Rubber and Rhyme: A Sri Lankan Plantation Farce
This short story is about a young boy visiting his relatives on their rubber plantation in Sri Lanka. Denzil, bored by the traditional Sinhala poetry recital and the mundane rubber-tapping demonstration, finds humour in the clash between his family’s colonial past and their newfound national pride. The story highlights the cultural differences Denzil experiences as he navigates between his Western upbringing and his Sri Lankan heritage while enduring his relatives’ attempts to entertain him.
Artie revelled in his newfound status as a landowner in this drowsy village, cruising in his black Hillman with his wife, Jesmine. His entourage included the ever-reliable Sylvester, his manservant, and a ready-made workforce bundled with the rubber estate — a motley crew of plantation workers, husbands and wives labouring side by side.
As dusk settled, Artie lounged in his beloved cane chair, his ample belly stretching a white vest to its limits, barely contained by a striped sarong. Jasmine, fanning herself with a newspaper that had seen better days, intermittently barked orders at the bespectacled Sylvester and the kitchen staff, her voice cutting through the humid evening air.
As twilight fell, Sylvester tended to the Petromax lamp with practised hands, filling it with kerosene and coaxing it to life. Its warm glow pushed back the encroaching darkness. Only the children, including Denzil — Artie’s cousin’s eldest son — and his siblings, remained active. They sprawled listlessly on the cool cement floor, their boredom hanging heavy in the air like the lingering aroma of freshly tapped rubber. Outside, rows of rubber trees stood like silent sentinels, bearing witness to the family gathering that teetered cultural ritual and unintentional comedy. Among the adults were two of Artie’s sisters: the beautiful Neeta with her husband Wilson and the unmarried Krislene, the youngest of the siblings. His other sister, Margaret, stayed back with her husband, Godwin, and their two boys, who were both toddlers.
With all the gravitas of a self-appointed cultural custodian, Artie declared it was time for literature — specifically, Sinhala poetry. His mind steeped in the Western canon from his schooling, Denzil found himself adrift in this unfamiliar literary terrain. His gaze drifted to bespectacled Sylvester; curiosity piqued about the thoughts lurking behind the impassive face of the man he knew only as a waiter in his boarding school’s refectory a year ago.
As the evening wore on, Denzil couldn’t help but marvel at the absurdity of it all — this curious blend of colonial hangover and newfound local pride playing out under the indifferent gaze of a thousand rubber trees. In this moment, caught between two worlds, Denzil felt the first stirrings of a farce that would take years to form in his mind entirely.
With all the subtlety of a nightingale, Neeta nudged her husband. “Wilson, mesmerize them with your poems!” She continued, “Every week, his poems are published in the local papers.” Wilson, a thin man who could hide behind a rubber tree, fumbled in his pocket as if searching for pre-1971 rupees. Out came a notebook that had seen more action than a Morris Minor during the fuel crisis.
He was prepared for his moment under the sun. Clearing his throat with the grace of a bullfrog in a water hole, he launched into his Sinhala monologue. His voice oscillated wildly, reminiscent of a toddy-drunk monkey swinging through the jungle canopy. The relatives listened with expressions ranging from rapt attention to mild indigestion from too much coconut sambol, his favourite food mix.
Young Denzil, sporting a look of teenage disinterest that could curdle buffalo curd, was mentally tuned to Radio Ceylon, his brain twisting to the latest Santana hits. As Wilson’s poetry droned on like a particularly verbose Hansard report, the air grew heavy with the scent of overripe mangoes and socialist reform.
As Wilson’s poetry wafted through the house, mingling with the aroma of over-spiced curry and the distant smell of rubber, one could almost hear the plantation sighing, “Another day, another drama in the life of this landowner, Artie.”
Everyone gathered at the water well down in the estate the following day for their morning rituals. After a quick breakfast of white bread and lentils, they were whisked to the rubber plantations. The estate workers provided a rubber tapping demonstration as exciting as watching a Ferguson tractor plough a paddy field.
But the real excitement came when a worker chased down a land monitor with all the speed of a cheetah in an African jungle. Suddenly finding his moral compass, Denzil refused to partake in the impromptu lizard lunch, declaring himself a vegetarian faster than you can say “Jana Ghosha.” As he sulked, one could almost hear the land monitor’s ghost whispering, “Thanks, machan. I owe you one.” Denzil lost his appetite for days after that lunch episode.
