The Departure from home.

Furthest back is a clouded memory of hectic preparations. Packing bags and boxes. Hurried kisses and hugs. Yellow robes of Buddhist Priests. Weeping faces and Buddhist Chants,and an emotion filled mornig climbing onto a van taking a child on my knee.

That was the morning of the day that I was to leave home, to an unknown country . But yet what happened that day and the night before my departure from home have not been completely blurred out. Therefore with a little effort I could recuperate the memories to recollect the events as they happened.

I remember I still had this pain in my stomach. It had been there for quite some time. I saw the Doctor but he did not see any thing serious. You could go ahead with your preparations for your voyage said the Doctor. All my brothers were there around me, except my Sister who was in Colombo. She was to see me off at the Colombo Harbour. My mother, Dotty Nangi and Nanda were busy making things ready to take with me. Dotty nangi was preparing a pillow case, with Nanda helping her.

From time to time my pet Alsatian Raja would put his nose where it is not wanted and get a tap on his back by my elder brother Loku Aiya. Cyril Aiya was preparing things to be packed in a fairly large wooden box that was to go into the Ship’s hold. Amma had prepared oil cakes, Seeni Sambal, Juggery. They were lying in neat packets around Cyril aiya who was trying to find a place for each one of those packets in the not so big wooden box. There were one or two bottles. One contained oil for my hair. Mother insisted that I take it with me, as she had got it specially done, by a physician. Mother who had been suffering from tooth aches for some time had got a bottled essence of girofle, that I should take with me in case I too would get tooth aches.

Doray Aiya was more pensive. He regretted my going away very much, as much as my mother did.

I think my feelings were mixed. Though I very much liked to go to France of which I had heard much without a special attraction to France, or as a matter of fact I had not wanted to be in any country in the west. I thought it would just be four years and that I will be back. I then had not even a dream of staying back in France. If I had married I may never had wanted to go abroad. I had dreams of an early marriage, and having children. But I had not any attachment to any one, having been disappointed in one or attempts trying to fall in love.

There was only one friend whom I liked very much without any matrimonial attraction. Nevertheless, I had written to her about my leaving Sri Lanka and asking her whether she would like to come with me as my wife. She wrote to me giving me an appointment. I was eagerly waiting to see her, but she never turned up at the appointed place.

The following day I had a letter from her telling that as much as she would like to be my wife, she would not like to give her consent now as it would also be a decision to go to another country, and the idea of the marriage would have been divided between being my wife and desire to go abroad.
Well that was the end of my seeking a matrimonial adventure in Sri lanka, and decided to go as I was, a happy bachelor.