The Legend of Pradeep Mathew (43 page)

I dig up my scrapbooks to find out where I have seen this bearded man. The bearded man who lives next door to Kuga, who records my documentaries on laser disc, who has a copy of
Godfather 4,
who answers to the name Rohana.

Recent Sri Lankan history does recall a bearded Rohana. The leader of the university Marxists who staged an abortive revolution in 1971, ran an unsuccessful election campaign in ‘82 and then held the island by its throat during the late 1980s. Rohana Wijeweera, bespectacled, bearded and bereted, resembling Ernesto Guevara, if Che had been dark, short-sighted and ugly.

This is not the Rohana I seek.

When I find the scrapbook entry and view the picture I know I have made no mistake. It is a picture of Rohana Vindana Kumara, twenty-one-year-old naval officer, famous – notorious – for attempting to kill an Indian prime minister.

It was our JFK-in-Dallas moment, political assassination live on camera while the whole nation watched. Rajiv Gandhi was here to sign a peace accord with Sri Lanka, pledging to send ground forces to crush the LTTE, the very rebels his own mother had armed. Straight off the plane, Gandhi is walked past soldiers in white, standing to attention. And then, without warning, an arm of dissent is raised from the sea of conformity and a bearded naval officer brings his rifle butt down on the premier’s head.

Our assassin differed from his American counterpart in two ways: (a) He missed his shot. (b) He got caught. The accord led to the IPKF, Indian Peace Keeping Force, raping and burning their way through the north and east. It would be several years before a Sri Lankan successfully took out a Gandhi.

Thenmuli Rajaratnam, the photograph of whose severed head was published by
TimesWeek,
was sent by the LTTE to avenge the presence of the IPKF, known later – not unfairly – as the Innocent People Killing Force. This suicide bomber was unique among assassins for (a) being a woman and (b) not having a middle name.

In fact many assassins are known by three names. John Wilkes Booth. Lee Harvey Oswald. James Earl Ray. Mark David Chapman. I’m sure there are more.

Side note. Sri Lanka’s most dependable pace bowler has not three, but six names. One of the wittier Sri Lankan banners of recent times had the caption, ‘Sri Lanka will win faster than you can say Warnakulasuriya Patabendige Ushantha Joseph Chaminda Vaas.’

The article on Rohana Vindana Kumara appeared in the
Sunday Times
a year after the would-be assassin’s release from prison and described a disappointed man living in a Nawala shanty, filled with audio cassettes and mistakes.

The article described a lone patriot, unaffiliated to any hate group. Who spent four years in prison where some treated him as a hero. While he was there, his brothers were relieved of their government jobs and his family of their Navy-sponsored house. He was courted by pro-Sinhala expats and promised jobs and trips abroad when he was released. Nothing of the sort materialised.

How did a failed assassin with a middle name, a dead magnate and a convicted hijacker end up living on a road with no power poles? What does this have to do with Pradeep Sivanathan Mathew? Answers I believe I have.

Sledging refers to on-field verbal abuse, usually meted out by a fielding side to disturb a batsman’s concentration. It is called ‘gamesmanship’ in the same way rugby calls stomping on someone’s head ‘part of the sport’.

My favourite sledge is from Zimbabwean tail-ender Eddo Brandes when ill-tempered Aussie pacey Glenn McGrath, unable to penetrate the chicken farmer’s defence, decides to turn on the belligerence:

The Aussies are seen as the main exponents of sledging. Indeed, past captains Chappell, Border, Taylor and now Waugh have professed their approval of ‘mental disintegration’. But sledging is by no means exclusive to these canary yellow foul-mouths.

Pakistanis sing, chant, argue, swear and soliloquise in raw Urdu right in the batsman’s face and nothing can be done. To the untrained ear, even a love song in Urdu can sound like a threat to rape one’s mother. Yet it is impossible to bring accusations against a tongue you don’t understand. A fact the Pakis are well aware of.

Monolingual New Zealanders would combat this by stringing Maori place names together in aggressive, haka-like phrasing:

A recording of this was found on a spool titled ‘Janalinco Trigular 97’. Sri Lankans never talked back, an attribute encouraged by coaches like the GenCY and enjoyed by the Afridis and McGraths of this world. Veteran street fighter Mustaq Miandad once sledged a Lankan opening batsman to tears and for the rest of the tour nicknamed him ‘boo-hoo cry-baba’. The batsman averaged 11 in that tournament and never played again.

Another batsman upset by sledging was a pudgy little Anandian who was one day to become the captain. It was on the 1989 Australia tour. The lad had taken verbals from Hughes and Rackemann and had retaliated with a few swear words that drew chuckles from the fielding side due to bad pronunciation.

‘He came to our room fully upset,’ says Charith. ‘Then Pradeep advised us both.’

He told them to ignore the GenCY, but not to just swear and get upset.

‘He said to analyse the sledger. Look for weapons. Taylor is battling for his place. Waugh’s girlfriend just dumped him. To find the weakness and attack.’

The not-yet captain stopped whining and listened.

‘After he became captain, he forgot that Pradeep was the man who gave him that advice.’

Three years later, playing at Hobart’s Bellerive Oval, tired of debutant Campbell calling Sri Lanka ‘a bunch of useless darkies’, Mathew muttered to the bowler from the non-striker’s crease, ‘Australia may win, but you will be the loser, Campbell. When Lawson is fit, you’re out. Enjoy your last moments.’

It was unprecedented for a Sri Lankan to sledge an Aussie on their home turf. But it worked. Campbell did not take another wicket and Ranatunga at the other end helped himself to a brave century. ‘After that only, Arjuna even started talking back,’ says Reggie.

Former umpire K.T. Ponnadurai tells me that Sri Lanka’s test series against Zimbabwe in 1994 was filled with verbal bouts between Mathew and Anton Rose. Uvais Amalean recalls that the suggestion to throw the ball at Kiwi captain Turner in the last game of the tour, in revenge for his unsporting run-out of Samaraweera, was entirely Mathew’s idea.

Is it possible that this shy boy, described by sister, lover and friend as ‘sweet’, ‘good’ and ‘honest’, taught our mild-mannered, unassuming Sri Lankans the art of sledging back? As Sri Lanka’s greatest sledger once snarled at Aussie umpire Ross Emerson, ‘Why not?’

Reggie Ranwala also identifies Pradeep as a Sri Lankan sledging pioneer.

‘It was during that ’86 Paki tour, Miandad himself.’

After being called a ‘rundi ka bacha’, left-arm spinner Pradeep Mathew, playing in only his second test, went up to Miandad during the drinks interval and said, ‘Old man. Every boundary you can hit from me, I give you hundred rupees.’

‘I was on the field with the flag,’ says Reggie. ‘I heard.’

Miandad whacked Mathew for three fours and shouted, ‘Hey kid. three hundred rupees. Give to your mother. Tell her I am coming.’ The next ball was an undercutter. Miandad, going for a fourth boundary, mistimed and was stumped by an eager de Alwis. Mathew pulled out his wallet, extracted some rupees and said, ‘Give to your wife.’

The umpires instructed Miandad to leave the field; the Skipper asked Mathew to behave. As Miandad was walking back to the pavilion, Reggie Ranwala muttered, ‘Got three hundred rupees, boss?’ and was chased into the stand by the great Paki batsman, bat aloft. The crowd did not stop hooting Miandad for the rest of the tour.

It is January 1999 and Sri Lanka is playing a triangular in Australia again. I have not fared well on the resolutions I made before taking Sheila to the hills. Item 9 on the list was to give up smoking. I lasted from January 1 to January 5. I have now downgraded from Gold Leaf to Bristol, hoping that a drop in quality may reduce quantity.

I have been writing regularly. I eat three meals, drink nothing stronger than ginger tea or the occasional Portello. There is money in my bank. A lot to be happy about, though I am not.

My study is a mess of scrapbooks and
Wisden Almanacks,
all belonging to Ari. I begin writing at midnight. I hunch over my Jinadasa, one table lamp blazing yellow over my handwritten notes. All my interviews, thoughts, stats and unbelievables. The moon is outside and the wall that I stare at is before me again. I listen to the cats, the dogs and the man down the road who beats his wife. To the occasional bus spilling down Galle Road.

I punch the keys till 6 a.m., some nights more than others. Then I walk along Mount Lavinia beach and watch crows. When the sun comes up I buy cigarettes and bread. Four slices and a dhal curry later, I begin my second innings while the sun comes up. This time pen to paper till I fall asleep.

I doze for most of the afternoon and dream a lot; more on that later. I wake for sunset and if Sheila is in a good mood, we take a walk. These days I have been taking my walks alone.

I received this from my son three days ago.

A month ago I wrote trying to find a way back into my son’s heart. I find that slowly, painfully and wordlessly, that gate has closed. Item 1 on my list ends in failure.

Item 2 was to give Sheila a holiday. Item 4 was to make peace with my brothers. The results were, as they say, mixed.

Ari’s Ford Capri circles the hills of Nuwara Eliya well. It is with a heavy hand that Ari gives us the keys. ‘Be careful with the steering, Wije. Sheila, make sure he doesn’t sit on the clutch.’

Sheila makes me drive slowly in the evening fog and it takes us eight hours to reach Culloden Tea Estate, home of Ossie’s son Newsie, assistant planter. The journey winds through mountains and passes waterfalls and is worth taking slowly. Along the way we play cassettes of Boney M, ABBA, Jim Reeves and Shakin’ Stevens. Sheila does not like The Meat Loaf.

The house has nine rooms with high ceilings and is painted in shades of cream. The boy is pleasant, a moderate cricket fan, unmarried and probably bedding his tea pluckers. He has three servants to cook and tend the bungalow, and two cows in the backyard named Ranil and Chandrika.

We meet at mealtimes and exchange pleasantries and stay out of each other’s way. The gardens are filled with roses and carrots and all around are mountains of tea.

We have spent many long weekends here with Newsie’s parents and their planter friends, playing cricket on the lawns, listening to salsa jazz, drinking beer at the club, eating hoppers and venison in the garden. Sheila and I walk the hills, holding hands under trees where we used to make love. It is a good start.

The drive to my hometown Kurunegala is tiring and I am afraid. Sheila squeezes my arm and says she is proud of me. As we pass through Kandy, I tell her about the story I have uncovered, about this boy and what a talent he is. I omit details of spools and blindfolds. She tells me it sounds like a lovely story, but that she prefers Barbara Cartland.

We get into an argument over Garfield as we enter Kurunegala. I’m too busy defending myself against allegations of being a monster to notice the roads of my childhood or the parks of my youth. The caning incident frequently comes up. My defence is what it has always been. I do not remember.

I remember how Garfield became the U-13 A-team star fielder because of my weekend coaching. How he took 4–17 vs D.S. Senanayake after I had taught him the googly. If Garfield had no talent, I wouldn’t care. But he was too good to end up a B-team reserve by the end of the season. I remember threatening him with a cane, I do not remember using it.

By the time we reach Bala’s I am in a bad mood and hope this will not set the tone for the rest of our stay. We are welcomed by Bala’s youngest, given tea and shown our rooms. ‘Thaathi and Ammi will be back in the evening.’ I have three hours to lie down and look back without anger.