When Memory Dies

My memory begins, as always, with the rain – crouched as a small boy against the great wall of the old colonial building that once housed the post office. It frightened me, the great monsoon downpour, and saddened me too, threw me back on my little boy self and its loneliness, the growing things in myself I could not tell others about, the first feel of the sadness of a world that kept Sanji from school because he had no shoes. And I welcomed the lightning then, not frightened any more, for it would strike me dead and Sanji would have my shoes, and I would be sad no more.

Or I was sad for the trees and the birds and the little kid goat battered and cowed by the rain. I was afraid for the plantain trees, heavy with fruit, now swaying dangerously from their trunks, and I was sorry that the crows, proud kings of the dung-heap, should make common cause with house-sparrows under the eaves of roofs. But suddenly the rain would lift and the trees come erect again, putting forth to the sun which had as suddenly appeared, and the crows would caw once more. And a mist would rise from the hot roads like dawn. It was the seasons' return, in that moment that had gone and come again, it was awe and grief and wonderment crowding in on each other, a first involuntary affirmation of life that was somehow mixed up with Sanji's shoes. It was the first memory of my growing world.

Other seasons I would come to know – spring and autumn and winter – and other countries where shoes abounded. But the things that crowded in on me that day in the rain, and in many rains after, and made me an exile for the better part of my life, were also things that connected me to my country and made me want to tell its story.

But there is no story to tell, no one story anyway, not since that day in 1505 when the fidalgo Don Lauren&ccedilleo de Almeida, resplendent in gold braid and epaulettes and hat plumed with all the birds of paradise, landed on our shores and broke us from our history. No one story, with a beginning and an end, no story that picks up from where the past left off – only bits and shards of stories, and those of the people I knew, and that only in passing, my own parents and son, or heard tell of, for there was no staying in a place or in a time to gather a story whole, only an imagined time and place. And no story of the country – or, if of the country, not our story but theirs, the parangis'. Except that we all bore the imprint of that history, like a stigma, internalized it even, made it our own, against our will, calling to memory the while to lose it by losing memory itself.

My father worked in the post office, the new post office by the large tea estate, no more than a cry away from the disused building that had sheltered me from the rain that day. He was born in Sandilipay, a bone-dry village in the north of Ceylon, at the turn of the century. His father was an inept farmer on whose lacham of land nothing seemed to grow but children, thirteen of them in as many harvests, till the villagers enviously referred to him as 'the man with the green penis'. Only nine of the children, five of them sons, survived childbirth and infancy. My father was the youngest. And on his education my grandfather, awakened to the possibilities of a safe career in the British Raj, concentrated the attention of his passionless years. So that by the time the boy was twelve years old, he was fluent both in English and Tamil, excelled in arithmetic, and was constantly nagged by his brothers for being immersed in a book when it was his turn to feed the goats or milk the cows or run the chickens in for the night.

One day the headmaster of my father's school turned up at the old man's 'farm'.

'Are you Sahadevan's father?' he inquired without ceremony, leaning his bicycle against the well. My grandfather looked up from the aubergine plants he was tending, took in the man with the bike – tall, self-possessed, dressed in an immaculate white venti and shawl and banian – and went back to his aubergines. A rouge, he thought, from town, a trader perhaps, some unpaid bill? He knew the seed merchant, the ironmonger, the pawnbroker, all the people he had business with in town. But this man? Perhaps he was the new pawnbroker. The old man was alarmed at this thought. The drought had already damaged his corps, and there was now this unexpected visitation from town. The seasons on the one hand, rapacious townsmen on the other. He needed time to think, prepare his defence, draw the man on to peasant ground and fight him there. He raised himself slowly, pulling his loin cloth together, and walked up to the well.

'Are you Sahadevan's father?' the man demanded impatiently. And stung by the arrogance in his tone of voice my grandfather quite lost his temper.

'Yes, I am,' he retorted. 'And what is that to you? Besides, I have got a name too, you know.'

'Yes, yes, I know that, Mr Pandyan,' the intruder replied easily. 'You see, I am the boy's headmaster. I sent a number of messages for you to come and see me. Now I have had to come all this way.'

'Oh sir, I am sorry,' answered my grandfather abjectly, going into his pleasant slouch of deference.

He invited the headmaster to come into the shade, saying that he must have had a tiring journey. And why hadn't he told him he was coming? He would have met him at the house. He hesitated in his embarrassment. What would he like? A little toddy perhaps? He had some fresh toddy. Or would he like some water to cool his face? No?

He began drawing water from the well, washing himself, taking in the new situation. The headmaster, good heavens, the headmaster, come all the way to see him, he who had never been to school!

'Well, sir, you are out of the sun at least. Is your bike all right over there?'

'Mr Pandyan, please, I want to talk about the boy. I have no time to waste. Besides you have got our work to do.'

Sahadevan was in trouble. Expelled, perhaps? My grandfather became wary again.

'You don't have to worry about me, master. Time I have, that is all I have in fact.' He stared at the headmaster hopefully. 'Well, sir, what about the boy? He is a good boy you know, not a trouble-maker or anything like that; maybe he could study a little harder.'

But it was very difficult, he added, to get all the work done on the farm by himself, even with three boys. The eldest had married and moved away and Sahadevan had to help a little, milking the cows and that. 'But I'll see that he works harder, if that's all.'

'Mr Pandyan, if you will stop a minute, I'll tell you what I came to see you about.'

'Yes, yes, that's a good idea,' the old man said, squatting now on his haunches before the headmaster, a supplicant awaiting truth. Sahadevan was a fine boy, the headmaster told him, and an excellent student, the best in school. It was very creditable that he had been able to leave the village school so early and come to him. He hadn't known a word of English at that time. Imagine that! And in three years he had beaten the rest of his class in English and arithmetic. In fact, he had been recommended for a double promotion.

'Double promotion? What is that, sir?' asked the old man, glowing with pride, the drought forgotten. Another seed had begun to sprout.

It meant that Sahadevan, instead of going from Form 2 to Form 3, would go straight to Form 4, the headmaster answered. My grandfather jumped up in delight, reaching for his pot of toddy. 'And that means he will leave school earlier and help me on the farm?'

'No, no, Mr Pandyan, he must not become a farmer,' the headmaster replied anxiously. 'He is an extraordinarily bright boy. He must go to a proper college, in Colombo. That is what I came to see you about.'

Sahadevan, he explained, was college material. St Benedict's or St Joseph's, they were the best, if they would take him. But the old man would have to find the money. In fact they might even try to get him a scholarship or at least a bursary. 'The sooner he goes, the better,' he finished.

College material? the old man reflected. Well, well, well, the headmaster was right, education was a great thing, a great thing. Perhaps the boy would enter government service, who knows, a government agent one day even, eh? Yes, yes, the headmaster was right. Of course his other sons could help him manage the farm. It wasn't much of a farm anyway. And truth to say, he wasn't a very successful father either. Yes, by all means, let the boy have education. Perhaps he might even become a headmaster.

Rising, he took a swig from the pot and held it out to the headmaster, who turned it down. He sat on his haunches again.

'But, sir,' he complained despondently, 'there's no money. I can sell my wife's jewels, but there is only the bangles left now. And my eldest daughter, she is getting on, you know.' He shook his greying head. 'Twenty-two and no man in sight. I haven't a dowry to give her, except a bit of this land, and you know that's not very much.' He drank from the pot again. 'Where will I go for money, sir, even if he gets that scholarship or something, how will I feed him and buy him shoes and things? Of course there's my wife's brother, the dry fish trader –'

'I know, Mr Pandyan. I know Mr Segaram well.'

'Sahadevan can stay with him. But we never got along, you know. He always wanted to adopt Sahadevan, because his dried-up wife couldn't have any children herself. I told him he could have one of the girls, or even the second boy who is not very good on the farm. But no, he wanted Sahadevan.'

'Mr Segaram is one of the old boys of our school, you know, and he has given the school a lot of help.' The headmaster hesitated. 'He was down to see me last week, in fact, and I told him about the boy.'

'You did?'

'Don't misunderstand me. Sahadevan was only mentioned in the course of conversation: he is very good at science too, you know. I told Mr Segaram about trying to get him into St Benedict's.'

'That bloody fool. What does he know about education?'

'Mr Pandyan,' said the headmaster, with some warmth, 'Mr Segaram is prepared to keep the boy, support him, provide him with school uniform, shoes, meet all his school expenses-'

'He bloody well won't, headmaster! He bloody well won't! No boy of mine is going to be obliged to that bloody trader! Dry fish, is it? He has made his money on dry fish? And now he wants to make my son a dry fish merchant too? And marry him off, I suppose to his wife's niece? Oh no, Sahadevan will go to that college – you arrange it, you arrange it – you arrange that scholarship thing, and I'll find the money for school expenses! I will. Somehow.'

'Be reasonable, Mr Pandyan,' replied the headmaster angrily. 'Your son's future is at stake and all you can think of; What has Mr Segaram done to you?'
