, a very punctilious father, a sort of domestic martinet, did not pamper my children, but deep in my heart I loved each of them alike. For them, I always had tender fibers in my heart, but I often chose to dissemble my feelings and play the role model of a strict father. I did so because I wanted all of them to become highly educated, respectable citizens of our country. Does every child of every strict father necessarily become highly erudite respectable citizens? Is being a strict father a necessary formula for producing a good intelligent child? Maybe I should have asked myself those questions some thirty years earlier. I also wanted to pride myself on being the father of such respected children……
Priyani, from her early childhood days showed a stubborn streak. Not that she was a very bad child, but she was a bit too strong-willed. Maybe she had inherited such qualities from me. As she grew older I found her exceedingly incorrigible. Since I wanted her to become a good, obedient, intelligent child, I punished her over-willful acts. I wished from the bottom of my heart to marry my three daughters off to wealthy
influential families from superior castes. Decidedly, it was their character which would be the key for them to be connected with such families. Unlike today, education itself did not count much for a girl in that traditional society where women were supposed to rear children and attend to household affairs. I, a worshipper of established traditions, wanted to instill such ideas into their minds since they were able to understand something. I had scarcely any problems with the other two, but Priyani often tended to disagree with me. Oddly enough, I had no such dreams about my sons and just hoped that they would live up to the reputation of our family whatever might happen. Yet I did not want them to go astray either, so I caned them when I found that they deserved that, but not as frequently as I did so to my daughters in general and Priyani in particular. When I punished her for minor offences, she refused to eat and locked herself up in her boudoir for hours. It was my genial wife and her two elder sisters that eventually coaxed her into taking food. Though I was rather severe on her, she always sought my company when I was home, calling after me ‘Thaththi, thaththi.’ Whether she resented my harshness when I chastised her I still ask myself.
Priyani, a sixteen year old at the time, was prettier than both of her elder sisters. She was friendly with men and women alike. So I and my wife had few reasons to believe that the things were not the same as they did appear to be. Priyani also spoke with the guys who worked in my elder son’s rice mill. When my sons were away and I was at the office it was my wife who oversaw the operations at the rice mill and Priyani helped her. Her sisters were a little too shy and reclusive. But Priyani was an ebullient, confident extrovert. Maybe that was the bane of her life.
When rumors began to circulate that she was having an affair with Nimal, I was furious. ‘How can I let her be married to him, a guy from a low-caste family?’ I asked myself exasperatedly. Besides that, he was not half as educated as Priyani who went to the central college. ’An illiterate beggar!’, that was how I described him to others. Directly I heard this news I asked Priyani if that news was true. But she resolutely denied having any affair with him. Yet it was not easy for her to fool me who was four times as old as she. A seasoned man, I knew smoke could hardly arise without a fire. Angry as I was, I pretended to have believed what she had said. I told her that she was yet a child and that she had to focus her attention on her studies rather than romance. I also told her that she was too young to think about such matters. It, I emphasized, was for us, parents to think about such things when she had reached the marriageable age. Yet, I was determined to discover the truth of this rumor for myself. I resolved to watch her more closely from that day on.
When I realized that I had guessed right, I was enraged, and hit her hard like a madman. I even hit my wife whom I accused of condoning her wrong behavior. My rage had so maddened me that none of them escaped my wrath. That day our house assumed a funereal air. Priyani looked devastated, crying her heart out. Next day I did not go to office and waited till Nimal had turned up. Burning with rage, I walked over to him, and slapped him hard across the face. Yelling at him, I used my favorite phrase, `illiterate beggar’ to insult him. I was so full of wrath that I would have killed him then and there had my elder son not intervened and disengaged me from him. Needless to mention, he was dismissed right away. He walked away, an accursed loser with his shoulders bowed. Never did he return to the rice mill…..
After a lapse of three or four days things seemed to have returned to normal. Priyani was no longer wailing over her dismissed fiancé and seemed active and cheerful helping her mother. She was friendly with me too though I had begun to be rather too laconic following that incident. Deep in my heart, I was happy thinking that the storm was over and all that was a thing of history now……
There is always the calm before the storm. This I forgot choosing to believe rather optimistically that every dark cloud has a silver lining. On that fateful Wednesday while I was working in the office, I felt a severe headache, and told my chief that I was indisposed. A suave, kind-hearted man, he granted me leave as soon as I had revealed my necessity to him. ‘Go to Dr. Wijerathne’, he advised,’ or else you will fall sick and won` t be able to come to the office tomorrow’. Oddly enough, I never was able to go to work the following day. Leaving the office, I went to the dispensary, situated at a walking distance from our office. The physician prescribed some medicines and asked me to rest since he had diagnosed symptoms of fever, beginning to set in. But things so happened that I never got any opportunity to rest or relax that day.
As soon as I arrived at the Narammala bus- stand, I saw a Wariyapola- bound bus pulled in. Already a few passengers had taken seat. I seated myself on a front seat and leaned back, watching the people hanging around the bus-stand. There she was! It was not too difficult for my sharp eyes to make out her, who came strolling towards the same bus hand in hand with that pauper, Nimal. Never ever in my life had I felt angrier. That I was ill never crossed my mind. I sat bolt upright, got out of the bus, and marched towards them. They, being intoxicated with romance, did not notice until I was right under their very noses. When they did notice me, it was too late for them to retreat to a hideaway, so they stood statue-like with their very feet stamped to the ground.
Before I could speak out anything, my right hand whipped her hard across the face twice or thrice. Such was my diabolic rage which compelled me to hit her that I felt my whole body tremble. Gripping her by the wrist, I yanked her towards the bus and climbed her into it. Sitting beside me, she cried all the way home. At her weeping I hardly felt any sympathy with her. The more she sobbed and wept, the angrier I felt. Once we were home I hit her even harder and blamed her in the loudest tones possible. As usual she ran into her room and locked herself up. For more than an hour, I heard her muffled sobbing.
That night it rained heavily as strong howling wind continued to blow, drowning the otherwise annoying croaking of frogs. A muffled howl of dogs reached my ears, as I lay on my bed, too keyed up to sleep. That howl, and hooting of an owl gave me a premonition of a calamity to come......
Next morning coming out of the room, I observed an overcast sky, bleak surroundings and a garden flooding with rain water. I walked to the well stepping sideways to avoid poodles. Taking the pail in one hand, I peered into the well only to see the saddest spectacle I had ever seen in my life. My daughter` s still body was afloat on water. She was wearing the same dress that she had worn the day before. Her body floated on the water with her face downwards. I was so shocked by that horrific scene which greeted my sight that my hold on the rope did loosen, letting go of the pail which plunged down into the space and made a hollow sound as it hit the water. My wife, who was coming towards the well to fetch water, might sense that something was terribly wrong. In my mind` s ear, I can still hear her wailing, her lamenting for the lost child….
In her small boudoir, on her table, we found a short letter she had written shortly before she had committed suicide. In that letter, I can remember, she had written something like this, “…..Thaththi, I hope my death will serve to preserve our family` s good reputation….” Having read this letter, I, who had cried on few occasions before in my life, wept like a child. My poor child had sacrificed herself for the sake of our family` s good reputation!
My wife never blamed me, nor did my children. To all others, it was just another tragic event. They might forget it once her coffin had been committed to the ground or even earlier. Even for us the mourners, time did not cease to commiserate with us, and life ran its usual course despite the vacuum which her lamentable death had left in our lives and was never to be filled. But I knew they (my wife and children) secretly hated me for my cruelty. I knew they hated me just as much as I hated myself….
Today all my five children are living in clover, holding respectable positions being recognized by the society. Their spouses are from affluent, literate, influential families of superior castes. People respect them too. Except a passing remark, Priyani is hardly ever discussed by them who seem to have forgotten all that. All those painful memories seem to have been buried deep under the sands of Time. But I believe they, my wife and children still hate me just as much as they used to do in the past or even more. I have always been a good husband and a dutiful father. Or I think I have been one. But, my wife, will she ever forgive me for what I have done to her sweet, innocent daughter? And my children, will they ever forgive me for what I have done to their gentle, affectionate sister? And Nimal, who was stopped from even attending her funeral, will he ever forgive me for what I have done to his loving, innocent fiancée? Even if they were all to forgive me, could I ever forgive myself for what I have done to my poor, naïve child?
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