The crib for the sinhala word mekka is bug. Although he was nicknamed mekka by shortening his real name, it was his hypocorism used by his friends with no ridicule or insult intended. Even though our close association surpassed the brotherhood by birth, I never called him mekka through respect.
My first cousin who was famous amongst his school day friends as MEKKA (BUG) had always been my hero during the early sixties school days at St. Sylvester's, Kandy. I always looked forward to his term-end visits from Galle where he attended Mahinda College as a fine athlete and a prominent cadet while gaining hilarious prominence academically as the first student in the history of Mahinda to have obtained fs for all the subjects at O levels including Buddhism and Sinhala Language. Academic setback never stigmatised his jovial character that made him the most sought out Romeo amongst the community of girls in the vicinity. In his company there was never a mundane moment and the atmosphere changed no sooner he entered our living room.
His visits to Kandy were never brief and was always full of fun and adventure. My dad ran a business establishment at 58 Castle st., where we spent most of our times during the holidays while our residence was at 156/20 Peradeniya Rd., a closed estate with nearly 20 rented out houses. The whole estate belonged to a prominent builder of the sixties where we were tenants extremely popular amongst the girls.
Occasionally I was in charge of the cash box and replaced my dad for brief moments, Mekka would approach me and ask for just 10 cents. As it was not a big deal, I always obliged and within a few minutes he would come back and give me a couple of crumpled pieces of cakes which cost 20 cents each at that time. This strange act of taking 10 cents and bringing back a couple of pieces of cakes worth 20 cents each continued until the day I randomly went to the nearby hotel for a cup of tea and sat at a table close to the showcase where cakes were on display.
While having a cup of tea that cost 10 cents, a worker from the bakery section brought a few trays of cakes and stacked them at my arms reach for displaying inside the showcase, which I eventually realized is the duty of the waiter in attendance. Out of curiosity, I spent extra time studying the routine within the hotel while pretending to be savouring the cup of tea at leisure. For the next 15 minutes nobody came to stack the cakes which were at my arm's length and I walked back to our shop realising the reason why the cakes MEKKA filched did not have a wrapper but simply were inside his cargo pants which during the sixties were large enough to conceal even a loaf of bread.
PS: At 73, Mekka is retired now after serving the Prisons Department throughout his career and lives at Malabe with one of his children while keeping in touch with Kandy, his second home.
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