Making a sincere attempt to bring an unimagined and unexplored treasure trove of modern Sinhala literature to the English reading community, Montage is bringing Mahinda Prasad Masimbula’s award winning novel ‘Senkottan’ translated by
Malinda Seneviratne, veteran journalist, writer and poet.
‘Senkottan’ (The Indelible), a remarkable creation of literature by Mahinda Prasad Masimbula was his debut effort in his literary career for which he won the State Literary Award in 2013 and short-listed in Swarna Pusthaka Literary Awards and many other Literary Award Festivals in the same year. The book has been published by Santhawa Publishers and ‘Senkottan’ has blazed the trail in the self-publishing industry as one of the best-selling books in Sinhala literature.
CHAPTER 2, PART 3
Weerappuli Henaya’s youngest daughter, Heen Ridee, came up to Podina and Nambu Henaya. She was carrying a small bottle and a funnel. She poured small quantities of oil into the lamps by their sides and went into the house. She was more hurried than usual but this went unnoticed. It was half an hour earlier that Podina had shouted at her, ‘fill up the lamps with oil!’ Then again, since Heen Ridee was by nature quite stubborn this delay wasn’t unusual.
Podina could now see more clearly her husband and son in the revived light of the lamp. Nambu Henaya was even more emaciated than before. His ribs protruded so clearly that they could even be counted. His teeth were in a sorry state of decay and this added to Podina’s annoyance. He was loathe to bathe and his body as a result gave off an insufferable odour. He would wash his sarong but once a month. Podina, for her part, had never ever washed his sarongs. Gazing upon her husband’s scrawny frame for a while, Podina’s thoughts went back to that singular incident that had taken place around eight years previously. Although it gave her no pleasure, since it was a triumph of some sort, it was enough to make her feel good about herself in secret.
The entire village knew that Nambu Henaya was as absolute wimp. It was the desire to find a solution to a problem that could get worse that the thought of somehow capturing this man, who was a distant relative, entered her mind. Podina, just eighteen years at the time and convinced that she was with child, had decided that she had to think far ahead and act decisively.
There were two compelling reasons for this. The first was the incident of the woman Silo, who consumed the deadly niyangala root when she realized she was pregnant. Her death gave birth to all kinds of whispers among the villagers. The second concerned her friend Anohamy. She married a deformed man from Nagaspola. The village women frequently opined around that time that she was already pregnant when she got married and that the father of the child was Mister Handy of Nagolla. Mister Handy had even offered his car free of charge for the wedding and this, in their minds, was positive proof.
Podina had reflected long on both incidents. She did not have the strength to take her own life. She was greedy for her life on account of one distinct face. Her target however was the wimpy man named Nambu Henaya.
One day, as she was washing clothes, Nambu Henaya happened to come along the road by the paddy fields. Watching him enjoying himself thoroughly by throwing stones at parrots and doves feeding on the seeds of paddy, a plan began to form in her mind. Podina waved at Nambu Henaya. He came towards her shyly. She began to deploy some of the female wiles at her disposal.
‘Nambu Aiye, just look at this enormous mountain of clothes…It’s difficult for me to wash all these clothes all by myself. I’ll give you each piece that I wash. You just squeeze out the water from each piece and pile them on the rock over there. Even Amma is not at home. She has gone to some house where there’s a puberty ceremony. Could you do it, Aiye?’
‘I can…’ Nambu Henaya agreed without hesitation and with much gladness. He was wary of being anywhere close to where young women in the village gather because they would tease him with all kinds of crude conversation. There was nothing of the sort here.
She proceeded to implement the rest of her plan. She untied her hair and let it fall over her shoulders and then knotted it up again. All he could think of was that she had a head of hair far richer than that of any other village lass.
Podina, as though weary, drew a finger across her brow and her face and wiped the sweat on a sleeve of her jacket.
‘Look! Look here, Aiya…a bug has bitten me right here…oooh! It hurts!’
She stretched her arm towards him.
‘All you need to do is rub it with a sliced red onion,’ unperturbed and without emotion, the man continued to squeeze the water out of the washed clothes. A young man with any manhood, upon being offered the opportunity, would have crooned ‘does it hurt, my sweetheart?’ and grabbed the other arm as well. Such designs were beyond this weakling. Nevertheless, her young mind was conscious of the dangers of associating closely with other young men in the village. None of them would want to marry her.
This man was of their clan. Whatever would happen later, the first and most important thing was for her child to have a father. It wouldn’t be difficult to obtain the consent of her mother and father. Nambu Henaya was like a dried and wasted piece of straw but he was nevertheless a man if only in name. While these thoughts swirled in her mind Podina realized that nothing would come out of showing him the swelling on her arm. She began to think of an alternative strategy. This time she would not fail. She was very much aware of the fulness and power of her beauty. The best thing to do now would be to bare her chest unto him or else expose her thighs. If this didn’t work then it would mean that the challenge was more serious than she first imagined.
She remembered Mister Handy of Nagolla once saying that a poet looking into her eyes would be inspired to write an entire volume of poetry. On another occasion he had claimed that seeing her wrapped in the diya-redda or bathing cloth would be enough to make him spend an entire night alone but sated. She liked the first observation but didn’t care too much for the second. The first time she received a face mirror as the yield of a puberty ceremony she had realized that he was correct.
The position and shape of eyebrows, nose, cheeks and lips amazed her, in fact. Her unusual beauty had once persuaded the white man who owned the tea estate in Madampe to come looking for her. Since it was not possible to ride straight to their house, he had tethered the horse in the coconut plantation in Nagolla and walked through the paddy fields. He had invited her to the estate bungalow so that a photograph of her could be taken. That photograph would be sent abroad, he had said. Podina was pleased that she had been accorded an opportunity denied the other lasses in the village. Something her mother said made her decline the offer. She had told her that the white man’s libido was twenty to thirty times stronger than that of their own men.
‘Aiye, just as you helped me wash this mountain of clothes, there’s another big favour that I seek from you.’
‘What is it nangi?’ he asked, using the familiar kin term for little sister.
‘There’s a part of my body that is not easy for me to show you. It hurts. Oh well, why shouldn’t I show you….here…right here….’ she revealed her left breast.
‘I feel, Aiye, if someone were to squeeze it a little it would give me great relief. I am asking you because you are a good, innocent fellow. Now don’t you tell anyone about this…please Nambu Aiye, much merit would accrue to you…’
‘Oh no! How on earth could I do such a thing? Look at me. I am already trembling. How could I touch such things?’
It had become next to impossible to have her way in this matter and yet Podina was determined to get him to do the needful, regardless of what she felt.
‘There’s nothing to fear my sweet Nambu Aiye…just go down there to the talipot grove…not even a devil will be able to see us. Only you and I would know. Please Nambu Aiye, just do this for me. Even in the word of the Buddha it is said that it is an act of great merit to come to the aid of those in pain. Don’t you want to accumulate merit? Don’t worry if you feel too shy, I will teach you how to do it at the talipot grove.’ There was no one to be seen in the vast tract of paddy fields. Podina, having almost by force obtained the consent of Nambu Henaya, crept into the talipot grove with him. She found a suitable place to sit and got him to sit by her side.
‘If you feel shy at first, just close your eyes, Aiye. When I tell you, you can open them. That’s all…’ In a moment, upon her command, he opened his eyes to that wondrous world. Podina had released her perfectly formed breast from the jacket. This foolish man, again upon her command, stroked it with a trembling hand. Thereafter, in a matter of around fifteen minutes, their garments duly pushed aside, that momentous event took place. His manhood, less that halfway ready was nevertheless live enough to complete the task.