MY MOTHER

(We publish this week another chapter from Falling Leaves, an autobiographical anthology of articles written by L.C. Arulpragasam, among the last surviving members of the old Ceylon Civil Service (CCS) who at over age 95-years lives in Manila following a long career with FAO beginning after he quit the CCS.)

My mother, Bertha Pavalaratnam Chellappah was born in Jaffna on January 18, 1903. She died at the age of 90 years in Colombo, in 1993. Her father was a Hindu until he converted to Christianity to join the Salvation Army. He then married a devout Christian lady, so that my mother was brought up in a deep Christian faith while all her paternal uncles and their families remained staunch, high-caste Hindus.

She grew up in Jaffna, attending the Chundikuli Girls School, an Anglican Mission School, reputed to be among the best in Jaffna. She was given a colonial version of an English ‘boarding school’ education under an English Headmistress, aimed at educating aspiring young ladies of Jaffna for marriage. The curriculum led up to the Senior Cambridge Examination, which my mother passed with distinctions. The students were supposed to speak to each other only in English; they were fined five cents every time that they were caught speaking Tamil. In addition to academics, they were taught the fine arts and social graces expected of girls of the middle class in those days, such as cooking, sewing, playing the piano and playing tennis. My mother also became extremely proficient in English, because she read widely. I remember that when I was 12 years old, she pulled me up for using the passive verb ‘imbibed’ when I should have used the positive verb ‘imbued’.

She was very versatile. She was an accomplished pianist and even learned to play the Hawaiian guitar. She had a small collection of classical music records, which we played on our old gramophone at home. She was also a skilled seamstress, sewing all our clothes when we were young; she continued to make and embroider chair-back and cushion covers until her eyesight failed. Likewise, she would make and decorate all our birthday and Xmas cakes. She was also a good tennis player. In Batticaloa, around 1940, she won the Eastern Province Tennis Championship. I remember her hitching up her sari to execute her powerful forearm drives (but her service was weak!) to beat the former (English) lady champion, who wore a very short skirt, which was magic to my 12-year-old eyes at that time!

My mother had a keen wit and a lively sense of humour, keeping her friends in fits of laughter. She was sociable and loved company, compensating for the reserved ways of my father, with her wit and ready laughter. Our house would always be full of friends and visitors. In fact, since I can ever remember, our house was always treated as an open house, with friends dropping in, or staying over for many days. It must have been very hard for my mother, who reveled in company, to be deprived of all educated company during the long years at Mandapam Camp.

Mum had an enterprising and competitive spirit. I remember that in Batticaloa, where my father served as the District Medical Officer around 1939-44, the exclusive Gymkhana Club had a Treasure Hunt in which participants were given a list of some 30 outlandish things to collect in the course of a given Saturday. I remember that among the odd things to be collected were the ‘wish-bone’ of a chicken and a live hermit crab.

My mother got to work in competitive mode. I heard the squawk of a chicken whose neck was being cut for the needed ‘wish bone’, while our house boy was sent to the sea beach to find a hermit crab. Needless to say, my parents (that is, my mother) won the first prize! She probably imbued us with the same competitive spirit! In my seventh or eighth Grade, when I used to hang out coming about third in my class, she offered me a bicycle if I came first. Needless to say, I obliged.

Our mother became a central figure in our lives. She encouraged us to read widely, emphasizing this more than our studies. She encouraged me to play the piano and even urged me to take piano lessons – which I avoided – to my regret. She encouraged us in our sports too. The only thing that my parents would not allow us to do was to swim in the sea – for fear of drowning. Little did they know that in Colombo during term-time I used to swim in the sea almost daily. This is the only secret that I kept from my parents, since I did not want to cause them unnecessary anxiety.

Since my father was a remote (though indulgent) figure who seldom engaged in conversation, all our discussion was with or through my Mum. If we wanted anything, we would ask Mum: if she needed to consult Dad, she would do so. We had a relaxed non-authoritarian upbringing from our parents, who encouraged us to do whatever we could. It was probably Mum’s competitive spirit and Dad’s high expectations that drove us always to do better!

Since my father was always stationed in the provinces, except for a spell of about four years in Colombo, we saw our parents only during our school or University holidays. This was tough on us all, but especially on my elder brother and me. I was sent off to school and boardings in Colombo at the age of eight years – while my elder brother even at the age of five! I still remember my mother sending me off at the railway station in Batticaloa – where my Dad was stationed at the time. I remember even after 83 years, the sari she was wearing when the train pulled away from the station! I would then look forward to Mum’s weekly letters.

Since we were away from home for most of our growing years, it was Mum who held our family together. I realize in retrospect, however, that we four siblings were not really close to one another. This was probably because we grew up in four different locations, confronting our daily problems alone, meeting only for our vacations in our common parental home.

Looking back, I find that my parents did not have an authoritarian hold over us, like some of my friends’ parents did. Although they showed their love and affection in many ways, I am more aware now that they never expressed it either verbally, or in a physical way. My mother would kiss me each time that we parted to go back to school; but I cannot remember her even touching, hugging me after I was about 12 years old. Their love was not the ‘touchy-feely’ love that one witnesses today.

I think that this is the way they were expected to behave in the traditional Jaffna Tamil culture. It may have been a generational thing too. I remember being surprised when a Sinhalese colleague told me in 1958 that his two daughters knelt and worshipped at his feet every morning before leaving for school! My parents were not authoritarian or inaccessible; but neither did they openly declare or show their love and affection. May be that this was not done in those days in Sri Lanka!

My mother remained a widow for 36 years after my father’s death in 1957. It must have been hard for her during those years. She lived some of those years with me in Bangkok and later in Rome. But for most of the time, she lived in Colombo, under arrangements that I made for her, whereby she had her independence while at the same time being under the caring eye of a relative.

She used to read widely, which is what kept her going. She went on like this until she was around 75 years of age, when she fell and broke her hip, which aged her considerably. She lived thereafter in the loving home of a caring cousin, Mrs. Jeyam Babapulle, who cared for her as if she were her own sister.

My mother was a devout Christian – and she spent the last several years of her life preparing for her death. Even at the age of 90 years and near death, she jokingly and irreverently remarked to me: ‘I am still waiting for the Call: but since I am a bit deaf, maybe I didn’t hear it!’ Since most of her children were living abroad, she would (Mrs. Babapulle told me) wait for my arrival in Sri Lanka in order to die! (I was living in Rome at that time and could only come to Colombo for a few days at a time). Habitually at our parting, she would cry, hug and kiss me, crying that it was the last time that she would be seeing me!

But since she continued to live for many more years, she would when repeating this drama, laugh through her tears, saying that these dramatic partings were becoming a joke! In the end, according to her wishes, she died when I was in Sri Lanka for a short visit. Her funeral was held at Jeyam Akka’s (Mrs. Babapulle’s) loving home, where she had spent the last years of her life. She had wanted to be cremated, so that her ashes could be interred with my Dad’s (this was during the civil war years) in their common grave in Jaffna. Years later, after the end of the war, I was able to restore my parents’ grave and install a new gravestone, engraved with the verse that she herself had chosen.

Thus ended the life of a loving, caring, intelligent, gifted, versatile and laughter-loving woman to whom we all owed so much.