Free The Legend of Pradeep Mathew by Shehan Karunatilaka Page A

own. I then plundered the Lords Keats, Blake and Shelley, typed them on scented paper, and signed as Gamini Karuna.
    After five letters, she replied. ‘I may betray my boyfriend for someone at some point, but it won’t be today and it won’t be you.’ She was only right about the first part. After seventeen more letters, she agreed to go to the film hall with me.
    The phone rings again. Sheila picks up and sits up.
    ‘Hello… No… Y2Komputers… Mr Mathew… is… is… mathewing… your mother.’
    She pulls the phone out of the socket.
    ‘Gamini. Are you sure this isn’t one of your things? I know you’ve been drinking again. What did the doctor say last check-up?’
    After the film, the fair girl with the polite bosom told me she liked my letters but that I should find my own style and stop stealing from the MD Gunasena Treasury of English Verse. I married her a year later. My friend screamed to the world that I had stolen Sheila from him, and he was right.
    I begin replugging the phone and deflecting the question.
    ‘What did you say about Mathew?’
    ‘I knew it was you. What are you up to, Gamini? Do you know this Mathew Pradeep fellow?’
    The phone rings as soon as I plug it in. I am saved by Lanka Bell.
    ‘Is that Y2Komputers?’
    A man’s voice. A man who sounds too wide awake for 6.37 a.m. on a Sunday.
    ‘No. Sorry. Wrong number.’
    ‘Is Mr Mathew there?’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Mr Pradeep Sivanathan Mathew. You see, I run a small import–export company…’
    ‘What do you want with Pradeep Mathew?’
    ‘My operations are fully computerised. Do you install the software as well…’
    An hour and twenty-seven calls later, I unplug the phone and open the Sunday Observer classifieds. Amidst cars and houses and brides for sale is the personal section and the ad I have placed.
    All morning I get enquiries for Mathew and millennium bugs. Sheila goes next door to Ari’s to escape the din. After lunch I pick up the newspaper and I see an ad spilling over from the electronics section.
    R U Y2K ready?
    Protect your business from the Millennium worldwide system crash. Y2Komputers Millennium Bug Debugging System. Install before too late. Less than 40 months till new millennium. Call for more Information on Pradeep Sivanathan Mathew. Cricketer. Played Thurstan/Royal 1977–83. Bloomfield 1986–94. Sri Lanka 1985–95. Any information or anecdotes, call 724520. W.G. A friend and admirer.
    I receive close to 200 calls that Sunday. And a further 200 during the week. Each wanting Sri Lanka’s greatest left-arm spinner to debug their office networks. And then on Thursday:
    ‘Hello. Mr W.G., please.’
    ‘Speaking.’
    ‘I call about ad about Pradeep…’
    ‘Sorry. That was a mistake. We do not do Y2K viruses.’
    ‘I call…’
    ‘Sorry for the inconvenience.’
    ‘I call… because I coach him at Royal in ’82 and ’83…’
Seven Lakhs
    ‘That is absurd,’ screams Brian. ‘Production has begun. We have done the script, built the sets.’
    ‘Here, don’t bullshit, Brian.’ Danila’s boss, Jayantha Punchipala, MD of the SLBCC, has invited us for a fight. ‘You haven’t built any sets.’
    Punchipala’s office looks nothing like the dingy ITL meeting rooms. After the death of Minister Tyronne Cooray in a suicide attack in 1994, the post of Cricket Board chief attracted many pretenders. Punchipala’s betting empire financed his successful bid over more qualified candidates. Within a year he would be replaced by an interim committee, but that afternoon, he was very much in control.
    Most Sri Lankans smile when they are angry or ill at ease. The MD grins with his whole face. He is a thickset man, dark as a West Indian, with Elvis hair and shiny cufflinks. He directs the tea boy towards us.
    ‘I like the concept. But what is the meaning of this production cost?’ says Punchipala. ‘Y’all are hiring Spielberg?’
    He laughs at his own joke.
    ‘Also, the script needs to be revised.’ He looks at