There is also the well known acceptance of the Muslims and Catholics into the Kandyan Kingdom, when they were persecuted by the Portuguese and the Dutch. Popular Buddhism has incorporated Hindu practices and Hindu gods. From the Gampola period onwards, the Buddhas temples also included Hindu dealers within its premises.

Once the British consolidated its power in Sri Lanka, around 1815, they began to use Christianity in support of its endeavours. They favoured Christians for jobs, and gave financial support to Christian schools. As a result, the Christians were able to move forward to a modern society, consisting of the prestigious professions like medicine and law, while the non-Christianity was equated with westernisation, which in turn was equated with progress. The Buddhists were looked down on as 'backward', while Christians saw themselves as the sole heirs to western civilization, such as English literature, western classical music. They looked down on the Sinhala language, and anything 'oriental' as backward.

By the 1860's the Buddhists had enough. They turned militant and subsequently, intolerant of Christianity. They engaged Christian missionaries in public debates, the most famous of which was the Panadura Debate of 1873. Holt has pointed out that Colonel Olcott was a retired army officer who had served in the American Civil War. 'Olcots talents were organisational strategies he had devised for success in organising battles in war. It was precisely these military skills that he successfully deployed in Sri Lanka. To create times of rally, to encourage parades of flags and marching, and to found schools of discipline where the practice of 'cadetting' remains very pronounced and a source of great pride to this day at Dharmaraja, Ananda, Mahinda Colleges. Buddhist schools excel in militarism. Olcott's militaristic approach to the revival of Buddhism, tempered by his own typically American anti-British sentiment, struck a profound chord of latent militancy among the Buddhist supporters, including the fiery Dharmapala'. (Holt p 7)

Christianity influenced Buddhism in several ways. It did not disturb the tests or the doctrine. But it affected the organisations involved in Buddhism. In order to combat the strong influence of Christianity, the Buddhists at the turn of the century, imitated their organisations. There arose the Young Men's Buddhist Association (YMBA) to match the YMCA. There arose 'Sunday Schools' to teach Buddhism to children, initiating the Sunday Schools set up by the Christian churches. There were Buddhist schools, which were modelled totally on the Christian schools and there was a rush to 'pray' in the temple. Buddhism got modernised. In the process it also reflected the prudish values of Victorian Britain under the impression that they were the ancient Asian values.

The Catholic Church also influenced Buddhism. The 'Dasa sil mathas' it could be argued were influenced by the Catholic nuns who were very visible in Sri Lanka upto the 1960's. The post-independence emphasis on setting up Buddha statues at road intersections, and other prominent public places can be traced to the Catholic tradition of setting up small wayside shrines to their saints and the Virgin Mary. These shrines can be seen on the road from Colombo to Marawila, today as well. (J. C. Holt. 'Sri Lanka's protestant Buddhism'. Ethnic Studies reports Vol. 8 (2) 1990 p 5)

Analysis
Let us now examine critically an article by David Scott titled 'Religion in colonial civil society: Buddhism and modernity in 19th century Sri Lanka' published in 'The Thatched Patio' July/August, 1994. The 'Thatched Patio' is a journal published by the International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Colombo. Scott's paper was first presented to audiences in Hyderabad and Colombo. Scott particularly thanks Radhika Coomaraswamy, Pradeep Jaganathan, Gananath Obeysekera and Regi Siriwardena for their critical comments. (p 16)

This article starts off as a review of Kithsiri Malalgoda's book, titled 'Buddhism in Sinhalese Society 1750-1990: a study of revival and religious change (1976). Having described this as a 'splendid book' Scott also describes it as rhetorical, polemical (p8, 10, 11) Malalgoda's well researched and highly acclaimed work is on the Buddhist-Christian confrontation, in the British period. He shows, with supporting data that the Buddhist religion defied all attempts to crush it, the priests of the Kandyan temples remained alert to this threat and that eventually the conflict was taken over by the temples in the low-country.

Thesis
David Scott uses this work as a take-off point to develop his own thesis on the place of Buddhism in Sri Lanka. Since his time frame is the 19th century, he places his phenomena also in the 19th century. Buddhism, for David Scott is a 19th century arrival in Sri Lanka. Why? Because terms such as 'religion', 'Hinduism' and 'Buddhism' are terms which were coined by the west. Competition between religions is also a 'western invention'. (Scott p 3)

Scott ignores two points here. That Europe was late in developing a civilisation, and that the great religious philosophies of Asia, notably Buddhism and Hinduism, also Confucianism, came up centuries before Europe woke up.

Scott's next point is that the Buddhism we know today is also an European invention. "... the new object 'Buddhism' was constituted by the West, particularly in England, in the first decades of the 19th century. It came to exist in its texts and manuscripts, at the desks of the western savants who interpreted it. It had become a textual object, defined, classified and interpreted through its own textuality' (Scott p 6). Tambiah in his 'Buddhism Betrayed' also made the point that Buddhism in British Ceylon was a 'Pali Text Society Buddhism'. (p 2) He is referring to the fact that the Buddhist texts used by the English speaking Ceylonese to learn about the dhamma, were primarily the works translated and published by the Pali Text Society of Britain. Though they are in English, they are translations of the Pali Texts on Buddhism. These texts were originally transmitted through oral tradition, from generation to generation of monks. Then they were written down in ola manuscripts, and these were preserved in the Buddhist temples throughout the long period of 400 years of colonial occupation.

Secularism
Scott's argument is that Buddhism was not originally a 'religion'. It was a philosophy. It was turned into a 'religion' during the colonial occupation. This point of view is not as original as Scott may think. This aspect of the development of Buddhism in Sri Lanka was discussed in the drawing rooms of the intelligentsia upto the 1960s. The Sri Lanka Buddhist was well aware of the difference between the deep and complex abhidharma, and the simpler religious expressions, such as pansil and offering of flowers. However, Scott does not stop there. Scott takes note of the fact that initially the Buddhists were tolerant of the intrusion of Christianity and were hospitable to it. The change, as Malalgoda suggests, came after 1860. Scott suggests that 'the reason for the lack of resistance on the part of the Buddhists was that there wasn't for them really a religion to defend. Buddhism had not yet come into being as a deployable ideological entity. There was no 'identity' to defend either.' Scott suggests that 'Buddhism' was invented as an adversary to Christianity. (Scott p 7-8)

We could discuss this straightaway. What Scott is saying here is that there is no known and documented tradition of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, as a distinct social institution in the ancient period. This could be treated as an abuse of the social sciences, in view of the fact that there is plenty of literature on the medieval period of Sri Lanka, indicating that Buddhism was a sophisticated and well developed institution at the time. Apart from that, it was also effective in North India during the time of King Dharmasoka. It is interesting to speculate as to the use that Scott's utterances could be put to. The Tamil separatist movement would have known that the Sinhala-Buddhist majority would challenge any historical claim made by the separatist movement, by pointing to a clearly documented history of 2000 years of Buddhist achievement in North Sri Lanka. They will point to the Mahavamsa, for a start. The Tamil separatist argument, using Scott would argue that there is no connection between the medieval history and present day Buddhism. Because contemporary Buddhism is a new thing invented under the influence of British culture.

Scott goes further. He suggests that the perspective in which the modern historian views the past of Sri Lanka, is also a colonial invention. The current beliefs about our ancient past, were invented by the colonial masters 'the liberal nationalist story of resistance to colonialism is to retain the overall framing of the colonialist narrative but to reverse the plot so that in effect, the nationalist can appropriate the place hitherto assigned to the colonialist'. (Scott p 10)

Scott thereafter runs aground. He gets stuck. He has nothing more to say. To the readers surprise, Scott thereafter goes off at a tangent, and introduces into the story of colonial Buddhism the totally unrelated concept of 'securlarism'. He describes, very inadequately, the rise of 'secularism' in Europe. In Europe Christianity moved from centre stage to the sidelines, where it functioned in limited spheres such as marriage, prayer and other aspects of a person's private life. Government, economy, and other aspects of community survival were taken over by other agencies. Now this is old hat, it is a part of the political history of Europe from the 16th to the 19th century. Scott misses the key issue in this. Christianity is a theistic religion. It is based on a blind belief in a single all powerful God. There is no similarity between Buddhism and Christianity.

Scott is of course perfectly well aware that he is discussing a religious issue which has its roots in the medieval period. So he has to say something about this. He prefers to the changing terminology of Buddhism over the period. He speaks of the terms 'Budu-samaya', 'sasana', 'agama', 'Bhuddhagama'. And argues that the words 'agama' and 'Buddhagama' and 'Kristiani agama' were coined in the British period because the Buddhists had no 'agama' before that. Malalgoda thereafter replied Scott. That was like a canon turning on a mouse. However, the amused Malalgoda pointed out that Scott had missed the most important word of all, 'sasana'. And that, for Scott Buddhism began in the 19th century.

Concluded

Continued from yesterday

About the author E.C.T. Candappa was one of Sri Lanka's been feature writers in the mid-fifties till the seventies. He was an outstanding journalist at Lake House and distinguished himself as a reporter and feature writer. He is now domiciled in Australia but still very much interested in his country of origin. He visited Sri Lanka last year and interviewed many of the personalities featured in this book.

And Raj placed his brown kit bag and wrapped lunch plate on the floor to await further developments.

The first one came in the shape and form of a buxom nurse with a bouncy step. Her manner crackled with efficiency as her uniform did with starch.

She pushed before her, apart from her well turned-out person, a trolley full of plastic jars full of pills, capsules and tablets. She seemed to know not only what they were (as well she ought to) but even exactly for whom they were meant. To some she gave tablets which they popped into their mouths and swallowed without any external assistance whatever. To others she gave a capsule and immediately after a glass of water with which to aid the capsule’s passage down the throat. Some were given a syrup on a spoon, and into some mouths she popped a thermometer and took their pulse sedately looking at her watch the while.

When she came to Raj she gave him three tablets of different colours, and a glass of water.

"What’s this for?" he asked.

"Swallow them," she said.

Assuming that someone knew what was happening, he swallowed them. In a few minutes, she was gone. He sensed that there was a collective release of tension immediately after. She had represented authority and now she was not there.

A babble of conversation even arose.

"What are you here for?" the patient next to him asked.

"For an operation," he said.

"Well, you won’t get a bed for months," he said. "That bloke over there has been here for three and a half months now..."

Something more immediate struck him.

"Where do you guys sleep?" he asked. "There are no beds..."

"We sleep on the floor..."

"On the bare floor?"

"Oh, no. They come and throw some mats at night. And pillows. There are some who don’t get a mat or a pillow. Well, we’re fair. If a bloke does not get a mat tonight, we give him one tomorrow. Same with pillows."

"You mean you get a different mat and a different pillow each night."

"Well, we don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not... How can you tell?"

Raj felt a spasm of nausea coming up to his throat. He took a quick decision. He was not going to wait for Papa. He was going to settle this matter himself.

He picked up his kit bag. The lunch plate he left where it was and moved away.

"Where to?" his companion asked.

"I’ll be back," he said.

He attempted to find the administration block and the precise office which would know of his reservation. When after half an hour he found it, the precise officer who would know his ‘case’ was ‘not in at the moment’, an euphemism which could cover a wide range of situations. He could be at the canteen having one of numerous cups of tea for the day, gone to the ‘bucket shop’ as the bookies’ establishment was called, to place a bet on the next race (run in England, France or Australia), gone out to do his personal marketing, gone to take his child home from school for lunch, simply gone home for the day, or not come in at all.

So having waited for this mystery individual for an hour, he decided to return to the ward, pick up his lunch plate, and having met his father somewhere, and go home.

The moment he returned to the ward, he sensed that something was gravely amiss.

Firstly, there was an uneasy hush. Secondly, while there had been bustle and movement earlier, life seemed to have been petrified. These might ordinarily have been due to the hour. It was well past the visiting times, meal times, tablet times. It was rest time and siesta time.

But what lent the scene the touch of drama was what or who stood at one end of the ward as Raj entered the other. It was the local boss, the matron of the ward. And if she had stood with her arms dangling idly by her portly side, that too would have been another matter. But her arms were on her hips, her feet were placed menacingly apart. And even at forty paces Raj could plainly see there was fire in her eye. Or more precisely in both eyes.

It was too late to turn back. That being the case he took the only other course a man in his situation could have done. He went forward.

His footsteps rang off the hard sterile floor. Or so it seemed to him. The matron began to loom larger and larger until finally there was what is usually described as an eyeball to eyeball confrontation.

A long moment of screaming silence.

All the patients were sitting up, some painfully supporting themselves on one elbow or the other. Newspapers and magazines had by now been discarded for the imminent explosion.

"Mr Raj," thundered the matron, enraged globules of spittle hissing forth between her teeth, "Mr Raj, where did you go?"

Mr Raj answered promptly on a much lower key.

"I went to the administration block."

"You went to the administration block," she spat back, clearly rejecting his explanation, word for word.

Still with her hands on her hips, she continued: "And do we know you went to the administration block?"

"I don’t know."

"You don’t know. Do you know we have been looking all over for you?"

"I’m sorry..."

"You’re sorry. What’s the use of your being sorry now?"

"Well, I mean I didn’t know..."

"You didn’t know. You should have known, Mr Raj. Do you know that some time ago a Chinaman left this ward without permission and that later his body was found floating in the Beira Lake? You should have had a greater sense of responsibility. You’re not a small boy now. You’re a big man..."

"I want to leave," he said.

"You want to leave?"

"Yes, go home..."

"But you came only in the morning. You can’t go without being discharged."

"Then discharge me," he said, desperately.

"I can’t discharge you. The doctor must come and see you."

"I don’t want to see the doctor. I want to leave."

"All right then, you must sign a form saying we are not responsible..."

"... if my body is found floating in a river?"

"... or anything."

"All right, where can I sign?"

He signed a form, picked up his bag and lunch, located his father waiting outside the gates, hailed a taxi and went home.

There he was greeted by his mother devastated by grief caused by the visit of a policeman alerted by the hospital and looking for the missing patient.

His mother, tortured by various tragic possibilities, was more than relieved on seeing him.

Lunch, explanations, a long sound nap, more explanations to neighbours all evening long.

And the following morning they returned to the hospital, this time accompanied by the hospital reporter (who had the additional qualification of being a netball referee and knew many of the nurses as well) who piloted him safely to the correct, paying ward: Ward 37.

Chapter 13

Ward 37 was in a single-storeyed separate building, away from the huge and sprawling complex of two-and three-storeyed buildings and a multi-storeyed one.

This had the appearance of a small villa, with a cosy verandah running along one side, a trellised wooden frame shielding it from the sun and glare.

Raj also noted there were several comfortable chairs with seats and backs of woven cane, the backs sloping for greater ease. Marvellous for reading, he reflected.

It was remarkably quiet, contrasting with the droning bedlam of the previous day. Outside the boundary wall vendors called out their wares; further away from an enormous Bo-tree came the muted cawing of crows.

When Raj and his father got off the taxi, the stooped, leathery hospital reporter lost no time at all in taking them to the ward. He introduced them to the nursing staff relaxing in a semi-alert way in their office.

The staff seemed to be a cheerful lot, and even the matron looked as remotely related to a dragon as it was possible for a hospital matron to look, Raj reflected, his inference coloured by the recent encounter.

Beside her were three other nurses, one dark, unusually tall for a Sri Lankan female, about five foot eight. She appeared to be glowing all over with an abundance of well-being. Her dark skin was clear and flawless and, like her red and full lips, untainted by any cosmetics. Her eyes were a light brown, and, to Raj, quite irresistible.

Next to her was a diminutive nurse, much older than the first one, gentle and frail in appearance and manner. Her light brown skin had a pallor to it and the powder on her face gave it a ghostly hue.

The third nurse was quite fair, the colour of whose skin was invariably likened to the colour of a ripe king coconut, ran thambili. The nearest comparison to those who have not seen a king coconut is a sunset sky seconds before it becomes florid. This colour belonged to those who hailed from the Kandyan hills. She would be an udarata manike, an up-country damsel, Raj concluded decisively.

It was she who was instructed to show Raj to his bed. "Come this way," she said, smiling. But she appeared to be smiling all the time because of the very slight protuberance of her teeth. She had a very undistinguished face, a short and flat, almost Japanese nose, pink lips, very black eyes, and straight black hair. From a difference in her uniform, Raj supposed she was a student-nurse.

She walked ahead with an awkward gait common to those who came from rural, peasant families and were not quite accustomed to wearing shoes. In their native villages, wearing the loose cloth wrapped around their waists with a low cut blouse and walking barefoot on grass and the good earth, no cultivated woman could match them for the supreme grace and harmony of their carriage. They were then, to the occidental eye, sun-lit Renoirs set to Schubert’s music.

She turned round and really smiled, and her whole body smiled. "This way," she said and turned into a room.

She stopped at an empty bed with sparkling white linen and a full bodied pillow.

Raj put his bag down. "Thank you," he said.

"And that’s your locker."

She looked at him for a few seconds longer, saying nothing in words, but her face was all womanly kindness which proclaimed, "Don’t be afraid. We’ll look after you."

And she was gone.

Raj felt exposed. He could sense every eye upon him.

He was pleased to note the absence of the smells of cooking and antiseptics that pervaded the public wards. Instead he smelt what was best described by the Sinhala expression, naum, the scent of damp clay or earth after it has been freshly watered. It came from the small patch of cultivated garden outside.

He turned to the locker and opened a drawer.

And at that precise moment someone behind him farted very loud. The drawer came right out and clattered to the floor.

He bent to pick up the drawer.

"Don’t be afraid," said an aged, rasping voice. "It’s only the wind." Raj turned round to accept the half apology. The occupant of the bed directly opposite was a very old man with a gaunt skull-like head, a dark face further blackened by age, with a thin layer of docile, silky-looking grey hair on the top of his head and forming a halo like fringe around on the sides.

His arms, over the sheets, were lean and skeletal. He smiled. His teeth were strong, drawn, yellowed with time, and reminded Raj of piano keys. His mouth was mocking and mischievous. He beckoned with his bony fingers.

Raj went up and stood at the foot of the bed.

He beckoned him closer.

"Don’t be afraid," he said, again.

"Oh, I’m not afraid," Raj assured him.

"I’m Murrel," he said.

Quite dark for a Burgher, thought Raj. Burghers were the small minority of persons of western descent. Some traced their ancestry to the Portuguese, some to the Dutch, some to the British, all of whom at one time or another in the course of five hundred years had colonised Ceylon, as Sri Lanka was known at one time.

The majority of Burghers had occidental features, sharp noses, light eyes, occasionally fair hair, were taller than the average Sri Lankans. In the course of the years they too had intermarried, and there were hundreds whose features had been modified and whose skins were brown or quite dark.

There are no Sri Lankans with the dark skins of Negroes or Aboriginals.

Raj looked again at Murrel.

He could also have been a Tamil from Jaffna in the north. They had come under the influence of the American missionaries who, when they intermarried or baptised children, gave them American names; and so that the mostly dark-skinned northerners, had incredibly western-sounding names like Murrel, or Emerson, or Bartlett, or Wilkins, or Tierney.

But Murrel, Raj learnt later, was a Burgher, and because of the colour of his skin had been unable to migrate to Australia owing to the White Australia policy. It had been the dream of Burghers to go and live in Australia where they felt they would be culturally more comfortable and enjoy the good life which to most meant richer food, better liquor, and a higher income.

Centuries of domicile in Sri Lanka had not quite turned them into natural Sri Lankans. They still spoke the local languages, Sinhala and Tamil, with anglicised and stilted accents if they ever deigned to speak them at all. They believed in a combination of ill-informed arrogance that these were the languages of domestic employees in the case of the Sinhalese, or of tea estate Indian labourers and latrine coolies.

There were exceptions. Those few Burghers who had been educated in the north, in Catholic and Anglican missionary schools of the utmost excellence and who had come to know the Tamils in their transparent honesty, guilelessness, and their weaknesses --- their passion for gold, money and pensionable jobs --- these respected and loved the Tamils. Indeed, many Burghers returned often to Jaffna, as often as possible, to resume contact with the friends of their youth and to sit under palmyrah palms and drink of the special nectar of the north, the palmyrah toddy, and savour northern food like kottai kelangu and raja velli kelangu, their unmatchable cooking, especially a rich broth called "khool".

As a journalist, Raj was conscious that even this very ward, with just eight patients, was a microcosm of the political and social structure of the country. Even here the echoes of the racial riots in which thousands had been killed just a year ago were heard.

Murrel placed a bony hand on Raj and drew him close to his face. "I’m the most senior patient here," he whispered, "three months. Others come and go. Not me. I know every bugger here. Any problem, just let me know, okay. I’ll fix it."

He tossed his head slightly to indicate the patient on his right. Raj couldn’t see anything of him, for he was covered from head to toe with a sheet.

"He’s only pretending," whispered Murrel. "The old bugger knows everything that’s going on here. Thambi fellow," he explained, using a common expression for a Moslem. The tiny corner store trader, often clean-shaven, universally known as thambi, was known to be as ubiquitous in Ceylon as the crow.

Another of the several minority communities in Sri Lanka, they came originally as traders, and they were even now principally traders. Their detractors said that their main motivation was profit, to themselves, either individually or as a community. They were lampooned for their ever-shifting loyalties. Within their numbers could have been found the extremes of wealth and poverty. In their time, they had suffered a season of bloody rioting at the hands, again of the Sinhalese. Under a semblance of amity sealed sometimes by political alliance, the two racial groups had a deep suspicion and contempt for each other.

This Moslem, Raj discovered later, was a 72-year old retired school teacher called Haniffa, inveterate gambler, racy raconteur, crafty draughts player, and part- time cashier in a gambling den located in Maradana, the heartland of Colombo’s crime. He looked a shell of a man whose light brown skin was silky soft and puckered with age. He had a sad face and sad eyes, like burnt out embers. He was, with all that, a very devout Moslem who even while he was in hospital recited prayers the prescribed five times a day. One of the reasons for covering his head with a sheet was for the purpose of praying undisturbed. During this time, someone, a patient or attendant, would make a derogatory reference to him, and the only indication that he had heard was a vigorous wiggle of his toes under the bed sheet.

He believed with the simplicity that sometimes comes with old age that he fooled the people; and sometimes even he was fooled by the sudden, swift onset of slumber.

In the course of the next few hours, Raj became acquainted with the other patients.

On his left was a village schoolmaster, a Sinhalese with sharply defined features, well defined political opinions and prejudices, a flashing smile and a cutting tongue. He demonstrated in his attitudes another line of demarcation in Sri Lankan society, the class line. His values were intensely traditional, and he despised the stenographer at the far end of the ward, aligned to him though he was by race and religion, which was Buddhism, for his westernised ways and outlook. On Raj’s right was Ranasinghe, a technical workman employed by the Electrical Department. He was, from Raj’s experience, the lower rung type of Sinhalese chauvinistic person, very bigoted on matters of "race and religion," fiercely aligned in politics to one of the innumerable political parties battling for votes in a very vigorous democracy.

Raj got on well with him from the start, basically because he was professionally inclined to get on with anyone, to listen, to get a story, not to alienate anyone, and also because he was quite fluently trilingual and had no racial and religious biases. Until he gave his name, no one could have guessed to which group he belonged.

Whenever a storm of argument was raging, Raj would remain calm, moderating, clarifying issues, calming tempers. Even a testy news editor who rarely if ever dished out compliments referred to him as ‘the eye of the storm’ which, considering the source of the compliment, really took back what it gave.

This man, Raj found, was basically decent and sought to reassure Raj that there was nothing to be afraid of. He had on an earlier occasion also undergone a hernia operation and he had not felt any pain.

Raj, however, felt a thin edge of displeasure towards him because he had addressed him as thamusey, a term which did not denote respect. It was usually employed when referring to social inferiors or tradespeople. It was slightly higher than umba, used by employers and parents. Equals were addressed as oya, superiors as ohe, and as one climbed the hierarchy, obawahanse, thamunwahanse and uthumaneni. As Raj noted the difference in station, he expected the technician to call him mahatmaya, or sir, or at least oya. Raj was quite liberal in his outlook but social distinctions and the nuances of address and behaviour were very subtly absorbed from birth, and people reacted almost reflexively.

With the arrival of lunch and the avalanche of visitors, Raj had to interrupt his tour of familiarisation. And after lunch he had nothing else to do but sleep since everyone else turned in for the afternoon siesta.

He lay quietly looking up at the somnolently whirring ceiling fan and listening to the ponderous ticking of the clock in the squat tower nearby.

He could not even think of sleep. He was restless. The mattress was hard, the pillow too high, and everywhere were the background sounds of a big hospital.

All the voices were from staff and there seemed to be no attempt at all to speak in subdued tones, let alone keep silent, as befitting a time set apart for rest.

Raj wondered when the surgeon would come to see him, when he would be taken for the operation, how long he would have to remain here. One week at the most, he hoped, trusting there would be no complications. There was much to be done before the trip.

He turned over, as though optimism could be found on the other side.

A pair of black, beady eyes was watching him. It was the patient at the head of the ward, just by the door. He had covered himself in the heat of the day, from feet to head, just leaving his round oily face open. It was cherubic, in the plump sense, and fair as North Indians are fair. A tuft of jet black hair showed under the edge of the white sheet.

When he had caught Raj’s eye, he pulled the sheet down, propped himself on one elbow and said, "How?" And when he grinned, his teeth were small and sound, and red with betel stain. Was this a Ceylonese habit that he had absorbed, Raj wondered, or did the Indians too chew the leaf of the betel vine, laced with the arecanut whose astringence mixed with lime and saliva left a blood red stain on lips, tongue and teeth, and in the case of excessive use, caused cancer of the mouth?

Taking this ‘how’ to mean a desire to chat and being quite bored Raj walked across and asked how he was.

He promptly sailed into a long and detailed description of his ailment, hydrocele, a concise medical history of treatment up to that point including accounts of physicians and surgeons he had consulted both in Sri Lanka and India and what he thought of the prospects before him, especially in relation to his marriage plans. He was rather impatient to have this matter attended to early so that his share of the patrimony would be given to him upon marriage and he could set himself up in business as soon as possible.

(c) E.C.T. Candappa

(Continued tomorrow)