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| Redbana - in the jungle |
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| Honey comb |
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| Redbana - jungle takes over |
| Redbana |
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| Redbana - Berries to taste |
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| Wije Aththa and his Vita |
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| Pinchi Amma & Aththa |
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| Stools |
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| Redbana jungles out |
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| Pushpa in her Kingdom |
Leaving your home is as difficult as staying behind.
Below are two stories similar as they are different.
The Last Poet of Walpolamulle
“Nambiliye haal atey garala berunaa wagey”….there is a faraway look when Aththa says it.
(Feels like when stones are left behind when washing rice in the Nambiliya. i.e.For cooking)
I know his mind has wondered back to Walpolamulle. He was part of a family that had made it their home since the time of kings.
They were descendants of one of two giants (exceptionally strong men) of the Temple of Tooth attached to the Royal Palace. Uda ge Cornare and Palla ge Cornare, brothers who fled to get away from the king’s wrath.
Uda ge Cornare settled in these mountains –Uda ge Pattuwa.
The story goes that his wife was sick of feeding him.
How can you feed a giant? Aththa asks.
She fled to her home town having had enough. When he went to bring her back, he found a meal of roti had been cooked for 8 people, in appreciation for field work that had to be done. Before the help arrived, Uda Ge Cornare had done all the field work and helped himself to all the food as well.
The next morning, he carried her back home under his ‘Armpit’.
The wooden beam on which the brothers used to hang huge jack fruit in the middle, and carry home from both ends to feed themselves, was passed down from generation to generation.
Aththa and Amma used it as the ‘Mudun Leeya’ (centre beam) in the home they built in Walpolamulle.
They were 12 families that survived purely on farming and agriculture, reduced to 4 over the last generation, then to just two individuals.
Walpolamulle Wije Aththa and Pinchi Amma.
The trek to the Puraana Gammanaya (Ancient Village) is a long arduous one by foot through the jungle and mountain passes and take hours. Making matters worse a herd of Elephants from Wasgamuwa would descend upon the Ancient Village until the Moragahakanda Water Scheme initiated in 2007 blocked the herd from approaching. But it was too late, the village was already emptying out and dying.
A slow death of an ancient village.
“Lunu ketayak witharai api eliyen genaawe” he is wistful. (The only thing we bought from out was Salt)
They were self-sufficient. Even the stools we are seated on, brought with them from the old place are made of four bent branches perfectly slotted in with no nails, with a woven seat of Rattan palm.
They are heaped outside by the verandah. When he offers me the Plastic chair from inside the house (obviously the stools get step motherly treatment, left to the elements), I humbly ask for the stool. He is surprised at my child like joy and admiration of the ingenuity of this simple seating.
“Haiyo me monawei? Ha ha indagannako ehenang” he is indignant, but I know he is secretly proud and thrilled.
(Oh no, what is this? Ok, ok then sit)
One by one they left he says, starting with the young. For jobs and through marriage. Never returning to the village once they left.
“Gange wathura pallehata giye, Aye udata awe naha” (Water in the river only flowed down, it never came up again)
Even if some would have liked to continue farming, the isolation and the hazards that came with it was becoming unbearable. Besides there were paying jobs for much less blood, sweat and tears.
The kids walked to school 4 hours each way to Mahalakotuwa. They had four children, two of each. It was a tough life the older folk were one with, and increasingly the younger ones were battling with.
He says they were determined to stay and die there. The two of them stayed behind in an empty village for quite a few years, despite a couple of Bull Elephants that had got trapped on their side and roaming about. They had everything they wanted and each other. They felt strong and able. But the nagging of the children now married into bordering villages of the Knuckles Range were getting too much.
“Hambunama kiyona eka witharai” he says fondly. (When we met occasionally, all they did was nag)
Finally the old couple moved to their daughter’s village.
Stools, kavi (folk poetry) and all. Their house in the old village is locked up. Abandoned for almost a decade. The jungle has taken over and the path overgrown from hardly any use.
I am invited to camp there any time I want.
“Kavuru hari yaaluvek geniyanna, thaniyata,” his eyes twinkle. (Take a friend with you in case of loneliness)
The Kavi were part of their lifestyle.
Sung while working, relaxing, entertaining, reminiscing… on all occasions. They were passed down, new one spun to suit the occasion.
Wije Aththa has quite a repertoire including Thani Akure Kavi – Folk Poetry written with only consonants. I enjoy them immensely, laughing out loud at their humour and nuance that cannot be understood fully if you are not of this land.
Subtle shades of meaning, black comedy and self-depreciating comic relief. Ones of resistance. Ones of sadness. They cover all topics of their daily goings on and of this place.
He wants me to come back one day, stay in the village and write them all down, as I enjoy them so much.
I would be honoured, I tell him. It would be a fitting tribute to him and his beloved village of Walpolamulle.
When? He asks.
Hopefully next year.
Half-jokingly, he complains about Pinchi Amma, who now is a full blown Upasikava (Female follower of the Temple) thanks to moving in to this village with the Temple right by their side.
She grumbles now at him belting out Kavi at all odd hours. The Kitul Ra (Kitul Palm Toddy) is obviously not up for discussion nor the wild meat they hunted and ate.
I have never seen such lightness in a couple. Such honest sense of joy in life and in each other.
The humour helped in those hard times but they definitely lived simply and with great fondness and love.
Aththa’s mischievous smile lights up Pinchi Amma’s stern face. Every time.
He gets away with serenading me until the air gets chillier.
The Spirit of the Bee
Pushpa is a Very Busy Woman.
She has to be, what with attending to crops, and trying to run a guesthouse in the middle of nowhere.
She is charming, welcoming, super-efficient and well informed. Better than any Front Office Staff or Manager I have met in any establishment.
My innards are still jelly. I decide that all my vital organs have exchanged places after the trishaw ride of 3.5kms on a broken washed off, boulder-ridden road through thick jungle, to the only family living in the village of Redbanagama.
The engine whined, gasped and spluttered like a wheezy old man to get over the entire length of rough stony patches and deep gullies formed by years of rain. Honestly, many times I wanted to get off and walk. Might have been faster and way more comfortable. But Darshana assures me he goes to and fro a few times daily down this derelict road.
Pushpa is his mother.
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In 1977, the Norwegians decided to buy 600 acres inside the Knuckles Forest Range. Their plans included resettling 150 families originating from surrounding areas of Pannila, Rattegama, Puwakpitiya, Rattota etc, and providing them with ½ acre of land each to plant Cardamom.
Villagers who wanted a stake in this applied for the scheme and left their hometowns.
Redbanagama, (I would really like to have a chat with the person who decided on this name, assuring no physical violence from my end!) was a settlement in two lots of Seeye Kotasa and Panahe Kotasa (100 plots and 50 plots)
A reasonable road cut through the forest. A school, couple of shops and even a temple was established. There were enough streams to cut irrigation channels for the crops. There was no electricity but they had lamps.
Apart from Cardamom, almost all grew a few vegetables and some paddy for their own use despite having limited or no expertise in agriculture, as they were in the middle of nowhere. By 1980 there was a fully functional village with 150 families inside the forest.
The spice produce was bought directly by the Norwegians and for the hardship posting, each household was paid Rs.750 per week.
However, before long the new farming community realized things were not as smooth. The relentless assault by monkeys and elephants on the crops were taking its toll, apart from other hardships. There were no natural barriers to stop wildlife from raiding and the production rate fell rapidly.
In 1985, the Norwegians bailed out of an unsuccessful dream project.
The villagers, already struggling with crops as well as maintaining the village facilities including transport that got them to the nearest town, were left to fend for themselves.
When the school closed for the want of paid teachers, the kids had to walk to school in Mahalakotuwa, 10km away.
After a while they just stopped schooling.
By 1992, most of the villagers had left and in 2010 the last family except Pushpa’s said their goodbyes.
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Pushpa is from Kandy and married a man from Redbanagama. They have three grown children, two are married and away and the younger son drives the trishaw.
Her husband is versatile in carpentry besides farming. It has seen them through.
When the last goodbye happened, they were both determined to make a go at it alone, no matter what. This was the only place they had and the only home their kids knew. They were both fearless of hard work and smart enough to survive any situation.
Over the years they managed to grow enough to meet their needs, sold wild honey from the forest. They even added an extra space to their humble home as a place of rest for travellers to the Knuckles.
It is very remote.
There are groups of youngsters on bikes on weekends and holidays who brave the path through the forest for a cheap and cheerful place to stay. They are treated to home cooked meals, and basic resting facilities. Darshana takes them on forest treks which include the old village taken over by the jungle, a trip to an abandoned cave dwelling of a priest and a hidden cascading waterfall a few miles away.
I follow Darshana on an amazing forest trek, passing numerous species of butterflies, some as big as my palm.
We snake our way through fields and houses, the school, the temple, now unrecognisable for what they were. The jungle rules.
He tells me stories of him and his mother walking through paths over the mountains that are shorter than sticking to the main road.
He points at a peak on the Kaudagammana range covered with thick forest and a menacingly steep rock face. “When returning from the nearest town we used to take the shorter forest trek over the mountain and my mother used to drag me to that point to see where the elephant herd is, before making our descent home” he says.
Weaving our way through tangled vines sampling various wild berries and fruit, we return a few hours later to Pushpa, who has laid out a delicious lunch. We finish it off with chunks of honeycomb.
I buy old Arrack bottles filled to the brim with freshly extracted fragrant viscous honey. In a good season, hives in the surrounding forest provide for well over 30 bottles.
The dog lies in the middle of the yard, and two cats who miraculously appeared one day in Redbanagama and decided to stay, lies by my feet.
My husband is immune to Bee stings, so smoking them out is unnecessary, Pushpa states proudly.
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