Curious case of Haras Mudalali

There was a fabulously rich mudalali, who, in his time, was an institution in the South. He was not born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth: He had to come up the hard way. The trials and tribulations of that upward struggle may have been the cause, but the man was so cussed that he generally opposed everything constructive or progressive. This cussed attitude of his prompted the villagers to call him ‘Haras’ Mudalali (Obstructionist).

But the mudalali didn’t always score off his fellow villagers. Once he had a house to let, and he had a board put up outside saying ‘TO LET’ in English. A few days later he found that some mischief-maker had inserted an ‘i’ between the two words, making it ‘TOILET’. What’s more, several vandals had used the house for the purpose.

Some sympathetic soul then suggested to the mudalali that he put up the board in Sinhala, and so a board with the words ‘Badhu Dheemata Thibay’ was put up. The next day, to his rage, mudalali discovered that the first letter had been erased, and the board now read ‘Dhu Dheemata Thibay’. (Daughter available for marriage).

Haras ran a tea room beside a very busy bus-stand, and next to his tea-room was another one run by a rival. The rival’s tea-room had no toilet, and to his rage Haras discovered that people who have tea at his rival’s tea-room, walk into his (Haras Mudalali’s) hotel to use his toilet. Haras promptly put up a board outside his tea-room, saying in pithy Sinhala, “The Fellow Who Drinks Tea At One Hotel and Pisses It Out At Another, Is A Shameless Bounder!”

Haras was very superstitious, and if he heard the sound of the gecko (hoona) when he was about to leave the house on some business however important the business was he would promptly put it off.

When they were broke some of his nephews would visit their uncle Haras. And, in order to avoid them, he would get dressed and pretending that he had some very important work to attend to and try to leave the house. As he comes into the varandah, one of the young rascals would make the sound of a gecko (Chik! Chik! Chik!) and the Haras would turn back and walk into the house!”

Haras would sit in his verandah so that he could observe any visitor coming his way long before the visitor could see him. This way, he could gauge why the visitor was coming, (the mudalali had an unerring sixth sense,) giving him time to prepare his strategy for putting the man off.

One day he saw a villager coming to see him, and from the agitated way the man was hurrying, Haras Mudalali’s instinct told him he was coming to borrow his (the Mudalali’s car)

When the visitor came within earshot, ‘Haras’, pretending not to see the man, called out loudly to his driver, ‘Ah, bung, Martiyo, isn’t the repair to the car done with yet?” And driver Martin, well-trained in these things, replied, “Not yet, mudalali, the repair will take another day or two.” The visitor, of course, departed, his request unvoiced.

One day Haras was told by his doctor that he had ‘sugar in his system’, and the first question the patient asked was whether there was enough of it to make his family self-sufficient in sugar!.

Haras had been receiving treatment from the local doctor for years for some apparently chronic ailment, the patient getting temporary relief every time, but with no signs at all of a permanent cure. One evening, the doctor who liked his little drop (and it certainly wasn’t medicine) dropped in at his club, looking most doleful and despondent. “I must have been tight like hell last night,” he groaned, clutching his head. For Haras Mudalali came to consult me, and I gave him the wrong medicine! “Good heavens!” said the others. “That’s a very serious matter.” “You are telling me,” groaned the doctor, again. “The bloody medicine is going to cure him!”

Haras reached his middle-age, a very rich man and a bachelor, and one day he decided that he was going to get married. But there was one hitch. In the time honoured fashion of mudalalis, Haras sported a ‘Konday’, his hair tied in a knot at the back of his head, and he knew no modern miss was going to marry a man with a ‘konday’. What to do? To cut it off would be to invite the derision and the ribald comments of his fellow villagers. Then he got a brainwave. The General Elections of 1947 were in the offing; he would contest a seat. He had no illusions about his popularity with his fellow men, and he took bets with anyone who was interested, that if he lost he would cut off his ‘konday’.

There was also another advantage in his contesting, for none of the other candidates, who were well-known to him, could ask him to lend them the numerous cars, vans and lorries he had, for their election work and to transport voters on polling day. (This was permitted then.)

Well, as everyone, including Haras himself expected he lost badly even losing his deposit. He had spent very little on his election campaign and he gained more than he lost. For not only did he save on the cost of petrol and the wear and tear of his vehicles had he lent them to others for their election work, but he also cut off his ‘Konday’. Haras wore the usual mudalali dress of coat and cloth, and he realised that he would have to change this too. So he thought much about how he could do it without inviting the ribald laughter of his fellow villagers. Then, one day, it dawned on him.

The Sinhala New Year was around the corner, and calling one of his catchers, a schoolmaster, Haras told him to set up a play for the entertainment of the village folk. “There must be a part for a trousered ‘mahattaya’ in the play?” Haras told the schoolmaster, “and I want to play that role.” The master came up with a play, with, a trousered character in it as a proctor’s clerk. Haras acted as the trousered proctor’s clerk, and wore trousers thereafter, causing very little comment. Later he married a girl with a fat dowry.

One day Haras’ wife timidly expressed a desire to go to Dambadiva (India) on a pilgrimage.

“Certainly, certainly, hamine,” said her husband cordially. “I shall make arrangements for it immediately.” He went to town and returned home with a large map of Asia. He spread the map on the dining table and called his wife. “Before going to Dambadiva, hamine, you must go to Kelaniya, Kandy, Mahiyangana, Anuradhapura, Dambulla, Mihintale, Polonnaruwa and Nagadeepa,” said Haras Mudalali.

Then taking his wife’s forefinger, he placed it on the map and said, “Here, hamine. This is Matara, where we are right now. From Matara, Sadhu! Sadhu!, we shall now go to Kelaniya.” And he guided his wife’s forefinger along the map. “There we are, hamine, we are at Kelaniya. Now let us go to Kandy. Here we are, at Kandy! Sadhu! Sadhu!. Next Mahiyangana! Now let us go to the eight holy places at Anuradhapura! Now Mihintale. Sadhu! Sadhu!. Next Dambulla!. And now Polonnaruwa! Sadhu! Sadhu! And now, hamine, the long journey to Nagadipa! Right! Now we cross the Palk Straits and go to Dambadiva! Here, hamine, now we are at Buddha Gaya! Sadhu! Sadhu! Next Saranath! Sadhu! Sadhu! Hamine now that we are in India, we might as well go to Kashmir, Benares, Bombay and New Delhi, the Mudalali added generously. “Now, hamine, you must be very tired. Go and rest a while, and in the evening shall take you to the holy places in Burma, Thailand, China and Japan!

Another day his wife told him that it was one of her dearest wishes to have on all night Pirith chanting ceremony at their home, followed by a Sanghika daana an alms–giving to monks. The next night there was an all-night pirith at Haras Mudalali’s house, by courtesy of his battered old gramophone and a set of pirith records he had borrowed. The following morning alms-giving was sent to the nearby temple, ten packets of rice and curry, packeted at the Mudalali’s hotel, with plantains for dessert.

Haras once solved a very delicate problem, very much the way some of our national problems are solved. Like many busy businessmen, Haras had hardly any time for his wife, who was considerably younger than him. Coming home unexpectedly one day, he found her in a compromising position on a priceless antique couch with his manager.

He pretended not to see the unedifying spectacle, but inwardly, he was filled with rage and humiliation at his wife’s infidelity and his manager’s treachery. He could not very well divorce his wife, for that would mean washing dirty linen in public, and he could not sack his manager for the blackguard knew all his business secrets, including the many ways he was defrauding the Inland Revenue Department. Then Haras got his brainwave. He sold the couch.

Haras’ younger son was very keen to play for the First Eleven of the prestigious school he was going to and turned up regularly for cricket practice. One day during practice, the seat of his trousers tore with a loud ‘baraas’ and from that day, he was called ‘Baraas’.

Despite his keenness, ‘Baraas’ was not selected for the team, he was twelfth man. Even then, playing for the First Eleven was a hell of a rat-race, with no holds barred. So Haras Mudalali began to send petitions to the authorities that one of the players was over-aged. This proved to be true, and the boy was dropped, and Haras’ son replaced him.

The manner of his entrance to the team made ‘Baraas’ very unpopular among the rest of the boys in the school, and when, at the big match, he got out first ball, the whole school shouted, “Adoo! Harasge putha Baraas BUROOS!”

One son of Haras was a very bright lad, whose one dream was to be a doctor one day. “What kind of doctor?” asked Haras.

“An Ear, Nose and Throat Specialist,” replied the boy.

“Don’t be a fool putha” – snorted Haras. “Two ears, one nose, and one throat are just four items. How much money can you make out of that? Become a dentist putha; You will have thirty two items to attend to!”

By the time the daughter of Haras was of marriageable age, he kept a sharp look out for a likely lad. One day he went to the Bank and saw a young man cashing a cheque for a large amount. When the cash was handed over to him by the cashier at the counter, the young man began to count the money, though the conventional thing was to nonchalantly pocket money, for bank cashiers were supposed to be infallible. And as the mudalali watched, with growing admiration, the young man counted the money no less than three times. When he was about to leave the bank, the mudalali went up to him and introduced himself and invited the young man home. The rest, of course, is history.

“One of his sons had married a girl from the wrong caste, much to Haras’ chagrin and wrath. He told his son that he was not to step into the old homestead ever again. After the passage of several months, hoping the old man had cooled down, the son visited his father with his bride. “Don’t step into my house,” yelled Haras. “Ho!” said his son with a defiant gesture, turning away. “My car, my petrol.” (Meaning: ‘I have the right to decide my own affairs’). “Very good,” replied Haras harshly. “Your car, your petrol, but no parking here.”

Haras was on his death-bed, and his six sons, who were running the old man’s flourishing building materials shop, were gathered round the dying man. One by one he called out their names (he had reconciled with his errant son), and they answered. “Yes, father, I’m here.”

When the youngest son answered, Haras sat up and shouted: “Yako, if all of you are here, who the devil is in the cashier-kooduwa?”