At school I was a bookworm. As far as possible I avoided doing sports and spent my free time in the school library. I followed the advice given by one of my teachers: Read, mark and digest.
Although I knew how to read and mark, I did not know how to digest. Therefore, I copied interesting nuggets of information from books, magazines and newspapers. We did not have television at the time. I listened to the radio off and on but it did not give any useful information.
Reading, marking and copying information became a habit I could not give up even in my adult life. As a result, the corpus of information I have gathered has grown unbelievably. It was one major reason for me to be attracted to journalism. Those days I never thought that I would be able to enter the Fourth Estate because the editors were a demanding lot. Anyway I made it, thanks partly to my habit of collecting information.
My hodgepodge collection of unusual facts is quite entertaining. I was amused to read and reread my own collection over the years. They say there is nothing like a well-timed fact to take the wind from a stuffed-shirt’s sails. Not many people know that it was an offense to play cricket in the streets of Cambridge. The reason would have been that there was a possibility of pedestrians getting hit by a ball. However, when there is a bus strike, children and adults play cricket in the streets of Colombo. I do not think playing cricket in the streets is an offense in Sri Lanka.
National anthem
Most countries have their national anthems. I particularly like India’s national anthem in addition to that of Sri Lanka. When our national anthem was sung in Tamil there were public protests. Some people seem to think that mixing Sinhala and Tamil is somewhat like mixing oil and water. But oil and water can be mixed with a little soap.
I was a great fan of snail mail before the advent of email. As a child I always wondered how a letter reached the addressee when you drop it into a red-coloured box. I was fascinated to see postmen delivering letters and people eagerly awaiting their arrival. In fact, I asked my father whether I could become a postman. He asked me to complete my studies before thinking of a job. If my memory is green, the postage for a letter then was five cents. Today it has gone up to Rs 15. When people first started sending letters the recipient had to pay the postage in certain countries.
Most car owners keep their vehicles in mint condition. They wash and polish them regularly. There are places where they wash your car for a fee. In old Russia drivers were fined for having dirty cars, but Sri Lankans hardly drive dirty cars. One day a taxi driver asked a passenger whether he ever wanted to buy a car and drive it. The passenger told him that he never wanted to drive a car because he did not even know how to drive a nail into a wall.
Taverns
Despite health risks most men do not wish to give up drinking. In the good old days there were taverns all over the island. They were selling toddy. They displayed a big sign board which said: “Ra bomu” (Let’s drink toddy). The taverns and their signboards have vanished paving the way for liquor shops in every nook and corner. Liquor is sold at tourist hotels and exclusive clubs. In Britain the most common name for a pub was “The Red Lion.”
I was drawn to English in a big way because it opened many avenues for jobs. At the time I was born an English Governor was ruling the country and there was no Parliament. In the 1940s and ’50s there was a keen interest among children to learn English and they also learnt Latin at certain schools. I was fascinated by the language because the alphabet had only 26 letters.
Writers and poets wrote volumes using these letters and imparting knowledge. As a child I was curious to know how many words there are in English. When I learnt that it has more than half a million words I was dumbfounded. However, my English teacher allayed my fears by telling me that about 300,000 words are technical terms. Then he asked me to go through the dictionary and find a word ending in ‘shion’ except the words ‘fashion’ and ‘cushion.’ I failed in my attempt to do so. Although English has been branded an illogical language, there are only five vowels: ‘a, e, i, o, and ‘u.’ I was asked to find a word which had all the five vowels in that order.
I found one word ‘facetious’ which meant ‘saying things that are intended to be clever and funny but are really silly and annoying.’ The teacher gave me the other word ‘abstemious’ which meant ‘careful not to have too much food or drinks.’
One day the teacher asked the class what was the most used letter in English. Nobody knew the answer. He said ‘e’ was the most used letter in English and French. Anyway, in 1969 Goerges Perec wrote a full-length book titled ‘La Disparition’ (The Disappearance) which does not contain a single ‘e’ in the text.
Idiosyncrasies
I have read much about the idiosyncrasies of authors, poets and painters. The celebrated French novelist Victor Hugo used to ask his servant to steal his clothes so that he could not go out and had to keep on writing. Young and impoverished, Pablo Picasso kept warm by burning his paintings. Leonardo da Vinci invented an alarm clock which woke the sleeper by moving his feet. St. John the Evangelist was the only one of the Twelve Apostles said to have died a natural death. Attila the Hun died the day after his wedding night.
Kings and queens have created news over the years. Queen Victoria whose picture appeared on coins and stamps never spoke English perfectly as her mother tongue was German. She received a half-ton of cheese as a wedding gift.
After a weekend at Sandringham, guests of King Edward VII were weighed to see if they had eaten well. June 2, 1953 was chosen as the date for Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation because meteorologists had predicted that it was the most consistently sunny day of the year. However, it rained heavily on the coronation day. The meteorologists were no better than our astrologers whose predictions go haywire very often.
The Roman Emperor Nero ate onions to improve his singing voice and another Roman Emperor Julius Caesar always wore a laurel wreath because he did not want it known that he was going bald. What is more, anyone who was stupid enough to criticize Czar Paul I was immediately flogged to death.
Most of us wear sunglasses to protect our eyes from the sunlight. However, sunglasses were originally worn by Hollywood actors, not to look ‘cool’ but to protect their eyes from the harsh studio lights. Even today many actors wear sunglasses while filming but female actors fight shy of wearing them. The film ‘Ben Hur’ made an indelible effect on the audience. The chariot scene was marvellous but there was a red car driving in the distance!
People and even animals make news. Keep track of strange events and they will make a difference in your life. [email protected]