- Behind the Ironing Board
Hiding for hours
behind the ironing board
in the stuffy room at the back of the house,
body rigid with fatigue and fear.
How much longer?
Will they find her?
Burn her—as they did the others?
Outside, the voices of Nona and her mother,
nonchalance carefully masking naked fear.
In a corner of the room,
on the pallet-bed, Mahattaya—
Usually so loud with life,
whose kindness made the loneliness
bearable. Now lies, silent and stiff.
Paralyzed. Petrified.
She dozes, and dreams
of the highlands of her childhood.
The air fresh and spicy
like the tea she and Amma used to pluck,
Chilly nights in the little line-room,
squashed between Akka and Thambi,
Stomach hollow with hunger,
heart heavy with hope.
She came to Colombo
in the winter months of ’82.
Eyes dazed with the heat and hurry.
Crying herself to sleep, clutching letters from home—
“We bought shoes for Thambi, and school books,
medicine for Appa’s cough-
with the money you sent.”
Amma’s words—
Such a comfort and consolation.
Looking after Baba.
Baba—such a strange conundrum
of angel and devil: a temper erupting
like a burning cauldron.
Little fists beating her,
A tongue scalding her.
Yet, Baba—cuddling close, sharing sweets,
chattering endlessly, calling her name.
Baba now, crouching beside her
Behind the ironing board,
the mischievously wicked face—now wan.
Sent to the back room with sharp orders
not to speak so loudly in Tamil.
Voices. Violent, virulent, veering closer.
Loku Nona’s voice, calm.
“We’re Sinhalese.”
Silence.
I breathe again.
They are leaving…
But then—a rough voice.
“Where are your daughter’s husband and child?”
I stop breathing, pull Baba close—
eyes seared, heart raging.
Waiting for the flames
To rise, engulf—
And burn us,
Whole.
2. Rapture that Never Knew my Name
Slipping in guiltily,
like a would-be thief for sweets,
I stand, outwardly nonchalant,
behind the empty pews.
Memories flooding like a spring breaking free—
Sunday mornings,
lost in dreams while the priest intones,
knees gritty from kneeling on unswept floors.
Amma’s voice—tinny in its high pitch,
singing lustily to prudish hymns.
Rising, kneeling, crossing, genuflecting.
Waiting for the rapture
which never came.
Now, older than Amma was then,
inside that familiar, sacred space,
by chance, not choice,
I stand again, listening—
for rapture that never knew my name.
3. After our Laughter
He used to walk down our middle-class lane
every Saturday afternoon,
A boy my age—a barefoot scarecrow,
with a heavy sack of cow-dung.
Walking bravely,
a smile as bright as summer—
amidst the boos
and insulting names.
A smelly, funny creature selling cow-dung
to fertilize our plants.
Pausing in the midst of hide-and-seek, hopscotch,
badminton and blind-man’s-buff,
we laugh and cheer at this hilarious distraction
from our conventional, cosy, Colombo existence.
A cheerful clown with cow-dung.
Years wheel by,
neighbours scatter,
games give way to grown-up routines,
childhood memories blur into nostalgia.
Until, one Saturday afternoon—
A gleaming car.
A tall, polished stranger.
Something suddenly familiar
in that smile—as bright as summer.
