The Elephant Gates: Vibrant Reflections of Life, Family, and Tradition in Sri Lanka

By Chamalee Namal Weeratunge

The Elephant Gates is a recollection of the simple pleasures of childhood caught up in an inevitable tide of change. With vivid and touching detail, it recalls Weeratunge’s life, home, and family in her native village of Depanama on the island of Sri Lanka.

Weeratunge’s memories reveal a yearning for past times when traditions like celebrating the New Year or a Full Moon Day, still endured. Her poignant reminiscences evoke compassion for a misunderstood vagrant and a captive elephant, and curiosity for the appearance of the Pot-Bellied Merchant and Uncle Robert the Capitalist. She celebrates everyday heroes like the Coconut-Plucker, the Cook of Sweet Meats, and the Buffalo-Herdsman. With delicate diplomacy, cultural change is signaled by events such as the abandoning of the firewood hearth and the arrival of the television.

These intricately woven stories are told with an engaging voice and graceful prose. Time, as it often does, has softened the edges and imparted a gentle humor in each vignette, whether in describing a rice harvest or sharing a game of checkers on the veranda. Ultimately, The Elephant Gates reaffirms our innate affinity for home, family, and the need to belong. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group
• Release date: Aug 19, 2014
• ISBN: 9781632990020

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Introduction

The Elephant Gates is a collection of narratives that have endured the passage of time from childhood to adulthood. They have travelled with me from the continent of my birth to the one I have eventually settled in. It is a whimsical look back at growing up in the village of Depaānama on the island of Sri Lanka, in the 1970s up to the mid-1980s, three decades or so following several centuries of European colonial occupation. During my childhood spent in the village, the last of these colonial vestiges were being shed, and an era of industrialization and mechanization was slowly dawning. Some of the terminology and phrasing used in this book reflect this colonial influence and some others reflect the changing times.

Central to each essay is Āchchā, my maternal grandmother, and Kshaānti, the home she lived in, the ancestral home of my mother in Depaānama. Today, Depaānama is yet another suburb of the capital of Colombo, indistinguishable from most others. In this collection, I have vividly described what must have been everyday and mundane occurrences at the time, to bring to life people who are now gone, places that are now changed, and customs that have now become redundant.

The story of how Depaānama got its name has been lost within its centuries-old history, but the two syllables making up the word Depānama mean At your feet I pay homage. To do justice to its name, my collection pays homage to my cherished village and its memorable inhabitants. Some of those most dear to me, including Āchchā herself and my father, have passed away. My aunts and uncles are now grandparents, and all my cousins, who were as close to me as if they were my own siblings, have migrated to different parts of the world and are raising families of their own.

My family was affected by pain, loss, scandal, and despair, just as much as any other family in the village. Social injustice, inequality, and intolerance were part of the fabric of life in my village, just as much as in any other. These narratives are not an historical record, but rather a child’s perspective of how things were. My memories have left me with an aching nostalgia for a simpler time and place. These are stories of that time and place.

1

The House with the Elephant Gates

DEPAĀNAMA HAS NOT HAD THE DISTINCTION of having centuries of its history meticulously chronicled, as have the distinguished cities in the North and in the South. It has not received any honorable mention in the ancient scripts as a center of religion, art, or commerce. There has been no ancient monarch, however long or short his reign, who has called it his home. There are no pillars of granite, statues of stone, or other priceless artifacts to be excavated.

The hamlet which became known as Depaānama lies about twelve miles to the south of the capital city of Colombo. People who were said to have originally hailed from the South settled it. No evidence other than hearsay exists today for or against this hypothesis. If such a migration did occur, it must have occurred several hundred years prior to my birth in the village of Depaānama.

The first settlers must have arrived by bullock cart in search of land for the cultivation of rice. The marshes must have been discovered and plowed. The lattice of rice beds must have been flooded to just the right depth, and the first rice seeds sown. News of this rich harvest must have caused more to come. Rubber must have grown wherever rice could not. Where neither rice nor rubber could be grown, coconut and spices must have flourished. The ancestors of my maternal grandfather must have been amongst the first to arrive.

Depaānama had always been fortunate in that there had never been destructive floods or prolonged periods of drought. Never had there been a recorded hurricane, nor mudslide, nor epidemic, nor famine. The earth beneath this serene place was not violated by a fault, and thus no earthquake would ever shake its serenity. The crop-sustaining monsoon never failed in its arrival twice a year.

The main road that ran across Depaānama was named the Borella-Kottāwa Road. When first constructed, it must have been a narrow dirt road, though eventually it was broadened and tarred. The Borella-Kottaāwa Road linked the town of Kottawa? on the one end to the town of Borella on the other. Many villages lay along this major thoroughfare, like pearls on a necklace, of which Depaānama was but one precious pearl.

Both Borella and Kottaāwa were larger towns and must have been settled much earlier than Depaānama. Both Borella and Kottaāwa lay along direct trade routes to the capital of Colombo. Whatever trade took place in Depaānama took place alongside the Borella-Kottaāwa Road. Property along this road was of prime value. My relatives on my mother’s side, having found Depaānama to be a suitable locality to inhabit many centuries ago, settled alongside the Borella-Kottaāwa Road.

In the early days, every family in Depaānama was descended from one of three families, of which my grandfather’s family was one. These families owned many hectares of land on both sides of the Borella-Kottaāwa Road, down to the rice fields in one direction and the rubber plantations in the other. They also owned the rice fields and the rubber plantations. New families must have arrived with time and established their own lineage. To some of them land was sold, and to others land was gifted in recognition of service or as means of payment for services rendered. This was the custom in those days when land was plentiful. Schools, temples, and public offices were built on land gifted by these landowning families, though with time these altruistic acts were forgotten. At the time of marriage, land was given away to children as dowries. Large acreages were split among siblings when the land passed from parents to their offspring. Often neighbors were siblings, and neighboring properties could trace their origins back to many generations of ancestors within the same family.

The property on which Kshaānti, the ancestral home of my mother, was built stood facing the Borella-Kottaāwa Road in the center of Depaānama. It had belonged to the family of my grandfather for several generations, and for generations ancestral homes had been built, renovated, demolished, and rebuilt upon its soil. Upon the death of his parents, the property was portioned into two, my grandfather inheriting one half and his younger brother the other. The rice fields, rubber plantations, and other lands were also bequeathed and eventually passed on to one or another of his five siblings.

After his marriage to Āchcha?, my grandmother, and while his daughters were still young, my grandfather demolished the old house as his predecessors had done. He built his own home to fit his specifications and the needs of his family. When its construction was complete, he invited the monk Sumanatissa from the Temple of Parama-Dhamma to give it a name. The name that was chosen, Kshaānti, traces its origin to the ancient language of Sanskrit. It meant patience or forbearance. At the time of the renovation, in accordance with the architectural style of the day, a wall was constructed to shield and separate the house and grounds from the roadside. The entrance was adorned with a pair of wrought iron gates that met in the middle when closed. Each half was hung with iron hinges and secured into the masonry of two cement pillars that faced each other. A figure of an elephant with trunk raised, symbolizing homage and hospitality, was fashioned into the iron works of each half of the gate. When the Elephant Gates at Kshaānti closed, the elephant of one half of the gate met the other with trunk raised.

Kshaānti was constructed along the design dictates followed by many of the larger homes in the village. The veranda ran along the front of the house and faced the road. There were two rooms, one to the left and one to the right of the veranda. The one to the left was the office room used by my grandfather. Six sets of folding glass doors separated the veranda from the main living room of the house. The living room was flanked on either side by four additional rooms. A hallway led from the back of the living room to a large dining room on the right. The kitchen led off the very end of the hallway. A bathroom was later added opposite the dining room, but when the house was first built, the bathroom was not a part of the main house; instead there was an outhouse at the back of the garden.

Fruit trees were planted around the house for shade. A grove of coconut palms and spicebushes were planted in the back to supply the household with these essential ingredients and condiments.

Depaānama was not fitted with power lines and towers to receive the hydro-electricity produced by the cascading falls originating in the hill country. Its homes, however large or small, were without electricity when Kshaānti was first built. As children, my mother and aunts did their homework and ate their dinner by lamplight. There was not the luxury of running water in the house either. All water used in the house was drawn manually from a well at least fifty feet deep at the bottom of the property and brought to the house in buckets. By the time I was born, more modern amenities had become established in Depaānama and I was glad of that.

As a young man my grandfather left home to apprentice with a physician specializing in traditional Ayurvedic medicine. He did so when his mother, my great-grandmother, was stricken with blindness. He returned home with a specialized knowledge in the diseases of the eye and cures for eye ailments. He did not find a cure for what ailed his mother, but he did become widely known for his treatment of eye disorders. His gift for healing was not surprising as many of his cousins were well known locally, and even beyond, for the practice of Ayurvedic medicine. In the back garden at Kshaānti, massive cauldrons simmered over slow wood fires for days, brewing mixtures, potions, and elixirs condensed from roots, barks, and leaves for his healing potions and salves. This was not an age when the art of healing was practiced for profit by the healer. Healing was a gift, practiced with the aim of restoring the health and well-being of the afflicted. It was a way of life for the gifted, but not a means of livelihood. Gratitude and thanks were expressed in words alone. A sheaf of beetle leaves was sometimes presented to the healer as a mark of appreciation and show of reverence, but nothing more.

With the passage of time and recognition of his service to the village, my grandfather was appointed headman of the village of Depaānama. This was a position that had been held by his father and his father’s father, but was by no means an inherited station or status. His duties as headman transformed the house of Kshaānti into the political center of the village. From here laws were enforced, disputes were mediated, and squabbles were settled.

Araliya Gardens, a small dirt road, ran along the right side of the property of Kshaānti, through sparse scrub jungle and rubber plantations that eventually led to the rice fields. To the left of Kshaānti was the property of the Milk Uncle, the younger brother of my grandfather. Beyond this was the Depaānama Junior School where the children of Depaānama attended from grades one to five. Those who graduated from the Junior School were promoted to The Dharmapala School near Kottāwa. My mother and aunts had all graduated from The Dharmapala School. My parents had met there when still teenagers.

The house directly across the road from Kshaānti had a matriarch of its own—a crony and contemporary of Āchchā named Mary. My mother and aunts called her Aunt Mary, not in recognition of a blood relationship but in recognition of the close friendship that she and Āchchā shared. She accompanied Āchchā to the temple when Āchchā needed company and often dropped by for a chat and cup of tea in the afternoons. We did not know of the early history of Aunt Mary in the village but my aunts did not openly talk about it. They chose to leave her past buried in her past. Aunt Mary lived with her son, daughter-in-law, their children, and her unmarried daughter. She was one of only a few trusted confidants that Āchchā kept company with after her retirement.

After the death of her husband, Āchchā did not find herself alone. She was mother to four daughters and soon found herself