Buruwa at the RCH

Losing one's pants

Saturday & Sunday mornings at the RCH was real fun. Karunathilaka, HSL, brought this game to the RCH. "BURU GAHANAWA" or "Asking/Hitting", we had heard about but never played in our lives.

There was a battered pack of cards in the junior common room. He brought this up to Dorm A, SJW Ambepitiya, DR Pulleperuma, Nihal Cane, UC Jayasinghe, SW Athukorale, Akram Dawood, KI Mahmud and myself sat on two beds close to the door forming a circle. HSL started serving. First he put two cards aside and served the cards into two lots. Collected the cards again, put two aside and asked UCJ, "What?". UCJ said Queen of Hearts. The next card served on UCJ was Q of H.

The game went on like this with no real fun. As our cash reserves were very low, didn't want to play for money. Believe me! we thought playing for money was WRONG/BAD.

There was one little thing we all had in common. Can you remember, before the age of Zip fasteners there were wooden STUDS which soon was injection molded in plastic. Each pair of shorts or longs had 4 to 5 corresponding button holes on either sides of the trouser front opening. They were sold in a card of ten and cost a buck a card.

We soon started playing for STUDS. I can very well remember, Pulle, KI Mahmud and Palitha Mancha lost all buttons to seasoned gamblers, HSL and SW Atukorale. Ambepitiya with the last two buttons was seen semi nude in the Study. Asked what happened to the trouser studs came out with the story.

Asking Hitting for trouser Studs was officially forbidden.

Nihal Cane and I were dancing the "Red Indian war Cry" around Pulle who lost all studs but still could have visited Queens House in that Navy Blue pair of shorts without embarrassing the Queen. (Can't see in the dark Ne?)

Hapu
May 12 2006