The bag filled with groceries banged on the edge of the bicycle wheel indicating it was not going to stay in one place. If it got caught in the wheel, I would have gone flying with the bag and the bike. I stopped.
The bag was very heavy. At least 10kg. The spoils of finally discovering low fat liquid milk, that did not have a cap on the purchase number. So I bought 4. And assumed a mountain bike could take it on the handlebar. What a fool.
It was late – almost 8pm. There were hardly any vehicles on the road though it was a Thursday. Usually the roads are full of noisy bustling buses, speeding cars and veering tuk tuks and bikes. Today it was half empty. The line of cars for the petrol shed was now a double line snaking around the side roads and all the way inside somewhere. People were inside their vehicles, converging in groups and brazenly standing in the middle of the road as if to grasp some semblance of autonomy in a country whose democracy had crumbled under the weight of corruption, self-serving politics and family mafia. A country where the working and middle class was slowly being vanquished under the weight of inflation and the lack of empathy of 225 so called leaders and the president voted in on a war hero, ‘disciplinarian’, majoritarian high. A high which had now fizzled into an endless hangover of regret, anger and sheer frustration by those who never voted for him and a number of those who did. Regret is bittersweet in that you learn a devil of a lesson at the price of great suffering. Question is – do you learn from it? Or do you return to the safe fallacy after a while of forgetting that bitter lesson?
I have been venting my spleen quite liberally on social media for a while now. I am lucky in that I am not afraid to call out on something for what it is, though sometimes calling out politicians does come with a good bucket of doubt and fear coz of the white vans and intimidation by the CID and God knows who else they try to dispatch. But I have been lucky because I belong to the ‘Colombo crowd’. We are known amongst the movers and shakers of this country and that gives a sort of protection. As classist and unfair as it is, it does. Because we are still very much feudal in how we run things in the country.
A neo-feudal outlook complete with Victorian prudishness has given our country an outward appearance of civility with mass sexual repression simmering underneath. This erupts in fits and starts on public transport, in the Relax rooms for one hour rent and in the vestibules of the religious including the clergy, though of course, we cannot speak such ill. It is not proper. Our culture is such. Poppycock indeed.
Anyhow I readjusted the bloody bag on my arm and decided to cycle back home. It was very strenuous. As a cyclist on a bike with gears I have the greatest respect for my fellow countrymen who cycle the roads of Lanka with no gears, up mountains, hills and down steep inclines. Their bodies are wiry and they are often barefoot or in worn out rubber slippers. I felt like one of them today. Lugging groceries back home on a bicycle because there was no fuel and hence no proper taxis, tuk tuks or even public transport. I remembered the days we took the bus home from the Colpetty market after school. My mother would buy groceries and would carry them in her hands – the polythene bags cutting into her fingers and cutting off the circulation as she clutched onto the seat rails every time the bus driver braked and jerked all of us and sent us hammering into one another down the centre aisle.
Those days were hard. We had no extra cash. We had enough money to live but not enough for little luxuries like a tuk tuk home or even a cab. We lived in a mansion in the wealthiest part of Colombo, yet we had sweet all to our name. My grandmother held the house in her fist like Poseidon did his trident. Except that she commanded no seven seas. Just a crumbling house with its dysfunctional inmates.
I remember the tiny annex at the back where my mother, brother and I lived. Cramped into one bedroom with an aluminium triple bunk bed. The toilet connected the annex to the main house – how appropriate. They treated us like flushed excrement – banished to the back of the house in shame – after all my mother was a divorcee. Such a sin you know in an overtly zealous Catholic household.
The roof was constantly leaking, the whole house had a steady visitation of rats from time to time, the moss covered the walls and the gutters hung down in rusted disdain. Yet we polished brass ware on Thursdays and silver ware on Fridays. We wore heirloom jewels for weddings. We entertained – bridge parties for the old and not so old, birthday parties depending on who was having it and who was funding it and meals for the usual Easter and Christmas. The constant talk and gripe was about money and who was paying for what.
It was not a bad life – it was just a life peppered with a lot of bitterness, a level of cruelty and stubborn dysfunctional sadness. I was very glad when we left the boundaries of Colombo 7 and into the unknown terrains of rented houses till we finally got our own little house.
Not in Colombo 7 – thank god. That place was riddled with envy, selfishness, stubborn foolishness and a sense of everyone wanting to eat a piece of the pie as it were. Here, no one knew nor cared who the devil I was. It was a wonderfully liberating feeling. And for once, we had money. Where we could buy the food we wanted without sneaking it from the fridge (as we were expressly forbidden from eating the cheese and chocolate sent by that selfish wench from overseas). We were children but we were treated like children from a poor house. “Please sir may I have some more”, worked on just one inmate of the house. The rest were hell bent on beating us down and teaching us some good Christian, misguided child rearing – “Children should be seen and not heard”.
And now, having finally worked my way through life and earned a decent amount to live comfortably, here I was with a bag weighing me down as I cycled home. The weight almost a constant reminder of the miles to go before I sleep. It was not a pleasant realisation though it was a very realistic one. Today, it wasn’t about how much money you had. It was about how much power you had and who you knew. Not just knowing someone, but knowing them enough to weasel some favour out of them.
I find such behaviour to be in poor taste. It’s just not my thing. It compromises one’s integrity or so I feel. So here’s me – trying to survive in a dysfunctional system that is crippling to say the least.
The feeling of hopelessness has not engulfed me though it has affected many. I have a somewhat hopeful resilience that saw me through the rat house I called home into my current life and lifestyle. Somewhere there is faith and belief that things can only get better albeit we are still heading to rock bottom. Once you hit that, the only way is up. Or so I believe.
And in these dark days, of power cuts, of endless frustration, anguish and despair about not having fuel, not being able to feed your kids to having to hunt for things like butter and milk and lug them around on a bicycle, I have found in me a resolve to not give up or give in. And so I cycled home while telling myself that it was all in my head and that I could do it and that I can and I will.
Bio :
Lilanka Botejue is a writer, archaeology buff & marketer with a love for music, nature and food. She is an English graduate with a postgraduate diploma in Archaeology and is currently reading for an MSc in Archaeology. A former teacher of English Literature & singing, she believes knowledge empowers people and shares her experiences and existential creativity on her blog www.owlmuses.com while enjoying life off the beaten track. Her motto is “What is meant to be comes about of what one does”.
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