A Final Educational Fling – 21. Transitions

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Aluwihare, Anne Ranasinghe, Clara, Daniel Ridicki, Dodo Fernando, Ena de Silva, English Writers Cooperative, John Keleher, Lakmahal, Maureen Seneviratne, New Lankan Review, Nihal Fernando, Nirmali Hettiarachchi, Rex Baker, The Past is Another Country, Theja, Vijitha Fernando, Vimala Navaratnam, Yala, Yasmine Gooneratne

but something ere the end,

Some work of noble note, may yet be done

If 2016 saw the end of Lakmahal as it had been known and loved for near 80 years, ‘ a home to so many’ as my cousin Nirmali described it recently, that year had also seen the deaths of many who had been part and parcel of my life, and the life of my parents. In fact the period since my father’s death, at the end of August 2014, had seen the departure of many of those who had been integral to our lives.

In November that year I heard from Anne Ranasinghe that Dr Vimala Navaratnam had died in England, having gone there to look after her daughter during some surgery. She had looked after all of us with enormous dedication over nearly half a century, and had kept me going, along with my cousin Theja, in that last week when I was alone at home with my father as he faded.

Anne was as appreciative of Vimala as we were, stating matter of factly a couple of years earlier that she was still alive only because Vimala had insisted she go to hospital when she had suffered a heart attack. Anne had been determined to stay at home, which she later realized would have meant death. But Vimala, ably assisted by the admirable equally kindly and impeccably professional Dr Sheriffdeen, had got her to hospital. I interviewed Anne shortly after she returned home, and was admitted for I think the first time to her bedroom upstairs, where she held forth admirably for the series called ‘The Past is Another Country’.  This was devised by the brilliant Croatian television producer Daniel Ridicki, who  has now set it up on vimeo, as what he sees as a seminal aspect of Sri Lankan cultural history. The series, which includes interviews with Iranganie Serasinghe and Laki Senanayake, can be seen on http://www.ridicki.net/the_past_is_another_country.html

My aunt Ena refused to be interviewed, which I was sad about, but perhaps she knew she would not have done herself justice. She was fading by then, and in October 2015 she passed away, having memorably told me  the week before, when I had gone up to Aluwihare for her 93^rd birthday, that I should not be sad, for we had had such good times. When I spent the night of 31^st December with her the previous year, on my way back from electioneering for Maithripala Sirisena in Jaffna, she had told me she was ready to go. I told her this was unthinkable for, citing my grandmother and my father, I told her that our family lasted until they were 93. She was only 92 then, and she asked me whether I thought she had to go on for another year. She died, in fact, a week after her 93^rd birthday.

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New Horizons – 15 – Transitions

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Asitha Perera, Belihuloya, Bhopal, Bradman Weerakoon, CALD, Centre for Policy Alternatives, Chanaka Amaratunga, Council for Liberal Democracy, FNS, Gwalior, Harim Pieris, Iris Madeira, Kamal Nissanka, Kerala, Khajuraho, Lakmahal, Liberal Party, Muslim Congress, Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, Ranasinghe Premadasa, Ravi Pillai, Rex Baker, Rohan Edrisinha, Sabaragamuwa, Sanath Jayasuriya, Sanchi, Shalini Senanayaka, Suleiman Terrace, Trivandrum, World Cup

After Chanaka’s death I had to take charge of the Liberal Party, for there was no one else left of the intellectual giants Chanaka had gathered around him, or even his close friends, who had formed the core of the party. Asitha, who had been his principal ally when the Council for Liberal Democracy first went into action during the 1982 referendum, had let him down after the 1994 election, and joined the Muslim Congress to ensure he kept the Parliamentary seat of which he had deprived Chanaka. Before that, Rohan Edrisinha, Chanaka’s other great friend from schooldays, who had taken longer to part conclusively from the UNP when JR was in charge, had left the party along with Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu when we decided to support Premadasa in the 1993 Provincial Council elections.

In 1996 I tried to persuade both of them to come back, but by then they were well entrenched in the Centre for Policy Alternatives, which they had set up ironically enough with Bradman Weerakoon, who had been Premadasa’s right hand man. They thought now that they could achieve more through that, and Sara indeed did so in the years that passed, showing himself in the end inclined to move towards a UNP perspective. I was left then with relative newcomers, Harim Pieris who had been Deputy to Chanaka’s Secretary General, and Kamal Nissanka who had joined us as a paid researcher. They had proved reliable enough, but neither of them had the intellectual stature of Chanaka or Sara or Rohan. Shalini Senanayake, who had been employed as a Secretary, also continued to help, though we could no longer afford to keep her on in a paid position. Her sympathies were more with the UNP, for family reasons, rather than Liberalism. Unfortunately Nirgunan, who would have provided intellectual strength, had by now settled down in Singapore, though he continued supportive from afar.

I found the party in debt, for the projects that had funded the administration had long dried up. Indeed it turned out that the most recent one, to produce a manual of Liberalism for South Asia, was nowhere near conclusion, though the money advanced for its production had all been used up. Mrs Delgoda of the Friedrich Naumann Stiftung, which had funded the volume, was desperate that it be finished and, with much cajoling and editing, I was able to oblige within a few months. Fortunately Chanaka’s articles had been in advanced draft form, and provided a thorough base for the volume, and Rohan and Sara eventually produced what they had agreed to do.

New Horizons – 3 Belihuloya and Buttala

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Aluwihare, Amparai, Anamaduwa, Ananda Coomaraswamy, Batulu Oya, Belihuloya, Beragala, Buttala, Chitra Wickramasuriya, David Woolger, Diyaluma Falls, Gam Udawa, Getamanna, Gill Juleff, Haputale, Ismeth Raheem, John Keleher, Mahaweli, Mahiyangana, Matale, Matara, Medawachchiya, Neil Kemp, Nirmali Hettiarachchi, Paru Nagasunderam, Polonnaruwa, Rahangala, Rex Baker, Samanalawewa Dam, Somasundara, Vavuniya, Weerawila

I also much relished in my new job the opportunities I had to travel outside Colombo, to explore again and again what I had once described as the widest range of beauty to be found in the smallest compass in the whole world.

I had got used to frequent travel in my last years at the British Council, first for the office on the Furniture Project which had been started for the North and East soon after the Indo-Lankan Accord. When that unraveled, we had persuaded the Overseas Development Administration to transfer the funds to two other Districts, in addition to Amparai, which remained comparatively safe for travel.

The two selected, because of their proximity to the East, were Matale and Matara. I was able therefore to drop in frequently on my Aunt Ena in Aluwihare and on my father’s brother and his wife in Getamanna. But I also stayed often in Resthouses, and grew to love what I saw as their unity in diversity. The country had a range at different levels of comfort and cleanliness, ranging from the dingy old one at Mahiyangana to the lovely new one in the same city, on the bank of the Mahaweli. I loved too the little ones, at Batulu Oya, and Weerawila overlooking the reservoir, and Anamaduwa looking over paddy fields when Chandrika first changed the clocks and the evening stretched out for ages, as I remembered from Summer Time at Oxford.

Mirrored Images – 5

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Frozen State, Ki.Pi. Aravinthan, poems, Poetry, Rex Baker, Sarath Amunugama, The Last Poem, Too Old For Tears

SARATH AMUNUGAMA
The Last Poem

 

Selecting the words

one by one

like bullets

aiming the argument

with that sardonic smile

in the corner of my mouth

in a moment, I fire the shot

bursting your heart into two

 

You, wordless

with your eyes wide

as soon as

the shot hits you

turned aside suddenly

to hide your tears;

fell on the bed

and began to sob

turning your heart’s blood

into tears

 

My heart leaps

like a hunter who

got his kill.

 

Your heart

broken into fragments

with my sharp logic

doesn’t utter a word

lying on the bed

hiding your head in the pillow

you only make veiled sobs.

 

But

having vanquished you

breaking you into fragments

using the power of

my logic

when your eyes

suddenly opened

why does that sight

reverberate in the heart?

Having murdered you

with my logic’s weapon

why is it that

a graveyard’s loneliness

pervades the heart?

 

Translated by A T Dharmapriya

Post-Colonial Perspectives 17 – Back to the University system

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Arjuna Aluwihare, book shop, British Council, Chitra Wickramasuriya, CIDA, David Woolger, Geetha Premaratne, GELT, Janaki Galappatti, John Keleher, JVP, Mahinda Palihawadana, Neil Kemp, Nirmali Hettiarachchi, Paru Nagasunderam, Rex Baker, Richard Jarvis, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Valerie Young, Wilfred Jayasuriya

Though there was less work to do at the Council, I had much to do outside. First was a massive project with the Canadian International Development Agency to produce low cost readers. John Keleher had put me in touch with the CIDA head, a dynamic woman called Valerie Young, and we hit it off at once.

She had agreed to help with a new course the government had instituted, to teach English to prospective undergraduates before their university courses began. The former Commissioner of Motor Traffic, Wilfred Jayasuriya, had been put in charge, but he proved not only efficient but keenly interested in the subject. He had elaborate plans about the texts that should be prepared, but Valerie agreed with my suggestion that we produce small booklets in a range of subjects, and he fell in with the idea.

Wilfred was indeed a refreshing person to work with after the formulaic approach I had seen previously with regard to university level English. In addition to establishing a network of nearly 100 centres islandwide for the General English Language Teaching (GELT) Project as it was known, he had a series of training and other seminars. The one I remember best happened at the height of the JVP terror, when they used to declare days of mourning and forbid people to go to work. I was able to take the risk, since the Council was so near to my house, but my mother’s worries when I set out on days when hardly anyone was moving suggested how serious the problem could have been.

The last of Wilfred’s seminars was on such a day, and none of the participants turned up, except the keen old lady who coordinated the Centre at St. Servatius in Matara. She had obviously come to Colombo on the previous day, but how she managed to walk to the BMICH defeats me.

Post-Colonial Perspectives 16 – Changes at the Council

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British Council, Clive Taylor, David Woolger, John Keleher, Neil Kemp, Rex Baker

If the country seemed to me to be doing better in the early nineties, the British Council was a much more depressing place. John Keleher had left in 1989, changing jobs with Clive Taylor who had administered English Language Teaching in the region from London. It was, as John put it, a silly exchange since John and his wife Chris loved Sri Lanka. They lived in the house Geoffrey Bawa had developed for Druvi de Saram in Ward Place from an old rambling family house, and they enjoyed it thoroughly, entertaining often and lavishly, for any group suggested to them, visitors, young trainees at the Council, the various English Language experts in residence, writers in English.

Clive was much more traditional and he and his wife Judith found living in the East difficult, but they did their best to cope, and he proved a delightful man to work for. Unfortunately, in 1990, Rex Baker also left, and was replaced by someone who consciously saw himself as representing the new Council. I was on the ship for the first part of 1990, and therefore not there when he arrived, but I do not know that I could have done much for Clive. Neil Kemp made his life a misery, obviously relishing the fact that he had been promoted swiftly to head a country representation while the much older Clive was his Deputy. By the time I came back Clive had resigned, from Colombo and from the Council. Not entirely surprisingly, John in London followed suit soon afterwards, finding London and the new directions the Council was taking quite unbearable.

Post-Colonial Perspectives 11 – Drama and Politics

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British Council, David Gladstone, Keany-Meany Services, Private Medical College, Ravi Jayewardene, Rex Baker, Richard de Zoysa, Scott Richards, Steve de la Zylwa

Though by the late eighties I was doing a lot of educational work, the cultural programmes continued apace. One area in which we contributed in an innovative and creative way was in conducting a series of drama workshops that led to productions of texts produced by the workshop participants.

The catalyst for this was a young Englishman called Scott Richards, who was introduced to me by a friend who taught in one of the international schools, and had enjoyed some of the performances the Council put on. Scott worked over a few days with a group of youngsters who wrote and put on a hilarious set of skits called ‘What the papers don’t say’. I remember in particular a take-off of how the youngsters assumed the Private Medical College, a great bone of contention then amongst students, had been set up. Nishan Muthukrishna, the most culturally aware apart from Ravi John of the Josephians Richard had trained almost a decade earlier, was brilliant as an academic determined to get his child a prestigious degree in medicine.

That indeed was the problem with the Private Medical College, that would otherwise have been seen as a welcome innovation by those of us who believed in a system of private education complementary to the free education provided by the state. It had managed to ensure that the degree its students would obtain would be from Colombo University. I know that, when I pointed out this anomaly, Carlo Fonseka said that he had been in favour of this, since it would ensure that the course would be of a suitable level. But I suspect Carlo’s essential good nature was taken advantage of by those more single-minded than himself. It would surely have been easy to devise a scheme of quality assessment, essential if private education were to be encouraged. But Carlo was still in the old statist mindset, the Private Medical College was to be a one off exception, so it had to be brought in essence under state control, with state certification, rather than simply state assessment of the quality of the final product.

Post-Colonial Perspectives 9 – Political developments

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Bradman Weerakoon, British Council, Chanaka Amaratunga, Cold War, David Gladstone, Denzil Kobbekaduwa, Derek Samarasinha, Ed Marks, elections, India, Indo-Lanka Accord 1987, IPKF, J R Jayewardene, John Keleher, Liberal Party, Provincial Council, Rex Baker, Schools Furniture Project, Soviet sympathies, Vadamaarachchi offensive

By the late eighties I was quite heavily involved in politics, and had even stood in the Provincial Council elections that took place in 1988. Rex Baker was quite startled by this, and it seems the British High Commission had asked him, devoted as they were in those years to Jayewardene and his solid adherence to the West, whether this was proper. Rex had dutifully checked the relevant manuals and told me, having called me in to discuss the matter, that in Britain employees of the Council had political rights in common with other Civil Servants, and could contest local elections. He had deemed the Provincial Councils elections to be of this sort, so he saw no reason to stop me from standing.

The question of contesting a general election, he said, was otherwise. I told him then that, if such a situation arose, I would not embarrass him, which pleased him until I said I would of course promptly resign. He had I think assumed that I would refrain from standing, but he took my unexpected reassurance in a positive spirit, and I think it helped him to understand the depth of my feeling about what Jayewardene had done to the country.

It was in that same year that I first stood in an election in Sri Lanka that the work I did changed entirely in character. This arose from the same cause that had prompted my candidature, namely the Indo-Lankan Accord of 1987. In addition to establishing Provincial Councils, the Accord had seemed to restore peace to the country, and the British decided that they should support this. As far as the Council was concerned, the salient part of this decision was a large grant for reconstruction, which was to be devoted to restoring educational facilities.

Post-Colonial Perspectives 7 – Political involvements

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Amazon, British Council, Chanaka Amaratunga, Clive Taylor, Council for Liberal Democracy, Dudley Senanayake, Friedrich Naumann Stiftung, Hugh Fernando, John Keleher, Lalith Athulathmudali, Liberal International, Liberal Party, Maldives, Marcus Gilbert, Margaret de Silva, Neil Kemp, Ravi Karunanayake, Rex Baker, Sarath Fonseka, Sharmila Perera, Urs Schoettli

A mark of what I can only recall as the overwhelming generosity of the officials I worked with at the Council initially was the fact that they also sent me to the Maldives when we took one of the drama tours there. Zem told me later that, in the brief period in which she had looked after culture, she had done all the work, but the Assistant Representative had decided that he would make the trip to the Maldives himself. Rex and John were very different in that regard. So in fact was the Assistant Representative who joined them for the bulk of their period in Sri Lanka, Marcus Gilbert, a bright and energetic young man who later found his career stymied, doubtless because of his commitment to the countries in which he served. He was to take early retirement, as John Keleher did too, and also the idealistic Clive Taylor who had succeeded him, but who fled early from the horrors of Neil Kemp.

One reason the Council was able to send me abroad frequently, with no cost to the British taxpayer, was that we ran a large training initiative, called the Technical Training Cooperation Development (TTCD) programme, on which we sent about a hundred government employees to Britain for long or short periods of training. It was handled, under Marcus’ supervision, by a British lady called Margaret de Silva, a locally engaged member of staff as we were known, an expatriate married to a Sri Lankan. She drove a hard bargain with the airlines on our behalf, mainly KLM, and got a number of free tickets for the Council which were used for training programmes. This was how Rex ensured that we were able to send a lot of our locally engaged staff for training, without using up funds on airfares.

The Council was also generous about leave to travel for the Liberal Party, which Chanaka and the rest of the Council for Liberal Democracy officers decided in the course of 1986 that they wanted to establish. I was I think the only one against it, because I thought we were essentially a think-tank, but I agreed to get involved if the others went ahead, and also to be one of the Vice-Presidents, which was the position I held in the CLD. When I came back from my voyage round the world however, early in 1987, it was to find that I was the President. Hugh Fernando, who had been President of the CLD, had decided to join the SLFP.

Post-Colonial Perspectives 5 – Unlimited travel

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Amazon, Bombay, British Council, Goa, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Penang, Rex Baker, Simla, Vietnam

One of the pleasures of working for the Council under Rex Baker was the leisure he allowed me.  We worked on flexi-time, which meant that I could have lots of lieu leave, since much of what I did required work in the evenings and at weekends. But in addition he was quite generous about giving me unpaid leave if I wanted to travel abroad for any length of time.

I had four long stints away, three on board the American University ship on which I had begun doing inter-port lectures in 1982. Sadly they stopped coming to Sri Lanka after I had done two more such short trips, from Hong Kong  in 1984 and from Bombay in 1985, but then they invited me to do the whole voyage, teaching English in 1986 and then in 1990 running the Core Course, the compulsory introduction to the world that was mandatory for all students. They also asked me to do a long inter-port stint in 1989 to cover all of Asia, so I had to fly to Istanbul and sail all the way to Penang.