A story of a boy from Ampara a reflection of the state of our ‘Rural Youth’ Part 2

Continuation from the previous blog entry which was Part 1

I later found out that he was addicted to smoking; that is, cigarettes if he could afford it but also “suruttu”, a thicker form of “beedi” or rolled up tobacco leaves, which he brought from Ampara. I understand that hours in the fields taking care of his cattle with a friend for company, makes smoking any sort of tobacco they can lay their hands on and weed or ganja is also part of the common relaxation!

I forbad him from smoking, but he was not about to listen sneaking in one here and there. I later realized he was also partial to alcohol and he has swigged a balance of red wine I had in the fridge and actually kasippu and arakku are his standard. He referred to the alcohol I had as arakku! And that it was not at all strong!

To cap the whole line of reasoning, when he saw the stack of DVD’s in a drawer, he automatically assumed they were all pornographic, and none of them are and I could not prove otherwise without a DVD player, and was reluctant to show them on my laptop for fear of him using it to watch the movies. I had not realized the extent of Hard Core Porn in far of Ampara! Watching under solar power outlets.

Moreover, I was offered any type of “thada mas” and he could bring it in the bus from Ampara, cooked of course. They being chena cultivators, often come across game when they go out to protect their chena for months on end and therefore the meats they eat there are those that they kill while out in the forests protecting their crops. The cattle they rear are sold for cash, none are milked, by the way.

It transpired that these nomadic kids have a lot of freedom in their turf, with no grown-ups to instill discipline. I had hoped his short stint in the Army, where discipline is the first thing they teach before the use firearms would have allowed me to train him in any fashion I wished, but was sadly mistaken.

Once I had bought a whole load of stuff from Food City and specifically told him not to take anything from the bags, which he took to mean that he could take whatever goodies he wanted from there. No one had impressed on him that raiding the employer’s fridge was a no no! A case of a jungle boy in town! Of course lessons were needed in everything. I told him that it was quite OK if he knew nothing, and that I would show him how everything was done, but he knew better!

What beat the cake was the day my sister gave me some yummy chocolates from overseas. I ate two and left the rest of the pack in the fridge and upon returning from work discovered the balance about 50 eaten. That put paid to the level of insubordination. But there is more, which I will leave to the next installment hopefully tomorrow.