SRI LANKA - CAMEOS - LAD OF THE SANDS

THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE IS PUBLISHED FROM THE BOOK 'CAMEOS '- BY THE LATE SAM WAIDYASEKERA (1936-1972), WITH THE APPROVAL OF HARRY WAIDYASEKERA, THE EDITOR.

THE PASSAGES OF THIS BOOK CONTAIN SOME REPRESENTATIVE WRITINGS OF THE LATE SAM WAIDYASEKERA WHO DIED AT AN EARLY AGE OF THIRTY SIX. THEY FORM A SMALL PART OF A CONSIDERABLE NUMBER OF MANUSCRIPTS, LEFT BEHIND BY SAM WAIDYASEKERA, AND HAVE BEEN EDITED AND PUBLISHED PARTLY IN MEMORY OF HIS LABORS OVER SEVERAL YEARS AND PARTLY AS THEY PROVIDE AN INSIGHT INTO HIS KEEN POWERS OF OBSERVATION AND PHILOSOPHICAL MENTALITY INTO MANY MATTERS, RANGING FROM THE APPARENTLY TRIVIAL TO ONES OF A MORE REFLECTIVE NATURE.

WRITTEN IN A CLEAR,DELIGHTFUL AND OFTEN HUMOROUS STYLE AND LANGUAGE,THEY PORTRAY THE AUTHOR'S ATTITUDE AND OBSERVATIONS ON ORDINARY AND SIMPLE FOLK HE MET IN REAL LIFE AND PLACES HE VISITED DURING HIS RAMBLINGS AND WHICH CREATED AN IMPRESSION IN HIS VIVID MIND. CAMEOS IS DIVIDED INTO THREE PARTS, THE FIRST CONTAINS PROFILES OF MANY PERSONALITIES AND CHARACTERS HE CAME ACCROSS IN ORDINARY LIFE; THE SECOND, HIS IMPRESSIONS IN VERSE AND THE THIRD PART AN ACCOUNT OF SOME PILGRIMAGES AND EXCURSIONS.

HIS WRITINGS ON MORE DEEPER MATTERS OF A SCIENTIFIC, METAPHYSICAL AND ESOTERIC CHARACTER ARE CONTAINED IN ANOTHER VOLUME ENTITLED 'ESSAYS ON SCIENCE AND THE ESOTERIC'.

LAD OF THE SANDS

He was slim and delicate with two bony hands hanging on the pingo by the heap of sand. His navy blue shorts was a mesh of holes and stitches. He was by no means bright and energetic. He bore the innocence of a child, he was yet a child. His age was twelve or thirteen, he said in pensive reflection. There was a tenderness in his physique. "I attend the Church school, I am in standard five," but these answers were not direct or sharp.

He wore the pinky flush if a soft young leaf but bore the desultoriness of a shabby existence. His father was blind in one eye and sick these days, his mother unemployed and there were four children in the family. A relative helped occasionally, he often went hungry in the morning and sometimes in the night. A piece of bread, a helping of bread fruit constituted his daily diet. And they gave a biscuit at school.

He had to shift sand to get some money for books and other school expenses. But shifting sand from the shore across the railway line on to the sand yard where carts load and remove it is a competitive business. Sturdy women are at the job and they wield a greater influence among the carters. "See" said the lad sheepishly "a cart is being loaded from their heaps."

Before school and before the sun rose hot and high he could haltingly shift about seven pingo loads. After school in the evening with the dipping sun he could load another seven, all in all about one cart load. The sand women could heap up about three times this amount over across on the yard. And after his heap was made he had to go about seeking and soliciting carters and their carts, a tiresome and difficult business with small success.

This was his first trip for the evening.I helped load his pingo baskets with sand from his heap off the shore with a mamotty and cleaning the ropes of the sand, bent down to try it on my shoulders. Oh lord! what deadly weight. A shock went through my body, I staggered and thought my back would break. I looked at the lad in dismay. The lad seemed amused at my discomfort. I said "This is far too heavy for you." "It is heavy' he indicated. I take it with several stops. We lessened sand to his normal amount. He lifted the pingo on to his small back and holding each bundle of rope with each hand gingerly started walking up the mound. He rested when two trains whizzed pass each other on the tracks, and I watched on as he labored on to the yard and emptied his load quietly on an unobtrusive corner, while the loads of the women and sturdy carters held the center of the court.