In Defence of Frogs: We Like Our Comfort
My grandmother, a woman of pungent pronouncements and a fondness for cardamom-laced sweets, had a peculiar habit of disparaging her own people. “සින්හලයා මෝඩයා,” she’d declare, a glint in her rheumy eye, “කැවුම් කන්න යෝදයා” (These Sinhalese fools, always wanting something sweet!). Looking back, through the long, telescoping lens of years, it’s astonishing how little I grasped the world then. How, for instance, could a callow boy even begin to decipher the murky depths of her pronouncements?
My father, bless his pragmatic soul, offered a more down-to-earth metaphor. “Sinhalese are like frogs in the well,” he’d say, a wry smile playing on his lips. This, I understood perfectly. We had a well in our courtyard, a cool, dark cylinder teeming with mysteries — who knew what lurked in its depths, perhaps even fish and frogs! But for those creatures, their entire world was confined to that circle of damp stone. The vastness of rivers, the crash of waves on a sandy shore — all these remained forever beyond their ken.
The well’s pulley, a rusty sentinel guarding the cool depths, used to sing a cheerful song as I lowered the bucket. Now, it’s every creak sent shivers not of fear, but of a strange, metaphorical chill. My father’s words, “Sinhalese are like frogs in the well,” echoed in my head, a persistent croaking that drowned out the pulley’s rhythm. The well, once a source of life-giving water, had become a stark reminder of our supposed limitations, a physical manifestation of the proverb. It was as if the frogs themselves were taunting me from the inky blackness below, their chorus a constant echo of our insular existence.
Years have piled up like fallen leaves, yet the truth in those pronouncements remains stubbornly persistent. Perhaps it’s the sweet, syrupy toddy that dulls my countrymen’s senses, or maybe it’s the insular comfort of our emerald island. Whatever the reason, there’s a undeniable frog-in-the-well quality to our existence, a contentment with the familiar that borders on the oblivious.
Back in the day, I learned a valuable lesson about poking fun at my roots.
