Window into a lost world

Seventy years ago in 1936 my father D.T. Devendra left Nalanda Vidyalaya, where he had been a founder teacher, and moved to Kandy with his [few] household goods and young family of four children. He had no hesitation in answering the call of his hero, P. de S. Kularatne, now Principal of Dharmaraja College,to take over the teaching of Latin, English and History.
A decade or so earlier Father, together with his dear friends Malalasekera and Mivanapalana, fell under the spell of Ananda’s charismatic Principal Kularatne and followed his sartorial example in discarding ‘tie/coat’ and adopting the national Ariya Sinhala costume. In the exciting 1920s Ananda under Kularatne had been a beacon of Buddhist and national pride in Colonial Ceylon. As such, its staff felt the need to make a visible statement of their nationalism. This was the Ariya Sinhala garb.
The principal’s bungalow
There was no great emotional trauma for the four of us children, ranging from seven years to one, in leaving behind the only home we had known so far, in the environs of Campbell Park. Moving to our new home up on Dharmaraja Hill was great fun. This was, for almost a year, the Principal’s Bungalow which we shared with the Kularatne family. We were fascinated by Mrs.Hilda Kularatne, the first Englishwoman we ever got to know. Her children were a bit older than me – Andy [Ananda], Malli[Parakrama] and Nangi [Maya].
They were always addressed by their pet names, both at home and school. The boys could not be bothered by us brats, but Maya always found some time to teach us games.
The Bungalow was a sprawling old house, which had once been a planter’s home. Its verandah had a fine view of Kandy town and the lake. Many decades later I learnt that D.H. Lawrence had spent time here and written his wonderful poem ‘Elephants’ during his stay. There was a large mango tree which I was too timid to climb. But we relished the green fruit which fell at its foot when passing schoolboys pelted it with stones.
The house had,for us, two exotic items – the telephone and the piano. The phone was a strange contraption – a shiny , slim black column topped with a fluted conical mouthpiece. The receiver was a separate oblong little object tethered by a wire to the stand-up mouthpiece. We were occasionally rewarded by being given this earpiece to listen to tinny voices faintly squeaking. Mrs. K and Maya played the grand black piano while we peeped in at the verandah window listening to the glorious sounds that poured out. Once in a while we were treated to clustering round the piano while Maya tinkled nursery rhymes to accompany our childish trebles.
On the hill
Dharmaraja Hill housed the school boarding house. There was also a rudimentary ‘sick room’ where, every morning, Andrew the orderly plied his trade, painting with fierce iodine the inevitable cuts and scrapes of schoolboys. Further up the hill, on the footpath to the summit with its slanting flagpole and its glorious panorama, were two little stone-built cottages nestling behind clumps of pungent ‘maana’.
These were the homes of two ‘European’ Buddhist nuns in search of meditative quiet. One was the tall and stately Miss Robinson , always seen in a in a cream ankle-length frock. Once, when I was convalescing, she ‘baby-sat’ and related Jataka tales to me in my parents’ absence.
Sister Dhammadinna , the other "European" nun, wore yellow robes and was always accompanied by a troop of stray dogs she rescued and cared for. Rumour had it that she was an American millionairess who had discovered Buddhism, renounced her wealth and come to Ceylon to seek enlightenment as a Buddhist nun. Meanwhile, she extended loving kindness to the stray mongrels of Kandy.
A strange device
One rainy day when the four of us were being noisier than ever, Mrs. Kularatne found a fascinating way of keeping us quiet. From an old chest she retrieved an old "optical" device and a set of picture cards which she gifted to us. In hindsight, and from ‘internal evidence’ I believe this was a plaything from her own childhood , as Hilda Westbrook, in Edwardian England. It was a hand held contraption at one end of which were two little lenses with blinkers. From this protruded a slim rod carrying a moveable holder on which you could mount the double picture cards and focus them till they sprang out with amazing clarity. It was an unending delight for us children to see three dimensional images of strange places and exotic people. (Several decades later, the preTV toy called ‘Viewmaster’ did the same "trick").
We grew older, moved house many times, and to many towns. Books now quietly replaced the mere pictures that had so fascinated our pre-reading years, and opened our eyes to a far, far wider world. Inevitably, the Kularatne’s gift lost its magic and became consigned to the ‘lata-pata pettiya’ of childhood toys that Mother fondly carried around to our many homes.
Rediscovery
Rummaging through an old trunk, not very long ago, my sister Yasmin discovered this magic toy of our distant childhood. After a fond look at the now rickety contraption and its box of pictures, she sent it along to me , as the family archivist. And what a fascinating window into a long-lost world it proved to be as I leafed through the little stack of fading sepia pictures and others in good shape.
Most are of such impressive natural features as lakes, waterfalls and mountains, and such historic monuments as Westminster Cathedral and the Temple Building in Canada, photographed with dual-lensed stereoscopic camera, and mounted by The Fine Arts Photographers’ Publishing Co. of Rydevale Road, London S.W. These scenes had only a passing interest for us children. What gripped our imagination were the ‘human interest’ stories pictured on certain cards. One, now lost, was of a group of Victorian (to judge from their quaint dress) children playing hide and seek in a farmyard haystack Another, yet in good condition, titled ‘The Interrupted Meal’ is of a jam bedaubed infant on a high feeding chair bawling away while a cat laps up her bowl of milk.
As the eldest I was more intrigued by the street scenes of London, dating from the end of the19th century. One carries the date 1897. They show Fleet Street and The Strand crowded with ancient blunt-nosed cars jostling horse-drawn carriages and carts – rather like our own Pettah some decades ago. "Tally Ho on Bond Street" pictures a magnificent carriage galloping regally down the centre of the road. The pavements carry elegantly clad ladies in sweeping gowns and feathered bonnets. Their escorts in top hats or bowlers carry the mandatory furled umbrella.
In this collection of picturesque scenes and domestic fun there is one that is very different, titled "Sweet Melodies". It is only now, with adult wisdom, that I realise that this would qualify, to Victorians, as ‘soft porn’ [if they only knew the word]. It is a bedroom scene. A woman in a chemise, naughtily raised just above her knee, is playing a guitar to a man lounging casually with a glass in hand. What looks like a rumpled bed is behind them.
Both are [yet!] dressed in the rather capacious underwear of the times. But both also wear the black stockings and shoes of street wear, suggestive of an assignation in a 'love nest’ A few pictures adorn the walls – but diligent inspection by me failed to reveal whether they were naughty ,or just harmless decoration. Thus we bid farewell to these lovers of long ago, now frozen forever in a fading picture, echoing Keats-
"Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter, therefore,……play on…"
The other day, leafing through an encyclopaedia, I learnt,at last, the proper name for the gift that Maya’s mother, Hilda Kularatne had given us Devendra children, seventy long years ago.
Stereopticon.