Sun was rising. Dark clouds came over my head. They carried rain. I felt loneliness brought back by my memory about my past world. It is a very sad story.
"Piyal don't do that, don't play with bad boys, for you will become a bad boy," my mother always advised me. We were a very poor family. My father had passed away 15 years ago. I have never seen my father.
I thought my mother was a miser. But now I understood that she was not a miser. She was poor. Earlier I had many friends. They always tried to make me a rebel. I also thought they were faithful friends.
When I was about 17 years old, I ran away from home. I thought my home was a prison. I joined my friends. I did all the bad things with them. One day I picked up a purse and I found 1000 rupees in it. Suddenly I found a letter too. It was a letter to a daughter from her mother.
"I have mortgaged my earings for your child's disease. So I'm sending you about 1000 rupees. It is all my wealth. So daughter try to keep the money and cure your son's illness. Don't be late. Otherwise your son will be lost."
I felt very sad and disgusted with this life. I remembered when I was about 9 years old. My mother too suffered a lot when I fell ill. She had no money. So she also mortgaged her earings and the same thing had happened to her. So I remembered how much she cried, how much she cursed. So I felt very sad. I told my friends about this incident. They insulted me. They said, "Forget that, share the money with us, and we can rejoice with that money." I argued with them, because it was a very bad thing. So one friend kicked me. They thrashed me. That day I understood how bad my friends were. I was the injured man. I could not do my duty to the innocent mother. Because my friends stole away the money. I felt very sad. One day I decided to go to my village. I got on to a bus. I wanted to look after my mother. I could picture her pale face in my mind. I imagined seeing her at the doorstep waiting for me.
How she must have cried. I was hoping she would forgive me and take me back. So I got off the bus, feeling very tired, wondering whether she would recognise me. So I walked up to the house and found the whole house was shut. I felt very sad.
I asked my neighbour what happened to the woman who lived here. "Oh! I don't know, who are you?" "I am her son," I replied. "Please tell me where my mother is?"
He said, "She passed away a few days ago, she had been grieving for her lost son, looking for him all over. Now you are too late."
Oh my mother, my poor mother. How unlucky I am. Mother now I am on the correct path. I understood the truth about the world. Oh mother now I haven't a true friend. I thought you were my only relative. But you also passed away. Oh now I have no one in the world. I have no vision. But I made a resolution. I shall go on the right path and you will always be my mother.
The rain stopped. The sky was clear. I got up and began my search for a better future.
Nayani Ranasinghe,
St. Thomas Girl's High School,
Matara.
Like a giant slumbering creature about to wake, the Tuxer Glacier is a daunting sight. Inching its way imperceptibly down the precipitous sides of the mountain, a glittering mass of ice and snow, the glacier is a popular attraction with those keen to experience one of the great curiosities of the enchanted Alpine landscape.
Two-thirds of Austria is mountainous and the Tyrol, in the west, is a land of gently undulating valleys and awesome peaks. Despite this area's well-deserved popularity with visitors, only a small area has been affected by tourism. For the most part, its natural beauty remains intact, an untrammelled haven for those in search of tranquillity and the inspiration of nature.
Of all Tyrolean valleys, the Ziller Valley is one of the most beautiful. From Strass in the north to Mayrhofen in the south, some 15 miles of pastures are strewn with flowers in summer. shrouded with mist and snow in winter, and surrounded by the Zillertal Alps, a vast field of peaks that reach heights of more than five miles above sea level.
At Mayrhofen, a popular holiday resort busy in winter and summer alike with skiers, hikers and mountaineers, the Ziller Valley divides into four. Of the four valleys cutting deep into the Zillertal Alps. Tuxer Grund - or valley - is dominated by the mighty Hauptkamm, a massive glaciated ridge to which clings the Tuxer glacier.
From Mayrhofen, the glacier is approached by a picturesque winding valley road to Finkenberg, a smaller and quieter sporting centre. Then, from the quiet hamlet of Hintertux, cable cars ascend the slopes, taking visitors through a number of climatic zones, past forests of slender trees to the heart of the mountains, home of the ibex and eagle.
Beyond the magnificent view from the terrace of the Tuxerfernerhaus restaurant, lifts take visitors and skiers further to the highest peaks of the majestic mountain range. But it is the glacier which is the focus of this enthralling place.
Glaciers are among the most dramatic and interesting features of the Alpine landscape, and provide vital reservoirs of fresh water for the valleys below. Their creation is slow and laborious. Where the winter snow cover exceeds the summer thaw, the snow cover naturally deepens each year. And, as it does, the lower levels recrystallise into ice. Then, as the ice thickens and grows in weight, it begins to flow down to warmer regions, becoming a mobile mass of ice.
Deceptively heavy, glaciers creep downhill until they reach a point where melting begins - the ablation zone. The size of glaciers fluctuates through the passing years - shrinking with the melting of the snow and gaining through new ice flows.
By the time the glacier reaches the ablation zone, the ice may be centuries old. It is therefore possible to trace atmospheric pollution that has occurred in past times. The eruption of Krakatoa in 1883, fall-out from nuclear testing around the world and even Saharan duststorms can all register in an Alpine glacier as an astonishing and unexpected record of contamination of the air through which the snow originally fell.
In contrast to the Ziller River, fed by melting snow and burbling over its rocky bed as it sweeps swiftly through the valley floor, the Tuxer glacier appears to be immobile, a massive expanse of gleaming ice.
Towering around it in an arc, like giant sentinels, are the craggy peaks of the mountain range - Olperer, the highest mountain in the Tuxer Alps, Gefrorene Wand-Spitze and the Grosser Kaserer. Chiselled ridges, swathed in mist in the winter and standing out against the bright sun in summer, complete the panorama.
Below, skiers race over the glacier's frozen surface, drawn by its beauty and the delight of the sporting challenge it offers. Here, in the presence of the endless mountains and their companion, the great glacier, nature is resplendent, at once a solemn and a brilliant spectacle.
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