Arugam Bay

What to do when you are stranded here with flood waters all-around ……………….

 

It was the year end Christmas vacation of 2014 when I planned a trip to the east coast of Sri Lanka. This year end was of very unusual weather when the whole country experienced over 200mm of rain in a 10 day period inundating much of the countryside making most roads impassable for almost a week.  

 

My two day plan was to be at Passikudah, the uppermost leisure location in the east coast for one night and the second at the lower most leisure location at ‘Ulla’ …..also known as Arugam-Bay. [Probably Anglicised in the colonial period].

The adverse weather obstructed my way to Passikudah with all accesses impassable but Arugam Bay could be reached with less hassle. I am here for two days and my prim plan to visit Kumana within the Yala National Park is not possible as the flood waters are now reaching the lower regions in the coast.

I now have put  two day for the best possible use with what is available. 

Arugam Bay does not have much of a description in any Sri Lankan travel guide excepting to the fact that it is the furthest overnight travel destination in  Eastern Sri Lanka, to those visiting the Yala East National Park. Arugam Bay is also a world renowned surfing location with a few archeologically sites around to be visited as well. 

This place was devastated completely by the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004. A world famed surfing location is today in the midst of an unplanned tourist development that came up with many NGO’s funding development and rebuilding after the Tsunami. This rebuilding was so chaotic with encroachments into the beach etc. and the Coast Conservation Department in 2011 had to pull down much of these unauthorised constructions to save the beach. The numerous signage on walls around describing facilities and availability of lodgings and hotels itself is ample evidence of this haphazardness. 

 

 
 

 

 
  

 

 
 

I am checked into a better and a larger hotel the ‘Bay Vista - Arugam Bay’; located tight between the road and the beach. In a second floor room parting the tall curtains of a typical hotel room window overlooking the balcony, my eye catches the far point of infinity over a darkening horizon with the setting sun behind me. I am a wishful man longing for that natural art work in the sky of a rising sun tomorrow at dawn from this high position….there had not been a rising sun in these skies in the past few days due to the inclement weather I am told. 

 
 

 

Herrings in plentiful [ Salaya ]

 

I retire for the night intending to see a picturesque sunrise predicted at 6.15 a.m. ….but I am woken by 4.30 a.m. to the sound of the tuning of hundreds of out-board motors on the beach just below my room. 

 
 

The hamlet of Ulla is predominantly a Tamil speaking Moorish fishing community; Initially practicing the traditional long haul drag netting system called Maa–del in Sinhala involving heavy labour to harvest the rich sea resource of Herring fish on to the shore. This practice have now changed to small fiberglass boat fishing in the shallow seas. Hundreds of boats were donated to the community after the Tsunami. Over half a kilometre of beach is lined by these boats using much of the beach that was to have been clean and tidy in the good old days.

 
 

 
 

These boats all venture out to sea every morning, just over a kilometre with either two or three persons in each. The light weight nylon nets are cast for the plentiful Herrings to be found so close to the shore. The seas being so rich the nets are drawn up no sooner they are dropped and the boats are all back on the shore in an hour or two. On the beach the fish are dislodge from the nets and the harvest auctioned immediately. This whole activity comes to an end by 11.00 a.m. leaving an untidy beach with a considerable post-harvest wastage  to be scavenged by dogs, crows and the Brahamini Kites. 

 
 

 
 

 
 

I am fascinated by this activity; but the hotel management thinks otherwise. The change in the traditional fishing practice from the Maa – dela to the individual nylon netting by boats since the Tsunami, is said to be an environmental hazard with so much post-harvest waste left on the beach to rot while much of the beach is occupied by the boats at all times.

On inquires of the income and investment tells me that each boat earns anything between Rupees 5000 – 8000 [around $ 60] a day after allowing for fuel expenses and overheads. However there are times when shoals of Seer Fish follow the Herring and get in the nets which is a bonus to be remembered for many years to come. This then would also fulfil  lifetime wishes for many in possessing a motorcycle or similar such. 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the other hand the old traditional practices of community fishing with the Maa-dela would not have had any cost on fuel while the labour was compensated with a dividend of the catch. Times have changed with the need of currency for transaction in the present day society. 

Learning to Surf

 

The sun is almost at its azimuth and Lucky the Hotel Manager and Gemunu the Chairman who is also here for the weekend suggests us to go learn surfing during the rest of the morning for they have arranged a lagoon safari for us in the evening. 

Learning to surf is a way that many could enjoy while over here with the number of surfing schools that have come up with the destination becoming world renowned for surfing. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I did not show signs of a promising surfer though but my daughter showed extraordinary skill for a beginner.

 

Lagoon Safari

 

In the evening we drove up to the Uraniya Bridge northwards… Akkaraipattu way and there was the ‘Wallam’ waiting to take us on the lagoon safari in the Uraniya Lagoon. Two small dug-out canoes combined together with a timber platform to sit on your buttocks was not to be the most comfortable boat ride paddled  by a single oarsman. 

 
 

 
 

Nevertheless with time we all found our own comfortable postures with legs crossed or dipped in the water which had to be pull up every time a basking crock would rush in the water being startled with our presence. It was a memorable three hours with a wonderful vista of almost all the bitterns seen in one location. The Cinnamon Bittern, Yellow Bittern, Black Bittern, Indian Pond Heron, Striated Heron and the Black–crowned Night Heron were in plentiful. Painted Storks were accompanied with all the Egret species, the Grey Heron and the Purple Heron.

 

 
 

Towards dusk the elephants were seen coming out into the open Villu to feed on the luscious ‘beru grasses’ a delicacy of the pachyderms.

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It was to be a different experience altogether with the local community getting involved in the hospitality industry; an extra earning for them while developing an environmental awareness which in turn helps its preservation and management for the future generation.

A day spent with contentment and monies worth received for sure.

 

Archaeology

 

For those interested in archaeology there is the Muhudu Maha Vihara on the beach at Pottuvil and the Magul Maha Vihara in the Lahugala jungles to be visited. Both these sites are ancient Buddhist monasteries when the country may have been populated with different ethnicities in different localities. 

Panama

My craving to visit Kumana did not allow me to come back without verifying on my own if the road was not ready as yet. I went all the way up to Panama which is the gateway to Kumana; the macadamized road ends here and a gravel road takes you to Kumana

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I was convinced I will have to come back another day for Kumana.

Nevertheless Panama has its own vistas to please your eye.

 

  

Who lit the Cigar before the Toast?

It was only the other day that some of us were killing the night at our good friend Anura Dissanayakes’s beloved wife’s funeral house.
 

We had taken part in the usual solemn funeral house dinner and was yarning into the night of old schooldays pranks and juicy narratives that befell on many of us at school.
 

Rieza Sulaiman and Athula Thalagala kept puffing out smoke clouds that helped to keep the mosquitoes at bay. Many of us had quit the habit that some still find difficult to do away with. Srinath remembered his first experiences of smoke choking at Ravi Samaraweera’s in Welimada.
 

Thale came out with the lame excuses that are common to smokers…. of the genuine urge to quit but had tried shifting to pipe smoking and even changing over to cigar smoking. These are but only alternate ways to smoking… while quitting the habit can only be done by just biting the bullet and giving an abrupt stop.
 

While on the subject of smoking and discussing schooldays in the good old 60’s….just thought of taking your memories back to the Hayman dormitory once again.

You may remember  it was only the Hayman dormitory that had pictures hung on the walls above the bunk beds. They were all framed cartoon sketches in black & white, most probably a collection belonging to Dr Hayman who may have decided to part with when they left Ceylon

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Of all of them I still remember just one with the caption…………”THE MAN WHO LIT THE CIGAR BEFORE THE ROYAL TOAST.”
 

I’m sure you do remember it now.

I have this habit of following up things that came across in our young ages when we did not understand the depth and wit  due to our age and immaturity.

I just went into details and found that this was a prize picture of a collection of a series that went on as the “The Man Who ……………… developed by Henry Mayo Bateman, [1887-1970] born in Sutton Forest, New South Wales, Australia; a humoristic cartoonist who was famous for featuring exaggerated reactions, just to minor the upper class through social blunders like ‘The Man Who Lit The Cigar Before the Royal Toast.”
 

Talking of such series……….there were to be many such during our schooldays like the “Do you Know the man from………….”; a song sung at college gatherings and mainly after matches won.
 

And of course there were others that developed locally…. like when old E L Perera was found peeping through a key hole while at Trinity College Kandy that followed him, where ever he went.

This act replaced the famous American cultural graffiti during the World War II  that came up on walls; “Kilroy was here “………..

It localized to  “Key-hole was here…………” and even the back of the washroom doors at the Liberty Cinema had it in bold letters...

Going back to  “THE MAN WHO LIT THE CIGAR BEFORE THE ROYAL TOAST”  Bateman tries to express the imperious anger of others at the table. But it was not to be the case when the President of the United States of America made an etiquette blunder as he toasts the Queen in 2011.

Royal Etiquette & Protocol Tips says that :

1. Do not pick up your glass before the Queen.

2. Do not talk over the orchestra.

3. Do not talk over the orchestra when playing “God Save the Queen,” (National Anthem).

4. The person who proposes the toast should drink. The person being toasted should not drink to himself or herself.

Click on the sentence below
  

US President suffers embarrassing royal toast mishap at Queen's banquet

Uncle Pathi Taught English Differently.

Aditha Dissanayake

3^rd September 2014…..my beloved niece Aditha Dissanayake messages me that the English translation of Marin Wickranasinghe’s “Kaliyugaya” which she co-authored with Dr Ranga Wickramasinghe has won the best English translation at the State Literary Awards for 2014.  It’s a memorable day in her life no doubt; I’m a happy man as well on her achievement, for it was she who encouraged me into this habit of writing and blogging.

I remember once when she wrote to me of her disappointment when the editor rejected her article commenting of her writing style when she was a young scribe.

I wrote to her that day; trying to lift her spirits by narrating of how Mr. Pathiratne (Uncle Pathi) our English teacher at S Thomas’ Collage Gurutalawa taught us English his way.  

Dear Adi….

All of us had our education at school in our mother tongue (Sinhala in our case) and English was learned as a second language. Our school atmosphere made us like the second language as it was the link medium with our Tamil colleagues

It brings in sweet memories of my school days in our standard eight class. Our English master was Mr. Pathiratne. He joined school just after his retirement from his government central school English teaching appointment. The selected school reader that year for standard eight was Robert Louis Stevenson's “Treasure Island” . This book he finished reading to us in just one month.

From then on he started teaching his way the rest of the year. He would walk in to the class with torn off articles from old Reader’s Digest Books and Life Magazines and read out from them on various topics. It was to be so interesting, and we were so free in the class with uncle Pathi, everybody liked his English class and everyone learned English. He used to quote bits of world and home politics which we never understood then. I wonder if we understand now?

Winston Churchill was a famous example in handling wit he would say. We all had his sayings written down in our small note book (a 40 page exercise book cut in two - we never had this practice of cutting a exercise book in two before). I wonder if we really understood Churchill’s wit then, but we all liked to see uncle Pathi's, expressions and how much he enjoyed reading to us.

It was he who explained to us the importance of writing our essays short and to the point; rather than long harangues. This he explained by quoting SWRD having said that a good speech is like a pretty girls dress, "it should be short enough to be interesting' and long enough to cover the subject." We did not know whether to smile or laugh then, for none of us caught the wit but we wondered about the short dress. He taught us to be vigilant of what we read, to take note of spelling, using synonyms and acronyms instead of using the same word repeatedly.

I still remember him reading to us how salmon bred in fresh water from a Readers Digest and wanted Saman Gunawardane (the 2^nd of the three Boothaya’s) now domiciled in NZ to write the word salmon on the black board. He ended up writing his name. We all laughed at Saman that day, but I’m sure many of us including me learned how, only that day. And we will not make the mistake again as there was reason for Pathi in selecting Saman Gunawardane that day.

Uncle Pathi too met his Waterloo when all other English teachers had their reservations on how he conducted himself in the standard eight classroom. He did not survive long at college as he did not believe in the book “Longman’s Brighter Grammar.”

But all of us got in the habit of reading and many applied for the discounted membership for the Readers Digest. I still have a collection of three years books at my ancestral home in Pinkanda. This was how most of us who went to school after 1956 gained our English knowledge and what’s wrong in it? 

We read 'Hadley Chase' with the covers removed; while at the same time we borrowed R L Spittle’s “Savage Sanctuary” from the senior library.

Today we read Michele Ondaatje with respect and Christopher Ondaatje with interest. Both have been to Guru for a short spell.

The rejection of your article is not to be considered seriously……in which case Tissa Devendra one of the best English Academics of the Ceylon University and his “Tales from the Provinces” and the “Horse Shoe Street” will fall under the bad books category.

If the Indian writers were to be stuck with aristocratic English, Kushwant Singh would be in the wilderness for his saucy writing.

I will refrain from commenting Carl Muller and Arundhati Roy for having won the Gratian Prize.

Sunday is Sabbath and a leisure day. The Sunday papers are generally read while still in pajamas or sarong. Free style reading is what we need for a free mind. My feeling is that a Sunday Paper should cater for all categories of reading. If all reading is to be of the classical type very soon there will be a dress code for Sunday reading.

Never mind the refusal.... keep writing for there are thousands waiting  to read what you write.

Good luck……