HAPPINESS AND COMPLAISANCE

My place of birth is udupiddy. This happens to be one of the numerous villages in Jaffna district. Those proficient in English almost forty or fifty years ago were scarce. Needless to say that those proficient in Sinhalese would have been very scarce.

subramaniam uncle known as ‘maniam uncle’ and ‘Colombo uncle via, Navaratnam of Navaratna uncle are my uncles.

Maniam uncle was hailed as a popular teacher in the area. He was quite popular among the local politician. He used to be very ferocious on political propaganda nettings. He loved me. He used to take me to temples, festivals and meetings by his bicycle. He used to emphasize that’s we should not study Sinhalese.

I remember the year 1963. There was an exhibition in Colombo. ‘Colombo uncle’ wrote to my father that it was worth while witnessing the Exhibition. It was the first occasion i visited ‘navaratnam uncle’s’ house in Colombo. I realized that he was known as ‘navaratna’ by his Sinhalese colleagues because of his fluency in Sinhalese in the course of trip to the exhibition and other itinerary. Suddenly five foreigners dropped in at my uncle’s residence, in a huge van. I learnt from uncle that they were enrooted to our county for a tennis match, from Japan. Uncle was one of the organizers of the match. Uncle’s house was spacious enough and contained sufficient facilities and hence they were provided accommodation there for ten days of their stay there.

I was about to dress up to proceed to the exhibition in the evening. I attempted to open the suit case to take out my apparel. I could not open the suit case to take out my apparel. I could not open my suit case, to remove my apparel. I beckoned my Aunty open it. She too could not open same. Uncle intervened with black grounding which resulted in rampant attempts to open the suitcase which too did not bring success. The Japanese uncle who watched the quandary intervened and managed to open it with first attempt it self. When we thanked him, his reply was “No, we must help others” When i served the tea prepared by my Aunty, in excitement it got spilt partly on the shirt of the Japanese uncle and on the around. He took the napkin found on the on the table and wiped the scare on his shirt. When I attempted to assist him he declined the offer and said ‘as far as is possible, we should not get any help from others’

It was indeed pleasant to listen to the conversation in English my ‘Colombo uncle’ had with the Japanese uncle. The Japanese uncles used to burst out in laughter in response to certain utterance of my Colombo uncle. My ‘Colombo uncle’ too used to laugh in turn. I was blank for reason of their laughter for no knowledge of the language. The Japanese uncles talked to me in English. They asked for my name, place of birth, and name of the school where I studied, to all of which i replied in English. My English proficiency could not allow me to proceed beyond above.

I was just perplexed to find the Japanese uncles interrupting in Tamil, when they found me hunting for terms in English. They spoke in other languages as well. Colombo uncle had a Sinhalese friend – Cyril. His English knowledge was a little better than mine. I was again surprised to find the Japanese uncles talking to him in Sinhalese. They generally spoke in English. They spoke in Sinhalese and Tamil as well. They spoke in a language completely alien to me, which I presume was Japanese. When I was surprise with their linguistic capacity my Colombo uncle replied look at the hand book they have. It embodies words used for essential purposes daily, their pronunciation, and their Sinhalese Tamil equivalents. They refer to the hand very often. Due to inquisitiveness, I went through one of Tamil Equivalent, viz, ‘thanneer’ and the Sinhalese equivalents ‘vaththru’ were found.

The equivalent to Japanese term – right hand- ‘soththukai’ was via, rice eating hand. I cleared my doubt from the Japanese uncles. ‘You are going to be in sri lanka for just ten days. Why do you take so much of pains to study out languages’ their reply was-

‘We Endeavour to study the sri lankan languages as far as is possible within these ten days. There by we can understand each other. We can avoid inconvenience. For example, if i ask for thaneer or vaththura in either Tamil or Sinhalese will it not is convenient?’ So continues my Japanese uncle-

I started intriguing as to why; we all born in this country should not be multi linguistic. I am well aware that I mispronounce in the course of my conversation in Sinhalese. Of course, I am not sound grammatically either. Nevertheless, my speeches are well understood by the Sinhalese brothers, and vice versa. How happy and complaisant when dual parties understand each others.

Translated by K.Markandan from Tamil