Mirror Magazine

Mirror Magazine

Miris-Gala
By Punyakante Wijenaike
Shanty Town grew up under the protection of an enormous Bo-Tree. It provided shade for the little houses growing like mushrooms as well as protection from the Devas. Each house stood compressed against the other with only a single wall separating them and consisted of a single room where its people ate, talked, dressed or undressed, slept or watched television. Whatever happened in one house was well heard in the next house. That was why if you needed to discuss something in private you had to turn your television set on loud to block your neighbour’s ears or confuse him as to what was taking place within your own home. Wherever there were toddlers wooden barricades were placed against open doorways because heavy traffic went up and down the main road across which stood the general cemetery of the city of Colombo.

But Shanty Town believed in the power of the Bo-Tree to protect them. A single latrine and a Municipal water tap served the whole community by the roadside. The Municipality dared not pull down the houses of the shanty dwellers who were really squatters on crown land. The power of the Bo-Tree protected them.

However shabby their own walls were the walls of the temple under the Bo-Tree were white washed once a week. There was no yellow robed monk living under the Tree but there was always the presence of the Buddha seated in the centre niche reserved for Him. Every other niche held colourful, powerful Gods and Goddesses, always ready to hear prayers, petitions and requests for peace or vengeance. God Vishnu in blue, God Kataragama in red, God Saman in yellow. Only Goddess Kali stood apart in her dark splendour. Amidst them all, the Buddha sat serene and unmoved.

Latha’s house unfortunately stood next door to the house of Katherina and Bulto. But in-between the two doors Romanis had built this tall cement block for his Latha to place her miris-gala on before he died. In grateful remembrance Latha planted a sweet scented white jasmine bush on the other side of the doorway.

It was the scent of this white jasmine that attached to Bulto’s scent organs, said Katherina, his wife. Latha planted the tree to attract her husband, not to remember Romanis. Latha had been a good old-fashioned cook. She had not believed in cooking curries with ready-made packeted powders sold in the market. She wanted to give her man the real thing. So she had rolled the rolling stone over red hot chilies, mustard seeds and pepper, sometimes adding garlic and karapincha leaves. Bulto next door would inhale the smell of good curry. He would wish Latha was his wife and not Katherina who used packeted curry powders to do a hurried and tasteless cooking.

Suddenly Romanis fell dead on his way back from work in a motor garage nearby. Latha found his body lying just a few feet away from her door. She gave a scream and fainted. The police were called to investigate. No foul play was found. Must have been a heart attack.

The miris-gala fell silent. Latha was mourning in her dark room. She could not eat or sleep. There was no one to roll the miris-gala for. After two weeks the rolling stone began to roll again over the miris-gala. This time she was rolling chilli, mustard, pepper and garlic for Bulto, Katherina’s husband. He had moved into Latha’s room leaving his wife to make tasteless curries for herself. But Katherina insisted viciously that it was the scent of Latha’s white jasmine that hypnotised Bulto’s scent organs.

Soon the whole of shanty town was made aware of the feud between the two women. Katherina went straight to Goddess Kali under the Bo-Tree and prayed for vengeance. She and Latha were both childless. There was nothing Latha had that she did not have. Well except perhaps for the miris-gala. If Latha had taken over Bulto, she, Katharine, would take over the miris-gala. All was fair in love and war.

The miris-gala began to groan again under the rolling stone of Katherina. Her new cooking came into Latha’s room and tickled the scent organs of Bulto. A week later Bulto went back to Katherina’s room. Latha was given no chance to roll her miris-gala again. The moment the sunset and the oil lamps around the Gods and Goddesses began to burn, Katherina would take her stand by the miris-gala and begin her rolling of curry stuff into paste. Covering alone in dark isolation Latha began to weep again for her dead husband.

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