Memories of my life and my subsequent journey as a vegan

June 30, 2009

My childhood Fashion Dolls and Dollhouse Furniture


My interest in dollhouses continued onward from the age of seven. Just before I turned ten, my Dad got a job in the Pacific region as an academic in a university there. So my younger Brother, my Mom and I also joined my Dad in the Pacific. I missed Sri Lanka I felt sad to leave my friends and my familiar life there. The journey from Sri Lanka to the Pacific was a long one and that's a story I will write on another day.
When I reached this new country there were toys galore that we didn't have in Sri Lanka, not to mention groceries and other items. The main department store in the City center was called Morris Hedstrom and they had a toy department. Of course I was delighted to spend time there. They had various dollhouse furniture sets made of plastic that I bought from the toy department. These included a blue and white bathroom set and a pink floral bedroom set. These furniture sets seemed to be smaller than 12inch scale in size. I also bought a doll called Daisy by Mary Quant. She had curly blonde hair but she was smaller than playscale but bigger than a 12inch scale doll. Each time we visited the toy department I bought a new set of clothes for Daisy.

During that same year my Dad's boss the Professor who was Italian American moved in to the house next door with his wife who was also a Professor along with their son and daughter. I think we got hold of the Sears Catalogue through them. So from then on we used to get our own bi annual catalogs and I was especially interested in the toy catalogues. They had so many wonderful dollhouses, dollhouse furniture and dolls. I used to dream about owning some of the things in the catalogue. I did end up ordering a Ken doll, a Skipper doll (when you turned her arm she grew taller and acquired a bosom) and a playscale baby doll complete with a set of clothes, crib, bottle and high chair. I saw dollhouses and dollhouse furniture, pools and cars for fashion dolls in the Sears Catalogue but even then I was rather restrained in my spending habits and I think that's the reason I never persuaded my parents to order those items for me. So I used to just dream about owning those things but never did get them.

June 29, 2009

Miniature clay cooking pots

When I was about six I used to go to Colombo from Peradeniya with my Dad to get my eyes checked at the Vision House in Colombo. Most times we caught the train to Colombo leaving in the morning and catching the train back in the afternoon. Sometimes, my Dad used to drive to Colombo in our light blue fiat car. One time my we stopped by Kalagedihena which is the stretch of road where they sell clay pottery and my Dad bought me my own set of earthenware mini cooking pots. On another trip he bought me another set of mini pots made of aluminium.
One of our household helpers at the time was a girl from a village in Hunnasgiriya. Sometimes when she cooked lunch I used to ask her to put a portion of the curry in one of my little pots and cook it with firewood in my little hearth which she had made out of clay for me.

Miniature Rice Field ( I was about six or seven)

Hema, the girl who used to be our nanny and our cook had previously worked in Polonnaruwa transplanting rice and she used to talk about how hot it was there and how it was full of viper snakes (polonga). Hema's heels were permanently cracked from the time she spent at Polonnaruwa. The cracks in her heels were like deep crevices like nothing I had seen before!
After hearing Hema's experiences about planting rice, I got it into my head to grow my own little mini rice paddy field. Hema helped me to pick a spot next to the garden tap for my mini paddy field since rice needs water all the time to grow.
So Hema went ahead and dug up the ground next to the garden tap with the triangle shaped mini hoe that my Grandfather had given me. Then, she proceeded to add water and made the field muddy. After that, she built a low mud wall (bund) around the rectangle shaped rice field and filled the field up with water.
Now it was ready to be sown with paddy (rice) seeds. Hema used the little rice seeds that she had saved from each time she cooked rice and sprinkled them over the rice field. Whenever Hema cooked rice she used to pick through the rice to weed out any rice that was still in its husk and collect it in a little jar. A few days after sowing the rice seeds sprouted up into little seedlings. The trick was to keep the field filled with water while the rice seeds kept growing taller and taller. It took around six months for the rice seeds to grow tall and green and sprout their own rice kernals. Once the rice kernals turned golden they were ready to be harvested.
The harvest from my mini paddy field was very small. But nontheless it was all collected and dried and the husks removed by pounding in a motar. Later I cooked this rice in one of my little earthen ware pots, I had to add some of the kernals collected by Hema from the jar to make a potful.

June 26, 2009

From USA to Sri Lanka-1970

My Father was an academic at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka during the sixties and seventies. While my Mother was expecting me, their first child in the sixties, my Father proceeded on to the US to do his MA. When I was nine months old, my Mother and I joined my dad in the States. My younger brother was born in the States the following year.
















Note: click on each picture for clearer view

In these two pictures: myself as a toddler in LA, California, 1967-1968.



















In the two pics here: I was about 3yrs old in LA, California, 1970.

Just before I turned four our whole family returned to Sri Lanka where my Father resumed his work teaching at the University of Peradeniya.

Soon after we returned we stayed with my Mother's Uncle and Aunt and their large family of five girls and one son. They lived in my Mom's grandparent's ancestral home in a village close to Peradeniya. After a few weeks we moved (carrying our belongings in a lorry) to a house that we rented in Ampitiya which is a suburb of Kandy. I have some glimpses of memory of the time we spent there.
We had nice neighbors at Ampitiya, they had a son a little older than me. I remember visiting them one day dressed in a white/pink cotton dress and I was quite enchanted by their little chicken coop with hens that laid eggs. Our neighbors yard was full of tropical trees. At the time I couldn't speak Sinhala although I understood it (having just returned from the States), so they spoke with me in English. Something else that I remember from that house is how we used to keep the butter in a cut glass dish filled with salted water and a matching glass cover on top. I'm not sure if people still keep their butter this way but this memory fills me with nostalgia. We only stayed in the Ampitiya house for a few months before my Father was allotted University Quarters.

The first quarters that the University gave us were at the Gal Bangalawa (Stone Bungalow) at Mahakande.

June 25, 2009

Sinhala Avurudu (Sri Lankan New year) in Sri Lanka

When I was a child, every Sinhala Avurudu (which fell during mid April) our whole family used to visit my Dad's ancestral home in Udubadana where my paternal grandparents lived. My Mom used to supervise the preparation of traditional sweetmeats for the Sinhala Avurudu which was the traditional new year period.One of her specialities was undu walalu (these were deep fried rings made out of ground undu gram) after frying and draining they were placed in a pot of kitul treacle to absorb the sweet treacle. The preparation was from scratch so the undu gram seeds had to be soaked overnight and ground into a paste and they were fermented by the time the batter was made incorporating rice flour. The thick batter was squeezed out into a pan of hot oil through a button hole which had been sewn into the middle of a tea cloth.

My mom's other speciality were little cakes which were baked in small tins with frilly edges. In the bakeries they were sold as 'ispongee cakes' but the variety that my mother made at home were far superior in taste. So my mom had a huge batch of undu walalu and ispongee cake made to take to our grandparents home each Avurudu Season.

Since we lived in Peradeniya (close to Kandy) and our grandparents lived in Udubadana further up in the mountains about 50 miles away we started our journey in the morning and reached Udubadana about 3hours later around noontime. The journey was all uphill through the hill country of Sri Lanka which was mostly full of tea plantations with some areas populated by pinus forests. Our Dad used to recall his childhood stories of his experiences growing up as we continued on our long journey in my Dad's light blue fiat car with a hood rack attached. Onetime my younger brother got motion sickness as my Dad negotiated the numerous elbow bends. So we used to always carry cream crackers on these journeys to conteract any motion sickness.

Sometimes there were little kids (possibly from the tea estates or farms) that used to run up from one bend to the next crying 'Nona , nona' begging for food or money. So we used to stop and give them some food or money. There were also kids along the wayside who used to sell the beautiful wildflowers that thrived in the cooler climes of the mountains.
My brother and I quickly learnt the names of the waterfalls and mountain passes that we encountered along the way, Ramboda Falls, Ramboda Pass.



My ninth Birthday party also in Sri Lanka











My ninth birthday party was a grand affair, at least in my eyes. We invited some of my Grade 3 classmates from the Kandy Convent and other girls that were my playmates. At the time we lived in a 'B' Bungalow at the Peradeniya University Campus. It was quite a spacious bungalow style house with a huge garden as well. There was a round about in the front garden of the house with a round hedge in the middle of a patch of grass. A little tar sealed road encircled the mini roundabout. There were several varieties of cypress and pine trees that the previous occupants had planted in the front yard along the hedges. This bungalow was right next to the banks of the Mahaweli River and sometimes snakes used to crawl up the outside drains perhaps from the bamboo groves next to the river?
Our 3 older cousins (children of our oldest Uncle) came to help with the preparations for the birthday party. They helped make the numerous short eats ( Sri Lankan savories) for the party. We ordered two sets of bread loaves of from the bakery one was colored light blue and the other light pink. This was for the sandwiches. The sandwiches were well buttered and the fillings included boiled beetroot ,egg salad, and a spread made with canned fish. After the sandwiches were assembled the crusts were trimmed off and each sandwich was cut into four little triangles.
Also on the menu were fish and polos (young jackfruit) cutlets (deep fried balls coated with breadcrumbs. Other items were fish rolls (deep fried fish filled pancakes coated with breadrumbs) and fish patties( similar to samosa).
My Mom had been following some cake decorating classes on the weekends and for my birthday she made me a grand piano cake. She did not have the special tins for the cake so she had to bake two rectangular cakes and cut the shape of the piano with a paper template. The legs of the piano were made out of wood. As I recall we could not find any black food coloring so the key board had to be drawn by hand. The icing on the piano was either a light green or light blue and my mother decorated the piano with roses made out of icing. The cake was a butter cake and the icing on top was also butter icing as was in vogue at the time. That was my most favorite birthday cake, it's too bad that my Dad did not have the camera loaded at the time to take pictures.
I had a thoroughly enjoyable birthday with my friends and family and received many presents. I seem to recall that most of the presents were either dress materials and story books with beautiful pictures, so I had many dresses sewn in the following months. One of the materials was a cotton print of red hearts on a white background and this was made into an a line dress with little cape sleeves.

June 24, 2009

Celebrating my 6th Birthday Sri Lankan style

My parents were busy preparing for my 6th Birthday. Both my Mom and Dad stayed up the night before icing the two ribbon cakes that I took the following morning to share with my Kindergarten mates at the Kandy Convent. The ribbon cake was in 3 layers pink, yellow and light blue if I remember correctly. The butter icing on top was also in pastel colors.

I wore a special silky maroon dress with a smocked bodice that my Mom had made for me. The sleeves were puffed. I remember how I went to the upstairs of the Kandy market to select the fabric for the dress.

My dad dropped me and my brother off at kindergarten along with the two cakes. All the children gathered round in a circle in the room which had an open wall which was covered by an iron grid. One of the cakes was placed in the middle of the circle and every one sang happy birthday to me. The teachers cut the cake into small pieces and shared it with all the children. However, I did note that the teacher did not cut the second cake and probably took the whole cake home!

Over the weekend, I had another party at home. Once again my Mom baked me another cake but it was not a ribbon cake this time. I much preferred the ribbon cake. To my party at home we invited our 3 cousins and uncle and aunt who lived in Kandy. I think we had kavum (oil cakes) but I don't remember what else we had that day.

My Childhood in Sri Lanka in the Seventies

The Sirimavo Bandaranayake government imposed severe import restrictions during the early seventies in Sri Lanka. Thus, we had to forgo many items that people in the west took for granted. Amongst the goodies that my dad brought back from his visit to the US (where he went to finish off his PhD ) were wrigleys chewing gum, pony tail rings, plastic hair clips, a battery operated children's sewing machine, record player, a gold chain with a heart shape pink stone pendant and a lovely pink dress for me.

Looking back now it's interesting to remember the things that we had to go without during those days and sometimes we had to use food substitutes. There was a restrictions on small red onions, so we used the big bombay onions instead. Masoor dhal was in short supply so we used the bigger yellow lentils but they used to have weevils inside as vendors used to hoard a lot of supplies. I remember sometimes when biting into lentils if you got a bitter taste it meant that you had just bitten into a weevil! That wasn't as bad as the bakery bread, which was also baked from flour full of weevils ,worms and sometimes other insects. My brother and I used to take jam and butter/margarine sandwiches to school and it was no fun eating those sandwiches! School finished early I think it was around 1.30pm so we always came home and ate rice and curry for lunch.

I think my brother and I were lucky because our parents did not believe in spoiling us with cakes, soft drinks or biscuits. Our diet was a healthy rice and curry and bread. Cakes were only baked by my mother for birthdays and biscuits only served for guests. Maliban biscuits were the most widely available local brand of biscuit. The soft drink at the time was Elephant House and I remember one time my Mom bought us the one that was colored purple and we kept it in the fridge and drank it slowly. Short eats(savories) were only eaten if we happened to be shopping in Kandy town, then we'd have them at Elephant House along with tomato sauce. That was the only time we were required to use cutlery and it was rather awkward for me, as we normally ate at home with our fingers. Ice cream was a rare treat that we only had at Elephant House. A scoop of vanilla ice cream was presented in a silver bowl always with a wafer sticking out. There were also those booja packets that were available in the shops but our parents never bought them unless we went to see a movie. I think children nowadays are so spoilt and eat so much junk food, I am not at all sorry that these so called treats were a rarity during my own childhood. Chocolates were also a rare treat and I used to suck on a piece of chocolate until it melted away, so rare was it in our household. Due to sugar restrictions my mother decided to make date cake as a way to save on sugar. The date cake was very rich.At the time I did not particularly like it although as an adult my tastes have changed and I'm sure I'd appreciate it more now.

When I was in kindergarten at the Kandy Convent, I would have been around 6yrs old. What I remember is that they separated me from my brother and he went to a different class from me. I wished that we could be in the same class but I had no choice. There were two teachers in my kindy class a middle aged lady in Indian Sari and another younger lady dressed in Kandyan sari who was the assistant teacher. Myself and a few other kids were assigned to sit around the younger teacher. She was a very nice woman, I think she was a Catholic girl probably from Anuradhapura or some
other remote town.
Yours truly in the picture (bottom right) with
my kindergarten classmates at Kandy Convent in 1973. Click on the pic for a better view.

Everyday for lunch they used to deliver a delicious looking fish bun from the canteen for her lunch. I couldn't help watching her as she ate it and wondering what was inside the bun. She noticed me watching her eat the bun so one day she pinched off a small piece and gave it to me to eat! I remember another food incident, there was a little boy who was dressed in a silky pair of shorts and a matching silky shirt, one day at break time he opened a brown paper bag and took out two pieces of cake. One was chocolate cake with chocolate icing on top. The other was vanilla cake with white icing on top. My parents of course never sent cake for my lunch, so I watched how he eat it. He licked off the icing from both pieces of cake and put the cakes back in the bag. Even at that age I thought that was a waste of good cake!

My first Dollhouse

My very first dollhouse was a glass cabinet which had its sliding glass door removed. I must have been around seven years old.The glass in the cabinet had to be removed because my younger brother had thrown his shoe at it in a fit of rage and broken the glass!

At around the same time in the early seventies, I saw this tiny little wooden dollhouse living room furniture set painted pink and decorated with a design of flowers. I think it was in 12inch scale, my parents bought it for me.

Even at that early age, I started making miniature objects from scratch, since miniatures were not readily available in Sri Lanka at the time and I guess they are not even available these days. I made my own miniature wall clock with pendulum with a little block of wood in imitation of those hanging on the walls of sri lankan households and chiming at every quarter hour. I also used a bigger block of wood to make a piano with a paper keyboard. I got the urge to make this piano because when I was in Grade 1 at Kandy Convent, we made a cardboard dollhouse for our classroom. One of the girls brought some cute dollhouse furniture for the dollhouse. From what I remember she brought a tiny piano and a cute carpet. How I wished I could be the owner of such lovely miniatures but I could only dream :) I'm guessing that these miniatures were purchased somewhere overseas like England.

My Dad went back to the US to finish his PhD around the same time, so when he came back he brought for me a dancing Dawn doll with long blonde hair and long eyelashes. She wore a short gold color halter dress and red high heeled shoes. She was the right scale for my dollhouse.


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