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| Manike (2015, Sri Lanka) |
An old woman from the ancient times
of the casts and feudal lords
who still lives among the ghosts and spirits of the olden, golden times
where her glorious days lay buried...
Time is her graveyard
she treads everyday,
passing by the tombstones
of her once beloved kin,
of her once powerful lords
Slaving her youth, her maturity and life,
loyally to her masters,
Withered now, she walks miles
through her lanes of memory
around the kitchen...
Her kitchen, her kingdom
that lies in the back of a palace
The two swift hands, dark and skeletal
tat cooked for hundreds of nobles,
now pet a few mangy dogs,
beg fire from each door she passes
cursing whoever dares to refuse
this ancient queen of fire!
With her present she fuels her stove,
illuminating her past with the light
warming her memories with the heat
in a cold, frozen zone of time
where life has started to move backwards...
She lives her past
exists in the present
Until somewhere in future,
the ticking of her ancient clock
will come to its tiring end...
.................................................
P.S: Manike Aththama is a not a romanticized fictional character. I met her when I visited my newly-married best-friend at her husband's ancient feudal house-walauwa- somewhere in the Ratnapura, Sri Lanka. Manike aththamma was there, smiling and peeping through the back door. I was curious. So my friend told me Manike aththamma's story and we started travelling backwards in time...
Manike aththamma is known among many villagers in the present time, as a crazy old woman who curses loud when she walks around the village; who pets old, mangy dogs, and who often times talks to herself. She lives in her old kitchen, adjacent to the walauwa. It is not comfortable, with no electricity nor water; simply abandoned by human beings as well as by time. But she would not leave this old kitchen, my friend tells me, while having lunch in an old couch at her place. But why? I asked her as I knew behind every strong human attachment, there is a story that could touch the depths of our hearts.
This 'crazy, old woman', was once the head-cook in this feudal palace. She used to cook for the most important, most powerful lords in the province, who have come for crucial secret meetings at odd hours. She used to bark orders at the other cooks and servants; she knew the tastes of all the best Sinhalese dishes, and she knew how to create them. She held power, in this mini-palace of hers and everyone knew her for her cooking skills. After all her name "manike" is a term used refer to the feudal ladies as a term of respect. She was a sapling sprung from poverty but she grew to become powerful and famous in her youth until the feudal system collapsed.
Manike had an immense love for her mother, who was neither powerful nor famous but who fed her and tend to her all her life. I feel that it is her mother who saw the potential of her daughter to reach the heights she never could. May be that's why she named her daughter "Manike" to match the respect and power of the feudal ladies. Manike knew the misery her mother endured to make her comfortable. May be she was broken when her mother died..but she had to fulfill her duties in her kitchen-palace at the same time. May be she did not have enough time to mourn her mother's death... May be she suppressed the grief a little too much...But she never failed to provide the best dishes to the fancy, luxurious banquets.
Time passed too fast. No more lords and ladies, no more banquets. To top it all, no one needs an old, haggard woman to cook and serve for the powerful and famous modern lords. May be time passed a little too fast and Manike was too busy fulfilling her duties, she could not keep track of the passing time; or may be the realty was too harsh for the queen of the feudal kitchen. May be she did not want to go back to the poverty she rose herself from...may be she did not want to lose all that power and fame, even as a head-cook.
So she escaped...from time...from present, from realty to seek the comforts of her once-glorious past. May be it was simply the nostalgia that she occupied herself with. May be she could not find her place in the society, now that there are not lords. Then she felt how comfortable it was to relive her past and gave more time to sink in that nostalgic glory...May be she was too weak as she was getting old to resist the comfort... May be she let herself completely drowned in that utmost comfort.
By the time I saw her, the kitchen was still her responsibility and her mother was still alive in her mind. My friend tells me that the owners of the house do not give any matches to Manike aththamma to light up the stove because she has lost her sanity. She could burn up the entire kitchen if she forgets the fire. Logical...But she is the queen of fire... without a burning stove, her power does not exist and she knows that. This denial has forced Manike aththamma to walk around the village to beg fire from her friends, from those villagers who respected her once. But those villagers have passed away and the new ones has always seen a 'crazy old woman' in her. So they refuse and ignore her... A queen of fire, without a way to light up her stove.. I would justify her loud curses to those who refuse to give her a match...
She would take two of whatever that's given to her to eat. She would eat one and take the other one for her mother, who lives somewhere in her own world. The owners of the house find a banana or a piece of cake under a bush or in Manike aththamma's kitchen a few days later when cleaning.
I saw how happy Manike aththamma is in her own world. I saw how she faces the collision of realty and her world with fury, instead of sorrow. When I asked her permission to take a picture of her, she dropped the coconut she was picking from the ground.
She posed, smiled, and asked, "mehema hondaida?" (Is this good?)
Yes my queen...
and the photo here, is the only picture of her that exists in realty.
-Uththaradevi-
