01/23/2010
Groundnut Soup
January 22, 2010
Three Legged Dogs
On top of the giant rock hill where my Chinese-inspired home overlooks the Sri Palee campus of the University of Colombo in Harana (what a mouthful!), four short-haired dogs have made their home. Every time I leave the house, they circle in front of me pointing their rear ends in acts of submission. One has soars on its flank and another is missing an ear, but all of them run on three legs. Whenever they dash across the yard and try to follow me down the steep stone steps to the campus, they hurry with one rear leg held off the ground. They hop and scoot and follow me everywhere.
A couple of days ago, I saw a dog with four good legs. A moment later as he stood in the middle of the road, he was clipped by the three-wheeled taxi. As I watch the dog skitter to the side of the road holding his left rear leg up, it occurs to me that it is so hard on three legs to astonish, but it’s been done. Not often though. Not often.
***
Late last night, I rode in a taxi back to the campus. As we turned onto the track that led up the hill, a cat crouched in the middle of the road. My driver slowed and honked his horn. The cat ignored him. On either side the narrow, one-lane road dropped into muddy ditches and was impassable. The driver flicked his lights on and off. The cat didn’t even look at us. He punched on his brights. The cat turned his head and his yellow eyes seemed to glow brighter than the headlights. We laughed and the driver inched forward. The cat remained stationary. After a few minutes, the driver got out of the car and shooed the cat away. We climbed up the steep incline to the campus gate where we were met by a dozen barking dogs.
***
Dr. Sinharaja Tammita-Delgoda took me to my first restaurant in Colombo last night. It was a European guest house with Sri Lankan infusions. When we entered the outdoor dining room, the quiet, gentle notes of a lounge-style “Jingle Bells” being sung in Singhala welcomed us.
***
Sometimes the world is much smaller than we can ever imagine. While having drinks at the Barefoot Café yesterday afternoon, an elegant man arrived carrying several copies of a new book, The Ink of Lanka. He was introduced to me as Talik Samarawickrema, a successful architect, artist, and textile designer. In the 70s and early 80s he lived in Milan and was part of the Milan Design School where he made a name for himself with his architecture and textile design. He produced weavings that have been sold in the MOMA Art Store and fabrics that have been featured in Karl Lagerfeld’s clothing line. The book was a beautiful collection of his ink drawings and copperplates. His spare drawings were marvelous in how their thin, graphic lines articulated such volume and weight in the empty spaces. I had actually opened the book in the Fulbright office the day before so was delighted to meet the artist in person. He invited us to his house to see his exquisite wire sculptures.
When we arrived, I was introduced to his daughter Methra. After talking for a few minutes, I discovered that she had graduated from Ithaca College in the US. I mentioned that a friend’s son also attended Ithaca. I told her a little about him, how he was now dating a French woman who had gone to Ithaca and then on to Cornell’s School of Architecture.
Methra smiled and said, “Do you mean Juliet?”
Juliet had come to my house for dinner with Isaac several times over the past two years.
“Juliet was my roommate and Isaac is a good friend,” she said.
***
On the way into town today, our Land Rover was engulfed in a wave of thousands of people marching in support of the current president in anticipation of the elections on Tuesday. It has been mentioned by several people that this election was critical, and if the opposition leader won there would be violence. The opposition leader is the former general who led the military in victory last spring over the Tamil Tigers and ended the thirty-year civil war. This general has been described numerous times as a Sri Lankan Idi Amin. His win would be the end of democracy in Sri Lanka.
As the crowds surged around our vehicle, marchers slapped the hood, roof and windows of our vehicle. Loud booms echoed inside. A few young men began rocking the car from side to side. Gauges were mounted just above the windshield to measure altitude and vehicle’s horizontal angle. Gleeful men pushed the truck back and forth, and the little illustration of the rover in the horizon guage swung like a Weeble, tipping but not falling over.
Just as suddenly, the marchers moved on and the road opened. We drove on through nearly empty roads to Colombo. On Monday my host Dr. Ranjan Hettiarachchi is taking me to his home in suburban Colombo to wait out the election and its aftermath in safety.
