Aththamma, Do You Have a Name? The Magical World of Childhood
BY DIYAMANTHI GALPOTHTHAGE, Grandmother and children’s book author
Have you ever woken up to a pitter-patter of raindrops falling on your window?
Or watched purple Jacaranda flowers falling in the rustling wind to form a carpet beneath the trees?
Or listened to a host of house sparrows cheep and chirp from a treetop?
Those beautiful moments opened my heart and made me want to smile.
A granddaughter is someone like that for me, opened up a world of love, joy and surprises and transported me back to the carefree days of my childhood, a time filled with magical fairy tales. Tails of fairies, gnomes, elves, lady birds, squirrels, rabbits, dwarfs, tree houses and of course books!
Enid Blyton, Sybil Wettasinghe from Sri Lanka, Lewis Carroll are some of the authors whose writing helped create the magical world of my childhood.
Once upon a summer morning, our three-year-old granddaughter, Sienna, from Brisbane, came to visit us in Auckland. I had so many adorable memories of her. Some moments were full of surprises while others were simply sweet.
One day, Little Miss walked up to me with a red book in one hand and a red pen in the other.
Little Miss started chatting with me.
“What is your name, Aththamma?”
(Aththamma means grandma in Sinhala, one of the main languages in Sri Lanka)
I was taken by surprise, and exclaimed, “my name?!”
She nodded. “Yep.”
Amused, I replied, “Diyamanthi Aththamma”
“Yep, I am writing your name in the book.”
I wanted to make it easy for her. So I tried to break my long name into syllables. Surely writing my name for a three-year-old would be a big task!
So I began slowly and said, “Di”
She said, “yep” and started writing in her book.
“Ya,” I said the second syllable loudly.
She said again, “yep” and continued to write, unfazed by my raised tone.
Then I said, as loudly as possible, “Man.”
“Yep,” she continued to write.
“Thi” I said, still projecting my voice. (Poor me, thought that Little Miss could not comprehend) “Yep,” she took a while to think, and then began to write again.
“Ath,” my voice became softer. Little Miss kept her eyes fixed on the writing, her face thoughtful.
“Yep,” she kept on writing.
“Tham,” I whispered.
“Yep,” she said.
“Ma.” My voice softened into a lullaby.
“Here you go! I wrote your name!” said Little Miss and did a joyful jig around me.
Her enthusiasm warmed my heart.
“Thank you, Sienna.” I took the book from her and opened the page, not quite sure what to expect.
The page was filled with small vertical lines, circles, dots and scribbly strokes in red ink.
That was my name written by the three-year-old Little Miss.
The red book became one of my keepsakes.
The book joined my growing collection of gifts from my granddaughters. The collection had cards, painted flower pots, leaflets with their first attempts in Sinhala writing, all precious gifts from my little granddaughters in Auckland and Brisbane.
Every time I looked at them,
these gifts transported me back to that magical world of childhood, just like fairy tales!
One of the book published by this author and loving grandmother is A Mango Tree.
