From My Notebooks In 1976: Shaky in Ceylon

22nd December 2024 |

I’ve been riding round Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and I’m back at Mannar waiting for the ferry to Rameswaram, India, but the weather’s against me and I’m still feeling feverish.

 

14th October

Rain is really punching down in the night. The garden has become a lake. The varnish on all the stairs is sticky. Pools of water on the floor. Write to Tony and Mum and walk to the post office. Then get back to feel feverish again. Decide to take tetracycline. Soon afterwards, vomit (having drunk Coca-cola). Think I might have typhoid. Get scared and get driven to hospital as emergency. Doctor greets me with great amusement.

“What do you want,” he asks. “Medicine, or to be admitted?”

“I want to know what’s wrong.”

He can’t stop grinning.

“You’ve got a fever.”

“Why?” I ask.

“The climate,” he answers. “Take a Disprin and it will go.”

“That’s what I’ve been doing for three days.”

“Cough,” he demands. I give him a couple of coughs.

“You see,” he says. “You’ve got a cough.”

It’s so ridiculous I have to smile too.

He still thinks it’s a huge joke. He asks several questions but doesn’t listen to the answers. But he’s convinced there’s nothing wrong with me, so I begin to believe at last it’s nothing very much. Back to Rest House much embarrassed.

Soon afterwards astonish them by going fishing in the rain. A fish takes away the hook, it comes down in a torrent, and I slosh back to change. Through afternoon, with two more Disprins, begin to feel better. Mr Ratnavale calls on me. My heart sinks, but he’s better today – not so overawed without his weighty companion. Eventually he walks off into the rain and comes back, unsolicited, with a packet of five Capstan cigarettes [a popular British brand]. Very sweet. Has wife and three kids in Jaffna. Means to travel overland to Europe. Give him the ST address, without explaining what it is.

Fun with the monkey on the chain.

Now great wind blows up outside. Will tomorrow be stormy?

Walked round the Portuguese fort. 17th Century. Impressive size.

15th October

Busy night. Great storm blowing, with sounds like gunshots, among others. Between nine and midnight I must have sweated a lake. Both sheets wringing wet and mattress too. Tried to make do with towel and sarong, but mattress too wet and had to change mattresses and put on trousers and blue vest. In morning both these were damp too. The tetracycline must have helped me chase the fever out, so I’ll go on with it for four days.

It occurred to me that the ferry could hardly have docked last night, and this morning at the bus depot someone confirmed that it was anchored a mile offshore. “Maybe this afternoon, maybe tomorrow morning.” I imagine I’ll be here another night yet.

View from the pier at Mannar

View from the pier at Mannar

Go to pier. Sea very rough. One fishing boat breaks anchor line – tossing about on the other line, spewing out broken fittings, which poor owners are combing off the beach.

Ferry is in, discharging passengers but customs very slow. Captain puts to sea empty, afraid that sea may cause ship to break the pier. No ferry today – maybe tomorrow morning. Meet odd couple from Bolton via Bangladesh.

 


Ads in the Ceylon telephone directory:

Grow ARLINGON COWPEA – it’s a fine substitute for dhal.

To get 100 bushes of paddy per acre: Grow improved varieties: Disinfect Seed Paddy:

Apply fertilisers: Weed the fields: Control Insect Pests.

Short conversations reduce engaged calls.

Please listen for the dial tone before dialling.

It is a DELIGHT to possess a coloured telephone.

Grow your own vegetables. Obtain top quality seeds in 25ct packets from the Dept. of Agriculture.

Start your own poultry flock. Buy day-old chicks.


 

Mr. X, Lawyer, Politician and Drunk. First heard talking on the telephone:

“Do you know who you are speaking? What is this? Don’t you know who I am? I am the chairman – (of something or other).”

Then afterwards a long, impassioned declaration – “I do not ask a favour. All I am asking is natural justice. Just give me natural justice – etc., etc.”

Later falls asleep on the ‘opium couch ’next to arak and soda. But at this stage I don’t know that he’s a drunk. At first in conversation he seems to promise liveliness, a few phrases, a gleam in his eye, he actually hears what I say first time – but soon the concentration slides. He has a vendetta with the acting captain of the ferry – has been persuaded to withdraw complaints against him in the past (long past). Now he calls him an incompetent blunderer.

“My clients on the lower deck. ….. ” (Fishermen). Soon mentions his weakness for drink – his wife’s troubles and forbearance, alternately humble and arrogant. Ends by trying to persuade the Bus manager to send the bus to the Rest House to pick his party up for the station. Hi sons run the air services from Jaffna (he implies great influence.) Endless inconclusive flights into political theory, history, philosophy, religion, all trailing off into nonsense. Mr. R. – friend of the famous – joins as a willing chorus. The two American Jews add a further fragmenting influence. Degenerates into a futile discussion of train, bus, boat and plane schedules. All nonsense – hold the fort as long as I can – then supper. Mr. R keeps his eye on me waiting for me to finish. I drag it out. The others stumble out into the stormy night. Mr. R gets the message (at least he gets that kind of message) and I’m alone again.

Was one word of wit spoken? No. Not by me or anyone. My thoughts are all locked up, to flutter behind bars and fall exhausted to the ground. Thoughts about sport & politics – the relevance of Jane Austen’s dialogues to those I’ve just heard – about the barrenness of this life, in which never a book is seen.

“The Sinhalese are a great and noble people – but (and said quite seriously) they are stupid. The Tamils are clever, cunning. The Sinhalese are stupid, but I love them.”

“I am a world citizen.”

“Listen to what my daughter has written to me. She says, ‘You can go on drinking. Just give two years to finish my course, then you can go on your pension or kill yourself’.”

October 16th – Rameswaram to Madurai

Railway sidings. Grass village. Boys building sand temples. Steam engines. Family approaches from village – to load lime on to wagon. Took pictures.

Sinhalese music seems to play on the same notes as Turkhana songs. But where T is a descending fifth, S rises to next octave.

The porters at Tallaimannar singing work songs as they push the goods wagons along the pier. Chorus and solo verse. Chorus rapid syllables on one note.

Glass of Nescafe in Madurai 1.20 rps (=10p)

Ladies with rubbish. The boys have gone.

Ladies with rubbish. The boys have gone.

Watching kids play around overflowing rubbish bin across road. Round it and in it. One boy has just shat in the loose stuff on the ground. Big sow meanders round it. Am reminded of the story of Mr. Dodd’s dustheap.

[Many years ago I discovered this 19th-century account by James Greenwood: Journeys through London or Byways of Modern Babylon. Fascinating reading. Women and girls spent all their days working on heaps of domestic rubbish yet were remarkably healthy and vigorous, as attested to by Dr. Guy who later founded Guy’s Hospital.]

Young bank clerk takes me to the cinema to see: “The Burglars.” Omar Sharif. Belmondo. Very bad.

Says Madurai has special people called Shakti who don’t like spending money.


 


Well, that’s all for now. Christmas is coming, and I don’t know about the goose but I’m feeling fat just thinking about it.

I wish you all a Very Merry Holiday. You may not hear from me until the New Year, and there’s bound to be some good news, surely – so Here’s to a Happy New Year, too and let’s make the most of what’s left of this one.

CHEERS EVERYBODY!

I’m leaving you with the happiest picture I could find – from Nepal.