Life of Silibiris 15

Kusumalatha had started teaching at the Temple Sunday School on the request of Lokuhamuduruwo. It wasn’t the thrill of teaching little kids she looked forward to every Sunday but seeing Silibiris and the rest of the young men coming and going helping the monk doing community service. She would gather her flock around to sit under the shade of the Bo tree, get them to recite gathas by heart while keeping an eye on the young men.

Silibiris would race around the villages on his Roadmaster carrying messages from the Lokuhamuduruwo. He felt important. He made sure to be near the temple around the time the Daham Pasela finished so that he can follow Kusumalatha walking home.

Kusumalatha was playing hard to get but Silibiris knew it was just a game. Game or not he would not go anywhere near her house. Kusumalatha’s mother Jaypin Nona was very hostile towards all new settlers. She was born and bred in Ambarawa original village. She inherited 10acres of land and a couple of acres of paddy field which was a lot more than any of the settler families possessed. She had ambitions to see Kusumalatha marrying a Government Servant with a pension.

Kusumalatha wished only to be with Silibiris. She kept reminding him many times to go to the post office and read the Government Gazette which had the details of Government Jobs Vacancies. He was too busy with all the important social services to attend to such trivial matters.

Kusumalatha took matters to her own hands, visited the post office in the pretext of sending a letter, checked out the gazette for job vacancies and copied details of one. Peons were being recruited for the Department of Agriculture with G.C.E O/L as minimum qualification. She hurried home and in search of Silibiris. He was nowhere to be found. When she eventually found him in the evening at the bathing spot under the kumbuk tree by the weva, he was chatting to Latha, Neela and Nayana in their wet diya redda.

 Silibiris was oblivious to Kusumalatha’s presence as he secretly enjoyed the body curves stuck to the wet Cheeththaa Reddas of the lasses with their backs to the setting sun, playfully dipping in and out of the warm water, laughing and shoving each other, very aware of the rowing eyes of Silibiris.

Kusumalatha stormed off in disgust.