The Legend of Pradeep Mathew by Shehan Karunatilaka Page A

seems permanently wet, her wrists imprison bangles, and her square glasses hang like picture frames from her red pottu.
    She surveys my shelves, my Samyo radio and the stacks of newspaper clippings on my desk. She picks up my article titled ‘Pradeep Mathew. Unsung Hero’. The one with the grainy picture and the purple prose. She still does not sit.
    ‘My brother passed away last year.’
    My heart sinks to my stomach and my stomach sinks to my bowels. I glance at Ari and catch Mrs Sabi glaring at me.
    ‘How did he…?’
    She stares at the picture. The one with the short-lived headband. ‘I hated this long hair. He nicely cut it once. Last time I saw him, he was bald.’
    ‘When was that?’
    ‘Five years ago.’
    I try to pick the resemblance. Pradeep had a pinocchio nose; she has an eggplant honk. He had tiny squints; she has bulging eyes. He was skinny, dark; she is russet-coloured, chubby.
    ‘Are you sure your brother is dead?’
    She nods. Not without sadness. Then, finally, she sits. A few sips of Sheila’s ginger tea softens her leather handbag exterior. Her speech gathers speed. ‘Don’t know much about Pradeepan’s cricket. Tell you frankly, I didn’t have much contact with our family those days.’
    Mrs Sabi gives us the Wuthering Heights of it all. Aided by a loan from Sampath National Bank, the very firm that would later employ his son, Muhundan Sivanathan became part owner of Malinda Bakers in Moratuwa and was able to move the Sivanathan family from the Soysapura Flats to a respectable part of Angulana.
    ‘Appa said, “Hard work never killed anyone.” In the end it killed him. Pradeepan was a very quiet child, used to cry for the slightest thing.’
    Overbearing Sinhala mother and workaholic Tamil father raised two children who did not know what race they were. That was till 1983.
    ‘Our bus went past the flats. Fridges and TVs being thrown from the windows. Vehicles burning. Tamils being beaten on the street. We were terrified.’
    The men with clubs and knives stormed the bus and asked passengers to speak Sinhala, to say words that Tamils found tricky to pronounce, like baaldiya. Irangani and Sabi passed the test, an elderly gentleman in front did not. He was dragged out and set on fire.
    Mrs Sabi curls her lips and shakes her head. She pushes her glasses along her nose and looks at the wall that I stare at and the numerous pieces of paper bearing her brother’s name.
    Pradeep was rescued from Thurstan by the driver of Muhundan’s silent partner, Bharatha Malinda Dasanayake. Muhundan had wisely let the local mudalali put his name on the bakery he ran. The mob, who feared Dasanayake, kept their kerosene cans away from the Sivanathan home, but proceeded to burn down three houses on Daham Road.
    Had Malinda Bakers been named Sivanathan Bakeries, the owner-operator and the baker’s assistants would have been hurled into the ovens. Had Muhundan not been delivering steady profits, Dasanayake would not have sent his driver to pick up young Pradeep.
    ‘Pradeepan wouldn’t tell us what he saw on the drive from Thurstan, but I know it affected him. Appa was worried he’d become political, so they sent him away, for studies.’
    Remembering his Thurstan mentor’s advice, Pradeepan Mathew Sivanathan dropped his surname when enrolling at the University of Hampshire in the UK in 1984. He then dropped his studies a year later to join the touring Sri Lankan cricket team. Both events caused a storm at home and for a while Pradeep was persona non grata.
    All this was overshadowed when Sabi Sivanathan ran away with Indrakrishnan Amirthalingam, the baker’s assistant.
    ‘I thought, no problem, nice, hard-working Tamil boy. But Amma wanted me to marry a Kandyan. Appa didn’t want me marrying a low caste. They themselves had a mixed marriage. Still they threw me out.’
    She had no contact with the family for most of the 1980s. While this may explain why Mrs Sabi knew little of her brother’s cricketing