The Lion House

Journey to College

To reach ‘College,’ as the Medical College was referred to by the medicos, my brother Perrin and I, having travelled by train from Lunawa to Bambalapitiya, had to board a bus to the Eye Hospital junction. At the Lunawa railway station where we embarked, among the few of us from the “Three Hundred Batch,” there were others from the senior batches, some displaying an air of supremacy, presumptuously assuming a higher rank solely by virtue of being longer in incumbency at the Medical College.

The train ride was not without effect, the human bones we carried adding to the impressiveness of the bulky textbooks. When we first got the license to carry a stethoscope for the medical pre-clinical sessions held once a week, not much effort was made to hide the ear pieces jutting out of our pockets. All these added to the perceived respectability of academia, often impressing fellow train travellers, irrespective of age and gender. The train ride to Bambalapitiya, where we disembarked, was quite trying by itself, the trials and anguish it provided have been elaborated in another instalment of this series.

The bus journey was equally adventurous. Buses plying several routes stopped at the Bambalapitiya bus stand, so, as all the buses looked alike in those days, one had to be circumspect in getting on the correct bus headed to ‘Eye Hospital.’ Ranjen Fernando, in a hurry to get to College, once ran ahead of us, got into the wrong bus, couldn’t see where he was going as the standing passengers blocked his view, and was carried away to Dematagoda, reaching College only at ten thirty. He missed two lectures that day and, in addition, had to pay a fine, as the rule was that the book borrowed from the library the previous day had to be returned before seven-thirty the following morning.

The buses, like the trains, were packed at the times we boarded them. So it was almost always standing room only, and holding on to something with one hand was as much a necessity as on the train. The passengers swayed more on a bus in motion, and a sudden surge forward on one occasion made the lunch box of the traveller behind open, spilling it all on Perrin, who smelled of fish curry throughout the whole day and had to suffer the degrading and humiliating names he was called.

Ward Class Antics

Once, a used bus ticket was put to a novel use at a ward class conducted by that superb clinician and rigorous, no-nonsense clinical trainer, 'Thanaballs,' as Dr. Thabalasunderam was rather ingeniously known. It was munched into maché and the two moist pellets were inserted unnoticed into the stethoscope ear pieces of a colleague, now a surgeon living overseas. Keen as mustard, he volunteered to examine the ‘lung case’ that was up for discussion that morning. Listening intently to the chest with closed eyes and knitted forehead, he asked the patient to take deep breaths, again and again. Eventually, Thanaballs demanded, “Aisaaay, are you giving him physiotherapy men? What’s the diagnosis?” Giving a confident smile of triumph, he blurted, “Bilateral collapse of the lungs, Sir.” “Aisaaay, do you think I'm a mortician men?” Saying which, he summarily chased the fellow out!

Lion House: The Students’ Haven

Most of the batch-mate-train-bus travellers didn’t have spare money other than for acquiring the bare essentials, which, in the case of quite a few, included the daily quota of cigarettes. The habitual establishment used by these impecunious young intelligentsia was that trendy watering hole, the Lion House, conveniently situated at the Bambalapitiya junction. Several members of the medical community of yesteryear spent many enjoyable hours in this esteemed institution in the company of their Arts and Science Faculty comrades from the 'varsity.’

The interior decor of this restaurant was a prototype of minimalist design. The section virtually reserved for the future intelligentsia of the country had wood-topped tables, their surfaces defaced, or decorated, depending on how one looked at the art work. The engravings and graffiti made interesting reading. As befits academics, there was nothing romantic about these works; no doodles of hearts pierced with arrows or boys’ names coupled with girls’. Instead, they ranged from complicated mathematical formulae, through plaintive statements such as “Myla failed me twice,” no doubt by an undergrad lamenting his fate at the hands of Professor Mylvaganam, professor of physics. There were conceited announcements like “A.D.W.—now a name, soon a legend.” The well-known Hollywood film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s official motto, Ars Gratia Artis, meaning “Art for Art’s Sake,” had been etched into the wood. Below this famed motto, someone, most likely an arts student, had engraved his own interpretation: “Arse Free for Artistes.”

What Lion House lacked by way of comfortable amenities, however, was amply compensated for by its ambience. It was a place that offered all things to all people. For some, it was only a convenient stop-off for mictural release once out of public transport, before proceeding to their respective academic venues.

The undergraduates of the Arts and Science faculties formed the bulk of its clientele. Only having to attend one or two lectures per week, they had aeons of time at their disposal. For them, the Lion House was a substitute for the academic world; a combination of common room for con-chats, a study area, and a speakeasy. Here, conversations and discussions could be centered on the mundane, remotely academic topics, amorous activities among fellow undergraduates, or hypothetical solutions to world conditions. These deliberations, as a rule, were loud, and the language used not quite parliamentary.

The onlookers, listening to the relentless use of coarse, ill-mannered and impolite expressions, may have been certain that soon there would be broken limbs and bloodshed. But it was always just playful banter, never with animosity or hostility. In short, the Lion House, for its intellectual clientele, was a place for food, feuds, and phalluses, sorry, I mean, fallacies.

Although tea and coffee were the legal brews served, the proprietors, ever sensitive to the quintessence of the undergraduate soul, turned a blind eye to the alcoholic beverages that were smuggled in without much stealth. Late in the evenings, while one could hear eddies of academic chit chat among small groups, a keen observer could also notice two-somes, oblivious to what was being discussed around them. One, as calm, silent, and serene as a Zen priest, would be filling his companion's tumbler from a 'half bottle' materialized from his pocket. They would resemble an Inca priest pouring out a libation for one of his gods, while reverently downing a stiff one himself. There were others seated in corners in splendid isolation, looking at the ceiling or at the main road, wearing an air of incomprehensible aloofness to the proceedings around them.

The chronicler takes responsibility if a false impression has been inadvertently created in the minds of the readers, that the patrons of the Lion House were solely the undergraduates of the University of Ceylon and the Faculty of Medicine. It was really a restaurant for anyone and everyone in the heart of the busy Bambalapitiya junction, and being cheap, it was even regarded as a restaurant for those who couldn’t afford a real restaurant. Such was its location that it was easily accessible to the large numbers of commuters who would be in its vicinity at almost all hours. Having never seen it closed, the writer is unable to confirm if it ever did.

Although open to all comers, the proprietors of Lion House in their wisdom thought it fit to reserve, unofficially, a disproportionately large area of the available space for the sole use of undergrads for their scholarly or delinquent activities. That was the location where the events mentioned above took place. The rest of the floor area, however, was used by the proletariat. Daytime activity among them was limited to the consumption of food and tea. In that era, there was no ban on smoking in public areas nor was a prohibition on tobacco even thought of. Hence, anyone entering the Lion House was greeted by a thick cloud of cigarette smoke, which, if not for the heat and the unmistakable smell of tobacco, could give the illusion of being in Haputale on a particularly misty day.

Orders and Tea Culture

Here, customers’ orders were not acknowledged with a gracious bow, or discreetly written down by waiters wafting about. I’m told this happens at lesser eateries, such as Claridge’s in Mayfair, London, or the Waldorf Astoria in New York. At the Lion House in Bambalapitiya, orders were shouted from the customer’s table. The volume had to be loud enough to be heard above the general din, by the tea maker, from whom the waiter chappies would collect them and deliver the goods.

It might be, for example, “Kahata thunai,” which would dish out three plain teas. A scream for “Tea hatharai” would fetch four milk teas. While these were the common orders ever to be heard in the background, the writer was quite perplexed one day to hear a shout for “Light-ekata-plain-tea-half-ekkai.” Although it was plainly an order for some consumable, the explanation given was quite revealing.

I understand that even at the lesser eateries already referred to, long, unpronounceable names are used. Terms such as “foie gras” may get the upper-crust customer just a morsel of some silly stuff, supposedly made from the livers of artificially fattened geese, at an absurdly stiff price. Those requesting tea in such places would be required, I’m told, to specify whether it was to be Earl Grey or Darjeeling, Ceylon or Assam, and pay through their noses for any one of those aromatic beverages.

At the Lion House, the long order “Light-ekata-plain-tea-half-ekkai” was generally requested by the down-and-outs, who would spend the least possible cash to get their caffeine fix. They preferred to save up the maximum possible for a more potent brew in the evening. I guess it figures.

You see, in those days, long before the introduction of the perversion called tea bags, the ‘boutiques,’ in the Ceylonese sense of the term, made tea in the following manner. A coal-fired copper boiler worked throughout the day and night, producing boiling water. The tea leaves would be placed in a pouch of cheese-cloth hanging from a metal ring. It was in the shape and size of a scrotum with a moderately large hydrocele.

At the shout for a specific number of teas, the tea maker, torso uncovered and sweaty, trained by years of experience, would pour the exact quantity of boiling water to percolate through the leaves and produce the ordered number of cups. With repeated use, the tea leaves weakened in strength. For the later cups to receive the necessary vigour, or ‘body’ as wine buffs would call it, the tea-leaf container had to be squeezed to extract whatever remained in the infusion.

This action was very similar, but far more crushing, than the schoolboy frolic of squeezing another’s scrotum, commonly referred to in their circles as ‘bunching.’ When the final extractable tea had been bunched out, the cloth tea-leaf pouch, which I shall refer to as the ‘bunch’ for brevity, was set aside, and a new bunch formed from fresh tea leaves in a different scrotum, I mean, bunch, sorry, pouch.

If the reader imagines that the tea leaves remaining in the earlier bunch would be thrown away immediately, he is underestimating the frugal business ethic of the proprietors of the Lion House, and their personal interest in the appreciable number of its flat-broke patrons.

In response to an order for “Light-ekata-plain-tea-half-ekkai,” this used bunch was called into play after its temporary layoff. The tea maker would grab the rested bunch and, knowing that squeezing it the usual way would produce nothing, the leaves had already yielded all they could, would introduce just enough water to fill half a cup. A final robust, muscular squeeze would produce just enough light brown liquid to fill the cup, thus producing the much-coveted ‘light-ekkata-plain-tea’ for those worthies.

Paiva’s Corner Shop

The food, as mentioned earlier, was admittedly much cheaper but less refined at the Lion House than at Paiva’s Corner Shop, the more elitist eating house almost across Galle Road in downtown Bambalapitiya. For this reason, Paiva’s was used by us, frugal through necessity rather than through a loftier motive, only as a convenient shelter if the rain came down harder than conducive to getting about while we were in its vicinity.

It was on such an occasion that a few of us found ourselves there one Saturday afternoon, on our way back from College, headed for the Bambalapitiya railway station. We would stand just inside the canopy over its wide entrance, technically within the confines of the establishment, as willing, helpless victims to the spray that beat on us with every gust of wind.

The customers who frequented Paiva’s were entirely different from the motley lot at the Lion House. The hoity-toity ladies, with mascara, lipstick, and facial makeup, flitted about in high-heeled shoes like a flock of painted storks, while well-dressed gentlemen in starched shirts, smart trousers, and polished shoes made a stark contrast to the patrons of the Lion House.

Once every few minutes, too frequently for our composure, a manager type would come and look at us in a haughtily disdainful manner, as if to say, “Why the hell don’t you buggers get lost?” One of us would then open the largest book we had, usually Grant’s Textbook of Anatomy. The ruse seemed to work, and the chappie would leave us alone, probably impressed solely by the size of the book. We didn’t care.

Traditionally at Paiva's, the ‘specials’ of the day and their prices were indicated in chalk on a small blackboard kept on a tripod at the entrance in order to entice potential customers by luring the gourmet in them. It was in full view of us as we waited seeking sanctuary from the downpour, awaiting a respite from the weather. We whiled away the time gazing at the well-dressed clientele enjoying the delicacies on offer. Some such morsels invitingly advertised were, ‘Juicy Pepper Steak,’ ‘Gammon Sandwiches,’ ‘Fresh Strawberries and Cream.' They were so beyond our pockets that reading them with the accompanying prices wouldn’t even reflexly generate additional saliva.

At the top of the board, written boldly in coloured chalk was the enticement, “Eat Meat and Pork at Paiva’s.” It was this statement that caught the attention of one of us. Taking due advantage of the piece of chalk so conveniently kept on a ledge, the inducement was altered to read, “Eat Meet and Poke at Paiva’s.”

When the downpour had ceased considerably to a bearable magnitude that allowed safe passage to the railway station, we left the shelter; a bright spark altering the revised version to read, “Eat Meet and Poke Paiva”!!