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People and Events
Uva and Badullaby Nan
Here is what Robert Knox had to say about the topic I have selected for my column this Sunday."Fourthly Badoula Eastward from Cande some two dayes Journey, the second City in this Land. The Portugals in time of War burnt it down to the ground. The Palace here is quite ruined; the Pagodas only remain in good repair.
"This City stands in the Kingdom or Province of Ouvah, which is a Countrey well watered, the Land not smooth, neither the Hills very high, wood very scarce, but what they plant about their Houses. But great plenty of Cattle, their Land void of wood being the more apt for grazing. If these Cattle be carried to any other Parts in this Island they will commonly dye, the reason whereof no man can tell, only they conjecture it is occasioned by a kind of small Tree or Shrub, that grows in all Countreys but in Ouvah, the Touch or Scent of which may be Poyson to the Ouvah Cattle; though it is not so to others. The Tree hath a pretty physical smell like an Apothecaries Shop, but no sort of Cattle will eat it. In this country grows the best tobacco that is on this Land. Rice is in more plenty here than most other things."
Memories
My first visit to Uva was when we played a netball match with Girls’ High School, Badulla, and won it, much to the delight of their new Principal, Miss Allen, who had been transferred from Kandy to Badulla and was still homesick for her old school, Kandy and the people she loved. The two teams scaled down the steep hill to Dunhinda Falls to complete a fun-filled weekend.
My sister and family lived in Wiyaluwa in the early 50s and I spent my school holidays with them. Badulla had a few old walauwes and a few small shops then. My most vivid memories are of being forced to observe sil and accompany Mother to Muthiyangana, and of my little nephew going off, crawling really, on an adventure along the narrow niyara between two paddy fields that led to the house from the main road. He was rescued in time before he reached the road or drowned in the water logged fields, and brought back howling with disappointment.
I remember the dry zoneness of the regions below Badulla, the little thatched huts, signs of poverty all round and, even to my young exuberant mind, a sense of hopelessness and listlessness. The peasants of the Uva province had suffered and had not got that bit of help necessary to lift themselves up.
It was in Badulla that I got the first inkling of magnetism that could spark between two individuals. We helped in a carnival and I had a rose given me, indicating that people noticed me now, instead of mistaking me for a walking plank or taking me for dull Miss Plain.
Around ten years later, Mother and I again spent holidays in the province with my brother, but this time in the luxury of an estate bungalow, quite removed from the feel and folk of the place. The best Katau voiles were a mere 14 rupees in the shops in Badulla which now were larger and more numerous, so the holidays were time to add to one’s collection - Kataus and boldly coloured, thick coolie sarees. The textile shopkeepers were all Tamil and ever so polite and the grocery stores were owned by entrepreneurs who had come up from the southern coast. The Kandyans of Uva were still, I suppose, not fully recovered from being bought off their lands for little more than a string of beads.
A Weekend In Hali Ela
Thus it was that invited to assist in a seminar, I eargerly consented, anticipating the re-contact with Badulla, passed through several times but not stayed in since the 1960s. We spent two nights in a residential complex built by the Foster Parents Association of Japan for Help International, with some of the 40 students staying over too.
I enquired from librarians of the area how things were. They all said there was development and advancement and so Uva, or at least Badulla and its environs, are not that backward now. Life is hard they said, but people were better off and there has been improvement all round. obviously, the open economy of the late 1970s. had benefited the people of the area. I wondered how places like Taldena, on the downward slopes of Uva to the East were fairing - poverty stricken in days gone by.
An early morning walk showed me there was plenty of small scale entrepreneurship - a bottling of water industry in a small house, jams and cordials being offered on sale in another, and every second home being fronted with a boutique.
Life is necessarily hard and even harsh in a place like Hali Ela because of the aridity and probable infertility of the soil. Small mud huts cling to the hillsides. I wondered what the inhabitants did for a living since they were neither estate labourers nor vegetable growers.
People of the area too had gone to the Middle East in search of the pot of gold, hence perhaps some of the prosperity.
I was delighted to see three large schools in Hali-Ela, at least in the town area - a Madya Maha Vidyalaya, the Kobbekaduwa Maha Vidyalaya and the Science College for Grade 5 scholarship winners of Uva. The librarians I spoke with said that entry to the universities was high from Uva. Education seems to be given pride of place as elsewhere, in spite of, or because of the harsh conditions of life.
Help International has done much for the area, having built a large water storage and purification plant in addition to seminar complexes like the one we occupied.
All the seminar participants were thin, conjectured by me as being due to so much climbing they need to do. Their lives too must be difficult since they were comparatively low wage earners. They had travelled from as far as Kataragama and Moneragala and daily travel to work of say two hours was nothing to them. The point is that bus services were not good, not frequent enough. I heard distinct stories of buses waiting at halts for 40 minutes to collect enough passengers. They said this uncomplaining, a fact of life to be borne with equanimity.
An Accidental Pregnancy
I said all the seminar participants were slim. Not true since one was completely rotund, eight months pregnant. She made the male resource person nervous wondering whether she would go into labour during a lecture session of his. I added to his unease by telling him my midwife eye saw her as having come to term which meant delivery any moment! And lunch. Poor, poor thing. She was determined to climb up and down the steep steps for tea
Here’s a tale worth retelling. She had been on the bimonthly contraceptive injection, when coming down with a bad flu she was hospitalised and discovered to be several months pregnant. Three other women had shared the same fate. Scans showed their foeteses were deformed, so they were aborted but she carried her child and was consequently quite ill with high pressure.
Complacently she told me that the injection given may have been one that had passed the expiry date and complacently she was carrying a fourth baby they had not wanted, making her ill. Not even momentarily had they considered suing the family planning clinic they went to or the persons who had administered the probably non-potent drug. A crime like this would have had the victim raising hell in another country, with the media howling louder. This is why I cruelly say we Sri Lankans are cattle-like oftimes, notwithstanding the intelligence we are abundantly blessed with and apparent in exam results and when we compete with foreign students. Maybe our earlier pirivena type education brings out intelligence but not common sense.
Here was this struggling woman going difficulty through an unexpected pregnancy, not even sure she’d get a healthy baby. If the injection went wrong the scan too could very well be wrong or read wrong.
Ancient Temple and Edict
Muthiyangana Raja Maha Vihara has retained its rich look of antiquity and aura of sanctity. Embellishment and brass have been avoided, except around the very ancient bo tree; the ran veta kept shiny along its length that curved around the very beautiful tree, branching as it does from way down its trunk, thus bearing a widely spreading canopy of rustling leaves. The midula was maintained with care with tended flower beds and glorious esala and araliya trees.
The Public Library in Badulla has more than a thousand people using its collection each day. Admittedly most come in to read the newspapers; to accommodate them the reading room is kept open from 8.00 in the morning to 6.3O in the evening. Sri Lankans have an inordinate penchant for devouring the newspapers, but here in the Badulla Public Library it is apparent that the collection totally mismatches the clientele and so of necessity they sit and read the newspapers. The annual budgetary allowance is around one lakh of rupees. What can one do with an amount like this when publishing is so high priced and journals so costly? I spied however an architecture journal. How on earth did a subscription be made to that? Fine though! The Badulla Municipal Council must be sitting back contented that it gives all of a hundred thousand rupees to the public library, not realising perhaps that this is peanuts.
Interestingly, in the meda midula of the library building is a built canopy within which is a slim stone pillar of about 8 - 40 feet in height, with faint inscriptions along it. This pillar, discovered in Soraborawewa, is an edict of King Udaya III, middle of the 10th century AD, presenting certain rules and regulations to be observed in respect of the market town of Hopitigama, a village near Soraborawewa.
Uva was a neglected province and still is to a large degree, except perhaps when elections are around the corner. It has its human resource, apparently intelligent, hard working, stout hearted and strong limbed. The Uva man is, may I say, more Sinhala than the Sinhalese in other parts of the Island; the Tamils and Muslims too a mite different from those in the rest of the country. Given this asset, it should be comparatively easy to develop the province. The central government passes on the task to the decentralised seat of government, and probably they lack the wherewithal though the Provincial Secretariat is prominently housed in a mini maligawa and the Hali Ela Pradeshiya Sabha announces its location with a big board..
The war comes to mind. End it and development will be possible in areas such as Uva which so richly deserve a better deal. The bus service could then be improved, education further widespread, a well stocked public library and branch libraries provided, and drugs, and medical personnel that make no disastrous mistakes.
Ignore parties vote for the man - Ven Sobitha
by Kirthie Abeyesekera
Venerable Maduluwawe Sobitha Thera struck a chord different from his customary theme at a Toronto ‘dhammadesanaya, April 15.Perceived as a ‘controversial monk,’ in the Homeland, he sidetracked the ethnic conflict. He also made no reference to the Sinhala-Buddhist cause he so ardently champions. Instead, he dwelt on man’s mind and how he uses it, or abuses it - for better or for worse. He stressed the ‘Development of the mind. He called on Sri Lankan expatriates in Canada who are suffering in style’ (sepase dukvindinawa) to pause and reflect on the more important things in life, rather in the comfort of materialism, devoid of food for the mind. Ven. Sobitha is here on the invitation of the Toronto West End Buddhist Centre which has drawn up an extensive programme for him and two other visiting monks who will also participate in Vesak celebrations.
The 56-year-old Sobitha Thera was at his best. His exhortations, spiced with witticisms, kept the packed audience in irrepressible chuckles - even laughter, at times. A skilled orator gifted with a sense of home-spun humour, the monk got down to basic realities rather than delve deep into the ‘Dhamma.’
"Buddha was not a god. He was a man who reached Supreme Enlightnment through his own efforts and perseverance," the monk said. It is man’s effort and his thinking that lead to the deliverance of suffering.
In rousing rhetoric, Ven. Sobitha held his audience with his overpowering personality. He ridiculed the superstitions and senseless beliefs we cling on to. Ask a person why he does not bathe on a Tuesday or Friday. He will say, "I don’t know." Ask him why we don’t bury the dead on Friday. He will answer, "I dont know." If it is good to die on a Friday, why is it bad to be buried on that day? he asked. Ask a man why he circles around the funeral pyre and he’ll say, "I don’t know." Why do we do things, or refrain from doing things we know nothing about? If we meet a Buddhist monk as we set out on a journey, we retract our steps, because it is a bad omen. But if we hear the crow of a rooster, we take it to be an auspicious start. How can a worm-eating bird be better than a monk who has dedicated his life to serve the community?
Ven. Sobitha chastised those who live on borrowed ideals and theories, rather than thinking for themselves. Man’s capacity to rationalize is what elevates him from an animal that chews the cud, then sleeps, wakes up and chews again Gone are the days when we had to chop firewood, draw water from the well, pound the flour, scrape the coconut and grind the chillies. Now we have electric stoves and microwave ovens. Soon, we will press a button, while watching television, and the food will pop into our mouths. He dwelt on the phenomenal advances in medicine science and technology. To roars of laughter, Sobitha Thera said it won’t be long before we will be buying human body parts from Panchikawatte.
Addressing the subject of domestic life, the monk struck a chauvinistic note when he referred to disharmony between husband and wife when a child is born. The new mother, he observed, neglects her figure and her face, losing her attraction she fails in her culinary functions, leaving the husband disgruntled. He stressed the need for patience and understanding. Ven. Sobitha also referred to the need for women to dress, appropriate to the occasion. He spoke of make-up and high-heeled shoes at funerals.
"Now, even in Sri Lanka, women are wearing ‘kalisang."’ The monk stressed the need for punctuality. In Sri Lanka, he said, there are more clocks than anywhere else in the world. Yet, we go by the ‘Sinhala velava.’ There should be no such thing, he said. He cited an instance where a government minister (no, not the President), had kept him waiting for an hour. As a result, he missed another ‘desanawa’ he had to attend.
The only reference the monk made to politics was of those who brag about ‘green blood’ and ‘blue blood.’ He said we should ignore parties and vote for the man.
"You have left your beautiful homeland, Sri Lanka, Ven. Sobitha said, as he spoke of the need to make judicious use of the opportunities in the adopted country. He urged the laity to forge strong links with the Sangha. Both, he observed, had obligations and responsibilities to each other.
"Follow the path of the Buddha," Ven. Sobitha exhorted. "Be of service to the community. What we take to the grave is what we give, not what we have kept."
Police nab teenage robber gang in Mt. Lavinia
A 7-member gang of teenagers is finally brought to book, after robbing no less than 20 houses and fooling police detectives for more than two years.
By Niresh Eliatamby and Chittaranjan De Silva
After two years of painstaking investigations, the Mount Lavinia police this week ended one of their most baffling cases, with the arrest of a gang of seven teenagers who were responsible for 20 burglaries in Mt. Lavinia, Ratmalana and Moratuwa.‘’It took us two years to catch this gang,’’ exclaimed Sub-Inspector C.W. Wickramasekera, his voice fraught with exasperation. ‘’Who would have thought that a group of well-to-do teenagers from good schools would be robbing houses just for kicks?’’
Police say the ringleader is a year-13 student of Mahanama College, Colombo, who had once been a member of the school rugger team. Other members of the gang had been students of Mahinda College, Galle and Moratu Vidyalaya, during the time of their crime spree.
Six of the seven gang members were arrested last Sunday, and all have confessed to their crimes. A seventh is on the run. Most of the boys did their Advanced Level exams last year.
What infuriates police is that this gang is not made up of drug addicts or violent criminals, but contained totally ordinary teenagers from middle class families, who robbed simply because they could get away with it.
‘’They hadn’t even spent most of the money they robbed. Of the 1.6 million rupees of cash and goods that they robbed from the 20 houses, we recovered 1.1 million with the gang,’’ said SI Wickramasekera who investigated the cases under the direction of Headquarters Inspector Chandana Atukorale.
The gang’s background is little different from ordinary middle class teenagers. ‘’They liked to hang out at Majestic City and Crescat shopping mall to watch girls. In fact, the only thing we know for sure that they did with their ill-gotten gains was to spend a little on some of their girlfriends,’’ said SI Wickramasekera.
All the gang members lived on or around Ebert Lane in Ratmalana, and had been childhood friends, although they went to different schools.
The ringleader’s father is a well known craftsman, who once carved the British Royal Family’s coat of arms from a single piece of wood and gifted it to Prince Charles. Other gang members’ families came from similar backgrounds.
‘’None of the gang actually needed the money. They don’t do drugs. They don’t smoke, and most of them don’t even drink alcohol,’’ said SI Wickramasekera.
Among the victims of the gang were a Deputy Solicitor General, and a retired navy commodore, both living in the Mt. Lavinia area.
The gang always struck during the daytime, when inhabitants were at work, and robbed cash jewellery and electronic items.
According to the confessions obtained by police, the boys strayed into their lives of crime when the ringleader, who was 15 years old at the time, broke into a neighbour’s house with his cousin two years ago, and stole some cash and jewellery.
Encouraged by the fact that they weren’t caught, they recruited their friends as well, and began robbing more houses.
‘’They would play truant from school on the days that they robbed the houses,’’ said SI Wickramasekera. ‘’Some of them were new to the gang, and had only been involved in four or five robberies, while the ringleader was involved in 20 cases.’’
The gang usually got into houses by forcing open windows and doors. They generally did not go for larger electronic and electric items like televisions, fridges and washing machines, but concentrated on cash and jewellery.
They also made off with cameras, CD players, VCRs cassette decks and radios, and even took away compact discs to listen to for their own enjoyment. But they apparently found it difficult to sell most of the goods, since they lacked proper contacts in the underworld. Police have so far recovered most of the larger items that were stolen.
‘’They were hidden in the teenagers’ houses, in cupboards and under beds. The parents didn’t even know about it,’’ said SI Wickramasekera.
Meanwhile, police were hunting high and low for a set of professional thieves, and were baffled by the fact that the loot wasn’t showing up in the usual underworld places where stolen goods are sold cheaply.
Police questioned hundreds of known burglars, gang members and known criminals in the Mount Lavinia, Ratmalana and Moratuwa areas, but came up with nothing.
The gang disposed of stolen jewellery at jewellers on Sea Street, and other jewellers. But they never sold more than one or two items in one place, and thus didn’t arouse the suspicions of jewellers.
Police under pressure to crack the cases, grew more and more frustrated by their inability to bring the gang to book.
The gang members just didn’t fit into the mould of hardened criminals, and police were thus all at sea in their efforts to find out who was responsible for the string of robberies. Each robbery was also not big enough to draw much publicity in the media, and police thus didn’t get much information from the public either.
Finally, the gang leader made a mistake, by tring to sell a VCR to a known criminal in the Mt. Lavinia area.
Months later, this man was questioned by police and mentioned that a young man had recently tried to sell a VCR to him.
Police began an exhaustive investigation into the activities of the young man and found to their amazement that he was their quarry.
Last Sunday, a special team arrested the 17-year-old on the street near his home. Under intense interrogation, he readily confessed to the crimes, and gave police the names of his colleagues.
The other members of the gang in turn confessed when they were taken in the same day.
They were produced before the Mt. Lavinia Magistrate and remanded for two weeks. Police expect to frame charges soon, and believe that all of the gang members will plead guilty.
However, due to their young age, and the fact that there was no violence involved in their crimes, it is highly likely that they will all be given suspended sentences, or spend only a short time in prison.
He blends the rich tradition of Sri Lankan art
"A Classical Vision"
The Art and Landscape of Stanley Kirinde
by Sinha Raja Tammita-Delgoda and Kapila Ariyananada
- A Review by Jayantha Dhanapala -The publication of a volume exclusively devoted to one of our foremost modern painters - Stanley Kirinde - with well-done illustrations of some of his paintings, a biographical note and a sensitively written commentary has been long overdue. In a year that has seen so much ostentatious celebration of the five decades of our independent nationhood this publication is therefore one that is particularly appropriate and meaningful. It is also not a State-sponsored publication but the result, as the Preface simply puts it, of "a labour of love" by a few of his admirers.
In the history of modern painting in Sri Lanka Stanley Kirinde barely made it to that fount and source of our modern tradition - the "43 Group. He was only 13 in 1943 and first exhibited with the Group in l955 when he was 25. He was undoubtedly influenced by the painters in the Group especially by David Paynter - also, like Kirinde, an alumnus of Trinity College, Kandy and one of the finest portrait painters of this period. The Tammita-Delgoda/Ariyananda book - slim as it may be - is the first serious study of Kirinde’s total oeuvre despite the wide acclaim this self-effacing and dedicated artist has achieved. Kirinde combined an artistic career with the duties of a public servant rising to the rank of State Secretary. That in itself is a tribute to his remarkable commitment to aesthetic values and to his artistic sensibilities, which emerge from the world of a file-driven bureaucrat with a distilled purity and compelling charm.
Tammita-Delgoda’s essay highlights the classicism of Kirinde’s painting and sketches. Born and bred in the hills of Kandy it was Kirinde, then a young graduate teacher at Trinity, who took a group of Trinity students to Gadaladeniya, Embekke and Lankatileka to introduce them to the wonders of our temple art. That was and remains one of Kirinde’s inspirations to which he returns from time to time.
From his early illustrations in H. D. Sugathapala’s pioneering Sinhala Nava Maga, readers, to the refined elegance of his portraits of Gamani Corea and Ananda Coomaraswamy that hang in Geneva and Boston today Kirinde’s contemplative eye studied the human form using his deft brushwork to bring out a distinct experience.
As Tammita-Delgoda notes, Kirinde is quintessentially Sri Lankan. That does not mean he is a flag-waving nationalist asserting traditional values and concepts to the exclusion of others. Instead he blends the rich tradition of Sri Lankan art with the training he had in the art classes of Trinity under H. A. Hardy and the exposure he had to the great works of the European painters.
The influence of David Paynter remains evident through the choice of portrait and landscape painting, the use of delicate pastel colours, the technically correct draftsmanship and the sensitive evocation of character and scene. It is no surprise that it was to Kirinde that Trinity turned when the murals that Paynter had done and redone in the Trinity Chapel had to be rescued and renovated from the damage of the elements.
One of the finest products of Kirinde’s early period is the oil "Village Scene" painted in l952 for the late Gordon Burrows. With slender figures of men, women and children amidst the lushness and brilliancy of tropical vegetation the style of the 22 year old Kirinde is almost Gauginesque.
Kirinde was introduced to George Keyt when he was 19. Keyt, despite his Anglicised background and his schooling in Trinity, had by then embraced the indigenous philosophical and aesthetic traditions of South Asia. Interestingly Kirinde was not to follow Keyt. The Renaissance period of European art attracted him.
He read History at the University from which he appears to have derived a sense of perspective, a spatial dimension of outlook and an eclectic vision. After a short spell of teaching at Trinity he entered the Sri Lanka Administrative Service as a District Land officer. Stationed in Polonnaruwa he rediscovered the Rajarata and the splendour of the art and architecture of Sri Lanka’s past. The villager in the dry zone and the traditional way of life around the temple, the tank and rice fields became his source of inspiration.
It was Kirinde’s Peradeniya period when he was Assistant Registrar of the University that produced a series of beautiful paintings of human figures in groups. The dominance of purple and the portraits of people engaged in their daily routine are hallmarks of this period which I regard as one of his most creative as he captured through line, colour and form the gentle grace of his people.
Coming to Colombo to work in the Ministry of Defence Kirinde settled in an apartment which became his studio. As he reached greater heights of responsibility in his official career he spent more and more time on his painting as if seeking an escape from the pressures of officialdom. For a while he was fascinated by the miniature paintings of the Mughal period of Indian art and painted a series of miniatures with the Jataka stories as their theme. Delgoda Tammita makes no reference to this period but writes instead of Kirinde’s rejection of Western models concluding that "Kirinde decided that it was best to stick to the fundamentals he had always believed in". This Kirinde continues to do painting full time since his retirement from the public service in 1991.
An entire chapter is devoted by Tammita-Delgoda to Kirinde’s water colour, oil and crayon landscapes on Sigiriya. They represent the artist’s fascination with this 5th century fortress, its unique water gardens, its grand scope - "a piece of very beautifully organised nature" as Kirinde puts it himself - and its interplay of light and shadow through different periods of the day. The book also contains an essay on "Contemporary painting in Sri Lanka" by Kirinde himself reprinted from a programme note of an exhibition at the Commonwealth Institute in London. In it Kirinde refers to the pressures of the artist caught between the traditional culture and Western influences and between the religious values of traditional painting and the secularism of modern art. To this he adds " the emancipatory attitude and a breadth of vision which was sadly lacking in art before the introduction of Universal Adult Franchise in 1931". It is this attitude which is reflected in Kirinde’s paintings of the Rajarata villager and the urban bus traveller not in the crude manner of a socialist poster but as a sensitive identification with the life of the people.
The reading public owe a debt of gratitude to Tammita - Delgoda and Ariyananda for bringing out this beautiful volume. There is no indication anywhere that it is available commercially but I have no doubt that our bookstores will have copies.
You can hear the crying from the children’s ward of the Neurosurgical department long before you actually enter the ward. It is not the loud, furious yelling of children in sudden, unexpected pain. Rather, a weary, dulled, chronic crying. As you enter what strikes you are the rows of shaved heads. It is hard to tell the girls from the boys. All of them have uniformly large eyes and their mothers look tired and anxious. All of them are poor. And all of them are suffering from abnormalities or injuries to their brain or spinal cord.
The human brain on average weighs 1.3 kgs but has a 100 billion cells all connected to one another, which added up, is the most advanced information-processing device known to man. Modern medicine for all its advances knows very little about the functioning of this enormously complex organ, and surgeons still don’t quite know exactly what they will find when they open up the skull.
Having MRI-scanner in the hospital would greatly improve the chances of an accurate diagnosis for the poor patients of the Neurosurgery ward and help the surgeons with the complex procedures they are called upon to perform. A tunnel-like machine that uses a high magnetic field to take accurate pictures of the brain or spine, the MRI scanner is streets ahead of other available alternatives. A Myelogram for instance injects a dye into the spine and an X-ray is taken to show where a block occurs for the dye will not travel beyond the obstruction. Clumsy, invasive and painful, Myelogram are also prone to failure.
One up on the Myelogram is the CT Scanner, which, crudely simplified, is an X-ray passed through the body and interpreted by a computer algorithm. A better option than a Myelogram, the CT still doesn’t give brain surgeons the kind of virtual reality information they need to rehearse their operations.
The MRI Scanner, on the other hand provides "exquisite anatomical detail" of the brain in any angle and in any direction, in as many thin cross sections. It is particularly useful for its clear differentiation between soft and hard tissue.
Pain and risk free, MRI is the diagnostic tool of choice for brain and spinal problems, but the poorest and most desperate cannot have access to it for the National Hospital does not have a machine. The test costs anything between Rs. 7000 and 15,000 in a private hospital.
D.M. Kamalawathie is from Kirindiwela. If her husband, a labourer, leaves their village at 9 in the moming to visit her in hospital, he only gets there at 4.00. He rarely visits in any case, because he can’t afford the bus fare and is busy looking after their two children, aged 5 years and eighteen months. A CT scan revealed a small tumour, which was removcd, but the problem is more deep-seated and she is among those awaiting a MRI scan. Her closely cropped hair makes her look smaller than she really is, as she sits quietly on her bed waiting for her turn to have a free scan. For the government does pay for one patient a week to have a scan in a private hospital. But choosing a recipient is a hard and sometimes painful decision for a doctor to make.
Lenus Jayakody used to make bricks for a living. A fall from a bund resulted in a gradual paralysis, from the neck down. With their only means of income suddenly taken away, his wife makes ends meet by taking in laundry to feed her three children.
Vivekanandan from Point Pedro who made his way to Colombo on the Red Cross ship is luckier. He was able to scrape together the money needed for a MR1 scan. But now he needs a second one.
Eight year old Udayakumari takes little notice of the large plastic doll standing in a corner of her metal cot. She comes from a poor farming family in Anuradhapura and her grandmother sits by the child while her mother takes care of the other children at home. An uncle in the army helped pay for her MR1 scan.
Pretty Niroshini, also a farmer’s daughter, has had her education cut short by the growing weakness in the legs. When she first went to the Kurunegala hospital three years ago, she was walking. She is now paralysed waist down. The people of her village contributed the money for a MRI scan.
Each occupant of the ward has his or her tale of poverty and despair. Each waits his or her turn for a free scan and the hope of a normal life is a miracle that lies beyond the corner.
In 1995, Dr Colvin Samarasinghe, Senior Consultant Neurosurgeon, launched a drive to collect the daunting sum of 60 million to purchase a MRI scanner. He reckons that at a conservative estimate there will be at least ten patients using the machine each day. The President committed 30 million from the President’s Fund and further 16 million was found in donations by the Neurosurgery Trust Fund.
Recently, the banking sector got involved in the fund raising project and launched a drive to collect the remaining funds needed for the scanner, by producing and selling caps, and collecting donations. The project was endorsed by Cricket Captain, Arjuna Ranatunga, and over 42,000 caps have been sold in just 3 months.
In the final weeks of the charity drive, donations are urgently needed to meet the target and finally offer hope to the patients of the Neurosurgery ward. A special appeal is being made to contribute to the fund by way of cheques in excess of Rs. 50/- in favour of "NDBSL MRI Scanner A/C" to be posted to P O Box 1827-MRI, Colombo.
All donations are tax deductible. A help line (0722 32398) has been set up to process inquiries.
You have the power to stop the tears now.
By Lalitha K. Witanachchi
Dr. Justin Samarasekera at the age of 83 has promises to keep, so with a vitality rather unusual for an octogenerian, he will be presenting his third exhibition of paintings at the Lionel Wendt Art Gallery, Colombo 7 on 21st, 22nd and 23rd May. The exhibition is aptly titled ‘The Woods are Lovely, Dark and Deep.’This doyen of architecture in Sri Lanka turned to painting in his retirement and in his 80s has already had two exhibitions well recieved by the public. This third exhibition will show that his skill as an artist has not diminished.
What fascinates connoisseurs of art are his paintings which reveal the pristine beauty of scenes of the macro and micro environment. In this year’s exhibition Samarasekera has concentrated on scenes from Yala, the Hambantota salterns and the Muturajawela wetlands. There will also be on display the giants of Sinharaja in their magnificence.
This artist has not only looked up to the trees and skies, to the sunsets and clouds but he has also looked down and discovered the humbler things in nature. He has focussed on water plants, lotuses, the Devil’s trumpet, ‘Gandapana’ alamanda, and nature’s other gifts such as ‘Del Karati’ and thambili trees which lesser artists would not consider worthy of transferring to canvas for posterity.
The exhibition will be opened by the Prime Minister on Friday 21 May at 5.30 p.m.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it". (George Santayana) Serbs do not take kindly to attempts to grab their land. In 1878 the powerful Austrian empire claimed Bosnia-Hercegovina as its protectorate and in 1908 annexed the territory altogether. Sustained Serb opposition to the annexation led to the First World War, at the end of which Bosnia-Hercegovina became part of the Yugoslav Republic. In Hitler’s war the Serbs put up a magnificent struggle against Nazi Germany and its lackeys. Bill Clinton cannot remember these things. He has no concept of the toughness and high courage of the Serbs. What Clinton has started in Yugoslavia may well lead to World War 111. Miklos N. Szilasyi, an American Jew, has written: ‘I am convinced that the NATO war against Serbia is terribly wrong. It is a mistake to take sides in a civil war we do not understand. It is wrong to attack a sovereign country that does not threaten us. It is wrong to impose moral values on others while we have none. It is wrong to take actions that make the situation worse - killing innocent people, escalating suffering and destruction - and to make the US appear to be a ruthless aggressor." An Australian, Andrew Chew, has written: "A conflict that goes back to the 1300s cannot be solved by bombing the warring parties. The solution can only come from within the Balkans and its people."
Bill Clinton, using NATO for a purpose for which it was never intended, and ignoring all international rules regarding armed intervention, and bypassing the Security Council, has started this totally unjustified aggression against Yugoslavia. NATO has flown over 7000 attack sorties, delivered thousands of bombs and missiles, and even employed clusterbombs and slow-activating bombs which are banned under international law. NATO raids have destroyed schools, hospitals, bridges, roads, factories and homes. Tens of thousands of innocent civilians have been killed which fact Clinton sweeps under the carpet as "collateral damage" .The Serbs have remained unshaken in their determination to resist this lawless aggression.
Clinton has many reasons for this terror he has unleashed on the Serbian people. But his oft-repeated claim that it is out of concern for the Kosovars is hypocritical. Actually the sufferings of the Kosovars have been greatly enhanced by the NATO strikes which were met with by the Serbs stepping up the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Clinton’s real reasons for his attack on the Serbs are multi-faceted and entirely dishonourable.
1. The US military establishment needed to test its latest weapons systems under battlefield conditions different from the Iraqi desert. (There is a precedent. The atom bomb on Nagasaki was dropped, not out of any perceived military necessity, but because it was a technically improved bomb and the military establishment wanted to study its performance as against that of the earlier bomb dropped on Hiroshima. This "experiment’ cost close on 100,000 civilian lives.)
2. 0n the day he was to face a Senate trial for impeachment, Clinton bombed Iraq killing a few hundred civilians. It earned him a day’s respite in the proceedings. Similarly, Clinton hoped to boost his image as a strong president by his attack on Yugoslavia.
3. Clinton wants to make a gesture towards the Muslim nations which generally regard the US as an enemy. By demonstrating American readiness to drop bombs on behalf of ethnic Albanians (Muslims) Clinton hopes to improve USA’s image among the Muslim nations. Not many are fooled. Iran for one is not impressed.
4. Another plus for Clinton in his Yugoslav adventure is that it is sure to damage the European Union. A powerful bloc which could stand up to the US economic aggression is clearly not what Wall Street wants. Clinton ensures continuing backing for him from Wall Street with this aggression.
5. And lastly, NATO badly needed a foe. It was getting tired of its role as a defensive alliance, of No Action, Talk only. NATO also wanted expansion. Clinton gave NATO the opportunity in Yugoslavia. The commander of NATO US General Clark, has already conceded that he sees no immediate surrender of Yugoslavia and envisages the war lasting well into the year 2000. The USA devotes a great deal of its GDP on evolving sophisticated weapons of mass destruction. It has succeeded in building up an arsenal of weapons of frightening sophistication. With such weaponry American warmongers have come to believe that they can defeat an enemy with weapons alone without risking American lives. "Risking American lives" is something Congress will not lightly permit any president to do, ever since the Vietnamese sent the American invaders running for their lives out of their country.
That blanket bombing will never break a nation’s spirit is a lesson that Hitler was taught in the Battle of Britain and the USA was taught in Vietnam. But Clinton is trying it again in Yugoslavia. Here again Santayana’s aphorism is pertinent.
Clinton and NATO cannot solve the issues in the Yugoslav civil war in Kosovo. They are incapable of beating the tough Serbs into submission and their aggression against Yugoslavia may drag on well into the new millennium. If it triggers off the Third World War the credit should go to Clinton.
Piyal Gamage
Book Review
A Disapathi’s diversions - it’s all in the files!"TALES FROM THE PROVINCES"
By Tissa Devendra Pp, 96. Sarvodaya Vishva Lekha, 1999By Carl Muller
I am glad that Tissa Devendra has got it all together even though we have enjoyed hugely his village vignettes in the ‘Island’. After all a Land Officer must know his land, and especially ? Land Officer who soars in the ranks to leave behind a life of "middling celebrity" with its "attendant lords, supporting actors" to be the buck-stopper of the Kachcheri. Take any divisional secretariat today...take any place where the bells of local administration ring out the poopah of the AEO, the AFC, the ACCD, the DLO, the DRO etcetera, etcetera and we have, drowning in the metallic clamour of the bureaucratic pecking order, people. Yes, people. And as we all know, people are the problem with people. This is why, one supposes, people are given to solve people-problems, because problem-people are the only ones who can relate, with the best will in the world, to people problems. I hope you can understand that because I cannot.The book does not try to find answers either. It merely tells, with a dash of cynicism, an abundance of tolerance and heaping portions of wry humour, of the days when disapathis were made, not born. It is no fun, in these turbulent times, being a senior government administrator. No fun for the hoi polloi, that is. In Fact, these chair-warmers are so unapproachable that no one gets close enough to even ascertain how senior the bird actually is. But, in Tissa’s time, there was this "testing time". Hang all this business of by-, of-, and for the people. What was necessary was that tough rural training in a tough and touchy rural school where problem- people expect land for a hub-cap, and keep spare coffins for "emergencies" and conduct their illicit affairs on a "thrashing floor".
I am intrigueD‘. Even as Tissa spins his first tale, I can’t help thinking of Gwen Heart’s "The Spirits of Romeo and Juliet." Here is the story of Suramba, the young Kandyan dancer from Amunugama, and his passion for Amanda, the beautiful Spanish gypsy who killed him as she kissed him goodbye. The trouble is Tissa is not an emotional writer. He tells a tale sang embroidery, and the reader can seek in vain for his feelings. This does not take away any of the charm, although it may tell us that Kachcheris keep their dramas in red tape too and even the most human (or humanistic?) of GA’s will tend to chuckle, if needs be, only when there is no one else around to witness his humanity.
Of course, Tissa was, for a long time, "cutting his teeth." He had to set up "Camps" for colonization schemes, ferry in the settlers, sort out whose wife is whose, and, whether lawfully acceptable or not, throw in his lot with the man in the Purple Hat when the legal wife demanded her pound of flesh (or three pounds of radio, as the case may be). As the stories unfold, we know that Tissa began his career in government as a District Land Officer in the Trincomalee Kachcheri. Nice to learn that, the Dutch Burgher Union notwithstanding, a house allotted named Barthelot was a dark, burly, Tamil-speaking harbour worker. Who else but the Burghers could burgher up things so well in the North and East? And there’s nothing like chicken buriyani to celebrate the final accounts tally of the Financial Year. While even avid "Island" readers would not wish to miss this enjoyable collection, so well illustrated by Stanley Kirinde, I do not intend to dwell on each of the seventeen stories. I have this habit of spoiling the reader’s enjoyment, have been told so, and promise not to do so again Let me rather commend this book to all be sevayo in government service today, from the aratchi to the shroff. The writing is nostalgic, true, but it does remind us that there was infinitely more of this people-to-people business then than now. The presentations are subtle. As you read you wonder why there are the makings of a grin on your face. Take this, for instance:
"Once, I found my car overtaking scattered groups of rather mature Scouts straggling along, accompanied by a burly Scout Master, obviously participating in some arcane tribal ritual. As a firm non-believer in organised physical exertion, I was amused when an isolated straggler hailed me for a lift to leap-frog his comrades in an un Scoutly style. When I patronisingly asked him for his school, his reply startled me. "I am a convict Scout from Welikada Jail. "
Of course, there are moments infinitely sad too, bringing to us a strong sense of despair. "Sleeping dogs are left to lie - and tortured child servants to die. " So much for the brassy Wadusinghe non as of this day!
What captivates is that Tissa’s raft-load of memories of what must have been a really special part of his life, have been put together in so readable a manner. The writing scorns the sensational and the overly dramatic. All right, so he cannily picked his titles. "Sex, Blood and Red Tape" have the same effect as the importuning of a barker at a side-show, while, after recent mayhem unlimited, nothing could be more refreshing that "Peaceful Polls of Times Past." We have, happily, a writer who is a gentleman to his if funny-bone and even the fiction ("The Case of the Bolting Brahmin") attracts. Do BraHmins bolt? And if so, why?
This is a good, wholesome read sad should give the red-tape wallahs of our day much to reflect on. At least, in these pages, they will find among the many diversions of the disapathi, government service with a hearts!
f1
‘Gurutalawa Days’Buddhika Kurukularatne
I had studied or rather ‘stayed’ in 5 schools. My ‘ ’ ‘ ’ I learnt at the Maha Ambalangoda Methodist Mixed School like everyone else in the village (This school has produced at least two successive Commissioners of Examinations, Doctors, MPs for during those days there was no mad rush for Grade I — the lower Kindergarten admissions). Then I attended the Dharmasoka Primary where I was more often than not the top of the class with 100% marks for English.It was then that my father, a successful building contractor decided to send me — his only child (‘an Eka-Yaka’) to S. Thomas’ Preparatory School, then under the founder Head Master W. T. Keble of ‘Ceylon Beaten Track’ fame. My father arranged my admission with the connivance of a friend Mr. Dalpathado — father of the famous Cardiac Surgeon who having waited until Keble left for England on furlough telegraphed my father to bring me for an interview with the Acting Head Master, Mr. Obeyesekera. Mr. Dalpathado now spends the evening of his life at Nugegoda.
I flunked the viva voce with me unable to give even the feminine gender of ‘Bull’. I was seeking admission to the 6th standard. However a generous donation saw me through and I won my last general proficiency prize there!
Then there was an automatic promotion to ‘Guru’.
The less said of my academic achievements the better. We had a beastly system known as the ‘fortnightly tests’ where I had to ‘fight’ for the last place with ‘Kaluwa’ Amarasekera who, I must say often beat me to the last place. ‘Kaluwa’ is a highly successful civil lawyer enjoying a lucrative practice just outside Colombo — another classic example of failures becoming the Pillars of Success.
The tragic features of these fortnightly tests were that the report was sent home (that meant ‘no goodies’) and as if that was not enough the select few of bottom rungers had their bottoms spanked with six of the best from ‘Doc’ Hayman’s cane. I was a frequent recipient of this treatment.
My father had enough of my frolicking at ‘Guru’ where I preferred ‘Horse Riding’ to Latin and with the help of ‘Sonny Mama’ the legendary L. C. de Silva (who became MP for Ambalangoda as well as for Balapitiya from the LSSP) who was his friend put me back to Dharmasoka College. ‘Sonny Mama’ was the Manager of the Sugatha Sasanodaya Society which managed the school prior to the ‘Take Over’.
So great was the friendship between the two, Sonny Mama took me to the Principal holding my hand all the way and without any formalities of the production of a leaving or birth certificate (which are still deposited at Guru-perhaps for posterity) told the Principal D. T. Wijeyeratne (an old Thomian of the Mt-Lavinia mould) I wan’t him admitted.
Mr. Wijeratne asked my name which I gave. Then he asked what class? I said Upper Sixth using a term used at S. Thomas’.
The bespectacled Wijeratne looked from under his horn-rimmed spectacles probably his curiosity aroused by this brat who spoke the Queen’s language and asked ‘From what school?’
S. Thomas’ Gurutalawa I replied.
The Principal dashed his spectacles on the table and thundered, ‘Then why the heck did you come here?’
A complete transformation occurred in my academic career with my winning a double promotion at Dharmasoka.
I rose to be the Head Prefect of Dharmasoka and achieved two ‘Firsts’ in the process. Firstly, I was the only student who was attired in the national dress to become Head Prefect and secondly I was the only Head Prefect, perhaps in the entire island if not the whole world to have been suspended indefinitely from school for political reasons.
I was reinstated as Head Prefect after being honourably acquitted after inquiry and I passed on my Head Prefect genes to my daughter Praveena (St. Brigett’s) and son Changa (S. Thomas). The elder son too would have been a possible Head Cap at S. Thomas if not for the fact I pulled him out of Mount with the onset of JVP violence specially targeted at UNP MPs and their families.
I am what I am today (though not much) because of my teachers at Dharmasoka where I blossomed out at S.T.C. Bandarawela and Gurutalawa where I was ‘groomed’ to be bloomed.
Both institutions for reasons best known to them continue to recognise me, electing me as Patron of the Dharmasoka Junior OBA (they needed an old man for the job!) and to the Executive Committee of the Gurutalawa OBA for what seem for life (i.e. another year or so at most!)
Once when on a visit to ‘Guru’ a few days in advance of the OBA AGM to have a look at the place which is running headless for several years now I was given the unique honour of addressing the school assembly!
The occasion was just right as the cricket team of Revata College in Balapitiya in the Galle district which formed part of my constituency was also there by invitation. They had come to play a cricket match and the Balapitiya boys thrashed the ‘Guru’ Thomians blue, black and blue.
Mr. S. T. Moorthy of the College staff told me that I should combine both Sinhala and English as unlike during the Hayman Foster era, the Queen’s language had taken a back seat even at ‘Guru’.
Mr. Moorthy in his introduction (falsely) told the young audience that I was an excellent public speaker in both English and Sinhala. (What an error of judgement?)
Leaving aside my Sinhala, Moorthy should have seen how the entire class lead by Ananda Medonza, the Monitor and Anthony Perkins, his assistant was sent out of the class by the class teacher Gerald de Alwis, for the crime of teasing me at my English and the pronunciations! (Mr. Gerald de Alwis remembers this to this day?)
I made this remark by Moorthy the theme of my speech and said that I was not scared of the ‘ ’ and though got chopped at the start wielded it fairly well on later years.
Whilst making my address which was a little English here and a little Sinhala there I noticed the Revata Boys eagerly scanning the plaques hung in the beautiful Cannon A. J. Foster Hall, where the names of the most outstanding students in the academic and sports field were engraved for posterity. They were probably looking for the name of their ex-MP (not a ‘Singore’ — for I did not stand for election in 1994) in those plaques. I quickly told then that Thomian Tradition demanded that only those at the top of the College had their names engraved in the Hall of fame but (unfortunately) not of those who hit the bottom — for if that was the case the name ‘Buddhika Kurukularatne’ would be right at the top.
I was surprised to find a bevy of girls in the front row clad in Thomian Tie. ‘Guru’ has always been a male bastian and the few occasions that the juniors of the ‘weaker sex’ entered its portals were when the convent girls from Nuwara Eliya or Bandarawela held their swimming meets at the Gurutalawa swimming pool.
But Dr. Hayman, the man who gifted the pool, saw to it that the entire pool area was strictly out-of-bounds for us.
Moorthy told me that there were 18 girls on ‘Roll’ and I remarked that if that was the case during my time at ‘Guru’ I’d have met my waterloo at ‘Guru’, not at Dharmasoka.
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