Bringing Tony Home

I worry because I cannot write exact feelings I had throughout the read. And even worry much that it took me a wait of few days to write about this and now I cannot recall the thoughts I had just after finishing it. And that reminds me that I was amazed by how good Mr. Abeysekara remembers his childhood so in a way I almost went to a conclusion about writing. 'To be a good writer, you must have a good detailed memory. Otherwise, what you write will be like a flat desert.'

If you are a dog lover and have a passion for history and have memories around Pannipitiya and Highlevel road, I guess you will enjoy reading this. Though I cannot guarantee you'll enjoy it as I did, I like to kindly remind you that we don't have many reading material about experiences with pets in Sri Lanka for adults.

I recall what I felt was something like sorrow. Not exactly that but something close. With Mr. Abeysekara's narration, I felt something nostalgic. I remembered all the dog friends I had since childhood. So I let the train of thoughts to cross here.

Starting from MENIKE, a small dog owned by Samadara nenda (my aunt) who was living with us. I remember MENIKE had a bad front leg and and she walked like jumping. She was light brown and small. She had fur in her ear tips. I think I was like 3-4 years old. Maybe it's a long lost jumbled memory. Then there was LAIKA named after the famous Russian astronaut Laika. She was a year older than me and lived with us for 17 years. Later after MENIKE, nenda also adopted a fluffy puppy named JAMBO. Don't remember whether he was a child of Laika but most of the ones we had were Laika's children. JAMBO was a chubby one. He fell down from the front wall and injured his front leg. Then the leg was shivering time to time and never recovered. Maybe it's a nerve damage. He just lived for a year or so. There was an old Black and cream color coated male dog named COLONEL. He lived at MENIKE's time. The oldest dog I have in memory. I remember he having a badly opened wound in his testicles and we took him to the vet in a kichi kichi Delika van. This happened about 35 years ago and the only vet we had is the government one. It was nearly impossible to take a time from him back then. 

I remember my bappa doing GODA WEDAKAM for all the dogs we had. Bappa once took home a survivor from the road and named him CARLO because his snout was black and coat as ash/ brown. He was in a really bad situation with lots of ticks, fleas and badly exposed skin with wounds. Bappa carefully treated him and he become the most beautiful one in the area. After a year or two while he was unleashed, he went missing. Bappa was furious and looked everywhere but couldn't find a clue. Later we received news that someone who came from a van took him away. A person from the village has seen the dog inside the van. 

Among many kids LAIKA had, BROWN was lucky to stay with us. He was big and completely brown. He was loved mostly by my Amma. He lived about 6-7 years or so and the whole neighborhood was feared of him. One day when we returned from home, Amma was crying and said someone has poisoned BROWN. Later that evening, BROWN died while Amma looking at him. I still remember seeing Ammas face from the window of my room. Her eyes getting wet while watching her favorite pet having a painful death. She was never interested in adopting a dog for a long time afterwards. 

In late 90s, Taththa's friend Jayasinghe uncle brought home a puppy. DINGO! A son from his own pet girl at his home Ragama. It was a cream colored Terrier and was the first non local breed we had. He also had this record book with his family history and all and it was quite an experience for us. Being a terrier, he was quite an active one and a disaster. He live with us for years and then Taththa gave him to my uncle Manoj. He lived with them for years and one day got hit by a lorry while he was playing on the road. What I now remember is DINGO never went old. He was maybe 10 years when he died but all the time he was fluffy, woolly and full of life. And as I remember, he's the first dog that we have pictures. After 2000, I came to Colombo and lost track of the dogs at home. I remember a Rottweiler like dog named BRUNO living at home for some time. He was not a Rottweiler but he must have had an ancestor.

Now as an adult, I have lived with 5 Black German Shepherds once at my current home. My wife had a lady named PATTIE. She was very old when I met her. After she left, MICKEY came as a puppy in 2010, she had 7 babies in 2012 and 3 of them stayed with us. They were COLIN, ROSY and PODDY. They all had different characters and I do not want to write extensively on them because it'll be a really long essay. While the 4 of them staying, PODDY had a baby with COLIN and he was BRUNO. He was not a healthy one from the beginning. PODDI left us in 2017 after trying really hard breaking us all badly. Her son left us later the same year with a kidney failure after a huge struggle. ROSY left us in 2020 giving us the same pain. 

MICKY mom and her son COLIN still living with us and they are our world if I say it in a single word. COLIN has a weired attachment to me and sometimes it's a pain in the ass :-D and I say MALA WAATHAYAK to him.

Apart from these, I have countless dog friends in the road, at the temple, at the shops in the village and at my office premises. With a wife who has a craziness for dogs, we make dog friends everywhere we go.

I can say I know dogs. I feel them. They feel me. I know and may have felt the exact feeling little Tissa had. I may have done the same if I was him. Maybe I'd me more skeptic and plan the whole adventure more carefully. Maybe the story I write will be a totally different one. 

The boy who harnessed the wind

The movie was a coincidence. I had no idea such a movie existed till someone posted about it in a facebook movie group. I watched it and immediately wanted to read the book. And here are some of the words crossed my mind while I was reading.

It's the story of history of the people of Malawi. At least of some of them. Even though it's a vastly distant region from where I live, I could see many similarities. And at some points, I was amazed from the fact that how similar humans have evolved culturally over the past few thousand years.

It's funny and dramatic. We are so similar and yet we've found many differences among us.

The small details of the book are making quality pictures about the situation. It's almost life like. I know the movie helps to have them drawn. But movies doesn't have them all as always.

The relationship between William and his father reminded me of my father. We had many ups and downs in our relationship but over time, while I was being matured, I've realized he's always been a part of me. My father has passed over 10 years ago and I feel for him remembering the moments we had together. How William describes him and his father, how their connection heated and cooled pictured some exact moments I had with my father.

Some moments of the book was so dramatic and heartfelt and it made me feel the moment to my bones. It happened largely because the characters are already drawn in my mind. I know how Chiwetel Ejiofor would act in those specific moments and I know how he would make me feel the moment. Those moments are written superbly.

It's interesting how he expands his character. He's curious and has questions all the time. And he doesn't get any certain answer from anyone. Yet, he never stops exploring. The engineer inside of him awakes slowly. And we are supporting him unconditionally. 

Political harshness of the era was not new to me. I also live in a same kind of country. Well, not entirely but close, really close. Those power greedy, selfish morons always work with the same agenda in mind. Stay in power and do everything to keep it. Comparatively, I believe we happen to live in a better environment than Malawians but I highly doubt it would remain the same in the future.

And isn't it funny? The Malawian president? As William himself says in multiple occasions? Isn't the government a joke? They take the advantage of the short sighted people. Mostly people only see the shortcomings of a situation. The president once promised to give each Malawian a pair of shoes if he win the election and people voted him. After when people questioned for their shoes, he went on the radio and said do I look like crazy? How do I know shoe sizes of every Malawian? I never promised shoes. 

Maybe people forget it after. We could say that, with the lack of media and knowledge, people may have been deceived. But believe me, here in my country, we have access to variety of media and knowledge these days and we still are being cheated always.

One reason for me to consider reading this book is because I thought I would get a fair picture about the life of Africa. The movie does help to some extent so the book must go far beyond. And if you are a reader who love that kind of reading where it talks about the life and struggle of a society which is alien to you, go for this book. It's detailed to the soul of William Kamkwamba. A typical but ambitious Malawian.

We all struggle in our lives. The things we struggle and how much is the struggle are different from each other. Obviously for the different reasons. Here in my country, we struggle for mental and social reasons rather than for the basics. But in this story in Malawi, their struggle for food is so intense that it made me think constantly about my life. Actually about all of our lives. Why the hell we are worried for... We have a great life compared to them and yet there are thousand things we complain for. You may say everything depends on the economy and social expendability but yet in this globe where we have humans all over, some are even struggling for the very basic things. And it made me wonder... how can we call ourselves humans? As a race, we have failed. Not only ourselves, but the whole animal kingdom we share the blue ball alone with.

And the effort the writers has taken to recreate the exact moments William experienced is tremendous. We can simply transform ourselves and live the moment. Probably feel the moment too. And yes, liveliness of the book is something I say here repeatedly.

If you think extensively for a moment about the many problems people suffer, you may find those problems occur mainly because of the leaders. When the leader is shitting on his people, there's no way the people could win. Improper decision making always strike back in the long run. Greed of the leader leave so little for a country. And those greedy leaders consciously promote being greedy and hence give birth to many greedy henchman in his below levels. And it spreads to the entire society. Greed and power dominates. Slowly there are 10 per cent of greedy people holding 90 per cent of the wealth of the country. And the rest of the 90 per cent of people suffer with the little 10 percent of wealth they have. And I once again realized that truth. Greed always leads a country to poverty.

But this is a book about victory. And a tough journey of a single guy towards it. In William's stories of hard times, there are moments that would bring a smile to your face and probably a tear to your eyes. A forgiving father by the name of the god and few kind words and actions of a teacher who wished all the success for a student, might fire you up in tears. It's just those little things that make you happy. And better not forget the goosebumps you'll have when you join with the emotions of the characters in some wonderfully written moments.

One good thing I love about the country I live is the free education and healthcare. Of course it's not perfect and has many drawbacks but still what we have is better than nothing. So the fact that Malawians have to pay for the higher education is something I felt terrible.

The most interesting thing about this kind of a story is it has that underdog tone. At least that's something I loved about that. In fact, almost all the people love a story where once ignored guy becomes the hero.

Another thing I could connect tightly with William is because what he does is straightforward to me. With the little electrical knowledge I have, I totally understood how his mind worked. And how he thinks of matters and reverse engineering the result to an initial state is exactly the logical way anyone could think of. He remembered me the childhood I had with small motors and batteries. And many other things I tried to make. But all I made was a cob web remover. It's just a rod attached to a small motor powered by a single D type battery. The rod was a 1.5 feet long eakle taken from a coconut leaf. and it was attached to he metal rod of the motor by a plastic inner ink tube of a ball point pen. The spinning of the eakle removes the cob webs almost perfectly. It's not much but the fun was remarkable. Anyway, with those memories colliding with William's story lured me to a combined journey together.

I know that this is one success story and there could be hundreds, maybe thousands of unsuccessful stories. Their achievements are only staying with them due to the lack of recognition nevertheless they enjoy every moment on the journey achieving it. Recognition is the reason that we got to knew the story of William Kamkwamba. But that doesn't mean Williams story is less. He's now a hero of mine.