18th January 1998

A home among the dead

By Chamintha Thilakarathna

The silence that lies over the overgrown Public Cemetery at Magammana in Homagama, is broken only by voices. The voices are not of the dead, but of the living- of children at play, the cry of a baby,-and the smell and smoke of cooking. Of the living whose only place of hope and home is ironically among the dead and buried.

Thirty-three year old Pathiranage Francis, who lives with his family in the cemetery is more than thankful to the dead for accommodating them, yet hopes his children could one day have a better future than at a graveyard home.

Life was not always so sombre. Working in an estate as a watcher for three and a half years, Francis's domestic life was rudely shattered when the estate was auctioned. He, his wife and three children were expected to leave immediately. With no place to go, they headed for Colombo in the hope that employment might be easier to find. Temporarily finding shelter at the Homagama market, the family looked desperately for a more permanent home, with no success. His five month old son Wijeysuriya lay in an old cloth cradle they kept suspended on a railing by the side of the busy road of the Hom-agama market while his wife, Somawathi (32) and seven year old son, Nadeera and two year old daughter Chandrawathie squatted on the pavement .

"For our good fortune, S.A.Premasiri, a clerk at the Homagama Post office came to us one day with some of his friends at the post office and asked us to pack up our items and shift to this village," said Francis.

"I felt so sorry seeing the children there under the blazing sun, yet playing as if everything was just fine," said Premasiri.

"Although this is no bed of roses, it is better than the market. Our children can play around as they please without having to worry about running into shoppers or getting warnings from the police," said Somawathi. Yet, they cannot stay too long at the cemetery either. They have been asked to leave several times by officials of the area who feel that they are a threat to the neighbourhood.

"Last Tuesday (13) we got a warning asking us to leave immediately, when we returned from the hospital where we had gone to get some medicine for our five month old baby for his cough. In fact we were ready to leave to the small hut that we have started to build behind the Premasiri residence which was generously given to us temporarily, but we are lacking a few cadjans," said Francis.

"Some of the villagers feel that we have polluted the cemetery, but we haven't. Although we do not have any water or bathroom facilities, our neighbour Sarath Kotalawala, who owns a boutique has been kind enough to let us use their toilets and their water," said Somawathi.

The children have built a playhouse among the tombstones and they play hide and seek amidst the weeds that cover the graves. Their clothes are cast-offs from kindly villagers. The slab on which the coffin is kept during a funeral, they use as a table and the small building which is used for religious ceremonies prior to a funeral provides them shelter.

"But we are not happy," said Somawathi. "We are always afraid of the rain, and of what dangers we might have to face. Recently, a drunkard came into this shelter in the middle of the night to sleep. We cannot object. But how can we keep our children in the presence of drunkards who sometimes fight and create a disturbance," she said.

At the same time, they have to move in and out every time a village funeral takes place. Carrying their only pan, the baby's milk bottle, spoons, and other basic essentials and the baby they hurriedly move out and back again into the shelter once the funeral is over... their life not only determined by the living but also by the dead. When The Sunday Times was there, white flags and banners were coming up a few feet from the cemetery and the reaction on the faces of Francis and his wife was that 'it's time to pack again.'

For the couple's eldest son little Nadeera, school is only a dream now. Earlier when they were living in the estate, he entered grade one but never had the opportunity to proceed further. And the two other children might never know what school is all about.

However, villagers have been kind, bringing in clothes and food for them whenever they can. On Christmas eve, a chicken had been left for the family at their cemetery shelter.

For Francis, each day is another opportunity to earn a few rupees to try to get his family out of their ill fortune. "If I don't work my family will starve," said Francis who is handicapped by a spine injury for which he was operated some time ago.

Watching the kids at play in the cemetery, often brings tears to their parents' eyes. Once owners of furniture and other items from a TV set, almirah, sofas and other simple luxuries, not to mention a proper roof over their heads and a stable life, today they are at the mercy of their neighbours.

"We had to leave our belongings with neighbours in Padduka, where we lived once, hoping to take them back when and if we settled down again," said Francis.

But their immediate necessities are not a T.V.set or a sofa but a clean and safe atmosphere where they can live in peace. And till this day arrives they wait in hope, hope that they will not be evicted from the cemetery, till they complete the hut they are constructing and yet in more hope that someday they will be able to get back into their old life when they were happy and complete in their own way.

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