The PC (prisons commissioner ) who made his daily rounds in the area where miscreants were awaiting the ultimate punishment was also in the daily habit of reading the scribblings on the walls that emitted their last thoughts. He was so affected by them that he codified them into an exercise book and told the trainees that one day all that would be out in book form.
Needless to say, the past is dead and gone. Huge boulders of rock, block even a peep into the past. However, in an idle moment I resurrected a memory of the weekly assemblies held in the Teacher Institutes I once headed. Three of them catered to females that provided me enough fodder to pen some emotional memoirs that came out in the book form of Memoirs of 3 Teacher colleges.
The weekly assembly always had as its feature an address by the head. To modulate the boredom, I initiated a system of inviting persons of note to edify the students without my waxing repetitive stuff.
Teacher
The first great invitee was the chief incumbent of a temple in the proximity who elucidated the main sources of knowledge that would mould a good teacher personality.
As pages can be expended on this content, let us move on to the speaker of the next week.
He was Director of the TE establishment and whether he liked it or not I told the students that so far they have only seen his signature, but now, here he was in flesh and blood. Of Muslim blood of course, if there is a variety like that. He too spoke similar stuff. Even the words used were similar, high sounding words. The girls were not much surprised at his high flown Sinhala, for I had introduced him aptly. In fact, I had told them that though he was of Islamic faith he listened to Buddhist Bana preaching daily. When I informed that to the students in my formal introduction of the speaker, they were almost shocked.
But Dr . Ahamed was very frank about his erudition of Sinhala. At first, he had just been a casual audience to the Bana but the big words used , entranced him.
Overdose
Next, he traced the content via the words. There seems to be not much difference between what was doled out by the two preachers. Both upheld lofty ideals that could shape a sound personality.
Anyway, feeling that the students were having an overdose of religion (though it could never be an overdose) , I invited a different person the next week. What was the difference? A big difference. This speaker roosted close to the noose, the noose used for hanging humans. Of course not many were hung and not a single woman hung. Yet, a few incorrigible males were hung mostly at Bogambara.
The PC (prisons commissioner ) who made his daily rounds in the area where miscreants were awaiting the ultimate punishment was also in the daily habit of reading the scribblings on the walls that emitted their last thoughts .He was so affected by them that he codified them into an exercise book and told the trainees that one day all that would be out in book form.
Death
Of course, I have yet to see the published book, as he himself underwent an untimely death on the highway.
But, these are some of the gem pieces, that served almost as links among the different faiths in the island.
“I am here today because I killed my sister who married a Christian. The Christian too was killed by me”
Goes on the man in verse form,
“Three lives lost all for the sake of an unseen God who lived only in our hearts”
And here was the next scribbler,
“I am about to die, for I killed my mother-in-law. No honour killing though. Simply an uncontrolled spurt from the heart.
I tell all of you, control your emotions, especially, those that go against one’s religion”.
Far down is a verse, scribbled by nobody knows whom. Some say the truth dawns on one when one is about to depart the world.
“Faith controls human actions. It teaches you what is right and wrong. I am about to depart to a world unknown where I maybe better disciplined”.
Not much difference among the preachers and non-preachers , both of the different denominations.
Blood
And so much for Sanhidiyawa or absence of it! The preachers will have no blood in their hands, but, there was recently one with palms red. The above mentioned PC once got me a chance to talk to him at Welikade prisons and he had this to say,
“I never killed anybody, least of all my wife. What happened was, one day a beggar came to my garden and cursed me, for ignoring him. He spoke in Sinhala and I was ignorant of that language for we had just come from overseas. He cursed me saying that one day I will die of a cruel incident.”
As to how he understood that curse is a riddle. Only the Gods know in which way the destiny of humans change , preachers or not.