F's Place

Winston Jayawardene 1939-1982

2012-02-08T22:28:00.005+05:30

Winston: Guitar virtuoso and musician

by B. Chandra Perera

Winston Jayawardena playing the classic guitar

The Sri Lankan classic guitar virtuoso and musician who transformed himself into a greatly valued Technical Systems Consultant of the Wells Fargo Bank in the United States of America, passed away on 13 July, 1982 at the height of a brilliant career in both Electronic Data Processing (EDP) and music. Talent was brimful in him - an old Peterite and later of the Colombo University.

He was Bernard Winston Perera Jayawardena, 43, the eldest son of the late B.W. and Srimathie Perera Jayawardena.

Winston's early musical training was in the able hands of his mother and father who tutored him on the piano and violin and sponsored him for music examinations of the Royal College of Music, London.

Winston's debut in the music world was as a young vocalist when he sang for a commercial recording of his Mother's Music at the age of 9. The record was produced under the "Odeon" label in 1947 and featured the baila "Gama Bata Liye".

From then on Winston was involved in a multiplicity of musical achievement in school, with his brother Irwin and his parents, both on radio and stage.

Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) saw the emergence of Winston with the "Harmony Hawaiians" "The Queen Creoles Skiffle" and "Rock Group" 'The Avalons" as well as with the many varied musical activities of his parents.

Winston's interest in the "Classic Guitar" commenced in 1953 after a chance hearing of an old 78 r.p.m. record of Andres Segovia performing Turina's "Fandanguillo" and Tarrega's "Tremolo Study".

Once the idea to learn the classic guitar was born, Winston lost no time in mastering it's techniques. Winston was the founder of the Sri Lanka Classic guitar Society which was formed in 1967.

Winston scarified his educational career in physical science at the University of Ceylon, Colombo to continue his self-studies in the "Theory of Music" "Form in Music", Orchestration, Composition, etc.

Due to the absence of facilities in Ceylon, Winston studied for the examinations in these fields with the English Schools of Music. He was the first successful Diploma Holder in the South East Asia region, for Theory of Music Classic Guitar Examinations conducted by the Trinity College of Music, London.

Acting

Winston's talents also crept into the sphere of acting. He took part in many operettas and theatrical works both at school and with professional drama organizations. Winston the musician composer, singer and actor has given many performances which have always been acclaimed by Ceylonese audiences.

During a professional visit to Ceylon in 1962 Mr. Peter Cooper, Examiner, Trinity College of Music, London studied the musical works of Winston, which included a Concestto for Piano.

In recommending the admission of Winston to a German Conservatoire he wrote ..... "I have pleasure in recommending the work of Winston Jayawardena. He has shown great initiative in teaching himself Harmony, Counter Point and Music Theory upto L. (Mus) T.C.L. Standard. His compositions show an alert mind.

However, Winston did not proceed to Germany due to his marriage to Trinette Charmaine Salgadoe of Kalutara. (ex Broadcast Announcer, then, Radio Ceylon).

Winston's musical activities continued unabated as he pressed on with more and more demanding roles. As the Musical Director of Harmonics Limited Winston provided a great source of encouragement, assistance, guidance and teaching to numerous musical groups and individuals making their debuts in the musical world. He has also sponsored students for examinations with the Trinity College of Music, London.

Winston was a Grade "A' artist at the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC) performing both on channels One and Two.

The then additional Director (Commercial Broadcasting) Livy Wijemanne said, "While I am grateful to you for your intention to dedicate the Trio to me, I would prefer if you would dedicate this composition to the Commercial Service as a whole, as it would enhance the prestige of the Service of which I am proud to be the Head. Winston was pleased to oblige.

Multi-culture

In a complex multicultural environment working with many talented and highly individualistic musicians, Winston was able to inspire and win confidence with his candid professionalism.

His pleasant personality and shy and pleasing mannerisms have won him many friends who have been teaming with him in presenting to Ceylonese musical audiences a variety of musical extravaganzas.

Winston was generous in imparting his knowledge and expertise in the areas of music theory and the techniques of the classic guitar. The many students who have worked with him have gained valuable knowledge. His contributions to further musical activities in Sri Lanka are outstanding.

During his long musical career Winston made many public appearances in a variety of roles, viz. as a guest artist in variety entertainments, as jazz guitarist in jazz festivals, as an accompanist to local and foreign singers, as a musical director in plays and musical works, as a member of a musical group of orchestra, as a Spanish guitarist in Spanish and Latin - American musical sequences etc.

Winston also made several guitar recitals performing major solo musical works for the classic guitar as well as musical works for guitar and orchestra.

Winston also directed music for commercial recordings and formed small and large orchestras in schools etc. He left Sri Lanka in February 1975 to migrate to California. His last recital in Colombo was at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute on 24th February, 1975.

In San Francisco, California, Winston joined the Data Processing Division of the Wells Fargo Bank to work on their International Systems Operational on the computer networks of the bank.

Winston who taught himself EDP and who had limited practical experience with computers in Sri Lanka, taught Data Processing at a professional level.

He was quick to master the techniques of the facilities available at the bank.

He, as the Senor Systems Consultant of the bank travelled widely in the States to branch computer centres to advise and correct flaws in the banking computer network.

His work as a Senior Systems Programmer and consultant had been invaluable and highly recognized and acclaimed by his colleagues and the bank. His loss has left a void which is difficult to fill.

Winston did not restrict his activities to computing in California. He formed the San Francisco Classic Guitar Society and continued with the activities of furthering the guitar in San Francisco.

He was also an active member of the "Music makers of San Francisco". This musical organization carried out activities to foster, encourage and further musical activities in San Francisco.

Winston's participation and activities are being greatly missed by the members of this organization.

Winston's last recital in San Francisco was on 27th March 1982 when the San Francisco Classic Guitar Society presented Dorothea Schmidt & Winston Jayawardene in concert on piano and guitar.

Winston was also an active member of the MENSA Organization. (An organization of people with very high intelligence quotients IQs).

Winston has left behind his wife Trinette Charmaine and his two sons Bernard Johana and Bernard Mario.

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2011-12-16T11:45:00.002+05:30

The Good Old Days by JB Muller

The Good Old Days -Anglophiles, Eurocentric arrogance and Reality

by J. B. Müller

(This dissertation is written from almost 50 year’s of on-the-job experience in the print and electronic media and from first-hand knowledge of people and events and from careful, objective research. It is written to illuminate a ‘grey-area’ that is often obscured or concealed. As a human being my aim is that the Truth be told with no holds barred and so that the oppressed, the marginalized, and the discriminated-against could come out of the shadows. That can only happen if we change our warped attitudes and acknowledge that great wrongs have been done to harmless people because of various evil motives.)

After 62 year’s of independence we still have in our midst persons who not only admire but who also hunger for colonial rule by Britain. These individuals, men and women, look at the past through rose-tinted spectacles and pine for the ‘good old days’ when decisions were made in Whitehall. Astonishingly, they sincerely believe that the British had a divine right to rule this country for its own good. They are fond of pointing to the roads and railways, the post and telegraph services and the administrative infrastructure as some noteworthy sections of the Colonial legacy bequeathed us by the British. Their naïve beliefs fly in the face of this country’s modern history because they do not go beyond the surface veneer. Their near-fanatical admiration for the Anglo-Saxon ‘Way-of-Life’ is strongly influenced by legend, mythology, and fallacious beliefs that were wrapped around colonial empire-building by such people as Rudyard Kipling and latterly, Winston Churchill.

One of the predominant driving forces behind colonial expansion from the beginnings of the 16th century was Eurocentric Racism. Europeans strongly believed that they were a ‘Chosen People’ superior to the rest of Mankind. The holdovers of this sickening legacy are still with us in the form of some of those of mixed parentage and those anglicized natives who think they were born here accidentally. I actually knew one such warped individual, scion of a Kandyan family who lived at the ‘British’ Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Institute. He lived here because the name of the place had the word ‘British’ in it. He used to meet me at breakfast, sharp 7:30 AM. He used to imperiously summon the white-clad waiter by calling-out ‘Boy, bring me my breakfast.’ That was bacon and eggs (sunnysides up) with toast and marmalade washed down by a cup of English Breakfast Tea! He read only "The Times" from London (about five days old!) and disdained all local newspapers stating that they were only good enough to clean windows or for use in the toilet! Of course, he was a ‘High’ Church Anglican who attended St. Michael & All Angels in Kollupitiya and, occasionally, St. Peter’s Garrison Church in the Fort.

Do these people, these anglophiles, really know the sordid history of British rule in this Island? A rule soaked in the blood to those who dared to resist that rule? Have they ever read the extensive correspondence of Sir Robert Brownrigg to General Hay McDowall available in the British Colonial Office, Series 54? Have they read the General Order (one of several documented by the late Prof. Tennekoon Vimalanda) issued in 1818 that stated: "Kill every man, woman and child including the babes suckling at their mother’s breast. Destroy all dwelling houses. Burn all crops. Cut down all fruit trees. Slaughter all cattle; take what meat is necessary to feed the troops and burn the rest. Destroy all reservoirs, canals and channels. Poison the wells. Lay waste utterly the countryside denying any relief whatsoever to the rebels." This Order was carried out, laying waste Uva and Vellassa, a destruction from which it is yet to fully recover. British writers commented that every tree from Ratnapura to Badulla was festooned with the hung bodies of rotting human beings that gave off a revolting stench. The word ‘genocide’ was coined in the 1940s meaning the wiping-out of a people, but if this wasn’t genocide then, what is? Kandyan Sinhalese survivors of this colonial holocaust reported that the East African Askaris (Negro) were encouraged by their British officers to barbecue captives and eat their flesh! To the freedom fighters watching horrified from the edges of the jungle, these weren’t human beings but demons. They fled into the deep fastness of the southeastern jungles and all resistance collapsed. I have talked with the descendants of some of these survivors in hamlets near Kumana and they confirmed this.

Their records in Africa, Asia, America and Australia have been extensively documented. They wiped-out or enslaved millions of Africans; they slaughtered millions of Asians; they butchered the Amerindian tribes, and they almost decimated the Australian aborigines. In addition to this bloody record of unbridled carnage, European diseases such as syphilis, smallpox and other communicable diseases destroyed entire populations who did not possess the immunity to resist these new-to-them diseases. They also introduced alcohol and to this day it is as blight amongst indigenous peoples throughout the planet.

Even at this moment the Amerindian tribes in South America are being annihilated as precious minerals and oil has been discovered on their ancestral lands. White-owned multi-national corporations are involved in the business of obliterating these indigenous peoples. Those who inhabit Borneo and Papua-New Guinea are also losing their habitats before the inexorable onslaught of giant corporations that either want the tropical hardwood timber or valuable natural resources that lie underground.

Millions died as slaves, treated as sub-human beings. It was preached in churches up to recently that the non-European peoples had no salvation because they were Black, Brown, Yellow, or Red. A well-known lady resigned from a Calvinist congregation in Colombo and sought to join another church because the minister preached a sermon in which he stated that biblically, there was no salvation for non-Whites! She was quoted by Riccardo Orizio in his book "Lost White Tribes" (© 2000.) Another mixed-descent Sri Lankan clergyman walked out of a Christian pastoral conference in South Africa when he was barred from entering a ‘Whites Only’ toilet and directed to a "Coloured’s/Blacks’ toilet. Didn’t these pastors know that Jesus was an Asian, a Jew, and coloured to boot? And, it is also a fact that non-Europeans were not permitted to even enter ‘Whites Only’ clubs throughout Sri Lanka. One such club in Colombo displayed prominently a notice which stated: "Natives and Dogs Not Allowed." It was removed in 1961 on a government directive. Another club at a popular Up-country resort had a rule that said that you had to be dressed in a European suit plus tie or be denied access to the Dining Room. The Club kept several coats of different sizes and ties for patrons who arrived ‘undressed.’!I worked in one such establishment where the waiters addressed all Whites as ‘Master Sir.’ Jesus Himself couldn’t have used a ‘Whites Only’ toilet in South Africa or entered a ‘Whites Only’ club in Sri Lanka.

In the region of the Plantation Raj, I came to know a man in his Sixties by the name of Kalu Banda. He had a sinister furrow carved diagonally across his face from above his right eye to below his left ear-lobe. He told me that the road on which we were standing was once a horse-track and the European who owned a tea plantation a few miles away was to ride this way often. He met him one day and failed to remove his turban and bow. For this act of ‘disrespect’ the European struck him across his face with his leather riding quirt, drawing blood and leaving a huge gash which healed slowly. He told me tales of labourers being tied to trees and whipped until their backs were shreds of torn flesh. There was no one to complain to he said. Then, pretty women or girls as young as 12 years from the Labour Lines or the village were ordered to be brought to the bungalow at dusk—properly bathed and with the coconut-oil in their hair washed-out thoroughly. The plantation areas have many bastard children—some with blue eyes and blonde hair—the result of the sexual exploitation the voiceless were subject in the ‘good old days.’ Lorna Wright has documented this in her book: "Just Another Shade of Brown" (© 1976), followed by Dr. Kumari Jayawardenain her "Erasure of the Euro-Asian." (© 2007), andDonovan Moldrich in his "Bitter Berry Bondage." Writing about the indentured labour brought from the Ram Nad district of present-day Tamil Nadu, he wrote: "The trail from Talaimannar to Matale was marked by the whitening bones of thousands of men, women and children who perished on the way from infectious diseases, malnutrition, snake-bite, and attacks by bear, leopard, wild buffalo and elephants. When they arrived at Matale they were auctioned off to different White plantation owners: the man here, the wife there, the children somewhere else. The heartless tearing-up of families went on year after year. That became bitter berry bondage as the coffee estates gave way to tea, all built up on the blood, the sweat, and the heart-rending tears of these wretched people." They were like this for 125 years, from 1823 to 1948 when they were deprived even of their citizenship and became stateless non-citizens. The writings of John Capper, William Knighton, Dr. Henry Marshall, P.D. Millie, C.R. Rigg, William Sabonadiere, Edward Sullivan, and Herbert White, among others add grist to the mill and vividly describe some of the many, varied and unpleasant facets of British rule.

Old marriage registers available at the National Archives provide enlightening reading where it is stated in black-and-white: "John Brown* of the 20th Regiment married a native woman." (Name not recorded.) The only redeeming factor was that the issue were no bastards—they were designated ‘half-castes’ and despised by both sides. (*For obvious reasons a pseudonym is used here to illustrate the point being made.) The very reason that the Paynter Home was established by the Indian Christian Mission was to take care of these unacknowledged offspring produced through the unrestrained sexual exploitation of helpless local women. Another home was set-up in Badulla by Methodist missionaries and elsewhere.

Sri Lankan publicists had the courage of their convictions to expose the injustices that were perpetrated on the people of this country. Let me quote the well-known social activist Susil Siriwardena here: "Long was the line of those distinguished practitioners, who provided leadership to their institutions, were gurus to the juniors and who contributed to the profession:Tarzie Vittachi, Denzil Peiris, J. L. Fernando, H. E. R. Abeysekera, Donovan Moldrich, Fred de Silva and Victor Gunawardena.Viewed within the setting of the intellectual milieu of the second half of the 20th century, Mervyn de Silva, both the craftsman and the personality, stands out as an exemplar of a meritocratic age, where the values of excellence, quality, disciplined labour, and commitment to professionalism, a multicultural sensitivity and an intuitive grasp of truth, were the norms of those who set out to reach for the stars. It as an age when youth were inspired by idealism, for which independence provided a supplementary value addition. The whole country, Asia, the Tricontinent, and the world itself, provided the intellectual canvas." These highly-respected commentators despised the entire raison d’être of colonial rule and the utter arrogance of Eurocentric racism that drove it forwards and outwards and its latter-day metamorphosis into ‘decolonization.’ This was its new face with its indirect domination through trade, aid, and military alliances that sought to conceal the hidden hands of command and control.

When people from this part of the world visit London, Paris, Rome, and other European capitals they are awed into profound silence by the magnificent edifices: The palaces, museums, and monuments to greatness that they see around them. Do they realize that all this exists on the bitter and unrelenting exploitation of man by man? Or the enslavement of innocent peoples? On their labour in the cotton fields of the American South, the coffee plantations of Brazil, the cocoa estates of West Africa, the diamond mines of South Africa, the tobacco fields of Zimbabwe, the tea gardens of Sri Lanka, the rubber estates of Malaysia, the sheep farms of Australia, the sugarcane fields of Mauritius? These are the places where people laboured for a pittance in wages or no wages at all. They laboured on lands that were stolen from the indigenous peoples? They laboured in inhuman conditions so that a few White men in London, Paris, Antwerp, New York or Basel could amass fortunes beyond the dreams of avarice. Then, is there any justification whatsoever that Man (created in the image of God), any man, should enslave another and exploit him to the death? In"Roots" (© 1976) written by Alex Haley we read with feelings too deep even for tears a story of how a man rudely torn from his family in Africa in 1750 ends with this recounting of that odyssey seven generations later. Indeed, for a human being whose mind has been opened by the LORD God to the Truth it is abominable that human beings, brethren all under the Fatherhood of God, could countenance, much less, justify the conduct of those who issued forth from the European continent 500 years ago to despoil the Earth. The insoluble problem of global warming, the depletion of the Earth’s water resources, the pollution of the environment (earth, air, and sea) and a score of other grave problems could all be traced back to these arrogant Eurocentric racists. Their attitudes should not be allowed to influence us in any way or manner. The LORD chose to bring His Word to Mankind through an Asian people, the Israelites and, latterly, their descendants, the Jews. Jesus, the Christ was a Jew, of the House of Judah, born on the Western edge of the Asian continent. The Mediterranean Basin in which His Word was first preached is the Melting Pot of three continents: Asia, Africa, and Europe. The Word of God went to Armenia, Ethiopia and Egypt long before it reached England. The Mar Thoma congregation in Malabar was established during the lifetime of the ApostleThomas whose grave is to be found in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. A Nestorian Christian congregation existed in Anuradhapura and another in Vavuniya in the 4th century of the Common Era, that is, in the 300s. If one blindly follows the blind both will assuredly fall into a ditch. Open your eyes to reality. Only the utterly naïve and those who would be ignorant would want to be anglophiles# and believe that the Anglo-Saxon peoples represent the zenith of civilization; what they actually represent is the nadir of barbarism. This quote which ends my dissertation puts it quite succinctly:

"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do." - Samuel P. Huntington

Colombo in 1947

2011-10-09T16:08:00.002+05:30

Sunday Observer Oct 9 2011

Colombo I saw in 1947

[Part 1]

by Bernard W. Dissanayake

My very first visit to Colombo was in April 1947, when I was a teenager and my reminiscence is clear and vivid of the city and places I visited then with my parents.
We came to Colombo by Kelani Valley Train, boarding the train at Kahawatta railway station, the one before Opanayake which was the last station on KV Line. Coming from the remote village of Emetiyagoda in Sabaragamuwa boarding a train to Colombo was indeed a thrilling experience we youngsters looked forward to passing many railway stations travelling all day long.
We reached Maradana our destination in the evening. I well remember climbing the steep stairs and coming out of the station to the road at Maradana which was well lit up and full of traffic with tramcars moving and the street filled with people on the pavement. At Maradana we boarded a bus to Dehiwala where we were to stay at our aunty's house down Fairline Lane.
Following day we visited the Colombo museum where the Holy Relics of Sariputta and Moggallana, the Aggrasavaka of Buddha brought down from India were in exposition for Buddhists to pay homage. The main purpose of the visit to Colombo was to pay homage to these relics.

Museum

The entire museum was gaily decorated and a long line of devotees in waiting, winding its way to worship and pay homage to Sacred Relics.
A group of drummers clad in white with decorative red headgear was humming their drums outside the Relic Chamber on the green. The entire place looked dignified and serene and devotees moving slowly and silently to pay homage. These many hundreds of Bhikkhus coming in a different queue to pay homage.
After worshipping the Relics we visited many halls in the museum where historical objects including the throne of the last King of Kandy were on display. We the younger were awe-struck by the impressive museum, its long corridors and archways in gleaming white. The large lawns outside neatly kept with flower beds made a lasting impression in my mind of beauty and order in a garden as part of a large building.
Getting out of the museum with a deep sigh, father took us to show the Race Course, Royal College and the University at Reid Avenue. We walked down Thurstan Road to Reid Avenue under the shades of giant Mara trees grown on both sides of the road, forming a green canopy over the road.
We saw the massive Race Course, the grand stand and the white railing along the race track. The university building and its centre tower and the play ground in front were very impressive. I remember father showing some students entering the large building and saying if we studied hard we too could study there. We had no idea then what a university was. Later when we saw the red buildings of the Royal College nearby with very large trees in the front garden. I thought university was another college for senior boys.

Ocean

Boarding a bus from Reid Avenue we came to Galle Face Green where I was awe-struck by the vast scene I saw - The vast ocean in front with the green running along the Galle Face Hotel at one end and the Parliament, grey in colour, standing at the other end. We all walked the entire length of the Galle Face ground to the spot called Galle Buck, a rocky spot with a few coconut palms and the sea waves dashing on the rocks to reach the beach. We were let to touch the sea water and walk on the beach. From there we saw many ships in the sea across and the harbour at the distance. We walked up to Chatham Street where we had lunch. The shops along that street were full of people mostly foreign tourists.
After lunch with ice cream as dessert we hit the street again and saw the massive grand Queen's House with two impressive gates with uniformed guards standing motionless armed with guns. We were too scared to get near the impressive gates and look closely. Father explained that they were special police guarding the Queen's House where the Governor resides. We visited the beautiful garden next to Queen's House. It was called Gorden Gardens. There we saw beautiful beds of flowers, roses and many others well laid with pathways to walk on adorning that garden.
It was full of European visitors, some seated on the benches eating bananas and pineapples, under shady trees. They appeared to be enjoying the sun very much as some had large hats in their hands.
Leaving the beautiful Gorden Gardens to them we then visited the Colombo harbour and saw large ships anchored at a distance.
We saw the jetty and the landing pier and few white passengers leaving in boats, some carrying bunches of bananas and pineapples. Father explaining to us that they were European travellers returning to their countries by ship.
There were several sailors all in white uniforms wearing caps and appearing very smart on duty at the pier. Opposite the harbour was the Grand Oriental Hotel (GOH) from where many travellers walked to the pier. We were told that Europeans stayed either in the GOH and boarded the ships to travel to England. While watching them leaving in boats to big ships, I thought to myself that journey across the ocean must be thrilling and wished I too could go on board a ship London bound. My father explained to us while walking back from the harbour, that the sea journey took several weeks and the ship had all the things the passengers required during the long sea voyage. That visit to Colombo harbour made a deep impression on me and kindled a desire to travel across the seas one day.
We returned to Emetiyagoda after a few days and the pictures of Colombo, the buildings, the roads, tram cars, parks, gardens and the harbour and the ships lingered in my mind for months. Father bought us Pilot brand fountain pens and tooth brushes and tooth paste for us to use as utility items in Colombo.
My second visit to Colombo was in 1950 to join a college for studies after junior level education in Dickwella, Matara at Vijitha Vidyalaya. After coming to Colombo during my early youth, I grew up in Colombo and saw the city growing up after independence in 1948, and experiencing many changes within the city's urban environment.
When I came to Colombo I stayed in a private boarding house, down Maligakanda Road, Maradana. The boarding house was close to Vidyodaya Pirivena and was opposite to Cliffton Girls School.

Residential areas

Then the area around Maligakanda was typically a residential area, close to two leading boys schools, Ananda College and Nalanda College. The boarding house had a number of students attending Ananda College including my brother and two graduate teachers of Nalanda College.
I attended Alexandra College, Colombo 7 managed by G. Weeramantrie, the well-known maths teacher of the Royal College. Maligakanda area being close to leading schools had boarding facilities in most private houses. It was a service to outstation students attending Colombo schools as well as a source of supplementary income to those householders who had space to let and willing to provide full-board to a few students.
Those days college teachers wore full dress in white and wore a black tie while most junior students wore navy blue shorts and white shirts and the seniors white long trousers and white short sleeve shirts and girls white frocks.
In the mornings and early afternoons Maligakanda Road, otherwise drab, turned lively with white clad students moving down the road after school on their way home.
wThe girls were orderly though somewhat chatty. The most striking feature was that they were not accompanied by parents or any elders.

Propriety

This was probably due to order and propriety that prevailed then in Colombo. Most students walked to schools by themselves and hardly anyone came in vans or other private vehicles. So did teachers and few came in cars or rickshaws.
The entire length of Maligakanda right up to the water supply reservoir on the hill, was dotted with houses some quaint and others cute with hanging flower pots or window boxes.
Only a few had front yards to grow flowers, but most had neatly kept flower pots at the entry points to the houses. One well kept house down Maligakanda Road was 'Sigiriya'.
It was the house where the late Karunaratne Abeysekara and his brothers, who were students at Nalanda College lived with their parents.
I saw the famous lyricist and radio - broad caster going about along Maligakanda Road.
He was immaculately dressed in white trousers and short sleeve shirt. And he wore a thin moustache.
Opposite the 'House Sigiriya' was the well-known dancer Premakumar's Epitawala's residence. On an ordinary day this road was not congested and one could cross at any point without fear as only a few cars and rickshaws moved up and down.
Evenings were colourful with yellow robed bhikkus in groups, leaving the pirivena after classes to their respective temples. Being close to Vidyodaya Pirivena, there were several bookshops and publishing houses along Maligakanda Road, Maradana.

He comes from Sri Lanka

2011-09-18T23:36:00.002+05:30

Sunday Times Sep 18 2011

Cooking up a taste of Jaffna

Devanshi Mody checks out the Yaal virundu Jaffna food festival

A “pottu” the hostess dots you with and ushers you into Yaal Virundu hosted by the Ramada. Attesting to its immense popularity, the annual Jaffna food festival is now in its seventh successive year. If you haven’t been before, do avail yourself of this opportunity over the next three weekends to get a taste of Jaffna.

Curious about cooking traditions particular to Jaffna, I request to meet the chefs whom one expects were brought down from the peninsula. It transpires, however, that the food has been made by in-house chefs. In-house chefs from Jaffna? There seems to be no consensus for someone says a team of Sinhalese chefs has admirably recreated flavours from the northern territory, someone else says the chef is Tamil but from Hatton and yet someone else says the creations are courtesy of their North Indian Chef Santosh Chaniyalal.

Too many cooks might spoil the soup. But they make a superb kool (famous Jaffna seafood soup) and piquant parippu rasam. I am impressed. I am told, but of course, they have called a Tamil amman as consultant. “Is she from Jaffna?” I ask excitedly. I am told, “Eh no, from Wellawatta….” Admittedly, costs of transportation are rather astronomical nowadays.

I find myself soon distracted by a live station where two chefs prepare hoppers and thosais. Thosais are plump and come with an especially good coconut chutney. The hoppers, crisp, porous, served with stunner seeni sambol and lunu miris, are quite possibly the best in Colombo currently. As methods of preparation of dosas vary erratically across Tamil Nadu, I ask if the technique used to prepare these lovely hoppers is particular to Jaffna. I am told somewhat cryptically, “This is a Sri Lankan technique.” But paal appam made with milk and jaggery hoppers are quintessential Jaffna specialities.

After an indulgence of three delicate hoppers I think I should be making an effort with other items on a buffet that perhaps comprises a hundred dishes including titbits like fried banana chips, jak fruit seed etc. Expect countless Jaffna salads, enticingly displayed in indigenous baskets and exotic paraphernalia, cradled on banana leaves and adorned in vibrant vegetable and beautiful floral sculptures. Nobody quite explains to me the difference between varais, poriyals and pachchadis but the salad counter undulates with varais of murunga leaves, bitter gourd, snake gourd and for more bite shark varai (yes!), multifarious poriyals (long beans, cabbage, plantain flower) and pachchadis like mango or ingi (whatever that is is excellent.

The salads, of course, are accompaniments to enhance or modulate robustly flavoured curries to which I next attach myself. Clay and brass pots lain on striking straw mats fume with fragrant preparations. Not having been to Jaffna I cannot vouch for their authenticity but I have travelled extensively around Tamil Nadu the cooking traditions of which one hears influence Jaffna cuisine. However, had I anticipated the explosive spices and teasing tanginess of Chettinad, they aren’t replicated on this buffet. On the other hand, tongue-tickling red brinjal curry in a lightly textured gravy juxtaposed by white brinjal curry thick and heavy with coconut milk, exemplify strains from Tamil Nadu and Southern Sri Lanka that perhaps fashion Jaffna’s unique culinary culture. Again, the fantastic sambaru throbbing with vegetables evokes Tamil Nadu whilst the dhal is as elsewhere in Sri Lanka.

Jaffna’s cuisine is renowned for its seafood and this buffet presents favourites like nandu sodhi (crab and gravy) or variations on prawns (prawns with drumsticks, shallow fried prawns etc) and several fish curries. However, the unexpectedly large variety of vegetarian dishes arrests. Convened for the first time on a single buffet are potato (here made with an unusual red gravy), ash plantain, pumpkin, manioc and bread fruit curries. Nice, firm textures (unlike soggy or undercooked yams often found on buffets).
Preparations are flavoursome, ingredients balanced and certain combinations interest: Beads of fenugreek with enormous pearls of garlic cloves merge in an extraordinary creation. For once I decide to ignore the sheets of oil under which curries are oppressed and oleaginous rivulets running amuck on my plate. My only protest is that the buffet is enormous and worse, everything is delicious. So when the waiter comes to clear my plate for the third time, I say I wish to sample yet something else.

And then I must queue. You would be well advised to reach early or patiently await access to the food as guests before you pile up pyramids of pittu, uppma, string hopper biriyani and tamarind rice (here, a mild approximation of what I’ve had in Tamil Nadu).

The Jaffna Food Festival certainly seems to have captured the tourist imagination for the Alhambra restaurant is packed, predominantly with tourists. One even accosts me to ask if I’ll do a “reportage” about him, “A Saudi tourist in Sri Lanka.”

I quickly extricate myself explaining I must get some fresh mangoes before they are all gone, which they are. But the brisk and obliging steward Lakmal winks, “I’ll get you some from inside.” Desserts on the buffet are many but the jalebis, muscats, halwas and such like are too vigorously hued for me.

The milk toffee, however, looks gorgeous and what looks good generally tastes good. Wonderfully chunky, without the Milkmaid overdose, it melts in the mouth- maybe the only milk toffee I’ve actually eaten in its entirety. You might lose a tooth biting into the thala balls, but it’s worth it for that taste. The pongal is studded with swollen raisins and generous in enormous king cashew nuts, contrasting starkly with buffets at grand hotels where cashews have disappeared or been reduced to shavings.

Amazed by the fare, I am persistent about meeting the chef. Mr Dian (Assistant F&B Manager) presents Chef Asoka. I ask, “Is he from Jaffna?” Mr Dian says, “No he is Sri Lankan.” An averment as colourful as the buffet!
The writer is a freelance travel writer who has contributed to international magazines and newspapers including Tatler, Conde Nast Traveller, Harper's Bazaar, Wallpaper, Elle, The Telegraph, The Evening Standard and The Independent.

The Chartered Bank Boys 1970

2011-07-11T11:51:00.000+05:30

Gerry Carvalho, Felix Vindurampulle, Davidson, Chubby Weinman, Rohan Masilamany

Martin Lizard King

2011-06-28T14:47:00.001+05:30

Martin Lizard King, our Water Monitor friend

a true life adventure compiled by the Sameer family at Eco Village, Sri Lanka in 2006

Eco Village at Sunrise

We wake up together at dawn, each day, and salute the golden radiation of warm sunshine as it touches the far banks of the Dodanduwa Lagoon and paints the Gin Ganga in subtle shades of colors and hues. Feelings of serenity whisper voices of melancholy and weave Utopian dreams of parading solitude into our hearts and gives rise to an amazing awakening from a silent slumber through the night. The aura invades the innermost crevices of our soul, with emotions from a breathtaking beyond, as our eyes survey the contours of this simple little heaven on earth lurking away in a corner, off the southern coast of Sri Lanka and referred to as Eco Village to all commercial and traveller folks. The beautifully manicured lawn with its foliage feasting in the air emanates the human need for peace and contentment within ruffling showers that fill the flowers with the essence of fresh new fragrances throughout each passing day.

In this exotic environment of beauty and splendor, Martin Lizard King, the silent Water Monitor spells out an ancient love story written by time and narrated through nature’s beauty from generation to generation. In so many ways Martin demonstrates his dignified demeanour and grace as he silently, and in all serenity, plays about on the bounteous land and washes his cares away in the silvery streams of the cool lagoon waters. His steadfast strength moves him on, surviving in a jungle called earth where financially-oriented homo sapiens wait, watchfully, for any opportunity to use him and his fellow creatures for amassing power and profit. I watch him in awe, as he rustles through the dried leaves that have fallen overnight to the ground from the massive Kottang trees that stand tall around encircling the village.

Our friend, Martin Lizard King

Martin Lizard King moves, glides gracefully across the Eco Village lawn, six feet of sun-kissed hide skirting the mangroves through the grass and sliding silently into the lagoon where he swims in deep delight amidst his fellow water creatures, hoping to catch his daily breakfast and relish it by himself. He then moves up to the surface, his watchful eyes skimming the water line, his webbed feet paddling gracefully beneath, his slithery tail swishing left and right, as he moves regal like a dugout canoe, and shows off to me how great his simple, yet beautiful life, plays out.

That’s Martin, our Water Monitor friend, sleek in design, majestic in float, full of sense and sensibilities of life where his script is written by stealth, silence, shelter and satisfaction, which plays eternally on, like a rhythmic music, every single day and night, until eternity.

A walk through the Mangrove Arboretum

The flora and fauna are plentiful at Eco Village, in Dodanduwa, where we spent a few fabulous weeks, on a summer holiday in

Sri Lanka

. The mangroves dip silently into the water, encircling the lake in its entirety providing a canopy of safety, security, and livelihood to all of God’s creatures who share it as a common home. Live cranes, cormorants, storks, gulls and even hundreds of bats enveloping the skies at night, and an assortment of fish feeders linger in the vicinity of the lagoon. Owls hoot, intermittently at night breaking the still air into peals of wailing sound bytes. Sometimes, the silence is shattered by the screech of a “Did you do it” bird streaking off to perch on the branch of a tree. Martin undoubtedly is the head prefect, strong in stature and rigid in his right, spectacularly prominent in his brown camouflaged coat as he moves, stealthily, in peace, comfort and harmony, amongst his dwarfed family.

We never saw him fight or squabble, no “Big Boss” small fry divisions of ruling the proletariat. There’s enough fish, shrimp and vegetation for all in the majestic waters of the lagoon, and, Martin is very democratic, and the bulk and the best of his wisdom is based on sharing, based on a simple live and let live doctrine. The birds take their allocated slots in this ancient tableau of water and enjoy the gift of life undisturbed and uncomplicated, laced with an unselfish attitude that we clearly see as their daily bread, in order to sustain life.

Martin rules the roost; he has not much to worry about, just a fish or two or even some insects, to relish and then stretch out and enjoy a quiet siesta in the afternoon, as the day passes and the shadows lengthen with the cloak of darkness approaching nigh. We see him moving stealthily away to wherever he beds for the night and we know we should not enter into his bedroom for mutual respect and gentlemanly privacy. That multiplied by 365 would be a year for him, but that too is of little consequence as he does not measure life by Gregorian or Hijri calendar squares hung on a wall.

We know he hasn’t invested or saved up any money in finance companies or big beastly banks, and has no idea, whatsoever, what world recession is. He does not care what Barak Obama plans for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, or where the G20 mandarins meet next to shake hands, lift up their glasses, and postpone world problems for another “party” day. Little does he know of the Madoffs, Stanfords and Kotelawalas languishing behind cold grey bars for their short-sighted selfishness and greed that have botched up this money-chasing Universe into a chaotic cauldron. He has no wars to fight nor lies to read in print and does not worry about how the price of gold and oil barrels yo-yo in the topsy turvy world markets. He gives two hoots for Dow Jones, Nasdaq or Hang Seng. The widely transmitted Satellite news networks of CNN, BBC, MSNBC, AlJazeera, and even Fox never reach his domain, not for the want of a dish and receiver but purely because he simply doesn’t care. He doesn’t have to worry about what Larry King, Oprah Winfrey, Dr. Phil or even David Letterman have to espouse in seeking to bring news, discussions, gossip, sensation, and laughter to inquisitive and petty minded human beings. Plastic doesn’t mean a thing to him. Why should he worry about who is taking whom out to dinner in LA? To Martin, land is sacred, green is sacred, and water is sacred, and, I am sure he prays at the sacred altars of nature, a worthy worship sans the hymns, candles, drums, bowing, prostration and pageantry, simple to understand, gentle to live, and easy to believe.

Yes, John Keats created that historic and unforgettable Ode to his beautiful song bird and we simply could not resist the temptation to try and bring about some of the very same sensibilities in prose and define our watchful Water Monitor friend, Martin, in a similar tempo, even though the two live in far off lands, miles away from each other, in remote corners of the planet. Intoxicated with the hemlock of his Nightingale and bemused by the verses that define nature and life in a way that it aught to have been, I am sure Keats won’t mind, since there are people who sing from similar hymn sheets and odes and pursue a “live and let live policy” within their very own faiths. No legacy to lawyer coffers and no prides for protection rights. No cops to be hassled by and no politicians to vote for. It doesn’t even matter what the weather-people have to say today. Life should be simplified, could certainly be simplified and made truly liveable on this great piece we call our beloved Mother Earth.

If Dr. King was still alive and had the chance to visit the Village, he would probably take a leaf from Martin and quote the simple and pure life that he and his fellow creatures are sharing as an example of how we humans could live in our own little acre. The complete respect for each species within this domain based on simple instinct and survival values teaches many a valuable lesson to all of us mere mortal human beings, even with all our wisdom, intelligence, and knowledge.

My heart yearns to be able to pick a day from Martin, just one day, where I could wake up and trudge to some beautiful water heaven and enjoy a melodious moment watching the wind move the waves while a dragonfly flicks over the waterline. I would like to strut in peace with my fellow dwellers, both man and beast, eat fish and rice, some fruit and veges, and watch the slow roll of cartoon white clouds across a sheet of a clear blue sky singing its swan song. Maybe ask a stork how he learnt to make his catch so spritely or tell a cormorant his black is beautiful. Kermit the frog would probably retort with a, “grepep” before he smiles back at me and dives into the depths of the sparkling lagoon hoping to find his Miss Piggy down below? How delightful to engage in some peaceful chatter, while dining, with all of God’s beautiful creatures to pass the time away.

Maria, our grand daughter, amidst the flowers and stone

Not in the least does it cross his mind that far away, in many distant places where streets are named as Wall and Dalal, Docklands count the pennies, and Bulls and Bears engage in mighty conflict perched on top of roundabouts, through each passing day, there are those who seek to wear and display clothing, ornaments and footwear, made elegantly off the skin of Martin and his fellow creatures sun-kissed backs. He does not celebrate the many wonderful people who engage in vociferous campaigns, protests and marches against the illegal trade in animal fur and hide. If he only had the means and ability to send an email to the WTO management to seek their assistance in banning this evil commerce off the face of this planet?

And the sun rolls over to its zenith bringing a fresh lease of life everyday to every living species in and around the lagoon. Even the grasshoppers, with their bright little green trousers, make merry singing, hipperty skipperty high and low on the lawn, enjoying the summer fun as they watch Martin pass by.

Once, every calendar month the full moon rolls over, accompanied by the chanting of the monks in the Monastery located on the island in the middle of the Lagoon, their tingling bells resonating a pleasant melody, echoing across the water and then through the brush of the mangroves. Martin looks up and smiles. The light which the moon reflects suits him fine to seek his dinner. The sound of the bells don’t bother him one bit.

Grandkids, Maria & Abdullah, and the Lagoon

No doubt he has to keep an eye on the predators, both man and beast, who prowl around all day and night. Security is never lacking, not even in his neck of the woods. I watch in amazement as our eight year old grandson, Abdullah, chases behind him with a twig, staying a safe distance away for fear that he may turn around and bite. I wonder what goes on in Abdullah’s mind as he innocently wants to play with the lizard, another young and carefree simple human being with fewer qualms and issues in his heart and mind. How similar they both are in so many ways, and yet, how different too? And how very diverse they will eventually grow up to become in this place we call home? Maria, our eleven year old grand daughter chooses to stay as far away from Martin as possible. She has yet to churn up her courage to get any closer.

Rice and curry, served Paradise style

The tranquillity that this place brings into human hearts cannot be fathomed unless one visits and experiences it at a very personal level. In real time, the appetising aroma that seeps from the kitchen that the owner, Abey, cares for so much with his able chef and assistant, must surely kindle Martin and his friends’ senses even though he knows he does not have access to any of it unless he manages to steal a scrap or two from the waste bins after dark. We relish the food and walk towards the water after the sun has gone down and watch the stillness of the night in absolute awe. If you ever want to conjure up a little bit of Heaven on earth then you must visit Eco Village before you depart.

Maybe we can change roles with our Lizard friend, borrow his lifestyle, if not all, at least some sediments, then maybe we too could have a better day, a better life and a better view of what’s around all of us, and learn the rudiments of how to appreciate living, sharing, and contentment?

Thank you Martin for opening our eyes and letting us see the beauty of life, since they’ve been shut in ignorance for way too long.

Writing about Martin with young Abdullah, our Grandson, by my side

"Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books." John Lubbock

"And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything." William Shakespeare

Clare Caspersz moves on

2011-06-27T10:25:00.000+05:30

The doyen of Sri Lanka's Finishing School for ladies, Ms Clare Claspersz (daughter of Bobby Arnolda), passes away in Colombo at the ripe old age of 92. May she rest in Peace

Clare, a mixture of pride and satisfaction

An article BY CHANDANI Jayatilleke in the DN of 1-1-2005

CLARE Caspersz is a versatile teacher. At 86, Clare is young at heart; she is active and radiant. And she still teaches her many students in her hotel school. The reason for her ever green attitude is simply her love for teaching and helping youngsters to come up in their professions with poise and confidence.

Clare is the proprietress/directress of the Claremont Finishing School and the Claremont Hotel School in Kotahena. Throughout Sri Lanka, she is known for her ability for training students in hotel management, cookery and social graces.

On October 2, Clare will celebrate three major milestones in her life - her 86th birthday, the 50th anniversary of the Claremont

Finishing School and the 35th anniversary of the Claremont Hotel School.

Clare, who hails from a rich Burgher family, was inspired by her father and his business in the travel and tourism. Her father, Boby Arnolda, ran a very successful business and mingled with many top persons of the business community.

"Those days, after school I went to my father's office and watched how he dealt with various business partners. I think that inspired me to start my own business,"

Clare says recalling her childhood. Clare had a knack for beauty culture, dress making and cookery and social grace. She thought of sharing her skills and talent with many other persons by conducting classes.

That's how she got into the trade and began the Claremont Finishing School. "And I had the right attitude.

When you have the right attitude, you can do anything. I had many people coming for the classes. But I needed to get myself qualified in these fields," she said.

She went to London for further studies and studied in well-known cookery, dress making and beauty culture schools.

"When I came back, I was featured in a Lake House newspaper. With that a lot of people came to know about me and started coming for my classes," she said.

Her school has been visited by many celebrities, diplomats and prominent personalities. Among them were the late Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike and the late President J.R. Jayewardene.

"Once, we had an exhibition and J.R. Jayewardene came as the chief guest. Following that, he encouraged me to start a hotel school where lots of other young people - both men and women - could benefit."

JRJ also gave her three scholarships to study hotel management in Germany, France and Switzerland. "When I came back I started the hotel school under the guidance of JRJ in 1970."

But she had very humble beginnings. Her success over 50-years is due to her total dedication and commitment to her work. Being a well disciplined person, Clare made her students also disciplined.

This is one reason why her many students have been successful in their professions here or abroad. Clare has immense pride about her students who hold various positions in the hotel trade all over the world.

And several of her students are the proud owners of successful catering businesses in the country. "I am happy to see all my students carry out their work with integrity and respect for their employers," she says.

She put a lot of hard work to build the institution to be a fully-fledged hotel school. In fact her hotel school came long before the Ceylon Hotels School came into existence. "I built this school by piece by piece" she says with a mixture of pride and satisfaction.

Each year, she trains hundreds of students in the hotel school.

Today, Clare is delighted to see many hundreds, if not thousands, of her students placed in top posts.

"I have taught fathers and sons mothers and daughters. I have also given a lot of free training courses to needy students," she says with much pride.

Besides her profession, Clare has travelled all over the world appreciating the beauty and serenity and history of various countries.

Clare's late husband, who was an Army Officer, gave her much encouragement. But he never interfered with her work. She says that he used to say 'Clare is married to her hotel school'. And she used to say, 'He is married to the Army'. However, the Caspersz family had five sons, four of them now live abroad.

Although she is about to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of her Finishing School and the 35th Anniversary of the Hotel School, the sad thing is that this will be the last year of her teaching career. She has decided to retire at the end of the year.

The next generation of youngsters would not be fortunate enough to be trained and get qualified in Claremont under the guidance of bubbly Clare.

Quest for ShangriLa

2011-06-26T10:15:00.000+05:30

Nation June 12 2011

Tissa Devendra: The quest for Shangri-La

There is something immeasurably attractive about the way Tissa Devendra puts down his thoughts, moving into the days of his childhood and youth, memories like those windows of his long-gone world - snapshots, as he says, in soft focus of the times and the way of life that palpitates no longer around us.

Calling this excellent book his Stories and Diversions, he dedicates it all to his first-born grandson, Sankya, and his granddaughters Sahitra and Swyrie, and is wont to say how these memories linger, oddly enough, long after places have gone,

“Many of my diversions are random, often irreverent thoughts on the history and manners of our beloved Sri Lanka”, he says, and the artistry brings back the old to wag fingers at the new.

While he has kept the quest for Shrangri-La for the last of his writers, I found so much more in his second story, Dreaming of Tibet, and of which he has carried a gorgeous cover picture of an ancient Lhasa Temple clinging to its mountain precipice. He tells us first of 1920 Colonial Ceylon when Ananda College, headed by Kularatne, bubbled with patriotic fervour. It was the time when the College students discarded the Colonial symbol of coat and tie to adopt the Ariya Sinhala dress. The college was soon a magnet for the icons of Indian nationalism and students listened enthralled to the Mahatma, to Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya, to the Indian poet Sarojini Naidu (who was once known to have a Sinhalese lover) ... It was also the time when theosophists Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott were the guiding lights of Buddhist education, and there flowed in other Britishers and Americans who interacted with the revival of Buddhism.

It was the American scholar of Tibet’s Tantrayana Buddhism who was most interesting. He was W. Y. Evans-Wentz. Tissa gives us a title print of a book - Tibet’s Great Yogi Milarepa: A biography from the Tibetan being the Jetsun-Khabum - Biological history of Jetsun Milarepa according to the late Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdep’s English rendering. This book was edited with introduction and annotations by Evans-Wentz.

Tissa’s father, the famous DT, also read every book on Tibet he could find, and Tissa was free, even as a schoolboy, to read all the books in the home. He was soon fascinated by the intricately-carved temples, whirling dragon-dancing monks, yak caravans and the beautiful forbidding mountains, He learnt of yak shepherds, serene monks in strange headgear or in fearsome masks, the paintings of spirits in conjugal embrace - a spiritual ecstasy - and the sky burials, where the dead were cut up and left as food for the mountain eagles.

Tibetan Buddhism held young Tissa enthralled - Lamas in the snow, meditating in a trance ... others in their small kulis, meditating for years within walls ... the transference of the spirit of high Lamas to infant boys. That was the tradition that gave an unbroken line of thirteen earlier Dalai Lamas.

It was another book, Seven Years in Tibet, by Heinrich Harrer that told Tissa of the present Dalai Lama’s flight from Lhasa’s Forbidden Kingdom to India where he fashioned a Little Tibet at Dharamsala in the foothills of the Himalayas.

Tissa has held scant toleration for the Communist China of Chairman Mao that brutally invaded Tibet. Books gave the western stories of ill-armed Tibetan guerrillas and stave-wielding Lamas who resisted the Chinese Peoples Army and the Red Guards. Many Tibetans perished, many fled to India and China established administrative control, abolished the clerical regime and dragged medieval and monastic Tibet, kicking and screaming, into the 20th century.

Tissa has little love for the Dalai Lama too, who had learned to love his multi-cultural freedom in Dharmasala, attracted journalists, politicians, and film stars, and travelled the western world, establishing Tibetan monasteries in America and Britain. Tissa was saddened by the way the Dalai Lama became a sort of pop icon, compromising his moral stature to hobnob with Presidents, Prime Ministers and Hollywood stars, even blessing the US President for the thousands of deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. Today there is a high-speed railway linking Lhasa to Beijing and Tissa’s Tibet of his dreams lies buried in the permafrost of history. But he does not forget Evans-Wentz who left behind The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Decades later, this became a ‘sacred text’ of the Hippie – Beat-LSD movement.

Malalasekera’s Dream
I would like to drop down to Tissa’s 14th story: Malalasekera’s Dream. It is not that I wish to confuse readers but I feel that this story carries much that deserves to be told of, Mind you, should this article be too long for my editors, I have already patterned a Part 2, maybe Part 3 as well. Will my editor mind? I think not.

On page 79 we have Malalasekera’s Dream: The World Fellowship of Buddhists, and Tissa’s memory takes him back to that very first 1950 gathering in Ceylon - a gathering that gave impetus and inspiration for the 1956 Buddha Jayanthi celebrations. This Wesak, we celebrate the 2,600th Golden Jubilee of the Buddha Jayanthi. The first 1950 gathering was the need, the dream, to knit together the many Buddhist organisations and scholars the world over especially those of Buddhist culture and traditions.

As Tissa says, Asia was then emerging from the dark clouds of Colonialism. This gathering would not allow the rising flood of western materialism to submerge the old ways.

Malalasekera was a leading member of the Young Men’s Buddhist Association (YMBA), and President of the All Ceylon Buddhist Congress (ACBC). He was also dean of the University Faculty of Oriental Studies, and in setting up his core group, made his dear friend D. T. Devendra, his key player.

Such a gathering it was ... King Sisavong Vong of Laos; Rani Dorji of Bhutan; Princess Poon Diskul of Thailand. There was also Ambedkar and Zen scholar Dr. D. T. Suzuki; Major-General Tunttla Aung of Burma ... Bhikkhu Sujivo of Thailand told of why Thai Bhikkhus wore shorter robes to avoid mud when walking through fields, and he also introduced the saffron sling-bags that had never been seen or used before in Ceylon.

There were elegant Japanese Buddhist ladies from Hawaii, and the Chinese twins, both with wispy beards, from Hong Kong. The Catholic Minister of Religious Affairs represented Emperor Boo Dei of Vietnam, and England was represented by Miss E. B. Homer, a Pali scholar, and Cyril Moore.

Tissa, who was a bit-player at the gathering, also met Mademoiselle Suzanmne Karpeles who came from France’s Les Amis du Budhisme. (Is that The Friends of Buddhism?).

It was soon noted that our Bauddha Kodiya - so popular here, was not known of abroad. Malalasekera then made of it the universal symbol of Buddhist unity. He placed hundreds of the little silk flags on the delegates desks and these were eagerly taken back to the delegates home countries.

This story takes me back to 1956 when I sailed on Her Majesty’s Ship, Vijaya, to Burma, carrying a statue of the Buddha as a gift to the Schwedagon monastery and pagoda. Our Chief Signals Officer hoisted the Buddhist Flag on the main mast while we were alongside Queen Elizabeth pier, and this brought signals from many ships in harbour. A Canadian destroyer actually slipped moorings to come alongside, asking if we were in trouble. ‘What is that strange flag?’ we were asked. It took time to explain, for any flag not known of in the Book of International Signals only meant that the ship was in serious trouble.

There have been instances of a ship in “labour” even hoisting a broom and a bucket!

It is now time to take on the first diversion on page 120, titled The First and Last Tisssa. As Tissa says: “Having been named Tissa by my parents, I was, as a schoolboy in the 1940s, basking in reflected glory whenever a King Tissa appeared in our history books.”

Again, the wandering mind - The Arahat Mahinda called to our hunter king, Tissa! Tissa! Reading the ‘Rajavaliya,’ Tissa discovered that Devanampiya Tissa was not the first Tissa who answered Mahinda’s summons. His father was Mota Tissa, and Mota’s father, who was the son of Pandukabhaya, was Gana Tissa. So there was a pre-Buddhist usage of the name.

There were also some of the early Buddhist disciples: Mogaliputta Tissa, and the name was also adopted by twenty kings - Suiddha Tissa, the pious; Sura Tissa, the fierce; Deta / Jetta Tissa, senior, and Upa Tissa, junior; Kuda Tissa, the little; Kelani Tissa; Yatala Tissa; Kavan Tissa, the crow-black; Mahadalioya Tissa of the big beard; Vankanasika Tissa, the crooked-nosed; and Voharaka Tissa, the loud-mouthed; Dalpa Tissa, a rather obscure ruler who reigned for nine years.

Buddhist monks will occasionally use the name Tissa to this day, but the name seems to have gone into hibernation for nearly 1,000 years. Anyway, our Tissa found his first post-Mahavamsa friend: Tissa Amerasekara, and a most wonderful man at that. As he says, ‘His achievements in Literature and in film, his brilliance in Sinhala and English, left an indelible imprint to be long remembered and studied. It is our tragedy that he left us at the height of his creative power and I dedicate this in memory of the greatest Tissa of our age.’

Well - I have still so much to tell of so many stories, diversions and writers. Let’s go on to part 2. How about Karapothas, Kan-Kun, Kokis and the Kakkussiya?

Nation June 19 2011

Of Portuguese comings and Dutch doings

Part 2 of Tissa Devendra’s Quest for Shangri-La

Tissa Devendra was an interested observer at an International Conference on The Portuguese Encounter. He tells about it in his Diversions (page 125): Encountering Portuguese Names, and in his next tale: Something Rich and Very Strange. I’m holding back the ‘Encounter’ for a moment, because Tissa has taken some pains to tell us of – guess what? – that all¬-too-familiar insect pest, the Karapoththa!

‘I was reading an old travel book about Brazil,’ he says, ‘and I discovered that fro the local Portuguese, this pest was Carpatos. I fired off a query to the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (RAS) that had published something about this in its journal. I wanted to know whether we in Ceylon had no karapoththas until the Portuguese came here 500 years ago in their vermin-infested wooden ships and ‘gifted us’ these pests and their word for them. Or did they never have such pests till they landed here and took the creatures and the Sinhala word for them back to Brazil?

‘The RAS had many scholars who knew much about the Portuguese language, but there was no response. No etymologist made reply either until a Sinhalese scholar, Professor Vinnie Vitharana said that we did have cockroaches here before 1505 and we called them deliyo. But why and when did we start calling them karapoththas? He never knew and could not imagine how the name went to Brazil unless there was some Iberian connection.

Tissa is still trying to sort this out and adds: ‘If the cockroaches came with the Portuguese in 1505, we have yet another grudge to curse them with!’
Coming back to names, that 2005 conference was prevailed on by scholars who still carried Portuguese surnames that their forefathers had adopted five centuries ago. Tissa regrets that there was no paper presented that gave reasons for the wide prevalence of Portuguese family names among the Sinhalese of the south-west maritime region. In fact, a Brazilian friend was astonished to find so many such names and said that most of them seemed to come from Portuguese Jews who had bolted to the colonies to escape discrimination at home.

Silvas, Pereras and Mendis’
Let’s put this into quick mode, shall we... How come our Silvas, Pereras. Mendis’s, etc., are all Buddhists. In Goa, Pintos and De Souzas are Catholic. Our people also stuck to the Portuguese honorific, Don for men and Dona for women. We had Don Baron Jayatilaka and Don Stephen Senanayake. Tissa says that his grandfather and all the sons were also Dons.

He gives us a cutting from a Telecom Directory, full of Portuguese surnames as well as a picture of lace-making – a cultural heritage left behind by the Portuguese. The women wear typical jackets of Portuguese fashion that prevailed in that era.
When the Dutch barged in there was another stir, for no Sinhalese was allowed to adopt Dutch names. Soon, the Sinhalese with Portuguese names began to reject any suggestion that they were of Portuguese ancestry. It was a name-game of sorts. There was more nonsense when the British moved in and we began naming our sons after British Governors, government-agents, British politicians, poets, and even in the early 1930s thought they had great children they named after Benito Mussolini and Hitler.

In Jaffna the Hindu Tamils resisted Portuguese names but there were adaptations of Christian names, giving us Jesu-thasan, Maria-thasan and Saveri (Xavier) – muttu. When the American missionaries came in the late 19th century, there was, for some Hindus, a rush to convert and take the names of their Godfathers. We then had Handy, Mather, Crossette, Watson, even Shakespeare!

Tissa tells us that the British rulers liked the spelling ‘oo’ to indicate a specific Sinhala sound. We have the old estate La-boo-kelle and family names such as G-oo-newardene and G-oo-netilleke with the ‘e’ ending in wardene, tilleke, naike, etc. Many of these families tended to be Christian since the Brits favoured competent natives of that faith. However, by the 20th century families began the New Spelling of the Brits who dumped the ‘oo’ and used the ‘u’. Soon the English directories were full of G-u¬newardena and G-u-natilaka with the endings in ‘a.’

Caste-marker
To the Portuguese there arose caste, creed and colour. Our English Sinhalese twisted the alphabet to make it a caste-marker. While the Portuguese had Perez, we got onto ‘Pie’ris, ‘Pei’ris, ‘Pei’ries and ‘Pee’ris. The Portuguese Sous(z)a was adapted as Soysa. The Sinhalese also hyphenated names as an unmistakable caste-marker – such as Dias Bandaranaike.

The Burghers then fought a rear-guard action, using the non-Sinhalese letters F and Z. They changed Perera into Pere-i-ra, telling of their European ancestry. At times they even dropped the P and used the F and became Burgher F-ere-i-ras. When the Sinhalese-Portuguese descendent spelt his name Da Silva, he was using the same as the name of the Brazilian President, Lula Da Silva The Burghers used the Z and W making the Z-il-w-as and De Z-il-w-as.

Tissa also tells of one amusmg transformation where the Scottish “McCloud was spelt Ma-ek-la-wood’.

In his story, Frocks, Clogs and Rompers (page 132) we are told of the traumatised villagers of Kebittigowella and Seruwila – where he had worked – where women wore frocks, knee-length, shapeless and of cotton. Yet, long ago these same women wore the Redda-hattay at home, the Osariya to the temple and the Diya-Redda when bathing. In the Rajarata he tells of the Diga-Kamisa – ankle-length cassock-like garments worn by the boys in the village school. They wore no shoes and played boisterous games with their Diga-Kamisa tucked waist-high.

Then came the saree. At first, such sarees were kept to be worn only at weddings and conventions, and the wearers would soon go back to their usual skirts, salwas, denims, while the elders put on their Dubai-Gavum or Laesthi-Gavum,

It was Tissa’s father who told how the Anagarika Dharmapala – a resolute nationalist - waged a war against such dresses of colonialism. He called it a disgraceful aping of 16th century Portuguese dress and even compelled his mother to discard her Saaya and wear the Kandyan Osariya. Yet, in the low county the women rook to long flowing skirts – but the Anagarika’ s message came across and soon the saree dominated the fashion scene. However it wasn’t long before the Indian saree began to fill low country wardrobes. The Anagarika was not happy, but in the Pettah, Sindhi and Gujarati merchants brought in the Indian sarees to be eagerly snapped up.

All this brought in various saree styles. In Panadura and Moratuwa the saree fall was drawn over the back of the head. This is now long forgotten. Muslim women wore the saree steadfastly with the fall to cover all their hair. Today they wear Hijabs. In the 1920-30s the temple artist M. Sarlis, enlivened the viharas with colourful portraits and these were popularized by W. E. Bastian. Soon many old houses had their living rooms honoured by paintings of queens, princesses and devas, draped in modest sarees so unlike the revealing stuff from India.

Badge of distinction
We find the saree becoming a badge of distinction. The lady of the house wore it, while the Ayah and Kussiamma wore the Redda-Hattay. But even this began to crumble by the 1950s when the ‘Veevin’ (Rural Handloom Centres) took in village girls who were termed Working Girls, dressed in frocks; and all over became full-frock Factory Girls. With the exodus to the Middle East, Dubai-Gavum, Bhai-Suits and Hijabs became the wear of housemaids.

What would we call our national dress? Tissa suggests that Sinhala Buddhist peasants never did have a tradition-bound or religiously-ordained national costume. They wore anything that was appropriate. Even today one can worship in whatever one wears if it is modest. It would have been the Anagarika who insisted on the wearing of white to the temple, but we have one of Keyt’s early works: Worshippers at the Dalada Maligawa, that shows women in many-coloured sarees.

Today, as Tissa says, our streets, even jungle trails carry an infinite variety of frocks, school uniforms, Dubai-Gavums, minis, dresses that are flared, flounced, hip-hugging, saucily split. Yes, the frock struck back!

We have also had clogs – wooden slippers that resounded in Ceylon homes in the World War Two years. No one knew how they appeared, then disappeared. The town dwellers of Ceylon would pound the streets in clogs. It was the war effort that took our rubber and the shoe-and-slipper makers demand for rubber could not be met. It meant flat wooden rubberless slippers – and then came the ‘Issato’ wooden clogs trademarked by a Mr. Issadeen of the Pettah. There were large masculine designs for men, slimmer stylish clogs for ladies and dinky versions for children.
Tissa tells of his brief life in Kandy’s Dharmaja College where the boarders wore clogs to school. Their massed entry in thundering clogs drowned all other sound. ‘It was like the Charge of the Light Brigade,’ he says. ‘The Principal then announced a ban on clogs and that was that.

Corning to a fashion scene, he then tells of children’s clothes, when newspapers and British women’s journals told of ruffled silky suits for Page Boys and crinolines for Flower Girls. Tissa’s family portraits show the home-made garments they wore, called the Romper. This was a one piece garment buttoned up at the back. Ayahs called it the Jungee. He, as a child, wore it until he qualified for shorts and they were a vital element of his faraway childhood.

Dona Catherina
Let’s break away to consider Dona Catherina, shall we? Readers will find this Diversion on Page 143. As you can see, the word Dona takes us back to the Portuguese. The father, Karalliadde Bandara, fled to the Portuguese with his infant daughter to escape internecine slaughter in Kandy. The Portuguese realised that they had a ‘Crown Jewel’ in their hands - a potential heiress to the Kandyan throne.
They planned to make of this infant another Don Juan Dharmapala. She would gift the Kandyan Kingdom to them. The child, who was Kusumasana Devi, was then unethically baptized and named Dona Catherina. She was then entrusted to the nuns but none knew that she was destined to marry two ‘heathen’ princes.

Long before the coming of the Portuguese in 1505, Lanka’s kings were proudly bejewelled, but went topless in bare-chested glory. Dona Catherina of Portuguese taste was offended by the sight. She needed the support of her royal husband, Vimala Dharma Suriya. There was also Konappu Bandara who the Portuguese had baptized, calling him Don Juan of Austria. (Why Austria?) But given the opportunity he abandoned the Portuguese, rallied the Sinhalese, defeated the Portuguese army invading Kandy, seized the teen-aged Dona Catherina and crowned her puppet queen of Sinhale. In any event, both carried a lot of the Portuguese characteristics, possibly even speaking Portuguese to each other.

Dona Catherina began to cover up the bare chests of Kandyan nobility if only to show the Portuguese that the Sinhalese were not half-naked barbarians. She also changed the headgear and redesigned all royal regalia.

As Tissa says, ‘I came to realise that Kandyan dress underwent a change around the 16th century. All this had to be the work of one woman Kusumasana Devi - who was taken to bed by two kings and into the hearts of the people of Sinhale. ‘

Ok... so I told readers earlier of Kan-Kun and Kokis. Can I go on to this Part Three? You see how beautifully this book has been presented. I know also that whether you enjoy (or not) what I give here, there is also a great deal I intend to leave out. My proposed Part Three will bring my own reviews to a close. This is why you must simply take this book into your house, your library, and your bed... any place you can read and reread and know how memories gather and keep gathering in the mind of one of our finest writers.

Nation June 26 2011

A final clutch of memoriesReview of Tissa Devendra’s Quest for Shangri-La – Part Three

As I told readers in Part Two, I will be leaving a lot unsaid, simply because this book has to be read.
How will it serve to keep writing of all that it contains? I hope to take you that final threesome: Tissa, his Mother, Father, and learn of their first home off Baseline Road, Borella. They had lots of good neighbours as well as a young couple from Japan who were firm friends. I’m carving this up in the best way I can so please don’t think that I am deliberately making omissions.
As Tissa says, they had a lot of Door Stop Shopping. There came the Vattiammas with their vegetables, the fish vendors. The old Kooni-amma with shrimps, a Chinaman with his bundles of silks and laces, the Thrombal-karaya, Bombai-mutai-karaya, and the milk man. There were fast food vendors too, with their lunumiris achcharu and unu-unu pittu and, on certain months in an open playground space, the Sakkali Usaviya where latrine coolies gathered to squat round an old ‘judge’ who pronounced justice on those who had to bear the brunt of pilfering, assault and domestic disputes.

Readers will be told of his mother’s love for gardening, the magnificent zennias she grew that were so impressive that that an artist-friend made an award-winning pastel drawing of the flowers – a picture that still adorns their home seventy-five years later. Tissa also tells of a 1939 musical performance by a white-bearded Rabindranath Tagore who, with a book on his lap sang to a troupe of Indian maidens who dance with supple grace.

It was when schooling came that that the Devendras moved to a new home, nearer Nalanda College. They were four children then and yet another move to Dharmajah Hill, Kandy. No... I wont tell you of the Steroiopticon that when put to use, a box of pictures told of a long-lost world and street scenes of 1897 London. Many moves later, Tissa takes you to the Forbidden Forest of Kandyan Royalty and thereon to Horseshoe Street. He has given us a separate book on this collection of stories – a must buy if you don’t have it already.

Tissa’s father bought his first camera – a German Agfa – and it was when at Dharmarajah College that Tissa was diagnosed as short-sighted and had to wear spectacles. On doing so the boys in his class hooted and even called him Kannadi Polonga – but it was worth it. He could see as never before.

Considering that Dharmarajah was founded by Colonel Olcott, with a student body of mainly Sinhala Buddhists as well as Sindhis, Muslims and Tamils, there still came to the upper kindergarten the exotic George Davies, a yellow-haired Lansi whose father was a forest guard and lived across the road at Uduwattakelle. As war closed in Tissa’s father was appointed Principal of a Ratnapura school. Another move... and Ratnapura was the rainiest of towns, where he travelled by buggy to school in the 1940s. He could not forget Kandy. Seventy years ago he saw the twilight of the Colonial era and remembers the Grass For My Feet author, 1. Vijay-Tunga, who came from Galle.

There is a very interesting – no, fascinating chapter on the Karl Kasmana Caper that I leave for my readers. Let’s say it involved an Estonian cargo ship that had sailed into Colombo Harbour and was impounded. There were Soviet films and books Claudine Libovitsz, an East European blonde, the Red American Rhoda Miller and both deported by Prime Minister Kotelawala.

Moving to Colombo it was the season of the old tram cars in 1946. When, in the 1950s, the Municipality scrapped the trams the last tramcar was decorated with streamers and balloons on its last haul to Grandpass with a hired Kotahena Band belting out the Funeral March.

He tells of the streets of his childhood memories, porticos to shelter people running in from the rain and how he accompanied his father to ‘keep an eye’ on the filming of Elephant Walk at Sigiriya. Since his father was then Assistant Archaeological Commissioner, they stayed at the Circuit Bungalow and spent evenings at the Takaran-roofed rest-house. You must read about it all especially when they took Vivien Leigh to Anuradhapura. Not long later she abandoned the film and flew back to London – and Elizabeth Taylor was spliced into the film.

And so to Galle where Tissa was a District Land Officer. He tells of Fred Brook, an American with a Hasselblad camera and of encounters with super swamis who broke every rule to take villages for everything they offered – food, money, flowers, honey. Trincomalee was in this regards most attractive.

As Government Agent, Jaffna, he was close to Alfred Duraiappah, Mayor, who was a close ally of Felix Dias Bandaranaike, Mrs B’s right-hand man.

Tissa makes no bones about this. When a young Tamil shot Alfred on the Temple steps of the Vishnu kovil. He later knew of the teen-age thug, Prabhakaran who had fled by boat to Tamil Nadu.

Read, of Tissa’s year at Cambridge, 1968-69. It’s worth every word and I’m keeping mum. He also tells of the women of passion, poison and power from the Chronicles of the Mahavamsa, Culavamsa, Rajavaliya and folk songs - their celebrations, festivals, the Sandesa poems, then of the Kokis – or Koekjis as called by the Dutch, and how the Dutch Kak-huis, the outside lavatory, had become the Sinhala Kakkussiya.

You will be told of George Keyt and young Lionel Wendt and how they met another Keyt named Thomas who had forged Keyt’s paintings. He was convicted by the Supreme Court and transported to Penang jail in Malaya in 1865. In 1870 he met George Wendt, also convicted of forgery while in the Ceylon Bank. Both were dispatched to Singapore where they were engaged in building the Governor’s Palace while ringleaders, the Blaze brothers set the prison ablaze to destroy incriminating documents Keyt and Wendt were supposed to have.

It is in his final piece, Quest/or Shangri-La, that Tissa tells of D. H. Lawrence, having discovered that Lawrence lived for some time in Kandy and for a few months in the old bungalow they had occupied near Dharmarajah College. Lawrence came to Ceylon in 1922, but he found Kandy incredibly hot. He did write his beautiful poem, ‘Elephant’ and was an indefatigable letter writer. However, even after a trip to Nuwara Eliya he began to feel upset by Buddhism. Read some of the letters Tissa gives. Lawrence then sailed to Australia, saying that I don’t like Ceylon, not to live in... From West Australia he moved to New South Wales, saying that Australia goes from bad to worse in my eyes... and sailed away.

So now, readers I leave it all to you and say a big thank you to my editors. Too bad that it all had to end... but will it? Tissa is now a flashing, rainbowed cataract of literature. Soon we will. See more and more and so much more!

Food for thought in Colombo

2011-05-29T10:45:00.002+05:30

Sunday Times May 29 2011

Colombo, here we come!

Smriti Daniel checks out some favourite night-time hangouts

Colombo is transformed by nightfall. The streets empty of traffic as most of the city falls asleep but in smoky clubs the strobe lights begin to flash and along Galle Face, the vendors light up their lanterns. Every night owl has his or her favourite spot – the kade that’s always open for a snack at 4 a.m., the club where the beautiful people gather, the quiet walk that takes you past old, moonlit buildings. This week, we’re asking “what do you do in Colombo after dark?”

Pilawoos: For cheese kottu and lime juice

Here are some answers we received:

It’s not your typical girl’s night out. “Sometimes, after dinner we just go to Carnival and get some ice cream. We’ll take it with us and hang out at Galle Face or Independence Square,” says Iromi. Iromi can count on Galle Face Green being alive with people on any day of the week. “Even if you go on a weeknight, there’s a lot of activity,” she says, explaining that people are still around as late as ten.

“Galle Face was closed for so long, so it’s nice that people are taking advantage of it now.” If they’re looking for something more substantial than an ice cream cone, Burger’s King at the Malay Street Junction in Slave Island is guaranteed to sate any appetite. If the budget allows for a more upmarket venue, she says 7° North at Cinnamon Lakeside is a great place to relax. Her favourite dish is not on the menu – you will be served Hot Butter Cuttle Fish from the Royal Thai on request.

For dancing Iromi prefers either Silk or Amuseum they come out ahead of other city nightclubs because she likes the crowd and the music, which she describes as “really trashy pop.” After a night in the close confines of the club, they like to go for long drives through Fort past the old Parliament, and buildings like the World Trade Centre and the Old Dutch Hospital.

Adalia* is a German who has lived in Sri Lanka for 16 years, and says she no longer enjoys going to the local clubs. It takes a restaurant to tempt her out – she recommends Shri Vani Vilas on Messenger Street which she describes as a “a brilliant Indian vegetarian restaurant, where the kitchen is cleaner than the one at the Hilton.” Adalia doesn’t always want company, but she says women eating alone in local restaurants can feel very uncomfortable. She’s opts to go here because “the entire staff watches out for you.”

Shanmugajah’s is another favourite.

To begin his night out, Andre might go to Lani's Sea Food Restaurant in Dehiwala – he describes it as undiscovered and cheap, and notes the restaurant has good service. It’s secluded, he says. (Lanis is down Windsor Avenue.) Flag & Whistle is another restaurant he would recommend – this one comes with a glorious view. Since the restaurant overlooks the port, it’s a good idea to get their around 5 p.m., just in time to catch sunset over the harbour.

“Entertainment in Colombo is basically broken down by age,” says Andre, explaining that the city’s clubs each cater to a specific age group and its tastes. Club hopping is still popular and Andre says the usual round takes dancers through Mojo at the Taj, R&B on Duplication Road and Amuseum at Galle Face. (Different bands step up to the mike at R&B for rousing live music.) Eating out late used to be about stopping at Pilawoos for a cheese kottu and a lime juice, but Andre says there are plenty of better options. The Gardenia Cafe at the Ramada Hotel (the old Holiday Inn) is a coffee shop that’s open all night.

Of late, Prasad has found himself at Sopranos (Maitland Crescent) surprisingly often – “for reasons I can’t quite fathom, I like going there,” he says adding that his signature number is ‘Bed of Roses’ by Bon Jovi. “I think it’s the company...the crowd I go with is a lot of fun.” Their raucous night is typically fuelled by food and drink from one of the local clubs such as SSC, CR&FC or CH. Once at Sopranos they tend to stay and sing, well into the night. If anyone feels like dancing Clancy’s is one floor up and Silk is just down the road.

French restaurant 'La Voile Blanche' in Mount Lavinia is a bit expensive but serves excellent food says Ramesh. Billed as a ‘Gourmet Beach Lounge,’ the restaurant is known for its seafood, but Ramesh who is a vegetarian still finds something to suit his taste. (The restaurant has a menu up on their facebook page). Another favourite by the Beach is Buba. They’ve preserved some of the mangroves and Ramesh likes to find one of the tables tucked into a corner. For entertainment later in the evening he might opt for a party. But for most part, he’s disappointed with what the city has to offer: “I think Colombo absolutely lacks relaxed, tasteful places to hang out with good music and friendly atmosphere, professionally organised private parties in houses and out of town places are the ones that are really special.”

The Greenlands Hotel in Shrubbery Gardens, Colombo 4 is one of Colombo’s oldest restaurants serving South Indian cuisine. But just there on the side is the Greenland’s Bar, which Dominic describes as “an extremely fine and decent drinking establishment.” Though they will not bring your meal to the bar, they serve the best hot vadaai in town on the side, says Dominic. “It’s a place you might go by yourself to read the newspapers,” he reveals, “there’s no one screaming or shouting or jumping up and down.” His other favourite place has an equally respected pedigree – the Castle Street Hotel in Slave Island. “It’s a wonderful place with a long history,” says Dominic, explaining that during the colonial period, while the Grand Oriental Hotel near the ports used to welcome the owners of the estates, the clerks would find their way here. Several portraits hang on its walls – incongruously Napoleon Bonaparte, Mahatma Gandhi and Joseph Stalin all share quarters. “People from Slave Island itself always go there,” says Dominic.

Burger’s King: Something substantial at affordable prices. Pix by Sanka Vidanagama

Galle Face: Always a hub of activity (below)

J.R is a Chinese food aficionado and says the city offers plenty of choices – 88 and 168 are both favourites, as is Min Han. The latter, tucked away down Deanstone Place is run by a Chinese family, but attracts plenty of locals. Simple dishes like the garlic broccoli and the chilli pepper prawns come highly recommended.

The sports clubs have their own devoted fans. Nishan* recommends pubs like and Cheers, but Inn on the Green is his favourite. Why watch a football match in a group? In one word – “banter.” Anushan is a member of the Rowing Club, and will often take friends there but Machang in Nawala is one of his favourite new places. A sports pub, it has two large screens and a football and pool table as well. Plus some drinks come really cheap, says Anushan.

Though he hasn’t been there in awhile, Delon suggests you try to track down a man named Bulan who owns a small shop in Slave Island – “he’s like this massive Malay guy, with big arms and a gold chain around his neck.” Though he speculates that the likes of Burger’s King might have driven Bulan off, one hopes that Bulan can still be found on some nights outside his spot at the Nippon Hotel. Delon remembers the man’s usual menu clearly. “He has all sorts of weird food there – he’s got rabbit and quail, all sorts of offal. He makes a great rampe chicken,” says Delon, adding that “back in the day he used to be very, very popular.”
“I’ve always liked going to Summer Gardens,” says Subha describing the old beer garden on Greenpath, opposite Vihara Mahadevi Park. “It’s been there for a really long time and there’s a lot of nostalgia associated with it – going there when we were kids and eating chilli powder fries while our parents had a beer.” (Among other things, the restaurant is known for their steaks, served sizzling.) Today, she also recommends the hoppers, both at Summer Gardens and at Green Cabin on Galle Road. “You have to eat hoppers with tomato curry and cadju curry,” says Subha firmly. She’s also a fan of the Galle Face Hotel. “If you go there a little early, you can have high tea and then stay on and catch the sunset,” she says, suggesting you go on to drinks after dark. The clubs hold little allure for Subha, describing them as insipid, she says she’s frustrated at the lack of an alternative scene and would like to see more adventuresome DJs go beyond playlists made up of mainstream music.

Still, for some, Colombo’s clubs still have their appeal. “Nightlife? Amuseum because the music is super, the crowd is great and it’s a beautiful nightclub,” says Nehara.* Later in the night, Lakeside’s Kiribath with mutton curry “is to die for,” she adds.

MEMORIES OF A JAZZ MUSICIAN FROM CEYLON/SRI LANKA

2011-05-27T17:04:00.000+05:30

© stuart de silva inc.Sydney,Australia 2011.

JAZZ – the word has never been clearly defined. Someone asked Thelonious Sphere Monk in an interview “How would you define Jazz?” He answered, “Man, I don’t have to define it. I PLAY it. All you critics and non-players have to do is LISTEN!” No truer word was spoken.

I was born on the same day that piano virtuoso Art Tatum recorded his devastatingly stunning version of Tiger Rag. (He never ever played or recorded it again).

My earliest memories are my father telling me that, in my first year of life, I would wake up in the middle of the night howling and crying and the only way he could get me to shut up was to stumble in the dark (we had no electricity in Nugegoda then) to the piano and play Hoagy Carmichael’s “Little Man You’ve Had A Busy Day’. Yes, my father, Herman, came from a musical family, where my grandmother played piano, grandfather on drums, dad & his sister (Cora) played piano and a brother Algernon (Uncle”Joy”) on banjo. Dad, before I was born, played for the Silent Movies at the Empire Cinema in Slave Island. He had a style of playing that I was to only recognise later when I first heard Errol Garner. That chunk-chunk-chunk left hand chords, while the right hand improvised. We had a wind-up gramophone on which he played his ‘78s, from Duke Ellington, thru James P Johnson, Fats Waller, Albert Ammons & Pete Johnson, the Ink Spots, Mills Brothers, Teddy Wilson and Billie Holiday and heaps of others.

Because of my growing interest in the music, when I was 4 years old he got me studying Classical piano under the Hungarian Hugo Wagn. He and his brother Victor were then living in Ceylon. It was Victor who started the first Symphony Orchestra in Colombo in 1939. My lessons with Hugo ended when I was 9 years, when he walked in 15 minutes early for my lesson he heard me playing a Boogie Woogie. Tearing at his hair, screaming at my parents “He’s playing that jungle music. I can no longer teach him.” He walked out. I never saw him again till 1959, I was on a bus in London with Rudy Bernardo and saw and recognised him. Naturally, we got off the bus, went and had some beers and told him of my career in Jazz. He was happy to hear of my Doctorate at Juilliard.

This is just a little background info.

In the late 40’s, Gerry Crake on alto, brother George on tenor, and brother Ben on baritone saxes, with Dudley Pereira on vocals, rehearsed at my grandparents’ home in Girton School Road, Nugegoda, for the Band that was to soon become the Crake Brothers. My Dad played some piano (with Gerry clueing him on chords), grandpa on drums and uncle Joy on banjo. Naturally I was there.

My first introduction to a music that was to become a very fruitful career for 45 years as a professional Jazz pianist around the world.

In 1949, that Great Entrepreneur of Show Biz in Ceylon, Donovan Andre, held a Talent Quest at his Carnival at the SSC. I entered and won all of Rs 100, at that time a fortune. He then spoke to my Dad, who was a regular at the Nite Club, and offered to book me with a trio in his Nite Club, as intermission pianist to Gerry Crake’s Band. What a blast!

That same year, he had brought the Kamala Circus to perform in Colombo. In that Circus, there was a Trapeze Act, The Flying Bernardos. That was Barney and his wife, son Rudy and daughter Colleen. Rudy and Barney also played in Band. Sadly, Colleen contracted a disease and died and was buried at Kanatte. The Family Bernardo did not want to leave Ceylon and Donovan got them Ceylon Citizenship.

The trio I had in the nite club was with Barney Bernardo, (the father) on bass (he also played trombone) and Rudy on drums. The gig was only Friday and Saturday, so it would not interfere with my schooling. He even had his driver, Ian Dias, pick me up and take me home.

Gerry’s Band had, to the best of my recollection, Gerry on alto & clarinet, George Crake, tenor, Derek Evarts on tenor, Ben Crake, baritone, Latif Miskin or Louis Miskin,trumpet ( they alternated) Tony “Rocky” Latham, bass. Rudy Bernardo ,drums, doing a double gig with my trio.

Here were the giants of the Ceylon Jazz scene. What an exposure for a 14 year old. I lapped it up.

Then, the same year, Gazali Amit had heard me, came home and got permission from my parents to join his Quartet in Radio Ceylon broadcasts. The group was Gazali, guitar, Jimmy van Sanden ,bass and Cass Ziard,drums.

More into the learning curve.

In 1951, Donovan Andre, that Giant of Showbiz entrepreneurs in, brought a Variety troupe led by Marie Bryant, “The Harlem Blackbirds”. (She had been the choreographer on Nat King Cole’s TV series in the US).This was an all African-American cast of fabulous dancers, comedians and tap-dancers, whose entire repertoire was to the accompaniment (recorded, and sometimes played by Gerry Crake’s Band) of pure Jazz.

Then in 1953, we had the Horrie Dargie Quintet, the Australian Jazz Quartet, and Max Wildman’s Band, with whom our own Charmaine Drieberg sang (she later married Reuben Solomon and moved to Sydney, where she was to write her fantastic series of books on Asian cuisine).

In 1955, at the bottom of 8^th Lane, Bambalapitiya, Donovan brought a troupe from Paris, “The Parisian Follies”. One of the people in the show was Jazz solo pianist Aaron Bridges (African-American, then living and playing in Paris), who had studied under Art Tatum and Billie Strayhorn. Naturally we became good friends and he visited our home on many an occasion, showing me different chord voicings on the piano. His regular gig in Paris was at the Mars Club, an American owned spot just off the Champs Elysees, a hang-out for Showbiz folks, mainly visiting Acts and ex-pat Americans living in Paris. Ironically, 5 years later, I would take over his gig there and stay on at the Mars for 4 years, playing 7 nights, Art Simmons and I sharing the solo piano spots.

Also in the troupe was Duke Diamond, a fantastic jazz tap dancer, who was to later appear in a sequence in the original movie “Moulin Rouge” as an acrobatic and tap dancer.

In 1951, Radio Ceylon inaugurated the Commercial Service, bringing two Australians, Clifford Dodd and Graham Evans to take charge. They wanted a greater emphasis on Jazz in their broadcasts. To this end, they negotiated a deal with Gillette to sponsor a weekly live Jazz programme for a period of 52 weeks. Gazali Amit got the gig. With Gazali, guitar, Jimmy van Sanden, bass, Cass Ziard, drums and myself on piano, and two vocalists who alternated, Yolande Wolff , who was to make her name in US jazz circles as Yolanda Bavan, and Bill Forbes. The group was called “The Airwaves”, as was the live broadcast programme every Saturday nite.

The contract was for a whole year, but Gazali moved on, Mervyn Cherrington took the guitar seat, Jimmy van Sanden left for the US and Tony Blake came in on bass. Sometime later, Mervyn left for the UK and Percy Bartholomeusz came in on guitar. Again a great learning curve.

I worked at Donovan’s night Clubs, with a short break from 1953 to 1955, with my trio, right up the Purple Orchid Room in Victoria Park, when I left Ceylon in 1958 on a scholarship from Dave Brubeck to Berkelee College in Boston.

Some of the foreign Bands that influenced the Jazz scene in Ceylon.

1939 thru 1941- Teddy Weatherford’s Band at the Galle Face. (see his profiles on Wikpedia)

This was a legendary Band under a legendary leader. Weatherford had been in Asia since 1930, in Shanghai, Burma, Indonesia and Bombay, India. In 1937, he was working in Cricket Smith’s band, playing piano and singing, at the Taj Mahal in Bombay (other reports have the same band in Java, Indonesia at that time), when they moved to the Galle Face Hotel, Colombo as resident Band from July 1937 through 1942.

Story has it that Weatherford took over the Band from Smith for this contract and they arrived in Colombo in July, 1937.

The Band that played in Colombo definitely had Reuben Solomon (alto & clarinet), Rudy Cotton (ten), Rudy Jackson (alto sax/clarinet), Louis Moreno (trumpet & violin) Paul Gozalvez (tenor, from 1940 to 42), Tony Gonzalvez, (bass) Trevor McCabe or Luis Pedroso (drums). There was a 2^nd trumpet, who could have been George Banks (Nepalese born: Pushkar Bahadur Buddaprihiti), and trombonist George Leonardi. On guitar was Cedric West, who, with George Banks, came out of Burma with Reuben Solomon’s Jive Kings in the early ‘30’s.

My father had befriended Weatherford and (from 1939 to 1942) took me to the GFH to hear the band in their Sunday afternoon shows. Weatherford also visited our home on many occasions.

Paul Gonzalvez, the tenor player who was later with Duke Ellington and featured at Newport in that fantastic “Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue” solo, told me in Paris that he was stationed in Colombo with the US Army and that he did play in Weatherford’s Band 1940 to ’42. Other reports have him stationed in Bombay, but, from what he told me personally, I’ll stick with this.

Rudy Jackson, alto sax and clarinet, was in Duke Ellington’s first band, I think from 1916. I know he recorded with Duke in 1926 and left Duke’s Band in 1927.

Rudy Cotton came back with his own Band to play for Donovan, around 1952, either at the SSC or BRC. Jimmy Emmanuel, piano player, who stayed on in Sri Lanka till his recent death , came over with him. They both, together with Luis Pedroso were in Louis Moreno’s Muchachos at Donovan’s Silver Fawn in Union Place in 1940, where Erin de Selfa started singing, aged 16, known as Dinah of the Red Tails. The Band there was the Red Tails Minstrels.

Moreno, Pedroso and Reuben Solomon, together with Mario Manricks were in Sacha Borsteins’s band at the GFH, with Mickey Borstein, on piano and our own Frosty Vanlangenberg on bass. Moreno also played vibraphone. Mickey Borstein took over the piano chair from Ossie Halpern around 1955/56 when he left the Band.

There are people who have claimed that Buck Clayton played with Weatherford in Colombo, but records show this cannot be true. Till 1937, he was leading his own Band at the Canidrome in Shanghai, but left China just before the 2^nd Sino-Japanese war and returned to the US in 1937, the year Weatherford came to Colombo. That same year he joined Willie Bryant’s Band and while on a tour date in Kansas City, joined Count Basie, where he remained, recording with Lester Young, Buddy Tate, Ben Webster, Billie Holiday, the master Joe Jones, Freddie Green (the rhythm guitarist who never took a solo) and others in the band, with Basie on piano.

1940 thru 1944 –at the Hotel in Slave Island, near the roundabout, owned by Greg Roskovski’s mother, was another Jazz piano player: Dr Jazz. Also African-American, he played a lot of Fats Waller, Willie “The Lion” Smith, James P. Johnson. I was taken often to hear him. He too was a friend of my Dad.

Through the war years, when Colombo was South East Asia Command (SEAC), there was a radio band called the Squadronaires, who did concerts and Radio Broadcasts. They were British, but played a lot of Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw arrangements. Never got to meet them, but did get to hear them live. Great music.

Some foreign Jazz Groups that played at Donovan Andre’s Nite Clubs.

Horrie Dargie, who played chromatic harmonica, brought his Quintet from Australia and played for month. I have not been able to identify the other musicians, but the band comprised of his Harmonica, tenor sax/violin, piano, bass and drums. They played opposite Gerry Crake’s Band.

The Australian Jazz Quartet, based on the Modern Jazz Quartet, had Jackie Brockensha on vibes and drums, Bryce Rohde on piano, Errol Buddle on tenor, alto, soprano and baritone saxes and Dick Healey on bass. They did a one month stint at Donovan’s and were on their way to the UK after. Errol Buddle lives in Perth, Australia, and is still active on the jazz scene here. Brokensha went onto the US and made a name for himself there.

In 1955/56, there was a Band from Singapore, Placido “Ido” Martin’s Quintet, with Jimmy Aaron, alto, Benny, his brother, drums, and guitarist and vocalist, Benny’s wife, Eva. Ido played trumpet, piano and vibes and was superb on all three instruments. Their style was heavily influenced by Bebop and West Coast Jazz.

In more recent years, Albert Mangelsdorff (a superb trombonist) and

Joachim Kuhn,piano, and bassist Eberhard Weber, bass, came over with a Quartet, sponsored by the Goethe Institute. All three of them turned up at Jazz Unlimited session and played.( I remember this because Joachim called me up to play while he took a break.) I knew all three of them from Munich in Germany, where I had a 3 month stint in a Jazz Club there.

Then, in 1984, the Australian Embassy brought “Intersection”, a very modern, avant-guard band. Two of the members, Roger Frampton, piano and soprano sax, and Guy Strazzulo, guitar, turned up at JU at the Capri and we jammed a couple of sets with Lucky Manikawasagar on bass and Aruna Siriwardene , drums and myself on piano, Frampton played soprano sax. Frampton passed away 11 years ago. Strazzulo and I remain in contact in Sydney.

To get back to Commercial Radio: in the 50’s, Greg Roskovski, Mil Sansoni, Chris Greet and Dan Durairaj played a lot of Jazz on Radio. At the time, Dan was the only one into Bebop and played a lot of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, the Dutch Bebop piano-accordion Quintet of Art Van Damme, the Jazz piano/singing Duo of Jackie Krall & Roy Crane and many others.

At the time of the “Airwaves”, I had connected by letter with Bud Powell followers “Dizzy” Saldano in Bombay and Toshiko Aiyoshi in Tokyo. Strangely, Toshiko was at Berkelee 2 years before me and “Dizzy” one year before. We never met.

Now, to an appreciation of our Ceylon/Sri Lankan musicians:

Piano: Christie Bartholomeusz (played at The Silver Fawn with The Red Tail Minstrels); Sonny Bartholomeusz (stride piano in the style of Earl Hines/Teddy Wilson – I had a series of lessons from him), his sister, Phylis, who played a mean two handed piano); Gerry Crake (a style reminiscent of Count Basie); Chitra Malalasekare( later Ranawake) (who although being a 1^st Prize winner in Classical music at the Paris Conservatory in France, was intent on playing bebop piano); Rafe Jansz (boogie-woogie and jazz);Mickey and Helen Menezes; Tom Menezes’ daughter, Cathy; Raddy Ferreira (who led a jazz Big Band in Sydney, played for 18 years at the Hilton Hotel, Sydney, and is now on a World Cruise Luxury Liner with his Trio for the past 5 years); “Doc” Gulasekaram (Gulli) ,who led a long-standing Trio with Gazali and Frosty Van Langenberg, playing Art Tatum Trio and Nat “King” Cole Trio arrangements, which he transcribed from the records); Jimmy Emmanuel (need I say more-he was a great pianist); Gerry Crake’s daughter, Heather Crake; Eric and Conrad Martinez(twins) ( Both taught jazz piano. Conrad moved to Denmark.); Ossie Halpern and Mickey Borstein who were with Sascha Borstein’s Band at the Galle Face Hotel ( both superb and modern jazz pianists); “Blind John” – used to play the Hotel in Slave Island where Dr.Jazz played and in later years at lunchtime at The Pagoda in Chatham Street. Claire Croner, (he also plays accordion, but for a while, was the pianist with Gerry Crake’s Band. I took over the piano seat from him).

To these I must add: Patrick Nelson, Desmond Pompeus, Peter Prins, Harsha Markalanda, Dilup Gabadamudalige, Mignonne Fernando, Neri Fernandez (Erin’s husband), Debbie Arnolda and, I am sure a host of young players I’ve never heard. I never met or got to hear Valentine Manikavasagar, but, from what I’ve been told, he is superb.

Bass: Leonard Francke, Jimmy Van Sanden, Tony “Rocky” Latham, Frosty Van Langenberg, Barney Bernardo (Rudy’s father), Ralph de Silva (my cousin, who moved to Australia and played with Graham Belle and other jazz groups, including my Trio), Nesan and Lucky Manikavasagar (both great), Tony Blake, David Sansoni, David Bartholomeusz (Ronnie’s brother), Nilantha Ariyaratne, Nihal Jayewardene (he played beautifully on that Trio I had at the Galadari with Farouk Miskin on drums) Errol Mulholland, Ray Gomez..........A Special Mention for the ever-young Alston Joachim. What a bass player, who can play in any style and make it sound fantastic!

Drums: RUDY BERNARDO! Wadham Dole, Godfrey Davidson, Louis Pedroso, Cass Ziard, Faleel Ziard, Adrian Ferdinands, Farouk Miskin ( Latif’s son), Aruna Siriwardene, Hassan Musafer, Mohan Sabaratnam, Lucky Manikavasagar, Diren Sabaratnam, Chris Dharsan, Christo Prins, Harris Juranpathy...................

Guitar: Gazali Amit, Milroy Passe-deSilva, Mervyn Cherrington, Percy Bartholomeusz, David Sansoni, Raja Jalaldeen, Revel Crake, Rodney Rabot,

Sax: Gerry (alto/clt), George (ten) and Ben(ten/bari) Crake, Derek Evarts (ten), Clem Croner(ten/clt), Rodney Van Heer (ten), Reuben Solomon (alto/clt), Randy Peiris (ten) Kumar Mollegoda(ten), Harold Seneviratne (alto), Edgar Heber(alto), Malcolm de Zilwa (ten/alto), Freddie Diaz (ten)*

*Freddie was a Major in the Army and couldn’t play professionally. However, Ariya & Chitra Ranawake, Cass Ziard, Tony Blake and I met on Sundays at his house to go through bebop charts. He had a hard-reed and a style like Coleman Hawkins in his bebop phase.

Clarinet: Gerry Crake; Mario Manricks; Reuben Solomon; Clem Croner; Ronnie Bartholomeusz.............

Trumpet: LOUIS MISKIN! What can I say about “Rafai”, as we all lovingly called him? His thirst for playing and booze is legendary. When the Band at Donovan’s took a break, he’d run out to the Carnival grounds and play with the Merry-Go-Round Band. Louis NEVER slept. He was in the CLI Marching Band and he would go straight from the Club and join them in their morning march from Maharagama to Reid Avenue. He also played in Major Perry’s CLI Dance Band and Concert Band (Classical). He lived for music. He had a tremendously powerful sound. There’s only one trumpet player I’ve met and played with, on a tour in Germany, with that sound: “Wild Bill” Davidson. That was with the Buddy Tate Quintet in 1973.

During the “Parisian Follies”, there was Sammy Wilde (Fire-eater/Dancer), who danced to Dizzy Gillespie’s “Cubana Be-Cubana Bop”, and Louis handled Dizzy’s solo with ease.

Others. Latif Miskin (Crake Bros); Tom Menezes (one fantastic trumpet player); Ariya Ranawake (Bebop only); Luis Moreno; Dallas Achilles; Eden Pompeus.......

Vocalists: ERIN de SELFA!!!!!!*; Eileen Nathanielsz*; Dudley Perera*; Kingsley de Mel*; Yolande Wolff*; Jean Van Heer*; Chris Greet*; Gerry Crake*; Marie de Rosairo*; Noeline Honter; Mifanwy Pompeus; Scarlett Hannibelsz; Mike “Hootie” Gibson (sang only with Doc “Gulli’s Quintet, with Gerry Crake(alto) and Rudy Bernardo added). His repertoire was from Louis Jordan’s Tympany Five Band – the very first R & B/ Rock & Roll Band ever; Bill Forbes*...........

Vocal Groups: Gerry Crake & Dudley Perera; The Three Crotchets (Joy Ferdinando-piano/vocals, Lylie Godridge, Bede de Silva); The Kelaart Sisters (Decima & Mignonne)*; The De Bruin Sisters* (June, ? and ?); The Four Sharps* (Gamalathge Bros, Roland & Victor, ? Seneviratne and ?);

*These are singers I had the pleasure of accompanying on Radio and Concerts.

Other: “Whistling” Georgie Siegertz. He could whistle and improvise on the hit tunes of the period. He had his own 15 minute program on Radio Ceylon in the ‘50’s. Anyone who saw “The Bridge Over The River Kwaii”, will recall the soundtrack of our Georgie whistling “The Colonel Bogey March” – he also acted in the movie as a prisoner of war. (George Siegertz passed away in London in March, 2002, aged 82, in London.)

Footnote: In early 1953, my father and I bought the remaining 2 year lease from Julius Mather on the Pigalle Nite Club in Colpetty (3-storey building next to Kreme House), with Donovan Andre’s blessing, help and advice.

I had a Trio, with Wadham Dole and Tony Blake. The Club operated as a Members Only Club, open six days a week, Monday’s off.

Of the Members were Mike Wilson, Sampath Nandalochana and Viswa Selvaratnam, keen Jazz afficianados. After some discussions, we decided to turn Monday’s into a Jazz Club night. With the backing of the USIS in Miller’s Building, and a great deal of help from Ms. Diana Captain (Soli’s sister), who worked there as Manager, we managed to secure an Affiliation Agreement with International Jazz Club in New York to run under their banner.

The Office bearers were Mike, Viswa, Sampath (Treasurer & Accountant) and myself. This Committee was Notarised and Registered, a requirement under the Agreement with New York.

To say it was a success will be an understatement. A lot of the musicians named above would turn up to sit in.

In 1955, when the lease ended, with Sardha Ratnavira (jeweller and gem merchant and fabulous artiste) signing a new lease with Maliban, I went back to playing at Donovan Andre’s Purple Orchid Room in Victoria Park with my Trio. From that time on IJC was held on Sundays, morning and afternoon, at the Greenhouse, the other Room at Donovan’s, where he had his foreign Shows.

I continued to play and the IJC Committee remained the same until I left Ceylon on the Brubeck Scholarship in 1958. When I left, Wadham Dole took my place on the Committee.

Subsequently, IJC made way for Jazz Unlimited under Tommy and Mahes Perera and is still going solidly strong.

Sydney Australia. 2011.

Donovan Andree

2011-05-18T15:43:00.000+05:30

Island 16 Nov 2003

Malcolm Andree follows father Donavan Andree’s footsteps

by Kalinga Weerakkody

Malcolm Andree follows the footsteps of his late father Donavan Andree who was the country’s leading showman.

Malcolm though 70 now continues in the same spirit as the began 47 years ago into the show business.

He still talks of his earlier days and calls them moments of a lifetime.

His very first show was for the Ceylon American Youth Society ‘Melody Damour’.

The signature tune of his radio show ‘a certain smile’ was

sung by Heather Crake, Loreta Ohlmus and Keen Hangier. It was originally sung by ‘The Johns Boys’ and the show was compered by Bob Harvey, the band members being Harold Seneviratne, Gerry Crake, Erlene Peck and Patrick Nelson.

The other members of the show were Lauren Grahaem, Noeline Honter, Dalrene Suby, Pat Clyde, The Jay Brothers, Denzil and Vasco duo, Denis Roberts, Sharmine Andrado, Doreen Steuwart, the late Lylie Godridge, the late Gerry Crake and Dudley Perera.

Malcolm was paid only Rs.250/- for producing the show — a poultry sum compared to the total returns from the show. When Bob Harvey often asked him how he managed with that paultry amount his answer was ‘I do it for fun kicks’.

Malcolm also had many other radio shows and three of them were sponsored such as "The Elasto (S.L.Marketing Services), Talent Show and Star’s of Lanka.

Malcolm describes the artistes of yesteryear as just wonderful

Malcolm also produced stage shows from 1959 at the request of Kandy showman E.W.Balasooriya.

They begining with English shows around 1962/1963 and later

oriental shows with the help of showman Jayatissa Hettiarachchi.

The artistes who appeared in such shows were La Ceylonians, Three Sisters, Saman de Silva, M.S. Fernando, H.R . Jothipala, Sujatha Attanayake, Nuwan Gunawardena, Derrick de Silva Kumudini (The Rimbo girl) and the duo of the famous Jet Liners fame Tony Fernando and his wife Mignonne.

Malcolm is the youngest of a family of three boys and three girls.

Malcolm talked his father and what he did to promote show business here during the early years.

Donavan had many clubs such as ‘Stadium Sports Club(SSC) and also had carnivals to raise funds.

One of his best shows was ‘Holiday on Ice’ which featured the famous Harlem Blackbirds.

"My father also helped in sports at the request of the then President of Amateur Athletic Association (AAA) Julian Grero and one to benefit was Sri Lanka’s high jumper S.Ediriweerasingham who won the first Asian Gold medal for Sri Lanka in 1958.

Donavan gifted Ediriweerasingham with Rs.3000 (then big money) for his feat.

Among Donavan Andree’s other shows were the Golden Gate Quartet (group of four), Belly dancers.

My father also encouraged boxing, wrestling, netball, football and cricket. The famous Erin de Selfa who sang under the stage name of ‘Diana’ accompanied by a musical group called the Tails was my father’s second wife.

Erin Selfa was also the only local vocalist to sing before the King and Queen of England at the London Palladium.

Following the demise of his father Malcolm took over supporting sports -netball at Stadium SC in Bambalapitiya and among the players such as Pamela Thajudeen, Christine Blake, Mignonne Fernando, Seetha Weerasooriya, Rani Herath, Kildy Kretser, Tony Joseph, Patsy Herath, Anne de Silva and Rio Ramlan to name a few.

He thanked the late Trixie Jayasooriya, late Kusuma George, Ransilu Wijedasa, Ovone Poulier, Rio Ramlan, Margaret Perera and Dasie Kuruppu, for helping the netball team and also helping him to become a netball coach.

Malcom also spoke high of the golden greats of broadcasting such as the legendary Livy R. Wijemanna, Jimmy Barusha, Vernon Abeysekara, Thevis Guruge, Nihal Greg, Harold Fernando, Derrick Meloney, Shirley de Silva, Shirly Perera, Norton Perera, Cris Jayamanna Leon Belleth and Vijaya Corea.

He finally thanked Padmasiri who is looking after him like a father.

Raddy Ferreira Moves On

2011-05-17T12:59:00.001+05:30

Just received information that Raddy passed away while performing on a Cruise Liner

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNzLdn4lZKE&feature=related

May he rest in Peace!

Homes and Gardens of Ceylon

2011-04-27T13:46:00.002+05:30

Click on each one of the links in the page to view. Simply nostalgic, indeed.

http://www.ceylonrealty.com/popup_pages/New%20Folder/

Regal Beginnings

2011-04-17T11:16:00.000+05:30

LakbimaNews April 17 2011

Regal’s eight decade EPIC CINEMA SAGA

A D Ranjith Kumara

Regal cinema which marks its 80th ‘birthday’ since it was opened is one of the country’s foremost theatres. The cinema opened its doors on July 26, 1930.
Two students from Jaffna - Chittampalam Gardiner and A L Thambiah signed an agreement in December 1924 to build a metal shed, and having named it Olympia, proceeded to screen silent films. They then leased the land where the Regal cinema is situated today, and established Ceylon Theatres in December 1928.

During the time of the depression (in the world), these entrepreneurs who were unperturbed by the situation opened the Regal cinema on July 26, 1930.

The growth of Ceylon Theatres has been interwoven into the development of this country’s cinema industry since then. The first film with dialogue - His Captive Woman - was screened at the Regal cinema. It starred Milton Sills and Dorathy Mackail.

An advertisement in the Dinamina newspaper publicised the film thus: “The Regal cinema will be inaugurated today at 9.00 pm, the doors will be opened at 8.00 pm. His Captive Woman starring Milton Sills and Dorathy Mackail is a talking film. The tickets will be priced at Rs4, Rs3, Rs2, Rs1 and 50 cents.”

The first ever film with dialogue

The day before the cinema was inaugurated another advertisement had appeared in The Times of Ceylon newspaper and ran as follows: “The largest in Ceylon - the finest in the East of Suez, most luxurious in every detail, comfort - the keynote, a cinema hall as good as the best, the theatre that will fit the largest touring companies - The Regal open tomorrow (Saturday) July 26 at 9 pm, Milton Sills and Dorothy Mackail, 100% talking.”

The advertisement was also accompanied by a photo of the facade of the Regal cinema and another photo displaying the seating arrangements inside the theatre. The inauguration had been attended by then Governor of Ceylon, Sir Herbert J Stanley as the Chief Guest.

Among the films screened at the cinema during the year 1930 had been Madam X, Broadway Melody, Hollywood Revue, The Grand Parade, Spite Marriage and Divine Lady, to name a few.
In addition to these, several other productions based on world reputed literary classics had also been screened at the Regal cinema from 1947 to 1968. Among them were Nicholas Nickleby, Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, Gone With the Wind, David Copperfield, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Brothers Karamazov, A Tale of Two Cities, Dr. Zhivago and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
While browsing through the archives, it could be safely summarised that holding special screeings for the press bean at the Regal cinema in this country.

Two days before the cinema was to be inaugurated, that is on July 24, 1930 a special screening had been held at the theatre. A news report carried out by the Dinamina newspaper had even remarked about a knife attack as well.

A reporter attached to the Observer (English) newspaper by the name of Calvert had been watching the film at around 7 pm while his driver had been outside the theatre. After Calvert had come out of the cinema he had been knifed by his driver who had been unhappy with his boss from morning that day.

A report carried out in the Dinamina newspaper related this story thus “A case was taken for hearing yesterday at the Colombo Police Court against a driver named Justin, who on July 24 night, is alleged to have knifed a person employed at the Daily News newspaper.
The judge had put the case off, to be heard at a later date after having ordered bail for Rs50 from the accused.”

Regal cinema has been mentioned prominently in an old novel as well. The main character of W A Silva’s 1939 novel Radala Piliruwa, Gilbert Jayaweera, was travelling in a bus after a failed affair, and had seen the Regal cinema in the Fort. That incident had been described in the novel as follows.

When the bus was about to pass the Regal theatre, Gilbert spotted a advertisement which displayed a youth attempting to gun down a lass. The lass in the advertisement reminded him of Nandawathee. He was taken aback by this photo, as it portrayed that the youth was about to fire a shot at the young woman. (Page 158, Third Edition)
There was a filmgoer, a resident of Edward Lane, Kollupitiya, who had witnessed almost all films shown at the Regal at that time. This person had also been doing crossword puzzles that appear in the papers in addition to having contributed articles to the ‘Blue Page’ of the Daily News. Two of his contemporaries - Dr Lester James Peiris and Tarzi Vittachchi had also done likewise.

Having compiled a valuable puzzle on Hollywood actors and actresses he had sent it by post to the owner of the Regal cinema - Chittampalam Gardiner. Having been impressed with the puzzle, Gardiner had requested this filmgoer to meet him as soon as possible.

Gardiner had been so taken up by the moviegoer that he had granted him a pass to watch any film at his theatre free of charge.
This person then continued to supply articles to two English newspapers on Hollywood films and stars, and subsequently he became the Publicity Manager of Ceylon Theatres. He was Harison Peiris (1917-1987).

He was the late father of veteran songstresses Malkanthi Nandasiri (nee Peiris), Nirmala Ranatunga (nee Peiris), Niranjala Sarojini and well-known tabla player Manoj Peiris. These details were gleaned from an article headlined ‘Some memories of yesteryears’ and written by Harison Peiris to a magazine published in 1978 to mark the 50th anniversary of the Regal cinema.

The maiden screening

The first Sinhala film screened at the Regal cinema had been a Ceylon Theatres production - Asokamala. This was also the second film with dialogue released in the country and the Chief Guests at its screening had been the Senate Council’s then Minister of Agriculture and Lands - D S Senanayake and his spouse. The maiden screening had been held on April 9, 1947 and the revenue accrued had been donated for religious activities. The queue to obtain tickets for the film is said to have been from the Regal cinema to the Lake House. Publicity for the film had been provided by a magazine called Herald Asokamala special number. This magazine is believed to be the first English magazine issued in this connection in the country. The editor of it was Harison Peiris. The magazine which had been printed in colour had been priced at 75 cents.

The first time the front of the Regal cinema had been included in a Sinhala film was in February 28, 1948 when Kapati Arakshakaya was screened.

This film which was produced by Ceylon Theatres had also carried visuals of the island for the very first time. Those scenes had been shot at Colombo, Kandy and Nuwara Eliya.
The Regal cinema also had been subjected to a sudden fire way back in May 1951. Well-known personality Dr R L Spittel had gone to the theatre to see a film on May 23, 1951 at its 6.30 screening. He had been watching the film Perfect Strangers starring Dennis Morgan and Ginger Rogers and the fire is said to have occurred in the balcony while the film was being screened.

The Lankadeepa newspaper had carried an article pertaining to Dr. Spittel demanding a sum of Rs 25,000 after the incident.

Dr. R L Spittel who was watching a film at the Regal theatre on May 23, 1951 has demanded a sum of Rs25,000 from the owners of Ceylon Theatres after a fire had erupted in the balcony section. He had demanded it following injuries sustained by filmgoers who had panicked in their efforts to escape the fire from the cinema. It is said that Attorney S Nadesan had appeared on behalf of Ceylon Theatres while State Attorney E G Wickremanayaka had done likewise on behalf of Dr. Spittel.

Hollywood icon visits the Regal

Hollywood icon Gregory Peck had visited the Regal cinema to see the film The Million Pound Note on February 18, 1954. Peck had already starred in the film ‘The Purple Plain which was shot on location in Ceylon and Burma in 1954. The handsome and legendary American actor had arrived at the theatre following an invitation extended by its owner Sir Chittampalam Gardiner, and after he had entered the stage amidst deafening cheers from fans, Peck had been garlanded by Sujatha Jayawardena - a local actress, who was noted to have starred only in international productions then.

When Queen Elizabeth 11 and the Duke of Edinburgh had visited Ceylon in 1954 they had been entertained at the Regal cinema as well.

When the film Rekawa - a watershed in the annals of the Sinhala cinema had been stalled, having seen its first copy, Sir Gardiner had promptly agreed to finance the production. This grateful gesture on the part of the owners of Ceylon Theatres is to this day recalled fondly and humbly by its legendary director Dr. Lester James Peiris.
Rekawa’s premier show had been staged at the Regal theatre on December 28, 1956. The Chief Guest on that day had been the then Mayor of Colombo - V A Sugathadasa. Another coincidence was that on the day that Rekawa had marked its 50th anniversary, a special screening had been held on December 28, 2006. All artistes connected with it had been felicitated by Ceylon Theatres while two books were launched as well.

These two books are Half a Century of Rekawa written by yours truly, and Lester Lekana Sangeetha written by Nuwan Nayanajith Kumara.
The Regal cinema is interwoven with the history of the Sinhala cinema. This history dates back to the maiden film awards ceremony held in the country under the title “Deepashika’ and which had been organised by the Lankadeepa newspaper. This ceremony had been held at the Regal theatre under the patronage of the new premier S W R D Bandaranaika and Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaika. Those who had won the maiden awards on that day had been Rukmani Devi as the best actress for (Umathu Vishwasaya), B A W Jayamanna as best actor for (Kela Handa) and Sirisena Wimalaweera for the best picture (Podi Putha).

The Regal theatre also has been the pioneer cinema hall for the staging of most of the Sarasaviya awards. The first ever Sarasaviya Film Festival was held on July 5, 1967 under the patronage of the then Minister of State, J R Jayewardene. This theatre is also known for having staged the biggest number of premiers in the country and several international film festivals have also been held there.

Subsequently it was set apart for screening only CEL productions.

Regal cinema which provided entertainment for filmgoers for over eight decades in this country is still continuing to go from strength to strength, and is one of the country’s foremost cineplexes. To date, it has remained in the Fort area of the city of Colombo. Today, the Regal cinema is owned by the Chairman of Ceylon Theatres, Ranjith Page.
We also gratefully acknowledge the effort of businessman Gamini Neththikumara who furnished us with a photograph of the theatre of some 70-years ago which appears with this article.

http://www.lakbimanews.lk/portal/news/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1139:regals-eight-decade-epic-cinema-saga&catid=41:mag&Itemid=12

Yolande - Lankas Jazz Queen

2011-03-06T10:17:00.001+05:30

Yolande Bavan visits ‘all the familiar places’!

By Arun Dias Bandaranaike

Last week Sri Lanka’s only truly ‘internationally acclaimed’ singing star, performed to a gathering of those that yearned for “Another Jazz Evening with Yolande Bavan and Dinuk Wijeratne”. This implicitly alludes to the splendid evening a year ago at the Hilton Colombo, where both of them performed to a rapturous welcome for Ms Bavan after many decades of her not having performed in her home country.
On this occasion, JC’s Entertainment had booked her in for another fundraiser as was the case last time, supporting the Sunshine Charity Day Care Centre in Sambalthivu, Trincomalee as well as the Multiple Sclerosis Association of Lanka (MSAL). That Yolande continues to display such an amazing enthusiasm and unstinting support of such causes is outstandingly notable. Considering too that this involves travelling across time zones all the way to Sri Lanka from New York where she is domiciled, for the sake of just a single concert date!

Yolande in concert: There was magic in the air

Yolande’s bill-of-fare touched on all the familiar bases and some familiar places. Yet, there was a notable difference in the ambience and a telling impact that was achieved at this venue. The intimacy and proximity to art that is suggested within the confines of the Lionel Wendt theatre is supremely appealing as compared to a hotel ballroom.

The performers too seemed to be ‘inspired’ by the location, and therefore there was ‘magic in the air’. It was certainly a homey-dahomey sort of approach that Yolande adopted with some really engaging, homespun patter delivered with disarming candor that, I know, touched some people to tears! She herself opined at some point in the proceedings, she is ‘thankful she is Sri Lankan’. For all her international triumphs, she certainly presents herself as a confident Ceylonese would!

Maestro Duke Ellington was rather specific in his identifying singers when he introduced certain performers as “torch singers”. Interestingly, this expression offers a distinction from Blues Singers, or even “Jazz Singers”, and Yolande in her show this time, seemed to follow in this illustrious trajectory adopted at times by the likes of Mildred Bailey, Shirley Horn, Dinah Washington and the redoubtable Billie Holiday (who certainly has been an inspiration for her).

A particular medley of two Johnny Mandel songs bore witness to this phenomenon; “Where Do You Start?” [a collaboration with lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman] segued into “The Shadow of Your Smile” [lyric by Paul Francis Webster]. More than the tune, the Bergmans’ lyric has all the pathos and drama of a feature film devoted to the subject of fractured romance and recrimination. Ms. Bavan accomplished this with heart wrenching power, and when she moved into “Shadow” it was as bittersweet in its cast but with the slightest emotional “lift” fitted craftily into the milieu, adopting a lilting latinesque approach in the tempo. This is what constitutes consummate artistry and it is rewarding to know that performers are still able to capture these subtleties in this raucous age.

It is almost superfluous to say that the evening was as musically satisfying because of the compelling support of Dinuk at the piano. His sensitive hands at the keyboard with just the most appropriately tasteful chords and inversions, subtle accents and rhythmic counter-pulses made the concert. He has what it takes, and for Sri Lankan audiences who have seen his artistic development over this past decade and a half, it was such a delight to hear his sheer mastery of the idiom as well as his unobtrusive brilliance. He treated us to an original, named “Hymn Peace” and he offered a spoken commentary of his rationale for calling it thus.

A fairly uncluttered melodic fragment in four phrases which began with an atmospheric manipulation of the strings of the grand piano which then moved into a pulse generated by the double-bass along with the drums entering a tad later. It had the invocatory nature of an opus one associates with the great pianist Randy Weston. However, Dinuk was definitely the creator of his own theme and departure, and what was particularly winsome was that he persuaded the audience, all together to hum the original theme toward the coda. This they did with remarkable prowess!

Dinuk was very ably supported by the New Zealand -born double bassist Patrick Bleakley and Colombo’s own Christo Prins at the drums. There were some acoustic difficulties that one felt were occasionally intrusive in effectively capturing on microphone, the bloom and dynamic range of the bass, but in the overall, one could just as easily have not been bothered by it. One does remember the wonder the evening did provide!

Sunday Times Mar 6 2011

The Morton Cole Combo

2011-02-20T12:14:00.000+05:30

One of Ceylon's great Jazz Bands of the 50's era.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpsi3qUCV4Y

Viceroy Special turns 25

2011-02-03T00:04:00.003+05:30

Viceroy Special turns 25

2011-02-03T00:04:00.002+05:30

Tales from the Dark Side of the Thottam

2011-01-31T16:33:00.002+05:30

by Bernard Vancuylenburg

Dear Chris

I am sending you this article which I penned after much deliberation travelling down memory's pathway to get the facts and other relevant details. I have no points of reference other than the good old memory bank, and my recollections of these stories as Dad related them to me, and which I subsequently read in a series of newspaper articles over forty five years ago ! So sit back with a good bottle of Merlot, or something stronger as you get into the darker side of life on the thotum.

Salaam!

Bernard

TALES FROM THE THOTTAM - THE DARK SIDE

The sylvan surroundings, bracing climate and majestic mesmerising landscapes of the tea estates in the plantation districts of Sri Lanka are an inspiration to the poet, artist, and philosopher. But beneath this facade of nature at her very best, lie tales of dark secrets and murder most foul, four of which I shall set down in this article. The first, and perhaps best known was ' The Whitehouse Murder ' which took place in 1949.

Mr. Bruce Whitehouse was the Superintendent of an estate in the Ratnapura district, the name of which I do not recall. Every month he would travel to Colombo to collect the staff/labourers wages. On these trips he would follow a set routine. Having collected the wages from the National & Grindlays Bank, he would visit the Colombo Swimming Club for drinks and sometimes lunch, after which he would drive back to Ratnapura. Mrs.Whitehouse usually accompanied him on these trips. Unknown to Mr.Whitehouse, his trips to Colombo and back were meticulously chartered and studied by none other than the kingpin of the underworld in Colombo at the time - a veritable Al Capone of the day - the notorious and much feared "Laathara Baas ". This worthy gentleman was responsible for many crimes, murder included, and had fallen foul of the law on several occasions, but thanks to a slick lawyer, he always evaded being put away for life. "Laathara Baas" and his cronies were particularly interested in the trips Whithouse made to Colombo and back due to the large sum of money he carried on the return trip. The criminal network was so well organised that they knew the exact day he would leave the estate. It transpired later that he was even followed to Ratnapura on a few occasions by a car which kept its distance, in order to ensure that the murderous plan these thugs had in mind would succeed when it was eventually carried out. On that fateful day, true to form Whitehouse followed the script."Humourous" is a word I do not care to use considering the events to follow, but into this drama comes the humble Tomato ! Mr.Whitehouse had a fondness for tomatoes, and sometimes during these visits he would go to the Pettah market and purchase a sack or two of the best tomatoes to take back to his bungalow. On the day in question he did just that, and three sacks of tomatoes were placed in the boot side by side with the bags of cash. Now it happened that the bags of tomatoes bore a close resemblance to the bags of cash stacked side by side, and this odd mix played an important part in this sordid tale as would be seen later. So Chris, take another sip of Merlot and steel yourself for the action down the track, or in this case, along the Colombo - Ratnapura road. As usual on this day Whitehouse was followed to the bank, to his club, and then to the Pettah market - and from there to Ratnapura. In the vehicle trailing him were "Laathara Baas" himself and three of his hoodlums with one intention - to waylay the car at a designated spot, and steal the cash. Unaware that they were being followed Mr.& Mrs. Whitehouse drove on, until at a sharp curve near the old bridge on the Ratnapura road a vehicle suddenly overtook theirs and blocked the road. Mr.Whitehouse slammed on the brakes, and before he could even begin to think, "Laathara Baas" and two of his sidekicks, fully armed and masked, thrust a gun in his face demanding that he handover the cash. If they thought that Whitehouse was an easy target, they thought wrong. To their surprise he put up a defiant struggle, attempting to grapple with the thugs. It was three against one, and proved futile. Incensed at being thwarted, the thugs responded in the manner best known to them - they shot Mr.Whitehouse at point blank range, and while his horrified wife watched on, opened the boot and took four bags of cash, making a quick getaway. Not quite - in their haste, thinking that the gunshot would by now attract some unwelcome attention, they had taken two bags of tomatoes along with two bags of cash, leaving the rest of the bags in the boot. Mrs.Whitehouse meanwhile, - full marks to this gallant lady - got behind the wheel and cradling her mortally wounded husband in her lap drove the car to the Palmgarden estate factory from where they attempted to get medical attention which was of no avail because Mr.Whitehouse died soon after. The full force of the law, and the best detectives worked on the case, and after about three weeks, "Laathara Baas"and his henchmen were arrested. Following a trial which gripped the nation, "Laathara Baas" and his cronies went the way that all "good" criminals go . He and three of them were hung at the Welikade jail, while one got a life sentence and died in prison.

To this day, the bend in the road where this gruesome murder was committed is known as "Thakkali Wanguwa" (Tomato Bend) . I have seen it and in fact on one occasion stopped awhile at this bend attempting to visualise in my minds eye the horrible events as they happened that awful day in 1949. Unfortunately not many are aware of this spot because the last book on this murder went out of print over fifty years ago, and with the passage of time events like this tend to be shrouded in the dark mists of memory.

In 1941 the Nuwaraeliya district was rocked by one of the most brutal murders which belied the bucolic charm of mountains valleys hills and dales, and life in those salubrious climes. I refer to the murder of Mr.George Pope, the Superintendent of Stellenberg Group, Uda Pussellewa. There is an indirect link to Carolina Group which I shall mention at the end of this episode. Mr.Pope was ever the strict disciplinarian and as tough as they came. He managed the estate with an iron fist, and woe betide anybody who stepped out of line. During this period, trade unions were formed on many plantations, and one day a group of labourers met him and requested permission to form a trade union on Stellenberg. Not only was their request refused, but they were soundly berated and threatened with dire consequences as far as their employment on the estate was concerned, if they persisted with this demand. Dismayed at the manner of the refusal in what seemed to them a reasonable request, and angered by the manner in which they were addressed, the labourers held the matter in abeyance, and for awhile life on Stellenberg went on. Mr.Pope used to visit the Superintendent of the adjoining estate at least twice a month for dinner, and the latter would return the visit. He had a standing order that whenever he returned to the estate late at night, the tea maker on night duty or the factory officer had to telephone his bungalow and inform the bungalow appu to keep the garage doors open no sooner he passed the factory. On the night in question, Mr.Pope went over for the usual dinner rendevous, and left very late. Driving along the road to his bungalow, a fair distance before the factory, the headlights of his car picked out some obstruction on the road which made it impossible for him to pass. It turned out to be the trunk of a tree, and if - there's always an IF in cases like this - he had fined tuned his antenna it would have told him that something was not quite right. Call it bravery or foolhardiness, but he stopped the car, went upto the tree trunk and attempted to dislodge it giving him just enough room to pass. The labourers who had laid this trap were hiding in the tea bushes armed with pruning knives. No sooner did he reach the trunk and attempt to move it, they attacked him in a fury of pent up anger with the pruning knives, holding nothing back. On that dark lonely road, in the dead of night he was literally hacked to pieces not by one, but by six men who fled the scene having committed this dastardly deed. George Pope lay on that road of death, the flesh ripped from his body, his life blood slowly draining away. Meanwhile the bungalow appu, anxious that 'The Master' had still not returned as it was now almost 1.00 AM, telephoned the factory and expressed his concern to the tea maker, Mr.Ludowyke. Alarmed at this phone call, Mr.Ludowyke organised a band of labourers and armed with "pandans" to light their way, went along the road leading out of the estate. Imagine their horror at finding Mr.Pope in a pool of blood breathing his last. The labourers cleared the road and Mr.Ludowyke drove the car to the factory the dying Mr.Pope by his side. He summoned the dispenser and then arranged for the wounded man to be taken to hospital. To no avail. Having tenuously clung to life, Mr.Pope breathed his last in a scene straight out of hell. Events took a quick turn after this. The Police were informed, and I dont know about the wheels of justice grinding slowly because in this case the opposite was true. They came to Stellenberg with all speed and in the early hours of the morning commenced their inquiries. Fate lent them a helping hand almost immediately because at the scene of the murder they found a door key to a line room. At muster that morning, six labourers were missing and could not be found anywhere,including the would be union leader, Ramasamy Weeraswamy. Pieces of the jigsaw began falling into place when the key found at the scene fitted the door to his line room. He and the other five now the chief suspects had absconded. The police then threw all their rescources into a search which encompassed most of the plantations in the area and before long, one by one, the five suspects were arrested - except for the union leader. He evaded the law for almost five months and seemed to have vanished. The Police had by then printed 'Wanted' posters of the man for distribution, which were circulated as far as Kandy. There is a lesson to be learned here. Never take anything or anybody for granted, least of all the humble barber with his scissors, comb and machine in his dingy saloon, unlike the fancy hairdressing saloons and boutiques of today. One such barber among many ran a small barber shop in Kandy with his assistant. One morning a scruffy looking character sauntered in looking the worse for wear requesting a hair cut and shave. His unkempt hair and beard did not concern the barber for that was his trade. What he noted was the filthy state of the mans shirt and sarong. He proceeded with the shave first, and then began the haircut. And this is where Alfred Hitchock could relate, or rather depict what followed with his sense of the dramatic like a scene in one of his classic movies, leaving the viewers biting their nails, and digging into their arm rests, in jaw dropping suspense. As he began cutting this customers hair, the face before him in the mirror accelerated his heartbeat as if he was walking a treadmill. Because, in the drawer of his little table at the back of the saloon there was a poster of the 'Wanted' man handed out by the police sometime ago. At the time of distribution the suspects hair was not long and resembled the face in the mirror before him ! Full credit to Captain Cool for not flinching or losing his nerve at this discovery. Politely telling his unsuspecting client that he had to answer a call of nature, he asked his assistant to continue where he had left off, went to his room, checked the poster, and having scrutinisd it once more went to the tailors shop next door and used their telephone to inform the police. Five heavily armed constables led by an Inspector made their way to the saloon, and the wanted man - the union leader, Ramasamy Weeraswamy -meekly surrendered, realising that escape this time was impossible. The long search of five months had ended. The case was heard by one of the finest Judges of the time, Justice Soertsz. Five of the accused, the union leader included were sentenced to be hung and kept their date with the hangman. The other accused was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment when it was conclusively proved that he had no direct link to the murder, but had aided and abetted the accused in plotting Mr.Pope's murder. One of the names of the accused was Iyan Perumal Velaithen. I cannot recall the others after all this time. And here's the 'Carolina connection". The Superintendent who succeeded George Pope was Arthur Doudney. Twenty years later he became Dad's boss on Carolina Group. And George Pope, before he took charge of Stellenberg was Superintendent of Watawala Estate, Watawala, the estate after Carolina, on the road to Hatton. And there this story ends.

Kenilworth Estate, Ginigathena can be reached from the Nawa;apitiya - Hatton road, or travelling from Colombo, on the Yatiyantota - Hatton road. On any of these roads, it is the first estate before Carolina Group. In the late thirties, the Superintendent was Mr.Roberts.

Over a period of time after some careful scrutiny of the books, Mr.Roberts found that the chief clerk had misappropriated funds from the office to the tune of Rs.2000/=. He summoned the man to his office who when confronted with the evidence, made a full confession. In normal circumstances this would have warranted an instant dismissal, but Mr.Roberts decided to give his chief clerk another chance to wipe the slate clean. He set a deadline, giving him a period of one month to return the money by a certain day, If the money was not returned, the police would be informed. It was a magnanimous gesture, one to which the culprit readily agreed. Came the designated day and Mr.Roberts entered his office, summoning the chief clerk expecting the money to be returned. Unknown to him, this man had hidden the estate gun, fully loaded behind the office door. No sooner had Mr.Roberts entered and taken his seat at his desk, the clerk in a flash took the gun from behind the door and shot Mr.Roberts dead. The clerk then turned the gun on himself and committed suicide. The Managers bungalow was close to the factory and Mrs.Roberts hearing the gunshots, thought that a pig was being shot at the estate farm which happened to be in the vicinity. That was the tragic end of a kindly Superintendent who paid the price for his act of kindness in giving another human being a chance to redeem himself.

Finally, there was the murder of the chief clerk, and the teamaker, both on the same night on Galboda Group, Galboda in 1954.( You may remember Galboda Group Chris, when you spent a holiday at Uncle Cyril's on Mt.Jean Division, Carolina in 1963.) Galboda was just past Mt.Jean. A young lad who had just left Ananda College having passed his exams, boarded the train from Colombo Fort, and after the arduous journey alighted at Galboda station and made his way to the office . Somasiri had secured the position of junior clerk and was to commence work the next day. He settled in well and for a time showed much promise. But soon the chief clerk began to play some practical jokes on him and before long the situation got right out of hand and most of the office staff had a laugh at his expense. On occasion the teamaker joined him. The lad bore this all in silent resignation, not wishing to retaliate in any manner lest he risked losing his job. One night the teamaker had a dinner party at his house and invited the chief clerk, and some office staff, including young Somasiri. Their aim was to ply him with liquor and amuse themselves. Somasiri being one of the staff could not refuse the invitation, and accepted. Unknown to anyone, he had gone to the estate blacksmith a few days before, and requested him to make a knife which he said he needed for his kitchen. This transpired in the inquest which followed, and it was remarked how strange it was that the blacksmith did not have the least suspicion or doubts about Somasiri's unusual request. On that fateful night, liquor flowed freely and before long the fun began with young Somasiri the whipping boy. He bided his time until his patience ran out. The chief clerk was the first victim. Pulling out the knife concealed inside his jersey (or Jumper) he stabbed the chief clerk through the chest with such force that it went right through the mans chest, and through the rear of the cane chair on which he was seated, according to eyewitness evidence at the trial. The teamaker was next. Retrieving the knife from the chief clerks mangled chest, he plunged it with full force into the teamakers stomach. You are talking of a youth of 21 years against men in their forties. In the prime of his youth, fed by flames of rage, these liquor sodden men did not stand a chance. Most of those present fled in fear, and Somasisri stood beside the bodies and would not let anyone near. Nobody could approach him as he kept brandishing the blood soaked knife threatening anybody who tried with a similar fate. Meanwhile, Mr.David Murray, the Superintendent of Galboda was notified. He made his way to the scene and on seeing his boss, Somarisi calmed down. Mr.Murray gently and tactfully spoke to him, and convinced him to lay down the knife, and before long, thanks to David Murray the situation was brought under control. The police then arrived, and when the case went to trial the accused was sentenced to twenty years imprisonment. Many witnesses testified in his favour highlighting the treatment he had received at the hands of the deceased. This evidence was what saved him from the gallows, and the Defence had a strong case. It was remarked during the trial that such behaviour by grown up mature men such as the deceased, towards a novice starting out on lifes road was inconceivable. I was ten years old at the time and can still remember recoiling in horror when this case was discussed by Dad & Mum with some visitors. News of this murder spread through the plantations, and must have been the topic of conversation in front of many a blazing fire in the halls of a far away estate bungalow, on a cold misty night.

Many years ago I found myself in the Ratnapura cemetery. As is my wont, I proceeded to read the epitaphs on the tombstones until I came across one I have never forgotten. It read " Sacred to the memory of H.G.Ross, shot and fatally wounded on Galbodde Group, Ratnapura, 17th April 1937". All my efforts at finding out the details of this murder were unsucessful.

Who knows if in the dead of night on an estate somewhere, one still hears the plaintive voices of these victims mingled with the howling wind as they appear in a ghostly re-enactment of these tragic events of long ago.......

Bernard.

JU Concert 1970

2011-01-29T12:48:00.005+05:30

Memories of the greatest Jazz Artistes in Sri Lanka 1970

Grand Old Harold Moves On

2011-01-21T11:30:00.005+05:30

SENEVIRATNE - HAROLD MELVYN PERERA - Son of late H.M.P. Seneviratne and Lilian, most loving husband of Barbara (nee VanderWert), precious father of JO, Hugh, Jacquie, Jenny and Ramona, loving father-in-law of Ranjan, Lilian, Gerard, Gamini and Ravi, darling papa of Chevaan, Anoushka, Melissa, Shehan, Heshan, Julianne, Jonathan, Denver, Julian, Serala, Loushanie and Racquel, great grandfather of Rachel, brother of Tissa, Chandra, Indra, late Srimal, Ranjith, Senaka, Srikantha, Ranjini, Shanthi and Mallika. Cortege leaves A.F. Raymond’s Funeral Parlour at 4.30 p.m. on Saturday 22nd January. Burial at General Cemetery Kanatte (General Christian Section) Daily News Jan 21 2011 -

A great Sri Lankan musician who entertained us all since the 1960's. May he rest in Peace

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw1ePTtJbHk

Last Trumpet for Harold:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vT2rUBuPU1E

The last trumpet for the saxophonist Harold Seneviratne, one. of the veteran musicians of the Sri Lankan music scene for more than half a century. passed away last morning after a brief illness-Seneviratne, 21-1-2011 was synonymous, with vintage music of very high quality which held Sri Lankans enthralled for several decades.The dance band's career in Sri Lanka the combo's outings overseas. the musical backing for countless foreign acts, the regular radio broadcasts, the record releases (then it was 45 rpm) the programmed series that were Harold Seneviratne specials. and his years as Entertainment Manager. are history now In his halcyon days Harold was a dominant force in the local Western music scene.Harold took to music at the tender age of thirteen while still at his 'Alma mater' St. Peters College He learnt his basics from *Papa' Menezes and the late showman Donovan Andree, who nurtured his talent and encouraged him tremendously in his musical career.

Harold learnt the violin as a start to his musical career with his two brothers Tissa and Chandra under the guidance of Papa menezes. He mastered the piano and later switched to the sax, which he was associated with and known for worldwide, till he retired a few years ago.

His performances at the Silver Fawn night club. the Orchid Room. the GOB and New Delhi, just to mention a few venues, are now legendary: Harold has had the honour of playing before such international personalities as Dave Brubeck• Duke Ellington and Jack Tea Garden. He has also provided the musical backing for his schoolmate Bill Forbes Cliff Foenander Malcolm De Kauwe. The Golden Gale' quartet, Tony Brent. The Blue Diamonds and other top flight international artists.His remains he at AE Raymond's Funeral Parlour The burial will take place at the General Cemetery Kanatte on Saturday: 22 January.

Playing with Peter Prins in Sri Lanka: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lnv8Ag8mFCA&feature=related

May he rest in Peace!

XMas in the North

2010-12-25T12:33:00.000+05:30

CHRISTMAS FESTIVITIES IN NORTHERN SRI LANKA

SOME NOSTALGIC MEMORIES FROM THE#PAST

My memories go back to the days when I was a kid in the village (late forties and early fifties) and I thought I would share with your readers how the festive season was spent there during those glorious days. It would have been the same in the all other villages too.

Those who were employed in the cities (Colombo and elsewhere) would start descending into the village from December 21^st as they all get paid on the 20^th.. As a general rule, all Public Offices as well as Mercantile Establishments were closed from Dec. 24^th till January 2^nd next year. This system, however was abolished sometime in the early fifties and only two days, Christmas Day and the New Year’s were approved as holidays. I believe only the Christmas Day is a National Holiday now

There were two main Parishes in my village and Christmas festivities came to our Church once in three years. Days before Christmas, young maidens of the Parish who make up the Church choir will start their rehearsals while youngsters, seniors and juniors seize this opportunity to mix around with and poke fun at them. Two days before Christmas, a few youths gather and start putting up a crib at the Church and by Christmas Eve, a beautiful one would be ready with the Infant Jesus laid on bare straw. As a sideshow the kids would assemble to rehearse for a game called ‘Koladdam’, a friendly batter played with sticks. More of it later.

At homes, new clothes were bought for the young and old, especially for the very young. Ladies go for saris and take pride in exhibiting them at the midnight Church service. However, not all could afford to buy new ones .Cakes were baked or bought and some snacks were also made but these were generally reserved for the New Year. Come Christmas Eve, they all attend the midnight mass and the weather would generally be kind. There was no electricity but the Church was lit up with plenty of candles and one or two petromax lamps. The choir sings ‘Gloria’ with all the fervor they can command and Jesus Christ was considered as born. After the mass, the gathering disperses to their homes but not the youths, they all assemble and the juniors collect their ‘Koladdam’ sticks. These are well polished sticks normally around 12 to 18 inches in round shape long thick at the bottom and thinner at the top. This game is a friendly one played by two y or in groups of four. Led by the seniors, one of whom will be the ‘Santa Claus, appropriately dressed, they move from one home to other and play this game while carols are sung by a few. Generally they are rewarded with some money. All households are bound to give whatever they can. Some parishioners live distantly but they cannot be excluded. Generally coffees and snacks are served to keep the youths awake and by the time this round of visits is completed, it is already dawn. No one ever bothered to check up what happened to the collections but presumably they filled the Church coffers.

Christmas day dawns and there is a Holy Mass said to accommodate those who could not attend the midnight service. It is really a glorious day and ladies would prepare their best dishes for lunch and dinner. Of course, in many homes alcohol forms a part of the gaiety although this was taboo in my own home. My mother would always cook a rooster from our brood of hens and cocks and an excellent lunch is served to celebrate Christmas. Social visits, unlike in the cities were limited as they were reserved for the New Y ear.

The week following Christmas Day was spent merrily, youths taking part in games such as soccer and cricket. The weather always kept good. Ladies start preparing snacks such as Sippi, Payatham Paniyaram, Ariatharam, Murukku , etc. for the New Year. In my own home, we all looked forward to the 27^th Dec. when we always travelled by bullock card in the very early days and later by a vehicle to visit a close relative’s house in another village. All the relatives would join this family on this date to commemorate the elderly couple’s wedding anniversary. While the elders meet and chat, the young move around the spacious garden and relax. A delicious lunch would always be served and by evening after coffee all depart. This day always remained a memorable day in the Christmas season calendar.

Come New Year’s eve, there was always a Benediction at the Church when ‘ Te Deum ‘ would be sung to thank God Almighty for the good year that was about to end .All homes were ready to welcome the New Year and as night falls lanterns ( called ‘Vellichchakoodu’) were put up in each home. These were made with lean sticks and covered with multi-coloured tissue papers, hexagons or octagons. A candle was laid in the middle of it on a stick and this beautiful piece of artistic work hoisted on a branch of a tree. . There was a dignified competition as to whose one was bigger and brighter. Unlike on Christmas eve, there would be no midnight service a the Church but most of the parishioners would assemble sharp at midnight to pray to the Holy Infant Jesus and the patron Saint of the parish ( St. Antony) to usher in a bright and prosperous New year.

Early next morning as New Year dawns, everyone proceeds to the Church to attend the Holy mass but even before that there would be stream of visitors at our home to greet our grandparents and my own parents who were ‘Godparents’ to many. The scene is the same in other homes too. During the mass, the ’Veni Creator’ is sung beautifully and it is the turn of the parish Priest to extend his own wishes.

On New Year’s Day every household visits each other and this is a must. When they visit, snacks mentioned earlier are served. In certain homes, cream crackers with cheese and cakes are also served By the time three or four homes are visited, the stomach gets filled up. Ladies wait til the evening to visit because they have to wait at home to cook another delicious lunch with mutton or fowl curry. If some visits are not made on New years Day, they are done the following day. If a home is not visited by someone, it is taken as an affront. The Parish consisted of 50 odd families, all related to each other by blood or marriage. Some were well to do and some downright poor but there was no discrimination and it was a happy family. These were glorious days indeed when family rivalry, jealousy and competition were generally absent. In general thee was ‘goodwill’ in true spirit of Christmas

After the New Year, the village goes quiet. Those who had come for the holidays would depart one by one and kids prepare to go to school. The Christmas festivities in the Church end with the feast of Ephiphany, which was celebrated those days on the 6^th of January.

As for me I would prepare to go back to St. Patrick’s Boarding House. I have had enough of good food and now must move over to the ‘Boarding House food.

I do not know how Christmas festivities are spent now in this village but I wish I could be there next time, God willing.

A Merry Christmas and a Bright and Prosperous to all of you.

Benedict Thomas

Scarborough

Canada

December 2010