A beat show and a menace
In the seventies, music shows in Sri Lanka were a melting pot of fashion, live music, and a place to meet fellow youths of both sexes. As an eighteen-year-old with newfound freedom, I was besotted with music shows. They were free and were held on open grounds during village and school carnivals. Back then, record labelling was in the hands of very few. Music artists relied on open-air shows to promote their music. Many Colombo-based artists played western pop songs; the rest were into local pop music. Young music fans of both gender from the surrounding suburbs gathered at these events, enjoying a good time.
Sri Lankans used the term beat shows for music shows back then. For the sake of the originality of this story, I will refer to music shows as beat shows.
My friends and I were always on the lookout for beat shows. That weekend, there were two of them shows in greater Colombo. One at Moratuwa, a suburb twenty kilometres to the south at its local church’s carnival. The other was at Negombo in the north, nearly forty kilometres north of Colombo.
My gang of friends, Cyril and his brother Edward, Leonard, Suneth, Nelum, Rajah, Mahinda and his brother, Roy and I chose the beat show at Moratuwa out of the two.
I dressed in waist-high bell bottoms, a yellow singlet and platform boots for the night. With my seventies glasses, funky gear, long hair and fair skin relative to fellow Sri Lankans, I was a teenager with a personality that evoked looks from girls and fellow same-age boys. I joined my friends, and we took off from our hometown and arrived in Moratuwa at about seven in the evening, using multi-mode public transport, a combination of trains and buses.
Arriving at Moratuwa, we quickly learned that the carnival was not what we expected. The stage where the bands were scheduled to play was small. The music groups had not arrived yet and were running late. We had made the wrong choice. It was turning out to be a not-exciting night. After a quick huddle, we decided to change tact and head to the other carnival in Negombo.
The episode in the bus ride
We took off on a bus to Colombo central bus station from Moratuwa. From the bus interchange, we boarded a bus heading to Negombo. It was now around nine p.m. In the bus, vacant seats were few and dispersed. The eight of us could not sit next to each other. We sat separately in available vacant seats. I found a seat, and my friend, the eldest and the leader of our group, Cyril. He was a seat apart from me.
The bus took off. A man in his thirties was seated next. The bus was dimly lit, a normality in Sri Lanka. Suddenly, the man put his hand on my crotch. I went into shock first. Then I was fucking mad, totally infuriated. I could not slap him, the bastard, for he was older and bigger. In my fury, I got up and shouted at him. “Fucking bastard, you want to abuse young boys?” At the same, Cyril stood up and challenged the fucktard coming to my defence. He yelled at him, “Leave my friend alone, you demented idiot”.
The bus was now in commotion. Everyone was looking at me standing and Cyril yelling at the offender. The rest of my friends got up in a defensive action. I walked off the seat that I had shared with the marauding paedophile. My brave friends challenged the disgraceful villain. Seeing that the offender was outnumbered, he got up from his seat, moved to a seat at the front of the bus, and sat quietly.
One would have thought that was the end of this crazy episode. Unfortunately, that was not to be. In Sri Lanka, sexual harassment of women, young boys and girls had been normalised for ages. It happened daily, and people were immune to this gross violation of rights and injustices. The bus did not stop through this entire drama. It continued to ply instead of taking it to the next police station.
The bus journey continued. The villain sat in the front quietly. As the bus was nearing its destination of Negombo, where the concert was, the offender started shouting at us from the front of the bus. He became increasingly louder as the bus edged closer to its final stop, threatening to unleash his goons from Negombo, our last stop. He claimed he was a big shot from his hometown, Negombo, and would avenge his humiliation when we landed there. He yelled loudly that he would teach us a lesson.
We sat at the back of the bus, knowing we had a challenge when we reached our final stop. The vulgar idiot from the destination town was planning to unleash his goons when we got there. Cyril, the group's de facto charge of the situation. In a quick huddle with everyone, we decided to disperse into three groups when the bus stopped at Negombo. Each group would find their way to the carnival ground. We had a bit of time once we arrived at the bus stand. Back in the day, with no mobile communication, it would take time for the rascal’s goons to come together to attack us.
The bus came to its final stop at the stand in Negombo. The eight of us got off the bus in a rush, dispersed as quickly as to escape possible violence by the lout’s supporters if they were to emerge from anywhere. I rushed to a restaurant with Cyril and Rajah. Leonard, Nelum and Suneth hid in a public toilet. Edward and Mahinda hid behind a bus stand. We were looking for possible gang members and kept a low profile, not attracting attention. We were scattered, feeling hunted for no fault of ours.
Carnival
We managed to find our way to the carnival ground as planned. We felt somewhat safe with thousands of people in the carnival but remained conscious of the threat. We did not feel safe enough to hang out together. Tactically, we stayed dispersed in three distinct groups with a close watch on each other.
The carnival at Negombo was so much better, though. We enjoyed ourselves despite the menace hanging over our heads. Gypsies, one of the emerging music bands in the country, played that night, dressed in their flashy white, modern outfits. Gypsies were a band that was and still is immensely popular in Sri Lanka.
I studied with one of the band members, Quintus Lal, a few months ago at Aquinas University College. We were great friends hanging out in our budding days, wooing girls and watching movies. I had visited his home a few times, their state-of-the-art recording studio, the best in Sri Lanka then. I knew his brothers and cousins, fellow members of the emerging band before they became famous in Sri Lanka.
During the band’s break at mid-show, I went backstage to meet Quintus. We had a friendly chat together, oblivious to the fame he was now enjoying. That was my highlight, meeting a good friend, just like the old days before fame hit him. That was the better part of that challenging and dramatic eve. It allowed me to put the insanity earlier on the bus out of my mind.
We enjoyed the night listening to the music by Gypsies. Seeing Quintus on stage was the crowning accomplishment of the night. My friends and I had a good time dancing in the open air on the carnival ground.
The music show finished past midnight. With no buses to return home, we walked to the train station and waited for a train. The wait time for the midnight train was about thirty minutes. Still, the threat of being attacked by a wayward local gang was hanging over our heads. We decided to remain dispersed in three groups to avoid detection. The night train arrived at 1 am at the Negombo train station. Once it left the station, only then we felt completely safe. We came home in the early hours of the morning in one piece.
Where are my characters today?
My friends Cyril and his brother Edward, Leonard, Suneth, Nelum, Rajah Mahinda and his brother Roy live in Sri Lanka in retirement. Quintus Lal left the family band in the late seventies and now runs the family business. We both keep in touch, and I have recently visited him in Sri Lanka.
Now in 2021, living in these current times, you may wonder why my friends and I had to endure threats and hide ourselves to avoid being attacked despite being the victims of a crime. That was how Sri Lanka was back then. On the whim of a local gangster, his henchmen would not hesitate to attack anyone from another area without question or rationale. On the slightest dispute, they would attack people from another village, town, race, religion, political persuasion and even students from a different school. Sri Lanka is still mired in this ingrained unholy legacy of an inherent tribal mindset even today.
Boys and girls continue to be abused in public transport there, perhaps not to the extent it was back then.
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