Times we grew up -5

                     suspension bridge is on the other side slightly below the new motor-able bridge

Only the bakery received flour, other than the cooperative shop that  distributed flour on ration card. Bakeries received  flour in bulk, may be four or five gunny bags a week  to make bakery products , mostly plain bread because  other products like buns were sort of luxuries.

 Every family was given a ration card , you have to produce it at the bakery to  buy bread, a quarter pound bread for a person. We had five members in the family and our quota was one loaf of and a quarter, a half cut across into two. Like most of the middle class families those days we also had a servant, a Tamil boy from a rubber estate in Rathnapura. His name was Mari Muththu Kolandi Welu, unfortunately  because he didn’t have a rice book he was not entitle for that quarter of bread at the bakery. 

First day he has asked from the owner whether we could get one and half because there are six including him at our house, but  he has been told that unless he get his ration book transferred to our cooperative he is not eligible for the privilege.

Well , after the bakery in the same block there was a grocery like shop run by a Muslim trader and next to that was a radio repair work shop. Down the Lewella road next business was a small tea shop next to the lewella ambalama, the  ancient ‘travelers in’ near the bridge at a slightly lower plane to ambalama,. 

The owner of that shop was the member of the ‘Gamsaba’ the predecessor to present day pradeshiya sabas. Dark short and fat guy with a jovial face  ,he was also the chairman of the gamsaba for several years. His shop had only few snacks like pittu and he himself made tea from a copper color boiler that was burning coconut shell charcoal from morning to evening. Like the burning boiler, two three men sitting on the long bench either reading newspapers or playing draughts was also a regular scene in his shop.

He must also had a side business of making charcoal because I have seen him drying coconut  shell charcoal sometimes on a mat or two. I have heard that when gamsaba elections are nearing,  he would  give his pittu and coconut milk curry, free of charge to his potential voters and after an election that he lost he has grumbled  that the voters had cheated him by not voting to him even after eating his free pittu.

And this is the end of Sirimalwatta lewella road , so to speak, here is the Lewella suspension bridge connecting Dumbara with Kandy city. Though little less known than the  similar bridge at Haloluwa,  Lewella bridge probably facilitated more commuters than any other hanging  bridges in the country for buses from two highly populated roads with many school children terminated at  Dumbara side of the river. The busiest bus route in Kandy and suburbs, 655 Lewella had its bus stand on the Kandy side of the bridge.   

We , the students living closer to bridge were at advantage because there was no need for us  to travel by a bus to Lewella bridge, we walked, but there was one essential requirement, that’s we had to cross the bridge before the 7 o clock bus discharges its load at the bridge, for if bus is there before us the queue  on the other side would be at least 500 meters long for the Lewella bus.