Mabima Seeya (මාබිම සීයා)
Seeya means grandfather in Sri Lanka. Mabima Seeya was my mother’s uncle, elder and only brother to my grandmother. My paternal grandfather died when my father was fifteen. My maternal grandfather died when I was six. So I had no grandfathers to grow up with — it was one and only Mabima Seeya.
Mabima Seeya had introduced my father to my mother, so I was a by-product of his doing. He saw me as his grandson, his making. He had no grandsons of his own at the time. So I was also the first grandson in the extended family on my mother’s side. Mabima Seeya did not fail to show his affection for me when he regularly visited our family, at least once a month.
Don Caithan Martin was Mabima Seeya’s name. He was tall, slim, and dark, but he was a towering figure. He wore white drill suits and smoked cigars. He spoke with authority, holding his cigar in his fingers. He could speak good English, a rarity at the time. He lived with his family in the ancestral home where my grandmother was born in the village of Mabima. Hence his name, which meant grandfather from Mabima.
My maternal grandmother became mentally sick when my mother was eight years old. My grandfather raised his children alone while working full-time as a school principal. Mabima Seeya took deep interest in his sister’s children, who grew up in a single-parent household. His wife, Mary, also extended this love and care. My mother looked up to both of them and depended on Mabima Seeya’s counsel. As a result, Mabima Seeya was a regular visitor to my house.
I spent a lot of time during the school holidays at his home, weeks with him, his wife, Mary and his children, Susan, Juliet, Antony and Ethel. When I was in his care, Mabima Seeya took complete command and ensured I was provided with the best facilities.
Mabima Seeya took me along to visit his village folks. I could see from his eyes that they were proud moments for him when he introduced me to his neighbours. He took time to explain his social interactions so that I could glimpse the proud heritage I had inherited. Many relatives extending to many generations lived in the surrounding area.
Mabima Seeya was looked up to as a leader in the village. Many villagers addressed him as Doctor. Before retiring, he practised as a medical dispenser in a hospital. There was no doctor in the village, and the village folks came to him to get advice when sickness struck. He provided them with free advice on medicines & treatment as a community service.
Mabima Seeya’s property was on high ground. One could see most of the village from his house. The land around his house had many fruit trees. Opposite his house were three shops that he had rented out.
After the row of shops was a water well to Mabima Seeya. He took me to the well at noon every day and bathed me. The well was made available to anyone in the neighbourhood as a community service. So many came to bathe in the commune at noon. While Mabima Seeya chatted to the elders, I was busy with the boys my age, inquisitively enquiring about their life in this tiny village. Then I’d sit on the side and watch the communal bathing, a new experience for suburn kid I was. Adults pulled the water, and the children stood behind them and shared the showers, many naked. Young women and their mothers came to the well and changed into a bathing cloth from armpit to armpit, tightly stretched to their ankles. Many young and adult men stripped to their loincloths displaying their athletic and lithe bodies. When women finished bathing, men began bathing as if not to embarrass each other. By the side of the well was a large flat stone where clothes were soaped and dashed before washing off the soap.
After the bath and our communal conversations, I returned to Seeya’s home for a hearty lunch, freshly cooked by his wife.
I liked Mabima for its simple village atmosphere and the freedom it afforded.
I loved the company of Mabima Seeya’s daughters, Susan, Juliet and Ethel, who did not hesitate to spoil me. Then there was Anthony, Mabima Seeya’s only son. He was tall and slim, always wore khaki shorts and walked with a slight swagger. The youth respected him in the village due to his father’s status and leadership in the local church community.
The church was a short distance from Mabima Seeya’s house, a few meters away. It was special to everyone in our families. My mother’s ancestors had lived there and worshipped for many generations. This is the church where my maternal grandfather married my grandmother in 1925. The church building and the Catholic community were small. My grandmother’s extended family was prominent in the church and its activities. Next to the church was the cemetery where my ancestors had been buried.
By the side of the church was a hilly area. The highest point was solid rock. The Stations of the Cross, an essential part of Catholic worship, had been built from the bottom of the hill to the very top of the rock. On the way up the hill, one passed life-like statues depicting the fourteen stages of Jesus’s final suffering. On the highest top of the rock was the 12th station representing Jesus’s death on the cross. My maternal grandmother and Mabima Seeya’s elder sister financed and built these. My grand aunty was affluent and was generous with her donations to her ancestral church.
By evening the families got together to say the rosary and prayers in the church. Anthony led the youth in the church and helped to open and close the church doors after the evening prayers.
Mabima Seeya slept on the house's upper level, called Soldara, a Sinhala word of Dutch origin. Soldara was a reinforced ceiling above which lay a solid wooden structure. Most ancestral homes had one of these. From the main hall of the house was a flight of stairs leading to it. This upper tower was used as a watchtower. In the past, intruders could come in the night to rob affluent homes. Homeowners slept on Soldara and watched over through a window. Soldara was considered private and usually used by the man of the house.
Mabima Seeya invited me to join him in sleeping upstairs. I loved the challenge and the experience and joined him. He laid a mat for me to sleep on and laid down his gun for protection. I loved the idea of being treated like an adult and being allowed to sleep on the watchtower high above the ground. I was thrilled with the notion that I had a grand-uncle who could handle a gun and one who was brave to protect his family and home with it.
One early morning, when we were sleeping in the Soldara, we were woken by a loud continuous wailing sound. It was of a woman. Mabima Seeya immediately woke me up, and we both came out of his house to the main road. I saw a woman carrying a child from a distance, running towards the main road. Someone was running behind her with a torch lit by coconut husk. Few more people were running with her. I had never seen anything like this and was shocked to see a mother crying despairingly and running with a sick child.
The entire village folks woke up and gathered around in support of the desperate woman, who held a son about my age lifeless on her arm. He hardly opened his eyes and appeared unconscious. Out of her desperation, she was wailing and praying that her son would survive. People ran in all directions looking for a vehicle, and someone returned with a car. She was escorted into the vehicle, and the party left in the direction of the main town where the closest hospital was located.
I was shocked by this brutal experience. Mabima Seeya explained that the child had a high fever and a fit. Deaths of children in the area were expected due to a lack of accessible treatment. I then realised that village folks in outer villages had very few basic facilities such as health, school and transport. Later I was glad to hear that the boy had survived, thanks to his mother’s quick action.
Mabima Seeya was big on contact with his relatives. He kept up his regular communications with his relatives, however distant they may be. He would associate with relatives from four to five generations ago. Mabima Seeya enjoyed being the chieftain in a clan. It was vividly on display during the annual church feast in Mabima. I was introduced to so many relatives and was utterly confused with such distant relationships. Nevertheless, everybody shared a fraternity and joined together for a great lunch at Mabima Seeya’s place every year.
I spent many school holidays away from home at Mabima Seeya’s house. Mabima Seeya’s love made a lasting impression on me. He was the grand uncle I loved most. Mabima Seeya’s unconditional love dominated my experiences and memories of a loving grandfather as I was growing up to be a teen. Mabima Seeya was the closest thing I had as a grandfather growing up. Mabima seeya was super great.
I repaid his gestures with gratitude some twenty-five years later, when he was much older and feeble, when I took my two-year-old son, Durand, while re-visiting Sri Lanka and visiting him. He patted my son, kept him on his lap and hugged him. He knew his end was near, and there were tears in his eyes. His daughters have subsequently told me that it was one of the happiest days of his life and cherished the moment he got to see and hold his favourite grandson’s son, his great-grandson. Unfortunately, Durand, my son, was too young to remember this.
When I meet Mabima Seeya’s daughters, my mother’s cousins, Ethel and in Sri Lanka, they fondly remember those special moments with me as a kid. When I meet them now, I sit on the ground and chat with them with reverence and awe, a grateful gesture for their unlimited love and care.
Mabima Seeya gave his portion of one of his ancestral land to my maternal grandmother in 1940. I inherited it directly from my grandmother when I was in my twenties. I grew up on his land, a fact that I learned much later as an adult. He never told me that it was on his ground that I was growing up. It was a generous and selfless act by Mabima Seeya. His signature above is from that deed of gift to my grandmother. I will cherish it forever.
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