Times we grew up -4 - The Lake Club

Lake club

The earliest memories I have in connection with  the Kandy Lake Club was a  businessman from our village called Banda mudalali, he had the biggest shop this side of Lewella bridge. From our house to Lewella bridge ; it was a suspended bridge until 2000,  there must have been only about 5/6 shops on that road. At sirimalwatta junction there was Silvas shop , which was a grocery and a tea kiosk  and a shop that hung on to survival barely selling firewood and few things that the owner could find from his own garden and probably little bit more  from couple of nighbours.

There was also the cooperative shop that became center of the village life during the ration raj ; during the seventies when then government experimented self sufficiency and cooperative communities. Naturally the experimented failed abysmally , like everywhere else in the world but it gave the village cooperative shops their moment in the lime light for almost a decade.

Then down the Lewella road there was a barber saloon which had few years back replaced a shop run by a mentally handicapped young man who had many colorful drawings of circles with many patterns in bright colors so bright  and neat that they bring tears to your eyes if you keep looking at them for sometimes. And irony in that  is if you go and look at them the drawings you don’t feel like taking your eyes off them and after few minuts you feel little dizzy and light headed.

The barber in the salon was a Tamil guy who couldn’t talk like everybody else  but could only push words  from inside the throat in a very low tone. He had two chairs in the salon, one cushioned chair for grownups  and  small tall chair for the kids. Tall one of course, without cushions. When the kid is sat on the tall chair he would wait for a moment when the chaperon looks away and whispers to the ear of the kid who is anyway freshened in this strange atmosphere , that he will cut the neck with his sharp knife  if he doesn’t stay completely steady on the chair. Having seen him sharpening his straight razor on a strip of rubber tire , this gives whisper gives a scarce that will keep him on the seat like a stone statue even after the barber has  finished his job.

After this salon, it is the village bakery , that competed fiercely with cooperative shop for top spot for  influence and power during the ration raj.  The bakery owners  were strong and vocal supporters of the reigning government  and the ration and queue system was a tailor made  for village bakeries, especially if they happen to be the village level supporters of the party. There was a ban on transporting rice between provinces. The flour distribution was strictly regulated, perhaps because the flour used to come from USA and country didn’t have enough foreign exchange to buy them or determined to become self sufficient government was gradually reducing the flour imports. First reason would have been more likely I would think.

to be continued