Lapses in time , forgotten people and remembered ones

In my career as a Freelance Journalist , for nearly one and half years I wrote for the kids' and youth sections of the Nation newspaper which I enjoyed thoroughly . When I moved to Daily News I couldn't publish a few that I had already written for The Nation. This particular story was one of them. I am delighted that the series is resumed to www.nightowls.lk. You'll find more in the series as you scroll down.



Years ago, while at school I was called off for a Guides’ meeting. All guides at Musaeus College met at the senior Reference Library for whatever they had to discuss or do. That, the senior reference library is a place full of memories for every Guide in Musaeus College .No doubt. And for someone like me , it wasn’t only a place for guide meetings but also a hiding spot during school assemblies , for which sometimes I didn’t want to go because they kept repeating the same old things . And it was a - pass- free- time place. Most of the free time was spent hunting down books and reading. On one such day a friend came by and suggested that I must read Sarachchandra’s ‘Malagiya Aththo’.

It took a couple of days. I finally opened the book I have been waiting to read, Malagiya Aththo by Ediriweera Sarachchandra. Sarachchandra was a Sri Lankan playwright, novelist, poet, literary critic, essayist and social commentator, whose fascinating theater work like Sinhabahu gained lasting popularity. Was embraced by many. Malagiya Aththo and its sequel, Malawunge Avurudu da dwells around love. Very poignant. His reflections on life over death, arrivals and departures are textually powerful.

One of those phrases in the story stopped me. ලොවෙහි ඇත්තේ යාම් ඊම් පමණක් ය . ( This world only consists of entrances and exits.) True. In a world that everything fleets, nothing lasts. Even people. They come . They go. This was what the Great One learned. The ancient law of Siddhartha Gautama. Later on Sarachchandra’s words were remembered as I read Shakespeare’s ‘All the world’s a stage’. The earth is pictured as a theater stage on which various characters appear for a short while and then empties out to make way for a new production. A generation goes, another comes but the earth stays ever. Sun also rises.

Pic Source : Internet

Some people come and go and are forgotten. Some come and go. But they never really go. However far they may have gone, they are by us now and then, remembered again and again, every day break and night. Their presence is a memory or need. I tend to think.

This morning, however (and many mornings before) Archimedes was remembered, when I stepped into the bathroom .Some of the greatest inventions in the world were done while having showers. Same with Archimedes. Archimedes got into the tub for a bath and water overflowed. He eventually found the connection between volume of the water over flowing and the body mass.

As we approach the microphone there is one person that comes into mind. Alexander Graham Bell. If not for his experiment we would not have had a device to address larger gatherings, louder and clearer.

Three years ago, in a place called Colombo I met a man ( or I may call him a ‘boy’ in heart) who taught me two years after that people are not completely lost. They are found in anecdote and landscape. They are just there, at a countless distance, caught by winds and impossible to catch. And for him I wrote thus:

Now and then

as you come and go

it feels like

I have been absented

and your absence has gone through me

like needle pulling thread

All I do is stitched with its color.

Woven in distance and tear

to my heart and me,

it’s only you.

And among all these, some important people are forgotten. Or else we are purposely neglecting them. Eliza Grace Symonds invented the telephone as Graham Bell did. However, as she delayed it by half an hour to register her invention at the Patent Office, Alexander Graham Bell became the inventor in the eyes of law for the telephone. Time was the trick. One of those history’s sacred moment was stolen. Nobody talked of Eliza Grace. She will not be footnoted in the future.

Though Galileo, commonly known as Gal Gal is said to have discovered the telescope. But this is not strictly true. Galileo rather improved the telescope which was designed by Lippershey for the first time. But no text book remembers him. It seems that we do not give enough credit to people who have done the initial creation for the advancement of society. Or may be its human inadequacy.

And so I went from Sarachchandra’s live words or perhaps to a world made of acute pain, followed by a lover’s departure, then to Shakespeare and in the random haste I went to a day in 2015, at Law College, where a Lecturer once told that we leave not only memories, even the breath, smell and everything else possible to leave making the presence more stronger. His thoughts inspired and I wrote on them sometime back , titled 'Is it ok to tell that you own my breath?'.

I do not know what makes us forget and what makes us remember some. May be we carefully set aside things or people we don’t want and gradually learn to forget them. Or it could be love that keeps us remembering, small but significant or it is hope crafted by madness.


Other articles in the series:

Learn to pick yourself up
A road is a waterfall
Water is noble
Mountains are cool to climb
You don't like Fruitcake?
Mr.Prashantha lal's favorite song
There are buildings , and then us
Elephants and the 'elephantness'
Life is all about scoring Amma points
Did you find the leader in you?
Lessons from laundering and laundry baskets
Is it ok to tell that you own my breath?
Laughter makes you lighter. Did you know?
It's a fleeting world , I realized.
Halves here and halves there
That bittersweet longing
Right choice matters
Landmarks will guide you to correct places
You can draw your own map
Kites, turtles and other things
When you have young blood in you
On bags , Fondly
No sunset for sunsets
Drum dies with drummer
'Athak dunna fun ekak'
Threads and Hearts
George , Harold and Captain Underpants