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| An interview with Beira Lake By Asitha Jayawardhana In what could be called a novel approach to exploring environment, the writer makes an attempt to bring out information hitherto not known to many about the Beira Lake, which is generally loathed mainly due to the foul smell that emanates from it. The highly polluted lake in the city centre is viewed from a different angle suggestive of the emerging environmental concern of the young generation. The following are excerpts of 'his interview with the Beira' *
Who are you? I consist of four main basins: the East Lake, the West Lake, the South West Lake and the Galle Face Lake. Extending to 43 hectares, the East Lake is the largest as well as the deepest. Watch out! Its maximum depth is 5.6 metres. The other three are not that deep; 3.4 metres is the maximum. Near the old parliament building, there's a semi-circular spillway at the Galle Face Lake. It maintains my water level at 1.8 metres above the mean sea level. * When were you born? * How did you get this funny
name, Beira? Firstly, the Portuguese engineer who created me was Beiro. Secondly, around 1700, a Dutch engineer built moats and water defences of Colombo Fort. His name was De Beer. Thirdly, 'de beer' is a place where boats are berthed. I think the first is the closest. However, the name Beira first appeared in a map only around 1927. Until then, I was referred to as 'Colombo Lake' or simply as 'Lake'. * with time, did you grow? Grow? I'm becoming smaller and smaller. Today I'm only 65 hectares; in 1904, 162 hectares. See how much I've lost! You know why? Reclamation, reclamation and... reclamation. That is, filling me up so that new buildings and roads can be built on new land. The other reason is siltation, which is natural. Soil particles coming with storm water gradually deposit, filling me up. Especially my corners. In 1904 then Governor Sir Henry Blake appointed a committee to look into several proposals concerning me. One was to reclaim certain parts for road and building construction. One committee member opposed; the majority accepted. By 1921 the damage was complete. Later the looped section of the South West Lake was reclaimed too. Even after Independence, reclamation continued. Especially because of increased port activities. Parts of the East Lake were filled up to put up warehouses. And the squatters gradually invade me to enlarge their living space. Reclamation hurts me; hurts you too. Especially Colombo residents. Today a heavy rain for a couple of hours is enough to drown the city, you see? * Were you stinking from the
very beginning? Population grew; so did sewage I received. No-one cared. It was the beginning of my end. By the dawn of the twentieth century, people started calling me 'cesspool'. Was it my fault? No! It was their sewage, not mine. * What is this foul smell? This is a big problem in the West Lake, which is narrower than the others. The East Lake on the other hand is large in extent, so wind mixes its water thoroughly. As a result, oxygen would dissolve in water, reducing the chances for anerobic conditions. There are other causes for this foul smell. Dead algae, for example. And can we expect garbage and sewage to produce a London-Paris-New York type fragrance? * How come you're so colourful?
Green, black... The East Lake, being large in extent, gets oxygen dissolved in water due to wind action. However, a lot of chemical waste comes into it, and there's no shortage of sewage. The former is rich in nitrates; the latter, in phosphates. These two ingredients support the growth of blue green algae. A single cell of blue green algae is not visible to the naked eye. However, a colony would look like a green colour paint spill. * Who are responsible for your
unfortunate plight today? There are other parties worthy of blame. Commercial establishments, for example, discharge chemical waste rich in nitrates. And oil from motor repair garages and waste water from hospitals. Washing - from vehicles to cattle - is a problem too. For replenishment I depend on rainfall. So during the dry season, stagnation rides high... promoting pollution. * The talk of the town is that your past glory is going to be restored. As you know, on July 14, 1998, Stage One of the Beira Lake Restoration Project was launched. What have you got to say? Well, there's a long way to go. The project will be a success only if people, especially in Colombo and suburbs, support it. I hope they'll understand this. A successful project will bring much more happiness to them than to me at the end. Why? Colombo will then become a spectacular Lake City. Water buses, boat-houses, canoes, pleasure boats. That's for moving around. What's more... Lake-side parks, sculpture courts, fishing decks, and restaurants-in-lake, lake-side and perhaps even floating type. Wouldn't it be fun living in such a fantastic city? Fun or suffering. The choice is yours. |
| Dr. Dharmawansa Senadhira International
agricultural scientist By Dr. Nimal Ranaweera Additional Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture & Lands (The third month remembrance religious ceremonies for the late Dr. Dharmawansa Senadhira who died of a road accident in Bangladesh will be held on 3-4 october 1998 at his village home at Ranala. This article, by one of his close colleagues is of his contribution to rice cultivation in the world.) Popularly known to all of us as Sena, he was a mixture of humility, professional excellence and a great human being. If I be permitted to touch on a personal note, Sena and I were undergraduates, though he was senior to me in the University of Ceylon, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. We worked in the same Department of Agriculture and then in August of 1972, the two of us took off together to the United States of America, to study at the University of California, Davis. He did his Ph.D in Genetics under Dr. Ellard, a well known Geneticist funded and supported by Rockerfellor Foundation, again due to the efforts of another great IRRI alumni the late Mr. Bill Golden. Sena returned to Sri Lanka in 1976 to the Department of Agriculture, and was assigned to the Central Rice Breeding Station, later known as the Rice Research and Development Institute at Batalagoda, first as a Rice Breeder and later as Head of the Institute. During the period 1976 through 1985 he developed the Batalagoda Rice Research Station to being not only the leading Rice Research Institute in Sri Lanka, but also one of the best in the Asian Region. It was not unusual for visiting scientists from international and national Research agencies around the world to complement the manner in which the station was run, and the research conducted. As an outcome of his efforts at Batalagoda, Sena was able to develop through a team effort the Bg stream of varieties, which are really called Batalagoda. In the International Rice Testing Program, these varieties particularly Bg-34-8, Bg 94-2 and Bg, 90-2 out yielded all other varieties that were introduced to the IRTP for that age class. This was one of the many contributions from Sena to the Rice program in Sri Lanka. In late 1985 Sri Lanka presented to IRRI and the rice growing regions of the world, Dr. Senadheera to work here, so that his work will not only benefit Sri Lankan farmers but those of Asia as well. It was a big sacrifice for us, a sacrifice we in Sri Lanka could ill afford. We however knew that Sena will not abandon his mother country. He never did, he never lost his touch with the Sri Lankan program. Sena continued to support the rice program in Sri Lanka, and made sure that the germplasm would be sent on time, training opportunities found and all necessary support continued. It is a tribute to Sena's single minded purpose and dedication, that we were able to obtain SARECs support for the IRRI-GOSL collaborative program that was in operation from 1990 through 1995. Even though he did not visit Sri Lanka as often as we hoped, he came twice a year. Here too after having spent a single day at his home in Ranala with his mother, sister and brothers, he would then proceed to Batalagoda and spend the rest of his holiday there, walking the fields, working with the researchers, helping them to identify better selections, and meeting former workers and farmers in that area. The esteem with which Sena was held at Batalagoda, was evident by the busloads of his former workers and farmers from that area that came to pay their last respects to Sena. To them he was a friend whom they will not meet or see anymore. Sena was the recipient of many national and international awards. He received the Sri Lanka Presidential Award for Science for working with his team at Batalagoda in 1982, the CERES Medal from FAO in 1982, one of the Ten Outstanding Young Persons in 1983 from the Jaycees, the Gurdav Kush award for in 1997 from the Government of the Philippines for development of saline resistant varieties, and was to have accepted the Koshihikari award from Japan late this year in November 1998. All these laurels rested lightly on Sena. He never talked of them, and I am not sure how many of you here, ladies and gentlemen are aware of the awards he received. Sena was a humanist. He had a vision for the poor agricultural farmers of Asia and hoped that his ideas would endeavour the survival of the present as well as the future generations of Asian farmers. Sena was not a Òrun of the millÓ international or national research scientist. He did not believe in the trappings of luxury or high class functions nor in elaborate scientific theses. He was a practical down to earth scientist, who attempted to understand the realities and the environment in which farming was done. He wanted to improve their well being and life. That was his mission. This was reflected in his life style which is reflected in the simple life he led. He was most comfortable amongst the farmers whether it was in Baguio, Banawe, or Batalagoda, in the paddy fields of Thailand, Korea, or Madagascar. Wherever he went he felt most comfortable with them. He would spend hours talking about the benefits of farming and why he was doing and what he was doing. Sena had a great sense of humor. Often would be the times when suddenly he will call me in office or at home and jokingly ask me why we Sri Lankan's cannot play Cricket the way we used to, winning all the time, or why we were still engaged in a war that had no end in sight, or why everybody talked about our economy as Òa broken down or run down economyÓ He wanted to keep abreast of all that happened in Sri Lanka. He always was sensitive to hot situations and would in his inimitable style, bring down the temperature of that environment. Never did I find Sena annoyed or angry, in tantrums, throwing his arms about. Sena was a lover of people. Be it the highest official in government, private sector, his research assistants, technical assistants, drivers, labourers or any other person, he always had time for them. He was comfortable with everyone. On reading of the death of Sena in the Internet copy of the Ceylon Daily News one of our good friends from the US, a medical doctor who studied with us at California, called me, emotionally broken, complaining that he was unable to sleep. Such was the love and affection he was heed, among his friends. His was always a helping hand to innumerable and scores of people. He had a special fragrance coming from the noble qualities he possessed and spread not only over the scientists with whom he worked in Sri Lanka and over the globe, but also with all who came to know him. He was a missionary, engaged to the last, teaching the knowledge of rice and happiness wherever he went. Even though he did not have a family as such, to Sena, everybody was his family. Every Sri Lankan who came to the Philippines whether it be visitor, scientist or student, to IRRI, UP in Los Banos or in Manila, or the Sri Lankans who were part of the Veritas program in Manila, were all his friends. It was not unusual for him to host them for a meal, look after their interests, help them in anyway, academic, professional or even financially. To Sena you need not have met him before, if only you were from Sri Lanka, he made sure your interests were looked after. The same was with all the collaborating scientists he dealt with from all other countries, be it Thailand, Bangladesh, Korea. His office and home was always open and he would always make sure they were comfortable. Sena, thank you very much for leaving a fragrance on the face of this earth, a fragrance laden with an aroma of rice and of humanity - something, which we will never forget. You were a very special person to all of us. You spared no pains to give us your best. In all things and dealings you were honest, fearless and fair. No one can imitate you or take your place, no one can compare. Precious things are always very few. Sena that's why there was only one of you. You led most of us to where we are today. How grateful will we be to you in everyway. Always an inspiration and guiding light to your family, colleagues and friends, never can we forget you ever. A loving friend we will always miss, May god grant you eternal rest. You were a simple and true Buddhist who followed the vision of Gautama Buddha - indeed a noble philosophy. Sena, may you attain your goal and realize yourself the Truth untold, and be the beacon for Gods and men, and may you cross the sea of Sansara. |
| From the book 'The Palm of his
Hand' by E. C. T. Kandappa The ten-year-old patient Although he would not have minded if Mr Jayasinghe had overheard he kept looking in his direction hoping probably that he would not as he would have preferred not to have a confrontation. But he had firm and immovable views on the subject that he raised. "Did you observe that nonsense?" he asked Raj, nodding in the direction of Mr Jayasinghe. "What is it?" "When his wife came to visit him?" He hardened his grip on Raj’s arm. "Yes?" "Well, they were talking for half an hour and then the bell rang and some of the visitors left but she went on talking, and then suddenly, onna boley! she started embracing him!" Raj thought his arm would break. The schoolmaster’s face registered the full impact of the cultural shock. He came from a highly conservative rural background, very Sinhalese, very Buddhist, and if the truth be told, very indigenous. Husbands and wives were not equals in such households; nor were men and women for that matter. In a myriad different ways husbands demonstrated their superiority. Wives in such traditional homes never ate until the husband arrived home from the paddy fields or from business or wherever he was and then she did not sit and eat on equal terms with him, but waited on and listened to him talk of the events of the day, or of... wherever his conversational fancy led him, rarely interrupting, fetching him seconds and water to drink and wash his hands and a rag to wipe his hands. And she would still wait, standing deferentially away, while he rambled on and picked his teeth and belched aloud several times, and finally left the table to ramble on further to a silent audience, lying on his favourite hansiputuwa, the armchair on which he reclined. The wife would then go to the kitchen and scrape together the remnants into an earthenware dish and eat seated on a short bench on the floor, by the dim and flickering light of a small, long-wicked, chimneyless kerosene lamp, known as a "bottle lamp." It could be safely assumed that having kept so much apart they did get together close enough sometimes to breed but it was almost certain that they did not kiss in the generally-accepted western sense and never in public. No wonder the man was aghast. Raj’s brown eyes were brimful of amusement and his bushy eyebrows were coming together in concentration to prevent an overflow of mirth. With Mr Jayasinghe it was different. He had several decades exposure to British influence, had been taught in western-styled public schools in the English language, drunk deeply of English literature and culture which latter also unfortunately included garish Hollywood films and Hollywood mores. There was a great gap between the western-educated elite in Sri Lanka and the rural peasantry, and it showed wherever they met and whatever they did, from the way they spoke, dressed, ate, drank, married, made love, worshipped and, finally, were interred. When darkness deepened outside and the sounds of the outside world lessened and died and the naked lights in the ward grew by contrast brighter, the other male attendant, Jinasena, the trade unionist arrived. He was, as Raj noted remembering the poet Hopkins beloved of him, big-boned and hardy handsome. He, too, wore the same white uniform as attendant though he was a supervisor, and there was nothing external to give him the appearance of a superior status. But he was known throughout the hospital and in the seats of bureaucratic power as the President of the Attendants’ Union, and as such he could wield a great deal of power himself. But he was a man who exerted influence not by any exuberant manner of speech or rousing eloquence but an inner calm that could, in a few seconds, pacify the most tempestuous meeting. He had a calm face and a calm presence. He wore his hair well combed back, sleek with oil. He had brawny, hairless arms and huge high-veined hands. His thick leather thongs could scarcely contain his feet, feet accustomed to unfettered rustic walks. Quite methodically he went to each of the surgical cases and observed a well-worn routine. It was gratifying to watch a professional at work. Union leaders made it a point to leave no room for fault in their proper duties. They were also selected for office by the parent union on the basis of their efficiency. Having seen to their comfort he walked round the other beds exchanging not pleasantries, for that did not come naturally to him, but civilities. When he came to Raj, he began playing the unionist with a line of what might be called reporter’s questions. He began with some matters relating to a dispute brewing over the matter of attendants, nurses and chamber pots. The nurses had decided that it was not their function to clear urinals and chamber pots and that it came under the list of duties of attendants who were, in fact, orderlies without any professional training or qualifications at all. The attendants, who for generations had been treated with contempt with some justification for their almost congenital inclination to solicit bribes to perform their legitimate functions, wished to assert their equality by pulling down their closest superiors, the traditional Communist ploy in the class warfare. Jinasena, a first-rate Marxist leader, well schooled in local and international affairs and politics, trained in oratory and polemics, set Raj thinking. "We are always being blamed for taking bribes," he said. "Sir, wouldn’t you, if you had to live on our wages and had our families to support? We are what we are because we are the helpless victims of the capitalist system." Raj took him on. He asked: "Can’t you do better than this? I mean, couldn’t you have studied further and found yourself a better-paying job? Can’t anyone do that? Surely we now have free education from the primary class to the university?" "Firstly, sir," Jinasena parried, "we are from the rural peasantry. We are the ones who work in the fields and produce the rice which the people need to live. We were producing enough in ancient times not only to feed the entire country but even to export to neighbouring countries. We were called the ‘Granary of the East’, remember? We lived a simple life. Our trade was barter, in kind or service. We had no grave crime, no crime waves at any rate. We were considered backward by the westerners, but we were also known as a paradise isle by many. And then came the western invaders and brought with them their ways. They looked down on us and took everything from us, our values, our way of life, and with imperialism they also brought capitalism. We have now got rid of the foreigners. We must now purge ourselves of the poison of capitalism..." "But surely," said Raj, "there are people who have done well under capitalism?" "Yes, sir, a very few people have done very well, but at what a cost? There are many millions who do not get a just deal. They are being exploited. The rewards that people get are not in keeping with their labour." "But surely, wages are computed not only on the physical labour involved but also on the skills they possess?" The attendant heard a patient groan and moved away to tend to him. When he returned Raj turned to other matters. He asked him where he lived and about his family and background. His father was a schoolmaster and a village elder. Jinasena had married a farmer’s daughter and they had seven children, the eldest being a girl of eighteen and the youngest a little lad of six. Three were still at school. His wife and three children tended a small plot of land, called a hena, growing rice for their needs, some fruit and vegetables, and raised some poultry for the market. Jinasena travelled forty miles each day to come to work and often returned quite late, especially after union work. Raj asked the names of his children and talked about his village. Jinasena himself made enquiries about Raj’s family and work while busying himself with the needs of Patil and the young clerk, the latter now resting comfortably. Through most of the night Patil’s beady eyes shone out of eagerness to pass urine, and fear of the catheter. The others, save Raj, slept serenely. And when at last the dawn came, Patil was holding the pan, sitting upright and sweating profusely. Jinasena gave him a firm word of encouragement, then went away and returned with an ice bag which he applied to Patil’s lower abdomen. At the same time he poured water out of a kettle into a basin until the sound of running water induced Patil to pass some water himself. It was only after such relief that he turned to Raj and gave him the palest of smiles. Then subsiding on his pillow, Raj too, joined the sleepers. Jinasena left to do the morning rounds and Raj lay back to wonder what the day might bring. Chapter 19 And cheeky, too. He came, or rather burst in, with his doting family in attendance. They were all typical of their class, the class that Jinasena and the rural proletariat fumed against and kept the revolutionary fervour going over a slow flame, just below the boil. Even the amalgam of aromas that surrounded them, cosmetics, perfumes, moth-balls, after-shave, shoe polish, reeked of their class. They were typical of the gentry that was lampooned by cartoonists in the western and Sinhala press, the contemptuous and ridiculous people who while wearing a bastard culture sought to reap the benefit of two worlds – the deeply Oriental culture from which they hoped to draw political clout in order to rise with the tide of a newly emergent nationalism, and the veneer of a western culture from which they hoped to draw momentum to rise to the heights of political influence still dominated by the western-educated elite; and then to spit upon their native peers who tried to follow them, or who stood in their way, to the top. The top usually represented Cabinet posts in the government, the ambassadorial appointments outside the career diplomatic corps, top administrative posts with much prestige and not a few perks, or at least posts on boards of various State corporations which were reserved for deflated, disappointed flunkeys and poll-failures, with a few distinguished exceptions. The young lad, Ajantha, was clad in long trousers and long sleeved shirt, wore imported English shoes of a well-known brand and sported a gold-plated wrist-watch with an ostentatious gold-plated strap. His mother was a large woman, shaped like a large urn, was bullet-headed, and wore her thick, black hair in a large bun poised like a large cone on top of her head. She had broad shoulders and massive arms tapering into narrow wrists and small limp hands. Between her wrists and elbows she wore dozens of ornate, gold bangles which jingled when she moved. She had a large, pendulous bosom which would have rattled likewise had it not been firmly trammelled by suitably restraining inner garments. And when she smiled, she displayed yellow teeth sheathed by thick, garishly-painted lips. She also wore a garish saree and garish sandals. The boy’s father, ah, well, his father had the noble lineaments of the rural peasantry clearly delineated upon his visage. In simple terms he looked a farmer; but simple terms would never have done to describe a man of his lofty eminence, whose once-rural ancestry had been misplaced some generations ago, who had attended a State school which was, however, the king of State schools with a regal nomenclature which had been attended by his father and his father’s father before him. That ancestor had even played cricket with members of the British administration; and didn’t he have mounted photographs and trophies proudly displayed at home to prove it? Mr Wickremasena, for such was his name, had himself played cricket for his school, attended the University College in Colombo (before it moved on to the spacious and beautiful campus in Peradeniya), where he read the humanities and sat for the prestigious Civil Service examination which was the goal of those who study the humanities, came fourth within the first five, got a plum job in the city as an assistant secretary to a ministry and, then, by dint of a gentle routine marked by working a much shorter day than others, he had risen very soon to the post of a fully-fledged Permanent Secretary to a minister. Permanent Secretaries followed the pattern of the Whitehall system and remained permanent regardless of the fluctuating fortunes of their masters, the ministers who ebbed and flowed with political tides. But that was to change even while he held office, and secretaries were swept away with departing ministers. (C) E.C.T. Candappa (Continued tomorrow)
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