NEW DELHI, September 24: Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif took a set of far-reaching decisions at their meeting in New York on Wednesday. Analysts here say that, if implemented faithfully, they can indeed change the lives of the subcontinent’s one billion-plus people for the better.

Vajpayee described the outcome of his second summit meeting with Sharif in less than two months as the “opening of a new chapter” in Indo-Pak relations. It may be recalled that, when they first in Colombo in late July, Sharif was so disappointed with the talks that he dubbed their result as “a big zero.”

The dramatic change in the atmosphere has been clearly brought about by India’s decision to accede to the Pakistani demand to discuss Kashmir on a priority basis. India and Pakistan will now resume official-level talks next month (October 15-18) in Islamabad, after a gap of thirteen months.

India and Pakistan had fought three bloody wars since the partition of the subcontinent 51 years ago. After the two countries went nuclear in May this year, fears have been expressed across the globe that they may use nuclear weapons against each other if and when another war breaks out between the two.

But if the signals emanating from the Vajpayee-Sharif summit are any indication, the world need no longer worry about a possible nuclear holocaust in South Asia.

When Indian Foreign Secretary K Raghunath meets Pakistan’s Shamshad Ahmed in Islamabad, the two men will discuss two main subjects: Kashmir, and Peace, Security and Confidence-Building Measures (CBMs). The other six contentious issues, identified as problem areas by the two sides some 15 years ago, will be discussed by as many working groups of officials in New Delhi in November.

The second phase of the resumed dialogue will involve both countries’ Secretaries looking after as many as six Minis- tries, namely: Defence, Commerce, Home (Interior), Culture, Water, and Power.

The discussion on the Siachen Glacier will involve senior Defence Ministry Personnel, while Surveyors-General may take part in the talks on the Sir Creek issue (which pertains to the controversy over maritime boundary off the Kutch coast).

The discussions on the Wullar barrage (Tulbul navigation) project will involve officials dealing with water and irriga- tion, while senior commerce ministry officials will be engaged in confabulations over how to improve economic and commercial relations between the two neighbours. Talks on Terrorism and Drug Trafficking will draw officials from the Home or Interior ministries.

What will be of particular interest to those families divided by partition and tourists of average means on both sides of the Indo-Pak border is the two prime ministers’ decision to introduce a direct bus service between Delhi and the famed Pakistani city of Lahore.

The 502-km (314-mile) Delhi-Ambala-Ludhiana-Jalandhar- Amritsar-Lahore road is part of the great Grand Trunk Road laid out 450 years ago by Sher Shah Suri from Peshawar (Pakistan) to Sonargaon (Bangladesh). The Delhi-Lahore road network has not been used since 1947.

The proposed bus service will literally revolutionise business and commerce by connecting some of the most prosperous busi- ness centres in India’s Punjab state with its neighbouring Punjab province in Pakistan.

The Vajpayee-Sharif duo also decided to revive the rail link between the Indian border town of Manabao (Rajasthan) and the Pakistani town of Khokrapar (Sind) This crucial rail-link was discontinued after the 1965 war between the two countries.

This will open up a second route for commerce and tourism.

The off-again, on-again hotline between the two prime ministers’ offices in New Delhi and Islamabad is also going to be restarted a second time in less than two years!

Both sides also decided to stop firing by their security forces along the Line of Control (LoC). Such firing is almost a daily occurrence these days, particularly in the Jammu and Kashmir area along the Indo-Pak border.

The two leaders have asked their officials to work out modali- ties to enable India to buy electricity from Pakistan. This will help both the countries. While Pakistan now produces more power than it needs, India is perennially short of power. India now buys power from Nepal, Bhutan and is negotiating an agreement to buy some power from Bangladesh as well.

Incidentally, in May this year, the Pakistan Cabinet’s Econom- ic Coordination Committee (ECC) had decided, in principle, to sell 1,500-2,000 MW of surplus power, being produced by inde- pendent power producers (IPPs), to India.

In addition, the prime ministers also agreed that visa rules should be relaxed to help reunite divided families, and to encourage more Indians and Pakistanis to visit each other’s countries. They plan to increase cultural exchanges and to check hostile propaganda against each other.

On paper at least, what has been agreed to in New York appears impressive. But this is not for the first time that India and Pakistan are taking such sensible decisions. In the past, they remained only on paper. Will it be any better this time? Only time can tell. And the outcome of the foreign secretaries’ talks on Kashmir next month will give us a pretty good clue.

Many well-meaning but misguided Catholics today think that a priest who offers the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass according to the traditional Roman Missal is disobedient. Some even say that he is divisive, that he is guilty of schism, that he harms the Church.

These wholly unfounded opinions have no true theological basis. The following treatise gives proofs that every priest has the right always and in every suitable place to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass according to the Latin Roman Missal promulgated by Pope St. Pius V, on July 14th, 1570. Of the various arguments proposed by scholarly theologians; we give here three main proofs, then follow with confirming conclusions.

The first argument is based on the Canon Law of the church. Bishop Antonio de Castro of Campos, Brazil, speaking over “Radio Culture” of his city, and in a pastoral letter to all his priests, stated: “In full harmony with the Church, all priests may continue to celebrate the traditional Mass of St. Pius V.” The prayers and rite of this Mass were prepared by the most scholarly traditional liturgists and theologians available and were made to confirm to the best tradition of the past history of the Church. When finished, it was evident that it was a powerful safeguard against the errors of the so-called Protestant Reformers, Luther, Zwingli, Knox, Calvin, Cranmer.

Seven years (1563-1570) exhaustive research assured the Mass’ conformity with the true tradition of the Church. Hence, Pope St. Pius V ordered that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass be offered according to this Missal in the Western Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in perpetuity — forever. Thus the Church was to be safeguarded against heresy and to have a most effective bond of unity through the Latin language, as Pope Pius XXI and other Popes have repeatedly stated.

Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer’s claim was based on an incontrovertible argument. This argument rests on incontestable theological and juridicial truth. He said: “According to Canon law now in force, a custom which is centuries old or exists from time immemorial, may be considered abrogated only when such an abrogation is explicitly declared. This is stated in Canon 30. The following criticisms of the New Mass reinforce this argument and supply background for the second argument. Cardinal Ottaviani, for twenty-five years head of the Holy Office (the Vatican Congregation charged with defence of the truth of Catholic Doctrine), and Cardinal Bassi, together with a number of Roman theologians, examined the New Mass. Their response, the ‘Ottaviani intervention’ emphasizes: “In spite of the brevity of this study, if we consider the innovations implied or taken for granted, which may of course be evaluated in different ways, the Novus Ordo Missae (New Order of Mass) represents, both as a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as it was formulated in Session XXII of the Council of Trent. The canons of the rite, definitively fixed at that time, provided an insurmountable barrier to any heresy directed against the integrity of the mystery.”

“The pastoral reasons adduced to support such a grave break with tradition — even could they stand up in the face of doctrinal consideration — do not appear sufficient. The innovations of the Novus Ordo Missae and the fact that all that is of perennial value finds only a minor place, if it subsists at all, could well turn into a certainty the suspicion already prevalent, alas, in many circles, that truths always believed by Christians can be changed or silenced without infidelity to that sacred deposit of doctrine to which the Catholic Faith is bound forever. Recent reforms have amply shown that fresh changes in the liturgy could lead to nothing but complete bewilderment on the part of the faithful, who already show signs of restiveness and of an indubitable lessening of faith. Amongst the best of the clergy, the practical results is an agonizing crisis of conscience of which numberless instances come to our notice daily.”

The ‘Ottaviani intervention’ requires careful examination by every priest and bishop concerned for the welfare of the Mass, of the Church, and for the salvation of souls, though it lists only some of the grave objections to the New Mass evident to any adherent of the traditional, unchanged, unchangeable Catholic Faith. “We have limited ourselves,” say these experts, “to a summary evaluation of the new Ordo Missae where it deviates most seriously from the theology of the Catholic Mass, and our observations touch only those deviatios which are typical.

There are reasons for these grave deviations from defined Catholic doctrine especially concerning the propitiatory Sacrifice of the Mass, in which Jesus Christ, through the ministry of the priest, continually renews, in an unbloody manner, the Sacrifice which he offered on Mount Calvary for man’s redemption. One reason is that the New Mass was drawn up in collaboration with six Protestant ministers, whose destructive influence is the New Mass with the sublime and orthodox prayers of the traditional Roman Latin Mass.

The second and third argument are based on the unchangeable natural law imposed on human nature by the eternal law of God. The Ten Commandments of God are expressions of the natural law. This law, implanted in man’s nature by God, forbids such sins as blasphemy, sacrilege, idolotry and violations of sacred guarantees, agreements and contracts, especially when they concern matters of grave and serious importance. The same natural law forbids such crimes as murder of the innocent, calumny, defrauding the poor of their means of livelihood, and robbery.

Catholic moral theology teaches clearly that the Natural Law always binds and allows of no exceptions.

The second arguement is based on the sacred obligation of oaths, binding by virture of the natural law. From the point of view of this inviolable law, every priest may celebrate the Mass of the traditional Roman Missal because in the past, all priests were required, before their ordination, to swear on oath of lifelong fidelity to the Tridentine Profession of Faith, they also swore to defend the Church against the heresy of Modernism.

Neither Paul VI’s Apostolic Constitution on the New Mass nor any official Vatican document even suggests that priests who took that oath with their hands on the Gospel have been released from it. There is no existing document stating that bishops and priests have been released from this oath. There is no evidence that the Pope has in any way absolved priests from these solemn oaths. In fact, how can they without their consent be absolved from, or coerced to act contrary to, these solemn oaths voluntarily taken?

To claim that a priest may thus violate with impunity and without sin a sacred oath is contrary to Natural Law; such a claim is destructive of all theology.

The third argument is based on the inviolable obligation of fidelity to sacred and solemn agreements, guarantees and contracts, especially when great and serious matters are involved, binding by virtue of the natural law. At every priest’s ordination (before Vatican II and Paul VI changed things), the young man in the prime of his life was required to make at least three serious lifelong commitments.

(1) Vow celibacy for the rest of his life.

(2) Obligation, under pain of mortal sin, to say the many prayers of the Divine Office, the priests’ breviary, daily all the days of his life, as prescribed by the Church.

(3 Obligation, generally binding under pain of mortal sin, to obey the many canons of the law of the Church (Canon Law) concerning the administration of the Sacraments, his legitimate superiors, and laws concerning the way of his priestly life.

The Church on its part, through the Bull of Pope St. Pius V, ‘QUO PRIMUM’, guaranteed to every priest in the most solemn, forceful, reassuring terms the Church could use the right to use the traditional Latin Missal — and that every priest would be wholly free to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass everywhere and all the days of his life, according to this rite. Thus the right of every priest to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass according to the decree contained in Pope St. Pius V’s QUO PRIMUM’ is guaranteed him at a most sacred moment of his life, as he enters the sacred Order of the Priesthood: “Specially do we warn all persons in authority of whatever dignity or rank, Cardinals not excluded, and command them as a matter of strict obedience never to use or permit any ceremonies or Mass prayers other than the ones contained in this Missal. At no time in the future can a priest, whether secular or order, ever be forced to use any other way of saying Mass. And in order once and for all to preclude any scruples of conscience and fear of ecclesiastical penalties and censures, we declare herewith that it is by virtue of our Apostolic Authority that we declare and prescribe that this present order and decree of ours is to last in perpetuity, forever; and never at a future date can it be revoked or amended legally. And if, nevertheless, anyone would dare attempt any action contrary to this order of ours, handed down for all times, let him know that he shall incur the wrath (iram) of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles, Peter and Paul.”

Confirming conclusions: It is clear that the New Mass is so worded as to favour the heretical doctrines of the so-called reformers of the sixteenth century. It has been publicly admitted by Max Thurian, one of the Protestant collaborative devisors of the New Mass, that Protestants can now accept and use it without qualms of conscience. “Observatore Romano” (the Vatican Newspaper) has said that the New Mass has been so adapted that “It has come closer to the liturgical form of the Lutheran Church.” Such admissions cause no surprise when we remember the six Protestant ministers who helped fashion the New Mass.

The evils that have invaded the Church since the introduction of the New Mass, especially with the heretical ambiguities, the mutilations the falsifications — at least in vernacular versions — of the very words of Christ in the form of the Consecration of the wine, are truly frightening. According to a recent survey, the decline in Mass attendance since the approval — not mandate — of the New Mass has been “catastrophic”.

Only blindness to obvious facts could deny the existence of a concerted attack upon the true Mass of the Saints and Martyrs, of the Holy Father and Doctors of the Church, and upon the sacred doctrines of the Popes and Councils of nineteen centuries. This attack that followed especially the introduction of the New Mass that favours Protestant heresies brought on the unparalleled decline in Mass attendance in most of the world, a decline in five years of fifteen to twenty percent. Catholics who had attended Holy Mass daily, daily Communicants, can no longer go to their parish churches with a safe conscience. One encounters these FACTS wherever one goes. Reports are the same from all over the world.

“By their fruits you shall know them.” The fruits of the New Mass that favours heresies condemned especially by the dogmatic Council of Trent are evil. When you see that the fruits of the New Mass are evil, you can be sure that it is not of God. A Mass that is not of God cannot be obligatory on any priest.

The theologians of Brazil, after careful examination and extensive study of prayers and General Instructions of the New Mass, concluded that the New Mass is not acceptable. Numerous other loyal theologians in Europe and North America have arrived at the same conclusion.

For these reasons and especially because of the above arguments from the Canon Law of the Church and the Natural Law, we affirm that: The law of the church and the natural law imposed by God upon all mankind demand that every priest be given full freedom everywhere any time to simply offer the holy sacrifice of the mass according to the traditional Missal, I.E., in the manner the church guaranteed him at his ordination to the priesthood.

Since the Latin language has been praised by Pope after Pope as the bond of unity and university in the Church and as a most powerful safeguard against heresy, and since the traditional Missal, ordered by Pope St. Pius V for all time to come, has always been published in Latin till Vatican II” and Paul VI, it is evident that Priests have the above right to offer the Divine Sacrifice in the Latin language.

Against these and abundant other proofs, many argue that the Pope permits prohibitions of the traditional Tridentine Mass by many bishops, that he approves the New Mass and that therefore the situation is legal and we must comply. The Pope permits many things to which serious objections have been raised by scholarly theologians on the basis of Scripture, tradition and reason — for example — the publication and use of the Dutch Catechism for Adults, which a Roman Commission declared contains at least ten major heresies. He permits false translations of the Sacred Scriptures — always condemned as a great evil (putting lies in the mouth of God).

He permits without censure the sacrilegious desecrations of the Mass in various parts of the world. Can we say then that all these evils are alright because the Pope and bishops permit them? This is the dogma to end all dogmas: The Bishop allows it, the Pope allows it, so it must be alright. By the same logic, the Blessed Virgin, St. John and the Holy Women standing beneath the Cross should have said: “The high priests, the scribes, the pharisees, the learned men of the law approve the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, so it must be alright.”

In view of the above arguments from the Canon Law of the Church and the inviolable Law of Nature which is the eternal law of God, it seems unnecessary to refute in detail objections to this right of the priest to offer the traditional Mass. For the sake of brevity, we leave this open to further research by those who wish to verify the lack of theologicial, juridical and rational basis for these objections.

The Pope and the existing true magisterium (the official teaching authority) of the Church has the right and duty from Christ to safeguard, defend, enforce and teach ONLY the Divine Deposit of Faith and Morals and that which agrees with this Deposit. Whatever the Pope and the true magisterium of the Church commands must, in order to be binding, conform to the Natural and the Divine Law. Since the Natural Law forbids the violation of solemn and sacred oaths and likewise forbids unfaithfulness to most firmly expressed guarantees, agreements and contracts, every priest who took these oaths and to whom these guarantees were given by the Church in most forceful terms at a most solemn and sacred moment of the priest’s life, has always and everywhere the inalienable right everywhere and always to offer the Holy Mass according to the traditional rite of the Latin Missale Romanum promulgated by Pope St. Pius V in 1570.

Furthermore, since by Divine Right and Divine Law, the priest may and must avoid proximate danger to his faith and since many scholarly theologians, after careful and thorough examination of the Novus Ordo Missae, agree that the New Mass is Protestant and leads to Protestantism, it follows that every priest has the above right not only by virtue of the Law of the Church and of the Natural Law, but also by the immutable Divine Law.

Hence we repeat with undoubted certainty that every priest has the right always and everywhere to offer the holy sacrifice of the mass according to the rite of the traditional Latin Roma Missal as this right was guaranteed him at his ordination to the priesthood.

This is the rainy retreat. According to the Buddhist calendar the Esala Full-Moon which falls in the month of July commences the rainy retreat for Buddhist monks (and Nuns). This great significant day commemorates the following events in the life of the Buddha.

1. The preaching of the First Sermon (Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta).

2. The Bodhisatva Gotama was conceived in the womb of Maha Maya (He was in his mother’s womb for 10 months according to the lunar calendar).

3. The Great Renunciation of Prince Siddhartha.

4. The First Vas (Retreat) was observed by the Buddha and the five disciples, at Isipatana in Sarnath, India.

5. The birth of Prince Rahula.

6. The performance of the Twin Wonder (Yamaka Patihariya) by the Buddha for subduing the pride of the heretics.

7. The commencement of the preaching of Abhidhamma to Devas in Tavatimsa Heaven which took place in the seventh year of His Enlightenment.

8. The First convocation to rehearse the entire teachings of the Buddha was held at Rajagaha presided over by the Arahant Maha Kassapa. Five hundred Arahants were associated with him. This took place under the distinguished patronage of king Ajatasattu, three months after the Buddha’s Parinibbana.

9. The foundation stones for the construction of Ruvanweli Dagaba were laid by King Dutugemunu. Also the enshrinement of the Relics of the Buddha and Arahants in this Dagaba took place.

10. The commencement of the Dalada Perahera of Kandy in honour of the Sacred Tooth Relic of the Buddha.

The Buddha attained Enlightenment on the Full Moon Day of Wesak. After His Enlightenment the Buddha delivered the First Sermon on this Full Moon day of Esala.

According to the Ariyapariyesana Sutta of the Majjhima Nikaya, (26 Sutta) the Blessed One made up his mind to make known the truth to the five ascetics, and left Gaya for distant Benares, walking by stages.

On the way, not far from Gaya, he met Upaka, an ascetic, who said: ‘Friend, your faculties are clear, the colour of your skin is pure and bright. Under whom have you gone forth, friend? Who is your teacher? Whose Dhamma do you profess?’ Replying, the Buddha, in stanzas, said: ‘I am one who has trancended all, a knower of all unsullied among all things, renouncing all, by craving’s ceasing freed. Having known this all for myself, to whom should I point as teacher?

I have no teacher, and one like me
Exists nowhere in all the World
With all its gods, because I have
No person for my counterpart.
I am the Accomplished One in the World,
I am the Teacher Supreme.
I alone am a Fully Enlightened One,
Whose fires are quenched and extinguished.
I go now to the city of Kasi,
To set in motion the wheel of Dhamma.
In a world that has become blind,
I go to beat the drum of the Deathless ‘(M.N.
Sutta. 26 P. 263. Bhikku Bodhi’s Translation).

After this conversation, Upaka said: By your claims friend, you ought to be the Universal Victor. So the Buddha replied ‘The victors are those like me, who have won to destruction of taints. I have won to destruction of taints. I have vanquished all evil states, Therefore, Upaka, I am a victor’.

Afterwards, wandering by stages, eventually the Buddha came to Benares and approached the ascetics and in the evening of that day he delivered his First Sermon. This First Sermon of the Buddha is specially significant for all of us who live in a country which is war-torn. In the beginning of the discourse He expounded the importance of avoiding extremes. The Buddha pointed out two extremes, namely, addiction to indulgence of sensual-pleasures and addiction to self-mortification.

The intention of the Buddha in revealing these two extremes was to lay out the Middle Path. The Middle Path revealed by Him is the Noble Eight-fold Path.

The Buddha taught the Dhamma avoiding extremes. It was accepted by many in society. As long as we have a strong attachment we cannot discern what is right and what is wrong, and what is good and what is bad. Most of us see what is right only in terms of our social group or family-group. We always see the side of our opponents as unsatisfactory and wrong. Let’s tolerate the views of others too.

The teaching of the Buddha is to unite not to divide, and we must not forget that there are other Religions in the World. Religions are to unite humanity. People are separated not because of Religions but because of different interpretations of Religions and ignorance of the real meaning of them.

We should think of these facts on this Full Moon day of Esala when the Buddha delivered his First Sermon disclosing the wisdom which arose in him as a result of his strenuous efforts. The Buddha, in this discourse, revealed the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. These teachings are of great significance for the resolution of conflicts we are confronted with because of hatred and lust, in our daily life. Those who live in hatred and lust do not get relief in their life.

There are many conflicts in society and they can be basically categorised as:

1. Intra-personal conflicts, 2. Inter-personal conflicts, 3. Group conflicts, 4. Inter-national conflicts.

Intra-personal conflict is the conflict which arises within oneself. Today there are many youths in society who cannot solve their inner conflicts. As they cannot resolve their inner conflicts they get involved in inter-personal conflicts, group conflicts and international conflicts too. In our daily life, we come across people who are confronted by conflicts even regarding trivial matters.

According to Buddhism ignorance is the main cause of conflict but there are three roots to conflicts. They are greed (lobha) hatred (dosa) and delusion (moha). The teaching of the Master is mainly to resolve such internal and external conflicts.

Of all conflicts, the conflict within oneself has to be resolved first. For this effort there is a method. To put this method into practice mindfulness is of great significance. Being mindful one has to understand the conflict, its cause, its cessation and the way to its cessation. That is what the Buddha realised and expounded to the world, in his first Discourse called the setting in motion the wheel of truth. It is in some total the Four Noble Truths. This is the wheel of truth that the Buddha set in motion on Esala Poya Day.

According to the teachings of the Buddha a complete resolution of one’s inner conflict takes place on the attainment of Arahantship. The aim of the Buddhas was to guide the people to resolve their own internal and external conflicts through their own efforts. The path leading to the cessation of conflict is the Middle Path. The Buddha said ‘This is the Noble Truth of the path leading to the cessation of suffering, (conflict); such was the vision, the knowledge, the wisdom, the science, the light that arose in me concerning things not heard before’ — Pubbe ananussutesu dhammesu cakkhum udapadi nanam udapadi panna udapadi vijja udapadi aloko udapadi’ — (S.N. Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta).

This Middle path is the Noble Eightfold Path namely:

Right view (Samma ditthi), Right thought (Samma samkappa), Right speech (Samma vaca), Right action (Samma kammanta), Right livelihood (Samma Ajiva), Right effort (Samma vayama), Right mindfulness (Samma sati), Right concentration (Samma samadhi).

This Path is to be followed by all for attaining Enlightenment. Today, at every temple in the country, monks who have higher Ordaination (Upasampada) observe the rainy retreat (vassa) for three months. But in this year, another signifficant event will take place, a landmark in the continuing history of Buddhism in Sri Lanka. The Nuns who were conferred Higher Ordination recently, will also observe their rainy retreat in conformity with the teaching. During these three months of the rainy retreat both, clergy and laity, get together and strive to understand what the Buddha said.

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.

The Indians, like the Moslems, were a major trading community, and their success, too, caused some envy and animosity among the Sinhalese who didn’t mind the Indians working as estate coolies or latrine labourers. But when they took more than their share of business and took most of the money back to India they resented it.

The young Indian’s name was Patil Lalchand, and he was to be the only patient in the batch with whom Raj was to have a continuing association for many years.

His mode of conversation was first to volunteer a large slab of information, often of a personal nature, quite unsolicited. He would then initiate a long string of questions intended to seek corresponding information from his listener.

The technique succeeded in grappling his listener to his heart with hoops of conversational steel.

Half an hour later, having revealed himself to Patil more than he had done to anyone else in a comparable time, or at any other time, Raj retreated to his bed and this time fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion, almost immediately.

Chapter 14
It was not a gentle awakening, by any means, this plunging into the unknown depths of a complete day in hospital.

Life started here, Raj realised, as early as 5 am. And it began quite surprisingly with sundry but loud noises, of attendants calling out to each other, of water running into galvanised drums, the clatter of crockery and cutlery. The myth was also laid to rest that nurses walk softly on padded feet. Their regulation shoes rang off the cement floor.

Some unseen and callous hand had switched on the lights throughout the hospital on order by a faceless bureaucrat to start the thousand wheels of this huge complex moving. Cups of tea were brought round by male attendants trundling trolleys. They gave a cup to each patient in silence: there is no equivalent of a salutation like "good morning" in either of the local languages, and prodded awake those still asleep till they accepted, with unsteady hands, the proffered cup.

It was, Raj noted with much satisfaction, an excellent cup of tea. It had been brewed quite obviously from a strong-flavoured blend and the tang was unmasked by the well proportioned milk and sugar. Though Sri Lanka grew some of the finest teas in the world, if not the finest, at the time (nationalisation and State bureaucracy were to cast a doubt on all that enviable reputation some twenty years later) the art of preparing a really satisfying cup of tea was acquired by few even in Sri Lanka, let alone across the world. The custom of the British housewife to re-cycle the tea bag reduced the beverage to the status of the Yorkshire pudding. Raj prided himself on his tea-making skill. If even the indomitable British housewife believed that almost any situation could be faced fortified by a cup of tea, then there surely had to be some universal power in it.

In a while the ward was awake, as no doubt, was the rest of the hospital. In the non-paying wards, tea without milk or sugar would be served in tin mugs. Breakfast would be two slices of bread and a banana. Of course patients were free to supplement this frugal fare with their own supplies.

In the fully paying wards the food would often be of a standard higher in most cases, than that of the patients in their own homes. There were the few who probably ate better. But the fare here would be a western-styled breakfast with bacon and eggs, (where permitted by the physician), toast and marmalade, a pot of tea, with a jug of milk and a bowl of sugar and a generous slice of butter. The accompanying cutlery and crockery were also of a higher order. No cutlery was provided in the non-paying wards.

It would also be of a quantity sufficient to meet the needs of the patient’s friend or relation staying overnight immediately after surgery to attend to the needs of the patient, a privilege afforded to those occupying the fully paying wards. It was known that even here, even in cases of urgent need, immediate attention may not be forthcoming as the regular staff may be out of earshot or asleep.

Hospitals could obtain the services of nurses and attendants often retired ones or trained ones who have not been able to find employment. There was also a grapevine operating among the casuals so that if they were not available they could find someone at short notice. The services were on standard rates and often quite high. The graft line also operated so there were pay-offs to be considered as well.

At this particular time, of the eight patients in ward 37, only one was still confined to bed.

Of the others, with the exception of the old Moslem and the schoolmaster, the other five were able to use the covered verandah outside the ward to have their meals. This saved the staff the extra chore of bringing their trays in and taking them back. It also afforded the opportunity for patients to have their meals more congenially, more comfortably rather than sitting on the edge of the bed, with more privacy and away from the eyes of outsiders; and more laughter. Meal times usually coincided with visiting hours.

On the first day the laughter came in some unexpected manner. The village headman, a gentle man of a slight build and a retiring nature, dressed in the white banian and cloth of the rural gentry, sat at the head of the table. He was surely as unaware of the pun in that situation as of the niceties of manners at a western-style meal. He merely sat there because it was the seat nearest to him as he first entered the area. On his right sat Mr Jayasinghe, the Health Ministry official, a rotund and rubicund man with a blustering manner and bubbling good humour. Raj sat on his left, and the Indian, Lalchand, the lean, shy and irreverent electrical technician and a middle aged man who worked in the same newspaper organisation as Raj, and whom Raj met only after he entered the hospital, faced each other.

Laid on the table already were the plates and cutlery and reasonably clean serviettes. They obviously were not changed daily; but patients were free to bring their own, and have them laundered privately.

The morning was fragrant with the sickly-sweet scent of frangipanni outside the ward.

A little while later boiled eggs were brought in egg cups and placed together in the centre of the table. Each took one, as did the village headman. Some time passed before the rest of the breakfast arrived, and no one did anything about the eggs until the village headman decided to do something about it.

Quite evidently he was a stranger to the egg cup, and to the implements placed on either side of his plate. The five fingers of the right hand were usually more than adequate to deal with any type of food on a rustic table, or indeed, on the majority of tables in Ceylon, as the main dish was boiled rice served with several curries and other delicious accompaniments. Breakfast would be some preparation made of rice flour.

Bread was eaten rarely, and then only in situations when the woman of the house was incapacitated by a maternity confinement or illness or was herself away in hospital.

Thus, the best way of eating anything was to gather the food, well mixed and broken up, with the fingers of the right hand and then deftly shovelled into the mouth, usually opened wide a few seconds before the arrival of food. The teeth clamped over the food a second after the hand had withdrawn. So far as is known, no one has lost even a digit of a finger in the process, mute testimony to the adroitness and co-ordination of the Asian people.

Eggs were eaten quite regularly, but mostly poured over a hopper as an egg-hopper.

Rarely, if ever, was an egg used, per se, in a rural home at breakfast, and never presented poised upon a little metal cup.

The ingenuity of Sri Lankans is legendary, and there really is no situation that is ever totally beyond their powers of invention. The village headman gave but a perfunctory glance at the egg before deciding what to do with it. Raising a large spoon left to serve a curry, and bestowing a smile both of scorn and pity at the unsuspecting egg, he brought the uplifted spoon on the egg with great determination, force and deadly aim.

And the next instant the egg was crushed with most of its contents splattered on the headman’s still smiling countenance while some of it dripped on his pristine white garments.

This struck the rest of his fellow patients silent while the headman broke out into ripples of delighted and guileless laughter. It must be said to his credit that he knew exactly what to do next. He carefully wiped his face with the serviette before him, thoughtfully as it seemed, and rubbed off the remnants from his apparel.

The mood was relieved with the arrival of the other breakfast foods – steaming string hoppers and a red coconut sambol, a meal infinitely better eaten than described, with a steaming dish of coconut soup, a lubricant necessary to eat the string hoppers without choking on them.

The others broke their eggs, less dramatically, and consumed them in silence, probably as a mark of respect for the savagely attacked one or with the native gentility of the average Sri Lankan or because the arrival of the rest of the breakfast fragrantly changed the subject.

The tang of lemon in the sambol and the coconut soup caused even the most indifferent consumer to salivate in anticipation.

The rest of the meal proceeded without incident, and indeed, with much pleasant conversation and relish.

Raj learnt more of hospital ways, the names of the staff: the two nurses who came the previous night were Miss Hapangama and Miss Gunawardene. The male night attendants, who had made brief appearances at six pm, the hour their turn of duty began, had vanished into the system after their basic obligations had been discharged of serving the meals and washing up. They retired to a vacant room to entertain themselves with a deck of cards or a racing guide or a bit of idle chatter, to retire early, to sleep in the expectation of not being disturbed till the following morning when it would be time to hand over to the staff taking over whatever meagre duty was left to hand over. They had a simple code of life. They let sleeping patients lie. Those who could not sleep were ignored and left to the care of their fellow patients. Unless, of course, palms had been well oiled. And even then, obtaining an urinal or a bed pan or a drink of water was always deemed a favour bestowed at great inconvenience to those whose sleep had been thus disturbed.

A cadaverous attendant, clad like his clan in a white cotton cloth sarong and a thick white cotton shirt with a white apron, came in to collect the breakfast things. He brought gloom before him and cast a shadow where no shadow could be cast. His hair was unkempt, his eyes were dismal pools in dark, sunken sockets, his brow bulged ominously over craggy cheek bones, he had a mean nose over a thin gash of a drooping mouth. He moved ponderously. The only thing he lacked to complete the figure of death was a scythe in one hand.

"Who was that?" asked Raj in awe, when that being had left the room.

"That," said Mr Jayasinghe, with laughter brimming over in his eyes "was Dracula."

Raj blanched.

"Dracula?"

"Well, that’s what we call him." he said. "His real name is Premaratne but he doesn’t deserve it. Much too good for him."

"Why?"

"He’s a hard man. Prema is love. A good name for a nurse. No prema in him, Raj. He’s very hard. I only hope he won’t be on duty when I have my operation."

And on that ominous note they broke up and returned to the ward.

Chapter 15
Raj leapt out of his bed, embarrassed. Suddenly the room was full of people. The afternoon visiting hour had surprised him.

His hasty rising, forgetful of the exact circumstances of his presence there brought more embarrassment upon him, as he was clad in a sarong.

And that was another piece of the class puzzle. A segment of Sri Lankan male society, and a very large segment at that, wore a sarong all the time, the sewn, tubular garment, usually of checked or striped material wrapped around the waist and held firmly either with a belt or far more commonly by tucking part of it into a fold. There is an hierarchy of sarongs as well, and the station of people can sometimes be recognised by the types of sarongs they wear. The more intricate the weave of the fabric the more highly was it rated.

Westernised people rarely wore them in public although in the very best circles and even the most eminent in the land wore a plain white cloth wrapped around the waist and reaching down to the ankles.

Raj arranged his sarong neatly and sat self-consciously on the edge of his bed, trying not to catch the eye of the strangers. Already he had begun to consider the other patients as his friends. There were several visitors round each bed, each trying to have a word with their patient; some, in order to get the maximum benefit from the excursion, walked over to other patients, glanced at the diagnostic chart, eavesdropped on conversations to discover what was wrong with them, and the bolder ones actually spoke to other visitors and even other patients, all to obtain a full cup of vicarious misery.

Hospital visitation was a highly complex and integral part of Ceylonese social life. It was an obligation, a ritual, an excursion, a neighbourhood-community concern, a pleasure trip, an excuse for taking a day off, a valid reason for taking "short leave" from work. People sometimes travelled great distances to visit friends or relatives who were ill, sometimes even hiring cars, buses, vans. People in the rural areas made their rare visits to the city for that purpose.

The ritual extended to carrying gifts. Usually it was a bag of fruit. Next of kin usually took cooked food, a meal of rice, home cooked, as an antidote to the mass produced meals contemptuously called "cauldron" which was one of the less desirable aspects of hospitalisation. This was not so in the State hospital paying wards and certainly not in the private hospitals called nursing homes, where the food was usually better than that which the majority had in their own homes. For which, of course, they paid dearly. Where the patient was too ill, or too full to complete a meal, there would always be a friend or relative ready to oblige, surreptitiously.

And suddenly Raj’s own visitors had arrived, his mother and father and sister, a domestic servant, and two sets of neighbours. That was a respectable volume for the first evening. A patient’s worth was sometimes measured by the number of visitors that he or she received. A small number meant that he was not liked or was too insignificant.

The village schoolmaster had the largest congregation. The position of such a functionary in the village was something special. He was one of the triumvirate that ruled the peasantry; the others were the local physician and the chief incumbent monk of the Buddhist temple. It was their joint influence that had caused the ushering in of a social revolution; for the first time, an alternative to the then ruling party of the western-educated elite.

The attitude of the schoolmaster to his visitors could be described as holding court. He sat cross-legged on his bed wearing a cream sleeveless singlet and pyjama- striped sarong and received the homage of his kith, kin, near and removed, and those who held him in awe.

He had not yet undergone surgery and he relished these visits as they gave him an opportunity of obtaining the latest news from the village, political, social, economic and personal, in that order. Sometimes he addressed the group collectively, giving his own interpretations of the day’s news which he had read from the morning and afternoon papers in Sinhala, or had obtained from those who had access to the outside world.

At other times he addressed someone in particular and this was regarded by the person thus chosen as a great honour. These interviews were conducted with a great deal of good humour, although it was known by all, as the bed-head diagnosis card at the bed-head clearly stated, that he required surgical attention for piles, a condition which was commonly linked with a short temper. He reserved exhibitions of that for serious political arguments especially with his immediate bedside neighbour, the technician.

The iskola mahatmaya, as he was known by all, was everything one expected a village schoolmaster to be. He was pedantic, arrogant, ultra-conservative, and suspicious of any new knowledge or of anyone who knew anything he himself did not know, which although he would never admit it, was quite a great deal.

Raj had a quiet half hour with his people. They seemed shy in the strange environment, spoke very little. There really was nothing to talk about after a mere half a day’s separation. They enquired whether he might need anything. That, too, was premature. So promising to return the next day, they left.

It was not until well past the visiting hour, well after attendants had walked down all the corridors of all the wards ringing large, thick tongued, old-type school bells, well after the night-shift nurses had come in and warned people that the matron would be coming round soon, that the final stragglers left. This was part of the thrill, to spend as much time as possible after the visiting hour was officially spent.

When finally quiet returned to the ward attendants came round and collected the trays with the dinner things. They also took orders if they could be called that, for whatever might be required for the night: a carafe of water, a flask of hot water. These were more in the nature of requests deferentially made for there was no reason to suppose that they would be heeded unless their palms had already been crossed with cash.

The Sri Lankan bureaucracy is criss-crossed with graft and what is called "influence".

If anything is to be accomplished swiftly, someone’s palm has to be greased, or one has to have "influence", or know someone very high up in the ladder of authority, or know someone who knows someone who is high up and so on.

In the government departments, it is usually getting a file to move from one officer to another without stagnating in a mire of routine.

(Continued tomorrow)

(C) E.C.T. Candappa