#MeToo
Read this story with three episodes and determine who the winners and losers are.
Writing this story of grit with three seemingly unconnected segments took me a lot of courage. So stay with me till the end for the synopsis.
The stories contain sexual violence.
1st episode in junior high school
In high school, grades nine and ten were a drama for a boy, a newcomer. But, in a same-sex boys-only premium school in Colombo city, I learned to adapt quickly to the new environment. I made many new friends within a short time, and life continued.
Only sometimes. There was this big boy, Mangala, from another class. He was a bully and lived close to the school. He was over eighteen years old and a gangster. He roamed the school unhindered, being the bully he was. He was famous for abusing younger boys. The boys avoided him on school grounds out of fear should they draw attention to them.
On his radar was my friend, Merrill, a handsome boy with good looks. Mangala walked into our classroom when our teacher was not in class. Walking in, as if it was his right, he tried to pull Merrill from his desk, giving the fright of our lives. Merrill resisted this monster. It was a massive drama in class. Despite Mangala’s repeated attempts, he failed. I was mad at the ease with which this idiot could threaten my friend. You don’t need to figure out how furious I was with this bully.
Then Mangala set his eyes on me. Not only that, he was after my best friend, Ajit. Mangala threatened Ajit and me for resisting him. Fortunately, Stanley Motha, a friend and an older boy in school, came to our rescue. Motha, small made in comparison to the well-built Mangala, stood up to the idiot not to touch us both. With Motha’s daring act of courage defending his friends, we escaped the monster and bully.
2nd episode in the university college
I left high school at sixteen and joined Colombo's only private university college. There was a massive gap between senior and junior students in that facility. Most students were over much older, over twenty. Entirely male, they were the dominating power block in this premium campus.
In the university were two senior boys from my old school, Walter and Theophilus, twins. I did not move with them because they were much older. They hung out together with the senior lads. Though the twins looked very different, Walter was fair, and Theophilus was dark.
That year, elections were held to select student union representatives. Not wanting to be left out of this novel experience, I volunteered to be an election official. It was my first-ever democratic duty in my short life in Sri Lanka.
After the election results were announced, the winners celebrated. Then, everybody drank, winners and losers, in the corners of study halls and the cafeteria. There was plenty of booze, free, courtesy of the seniors. Alcohol was a discovery in my life. Unlike youth today, I had no notion of responsible drinking.
The twins, Walter and Theophilus, were hanging out in the cafeteria, drinking with their friends. On seeing me, they invited me to their table, offering drinks. I had hardly any money except my bus fare to return home. Enjoying this new adventure, I landed at their table, full of booze. The twins poured drinks for me as I sat with them. Happy at this bargain, I freely gulped the drinks generously offered.
A bit later, I felt fuzzy. Unconcerned by this new experience, I drank more to keep up with the senior boys. The teenage me had an element of trust with the twins simply because we hailed from the same old school.
The next thing I remember is waking up dazed. It took me a while to absorb what was happening around me. It was dark. I was no longer on campus, around the table where I was. Instead, I was in a room. I had no pants on. Walter was on top of me, smiling. I felt the wetness between my legs. I felt weird. I was stunned by what had happened to me. I shouted, “I want to go home”.
Theophilus, the dark twin, came from nowhere and quickly wiped my legs. I dressed up at double speed, putting my pants on. I remember being dropped back at the college in their car from wherever they had taken me. It was late, dark and past sunset.
I made my way to our home on my own by bus. I changed, went to our family’s water well in darkness, stripped and had a cold water bath, rubbing my body hard as if to cleanse me of what had happened a few hours earlier.
I did not say a word to anyone at home. I tried not to think of it. I felt that Walter and Theophilus had taken something away without my consent.
Back in the university college, the next day and beyond, I avoided the twins and their friends, should it remind them of what they did to me. I was ashamed of what had occurred, although I knew it was not my fault. But I did not overthink it. I never wallowed on it.
But I never forgot what the marauding twins did to me. It was bloody wrong.
3rd episode in the hills
I was a wayward traveller in my late teen years. On weekends, I travelled to far corners of Sri Lanka by train or plane when possible. My uncle, Artie, my father’s first cousin, ran a rest house in Talawakelle, in the hills region of Sri Lanka. I’d drop him a postcard and turn up at short notice in his rest house.
At seventeen, I’d get my private room, all food and board, taken care of by my uncle. My time was spent talking to his assistants and waiters, all my distant cousins from my grandmother’s ancestral home village. They wore white sarongs and shirts and were the foot soldiers who ran the rest house with multiple rooms and restaurants. Between my swims in the nearby river and walks in the tea bushes during the day, they loved talking to me and were hell-bent on giving me the best experiences during my short stay with them.
The urban council owned the Talawakelle rest house. The mayor had a significant say in this business. My uncle paid a lease to the council. The mayor, Mr Warnakulasuriya, a bespectacled man in a white suit and a charming wife in their middle ages, was suave. They’d turn up at the rest house for a meal. They received royal treatment because, in the power play of politics in Sri Lanka, my uncle depended on the mayor’s benevolence and support to run his business. While both were having a meal, they saw me and asked whether I could join them.
Here, I was brazen, sitting with a mayor and his wife at their dining table. They were inquisitive, asking me where I study and my aspirations. At a tender age, when life is your oyster, I blurted out my gung-ho attitude to life. Then Mrs Warnakulasuriya said, “Oh! You should meet our son, Sunimal. He has his car. You could meet him if you come to our home”. Despite a bit of formality and patronage, they were a lovely couple. At an age when one ignored these eccentrics from elders, I thanked them for their kind invitation and said yes.
That evening, I talked to the workers, my distant relatives. They did not have nice things to say about the mayor’s son, Sunimal. He was a problematic character, unlike his parents. That the mayor and his wife could not have children and that he was an adopted child. The mayor’s son had been spoilt and was a rascal. He turned up at the rest house at odd hours of the day demanding drinks. Political patronage was necessary for my uncle, so Sunimal got what he wanted at no charge in the rest house.
But at an age where one wanted to challenge the world without bias, I did not think much of what my distant relatives did about Sunimal, the mayor's son. I was yet curious about Sunimal.
On the next day, Sunimal turned up at the rest house. I was returning from a bath at the nearby waterfall. He came in his car, a Black Hillman, parking it in the front entrance. He looked different, dark and skinny, definitely unlike his parents. That confirmed that he was adopted, a big thing in Sri Lankan society. He sat at the restaurant alone, drinking a beer. On seeing me, he called me to his table.
The conversation with Sunimal was novel and amusing. He was smoking Gold Leaf, the most expensive cigarette in Sri Lanka, from a gold cigarette case, lighting them with a shiny lighter. He wore a gold chain around his neck. I do not know what it was, but for me, a budding teenager out to discover the world, it stoked my curiosity.
Before long, I was in the black Hillman, his car. He drove recklessly through Talawakelle town. On his way, he opened the cubby and showed me a pistol. It was the first time I saw a pistol in my life. A black pistol. At an age (I was probably seventeen by then), everything in life was a new experience; I was not stunned. Sunimal put the gun back in the cubby like a daily tool.
After a ride through the hills of Talawakelle, we turned up at the Warnakulasuriya bungalow. It was a massive bungalow, painted white, with manicured gardens and two or three cars parked outside. Mrs Warnakulasuriya was delighted to see me and addressed me as ‘putha’, meaning son in Lankan. She directed me to a room and its attached bathroom and gave me a towel to wash up.
It was close to dinner time. A large dinner was served where the old couple, Sunimal and I, sat at a round table. Servants served all kinds of freshly cooked rice and a multitude of curries. Sunimal, and only him, was served a boiled egg. His mother quipped that having an egg with his three meals was his habit. I figured Sunimal was a spoilt young man who could dictate his mother. The whole dining saga was dominated by Sunimal, his mother, who wanted to feed him. His father carried on, eating his food, unaffected by the drama before him. It was a spectacle to watch.
Dinner was over, it was getting late, and I wanted to return to my uncle’s rest house. Mrs Warnakulasuriya interjected and insisted that I stay over. She went to a nearby phone and called my uncle, talking to his wife, Aunty Jesmine, and said I would stay with them. That was it. It was agreed between the mayor’s wife and my uncle’s wife that I, their underage nephew, could stay over.
Mrs Warnakulasuriya got the bedroom she pointed me to earlier arranged by her servants. Before long, I fell asleep in the cold weather of the hills.
Suddenly, in the middle of the night, I felt a hand touching my body; in the dark, a man was trying to get on top of me. It was Sunimal. He closed my mouth and asked me not to scream. Then he forced himself on me, him between my legs. I felt scared, thinking of the gun he had with him. In shock, I guess, I had no choice but to yield.
The following day, I only talked a little at the breakfast table. I could not look at this spoilt monster of the mayor's son sitting across. His mother again fed him eggs and hoppers, mollycoddling this grown-up man. Now, it was a disgusting sight for me.
I left their house soon after and walked to my uncle’s rest house despite Mrs Warnakulasuriya pleading with me to wait for Sunimal to drop me back at the rest house.
The next day I returned home. Back in the day, these incidents were always swept under the carpet, hush-hush. I learnt a life lesson not to trust anyone but myself. But, again, like the previous episodes, I did not mellow on these sagas and moved on. It was part of growing up and taking responsibility for myself.
Where are these rogue characters today?
· Mangala lived as a gangster and a drug addict in poverty and has since died. His destruction has now transcended to his children, who live on handouts.
· A few years after the incident, Walter died in a drowning accident at sea in front of Theophilus.
· The mayor’s son, Sunimal, killed his future wife with a gun. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Where are the other characters today?
· Stanley Motha, who stood between Mangala and saved Ajit and me, lives a happy retirement, travelling between Sri Lanka and Dubai. I keep in touch with him and regularly remind him of the risks he took to protect two friends as a teenager. Motha is now a happy grandfather.
· My best friend in my teen years, Ajit, lives happily in Sri Lanka. He is a grandfather.
· Merrill, another boy Mangala bullied, lives in Sydney and is also a happy grandfather.
· I left Sri Lanka for Dubai a few short years after these episodes. It became a permanent parting from my first home country, Sri Lanka. I made a fulfilling life outside Sri Lanka. I am a proud father to four adult kids and four grandchildren. I still kick goals and remain healthy and live a happy life with my large brood here in Australia.
· I remain friends with Ajit, Merrill and Stanley in friendships that have lasted over half a century.
Synopsis
Please think about who the winners of this story are. It is undoubtedly not the monsters; I have written about. The winners have survived and lived happy lives. The monsters have lived in their agony and perished prematurely.
Now you know that Karma is visited not only by Epstein and Weinstein in this world.
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