New Horizons – 10 Colombo constrictions

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Chanaka Amaratunga, Chandrika Kumaratunga, Colombo, Gamini Athukorale, Gamini Dissanayake, GELT, Lalith Athulathmudali, Mahaweli, Ranil Wickremesinghe, Sri Lanka, Srima Dissanayake, UGC, UNP

While the world outside Colombo was figuring with increasing importance in my life in the mid-nineties, at home the lights, as Edward Grey described the onset of war in Europe in 1914, were going out one by one. My grandmother died in June 1994, on my father’s birthday, when my mother had arranged to have the British High Commissioner over for dinner. It had been a longstanding obligation, but she had wanted a date when I too was available, which had been difficult to fix. The dinner had of course to be cancelled, and I do not think I attended another formal dinner at Lakmahal until January 1997, just before my mother left for the operation in Oxford from which she did not recover.

I was still attached to Sri Jayewardenepura University in the middle of 1994, having celebrated my 40th birthday in May, with 40 guests. I had found it difficult to fill up the number, which made me realize how out of touch I had got with Colombo over the preceding couple of years. When I resigned from the British Council in 1992, I had celebrated my birthday – and the recurrence of Wesak, in the 19 year cycle of full moons – with a retirement party, which had been a very jolly occasion. After 1994, I did not celebrate a birthday again at Lakmahal, travelling to Oxford for my 50th, after I realized that one’s closest friends are generally those with whom one grows to maturity.

My grandmother had been ailing for a long time, her tenacious hold on life slipping when first she lost her sight, and then when she had to use a wheel-chair. It was odd to see her reduced to helplessness, since for most of my forty years I had thought of her as ruling over Lakmahal with a will of iron. Widowed in 1945, losing all her sons, the last two in rapid succession in 1983 and 1985, she had still maintained her authority, which I fear acted as a curb on my mother. Latterly I had begun to understand why my mother spent so much time at Girl Guide Headquarters, which allowed for the full flowering of her equally vibrant, but much more gentle, personality.

My grandmother’s death, though it left an enormous hollow, should also have been a liberation for my mother. This did not follow, because my brother, who had been in Hong Kong for the last two years with his family, decided to continue there but send his children back to be looked after by my parents. Previously they had looked after his son for years, while he and his wife were pursuing higher qualifications in England. But they had seemed to enjoy this, even taking on responsibility for the boy when, after his parents came back from England, his mother got pregnant again, and found looking after two children difficult.

But that it was a responsibility they could not readily fulfil as age advanced I understood, when I came back once on a Sunday afternoon after a trip to Yala with my sister, to find my mother almost in hysterics because her grandson had not come home after church. She was trying to convince my father, who was enjoying an afternoon nap, that he should go and drive round the church premises, to see if the boy could be traced. I tried to tell her not to worry, that doubtless the boy was hanging around with friends, as all of us had done at that age, without parents worrying overmuch. But she quelled me by saying, with a quaver in her voice ‘Other people’s children….…’ Her relief, when they called the vicar and found the boy had spent the day there, was palpable.

Rajiva Wijesinha’s The Past Is Another Country – Down memory lane with Derrick Nugawela

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Colombo, Derrick Nugawela, Hambantota, State Council, The Past is Another Country

The Past is Another Country is a series of interviews with individuals distinguished for their contributions to culture and to society. In addition to discussing their individual contributions, the programmes explore the context in which each of them functioned. The interviews, by Rajiva Wijesinha, cover a range of developments in post-independence Sri Lanka, and present a panoramic view of social change in the latter half of the 20th century.

Derrick Nugawela’s parents belonged to the Nugawela and Panabokke families, distinguished landowners in Kandy and successful politicians in Colombo during the State Council period, and thereafter in the early years after independence. He himself however, after the early death of his father, had to make his own way, and became a planter, where he had to work himself up in a profession dominated by British expatriates. By the sixties he ran one of the best plantations in Sri Lanka, while also being a Volunteer Officer who was put in charge of Hambantota during the 1971 insurgency. Having later emigrated to Australia, he had to again make his own way there, before returning to Sri Lanka for Citibank, and later becoming a Director of the Board of Investment.

The Moonemalle Inheritance: From ACTS OF FAITH – Part 3

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Acts of Faith, Colombo, Moonemalle Inheritance, The Moonemalle Inheritance

Phyllis came down to Colombo in a state of extreme irritation. She had been rung up the previous day by Mark, speaking officially on behalf of the cabinet, to tell her that the government thought she ought to cancel her march for peace. When she told him that that was unthinkable, he suggested that she postpone it. She told him that that was impossible because Harry was returning to the country the following week specially for the march. There was a pause, and then he told her almost apologetically that there was a deportation order on Harry, and that he would not be allowed into the country.

Phyllis could not believe her ears. Mark had to repeat himself before she took it in, and then she asked for Tom. She was told he was not available. Phyllis insisted and, when Mark still refused, declared that she would go ahead with the march anyway, and banged the telephone down. A few moments later, it rang again and Tom came on the line to request her in the national interest to cancel the march. Phyllis, who was still irritated, asked what would happen if she refused. Tom said very earnestly that the government might feel obliged to ban it formally, at least till the situation grew less tense. He added that, since Harry had been banned from entering anyway, there was no reason why the march could not be postponed. He suggested that she come down to Colombo in a few days and discuss the matter with him. Phyllis kept a hold on her temper and asked him the reasons for the ban. Tom mentioned the activities of delegates to CARP and, when Phyllis said that was irrelevant, added confidentially that there was more that he could not disclose on the telephone. Once again he said that he would be delighted to discuss the matter with her when she had the time to come down to Colombo, and hastily put down the telephone.

The Moonemalle Inheritance: From ACTS OF FAITH – Part 2

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Acts of Faith, Colombo, The Moonemalle Inheritance

The Village was still smouldering in places as they drove through, Phyllis’ cherished Village which she had held out constantly to outsiders as an example of communal harmony. Perhaps she was not far wrong. It was outsiders, they were told, who had swept in and burned and looted and killed. They had left Phyllis’ house untouched; but, drawn there by what seemed to be foreknowledge, they had set fire to the gardener’s hut at the bottom of the grounds. In it, they burned Krishna’s parents, his father deliberately, his mother because she had flung herself into the flames.

It is then a bleak picture we have before us this evening, in Phyllis’ drawing room as they sit hollowly before the television in anticipation of Tom’s long awaited address to the nation. Radha, Krishna’s younger sister, who has been spared the flames and had not sought them, feels guilt pervading her grief and buries her head in Phyllis’ lap without looking up. Krishna crouches beside her, his face blank and uncomprehending. Yet he has had earlier the relief of tears. Indra’s face beyond is similar, but rigid too. They have rung through to Colombo, and he has been told that Shiva also has died. It is not likely in such a situation that anything Tom would say could furnish much comfort. Still, it is something to cling to, imminent pronouncements of authority on the events, and they wait in hopeful expectation, for something that might divert their anguished minds.

It is with a horror akin to that they have already experienced, and which they never thought to have renewed, that they hear Tom declare that there is nothing surprising about the violence that has occurred. It was provoked, he says; and grieved as he is, particularly because of the damage done to the government’s development programme, he will take steps to ensure that the Tamils never provoke such violence again from anyone, least of all the Sinhalese, who are after all the most mild and peaceful of people in general…..

The Aunt’s Stories: Degeneration – Part 5

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Colombo, Moonemalle Inheritance, Old Place

The engagement took place, and I went down to Colombo for the occasion. My mother had earlier indicated a softening of attitude in that she had told Iris she would come, and had indeed invited Tara and Nimal to come up together to stay at the Old Place after the engagement, but as it turned out she failed to put in an appearance. To me the illness that she pleaded did not seem grave enough to warrant her absence. I could not forget either that the more she and Michael had discussed the matter during his visit, the less likely it seemed that either of them would countenance the marriage.

In Colombo however, Michael and Nimal seemed to be as close as they had been in the past. On the night before the engagement Michael had organized a sort of stag party which seemed to have been a very successful event. Nimal scarcely made it to and through the next evening, though it only fleetingly crossed my mind that that might have been deliberate. Iris, who told me that Michael had been quite difficult at the start, was relieved. His demeanour that evening was impeccably enthusiastic.

Nevertheless I still harboured my suspicions. My mother had always seemed to me the most determined member of our family, and during his visit it had struck me how very much like her Michael was. However, it was not for me to upset things when everyone else seemed content. Besides I was not myself yet entirely satisfied about the marriage. At the same time, as I got to know Nimal better, I grew quite fond of him, so that it was not entirely out of selfish consideration for the family that I welcomed what seemed a solution to the problem.

The Aunt’s Stories: Degeneration – Part 4

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Colombo, Moonemalle Inheritance, Old Place

Michael’s return had been eagerly awaited by everyone, the engagement having even been postponed until after he got back. He had been a great favourite at the Old Place too, which he had visited frequently during his school holidays, to spend some time with my mother and myself. He had usually come by himself, but occasionally he had brought the odd friend along, and a few years before he left for England he had wanted to bring Nimal. My mother had made some sort of an excuse and Michael had never repeated the proposal. I do not think however that that had any bearing on the fact that the visits had tailed off towards the end. As he grew up, we could not expect him to be quite as fond of the older generation as he had been before. Nevertheless, it was the earlier times we remembered when we thought of him; and he himself had written that he intended to come to spend a few days with us upon his return.

Not even for Michael though would my mother agree to go to Colombo. Obviously this was primarily because she did not want to meet Nimal in his present situation, but I also suspect that there was some sort of residual resentment against Michael for having initiated the attachment in the first place. Certainly when I told her that Michael had in a letter to me referred to the engagement with disbelief, she had simply sniffled and remarked with asperity, ‘What does he expect when he brings him into his own house and treats him like an equal?’

The Aunt’s Stories: Degeneration – Part 3

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Colombo, Moonemalle, Old Place, The Moonemalle Inheritance

I suspect that my mother’s cheerfulness in telling me the old story was because it functioned as a sort of revenge, that permitted her to place in a satisfactory perspective the acquaintance amongst the younger generation that called it to mind. Certainly more than once she drew my attention to the fact that Michael always took the initiative in the relationship, with Nimal obligingly following his lead.

Such patronising indulgence was not to be traced in the tone and the words she used with reference to the relationship after Iris’s letter of confirmation. As I mentioned, though previously it was a detached sort of interest I had felt rather than any form of pride, now I found myself sharing her attitude. The trouble was that it was not simply an isolated issue of different generations having different views about differences in status. If that had been the case I would have had no excuse to intrude my own feelings, if indeed I had had any adverse ones then, upon what was solely the concern of Tara and Nimal and possibly her parents. But as it was, the Old Place was involved. Tara had further responsibilities than simply to herself, and these she appeared to have ignored completely in her present course of action.

The Aunt’s Stories: Degeneration – Part 2

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Colombo, Moonemalle, Moonemalle Inheritance, Old Place, The Moonemalle Inheritance

On the next day even this straw had to be discarded, for there was a letter from Iris confirming that there was an engagement; and though this was still unofficial, and meant to be kept so for some time yet, Iris’s letter concluded with an eulogy of her son-in-law to be, which made it clear that she certainly was not to be counted upon in this crisis.

On reflection, I suppose my original assumption that Tara needed an excuse indicates that from the first I myself thought the match unsuitable; and I must confess that my reasons for this were not too different from those of my mother. Though I am only two years older than Iris, the fact that I have lived all my life at the Old Place, while she married early and went to Colombo, has contributed to my feelings about family being much more akin to those of my mother than to hers. Of course I am sufficiently of my own generation to realize, unlike my mother, that my prejudices cannot be objectively justified. But that in no way diminished the strength of my conviction that it would not be fitting for Nimal to end up as the master of Old Place.

The Aunt’s Stories: Degeneration – Part 1

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Colombo, Moonemalle, Moonemalle Inheritance

We are, it is generally acknowledged, a very old family. What this should mean, I have been told from my youngest days, is that we are calm and dignified and face any untoward happening with graceful but determined equanimity. I am not myself too good at this sort of thing. As I grow older I am better able to restrain any unsuitable excitement. However I shall never be as accomplished as my mother, whose capacity for control continues to astonish me.

This does not mean that she does not lose her temper. She certainly does that, and with a bitter intensity that can be quite frightening. This however takes place only in the privacy of our own house, and only I am privileged enough to be a witness. I suppose my father fulfilled the same role in the past. All the rest of the world gets is a cold and unruffled dismissal.

This is all that happened when we first heard the news of Tara’s unfortunate liaison. We were out visiting when someone mentioned it, on the round of calls we make regularly every Tuesday and Thursday through our little town. The news must have been hotly canvassed in town for the boy too still had some relations here and they must have been grossly uplifted at the idea of a connection being established with us. The firmness however with which my mother said that she had not been to Colombo for some time and therefore knew very little of her grand daughter’s affairs made it impossible for anyone to revert to the topic.

The Aunt’s Stories: A Twitch of the Thread – Part 4

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anti-government group, Black Cats, Colombo, Communist Party, communists, elections, Fr. Jude, government, JVP, JVP Politbureau, Moonemalle, Moonemalle Inheritance, Palitha, Palm Court, The Moonemalle Inheritance

That occasion however was the last. Already there had begun the unrest that indicated the JVP was once more a force to reckon with. This was quite understandable and some of us even sympathized, for the government, in not holding elections for eleven years and showing itself inclined to cling to power for even longer if possible, had driven opposition underground. This was a situation on which the JVP thrived. The party had been proscribed, along with two more orthodox Communist parties, on wholly trumped up charges of spearheading communal riots in 1983. Everyone however knew that it was in fact forces in the government who were responsible. The other parties had accordingly protested their innocence. The JVP Politbureau however had not argued at all. Rather they accepted the challenge and began to reorganize in the form that suited them best. Even those of us who found their tactics questionable had to grant that, had it not been for the agitation they spearheaded, which other opposition forces in turn then found courage to support, the government might never have held elections.

Unfortunately even after elections were at last announced the JVP, perhaps carried away by its success, demanded that the elections be boycotted. The other opposition parties refused to go along with them and the boycott failed. However the impact of the JVP boycott, violently enforced in areas where the government was weak, ensured a government victory, albeit for a different Presidential candidate and what proved a new dispensation.