We left our school in 2014 having completed our advanced level examination successfully. I straight away found a job and after having followed so many boring courses my friend Kushan became a medical laboratory scientist. I didn’t meet him since I left college but he used to call me once or twice a week and crack mad jokes.
This incident took place on month of January 2019 as far
as I can remember but I do not remember the day exactly. I happened to travel
on a convoy from Trincomalee to Colombo. On my way coming to Colombo I remember
that my old mad friends lived in Mirigama. So, I made a phone call to him and
informed I’m on my way to Colombo and I could visit his place. Same time we
were looking for a place to had our lunch. I could full fill my both requirements
if I visited his place.
Once I got closer to Mirigama again
I made a phone call to him and this time his response was not to visit his
house, he would meet me by the main road. Having loose our second hope we put
our lunch packets back to cardboard box where they were stored. I managed to
park our truck under a cashew tree where he explained us to stop. There was
much shelter because of the huge tree and we could rest for a while.
I got out of the truck looking either side of main road to
find where was my friend. Finally, I saw him far ahead of the road coming
toward our truck. I wondered if he was crazy, he came rolling a tyre. He was at
the age of 23 by then. However, I felt very happy, I met my old friend after
long time.
We walk to the shelter under cashew tree and began to talk
what we did when we were schooling and what we are going to do in our future. I
noticed that he was wearing a short which we usually wore when we were at home
and it was too short for him. His upper part was covered with a dusty T-shirt.
There were some patches he had stitched using wrong colour cotton. Unfortunately,
he had worn his T-shirt inside out. I was frustrated how he came so far from
his house in main highway wearing like this. I told him he was wearing his T-shirt
inside out. He took off his T-shirt at once and wear it correctly saying thank
you machan with a laugh of mouthful. I warned him do not do such stupid things
on this main road.
Oh, Golly Gosh! I noticed he was wearing a pair of slippers in two different types. I was clever enough not mention it to him otherwise no one knows what he would do for that. Finally, I gave him some advices not behave like a rascal and I said I must leave now and I was running out of time. He grabbed my hand and asked me to wait for a second. He picked up a piece of wood by the road and threw it towards a bunch of cashews. Oh pity, that caused to fell only one cashew which he offered me. Luckily the owner of cashew tree was not at the garden. I get onboard truck with no idea what to do with that single cashew. I used to discuss this incident with my other friends when we met after few months and we registered him with a nick name ‘hora kajja’ which means cashew thief.