Even when it’s free people complain
As members of the public we are sick and tired of the eternal complaints published in the Newspapers about the World Cup TV coverage. When Rupavahini shows cricket it is about the interruptions for News. When MTV shows cricket it is about switching channels and missing parts of the game. Now Swarnavahini is showing the matches it is about too many commercials. Will there be no end to this eternal whining?
What I would like to remind viewers is that the coverage of the matches is delivered free of any cost right into their homes. In 90% of the other participating countries viewers have to pay for the privilege of watching the matches. Even in the host country England viewers cannot just turn on their TV and watch the matches. They would have to subscribe to Sky Sports at an exorbitant cost in order to do so. This is also the case with our neighbours in India where the match is available only on Star, ESPN and local cable operators.
What everyone sitting on their posteriors and complaining, should realise is that Sports and Television is a business. If a business is to survive it needs to make money. This in turn allows the company to provide viewers better services. It is childish in the extreme to expect companies to invest in something and then not recover their investment.
Beware those who complain needlessly about a few extra commercials, the day is coming soon when you will not be able to watch a single ball until you fork over Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 18,000 for a pay TV subscription. Until then for those who find the insertion of commercials during the matches unbearable, I suggest they obtain a pay TV connection, and leave the rest of us to enjoy the FREE cricket while it lasts.
Trevor H. Ratnayake
Kalutara
Democracy a la Sri Lanka
"Democracy" is defined in the Oxford Dictionary as "Government by the People or their Representatives". This would mean that the People are sovereign and since it is impractical for all to meet for the purpose of governing themselves, they elect representatives who are empowered to govern on their behalf. An ideal system indeed.
Sri Lanka prides itself in proclaiming to the world that it is a practicing Democracy. But what in reality is the position? For the best part of three decades, the country is under a State of Emergency. Emergency laws are promulgated by the issue of gazettes overnight and these override the normal laws of the land. At the start of this system of government by Emergency, the Cabinet of Ministers have their approval for such Laws but now it is one individual holding office as - Executive President who can willy nilly promulgate such Laws with the stroke of a pen. A former President who created this monstrosity once said that all he couldn’t do was to change a man in to a woman and vice versa. Even this may soon be possible if the Medical Scientists succeed in there cloning efforts. This monstrosity negates the very principles of democracy. The representatives of the People are mere puppets in the hands of the Executive President and democracy as such is non existent under Emergencies previously extended monthly by the representatives.
Let us be candid. Let us say that in Sri Lanka, the code is "To hell with democracy. We condone dictatorship. We are a set of gullible fools".
- Hawk Eye
Cooray and P’s
Perhaps some one might want to explain to me - What does Sirisena Cooray want?
Does he want to challenge the UNP leadership ? Then he must surely pay the five rupees, become a member, throw down a gauntlet and canvas openly to remove Ranil and to acquire a now seemingly coveted chair.
Is he testing the waters? In which case he would have had a fair indication of the temperature by the response he received to the I -want-to-hold-a-meeting-but- need-a -front gathering where a hapless Mr. Premadasa was the cats’ paw.
Does he enjoy playing the sage without any of the responsibility ? This he does well - using the all too innocent Hema to bemoan the absence of her son and a well- coached priest to attack the UNP leadership. All this whilst being magnanimous in his refusal to press a mythical button that will destroy the UNP forever.
Cooray must lay his cards on the table. In fairness to Ranil, since assuming the mantle he has made the necessary changes in a party where the old guard is still present, but appear to be increasingly uncomfortable at the thought of being replaced by younger and relatively honest hopefuls. If Cooray does so love the party, he must support it under the present leadership - contributing in the areas he considers it to be vulnerable.
On a different note, it always amazed me as to why the Premadasa family never once spoke up to defend the late President while he was being torn to shreds by a gleeful PA government. Aside from Dulanjali’s periodic responses, neither Sajith nor Mrs. Premadasa once spoke out in defence of a man now they wish to commemorate. Perhaps a fear of losing the generous perks or a threat of some serious digging has forged an unholy alliance between the PA and the Premadasas - strange bedfellows indeed!
M. A. M. A. Swadheena
Appreciation
S. AloysiusI first met Mr. Santhiapillai Aloysius my father-in-law shortly before I married his third son Dennis in 1956. That was when Daddy, as I affectionately called him, helped me to obtain a teaching post in St. Lawrence’s Convent, Wellawatte, soon after I graduated. He was like a father to me. He and my mother-in-law, late Anne Gardiner Aloysius were extremely kind and loving. I recall how happy they were when shortly after marriage, I began addressing them as "Daddy" and "Mummy". They responded by saying "You have joined the family and now you are our child."
Daddy was born in 1899 and June 21st this year marked his centenary birthday. He was educated at St. Patrick’s, where he and his teachers were of the view that he had a vocation to be a Roman Catholic priest. He joined the seminary for this purpose. But later, since there were several deaths among his siblings, resulting in him being the only living son left, he was advised to leave the seminary and look after his family.
He was a gifted, skilful and dedicated teacher. With his ESLC, he guided no less than 5 future Professors of mathematics through their early studentship of higher Mathematics. Daddy went out of his way to help students who were weak in mathematics and he gave free tuition to many.
In 1921 he married Anne Gardiner who was to be his wife for 49 year. They had 8 children in 12 years, namely Cyril Gardiner, Lucy Page, Mangalam St. George, Pushpam Savundranayagam, Joe, Dennis, Hubert and Peter. All of them were inimitable, energetic and endowed with unique leadership qualities. Mummy and Daddy had 28 grandchildren and 30 great-grandchildren.
Daddy was a fine conversationalist and storyteller and it was enjoyable to listen to him narrating anecdotes on past events. He had a delightful sense of humour and used to tell amusing jokes.
Daddy was a great benefactor of priests and nuns — he had a special place in his heart for them. He was helpful and sympathetic to the poor and persons who needed assistance. His car was public transport and was made available to those who asked. His home was open house to relatives, friends, the clergy and others. There was always food on the table and he and Mummy were very generous and hospitable.
Daddy passed away in his sleep at about 3 p.m. on September 18, 1976. S. Aloysius was an honourable, kind, helpful and honest man. His family, relatives, friends, students, priests and nuns will fondly remember him.
Chrissie Aloysius
Mervyn de Silva
The best reporters had legs that carried them higher and farther when others were falling back to rest. John Katzenbach, "Just Cause"Being neither a journalist nor a club man, and in the matter of political analysis constrained by the conventions that used to bind the public service, my association with Mervyn de Silva was but a fleeting one. We knew each other from afar.
As undergraduates reading English at Peradeniya we had all heard of him of course, and of a First Class denied him. Doric de Souza was said to have been held responsible for the 'Pass' that was awarded to Mervyn. It is for sure that, especially in his early years as a columnist for the 'Observer', Daedalus and such, Mervyn targeted the LSSP, the Trotskyites, and, quite often, he identified the object of attack by name. Even a sophomoric retort from me led to a kind of serial rubbishing, - altogether an over-kill response that made one wonder. What seemed to come through was a kind of achcharu of distaste, a contempt asserted with lightning streaks of doubt, all garnished with a nod towards the Third International - Stalin et al. We had also been told how, on a visit to Peradeniya with the debating team of the Law College [?], Mervyn had given a bit of a dusting to a young pretender, Ashley Halpe. He had eyes and ears open to all kinds of things at the same time.
Some years later, as we were playing a game of chess at Sandella, Doric told me that he had (indeed) been responsible for Mervyn's 'Pass', the other decision makers having concluded that he had failed. I should think that Mervyn would rather have had his exam-performance speak for him, rather have missed out the call to Convocation [on which I have had some few words in Memories of Peradeniya]: there weren't and aren't many degree-holders in the world of journalism in which he was to become such a bright star, - probably the brightest we have had in fifty years.
I ain't spilling no secret when I say that Mervyn was proud of his son and concerned about how he would go. Despite the first nom de guerre he adopted? Mervyn was no Daedalus. Nevertheless, he might have hoped, and feared, that his son would take that trip. I mention here those early years, years frilled with such noms de plume such as 'Fly-by-Night' and 'Sooty Banda'. Fewer pretensions then, - no 'Ravana's, no ‘Chanaka's, no 'Kautilya's. I'll return to that after I've said what follows.
Sometime in the mid-seventies, it being the Thai King’s Birthday and it being also the turn of the Ministry of Industries to face Parliament, in the building since taken over as the kendrastanaya from which the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary have come to be emasculated, and the sovereignty of the people that those bodies are required to protect and advance has been destroyed. Nobody would doubt that Mervyn could have written a Doctoral thesis or two on that subject, but he chose to handle such matters in his tart and flippant style. It was the Committee Stage of the Budget [those latter caps meant something then], and the Minister and Secretary, respectively, having to be around to make speeches and draft answers, I was dispatched from Parliament to the Thai Embassy as their rep. It was rather late in the proceedings, the cake had been cut or whatever, and I gravitated towards the remaining elbow-benders and conversation makers. Among them were Mervyn and Sam Kadiragamar, and, naturally, much conversation ensued. At the end of it all - now, that's a dicey phrase, for a diplomat, no guests ever overstay their welcome, though a few are known to have dropped dead from it, - despite my professions of ignorance on that subject, Sam wished to take me to his home for a 'show-and-tell' discourse on Heraldry. Mervyn, whom I had never met before to speak with, - we had seen each other at some old waterholes, - wanted speech about his son [whom I have since met, a few days ago]. Mr. Kadirgamar was holding open for me the door of his Benz which had been driven down to the porch, and when, not being a diplomat, I explained to him that there was something more urgent I had to attend to, he shook my hand with a smile in which there was not the least wrinkle of wry, and invited me to come home sometime and as often as I wished to see his flags and to use his library. [That, alas, never happened]. I walked up to Flower Road, catching Mervyn's faraway look as I got into the old Land Rover in which he was seated. We went some place? parked under a big mara tree and talked, more or less, for two hours. I was myself a father, and as no parent carries an 'L’-board from Day One, felt wise enough to proffer no advice, beyond suggesting that he keeps a weather eye open for such cyclones as adolescence is apt to generate.
There has been just the one encounter with Mervyn since and that was some six years ago and in the press....
I have heard it said quite recently, by a man of somewhat fixed concerns and obligations of his own making, that Mervyn's done nothing of worth? that he had sort of skimmed the surface of lots of things. It's difficult to believe that anybody could have failed to detect the numerous pointers for half a hundred dissertations that distinguished Mervyn's columns. As I confessed at the beginning of this note, I am not a journalist, and cannot see myself to have ever embarked on a profession that seemed to me to have to do with titillating a paying readership in one way or another while showing some muscle in affairs of State. Or do I mis-state that? I was asked whether I would come in as Secretary for Media etc., and I said 'that's not my street? I know little about it' and cried off.
From 'Daedalus' to 'Kautilya', I'd surmise, marked a change in Mervyn's perception of the possible. I rarely shared his perceptions of the possible at either point.. Several of his endeavours have been hostile to my perception of how things should be, and of what the 'Just Cause' is today. He lived, as we all do, in the grasp of a netherworld of violence the exercise of which is in the hands of louts and psychopaths and of a media mafia that's protected by such 'decision makers', whatever official designation they may present to the world. Mervyn made his way in such a world. I am certain that none of this would have been news to him. But he had the footwork to get at the hard things, he had the sleight-of-hand that's seemingly required to keep on getting at them, and the guts to say things that weren't what everybody would always like to hear told in print; in his columns you could hear his speech.
News-making can never be a one-man production, and he had little support, - hardly any of his peers worked with him. Writing regular columns to foreign news agencies can't be a piece of cake; each requires one to pretend to a different angle, a variation in accent. This langwidge we use is less of a prison cell than the language of media commerce. Mervyn handled all that day in day out for more years than you who read this would care to review your lives or I to review mine. He had the legs. May he rest in peace.
Gamini Seneviratne
Appreciation
Miss A. C. B. JayasuriyaOn Monday June 21st, past pupils and teachers of Bishop’s College and Princess of Wales, Moratuwa, members of the clergy, nuns, and very many others gathered at Miss Amabel Jayasuriya’s ancestral home to pay their last respects to her.
We were there not to mourn a death but to celebrate a life so well spent in the service of others.
Miss Jayasuriya had retired about ten years ago and spent a quiet, admittedly unfulfilling life at home, after decades of teaching and then being principal, and giving of herself wholeheartedly to her profession.
I came to know Miss Jayasuriya when she was Principal, St. Andrew’s College, Gampola, in the late ’50s. I was soon after the university entrance exam and in limbo and catching the eye of my mother and brother as of an age to be married off. I needed to escape their eye. So with the help of my eldest sister I applied for post of teacher at St. Andrews and was selected. I moved to the hostel of the school and had a very good year.
Miss Jayasuriya loved the Gampola school, the people, students and the job. She was basically quite shy and nicely retiring and was most comfortable in the midst of simple, sincere persons. I, being young and precocious, would walk to her bungalow and chat in the evenings. When later I told her I was, with hindsight, embarrassed by my forwardness, she commented she quite enjoyed the freshness and innocence of youth I presented.
She had been Principal, Princess of Wales College, and disliked the move from Moratuwa and home to Gampola, as she disliked later the move from Gampola to Colombo, but had to assume each post given her by the Anglican Church. Duty called and personal preferences and dislikes had to be subsumed.
When she expressed regret and reluctance to leave Moratuwa, the then Archbishop, The Most Reverend Lakdasa de Mel gave her the consoling advice that if she really could not bear the change she could take recourse in the Mahaweli Ganga that flowed beside the school. He repeated the advice when orders were given that she leave Gampola and take over as Head of prestigious Bishop’s College, Colombo, which however had the reputation then, let’s admit it, of being snooty. The holy helpful tip was that the Beira Lake was close at hand and deep enough to drown a suicidal person!
Instead of jumping into the waters of either the Mahaweli or the Beira, Miss Jayasuriya slipped in as Principal of the two schools and very successfully improved them. Improved I say in every way, but most in the quality of the staff and students, inculcating in them good manners and disciplined behaviour in a relaxed atmosphere not by preaching and precept but by quiet, dignified example. And isn’t that the highest form of improvement since a school and school education targets the developing of the total personality of its students?
Miss Jayasuriya was a GOOD principal. There is no doubt about it. Her goals were not obtaining the best results in the OL and AL exams. Neither were they to win shields and trophies by hook or by crook in the sports field or swimming pool. Rather was it to nurture to full development the girls in her charge so they became good women and good citizens. She laid stress on religion. She was a devout Anglican Christian but always respected other religions and what she wanted of her pupils was that they follow a religion. It was during her time at Bishop’s that girls stared going to the Gangarama temple once a week, had Buddhist, Muslim and Hindu prayer assemblies while the Christians met in the school hall. She even permitted sil being observed in the college and Vesak Bakthi Gee. This was 25 to 30 years ago.
She was broad-minded, even about girls having boys admiring them and sending them notes. One very lovely young girl who undertook a paid advertising stint (almost a felony then), was mildly reprimanded and the mother advised to allow her daughter to go into the business after her school education was complete.
If one of her teachers wanted to leave to join another profession or stay home to look after the children, she gladly allowed it as good for the teacher and her family, even though it meant a loss to the school and trouble for her to recruit another.
She never had to raise her voice, nor walk about the school on inspection rounds. She expected teachers to be dutiful. Punctuality was what got my heart racing each morning and dashing to class without the books I needed. I’d be chatting in the staff room and not hearing the bell, and I’d get a deep shock seeing her at the connecting door between the staff room and her office. She only looked and we fled to class.
Miss Jayasuriya was however, a friend too. Out of school she was the quiet listener, the enjoyer of jokes, the giggler, the discusser of fashions. She was an elegant dresser and appreciated good grooming in others. Her sarees were refined and meticulously selected.
She never thought of herself as a public speaker but the school reports she wrote herself and read at the Bishop’s College prize-givings were excellent in content, style and delivery. Hard facts and data were stated in perfect, lucid English, and that spark of inspiration with sincerity of purpose added in, made them so good to listen to.
After retirement she told me she did some ‘scribbling’ (very correct writing is what that meant) which she pushed under her mattress. Did her sisters discover thoughts put down in poetry or prose? I hope so and I hope they will be published, if found.
Every person I spoke with when we heard of her death and at her funeral said they were not really saddened by her death since she could have been bedridden if she had survived the stroke she suffered. We all had tears, though, which we shed as we said our goodbyes. We feel she just let go, to pass on to what her religion promised her, and she had absolute faith in.
We therefore celebrate her life, not mourn her death.
NPW
Cynthia Manel Karunatileka
It was seven years to the date 13th July 1992, that Cynthia Manel Karunatileka took leave of her close circle of friends and relations. It was a sad closing chapter to a otherwise wonderful human life story of love, dedication and devotion. Cynthia knew the serious nature of her illness and despite the bouts of pain she retained her natural composure and continued to face life with a smile to the end.
Cynthia was always soft spoken and of a quiet disposition. She had a characteristic "MONA LISA" smile. It was really a half smile or semi smile that lit up her eyes and the whole of her face.
Cynthia and her husband Karu were two different personalities if we were to talk type classifications. However, they say, unlike poles attract and they were magnetically attracted to one another. From the earliest days of their marriage there was a "tie that binds", that kept this happy couple going together down the "highways and the byeways" of life. Each complemented the other and the partnership was truly successful. Karu the young Marketing Executive working hard and round the clock carving out a career for himself and a future for the family, and Cynthia, the young housewife taking care of the home-front. Karu also held high office in companies and institutions besides his home based International company where he kept a firm foot to rise to the top. They say behind every successful man there is a woman and Cynthia was the inspiring and guiding light behind Karu.
Cynthia and Karu built for their family a wonderful home. They were blessed with one child,a son Nalin. Both Karu and Cynthia doted on this child and gave him everything from a good home environment to a good education and a true sense of values.
Karu and Cynthia kept a beautiful home so full of warmth and music. Their close friends and relations were always welcome. Cynthia was the perfect hostess who saw to it that all their guests were looked after. Karu kept the party going. What a wonderful time we have had together especially those of us in the Marketing profession, who met with Karu and Cynthia in their home regularly.
Karu and Cynthia’s son Nalin is a grown man now and is married to a beautiful young lady Tharanga. The young couple live in the home built for them by Karu and Cynthia. They are both pursuing their professional careers.
Cynthia would have been so happy and proud of their achievements. And so life goes on at the Karunatileka home at Nawala. Its so full of happy memories and Cynthia is missed by us all yet tenderly remembered.
Cynthia:
Ranjit Jayasooriya
You shall not grow old
As we that are left grow old
Age shall not weary you
Nor the years condemn
For every morning - every evening
And through the stillness of every night:
Down the arches of the years
We will remember you