The short story of Asoka, one who no one bothered to truly understand

My incapacity put paid to my schedule and income, all happening in a flash, way back in January of this year. I was also managing my sister’s property adjoining mine, and so this was an opportunity for her to get into managing hers. She had her own vision of what she wanted to achieve, and brought a person to live there whose village was in Pelmadulla, which we discovered later, and was given the task of cleaning up, and planting a place full of fruit trees of her own choosing. He appeared obedient & grateful for a place to call his home, as he had nowhere to go.

Initially people frightened him with ghosts at night and making odd noises, which he was able to withstand. He was able to stop the thefts (by the ghosts) of produce from her land, and generally show positive results, when after 4 months he brought a woman to live with him as a common law wife from the next village. She had an adult son, just as he had children who were married. I do not know what happened to his wife. Whilst my sister and I found it suspicious, we did not interfere in his choice of companion who stayed in the house with him, and after information, warned him about parties and drinking, which he vehemently denied indulging in.

One day he was rushed to hospital after an attempted suicide and released a few days later, ostensibly because he had taken some agricultural poison due to a fight with the woman. He then said she had left and that he was rid of her as she was not a good influence. We got wind that he was drinking and warned him off that. I went to Polonnaruwa on the 5^th of September and he seemed fine, and the only untoward sign was that he was insistent that he needed money even though my sister had not asked me to give him any. Due to my being in crutches I was not able to go into the house and otherwise inspect the place, and generally took him to the rice mill to collect the rice that had been milled to take to my sister.

A few days later (not a week had passed) when I get a call saying he was seen through the window dead. Upon investigation he had taken Gramoxone a lethal weed-killer. My sister immediately sent a person to do the necessary, and notify the next of kin. We discovered only then that he was a black sheep of a respectable family, who had taken to drink, whose relatives said he was happy until this association with this woman who drove him to drink.

The addiction lead him to dispose the stuff my sister had bought for the property, from pumps, to piping, sprayers to even the paddy, I had told her to store in her place in preference to mine, as I was less trustful of it under my supervisor’s care. We are now looking out for two reliable people to oversee both properties!!