Glossary
Perahera: An annual Buddhist festival with all kinds of artists and painted elephants
Bo tree: A Piece of the tree under which Buddha attained enlightenment
Buddha: One who has achieved a state of perfect enlightenment, in this case, referring to the founder of Buddhism
Going Back To a Different World
Five years had passed since I left home, but the years seemed like seconds, and I was back already. Rumour had it that the town had changed to such an extent, it was no longer recognisable, but my mind was filled with expectations. As I stood in the sunlight, I thought of the accident that had occurred a few meters away from where I was standing.
* * *
My older brother, Rehan, and I were playing tag by the road.
“You're it!” He shouted.
“Hey! You didn't even touch me! Stop cheating Rehan!”
He laughed and kept running along the uneven pavement. Suddenly, he tripped and lay sprawled on the road, just as a car rounded the corner. The doctor said Rehan had been really lucky that the car had swerved away, and that his hand would be as good as new in a few months.
I had nightmares about that day for several weeks. In my dream, I was the driver of the car, and I watched as the little boy tripped over the side of the pavement, I watched as his little sister, me, stared helplessly, only this time, the car did not swerve. Instead, it was headed straight for the boy.
That is when I would wake up, kicking and screaming for Rehan to be alive.
* * *
My heart beat fast as I rounded the same corner from my past. I had never seen that road since the accident, and now I expected there to be a monument in honour of the boy who wasalmost killed. But no. There was no monument. In fact, there was no road at all. There was a dirty little path for wanderers, but other than that, there were only bushes and trees which had grown over ruins from over thirty years ago. I was glad. No other child would have to suffer what I went through. There were no cars in these bushes. The children could play all they wanted. Perhaps it was for the better.
I walked along the path and saw that it led onto a small road, lined with ugly, terraced houses, their colour a kind of muddy brown. There were no children. There were no dogs barking playfully. There were no open windows or smiling faces. Although it was sunny, the dust made it look dark. The few people that walked on the street looked aimless and plain, if not busy and careless.
I felt strange. I knew that I did not fit in with the people of this town. I moved forward quickly, wanting to escape from this ghostly street as fast as possible.
* * *
I was fifteen. My family and I were sitting around the dinner table while my four younger siblings ran around and under the table. It was not a big house, nor was it a house with unnecessary luxuries. My family always had what we needed but we rarely got more. We weren't poor as such – in our community, we were, in fact, one of the richer families. But luxuries such as televisions and computers were hard to come by. It was mainly the expats who owned things like cars and villas.
But no one complained. We all enjoyed our way of life – very discreet and simple, and we made the most of it. Instead of letting the children waste their time in front of the screen, my mother and father would take them out to see a public play or to watch the local Perahera. We didn't need a car. Rehan and I would help our aunts and uncles go shopping at the market, and we were all accustomed to walking quite long distances. Only if we wanted to go right into the city, did we need any form of public transport.
This was home. My village. My house. My dinner-table.
The kids' shouting and playing was part of our daily routine, so we ignored them and we listened to my grandfather tell us his version of the future.
“I tell you. In thirty years' time, no one will recognise this place. I promise you, our people will try to copy the Americans, and we, too, will join the race for having the tallest sky-scraper, or the best hotels. We will be a city. A city full of unhappy, dirty people. I will be surprised if this house is still standing!”
Of course, we all laughed and waved off his comments as though they were a fly trying to sit on our nose. He always told us such stories – no one believed him. We all knew that in thirty, or even a hundred years, our village will not have developed.
* * *
I walked slowly towards what was once my house, my home. I was afraid, as well as interested to see what had become of it. My grandfather's voice rang in my ears. I had no idea what to expect. The ghost-road was definitely not there before. What else had changed? What was I supposed to anticipate?
Well, even my grandfather couldn't have known that they would try to win a sky-scraper race on our piece of land. The house was gone. In its place stood a massive multi-storey building. It's vast dullness hit me in the face – I felt as though I had run, head-first, into a concrete wall. Of course, I knew they couldn't have kept our little shack – or at least, that's what it was, compared to this block of rock – forever. But I had hoped, just a tiny bit.
It wasn't just our house. I looked around what used to be the friendly neighbourhood. It was all uncomfortable and unfamiliar. The gray blocks sucked out all the vitality this town used to have. The dust and dirt were even more extreme than when these roads were covered in sand. Again, I found myself wanting to escape as quickly as I could, and I stumbled away, and decided that I would find something to make me believe I still belong.
* * *
I have many memories of the beach. My favourite is actually like any other, but I remember it more clearly than the rest. My youngest sibling was already twelve, I was eighteen. All of us were running around in the sand, swimming, jumping around and playing the fool. My mother was watching us from under the umbrella.
Rehan was singing native songs, stamping his feet, as though he was some kind of tribe leader. The family immediately pitched in, and we sang the whole song before falling over, clutching our stomachs with laughter.
There was a time when Rehan and I would take long walks, and talk under the starlight. This was where we exchanged our biggest secrets, our worries, our complaints. This was where we told each other stories we'd picked up while working, or running errands. This was our alone time, my brother and I, bonding. I remember, Rehan used to have his traits – when he was upset, he would leave deep tracks in the sand because he would drag his feet. Sometimes he would subconsciously pick the leaves off a very low-hanging palm tree. When he was angry, he never walked in a straight line, and he would sort of kick the sand. I would stop and draw circles, he claimed, when I was upset. I loved the feeling of the warm grains between my toes, it felt comforting. If there was any problem in the world, you could go to the beach, and let the sand swallow you and your worries. After those walks with Rehan I would feel reborn.
* * *
I did not know where to go – I was not sure whether I would be even more disappointed, or whether I could find myself again. I had to pull myself together and figure it out, so I kept walking. I didn't like anything I saw – new paved roads, more unhappy faces. I noticed that I was nearing the city-center. More and more cars appeared, it got noisier and dirtier. There were also more homeless people begging for money on the pavements, and the buildings just kept getting bigger. I must have walked for a long time. I felt weak. Eventually, I found my way out of the forest of smoke. Now, I found myself standing on the coast – I had never been here before, or at least, I didn't recognise it anymore. It wasn't really a coast. It was more a paved piece of land that ended abruptly, and clashed with the scenery.
At least here, the air was fresh. I walked along the water and it took me several minutes to realise that I was dragging my feet along the concrete. Then, my mind snapped back to reality when I saw an odd, low-hanging palm tree.
Did I really believe that they had not taken everything I once knew from me?
* * *
When my grandfather died, we had a small and simple ceremony to say goodbye. Only the family attended – we sang his favourite songs as the coffin was lowered into the earth and then, we all shoveled a bit of earth over the coffin and let the workers do the rest. It was a sad day, but my grandfather was ninety-eight years old and his death was not unexpected.
That was when I started regularly visiting the graveyard. It was a nice place – not very big, but it was well looked after, and the people who came to visit their late family members and friends decorated the graves beautifully. I came every Sunday morning, and each time I whispered a prayer and put a single rose by his tombstone.
The graveyard became a sacred place to our family. We missed our grandfather's wisdom and strange ideas. Dinner became a quiet event, since the kids had almost grown up, and he wouldn't be there to tell stories. Once every two months, our parents took us there to pay our respects, and we went there whenever we needed help, or luck.
The family became much more divided. Most of us kept to ourselves – I started to read a lot more, Rehan made a hobby out of making tiny wooden sculptures. I only saw him do this once. At the time, he was crafting a beautiful little heart. He turned it into a pendant and gave it to me that evening.
There was one day where Rehan and I visited my grandfather alone. We had planned to make a box of a few treasured belongings, including my little heart, which we would then bury somewhere. We decided that underneath the huge sacred Bo tree, no one would take it. It was night. We didn't want anyone to know what we we were up to.
When we were finished, we walked back, laughing that when we were old we would come back and find our box, and we would think of all the times we spent together.
* * *
I found the road that led me to the local graveyard. There was just one more thing I had to find.
As I reached the rusting iron gates, I took a deep breath. I pushed them open. The place was deserted. It looked ancient. There were tombstones that looked centuries old, and the flowers that people had spared for their loved ones were withered. Slowly, I headed for where my grandfather was buried. As I had expected, his grave had been replaced by another, which too, had long been forgotten.
The Bo tree was still there. It didn't bloom anymore. The rotting leaves scattered the floor. It appeared to have dried out many years ago. I climbed over the fence that was around it and fell to my knees. With trembling hands, I threw heaps of leaves and earth onto a side. I dug until finally, my had made contact with a hard surface. I wrapped my fingers around it and pulled with all my strength.
The colours we had painted it in had faded. The lock we had put on it was rusted and I could break it off without effort. I turned the box upside-down, and its contents fell onto the earth. There was an old diary, a little golden Buddha, a miniature elephant statue and a tiny wooden heart.
I picked up the little heart and began to cry.
I was home.
