A Naval disgrace
Something happened about three weeks ago that I never got a chance to write about. Other than the civil war and marauding buses I’ve found Sri Lanka to be a fairly safe place, and only a handful of experiences have suggested otherwise. This is one of them.
I was in Kandy for Bradby weekend with 5 others, and on Saturday morning 4 of us decided to take a trip to Ratna Falls, a waterfall about 2 hours drive from town. It was myself and 3 girls since the other guy decided to stay back and explore town a bit. I had never been to Ratna Falls before, but 2 of the girls had, and on the way up they promised great adventure and serenity. Ratna Falls is sort of in the middle of nowhere, probably best described as between Kandy and Wasgamuwa National Park. A’s driver was with us so he parked the van by the tea shop and waited while the four us walked the forty minutes or so through mild jungle towards the falls. It was a most pleasant walk, spotting a baby owl, several interstingly coloured lizards and a water snake on the way up. After about 20 mins the place was deserted, we had passed the last of the villagers gathering firewood and it was just the four of us, armed with swimwear and sandwiches, no phone signal, just birds chirping and the distant sounds of splashing water.
To our surprise, a few yards ahead a man was very randomly standing on the path talking on his mobile phone. He gave us a cursory glance and we continued on our way. About 10 mins later we heard voices further down the path, followed by 4 men who seemed to be returning from the waterfall, dressed in banians and towels and sounding rather jovial. I was bringing up the rear and as the last of them passed me one of them said to another “ado ara kattiya Lankawenda?” followed by a bit of mumbling behind our backs and hooting “hello..soo sooo..pssss..nangiii…whistle whistle…” Pretty standard behaviour by mature Sri Lankan men so we carried on amused at the fact that they had to wait for us to pass to grow the balls to hoot and what not. This sort of thing makes me ashamed to call myself a Sri Lankan male. Anyway, what to do? moved on.
The sounds of the waterfall got louder and it wasn’t long before we could see it in all its splendour. It was the dry season so it wasn’t anywhere near its peak, which A promised is quite magnificent. There are three natural pools here, and we were going to walk through the rocks to the second one to swim. We reached the first pool when we heard voices again. The 4 guys that we passed had decided to follow us, joined by the guy on the phone who we passed earlier. By now we had crossed the river on a bund and they were on the other side. One of them started to cross the bund carrying some form of identification tag in his hand. He whistled and asked me to come talk to him. Reluctantly I went up, avoiding the slippery rocks and straining my eyes to recognize his ID tag.
I got up to him and smiled and said “mokadda machan?” He was friendly, he started in English assuming that I wasn’t Sri Lankan and asked where I’m from. I grinned and said Colombo, he seemed genuinely surprised that I spoke Sinhalese. He showed me his ID card, and said that he’s from the Navy and that he’s on duty in this area, and that the other three guys are under his command, also from the Navy and army. I looked at the expiry date, the face, and the distinguishing marks, and then looked at his face in as subtle a manner as possible. It certainly was him, and the card expired in 2009. He got more casual and said that this area is quite dangerous, that several ppl had died here so they’re on duty to look after ppl, but nobody knows that they have been posted here. He put his hand on my shoulder and said we can have our fun, but not to go to the third pool and not to do anything stupid bc he doesn’t want to have to dredge any bodies. I said thanks, that we’ll be careful, and went back to the girls.
We started on the sandwiches when three of them crossed the bund and came over towards us. Out of politeness we offered them some sandwiches that they declined. They were hanging around a bit and the girls were feeling a bit uncomfortable. Then the guy with the ID came to us and asked if we’re sure we’re Sri Lankan. So we laughed and said yeah, but he refused to believe us. He said that I speak fine but look like a Burgher or Muslim, that A and N look foreign and that R looks Sinhalese. Then they got more personal.
Navy guy: Oya kohenda?
Me: Colamba
Navy guy: Colamba koheda?
Me: Kurunduwaththa
Navy Guy: Kurunduwaththa koheda?
Me: Barnes place
I obviously fibbed, but his persistent questioning annoyed me. He then asked the same of the girls, and they duely fibbed as well. He then asked where we worked, what our parents do, how come N’s Sinhalese isn’t great, which universities we went to. He claimed to have gone to Ananda college followed by some training course in England. This was cock bc he could barely manage a sentence in English, and I’m almost certain that he didn’t go to Ananda or live in Dehiwala as he claimed. He didn’t let up on N after she asked them how come they’re not in uniform if they’re on duty. This ticked them off, and to make matters worse she does look foreign bc she’s mixed, but she’s born and bred Sri Lankan. By this time the others had formed an arc around Navy guy and joined in the questioning. They were clearly enjoying themselves, grinning and looking amused. We tried to corporate bc there were four of them, and they all seemed a bit tipsy. They then admitted to having a few drinks that morning and showed us the bottles as well.
By this time my mind was racing trying to figure out what was going on. I found it very hard to believe that they were on duty even though that guy was clearly from the Navy. There were two possibilities, one was that they were on leave and the other more worrying prospect was that they were deserters. We could have either put our foot down and politely told them to bugger off, but with 4 slightly tipsy chaps facing one guy and three girls, this was not sensible. So we just tried to bore them by cooperating. Luckily at that point A’s phone rang. I had her rucksack so I picked it up and it got cut off. But I spoke loud and clear as if someone was on the other line and told my imaginery friend where I was, and told them to join us instead of waiting at the van. “Machan oya kollo pas denama enna. Mehay maru, thawa navy ekey kattiyakuth innawa. Ikmanata enna, hari jolly.”
They kept up the questions. Which school did you’ll go to? How do you’ll know each other? Which one of these three is your girl friend? How come you’re so fair? You can’t be Sinhalese, no way. What’s your father’s name? How come you’ll didn’t bring your ID cards? We gave convincing but half true answers throughout, but this seemed to make them even bolder. They then told N to recite a Sinhalese poem to prove that she is Sinhalese. She obviously struggled to remember what she learnt several years ago, and they got even more excited. R got ticked off when they asked her where her father works and for her phone number to call and double check. She said that if they are suspicious about something that we can all go back down now and go to the cop station, show our ID cards and get it over with. They quietened down a bit then, so I quickly stepped in and said that it’s getting late so we’ll go and bathe, and that if our “friends” come that way to tell them we’re in the 2nd pool. And before they could respond we took our stuff and went.
The pool was lovely, but we were still quite tense so couldn’t enjoy it as much as we should have. After about 20 mins of frolic one of the fellows came up towards the 2nd pool. We shrugged and knew that we didn’t have much choice but to leave. As we were leaving we saw the fellows had got into the 1st pool and were happily swimming around, hardly acting like officers on duty. As we walked passed they made a few more comments and finally called me back and asked for my water bottle. I happily gave it and hurried off. We tried to walk off fast bc we thought they’d probably follow. And we were right, about 20 mins down the road we heard voices and they were right behind us. We managed to keep ahead, and luckily by the time they were in sight we were amongst the villagers. We slowed down when we were with a group of firewood collectors to allow them to overtake us, and happily they did.
We got back late in the evening. We missed the Bradby, which wasn’t a bad thing, and told the story to the other two who listened with annoyance. It was a simple case of bullying. They saw that they had the upper hand in terms of power and decided to have a bit of tipsy fun at our expense. Had there been at least one more guy amongst us they wouldn’t have been anywhere near as bold. I dread to think what would have happened if it was just the three girls.
It’s sad that we’re part of a society where in reality females have less freedom than males. I guess it’s a work in progress, with education things should improve, but it also needs a fix at home, a fix in attitudes, a simple thing called respect. Nobody taught me to respect women, and to respect other ppl in general, it just seems to obvious natural thing to do. Anyway, I can see this opening a whole new can of worms which is probably best left for another time.
