A great musician of the 60s in Sri Lanka
Nimal Mendis - dared to dream
Sisira CHANDRASEKERA in London - Sunday Observer Feb 21 2010
Recently I got in touch with Nimal Mendis, a veteran composer of hits such as Master Sir, Nim Him Sewva and Ganga Addara. He has been living in Britain for many decades travelling to and from Sri Lanka to write those hits that have proved extremely popular.
When I emailed him I received the following reply.
"Thank you very much for your email. Unfortunately or may be fortunately I am now in Sri Lanka. We came over three months ago and have been busy settling down here in Malabe. Hoping to be here now with an occasional visit back to London. Our son worked for the BBC (TV Centre White City) for seven years as a sound/video editor and he too is now here with us.
There is outstanding talent in Sri Lanka, especially in some of the young musicians and singers here today and we are quite amazed that they have not got on to the world stage as yet. One thing we are determined to accomplish is to try and do our best to help these young artists."
This is the man, as a young lad from Sri Lanka who dared to dream that he was good enough to perform with the best in the West. An impossible dream at the time!
He would swim along the coastline at "Bambalawatte" (Bambalapitiya) as it was called then, gazing at the sky on his back dreaming his dream. Just out of school at Royal College he filled in his music ambitions playing the piano for the Harold Seneviratne Combo. He said that they used to be paid Rs 10 a night and Rs 15 for an all-night gig at the 'Pigalle' night club in Colpetty.
He came from a family that viewed the world with an anglicised professionalism and the house was filled with the atmosphere of western classical music, art and literature, although it was also infused with everything Sri Lankan, especially in the world of art philosophy and politics. There were discussions of Ghandian and Nehru values. His mother was the first author in Sri Lanka to write in English and her first book was published in London in 1929. His father was an inventor - inventor of the now famous brand of "Mendis Special" that reached great heights through its development by his brother, Walter M Mendis.
The Mendis family was a set of liberals, five children making their mark in different spheres and the youngest Nimal, who dared to dream a tall dream into the entertainment world. Nimal said, "It must have been the `gene jewels' we inherited from my father and mother. The liberalism of his parents is what enabled the young Nimal to convince his parents to send him to England, initially to study accountancy. However, there was a manipulation that took place because after an year of accountancy studies in London he was playing the piano in sophisticated restaurants and writing songs and composing music. The seeds were sown of the dream he dared to dream.
Big break
His first big break came when he was playing the piano at the Ceylon Students Centre. He had formed a group called `The Kandyans'. Mano Chanmugam on piano accordian, Anura on Kandyan drums, and Subra de Silva as the singer in the group.
Nimal played piano and also sang. The piano was in the restaurant and after meals the manageress allowed them to practise there while Sri Lankan students and their guests drank coffee or tea. While they were practising one of Nimal's songs a young woman came up to them an inquired about the song.
She was Mary Marshall an up and coming English singer. The song was "Kiss Kiss Kiss" and it went on to be a huge hit in Sri Lanka played regularly over the airwaves by the late Vernon Corea, Livy Wijemane and Jimmy Bharucha, the veteran broadcasters of then Radio Ceylon.
It did well in England too but soon after Mary married a successful agent in the entertainment industry, she left England and went to live in the Channel Islands.
After 40 years Mary is in contact with Nimal again. Her daughter had seen some of his work on Sinhala Juke Box on the internet and emailed him. Although Mary had faded out from the music scene in London she was involved in a lot of charity work in the Channel Islands. Mary always kept her interest of 'Ceylon' and when the tsunami occurred collected funds for an organisation dealing with the victims. of the tsunami.
"Kiss Kiss Kiss" has still an occasional play on the SLBC.
String of hits
A string of hits followed when Nimal came back to Sri Lanka for a short spell. Kandyan Express, Butterfly in the rain, Cherry Blossom Tree, Champagne Blues, Oh My Lover and Goodnight Kisses, all with the Harold Seneviratne Combo and singers such as Ciff Foenander, Sandra Edema and the Jay Brothers. The dream beckoned him back to the bright lights of London and Nimal became a successful musician of the sixties in London.
Nimal Mendisi
Although he did not share the fame of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones he held his own as a Sri Lankan with his singing partner Sandra Edema who was now also searching stardom in London. They teamed up and were on' Top of the Pops", the famous British TV show at the time and "Beat Club" and even the more successful TV show in Germany that was viewed by millions on the continent of Europe. Nimal Mendis is one of the two Sri Lankan artistes to sing on BBC Top of the Pops. The other singer is Bill Forbes who lives in Yorkshire. Nimal said that he was searching for over 30 years to get a clip of the performance on "Beat Club" and there it was two weeks ago on the internet. He managed to get a copy which is of good quality and is hoping that a TV company in Sri Lanka will pick it up for airing.
It is certainly a clip that is worth seeing by all our young people of a lad who dared to dream. They will be inspired and they too will dream. To dream the dream is the first step of fulfilment.
Unfortunately, but as Nimal said, "What looks like misfortune at first, if accepted and you do not `Cave in could lead to fortune once more. He was in a race attack in the late sixties and decided to come back to Sri Lanka.
He got 10 acres of land in Norton Bridge and farmed for five years. While doing this he experienced first hand all kinds of negative values.
This was what led him to write " Master Sir". His good friend Manik Sandrasagara said, "You are not a farmer, you are a composer. Stop burying yourself here. I am making a film and you must write the music for it."
Doing the music for Kalu Diya Dahara was the beginning of Nimal's entry to the Sinhala film Music scene. Lester and Sumitra Peries and Manik used his talents to write several scores and songs. Every song that Nimal wrote for a Sinhala film was a hit with our people. Master Sir, Ganga Addara, Nim Him Sewva, Upul Nuwan, Gehenu Lamai, Viyo Gee and Obey Adare are household name songs.
From the dream of the western entertainment stage Nimal was now conquering the Sinhala music scene with his songs and composing. This is a career that should be followed by our youngsters as an inspiration.
Here is this veteran come back to his motherland. Come on - make use of him - meet him - get his experience and storm the world stage with the amazing talent that exists today in Sri Lanka.
http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2010/02/21/mon16.asp
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Our Friends, The Burghers
We cannot think of Ceylon without them
By T. Max Perera and T. Andrew Wickremasinghe
I have a great predilection towards Burghers. Not only because I have many
bosom cronies in that community, but because I have spent some of the
happiest years of my boyhood in their homes.
The finest lady that I ever knew was a Burgher. The most select gentleman
of my acquaintance is a Burgher; and if some unfortunate Sinhalese girl
fails to discover me, I could still discover both intelligence and beauty
in a Burgher girl and - marry her.
This is merely a personal outburst, because a fair face seldom fails to
floor me. But the Burghers are not only fair of face ¡Z in truth, along
with an attractive complexion they have, in addition, such a broad sense of
fair play and fair dealing that they are the easiest to get on with in the
world.
We have been brothers and sisters in blood for we have tasted more things
than salt together, and I never set eyes on a Burgher but I take an instant
liking to him or her.
THEY GIVE ZEST
They are a Western graft upon an Eastern tree, but so well have they
acclimatized and endeared themselves to the native soil that we cannot
think of a Ceylon without Burghers.
Wellawatte would be a dull strip of sand; Bambalapitiya a barren wilderness
of wind; Colpetty and Dehiwala gloomy haunts of melancholy, if there were
no Burgher girls to scatter radiance on the way.
With their good looks and musical voices they give a definite zest to
social life, dancing with hips of rhythm and crooning melodies that are
filled with moonlit dreams. The sparkle of life is in their eyes and the
tremor of love is on their lips.
They have captured all the romance in the world and shut it all to
themselves, that no Matchmakers can enter into their lives with deceitful
talk of daughters and of dowries; and so they believe in marrying for love
and believe also in all the sacrifices involved in the one great adventure
of Love.
EYES SO FRANK
They wear their hearts on their sleeves and in the frank lustre of their
eyes one can read their very souls. Faithful as friends and forgiving as
enemies, they are always too good-natured to be obstinately malicious and
too easy-going to bear any rancour.
They are the descendants of all those Portuguese who came along with
Lorenzo d'Almeida or of the Dutch who arrived with Joris Van Spilbergen.
The former held the land for 134 years and the Hollanders for over 156, and
although their governments have disappeared, the two nations remain with us
as - Burghers.
INTELLECTS
Theirs have been some of the greatest intellects of the land. The past has
given us Dornhorst and Lorenz; the present has Blaze and Schneider.
The only Ceylonese Bishop in the island was a Burgher. Maartensz and Wille
are men of the age we live in; and in the field of sport as in the realm of
music, Kelaart, Foenander, Arndt and Zilwa are names of high repute, while
the Van Langenbergs are men of wide renown.
Remains also with them the blessed light of Christianity that they brought
into the Island; the Roman-Dutch Law ; the forts that they built and the
canals they constructed. Those forts may crumble and the canals run dry but
Portuguese or Dutch we have always in our midst our tried friends the
Burghers.
"The Government officers", explains the well-known Dutch Burgher historian
of Ceylon, "were known as Company's Servants and the non-officials as
Burghers or Viyburgers (free Burghers)". From these Burghers were appointed
officers for the Burgery, an armed force composed of Tupasses, (people of
mixed Portuguese descent). When the rule of the Company ceased in 1796
there could be no Company's Servants any longer and all the Dutch people in
Ceylon became Burghers.
They are the sponsors of western art and fashion in our midst. They are a
vivacious Occidental group in a sedate Eastern land. Cocktails and Fox
Trots will not join the Dodo as long as there are Burghers in the country.
Besides, is not music the greatest passion of their lives and beauty their
common heritage ? Great Race, this, the Burghers.
HAPPY BONDS
Politics do not flutter them; they like the men of the land and the men of
the land are fond of them and these happy bonds of love are often drawn
closer together with a ring of beaten gold and a vow before the Altar.
They are certainly not an effeminate people: The heroic spirit of
Constantine de Sa and the martial spirit of Azevedo still linger in the
hearts of their descendants, so, in every branch and walk of life have
proved themselves to be an honour to their country and community.
Whether in the learned professions or in the Government service or lower
down in the humbler crafts which the poorer ones follow for the sake of
their living, they have singularly distinguished themselves by their
honesty and integrity, just as wherever they go they must have, in their
own characteristic manner and according to their lot in life, their feasts
and musical festivals.
They fill a very big place in the social life of the country and if we
Sinhalese have not quarreled with them and have found them to be the
pleasantest of friends, it is mainly because of their savoir faire and good
breeding and of the winning ways of their men as of the smiling charm of
their ladies.
------------ and another follow up
My Recollections About The Burghers
By Harold Gunatillake
I totally agree with the sentiments and the thoughts about the Burgher generation in Ceylon being circulated by an anonymous Muslim.
I did not go to a Christian denomination school like S. Thomas’, St. Peter’s on Galle Road, or St. Joseph’s College, or Trinity or Kingswood College in Kandy where most Burgher boys were educated, but I came to acquaint with them after I qualified to become a doctor.
I am from Kandy and Duncan White who excelled at the Olympics was a Trinity product and the people of Kandy were so proud of that achievement. I am not a Kandyan and the Kandyans who are so proud of their ancestry from the Kandyan aristocracy, nicknamed us ‘Canadians’ because we migrated from the low country.
My memory goes back to the university and medical school days in Colombo, when during the weekends cycling through Galle Road was an anticipated pleasure and the opportunity of chit chatting with the teenage Burgher girls wearing shortie shorts and cycling along Galle Road was a treat. It was traditionally taboo for Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim teenagers to be seen cycling on Galle Road or anywhere, in shorts. Today, to my surprise I see a lot of local girls cycling in the Negombo area on the main bustling roads, and Negombo men don’t seem to bother about them.
The young Burgher boys and girls were a happy lot, always giggling, laughing and having fun most of the time which was not seen among other nationalities who behaved in their more orthodox behaviour. These teenagers gave a lot of colour and joy to the suburbs around Galle Road. It was a great asset for the country to see such a multi ethnic community enjoying life during the post-colonial period. Bambalapitiya was named ‘Bambalawatte’ where most of the Burgher families lived. Bambalapitiya flats were totally occupied by the Burghers then. Some called the area “Bamba”.
I still remember Ms. Maureen Hingert, ‘Miss Ceylon,’ who went on to become the second runner-up at the Ms. Universe contest in 1955 lived with her parents, down Lorensz Road running parallel to Dickman’s Road close to the Savoy Cinema.
Situated between Lorensz Rd and Davidson Road was the New Wellington Sports Club. The members were mainly Burghers of Bambalawatte extending to Wellawatte. The President of this Club was Richard “Aiyar” Perera who was the Chandiya (thug) of the whole of Bambalapitiya, Wellawatte region right up to Vihara Lane in Wellawatte. He had a huge eagle with wings spread tattooed on his back.
Kinross Swimming Club was very popular and it was by the sea in the vicinity of Savoy and the access road was Kinross Avenue, and the name of the street remains the same even today. After the Burghers migrated to Australia in the late sixties and after, the popularity of the club declined. We used to go for dances at the Kinross Club in the old days.
We had many Dutch Burghers in the Police Force excelling themselves in sports and in their official duties. I remember the late Jack Van Sanden, a police officer who commenced his career in the Ceylon Police. He started as a sub inspector and rose to the rank of Deputy Inspector General of Police.
He arrested “Yakadaya” who was one of the most notorious criminals of the day. Yakadaya kept his pistol on Jack’s forehead and pulled the trigger. Fortunately, there were no bullets in the weapon and Jack survived and Yakadaya was handcuffed.
During the period of 1957/58, I was Mahara Prison doctor, and I got married whilst working there. Yakadaya was my favourite prisoner patient. The day I went back to work after getting married, Yakadaya gave me a bouquet of grass, and he said, “Hamuduruwane mechcharai apata dhenna puluwan” (This is all what we can give).
Van Sanden was an old boy of Kingswood College, Kandy and he captained the cricket team.
I cannot think of any Burgher who did not participate and excel in sports, including cricket. The Claessen boys ring a bell who played cricket for Wesley. Then there was Walter May the famous hurdler, later settled down in Perth, Australia. They did not go for football (soccer) as it was considered a “rowdy game” played by the “not so good” school boys and market jonnies. During that period they referred to good schools as three in number — Royal, S. Thomas’ and Trinity. Then, came the Catholic schools like St. Joseph’s, Wesley, St. Peters and so on. Buddhist schools were considered as ‘not so good schools’ though the boys excelled in studies.
Then there were the famous Burgher policemen like V.T. Dickman, Eddie Buultjens and many others I faintly remember. Eddie Buultjens was the first Ceylon boy to represent All Ceylon at cricket.
The first Ceylonese who was appointed as Asst. Superintendent of Police was a Burgher, de La Harpe. He was famous for raiding a counterfeit money den and was rewarded handsomely with a reward of Rs 5.
Then there was inspector Toussaint who was in charge of the Colombo Harbour.
George Von Hagt, a special constable was shot dead by the infamous bandit “Saradiel”.
Another policeman who excelled in sports was Inspector Edward Gray. He was an excellent bowler, and also a famous boxer. I think he became a champion at the Commonwealth Games Boxing Championship.
He retired prematurely after he fell off a horse whilst on duty. He got himself condemned in 1956 when I was working in the Orthopaedic Department at the General Hospital.
There were famous doctors like Surgeon Bartholomeuz, Austin, and Physician Blaze, recognised for their skills. They were true gentlemen, honest and most ethical.
Among the famous lawyers was Justice Sansoni, Gratian, and so on. They were men with stature and quite famous in those days.
The list will go on, it is just a matter of putting on your thinking cap, but memories are fading fast, and my apologies for omitting so many other Burghers who excelled in our country and contributed immensely to that island we called “Ceylon.”
----------
HOORAY ! LONG LIVE THE BURGHERS.
Written by Harold Gunatillake
My memories
I totally agree with the sentiments and the thoughts about the Burgher generation in Ceylon.
I did not go to a Christian denomination school like St.Thomas’, St Peters’, on Galle Road, and Trinity, or Kingswood College in Kandy. where most burgher boys were educated, but I came to acquaint with them after I qualified to become a doctor. After all Duncan White who excelled at the Olympics was a Kingswood product.
My memory goes back to the university and medical school days in Colombo, when during the weekends cycling through Galle Road was an anticipated pleasure and opportunity of chit chatting with the teenage burgher girls wearing Shorty shorts and cycling along Galle Road was a treat. It was traditionally taboo for Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim teenagers to be seen cycling on Galle Road or anywhere in Shorts. Today, to my surprise I see lot of local girls cycling on Negombo areas on the main busy roads.
The young Burgher boys and girls were a happy lot always giggling, laughing and having fun most of the time which was not seen among other nationalities. These teenagers gave lot of colour and joy in the suburbs around Galle Road. That was a great asset for the country to see such multi ethnics enjoying mateship during the post-colonial period. Bambalapitiya was named ‘Bambalawatte’ where most of the Burgher families lived. Bambalapitiya flats were totally occupied by the burghers then. Some called the area,”Bamba”.
I still remember Ms Maureen Hingert, Miss Ceylon, who went on to become the second runner-up at the Ms Universe contest 1955 lived with her parents, down Lorensz Road running parallel to Dickman’s Road close to the Savoy Cinema.
Situated between Lorensz Rd and Davidson Road was the New Wellington Sports Club. The members were mainly burghers of Bambalawatte extending to Wellawatte. The President of this Club was Richard “Aiyar” Perera who was the chandiya (thugman) of the whole of Bambalapitiya, Wellawate region right up to Vihare Lane in Wellawate. He had a huge Eagle with wings spread tattooed on his back.
Kinross swimming club was very popular and it was by the sea in the vicinity of Savoy and the access road is Kinross Ave, and the name of the street remains the same even today. After the burghers migrated to Australia in the late sixties and after, the popularity of the club declined and today there are very few locals who patronise. We use to go for dances at the Kinross Club in the old days.
We had many Dutch Burghers in the Police Force excelling themselves in Sports and in their official duties. I remember the late Jack Van Sanden, police officer who commenced his career in the Ceylon Police
As a sub inspector and rose to the rank of Deputy Inspector General of Police.
He arrested “Yakadaya” who was one of the most notorious criminals of the day. Yakadaya kept his pistol on Jack’s forhead and pulled the trigger. Fortunately, there were no bullets in the weapon and Jack saved his life and Yakkadaya was handcuffed.
During the period of 1957/58, I was Mahara Prison doctor, and I got married whilst working there. Yakadaya was my favourite prisoner patient. The day I went back to work after getting married, Yakadaya gave me a bouquet of grass, and he said,”Hamuduruwane mechari apata dhenna puluwan” (This is all what we can give).
Van Sanden was an old boy of Kingswood College, Kandy and he captioned the cricket team.
I cannot think of any burgher who did not participate and excel in sports, including cricket. They did not go for foot ball (soccer) as it was considered a “rowdy game” played by the “not so good school boys and market jonnies. During that period they refer to good schools as three in number- Royal, St.Thomas’ and Trinity. Then came the catholic schools like St.Joseph’s Wesley, St Peters, and so on. Buddhist schools were considered as ‘not so good schools’ though the boys excelled in studies.
Then there were the famous burgher policemen like V.T.Dickman, Eddie Buultjens and many others I faintly remember. Eddie Buultjens was the first Ceylon boy to represent All Ceylon at Cricket.
The first Ceylonese who was appointed as Asst Superintendent of Police was a Burgher de La Harpe. He was famous for raiding a counterfeit money den and was rewarded handsomely with a reward of Rs 5.
Then there was inspector Toussaint who was in charge of the Colombo Harbour.
Then there was George Von Hagt a special constable shot dead by the infamous bandit “Sardiel”.
Another policeman who excelled in sports was Inspector Edward Gray. He was an excellent bowler, and also a famous boxer. I think he became a champion at the Commonwealth Games Boxing Championship.
He retired prematurely after he fell off an horse whilst on duty. He got himself condemned in 1956 when I was working in the Orthopaedic Department at the General Hospital.
----
By T. Max Perera and T. Andrew Wickremasinghe
I have a great predilection towards Burghers. Not only because I have many
bosom cronies in that community, but because I have spent some of the
happiest years of my boyhood in their homes.
The finest lady that I ever knew was a Burgher. The most select gentleman
of my acquaintance is a Burgher; and if some unfortunate Sinhalese girl
fails to discover me, I could still discover both intelligence and beauty
in a Burgher girl and - marry her.
This is merely a personal outburst, because a fair face seldom fails to
floor me. But the Burghers are not only fair of face ¡Z in truth, along
with an attractive complexion they have, in addition, such a broad sense of
fair play and fair dealing that they are the easiest to get on with in the
world.
We have been brothers and sisters in blood for we have tasted more things
than salt together, and I never set eyes on a Burgher but I take an instant
liking to him or her.
THEY GIVE ZEST
They are a Western graft upon an Eastern tree, but so well have they
acclimatized and endeared themselves to the native soil that we cannot
think of a Ceylon without Burghers.
Wellawatte would be a dull strip of sand; Bambalapitiya a barren wilderness
of wind; Colpetty and Dehiwala gloomy haunts of melancholy, if there were
no Burgher girls to scatter radiance on the way.
With their good looks and musical voices they give a definite zest to
social life, dancing with hips of rhythm and crooning melodies that are
filled with moonlit dreams. The sparkle of life is in their eyes and the
tremor of love is on their lips.
They have captured all the romance in the world and shut it all to
themselves, that no Matchmakers can enter into their lives with deceitful
talk of daughters and of dowries; and so they believe in marrying for love
and believe also in all the sacrifices involved in the one great adventure
of Love.
EYES SO FRANK
They wear their hearts on their sleeves and in the frank lustre of their
eyes one can read their very souls. Faithful as friends and forgiving as
enemies, they are always too good-natured to be obstinately malicious and
too easy-going to bear any rancour.
They are the descendants of all those Portuguese who came along with
Lorenzo d'Almeida or of the Dutch who arrived with Joris Van Spilbergen.
The former held the land for 134 years and the Hollanders for over 156, and
although their governments have disappeared, the two nations remain with us
as - Burghers.
INTELLECTS
Theirs have been some of the greatest intellects of the land. The past has
given us Dornhorst and Lorenz; the present has Blaze and Schneider.
The only Ceylonese Bishop in the island was a Burgher. Maartensz and Wille
are men of the age we live in; and in the field of sport as in the realm of
music, Kelaart, Foenander, Arndt and Zilwa are names of high repute, while
the Van Langenbergs are men of wide renown.
Remains also with them the blessed light of Christianity that they brought
into the Island; the Roman-Dutch Law ; the forts that they built and the
canals they constructed. Those forts may crumble and the canals run dry but
Portuguese or Dutch we have always in our midst our tried friends the
Burghers.
"The Government officers", explains the well-known Dutch Burgher historian
of Ceylon, "were known as Company's Servants and the non-officials as
Burghers or Viyburgers (free Burghers)". From these Burghers were appointed
officers for the Burgery, an armed force composed of Tupasses, (people of
mixed Portuguese descent). When the rule of the Company ceased in 1796
there could be no Company's Servants any longer and all the Dutch people in
Ceylon became Burghers.
They are the sponsors of western art and fashion in our midst. They are a
vivacious Occidental group in a sedate Eastern land. Cocktails and Fox
Trots will not join the Dodo as long as there are Burghers in the country.
Besides, is not music the greatest passion of their lives and beauty their
common heritage ? Great Race, this, the Burghers.
HAPPY BONDS
Politics do not flutter them; they like the men of the land and the men of
the land are fond of them and these happy bonds of love are often drawn
closer together with a ring of beaten gold and a vow before the Altar.
They are certainly not an effeminate people: The heroic spirit of
Constantine de Sa and the martial spirit of Azevedo still linger in the
hearts of their descendants, so, in every branch and walk of life have
proved themselves to be an honour to their country and community.
Whether in the learned professions or in the Government service or lower
down in the humbler crafts which the poorer ones follow for the sake of
their living, they have singularly distinguished themselves by their
honesty and integrity, just as wherever they go they must have, in their
own characteristic manner and according to their lot in life, their feasts
and musical festivals.
They fill a very big place in the social life of the country and if we
Sinhalese have not quarreled with them and have found them to be the
pleasantest of friends, it is mainly because of their savoir faire and good
breeding and of the winning ways of their men as of the smiling charm of
their ladies.
------------ and another follow up
My Recollections About The Burghers
By Harold Gunatillake
I totally agree with the sentiments and the thoughts about the Burgher generation in Ceylon being circulated by an anonymous Muslim.
I did not go to a Christian denomination school like S. Thomas’, St. Peter’s on Galle Road, or St. Joseph’s College, or Trinity or Kingswood College in Kandy where most Burgher boys were educated, but I came to acquaint with them after I qualified to become a doctor.
I am from Kandy and Duncan White who excelled at the Olympics was a Trinity product and the people of Kandy were so proud of that achievement. I am not a Kandyan and the Kandyans who are so proud of their ancestry from the Kandyan aristocracy, nicknamed us ‘Canadians’ because we migrated from the low country.
My memory goes back to the university and medical school days in Colombo, when during the weekends cycling through Galle Road was an anticipated pleasure and the opportunity of chit chatting with the teenage Burgher girls wearing shortie shorts and cycling along Galle Road was a treat. It was traditionally taboo for Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim teenagers to be seen cycling on Galle Road or anywhere, in shorts. Today, to my surprise I see a lot of local girls cycling in the Negombo area on the main bustling roads, and Negombo men don’t seem to bother about them.
The young Burgher boys and girls were a happy lot, always giggling, laughing and having fun most of the time which was not seen among other nationalities who behaved in their more orthodox behaviour. These teenagers gave a lot of colour and joy to the suburbs around Galle Road. It was a great asset for the country to see such a multi ethnic community enjoying life during the post-colonial period. Bambalapitiya was named ‘Bambalawatte’ where most of the Burgher families lived. Bambalapitiya flats were totally occupied by the Burghers then. Some called the area “Bamba”.
I still remember Ms. Maureen Hingert, ‘Miss Ceylon,’ who went on to become the second runner-up at the Ms. Universe contest in 1955 lived with her parents, down Lorensz Road running parallel to Dickman’s Road close to the Savoy Cinema.
Situated between Lorensz Rd and Davidson Road was the New Wellington Sports Club. The members were mainly Burghers of Bambalawatte extending to Wellawatte. The President of this Club was Richard “Aiyar” Perera who was the Chandiya (thug) of the whole of Bambalapitiya, Wellawatte region right up to Vihara Lane in Wellawatte. He had a huge eagle with wings spread tattooed on his back.
Kinross Swimming Club was very popular and it was by the sea in the vicinity of Savoy and the access road was Kinross Avenue, and the name of the street remains the same even today. After the Burghers migrated to Australia in the late sixties and after, the popularity of the club declined. We used to go for dances at the Kinross Club in the old days.
We had many Dutch Burghers in the Police Force excelling themselves in sports and in their official duties. I remember the late Jack Van Sanden, a police officer who commenced his career in the Ceylon Police. He started as a sub inspector and rose to the rank of Deputy Inspector General of Police.
He arrested “Yakadaya” who was one of the most notorious criminals of the day. Yakadaya kept his pistol on Jack’s forehead and pulled the trigger. Fortunately, there were no bullets in the weapon and Jack survived and Yakadaya was handcuffed.
During the period of 1957/58, I was Mahara Prison doctor, and I got married whilst working there. Yakadaya was my favourite prisoner patient. The day I went back to work after getting married, Yakadaya gave me a bouquet of grass, and he said, “Hamuduruwane mechcharai apata dhenna puluwan” (This is all what we can give).
Van Sanden was an old boy of Kingswood College, Kandy and he captained the cricket team.
I cannot think of any Burgher who did not participate and excel in sports, including cricket. The Claessen boys ring a bell who played cricket for Wesley. Then there was Walter May the famous hurdler, later settled down in Perth, Australia. They did not go for football (soccer) as it was considered a “rowdy game” played by the “not so good” school boys and market jonnies. During that period they referred to good schools as three in number — Royal, S. Thomas’ and Trinity. Then, came the Catholic schools like St. Joseph’s, Wesley, St. Peters and so on. Buddhist schools were considered as ‘not so good schools’ though the boys excelled in studies.
Then there were the famous Burgher policemen like V.T. Dickman, Eddie Buultjens and many others I faintly remember. Eddie Buultjens was the first Ceylon boy to represent All Ceylon at cricket.
The first Ceylonese who was appointed as Asst. Superintendent of Police was a Burgher, de La Harpe. He was famous for raiding a counterfeit money den and was rewarded handsomely with a reward of Rs 5.
Then there was inspector Toussaint who was in charge of the Colombo Harbour.
George Von Hagt, a special constable was shot dead by the infamous bandit “Saradiel”.
Another policeman who excelled in sports was Inspector Edward Gray. He was an excellent bowler, and also a famous boxer. I think he became a champion at the Commonwealth Games Boxing Championship.
He retired prematurely after he fell off a horse whilst on duty. He got himself condemned in 1956 when I was working in the Orthopaedic Department at the General Hospital.
There were famous doctors like Surgeon Bartholomeuz, Austin, and Physician Blaze, recognised for their skills. They were true gentlemen, honest and most ethical.
Among the famous lawyers was Justice Sansoni, Gratian, and so on. They were men with stature and quite famous in those days.
The list will go on, it is just a matter of putting on your thinking cap, but memories are fading fast, and my apologies for omitting so many other Burghers who excelled in our country and contributed immensely to that island we called “Ceylon.”
----------
HOORAY ! LONG LIVE THE BURGHERS.
Written by Harold Gunatillake
My memories
I totally agree with the sentiments and the thoughts about the Burgher generation in Ceylon.
I did not go to a Christian denomination school like St.Thomas’, St Peters’, on Galle Road, and Trinity, or Kingswood College in Kandy. where most burgher boys were educated, but I came to acquaint with them after I qualified to become a doctor. After all Duncan White who excelled at the Olympics was a Kingswood product.
My memory goes back to the university and medical school days in Colombo, when during the weekends cycling through Galle Road was an anticipated pleasure and opportunity of chit chatting with the teenage burgher girls wearing Shorty shorts and cycling along Galle Road was a treat. It was traditionally taboo for Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim teenagers to be seen cycling on Galle Road or anywhere in Shorts. Today, to my surprise I see lot of local girls cycling on Negombo areas on the main busy roads.
The young Burgher boys and girls were a happy lot always giggling, laughing and having fun most of the time which was not seen among other nationalities. These teenagers gave lot of colour and joy in the suburbs around Galle Road. That was a great asset for the country to see such multi ethnics enjoying mateship during the post-colonial period. Bambalapitiya was named ‘Bambalawatte’ where most of the Burgher families lived. Bambalapitiya flats were totally occupied by the burghers then. Some called the area,”Bamba”.
I still remember Ms Maureen Hingert, Miss Ceylon, who went on to become the second runner-up at the Ms Universe contest 1955 lived with her parents, down Lorensz Road running parallel to Dickman’s Road close to the Savoy Cinema.
Situated between Lorensz Rd and Davidson Road was the New Wellington Sports Club. The members were mainly burghers of Bambalawatte extending to Wellawatte. The President of this Club was Richard “Aiyar” Perera who was the chandiya (thugman) of the whole of Bambalapitiya, Wellawate region right up to Vihare Lane in Wellawate. He had a huge Eagle with wings spread tattooed on his back.
Kinross swimming club was very popular and it was by the sea in the vicinity of Savoy and the access road is Kinross Ave, and the name of the street remains the same even today. After the burghers migrated to Australia in the late sixties and after, the popularity of the club declined and today there are very few locals who patronise. We use to go for dances at the Kinross Club in the old days.
We had many Dutch Burghers in the Police Force excelling themselves in Sports and in their official duties. I remember the late Jack Van Sanden, police officer who commenced his career in the Ceylon Police
As a sub inspector and rose to the rank of Deputy Inspector General of Police.
He arrested “Yakadaya” who was one of the most notorious criminals of the day. Yakadaya kept his pistol on Jack’s forhead and pulled the trigger. Fortunately, there were no bullets in the weapon and Jack saved his life and Yakkadaya was handcuffed.
During the period of 1957/58, I was Mahara Prison doctor, and I got married whilst working there. Yakadaya was my favourite prisoner patient. The day I went back to work after getting married, Yakadaya gave me a bouquet of grass, and he said,”Hamuduruwane mechari apata dhenna puluwan” (This is all what we can give).
Van Sanden was an old boy of Kingswood College, Kandy and he captioned the cricket team.
I cannot think of any burgher who did not participate and excel in sports, including cricket. They did not go for foot ball (soccer) as it was considered a “rowdy game” played by the “not so good school boys and market jonnies. During that period they refer to good schools as three in number- Royal, St.Thomas’ and Trinity. Then came the catholic schools like St.Joseph’s Wesley, St Peters, and so on. Buddhist schools were considered as ‘not so good schools’ though the boys excelled in studies.
Then there were the famous burgher policemen like V.T.Dickman, Eddie Buultjens and many others I faintly remember. Eddie Buultjens was the first Ceylon boy to represent All Ceylon at Cricket.
The first Ceylonese who was appointed as Asst Superintendent of Police was a Burgher de La Harpe. He was famous for raiding a counterfeit money den and was rewarded handsomely with a reward of Rs 5.
Then there was inspector Toussaint who was in charge of the Colombo Harbour.
Then there was George Von Hagt a special constable shot dead by the infamous bandit “Sardiel”.
Another policeman who excelled in sports was Inspector Edward Gray. He was an excellent bowler, and also a famous boxer. I think he became a champion at the Commonwealth Games Boxing Championship.
He retired prematurely after he fell off an horse whilst on duty. He got himself condemned in 1956 when I was working in the Orthopaedic Department at the General Hospital.
----
Sunday, September 27, 2009
The Bostocks in Ceylon
Sunday Times Sep 27, 2009
Into the whirl of Colombo society By Elizabeth BostockI arrived in Ceylon, with my mother, at the end of December 1951, shortly before the tragic death of D.S. Senanayake, the first Prime Minister of Ceylon. Little did I foresee as I stepped ashore at the old Passenger Jetty in the Fort that I would spend nearly 50 years of my life on this beautiful island. My father had been appointed Senior British Naval Officer and Captain in Charge of the dockyard at Trincomalee and, like dutiful daughters were expected to do in those days, I was accompanying my parents.At that time Trincomalee was a thriving naval base with frequent visits from navies around the world and every year JET (Joint Exercises Trincomalee) was held there when the Pakistan, Indian and British navies assembled. Apart from the naval manoeuvres, there were fiercely contested games of hockey and football and it seemed as if most of the national squads from India and Pakistan were suddenly conscripted into the navy.
Having decided very early that I did not wish to spend the next two years in Trinco, I came down to Colombo and got a job as Personal Secretary to A.G. Mathewson (Sandy) who was a Partner in Heath & Company - a leading firm of tea buyers whose clients included Lyons, Tetleys, Twinings in London and the Tea Marketing Board in Australia and many others in the Middle East. It was in Sandy's office that I met my future husband, Mark Bostock, who was a frequent visitor on his broker's round. However, I did not abandon my parents entirely and made frequent weekend visits, catching the night mail on a Friday and returning on Sunday.
Mark and I were married nearly two years later, much to Sandy's delight, even though he bemoaned the loss of his secretary. We planned to announce our engagement while Mark as an R.N.V.R. officer was attending JET. A rather apt comment appeared in the Daily News - Full back, Mark Bostock, will not be appearing for the C.H. & F.C. as he is away in Trinco on navel manoeuvres. With a certain amount of trepidation we invited Sandy to give the toast to the bride, but he was very circumspect! We were married at Christ Church, Galle Face, by the Bishop of Colombo, the Right Reverend Archibald Rollo Campbell Graham. Our reception was held at the old Garden Club (now the Colombo Art Gallery) in Green Path. It was the last party to be held at the Club before it was taken over by the Lawn Tennis Club. We left there in somewhat unusual style, perched on a hackery with one of our groomsmen between the shafts while the bystanders set off a load of fire-crackers.
Being connected to the Bostock family opened up a whole new world. Social life having previously centred round the British Navy and visiting H.M. ships, I was launched into the whirl of Colombo society. Mark was a member of a bachelors’ 'chummery' and we all used to go off on wonderful expeditions to hockey, and rugby matches and tennis meets up-country. All rugby matches were followed by a black tie supper and dance in the host up-country club. We stayed overnight with planter friends and then usually turned up at the Nuwara Eliya golf course for a round of golf on Sunday morning. A good curry lunch gave us energy for the drive home, frequently stopping off at a rest house en route, for a cup of tea laced with whisky.
Mark was a keen shot and we often took off on shooting trips all over the island with a gang of bachelor men and girls. These continued well into our married days and one such trip took us to the island of Irainativu in the Gulf of Mannar. It was an eight-hour boat journey in a dhoni to get there and we set up camp in the home of the local Roman Catholic priest. We spent a very happy time there, shooting partridge and duck and going fishing. We were a great source of interest to the 100-odd inhabitants of the island. On our return to Colombo, our nanny remarked with great disapproval, "Lady is very dark". So much for my tan!
The chummery was well-known for hosting magnificent parties with the greatest one being a Bacchanalian party which was held as a farewell as by then two members were due to be married. We were all required to attend suitably attired and I was commissioned by my Boss to make an oriental potentate's outfit and even had to stick 'crepe' hair on to his chest to complete the effect. We left for the party by way of Havelock Road, with Sandy sitting on a bullock hackery with one of his junior staff (dressed as a centaur) between the shafts. I accompanied them as a dancing girl and thus we progressed from the traffic lights at Dickman’s Road to the far side of the Wellawatte bridge and on to the chummery.
That was not the only procession in which we took part, as it became a tradition for an exchange of visits between the Colombo Hockey & Football Club and the Ceylonese Rugby Football Club on Independence Day each year. The visiting club was required to come in procession as a topical event and we chose Prince Philip's 'durbah'. We hired an elephant from the Zoo and 'Philip' and 'Queen Elizabeth' rode in splendour, accompanied by six horses ridden by lancers. They were followed by assorted drummers, dancing girls and we even had 'Gandhi' being pushed along in a wheelchair. Thus we progressed from Reid Avenue and down Buller’s Road to the C.R.& F.C. where a game of soft ball cricket was played by all participants and a jolly good curry lunch made up the rest of the day. The C.R.'s return visit caused quite a stir at the Thunmulla roundabout when the 'corpse' in the Muslim funeral casket lifted the lid as he needed a breath of fresh air. Percy de Silva (the Legal Draftsman) looked out at the horrified passers-by.
Life in the early days was not all fun and games and a little recorded but most important episode affected our early married life. In 1958 there was a crippling Communist-led strike in the Colombo harbour which threatened to cut off the life-blood of the island, namely the export of tea. S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike ordered senior members of the tea trade to send a team to make arrangements to open up the port of Trincomalee which had never previously been used as a commercial outlet. Mark was in charge of this team, recruited from various tea firms, to start up the Trincomalee Tea Administration. So, together with our nanny and small daughter, we set off for the Sea Anglers Club. Mark had to start from scratch and find suitable ex-RAF hangars to convert into warehouses; establish a small office at China Bay and arrange for a local mudalali to provide lighters to transport the tea out to ships waiting in the harbour. Bringing the tea consignments from the railway siding to the jetty also presented a major problem as, very early on, the chap in charge of the 'shunter' managed to tipple off his wagon and run himself over.
Thereafter, the wagons literally had to be shunted by manpower with everybody lending their weight. It was all very hard work but a great team spirit built up and many problems were overcome and the tea export business was saved and the strike broken.
Thanks to the generosity of my father-in-law, Norman Bostock, we were able to have a family beach bungalow at Bentota and many a happy weekend was spent with friends and visitors. Our visitors' book included many illustrious names, headed by Earl Mountbatten and his daughter, Lady Patricia Braburn. We often hosted members of visiting sporting teams, including the M.C.C., London Welsh and Combined Oxford and Cambridge rugby teams, as well as many other visitors to Ceylon. It was indeed a very sad day for us all when our bungalow, together with several others on the 'Spit', was taken over by the government for a German tourist resort. Many years later we found another idyllic but very different spot at the mouth of the Dedru Oya north of Chilaw.
Norman Bostock bought and planted Aislaby tea estate and, with Mark's expertise and the hard work of various Superintendents, soon turned it into the leading tea estate in Uva with probably the most up-to-date factory in the island. Mark had a passion for all aspects of cultivating, manufacturing, tasting and selling of tea and he was devastated when his beloved Aislaby was nationalized in November 1973 under Land Reform. It was many years before he could even bear to visit the bungalow and 50 acres we were allowed to keep. We were thankful that, at least, his father did not live to see that day.
However, Mark was always a confirmed optimist and continued in his love of the island which he passed on to me and our daughters and even our grandchildren who love to visit Sri Lanka. A lasting tribute to his love of Ceylon/Sri Lanka is in the magnificent Victoria golf course outside Kandy which he pioneered in his retirement.
Many Colombo wives spent a lot of their time playing bridge but that was not my scene and I became involved in a certain amount of social work and served on the Committee of the Child Protection Society and even tried to teach spoken English to the children at their Girls' Home. This was great fun but I am not sure how much English the girls absorbed. Usually when I asked, 'How are you today?', the reply came back, 'Today is Tuesday'.
Each Christmas I combined with some of my friends and we hosted a coffee morning when all the guests were invited to bring with them a toy or gift for a child. These were then individually wrapped and named and distributed to the children in the homes we supported. To see the delight on the children's faces as they opened up their very own presents more than made up for the work involved. At the other end of the scale I helped Mrs. George R. de Silva with the Bishop of Colombo' Appeal for the Leprosy Hospital’ and each year we visited the patients at Hendala and once travelled to the island colony off the coast at Batticaloa. I also used to visit foreign seamen hospitalised in Colombo on behalf of the Missions to Seamen.
Our two daughters attended the Hill School until the age of 12 when they had to return to England for further education but they were still able to come out for at least two holidays a year and we all enjoyed family expeditions to the jungle, Trincomalee and up-country. Other families did the same thing and great friendships grew which spanned the generations and still stand. I think, possibly, Ceylon/Sri Lanka is unique in the number of associations which have been formed so that we can all meet and enjoy reminiscing on the 'Old Days'.
Into the whirl of Colombo society By Elizabeth BostockI arrived in Ceylon, with my mother, at the end of December 1951, shortly before the tragic death of D.S. Senanayake, the first Prime Minister of Ceylon. Little did I foresee as I stepped ashore at the old Passenger Jetty in the Fort that I would spend nearly 50 years of my life on this beautiful island. My father had been appointed Senior British Naval Officer and Captain in Charge of the dockyard at Trincomalee and, like dutiful daughters were expected to do in those days, I was accompanying my parents.At that time Trincomalee was a thriving naval base with frequent visits from navies around the world and every year JET (Joint Exercises Trincomalee) was held there when the Pakistan, Indian and British navies assembled. Apart from the naval manoeuvres, there were fiercely contested games of hockey and football and it seemed as if most of the national squads from India and Pakistan were suddenly conscripted into the navy.
Having decided very early that I did not wish to spend the next two years in Trinco, I came down to Colombo and got a job as Personal Secretary to A.G. Mathewson (Sandy) who was a Partner in Heath & Company - a leading firm of tea buyers whose clients included Lyons, Tetleys, Twinings in London and the Tea Marketing Board in Australia and many others in the Middle East. It was in Sandy's office that I met my future husband, Mark Bostock, who was a frequent visitor on his broker's round. However, I did not abandon my parents entirely and made frequent weekend visits, catching the night mail on a Friday and returning on Sunday.
Mark and I were married nearly two years later, much to Sandy's delight, even though he bemoaned the loss of his secretary. We planned to announce our engagement while Mark as an R.N.V.R. officer was attending JET. A rather apt comment appeared in the Daily News - Full back, Mark Bostock, will not be appearing for the C.H. & F.C. as he is away in Trinco on navel manoeuvres. With a certain amount of trepidation we invited Sandy to give the toast to the bride, but he was very circumspect! We were married at Christ Church, Galle Face, by the Bishop of Colombo, the Right Reverend Archibald Rollo Campbell Graham. Our reception was held at the old Garden Club (now the Colombo Art Gallery) in Green Path. It was the last party to be held at the Club before it was taken over by the Lawn Tennis Club. We left there in somewhat unusual style, perched on a hackery with one of our groomsmen between the shafts while the bystanders set off a load of fire-crackers.
Being connected to the Bostock family opened up a whole new world. Social life having previously centred round the British Navy and visiting H.M. ships, I was launched into the whirl of Colombo society. Mark was a member of a bachelors’ 'chummery' and we all used to go off on wonderful expeditions to hockey, and rugby matches and tennis meets up-country. All rugby matches were followed by a black tie supper and dance in the host up-country club. We stayed overnight with planter friends and then usually turned up at the Nuwara Eliya golf course for a round of golf on Sunday morning. A good curry lunch gave us energy for the drive home, frequently stopping off at a rest house en route, for a cup of tea laced with whisky.
Mark was a keen shot and we often took off on shooting trips all over the island with a gang of bachelor men and girls. These continued well into our married days and one such trip took us to the island of Irainativu in the Gulf of Mannar. It was an eight-hour boat journey in a dhoni to get there and we set up camp in the home of the local Roman Catholic priest. We spent a very happy time there, shooting partridge and duck and going fishing. We were a great source of interest to the 100-odd inhabitants of the island. On our return to Colombo, our nanny remarked with great disapproval, "Lady is very dark". So much for my tan!
The chummery was well-known for hosting magnificent parties with the greatest one being a Bacchanalian party which was held as a farewell as by then two members were due to be married. We were all required to attend suitably attired and I was commissioned by my Boss to make an oriental potentate's outfit and even had to stick 'crepe' hair on to his chest to complete the effect. We left for the party by way of Havelock Road, with Sandy sitting on a bullock hackery with one of his junior staff (dressed as a centaur) between the shafts. I accompanied them as a dancing girl and thus we progressed from the traffic lights at Dickman’s Road to the far side of the Wellawatte bridge and on to the chummery.
That was not the only procession in which we took part, as it became a tradition for an exchange of visits between the Colombo Hockey & Football Club and the Ceylonese Rugby Football Club on Independence Day each year. The visiting club was required to come in procession as a topical event and we chose Prince Philip's 'durbah'. We hired an elephant from the Zoo and 'Philip' and 'Queen Elizabeth' rode in splendour, accompanied by six horses ridden by lancers. They were followed by assorted drummers, dancing girls and we even had 'Gandhi' being pushed along in a wheelchair. Thus we progressed from Reid Avenue and down Buller’s Road to the C.R.& F.C. where a game of soft ball cricket was played by all participants and a jolly good curry lunch made up the rest of the day. The C.R.'s return visit caused quite a stir at the Thunmulla roundabout when the 'corpse' in the Muslim funeral casket lifted the lid as he needed a breath of fresh air. Percy de Silva (the Legal Draftsman) looked out at the horrified passers-by.
Life in the early days was not all fun and games and a little recorded but most important episode affected our early married life. In 1958 there was a crippling Communist-led strike in the Colombo harbour which threatened to cut off the life-blood of the island, namely the export of tea. S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike ordered senior members of the tea trade to send a team to make arrangements to open up the port of Trincomalee which had never previously been used as a commercial outlet. Mark was in charge of this team, recruited from various tea firms, to start up the Trincomalee Tea Administration. So, together with our nanny and small daughter, we set off for the Sea Anglers Club. Mark had to start from scratch and find suitable ex-RAF hangars to convert into warehouses; establish a small office at China Bay and arrange for a local mudalali to provide lighters to transport the tea out to ships waiting in the harbour. Bringing the tea consignments from the railway siding to the jetty also presented a major problem as, very early on, the chap in charge of the 'shunter' managed to tipple off his wagon and run himself over.
Thereafter, the wagons literally had to be shunted by manpower with everybody lending their weight. It was all very hard work but a great team spirit built up and many problems were overcome and the tea export business was saved and the strike broken.
Thanks to the generosity of my father-in-law, Norman Bostock, we were able to have a family beach bungalow at Bentota and many a happy weekend was spent with friends and visitors. Our visitors' book included many illustrious names, headed by Earl Mountbatten and his daughter, Lady Patricia Braburn. We often hosted members of visiting sporting teams, including the M.C.C., London Welsh and Combined Oxford and Cambridge rugby teams, as well as many other visitors to Ceylon. It was indeed a very sad day for us all when our bungalow, together with several others on the 'Spit', was taken over by the government for a German tourist resort. Many years later we found another idyllic but very different spot at the mouth of the Dedru Oya north of Chilaw.
Norman Bostock bought and planted Aislaby tea estate and, with Mark's expertise and the hard work of various Superintendents, soon turned it into the leading tea estate in Uva with probably the most up-to-date factory in the island. Mark had a passion for all aspects of cultivating, manufacturing, tasting and selling of tea and he was devastated when his beloved Aislaby was nationalized in November 1973 under Land Reform. It was many years before he could even bear to visit the bungalow and 50 acres we were allowed to keep. We were thankful that, at least, his father did not live to see that day.
However, Mark was always a confirmed optimist and continued in his love of the island which he passed on to me and our daughters and even our grandchildren who love to visit Sri Lanka. A lasting tribute to his love of Ceylon/Sri Lanka is in the magnificent Victoria golf course outside Kandy which he pioneered in his retirement.
Many Colombo wives spent a lot of their time playing bridge but that was not my scene and I became involved in a certain amount of social work and served on the Committee of the Child Protection Society and even tried to teach spoken English to the children at their Girls' Home. This was great fun but I am not sure how much English the girls absorbed. Usually when I asked, 'How are you today?', the reply came back, 'Today is Tuesday'.
Each Christmas I combined with some of my friends and we hosted a coffee morning when all the guests were invited to bring with them a toy or gift for a child. These were then individually wrapped and named and distributed to the children in the homes we supported. To see the delight on the children's faces as they opened up their very own presents more than made up for the work involved. At the other end of the scale I helped Mrs. George R. de Silva with the Bishop of Colombo' Appeal for the Leprosy Hospital’ and each year we visited the patients at Hendala and once travelled to the island colony off the coast at Batticaloa. I also used to visit foreign seamen hospitalised in Colombo on behalf of the Missions to Seamen.
Our two daughters attended the Hill School until the age of 12 when they had to return to England for further education but they were still able to come out for at least two holidays a year and we all enjoyed family expeditions to the jungle, Trincomalee and up-country. Other families did the same thing and great friendships grew which spanned the generations and still stand. I think, possibly, Ceylon/Sri Lanka is unique in the number of associations which have been formed so that we can all meet and enjoy reminiscing on the 'Old Days'.
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
Bill Forbes & Cliff Foenander
Bill Forbes & Cliff Foenander: those '60's greats from good ole Sri Lanka
Believe in Me/Accompanied by Harold Seneviratne Combo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAKSvgJH4Ts&feature=related
Too Young:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2lnerlkD8A&feature=related
Your Sixteen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGL7HK6YpV8&feature=related
Backward Child:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6WoA409KFw&feature=fvw
Marianne:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZKcMIi0bMU&feature=related
Ladies of Calcutta:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-fvH3RHMTc&NR=1&feature=fvwp
Acha England:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ygai4uYKluo&feature=related
CLIFFORD FOENANDER with Harold Seneviratne Combo
Butterfly in the Rain:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VABJqTlfUlk&feature=related
It had to be You:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_yWlMHPY18&feature=related
Remember Me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZArSMTEVzrE&feature=related
THE FABULOUS ECHOES
Baby Elephnat Walk:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgDlZoA8eR0&feature=related
A Little Bit of Soap:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0f6XPSZASs&feature=related
This land is your land:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRLWPnjYHHg&feature=related
Believe in Me/Accompanied by Harold Seneviratne Combo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAKSvgJH4Ts&feature=related
Too Young:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2lnerlkD8A&feature=related
Your Sixteen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGL7HK6YpV8&feature=related
Backward Child:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6WoA409KFw&feature=fvw
Marianne:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZKcMIi0bMU&feature=related
Ladies of Calcutta:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-fvH3RHMTc&NR=1&feature=fvwp
Acha England:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ygai4uYKluo&feature=related
CLIFFORD FOENANDER with Harold Seneviratne Combo
Butterfly in the Rain:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VABJqTlfUlk&feature=related
It had to be You:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_yWlMHPY18&feature=related
Remember Me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZArSMTEVzrE&feature=related
THE FABULOUS ECHOES
Baby Elephnat Walk:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgDlZoA8eR0&feature=related
A Little Bit of Soap:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0f6XPSZASs&feature=related
This land is your land:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRLWPnjYHHg&feature=related
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Firoze Salim Ibrahim 1948-2009: A Man for All Reasons
Firoze Salim Ibrahim - 1948-2009Sitting quietly, reading a book, on a warm Thursday (Aug 13, 2009) evening, in my home in Riyadh, I was simply thrown of my feet and shattered when my mobile phone rang and I received the sad news of the passing away of Firoze Salim Ibrahim, who had suffered a heart attack while on duty at the Reverse Osmosis Water Plant, at the Prince Sultan Air Base in Dhahran where he had been employed as an expatriate contract worker for almost 7 years.
I met Firoze, for the very first time, way back in 1965, when I was preparing to sit for my A Levels in Colombo. We came together as members of the Students Section of the Ceylon Moor Youth League, a local community service and social club that was recently established in our town. Our friendship blossomed into a very close and strong bond through which many significant events evolved, later on, with time. Many were the wondrous days that followed where we, together with the rest of the members of the club, shared and worked together carrying out various social service and community based activities in the bustling town of Wellawatte in Colombo. The first and most significant project that we undertook, in those wondrous and peaceful times, was the screening of a benefit showing of the very first James Bond movie, “Dr No”, at the Savoy as a fundraiser for the activities of the club. Nine years later I was married to his sister, Shirani, and he became my brother in law.
I met Firoze, for the very first time, way back in 1965, when I was preparing to sit for my A Levels in Colombo. We came together as members of the Students Section of the Ceylon Moor Youth League, a local community service and social club that was recently established in our town. Our friendship blossomed into a very close and strong bond through which many significant events evolved, later on, with time. Many were the wondrous days that followed where we, together with the rest of the members of the club, shared and worked together carrying out various social service and community based activities in the bustling town of Wellawatte in Colombo. The first and most significant project that we undertook, in those wondrous and peaceful times, was the screening of a benefit showing of the very first James Bond movie, “Dr No”, at the Savoy as a fundraiser for the activities of the club. Nine years later I was married to his sister, Shirani, and he became my brother in law.
Born at No 15, Mary’s Road, Bambalapitiya, in their ancestral WM Saleem home in 1948, Firoze attended Isipathana College, Colombo 5. Subsequent to the premature death of his beloved father, Husain Ibrahim in 1963, the family moved to Chitra Lane at Havelock Town from their posh rented home at St. Peters’ Place, Wellawatte. Later on they settled in their own home which their mother purchased at Vihara Lane, also, in Wellawatte.
Firoze’s many talents in music, art and drawing attracted him to Architecture which he pursued very diligently at M/s Thurairajah Associates in Colombo in search of a professional career. He then moved into building construction and civil engineering, successfully winning one of the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation bids as a sub contractor for the maintenance of their many distribution facilities throughout the island. Magic was also a great hobby that he loved and excelled in very much, inherited from his father, who was an active member of the Sri Lanka Magic Circle, together with other famous magic personalities like Mudaliyar ACGS Amarasekera, Mihilar the Mystic, & friends. He reached the pinnacle of runner up at one of the Sri Lanka Magic Circle Magician of the Year Contest, competing with many seasoned and mature magicians of that time.
We spent many a time, together, with the rest of the boys in the neighborhood, actively engaging in cycling, cricket, TT, carrom, scrabble, music, movies, swimming at Kinross, lending a hand to uplift the local community infrastructure, and even many enjoyable excursions out of town, during the early days of our youth. Those who knew him will vouch for this without batting an eyelid. Books were also a great passion of his and he read profusely gathering knowledge about every possible topic under the sun. He didn’t stop here. He even went out of his way to collect and send books to others for their reading pleasure. Just a week prior to his death he had filled a whole box with books on Islam, including copies of the English translation of the Quran for free distribution, and sent them to Colombo through a colleague, Sebastian from Negombo, who was leaving Saudi Arabia on final exit after completion of his employment contract. The breaking daily news of politics, on print as well as on TV, also captured much of his interest, discussions, and time.
One of his greatest qualities, that very few people posses these days, was the ability to smile with everyone, irrespective of their ethnicity, position or social hierarchy, and win the hearts of whoever he met and communicated with. Everyone, always, had a very good word for him, be it family, friends, colleagues, or neighbors.
His marriage to Bisreeya Zaharana Ahamed, daughter of SLMH Ahamed and OLMALM Sithy Raliya, in the late seventies brought forth his only child, daughter, and joy, Fathima Fawaza, for whom he dedicated all his energy, exerting every effort, skill and time in raising her to be a successful woman of this world.
It was sometime in the nineteen eighties that Firoze decided to step out into the oil Sheikhdoms of the Middle East and seek his pasture in the booming markets there, where construction was a significant contributor to the development that was enfolding, which also provided an ideal opportunity for people with his technical set of skills. Moving to Dhahran, in Saudi Arabia, Firoze spent many long years with an Aramco subcontractor providing operations and maintenance services to the largest oil producer in the world. By this time I had also chosen to move to the Middle East as an expatriate worker, with my family, and was located in the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia, and, his arrival made all our lives even more pleasant by having a close family member so near to us, so far away from home. Our two girls always enjoyed his company, storytelling, magic tricks, and were also very thankful for the many books and magazines he used to bring them whenever he visited. He sure had a way with kids with his ever smiling and pleasant demeanor. There was never a dull moment when Firoze was visiting.
His work took him to various locations in the Eastern region from Dhahran to Juaymah Camp, and even to Jubail City, in the north eastern corner of the Kingdom where massive road construction, power, and other infrastructure projects were under way. We had the wonderful opportunity to visit him at all these sites and enjoy the many luxuries that the well stocked facilities of that oil giant, Aramco, was providing for all its staff and visitors.
Later on, Firoze also spent many years with the King Khalid Military City Base at Hafar Al Batin, located on the Kuwaiti border with Saudi Arabia, where he moved his career, seriously, into the management and maintenance of the Reverse Osmosis Water Plant that was used across the desert Kingdom for water purification. Eventually, on completion of that contract, he returned home and returned to the magical calling of the desert sands to do his final stint with the Prince Sultan Air Base Project, once again managing the RO Water Plant, from which facility God decided to take Home.
Talking to his immediate superior, Engineer Qahtan, at the Dhahran Air Base during his funeral, it was most heartening to hear the gentleman say that he would remember Firoze for just three things, his gentlemanly manners (Ahlaaq in Arabic), his ever presence in the Mosque at all prayer times (Imaan in Arabic), and the exceptional quality of his work. All the expatriate workers within the Air Base, belonging to various different asian and African nationalities, had a very praiseworthy word to say about him and his relationship with them. Silva, a hardened Sri Lankan laborer, who hailed from Maradana, told me with tears in his eyes, “He used to call me Mr. Silva whenever he spoke to me”. Another batch of young workers stated that he would knock on their doors after his shift to inquire whether they had had their dinner. Most of the young workers treated him, more or less, like a Godfather on account of his age, maturity, patience, wisdom, knowledge and ever willingness to discuss and resolve other their personal problems and disputes at any time of day or night.
Another interesting feature about Firoze, that will surely reveal his humanitarian personality is his great love for animals and their welfare, a character that all the members of his family possess to date, and, which has even filtered down to my own two girls and two grandkids, through his genes. During my visit to the camp after his death, the next day, the boys told me that he used to feed three stray cats and one stray dog, diligently, every single day by collecting all the scraps, chicken bones, and left over food from the military mess. When I walked over to his mobile Portacabin accommodation inside the airbase there were three cats and one dog curled up in a huddle snoozing patiently at his doorstep. They were waiting for their master to bring them their dinner. Little did they realize that their master had received his final call and was on his way up to meet his Makerfor his final supper and receive his rewards for the magnificent contribution he had made during his short tenure of 61 years and 6 months on planet Earth. All I could do was hold back my eyes from watering and request the boys to carry on feeding the poor animals for as long as they could, ensuring that his kindness would be carried on, and also that the poor animals would not starve since their expectations were that their sustenance would always be served to them on time y Firoze at his doorstep.
Washing his body and dressing him up in the Islamic funeral garb (Kafan) of three non stitched pieces of cotton cloth, 6’ by 3’ clasped together by 4 strips of cotton cloth ties, in preparation for his burial, it was hard for me to take my eyes away from his sweet smiling face in death, each time I poured the water across his body. He looked as if he was simply smiling at me in his own special way.
Sadly, Firoze lost his wife, Bisreeya, in 2008, after she had been ill for a few years. His daughter, Fathima Fawaza, married in 2008, an occasion which he cherished very much and was proud of, and since moved to live and work in Bermuda where her husband, Rifath Nawaz, is currently employed as a Microsoft Certified Specialist Consultant.
Just take a look around and you will notice that is is pretty obvious, today, that They don’t make people like Firoze, anymore. Firoze, you have moved on. We will surely follow. May God Have Mercy on his Soul.
Fazli Sameer
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Monday, July 27, 2009
Budryn, Hassan & Dylan
Dylan, Budryn & Hassan
Playing music or singing is simple to the threesome
by Mahes PERERA
"Playing music or singing, should be as simple as drawing a breath" and to the threesome guitarist Dylan Lye, singer Budrin Musafer and drummer Hassen Musafer the saying couldn't be more true. It's their life, and the vibes they spread have always been exciting and entertaining. The three musicians were in Sri Lanka recently to attend to family commitments and in their free time met up with other musicians to rapport and exchange musical chords which gave pleasure to their audiences.
Guitarist Dylan Lye, singer Budrin Musafer and drummer Hassen MusaferDylan Lye guitarist/vocalist a former member of the famed Jetliners led by Mignonne Fernando, the band made a name for themselves for seventeen years in Hong Kong. Dylan continued his musical career in Hong Kong once the band disbanded and is now much sought after for recording sessions, concert shows and regular combo work in hotels and jazz clubs."Presently I have a four piece band at the Melting Pot comprising piano, drums and a singer. I play bass as well whenever the occasion demands it. Our sets are fusion, jazz, rhythm and blues, Latin and funk. We are hoping to release a CD in the near future and we have a keyboardist whose compositions are somewhat similar to that of Fourplay. There will also be a festival next year in February organised by the locals in Hong Kong and we are looking forward to it.Here in Sri Lanka I'm happy to comment that there's an improvement in the music scene content wise. A lot of youngsters are showing enthusiasm and commitment which augurs well for the progress of music. Unfortunately what is lacking are sax sounds and trumpet sounds. Majority of them are concentrating on the guitar", comments Dylan whose guitar artistry is in a class of its own and we are proud that he is one of us.Hassen Musafer who himself was the drummer for the Jetliners at the Regent, Hong Kong for two years before he moved over to play with a Trio under Tony Fernando's management, was happy to be back home to be featured at the Malay Club celebrations. "I came back after four years and I found that more new young drummers have 'been born'!That's good. In Hong Kong too, youngsters have taken to drumming and I teach students at their homes. To be a good musician, and I say this over and over again to all students, you have to be committed and disciplined. Then the rest will fall into place."Your sticks and cymbals language is fabulous. Who were your influences in the early years?"Here in Sri Lanka Harris Jurampathy was one, then there was Faleel Ziard and Upali Fernando. As for the foreign drummers Billy Cobham, Harvey Mason and Vinnie Coluta and I was fortunate to have met and talked with them at Hong Kong when they came in for festivals or concerts.Any CDs in the making?"I recorded one with Dan Lovell - guitar, Anthony Fernadez - drums, I played tabla, there was Mike Carr on bass, an African - American on piano and a singer Mia.We are in the process of fine tuning it and the CD will be released soon."Currently Hassen is playing at the Four seasons, Hong Kong on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and as he tells us he fits in a night with Dylan Lye at the Melting Pot.Budrin Musafer one time singer with the successful Spitfires is a compere too loaded with a delightful sense of humour. "I was looking forward to being in Sri Lanka for family commitment. I live in Paris and it was soul satisfying meeting up with the musicians. Especially Maxie Rozairo and Noeline Honter who were with the Spitfires.
I'm sorry I missed Dalreen, but then glad I met Laurence Manricks the bassist / keyboardist.
There was talk tossed around that a second comeback concert of the Spitfires is in the offing. Is it true?"Yes we are thinking of it. We have to get our act together and we are targetting February or so next year. We are hoping to include Ronnie, Chinti, Rodney van Heer and Rodney Rabot. The scene over here has progressed. Aquarius and Flame are great. Getting down foreign bands is not fair by our musicians. Our musicians on the other hand should bond together and be strong, should like what they are doing - which will bring out the best in them.You are here at a time when the world lost Michael Jackson, a musician who started off something new. What's your comment?"He was a perfectionist. His type of music has influenced many young musicians. He created something different. He was a singer, a dancer, a composer, a showman - he created a new style, a new way and made extremely creative video chips."
by Mahes PERERA
"Playing music or singing, should be as simple as drawing a breath" and to the threesome guitarist Dylan Lye, singer Budrin Musafer and drummer Hassen Musafer the saying couldn't be more true. It's their life, and the vibes they spread have always been exciting and entertaining. The three musicians were in Sri Lanka recently to attend to family commitments and in their free time met up with other musicians to rapport and exchange musical chords which gave pleasure to their audiences.
Guitarist Dylan Lye, singer Budrin Musafer and drummer Hassen MusaferDylan Lye guitarist/vocalist a former member of the famed Jetliners led by Mignonne Fernando, the band made a name for themselves for seventeen years in Hong Kong. Dylan continued his musical career in Hong Kong once the band disbanded and is now much sought after for recording sessions, concert shows and regular combo work in hotels and jazz clubs."Presently I have a four piece band at the Melting Pot comprising piano, drums and a singer. I play bass as well whenever the occasion demands it. Our sets are fusion, jazz, rhythm and blues, Latin and funk. We are hoping to release a CD in the near future and we have a keyboardist whose compositions are somewhat similar to that of Fourplay. There will also be a festival next year in February organised by the locals in Hong Kong and we are looking forward to it.Here in Sri Lanka I'm happy to comment that there's an improvement in the music scene content wise. A lot of youngsters are showing enthusiasm and commitment which augurs well for the progress of music. Unfortunately what is lacking are sax sounds and trumpet sounds. Majority of them are concentrating on the guitar", comments Dylan whose guitar artistry is in a class of its own and we are proud that he is one of us.Hassen Musafer who himself was the drummer for the Jetliners at the Regent, Hong Kong for two years before he moved over to play with a Trio under Tony Fernando's management, was happy to be back home to be featured at the Malay Club celebrations. "I came back after four years and I found that more new young drummers have 'been born'!That's good. In Hong Kong too, youngsters have taken to drumming and I teach students at their homes. To be a good musician, and I say this over and over again to all students, you have to be committed and disciplined. Then the rest will fall into place."Your sticks and cymbals language is fabulous. Who were your influences in the early years?"Here in Sri Lanka Harris Jurampathy was one, then there was Faleel Ziard and Upali Fernando. As for the foreign drummers Billy Cobham, Harvey Mason and Vinnie Coluta and I was fortunate to have met and talked with them at Hong Kong when they came in for festivals or concerts.Any CDs in the making?"I recorded one with Dan Lovell - guitar, Anthony Fernadez - drums, I played tabla, there was Mike Carr on bass, an African - American on piano and a singer Mia.We are in the process of fine tuning it and the CD will be released soon."Currently Hassen is playing at the Four seasons, Hong Kong on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and as he tells us he fits in a night with Dylan Lye at the Melting Pot.Budrin Musafer one time singer with the successful Spitfires is a compere too loaded with a delightful sense of humour. "I was looking forward to being in Sri Lanka for family commitment. I live in Paris and it was soul satisfying meeting up with the musicians. Especially Maxie Rozairo and Noeline Honter who were with the Spitfires.
I'm sorry I missed Dalreen, but then glad I met Laurence Manricks the bassist / keyboardist.
There was talk tossed around that a second comeback concert of the Spitfires is in the offing. Is it true?"Yes we are thinking of it. We have to get our act together and we are targetting February or so next year. We are hoping to include Ronnie, Chinti, Rodney van Heer and Rodney Rabot. The scene over here has progressed. Aquarius and Flame are great. Getting down foreign bands is not fair by our musicians. Our musicians on the other hand should bond together and be strong, should like what they are doing - which will bring out the best in them.You are here at a time when the world lost Michael Jackson, a musician who started off something new. What's your comment?"He was a perfectionist. His type of music has influenced many young musicians. He created something different. He was a singer, a dancer, a composer, a showman - he created a new style, a new way and made extremely creative video chips."
Fascinating Fort
General Post OfficeThe Fascinating Fort of Colombo
Colombo Fort was one heck of a place to be in the sixties and seventies. The business town was always alive, kicking, and buzzing with activity from dawn to dusk and even after through the midnight hours. Double Decker buses plied the route from the south on the Galle Road brining in the multitudes of masses to their work places and shopping expeditions.
Fort was the place for banking. Fort was the shoppers dream. Fort was also famous for its eating and drinking. Every foreign bank had its head office located in the Fort. There was The Mercantile Bank and Chartered Bank on Queen Street, Eastern Bank (later converted to the present Commercial Bank of Ceylon), National & Grindlays Bank and Bank of Ceylon on York Street, The Peoples Bank on Duke Street, Mercantile Bank (later Commercial Bank of Ceylon) on Prince Street, HongKong & Shanghai Banking Corporation on Prince Street, BoC Fifth City Branch on York Street, Indian Bank on Baillie Street, and eventually the Central Bank was also located on Queen Street. The banks were all in very close proximity to each other and there was a great sense of rapport and interaction between them and their staff members. Outside every bank, there sat a Nattukottai Chettiar, in his white Vetti, gold tooth, and smiling demeanor, on a makeshift desk and chair. He was the self appointed money changer for checks, foreign currency and whatever financial need one requested. He dealt directly with the banks to execute his transactions which he carried out for individuals for which he levied his handsome commissions to put food on his family table. He would cash anybody’s check for a price. He was also a great resource for quick credit for those who wanted to do a buy and sell to make an overnight buck.
Another interesting feature of Fort were the multitude of eating places and drinking holes scattered in every nook and corner of the town. Nanking Hotel, a typical Chinese on Queen street was frequented by the die-hard connoisseurs of good Chinese food, where a free soup on every order was relished by one and all. The Akasa Kade restaurant on the rooftop of Ceylinco building was a more elite eating place for the executives and families who frequented the place. Pagoda, run by Rodrigo Restaurants, down Chatham Street was always famous for its exquisite Chinese Rolls, Lamprais, Iced Coffee and Chocolate Cake. The Globe Restaurant, Lord Nelson, on Chatham Street and The National Restaurant on Queen Street, were the domain of the guzzlers of Fort of whom there was a multitude ranging from young bankers to ageing pensioners with only one thought in their minds. Nectar Café, at the corner of Baillie Street and York Street, erupted like wildfire by providing a self service menu dished out by young Burgher lasses dressed in neatly unformed short skirts and blouses. It was always a hive of activity in there at all times of the day. The food was tasty and cheap and the ambience of the environment was more like a university cafeteria. Then there was the hot rice and crab curry joint called Jaffna Hotel down Hospital Street that anyone shopping or working in Fort could never miss. The steaming hot crab that was served, Jaffna style, was found nowhere else in all of Colombo. It was just one of a kind. You wither had it or you’ve missed everything in life. Rice was served as much as you can eat while you only paid for the crab or other curries that you choose to order. The true five star lunch place in the town was in the restaurant at the Hotel Taprobane, located at the end of York Street facing the Port of Colombo. Previously known as the Grand Oriental Hotel (GOH) during the old Colonial times it was haunted by the rich, famous and glamorous folk who were always dressed to kill and also had lots of cash to spend. Many other smaller eating houses serving a wide variety of food and drink were also splattered around the York Street/Duke Street end of the Fort. There was always something for everyone in the Fort when it came to appeasing the tongue and tummy. Many of the watering holes also had their share of quickie apartment complexes located on the upper floors which were gallantly used by the hot blooded men and women for some wild skirmishes in their own special way. The rooms were small, dingy, dirty and used only for a single purpose by its occupants whenever required. There were also other similar locations that offered cleaner sheets and better service for the same benefits at a price, of course. In common slang terminology they were al referred to as “knock joints” by the flks of that era. Everyone knew but no one complained. Life, was a live and let live policy in the Fort of Colombo.
Businesses in Fort were so many, since ancient times, on account of its close proximity to the Port of Colombo where there was always an influx of sailors and foreigners looking for food, drink, curios, sapphires, jewelry, batiks, handicrafts and other knickknacks. Textiles, Travel Agents, Government Agencies and Corporations, and even large corporate Colonial Companies were all located here. The Velona showroom at the intersection of Chatham Street and Queen Street on the ground floor of the National Mutual Life Association building, provided a great array of cotton and textile products manufactured locally.
Colombo Fort was one heck of a place to be in the sixties and seventies. The business town was always alive, kicking, and buzzing with activity from dawn to dusk and even after through the midnight hours. Double Decker buses plied the route from the south on the Galle Road brining in the multitudes of masses to their work places and shopping expeditions.
Fort was the place for banking. Fort was the shoppers dream. Fort was also famous for its eating and drinking. Every foreign bank had its head office located in the Fort. There was The Mercantile Bank and Chartered Bank on Queen Street, Eastern Bank (later converted to the present Commercial Bank of Ceylon), National & Grindlays Bank and Bank of Ceylon on York Street, The Peoples Bank on Duke Street, Mercantile Bank (later Commercial Bank of Ceylon) on Prince Street, HongKong & Shanghai Banking Corporation on Prince Street, BoC Fifth City Branch on York Street, Indian Bank on Baillie Street, and eventually the Central Bank was also located on Queen Street. The banks were all in very close proximity to each other and there was a great sense of rapport and interaction between them and their staff members. Outside every bank, there sat a Nattukottai Chettiar, in his white Vetti, gold tooth, and smiling demeanor, on a makeshift desk and chair. He was the self appointed money changer for checks, foreign currency and whatever financial need one requested. He dealt directly with the banks to execute his transactions which he carried out for individuals for which he levied his handsome commissions to put food on his family table. He would cash anybody’s check for a price. He was also a great resource for quick credit for those who wanted to do a buy and sell to make an overnight buck.
Another interesting feature of Fort were the multitude of eating places and drinking holes scattered in every nook and corner of the town. Nanking Hotel, a typical Chinese on Queen street was frequented by the die-hard connoisseurs of good Chinese food, where a free soup on every order was relished by one and all. The Akasa Kade restaurant on the rooftop of Ceylinco building was a more elite eating place for the executives and families who frequented the place. Pagoda, run by Rodrigo Restaurants, down Chatham Street was always famous for its exquisite Chinese Rolls, Lamprais, Iced Coffee and Chocolate Cake. The Globe Restaurant, Lord Nelson, on Chatham Street and The National Restaurant on Queen Street, were the domain of the guzzlers of Fort of whom there was a multitude ranging from young bankers to ageing pensioners with only one thought in their minds. Nectar Café, at the corner of Baillie Street and York Street, erupted like wildfire by providing a self service menu dished out by young Burgher lasses dressed in neatly unformed short skirts and blouses. It was always a hive of activity in there at all times of the day. The food was tasty and cheap and the ambience of the environment was more like a university cafeteria. Then there was the hot rice and crab curry joint called Jaffna Hotel down Hospital Street that anyone shopping or working in Fort could never miss. The steaming hot crab that was served, Jaffna style, was found nowhere else in all of Colombo. It was just one of a kind. You wither had it or you’ve missed everything in life. Rice was served as much as you can eat while you only paid for the crab or other curries that you choose to order. The true five star lunch place in the town was in the restaurant at the Hotel Taprobane, located at the end of York Street facing the Port of Colombo. Previously known as the Grand Oriental Hotel (GOH) during the old Colonial times it was haunted by the rich, famous and glamorous folk who were always dressed to kill and also had lots of cash to spend. Many other smaller eating houses serving a wide variety of food and drink were also splattered around the York Street/Duke Street end of the Fort. There was always something for everyone in the Fort when it came to appeasing the tongue and tummy. Many of the watering holes also had their share of quickie apartment complexes located on the upper floors which were gallantly used by the hot blooded men and women for some wild skirmishes in their own special way. The rooms were small, dingy, dirty and used only for a single purpose by its occupants whenever required. There were also other similar locations that offered cleaner sheets and better service for the same benefits at a price, of course. In common slang terminology they were al referred to as “knock joints” by the flks of that era. Everyone knew but no one complained. Life, was a live and let live policy in the Fort of Colombo.
Businesses in Fort were so many, since ancient times, on account of its close proximity to the Port of Colombo where there was always an influx of sailors and foreigners looking for food, drink, curios, sapphires, jewelry, batiks, handicrafts and other knickknacks. Textiles, Travel Agents, Government Agencies and Corporations, and even large corporate Colonial Companies were all located here. The Velona showroom at the intersection of Chatham Street and Queen Street on the ground floor of the National Mutual Life Association building, provided a great array of cotton and textile products manufactured locally.
Within the Chartered Bank building alone there were many private sector corporations functioning upstairs, some of which I remember, were, Carsons, Bartleets, CIC, etc. A website titled CIC Evergreens has some great stories about the people who worked in these offices. See this link:-
http://cicevergreens.com/history.html
Many were also the crummy corridors where illegal betting on horses running races in the UK were being accepted by mobile book makers acting as agents for the big Colombo Racing mafia. Towards the latter part of the seventies a very large Casino opened up on the corner, owned by the famous Aloysious Mudalali of gambling fame, opened up on the corner of York Street and Prince Street, opposite to Cargills. It was frequented by many of the hungry gambling folk in the Fort in search of some god luck to supplement their material needs. More often than not, many of them went home hungry, some even losing all of their pay packets on the month ends.
Of the private business houses that plied their retail trade along the streets of Fort, the very famous and frequented ones were, Hirdaramani, Lakshmi Silk Store, Marikar Bawa’s, all located on Chatham Street. While Hirdaramani and Lakshmi’s had a variety of textiles for men and women Marikar Bawa’s was a household name for men’s suits. Chands & Diana & Company were two famous sports stores, also located down Chatham Street. A large number of gems, jewelry, curio and tourist stores, having been in business for many decades since the time of the British Raj, were also crisscrossed across every single street in town. M C Zainudeen & Company, M C Ziard and Company, Le Toile, Vogue Jewellers, Birsam & Company, Deen & Company, were all well known for their knack in serving the many sailors, foreign businessmen and tourists who came to visit the island.
Cargills, Millers and The Colombo Apothecary, department stores were located on York Street and Prince Street, and catered to a multitude of shoppers from all walks of life. They were the premier department stores established in Sri Lanka during the old colonial British era, and in the old days catered to the expatriate and diplomatic population of the city. They sold everything from a pin to an elephant, mostly imported from the UK, Europe, and later on the USA and more recently, Taiwan and China. H W Cave and Company, referred to as Caves, located on Prince Street was the premier bookstore that all readers flocked to. Caves was another legacy of the old British Raj. They imported every possible novel, magazine, periodical and newspaper. Stationery was also another sought after item within the store. The Times of Ceylon Bookstore located in the All Ceylon Buddhist Congress building was also another famous place for books, photographic material and stationery.
The Colombo Customs, Department of Immigration, The General Post Office, and The Import Control Department of the Government of Sri Lanka were also located in the Fort.
An elite fishing club, The Anglers Club, frequented by a small group of fishing folk from among the rich and famous, was located on Galle Buck facing the new light house. It was also a drinking hole for the thirsty where the food was truly special.
The Corporate business houses of M/s E B Creasy & Company Ltd, Muller & Phipps, Carson Cumberbatch & Company Ltd, T A J Noorbhai, Nel Farm and Hatchery, Air Lanka, Ceylinco Insurance, Indian Embassy, were all located in the Fort in the sixties.
The buildings and structures that are found in the Fort are also a great legacy from the Colonial era as well as masterpieces of civil engineering and design in keeping with traditional Greco-Roman architecture. Queens House, now referred to as Presidents House, is the most handsome of them all. Located on Queen Street, opposite the Post Office, the mansion was the abode of the then Colonial Dutch and British Governors before independence in 1948, and later on the Governor Generals under local rule, and eventually the Presidents who came thereafter. The lone sentry at the gates and the changing of the guard are sighs that were extremely beautiful to witness in those halcyon times. The mansion itself borders a wide acreage of land with tremendous foliage surrounding it.
The General Post Office was built during British colonial rule and contracted to the famous Moor builder, Wapchi Marikar Baas, grandfather of Sir Razik Fareed, who also built the NMLA building, Customs Long Room, Colombo Museum, Victoria Memorial Eye Hospital at Maradana, and many other similar colossal structures that still stand tall today as a memory to those great times. The Chartered Bank building, adjacent to the GPO, is of a similar structure, standing on massive square pillars with concrete tusked elephant heads mounted on them.
The NMLA building, which houses the Import & Export Control Department, located on the corner of Chatham Street and Queen Street on the south west is another behemoth of the times. Many other smaller, yet strong and classical, buildings line up all the streets in the Fort, adjacent to each other.
Transworks House which was the home of the Central Telegraph Office has now been occupied by Sri Lankan Airlines and many other departments and offices. Bristol Building on York Street housed many small businesses on the ground floor while the upper floors were occupied by private sector corporations and departments. The whole building has been demolished now and will ake room for a public car park as planned since parking in the Fort is a much needed facility for those who live, work, do business, and travel there. Cargills and Colombo Apothecaries buildings located on York Street and Prince Street also boast of the great vintage of construction of those times. Hotel Taprobane, or the old GOH building, is another monument worth mentioning. During colonial times many were the Dutch and British families who lived in the apartments within many of these exquisite buildings in the Fort since most of the other towns of Colombo were not popularly inhabited by the rich, famous and elite. The Fort was a popular residential location on account of its proximity to the Colombo harbor.
The Fort Police Station, which used to be an old Dutch Hospital during the colonial times, lies on a lower leveled embankment on the south western side of the Fort, starting at the end of Hospital Street stretching out towards the lake House intersection. Lake House building is also another mammoth structure that has been a significant landmark on the edge of Fort leading towards Maradana on the south and Pettah on the west. It is at this point in the town that the southern railway wends its way towards the Fort Railway Station under Sir Chittampalam Gardiner Mawatha, formerly referred to as Lotus Road starting at the Slave Island Police Station, and, which is an extension of Sir James Pieris Mawatha, formerly known as General’s Lake Road, which begins in Colombo 3 and winds its way along he Beira lake towards Slave Island and The Fort.
In recent times, the tall Ceylinco building and Central Bank office building display a more modern aspect of architecture and civil engineering. The MICH building which houses the Peoples Bank and ACBC building are also significant structures on the western side of the Fort. Many plush, new, five start hotels have dotted the landscape of the Fort. The twin towers and the Bank of Ceylon tower are two of the tallest buildings in the area now. Some of the more popular and famous names are, The Intercontinental, Meridian, and the Hilton Hotels.
The Light House, located on Galle Buck Road, on the western most part of the Fort, used to be a wonderful place for families to relax and spend time, on Sunday evenings watching the ships pass by. In recent times, the place has been cordoned off as a security area and access to the light house is virtually impossible. The concrete base of the light house with its majestic stone lions looking out from its four corners, were much enjoyed as a play area by the kids of those times.
One could never complete an essay on the Fort without mentioning the clock tower that stood in the center of the intersection of Chatham Street and Queens Street. The structure has stood for many moons and even though the hands of the clock may have stopped at a quarter to four at some point of time in its history, the grandeur of its statesmanship still holds high for the town.
Great Pics of Colombo:
http://lankapura.com/photo-gallery/architectural/buildings-cities-and-towns/
Many were also the crummy corridors where illegal betting on horses running races in the UK were being accepted by mobile book makers acting as agents for the big Colombo Racing mafia. Towards the latter part of the seventies a very large Casino opened up on the corner, owned by the famous Aloysious Mudalali of gambling fame, opened up on the corner of York Street and Prince Street, opposite to Cargills. It was frequented by many of the hungry gambling folk in the Fort in search of some god luck to supplement their material needs. More often than not, many of them went home hungry, some even losing all of their pay packets on the month ends.
Of the private business houses that plied their retail trade along the streets of Fort, the very famous and frequented ones were, Hirdaramani, Lakshmi Silk Store, Marikar Bawa’s, all located on Chatham Street. While Hirdaramani and Lakshmi’s had a variety of textiles for men and women Marikar Bawa’s was a household name for men’s suits. Chands & Diana & Company were two famous sports stores, also located down Chatham Street. A large number of gems, jewelry, curio and tourist stores, having been in business for many decades since the time of the British Raj, were also crisscrossed across every single street in town. M C Zainudeen & Company, M C Ziard and Company, Le Toile, Vogue Jewellers, Birsam & Company, Deen & Company, were all well known for their knack in serving the many sailors, foreign businessmen and tourists who came to visit the island.
Cargills, Millers and The Colombo Apothecary, department stores were located on York Street and Prince Street, and catered to a multitude of shoppers from all walks of life. They were the premier department stores established in Sri Lanka during the old colonial British era, and in the old days catered to the expatriate and diplomatic population of the city. They sold everything from a pin to an elephant, mostly imported from the UK, Europe, and later on the USA and more recently, Taiwan and China. H W Cave and Company, referred to as Caves, located on Prince Street was the premier bookstore that all readers flocked to. Caves was another legacy of the old British Raj. They imported every possible novel, magazine, periodical and newspaper. Stationery was also another sought after item within the store. The Times of Ceylon Bookstore located in the All Ceylon Buddhist Congress building was also another famous place for books, photographic material and stationery.
The Colombo Customs, Department of Immigration, The General Post Office, and The Import Control Department of the Government of Sri Lanka were also located in the Fort.
An elite fishing club, The Anglers Club, frequented by a small group of fishing folk from among the rich and famous, was located on Galle Buck facing the new light house. It was also a drinking hole for the thirsty where the food was truly special.
The Corporate business houses of M/s E B Creasy & Company Ltd, Muller & Phipps, Carson Cumberbatch & Company Ltd, T A J Noorbhai, Nel Farm and Hatchery, Air Lanka, Ceylinco Insurance, Indian Embassy, were all located in the Fort in the sixties.
The buildings and structures that are found in the Fort are also a great legacy from the Colonial era as well as masterpieces of civil engineering and design in keeping with traditional Greco-Roman architecture. Queens House, now referred to as Presidents House, is the most handsome of them all. Located on Queen Street, opposite the Post Office, the mansion was the abode of the then Colonial Dutch and British Governors before independence in 1948, and later on the Governor Generals under local rule, and eventually the Presidents who came thereafter. The lone sentry at the gates and the changing of the guard are sighs that were extremely beautiful to witness in those halcyon times. The mansion itself borders a wide acreage of land with tremendous foliage surrounding it.
The General Post Office was built during British colonial rule and contracted to the famous Moor builder, Wapchi Marikar Baas, grandfather of Sir Razik Fareed, who also built the NMLA building, Customs Long Room, Colombo Museum, Victoria Memorial Eye Hospital at Maradana, and many other similar colossal structures that still stand tall today as a memory to those great times. The Chartered Bank building, adjacent to the GPO, is of a similar structure, standing on massive square pillars with concrete tusked elephant heads mounted on them.
The NMLA building, which houses the Import & Export Control Department, located on the corner of Chatham Street and Queen Street on the south west is another behemoth of the times. Many other smaller, yet strong and classical, buildings line up all the streets in the Fort, adjacent to each other.
Transworks House which was the home of the Central Telegraph Office has now been occupied by Sri Lankan Airlines and many other departments and offices. Bristol Building on York Street housed many small businesses on the ground floor while the upper floors were occupied by private sector corporations and departments. The whole building has been demolished now and will ake room for a public car park as planned since parking in the Fort is a much needed facility for those who live, work, do business, and travel there. Cargills and Colombo Apothecaries buildings located on York Street and Prince Street also boast of the great vintage of construction of those times. Hotel Taprobane, or the old GOH building, is another monument worth mentioning. During colonial times many were the Dutch and British families who lived in the apartments within many of these exquisite buildings in the Fort since most of the other towns of Colombo were not popularly inhabited by the rich, famous and elite. The Fort was a popular residential location on account of its proximity to the Colombo harbor.
The Fort Police Station, which used to be an old Dutch Hospital during the colonial times, lies on a lower leveled embankment on the south western side of the Fort, starting at the end of Hospital Street stretching out towards the lake House intersection. Lake House building is also another mammoth structure that has been a significant landmark on the edge of Fort leading towards Maradana on the south and Pettah on the west. It is at this point in the town that the southern railway wends its way towards the Fort Railway Station under Sir Chittampalam Gardiner Mawatha, formerly referred to as Lotus Road starting at the Slave Island Police Station, and, which is an extension of Sir James Pieris Mawatha, formerly known as General’s Lake Road, which begins in Colombo 3 and winds its way along he Beira lake towards Slave Island and The Fort.
In recent times, the tall Ceylinco building and Central Bank office building display a more modern aspect of architecture and civil engineering. The MICH building which houses the Peoples Bank and ACBC building are also significant structures on the western side of the Fort. Many plush, new, five start hotels have dotted the landscape of the Fort. The twin towers and the Bank of Ceylon tower are two of the tallest buildings in the area now. Some of the more popular and famous names are, The Intercontinental, Meridian, and the Hilton Hotels.
The Light House, located on Galle Buck Road, on the western most part of the Fort, used to be a wonderful place for families to relax and spend time, on Sunday evenings watching the ships pass by. In recent times, the place has been cordoned off as a security area and access to the light house is virtually impossible. The concrete base of the light house with its majestic stone lions looking out from its four corners, were much enjoyed as a play area by the kids of those times.
One could never complete an essay on the Fort without mentioning the clock tower that stood in the center of the intersection of Chatham Street and Queens Street. The structure has stood for many moons and even though the hands of the clock may have stopped at a quarter to four at some point of time in its history, the grandeur of its statesmanship still holds high for the town.
Great Pics of Colombo:
http://lankapura.com/photo-gallery/architectural/buildings-cities-and-towns/
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Bamba
Bamba
Once, there was a town,
Where we used to roam;
Through the straight and narrows,
Romping all the way home;
Skimming the beach sands,
Across Railway Lines;
Putting bat to ball,
On every street defined;
Ringing on every doorbell,
Scamping down the Streets;
Frolicking in the Sunshine,
Dripping in rainy beats;
The patter of small feet,
Those days were filled with smiles;
A child’s delightful retreat,
We’ve walked a million miles.
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Feb 25, 2009
The Bambalapitiya Flats Website
The Bamba Flats Video
Trains at Bamba
Once, there was a town,
Where we used to roam;
Through the straight and narrows,
Romping all the way home;
Skimming the beach sands,
Across Railway Lines;
Putting bat to ball,
On every street defined;
Ringing on every doorbell,
Scamping down the Streets;
Frolicking in the Sunshine,
Dripping in rainy beats;
The patter of small feet,
Those days were filled with smiles;
A child’s delightful retreat,
We’ve walked a million miles.
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Feb 25, 2009
The Bambalapitiya Flats Website
The Bamba Flats Video
Trains at Bamba
Sunday, January 04, 2009
The Tram Car Ride
Going back on a Tramcar ride
By Tissa Devendra – Sunday Times Jan 4 2009
What triggered my memory was an old (very) studio photo of my childhood self staring glumly at the camera while my infant sister timidly leaned towards me. Proudly embossed at the photo’s bottom was “Terminus Studio”. I seem to remember this venerable institution yet standing, till the early 1950s, on the triangular corner where Panchikawatta Road turned into Skinner’s Road towards Technical College.
The ‘Terminus’ of its name meant the end of the line of the very first tramway before it was later extended to Grandpass. The other establishment to honour this now-forgotten mode of public transport was ‘The Tram View Hotel’, a rather dingy tea shop opposite the Punchi Borella Bo tree. The name was probably inspired by the spanking new trams of the late 19th century as they first whooshed past the ‘hotel’ verandah.
The ‘hotel’ retained its name for many years after the last tram clattered to a nameless scrap-yard. As the craze for antiques had not yet taken root, not a single tramcar nor the hotel signboard remains to recall the trams that dominated Colombo’s roads, and carried many thousands of commuters, for well over half a century.
Tramcars seem to have been introduced into Colombo, not long after London, by a British Mayor in the late 19th century. This was an age when motor cars were unknown, the European elite sped to work in rickshaws drawn by wiry ‘coolies’ and ‘natives’ of standing trundled along in ox-drawn buggy carts. Electric tramcars would have been a sensation for the silent speed with which they moved large numbers of people to the far corners of the then ‘Garden City of the East’. Although the steam engines of the CGR carried passengers from town to town, there was no mode of public transport within the city till the advent of tramcars. It is difficult to imagine the sensation they would have caused and the panic they struck in rickshawmen and cart-bulls.
A few First Class seats up in front were reserved for Europeans – the Master Race. Henry W. Cave (Book of Ceylon 1908) devotes quite a few pages to tram travel as the best way of seeing the sights of scenic and exotic Colombo.
The reputed European (what else?) firm of Bousteads owned and operated tramcars under licence from the Municipality. A long arm mounted on the flat roof linked trams to the electricity lines that powered their silent progress. Trams were about the size of a small bus and came in two models. The earliest and commonest, illustrated here, had 10 or 12 long rows of wooden slatted benches in ‘toast rack-style’ facing forward.
The other was rather like a railway compartment with a doorway at the centre, benches along the sides and a ceiling rod for standee passengers to cling to. Some unique features distinguished the “driver’s cabin”. The driver steered the tramcar while standing. Steering was by an impressive metal tiller with a shining brass knob as a handle. At his feet was the button for the loud bell he clanged to announce halting places and clear the tracks of carts, cyclists and pedestrians.
Two broad footboards, one above the other, ran along the length of the tramcar – for the ticket collector’s progress and steps for passengers to mount and dismount.
Trams were very passenger-friendly and had very short runs between halts. I seem to remember about 10 halts between Maradana Railway Station and Punchi Borella. In the same tradition as the CGR, most tram drivers were burly Burgher gents in impressive khaki uniforms. Ticket collectors were drawn from the ‘lesser breeds’. Sadly, there has been no Carl Muller to document the rise and fall of these knights of the tramways.
Although I spent the first six years of childhood in Colombo I cannot recollect travelling by tram at all. So it was in 1946, when I left Ratnapura for a school in Colombo, that I first encountered them with goday wonder. But I soon got reasonably adept in hopping on and off without mishap and forking out the requisite five cents! for travel between two halts. Not long after, I experienced the camaraderie of frequent tram travellers.
As I clambered on to the tram, a descending traveller pressed an unpunched ticket into my hand as a gesture of solidarity. As the son of a school principal, and not yet wise to the ways of the world, I crumpled his gift and conscientiously paid my five cents to the ticket collector. As time went on I learnt the trick of slyly sliding along my bench seat to the end furthest away from the ticket collector working his way along the footboard on one side of the tram. But this manoeuvre could be accomplished only when there were no other passengers between me and the coveted ‘escape seat’. It has to be admitted that such luck was much rarer than the boasts we made of such escapades.
For some inexplicable mechanical reason tramway lines/rails were not above ground but embedded below the road surface.This gave rise to interesting phenomena.
One was the slippage of rickshaw and bicycle wheels into the embedded rails Once he off-loaded his embarrassed passengers, the rickshawman easily lifted his rickshaw out of the rut and trotted off to the clang of the annoyed tram driver’s bell and rude remarks of unruly passengers . The other phenomenon was when a bicycle on a slippery surface wobbled into one of these ruts. Extrication was followed, as usual, by clanging of the driver’s bell accompanied by passenger hoots.
My brother, who had borrowed my bike, fell victim to this misadventure. No sooner had he pulled his bike out than a cart ran over it to the vast amusement of tram passengers and passers-by. But for a bent spoke or two my sturdy ex-Army war-horse, a relic of jungle warfare gifted by an army uncle,was none the worse for the encounter.
My loveliest memory, however, was the wondrous sight when the trams travelled at night over roads that had just been tarred and spread with the requisite layer of sand. As the lighted tram scrunched over this sand it sparkled magically with a myriad sparks.
Somewhere in the 1950s, for some mysterious reason, the Municipality decided to scrap Colombo’s tramways. Some diehard romantics boarded the last tramcar to Grandpass, decorated it with streamers and balloons, and hired a Kotahena funeral band to dolefully belt out the Funeral March to the tramcar’s final halt.
Let this brief piece be a requiem for a charming mode of transport and a way of life long lost to belching buses, skittering trishaws and traffic-jammed cars.
I sometimes wonder whether, in the dead of night, one can faintly hear the clang of a ghostly bell as a phantom tramcar trundles past the Terminus at Panchikawatte and the Tram View Hotel of Punchi Borella on its way to rusty death.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Paradise Misplaced
by Captain Elmo Jayawardena
Our island was called Lanka in pre King Vijaya times. Valmiki s immortal Ramayanaya had King Ravana ruling the land from the city of Lankapura. That was almost four thousand years ago. The Arab traders termed it Jaziratul- Yaqut, island of rubies. Some called it Serandip, some Ceilan, from which the Portuguese picked Ceilao and the European map- makers coined Ceylon. Many were the names from the many that came, and they all were collective in their comment in the description of this land. Bar none, everyone agreed and noted in their chronicles that this island was indeed the complete Paradise. We never gained it. Let s be honest about that part. We simply inherited. The Gods from their celestial dome, in their infinite kindness, gifted this Paradise to us, the beautiful island of Lanka, to the people of Sri Lanka. The privilege of being born and belonging to such a place can only be rightfully expressed if one can take the turmoil out and look through the veils of disharmony that obscure what lies beyond. The purity of the land, still remains, so much unspoiled. The occupant of Paradise, still smiles, in spite of the battering he had received from the time we were reborn after the colonials left. Mother Lanka dawdles, whilst her sons and daughters drowse in ignorance, somewhat a prelude to the disasters ahead. .
Ruben walks daily carrying his Malu Kada following the footsteps of his father and grand father. His son Saman tags along, apprenticing the trade, helps to weigh the fish, cleans the broad blade knife as his father barters with the housewives, haggling for the bargain. They leave, father and son, with the little boy shouting Malu Malu straining his tender vocal chords. The fishmonger to be, on his first lessons. No change. Podi Hami prays every day. That s all she can do. She and her son Sirisena, did try every possible means, and failed. No they couldn't get a letter for employment. Wrong party, not our people, that is what the man said. Not that Podi Hami had any inclination of what happened in the parliament or who sat aloft. She merely crossed the ballot papers. There was always too much controversy in the news and people spoke in such different tones about their leaders that Podi Hami had long given up in her little mind to seek the truth. That was impossible. She merely voted and got branded. Now she sees young Sirisena, a posthumous corporal, beret and braid, in black and white, immortalised in a cheap framed photograph, hanging on the nail infested bedroom wall, boring his eyes at her, a sad and constant memory of a war where mainly the poor make the payments. A Porsche glitters inside a show room at the Bambalapitiya junction. A young boy pushes his crippled father, looking at the cars. The old man sits crumpled, folded along with his worldly belongings, in a rickety old chair that rolls on warped wheels. Donated by the Lions, says the back. A blind man and his woman share their lunch, seated on the pavement of Dickman s Road. Someone had been generous. The woman, withered and wasted, raises a bath kata to her toothless mouth and hears the world with sightless eyes, whilst the husband waits his turn, scratching his mottled skin of burnt black- Citizens of Paradise.
The sun goes down and the pavements become the bedchambers for the super poor who pray for the rains to hold till morning. These are no fairy tales of my redundant imagination. They are the stories of Paradise. The day-to-day events that play sad and silent along the cacophony of achievement. Don t tell me they are isolated, oh no, not by a long shot. They are the unheard, the ignored and the expendable debts of the displaced denizens of Paradise. The stentorians are there, loud and clear, announcing to the world and beyond, the inflated paths of progress, with rainbow visions for the morrow, splashing milk and honey stories. But, isn't there a big question mark? Isn't there some straining needed to seek the truth? I'm not talking of devolution and separations, politics don't interest me. I m like Podi Hami, totally confused between right and wrong and where lies the light. I m writing of the core, the very basics that humans search for, Uncle Sam's stuff, the pursuit of happiness type, the very essence that Paradise should be made of, which I think, is sadly missing at present. They leave Paradise by the thousands. Why? That is a good question. Look around and you will see the answer. They move out to pursue their happiness elsewhere. Not by choice, but by reasons of sheer necessity. The Sri Lankan Diaspora is everywhere, from the chilly summits of Northern Canada to the dry lands of Tasmania. From sushi land to Swaziland. From the deserts of Dhahran to the lush green valleys of New Zealand. You see them with their little Sri Lankan clubs , clinging on dearly to memories of a homeland, torn between a new life and what they left behind. It s a love they cannot shed, a romance gone rotten, and they gather and lament, speak in sad nostalgic tones and save miserly to visit and spend a week or two in their much loved and beloved Paradise.
Why do these inheritors leave Paradise? Something must have gone wrong in the system. The exodus only began after we were reborn. Hence, the blame is not with the colonials and their House of Commons. It is ours and ours alone, lying firmly in the Pontius hands of the custodians who were chosen to charter our future, and seemingly have failed in their delivery. Isn t it a fact that there is a mass cry for employment outside. The mason and the maid lead, followed by the waiter, the janitor and the bartender. Name him, and he is there, looking for agents to send him to some far away Valhalla. The banker too, and the medicine man, fill passport forms, standing side by side with the young urban professional and the academic erudite. All looking across the sea, from the shores of Paradise. There are some consolations too, one cannot be totally paranoid. The factory jobs are there for the tradeless. Foreign Marks and local Spencer make the mint and scope the cream and the poor Paradisians eat the peanut. Still, it's something to keep the kitchen fires burning. The rest of the no skills pawn their souls to go abroad. Local Dick Whitingtons charging into the unknown, exploited at every toll gate (there are many) and slave in alien homes in the Middle East and Asia, sending their carefully hoarded pitiful dirams and dollars to their loved ones, whilst counting agonising days to return home. Sixty years have gone by from the day of independence. The blameless blame, the nameless suffer, the shameless go on, ramroding their way to erode and annihilate Paradise. No need to further elaborate, the reasons are obvious. Some things happen to be best left unsaid. Let me be the coward and let discretion become the better part of my limited attempts at journalism.
Call me a fool if it pleases you and I ll accept it. But let me trickle some sanity to your thoughts. Just to kindle an interest. Totally non political. I cannot and do not separate the villain from the venerated, the line is too thin and the facts are wildly scattered. The truth certainly is in masquerade. The Lankan Paradise is not lost, not yet. It is certainly misplaced. That much can be clearly seen, lest one be blind. What happens in the end to things that are misplaced? They never get found and as time goes by; it sure will become something permanently missing. Ours is a Paradise misplaced. Let us all valiantly search, it is not too late. Let us collectively find ourselves and our land, before it vanishes beyond the limit, and becomes a Paradise Lost.
Our island was called Lanka in pre King Vijaya times. Valmiki s immortal Ramayanaya had King Ravana ruling the land from the city of Lankapura. That was almost four thousand years ago. The Arab traders termed it Jaziratul- Yaqut, island of rubies. Some called it Serandip, some Ceilan, from which the Portuguese picked Ceilao and the European map- makers coined Ceylon. Many were the names from the many that came, and they all were collective in their comment in the description of this land. Bar none, everyone agreed and noted in their chronicles that this island was indeed the complete Paradise. We never gained it. Let s be honest about that part. We simply inherited. The Gods from their celestial dome, in their infinite kindness, gifted this Paradise to us, the beautiful island of Lanka, to the people of Sri Lanka. The privilege of being born and belonging to such a place can only be rightfully expressed if one can take the turmoil out and look through the veils of disharmony that obscure what lies beyond. The purity of the land, still remains, so much unspoiled. The occupant of Paradise, still smiles, in spite of the battering he had received from the time we were reborn after the colonials left. Mother Lanka dawdles, whilst her sons and daughters drowse in ignorance, somewhat a prelude to the disasters ahead. .
Ruben walks daily carrying his Malu Kada following the footsteps of his father and grand father. His son Saman tags along, apprenticing the trade, helps to weigh the fish, cleans the broad blade knife as his father barters with the housewives, haggling for the bargain. They leave, father and son, with the little boy shouting Malu Malu straining his tender vocal chords. The fishmonger to be, on his first lessons. No change. Podi Hami prays every day. That s all she can do. She and her son Sirisena, did try every possible means, and failed. No they couldn't get a letter for employment. Wrong party, not our people, that is what the man said. Not that Podi Hami had any inclination of what happened in the parliament or who sat aloft. She merely crossed the ballot papers. There was always too much controversy in the news and people spoke in such different tones about their leaders that Podi Hami had long given up in her little mind to seek the truth. That was impossible. She merely voted and got branded. Now she sees young Sirisena, a posthumous corporal, beret and braid, in black and white, immortalised in a cheap framed photograph, hanging on the nail infested bedroom wall, boring his eyes at her, a sad and constant memory of a war where mainly the poor make the payments. A Porsche glitters inside a show room at the Bambalapitiya junction. A young boy pushes his crippled father, looking at the cars. The old man sits crumpled, folded along with his worldly belongings, in a rickety old chair that rolls on warped wheels. Donated by the Lions, says the back. A blind man and his woman share their lunch, seated on the pavement of Dickman s Road. Someone had been generous. The woman, withered and wasted, raises a bath kata to her toothless mouth and hears the world with sightless eyes, whilst the husband waits his turn, scratching his mottled skin of burnt black- Citizens of Paradise.
The sun goes down and the pavements become the bedchambers for the super poor who pray for the rains to hold till morning. These are no fairy tales of my redundant imagination. They are the stories of Paradise. The day-to-day events that play sad and silent along the cacophony of achievement. Don t tell me they are isolated, oh no, not by a long shot. They are the unheard, the ignored and the expendable debts of the displaced denizens of Paradise. The stentorians are there, loud and clear, announcing to the world and beyond, the inflated paths of progress, with rainbow visions for the morrow, splashing milk and honey stories. But, isn't there a big question mark? Isn't there some straining needed to seek the truth? I'm not talking of devolution and separations, politics don't interest me. I m like Podi Hami, totally confused between right and wrong and where lies the light. I m writing of the core, the very basics that humans search for, Uncle Sam's stuff, the pursuit of happiness type, the very essence that Paradise should be made of, which I think, is sadly missing at present. They leave Paradise by the thousands. Why? That is a good question. Look around and you will see the answer. They move out to pursue their happiness elsewhere. Not by choice, but by reasons of sheer necessity. The Sri Lankan Diaspora is everywhere, from the chilly summits of Northern Canada to the dry lands of Tasmania. From sushi land to Swaziland. From the deserts of Dhahran to the lush green valleys of New Zealand. You see them with their little Sri Lankan clubs , clinging on dearly to memories of a homeland, torn between a new life and what they left behind. It s a love they cannot shed, a romance gone rotten, and they gather and lament, speak in sad nostalgic tones and save miserly to visit and spend a week or two in their much loved and beloved Paradise.
Why do these inheritors leave Paradise? Something must have gone wrong in the system. The exodus only began after we were reborn. Hence, the blame is not with the colonials and their House of Commons. It is ours and ours alone, lying firmly in the Pontius hands of the custodians who were chosen to charter our future, and seemingly have failed in their delivery. Isn t it a fact that there is a mass cry for employment outside. The mason and the maid lead, followed by the waiter, the janitor and the bartender. Name him, and he is there, looking for agents to send him to some far away Valhalla. The banker too, and the medicine man, fill passport forms, standing side by side with the young urban professional and the academic erudite. All looking across the sea, from the shores of Paradise. There are some consolations too, one cannot be totally paranoid. The factory jobs are there for the tradeless. Foreign Marks and local Spencer make the mint and scope the cream and the poor Paradisians eat the peanut. Still, it's something to keep the kitchen fires burning. The rest of the no skills pawn their souls to go abroad. Local Dick Whitingtons charging into the unknown, exploited at every toll gate (there are many) and slave in alien homes in the Middle East and Asia, sending their carefully hoarded pitiful dirams and dollars to their loved ones, whilst counting agonising days to return home. Sixty years have gone by from the day of independence. The blameless blame, the nameless suffer, the shameless go on, ramroding their way to erode and annihilate Paradise. No need to further elaborate, the reasons are obvious. Some things happen to be best left unsaid. Let me be the coward and let discretion become the better part of my limited attempts at journalism.
Call me a fool if it pleases you and I ll accept it. But let me trickle some sanity to your thoughts. Just to kindle an interest. Totally non political. I cannot and do not separate the villain from the venerated, the line is too thin and the facts are wildly scattered. The truth certainly is in masquerade. The Lankan Paradise is not lost, not yet. It is certainly misplaced. That much can be clearly seen, lest one be blind. What happens in the end to things that are misplaced? They never get found and as time goes by; it sure will become something permanently missing. Ours is a Paradise misplaced. Let us all valiantly search, it is not too late. Let us collectively find ourselves and our land, before it vanishes beyond the limit, and becomes a Paradise Lost.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Walking to Work in SL
The fun of a walk to work in Sri Lanka
By Louise Gray
From Telegraph.com.uk
Louise Gray's blog of working for a tree conservation society in Sri Lanka
I have been in Sri Lanka long enough now to just about have a routine. In other circumstances that might mean things could get boring. Here it is quite the opposite. Take my walk to work.
As soon as I step out my front door on Kirula Road, Colombo 5 I am confronted by men with armfuls of guns. It is a local security firm and they are always very friendly but I have not quite got used to being greeted by groups of men unloading AK47s from white vans first thing in the morning.
I turn onto a dusty street already full of traffic to be greeted by a familiar cry: "Madam! Taxi!" It's the dawn patrol of tuk tuk drivers. I ignore them and walk on, but they persist. "Ok madam, get in".
"No, thank you," I refuse. "I am walking."
This will take some time to sink in as maybe one or two tuks trail me down the road hoping I will change my mind.
By the time I have reached my first obstacle fondly known as rat corner, because I usually narrowly miss stepping on a rodent at this juncture, they have peeled off.
advertisementI will get a few more by the time I turn on to Jawatta Road, the main thoroughfare I have to negotiate. The traffic is dreadful. Big Lanka Ashok Leylands, the local buses and undisputed kings of the road, roar past scattering terrified tuk tuks.
"There are zebra crossings which are meant to stop the traffic but the only protection they give you in Sri Lanka is if you are run over on a zebra crossing it is the driver's fault, whereas if its anywhere else it is your own fault. They would certainly not have much sympathy with someone so stupid as to attempt to walk to work, especially when I have so many offers of transport.
"Hello miss taxi?"
"No, really, I'm walking."
The roads I pass reflect the rulers of the country from the Portuguese Don Carolis Road to the very British Ascot Avenue. In the same way the places of worship reflect the mixed religion in the country, from the majority Buddhists, 18 per cent Hindus and minority Muslims and Christians.
The Buddhist shrine is always adorned with offerings of fragrant flowers, fresh fruit and water and I will often see worshippers stopping to offer prayer. The Hindu temple is even more colourful with its tangle of Gods and wafts of incense. By comparison the Anglican church on the corner and the mosque seem dull in the extreme.
Anyway I can never stop without attracting attention. "Aha! You want a trishaw madam?"
"No, I don't."
I'm really just being stubborn now as it is hot work walking in 30ºC plus and while there is no AC in tuk tuks there is a moderately cooling breeze. If you are lucky the driver will have garlands of flowers around the windscreen, pictures of laughing Chinese babies or psychedelic seat coverings lovingly protected by sheets of clear plastic.
Like London taxi drivers there is always plenty of chat almost always beginning with "Where you from?" followed by "You married?" I prefer to practice my Sinhala but this can be confusing for everyone involved.
I press on past various Sri Lankan ministries. I pass the ministry of water and irrigation and the ministry of youth empowerment and socio-economic development. There is also a ministry of religious affairs and moral enlightenment and a department of ayurveda. Sri Lanka has one of the highest numbers of ministries in the world with more than 100 members of cabinet. Unfortunately I do not go past the ministry of silly walks.
I also pass the national identification office where there is a massive queue of people every morning waiting to get identity cards. Since the end of the ceasefire between the government and Tamil Tigers earlier this year and an increase in terrorist bomb attacks, it has been necessary for everyone to have ID on them at all times for the many police checks. Almost in defiance of the ethnic conflict the queue is a mixture of Hindu Tamils, often with ash on their foreheads, and Sinhalese Buddhists.
"Bakeries" offer short eats like egg rotis from trailers on the back of bicycles, hawkers sell pineapple with chilli and disfigured beggars sell lottery tickets to the crowd.
There are intermittent pavements until I get to the streets around the embassies and international aid headquarters in an area known as Colombo 7. This is a bit like Sri Lanka's version of Mayfair hence you have "Colombo 7 mums" which I guess are a little like Stepford wives but with stricter morals.
Intermingled with the blaring horns of tuk tuks and buses are the sleek UN 4x4s. The streets are a little more leafy here and for a while I tried to practice identifying trees on the walk to work. But standing underneath a tree with my field guide to the common trees and shrubs of Sri Lanka invariably drew so much attention and tuk tuks that I soon gave up.
I do know that there are rain trees and Indian willow as I scuttle from one to another glad of the shade. Unfortunately there are not as many trees in Colombo as there used to be. Part of my job as communications advisor to Ruk Rakaganno, the Tree Society of Sri Lanka (http://rukrakaganno.sacredcat.org), has been firing off angry letters to the press complaining of this fact.
There are even rumours that trees are being cut to stop terrorists depositing bombs in them. This is a high security zone and soldiers in blue combats patrol the streets. At first it made me uncomfortable but after a couple winked at me, I got used to them.
I have got used to a lot of things in Colombo. The heat, the crows, the nice and not-so-nice spicy smells. I have even taken on a few Sri Lankan habits. At work I eat a lunch packet of rice and curry, I try not to think about bombs, I wobble my head when I don't want to do something but feel too polite to say no.
At the same time I try to keep an eye out for the unusual things like a monk with a mobile phone or a whole family travelling on one motorcycle. It is only a week before I leave Sri Lanka and I want to make sure I remember the extraordinary experiences and even the ordinary ones like the tuk tuk drivers who persist even as I am turning into the entrance of my work.
"Hello, madam, you need a tuk, tuk?"
"No!"
Of course, I could always have jumped in a tuk tuk for 75p (after 10 minutes hard haggling) but where would be the fun in that?
By Louise Gray
From Telegraph.com.uk
Louise Gray's blog of working for a tree conservation society in Sri Lanka
I have been in Sri Lanka long enough now to just about have a routine. In other circumstances that might mean things could get boring. Here it is quite the opposite. Take my walk to work.
As soon as I step out my front door on Kirula Road, Colombo 5 I am confronted by men with armfuls of guns. It is a local security firm and they are always very friendly but I have not quite got used to being greeted by groups of men unloading AK47s from white vans first thing in the morning.
I turn onto a dusty street already full of traffic to be greeted by a familiar cry: "Madam! Taxi!" It's the dawn patrol of tuk tuk drivers. I ignore them and walk on, but they persist. "Ok madam, get in".
"No, thank you," I refuse. "I am walking."
This will take some time to sink in as maybe one or two tuks trail me down the road hoping I will change my mind.
By the time I have reached my first obstacle fondly known as rat corner, because I usually narrowly miss stepping on a rodent at this juncture, they have peeled off.
advertisementI will get a few more by the time I turn on to Jawatta Road, the main thoroughfare I have to negotiate. The traffic is dreadful. Big Lanka Ashok Leylands, the local buses and undisputed kings of the road, roar past scattering terrified tuk tuks.
"There are zebra crossings which are meant to stop the traffic but the only protection they give you in Sri Lanka is if you are run over on a zebra crossing it is the driver's fault, whereas if its anywhere else it is your own fault. They would certainly not have much sympathy with someone so stupid as to attempt to walk to work, especially when I have so many offers of transport.
"Hello miss taxi?"
"No, really, I'm walking."
The roads I pass reflect the rulers of the country from the Portuguese Don Carolis Road to the very British Ascot Avenue. In the same way the places of worship reflect the mixed religion in the country, from the majority Buddhists, 18 per cent Hindus and minority Muslims and Christians.
The Buddhist shrine is always adorned with offerings of fragrant flowers, fresh fruit and water and I will often see worshippers stopping to offer prayer. The Hindu temple is even more colourful with its tangle of Gods and wafts of incense. By comparison the Anglican church on the corner and the mosque seem dull in the extreme.
Anyway I can never stop without attracting attention. "Aha! You want a trishaw madam?"
"No, I don't."
I'm really just being stubborn now as it is hot work walking in 30ºC plus and while there is no AC in tuk tuks there is a moderately cooling breeze. If you are lucky the driver will have garlands of flowers around the windscreen, pictures of laughing Chinese babies or psychedelic seat coverings lovingly protected by sheets of clear plastic.
Like London taxi drivers there is always plenty of chat almost always beginning with "Where you from?" followed by "You married?" I prefer to practice my Sinhala but this can be confusing for everyone involved.
I press on past various Sri Lankan ministries. I pass the ministry of water and irrigation and the ministry of youth empowerment and socio-economic development. There is also a ministry of religious affairs and moral enlightenment and a department of ayurveda. Sri Lanka has one of the highest numbers of ministries in the world with more than 100 members of cabinet. Unfortunately I do not go past the ministry of silly walks.
I also pass the national identification office where there is a massive queue of people every morning waiting to get identity cards. Since the end of the ceasefire between the government and Tamil Tigers earlier this year and an increase in terrorist bomb attacks, it has been necessary for everyone to have ID on them at all times for the many police checks. Almost in defiance of the ethnic conflict the queue is a mixture of Hindu Tamils, often with ash on their foreheads, and Sinhalese Buddhists.
"Bakeries" offer short eats like egg rotis from trailers on the back of bicycles, hawkers sell pineapple with chilli and disfigured beggars sell lottery tickets to the crowd.
There are intermittent pavements until I get to the streets around the embassies and international aid headquarters in an area known as Colombo 7. This is a bit like Sri Lanka's version of Mayfair hence you have "Colombo 7 mums" which I guess are a little like Stepford wives but with stricter morals.
Intermingled with the blaring horns of tuk tuks and buses are the sleek UN 4x4s. The streets are a little more leafy here and for a while I tried to practice identifying trees on the walk to work. But standing underneath a tree with my field guide to the common trees and shrubs of Sri Lanka invariably drew so much attention and tuk tuks that I soon gave up.
I do know that there are rain trees and Indian willow as I scuttle from one to another glad of the shade. Unfortunately there are not as many trees in Colombo as there used to be. Part of my job as communications advisor to Ruk Rakaganno, the Tree Society of Sri Lanka (http://rukrakaganno.sacredcat.org), has been firing off angry letters to the press complaining of this fact.
There are even rumours that trees are being cut to stop terrorists depositing bombs in them. This is a high security zone and soldiers in blue combats patrol the streets. At first it made me uncomfortable but after a couple winked at me, I got used to them.
I have got used to a lot of things in Colombo. The heat, the crows, the nice and not-so-nice spicy smells. I have even taken on a few Sri Lankan habits. At work I eat a lunch packet of rice and curry, I try not to think about bombs, I wobble my head when I don't want to do something but feel too polite to say no.
At the same time I try to keep an eye out for the unusual things like a monk with a mobile phone or a whole family travelling on one motorcycle. It is only a week before I leave Sri Lanka and I want to make sure I remember the extraordinary experiences and even the ordinary ones like the tuk tuk drivers who persist even as I am turning into the entrance of my work.
"Hello, madam, you need a tuk, tuk?"
"No!"
Of course, I could always have jumped in a tuk tuk for 75p (after 10 minutes hard haggling) but where would be the fun in that?
Sunday, June 08, 2008
A Sermon from Mount Mary
A Sermon From Mount Mary
By Nalin Fernando.
Where have they all gone?
I am thinking about the Railway Burghers, not the flowers in the plaintive melody made popular during the Vietnam War.
Recently, I met one of them who did not uproot himself while almost everyone nearest and dearest to him had sought new pastures abroad to work or to retire.
He was the ultimate railway man, born in Mount Mary and he hoped to die in the vicinity in which he had lived all his life.
Once upon a time (he told me, over an arrack at the Twentieth Century Club where he was a guest) Eric de La Motte was bringing the 72 Up Night Mail from Badulla to Colombo.
He was piloting the old steam war-horse that had chugged along for well over thirty years, never failing if it had enough coal and water.
Melo, his ever-loving wife (home calling Melo, outside calling Maloney) was all a twitter as she was wont to be when he stays away overnight after taking the 463 Down Passenger two mornings before.
She had spruced up the railway quarters they lived in.
The floor was mopped, brushed and gleaming.
Although cobwebs stretched across the ceiling, one could comb your hair looking down at the floor as in a good Burgher home.
She dusted the paper flowers in a glass vase on an imitation ebony tea-boy.
She kept her quarters shining just as Eric liked his steam gauge glass and brass fittings in the loco cabin to sparkle.
The leftover ox tongue stew had been warmed up.
The raw onion and green chilli sambol and the bread cut in practical three-inch thick chunks were on the dining table that was draped with a blue and white checked plastic tablecloth.
The table stood on four tinned fish cans full of Jeyes fluid to keep the ants away.
Eric and Melo were well known in railway circles as a "lovely couple".
There was a grand do at the Railway Institute three years before when they celebrated their silver wedding anniversary.
Melo, now was shunting towards fifty, but she still maintained vestiges of her pleasant face and figure that had been the rage of the institute get-togethers in the days gone by.
Her bust, tummy and hips were about five inches rounder and her once delicate rear brake wagon was more prominent.
But, after two children, now grown up, what happened to Mrs. Hepponstall happens to all.
When they first met, Eric was a dashing young fireman who shoveled a stylish spade of coal.
He was tall, handsome and had a tattoo of a snake coiling round a totem pole on his left upper arm.
Melo often recalled those leathery palms of his in her soft hand and on her softer shoulder when he came up to her at a Christmas social and said, "dance".
They were married three weeks later and her mummy and daddy, also railway folk, approved of the match.
Old Meerwald was very proud of his s-I-l, especially his ability to drain two drams in one "gallop" and then nonchalantly crush the glass with his leathery bare hands.
Melo was giving the front steps a final swish and sweep when she spotted Dottie (outside calling Dorothy) doing the same chore in the adjoining quarters.
Dottie was Melo's good friend although socially inferior since her husband, Andrew, was still on the Puttalam run drawing cattle wagons and a few second and third class carriages.
"Erico coming soon", cried out Melo. "Bringing a leg of farm pork and bacon from Nanu and a bottle of Tiddenham Barrow from DLA. Making bacon and eggs. Pork for lunch".
"So, so, matinee show today", she replied mischievously.
Melo tried hard to blush at Dottie's naughty suggestion, failed miserably and only managed to coyly toss her short crop of hair.
"Don't be silly, Chile", she replied and walked in with a sly smile.
Eric arrived soon after in his favourite rickshaw.
It had been a satisfying run from Badulla.
The steam charge had been steady and he had not got any red signals approaching Fort that tested his patience after a long run.
He carried under his left arm-pit a parcel and on his right hand a bottle, both wrapped in old newspaper.
His overnight bag was slung on his left shoulder.
Moreover, if you think that the items wrapped in newspaper were leg of pork and a bottle of passion fruit, you were sadly mistaken.
The parcel was two pounds of fresh bread that Eric got from a florist cum undertaker after every run to Fort in appreciation of bringing back safely a basket of flowers from Blackpool.
The bottle had the last two shots of black arrack, the original contents having been progressively reduced at Bandarawela, Pattipola, Nanu Oya, Gampola and Polgahawela.
Eric walked in and placed his cargo on the dining table, took his shoes off and reclined on the armchair.
He turned to Melo and said "glass" in the same tone and timbre as he once said "dance" or says "coal" to his fireman when the steam gauge hits the warning line.
He paused until the glass was fetched and then said "food".
He was a man of few words.
Now, Melo had to fry bacon and eggs as previously boasted to Dottie.
If there was no bacon in the house, how was she to produce the sound and smell of frying bacon for which Dottie must surely be waiting with envy on the other side of the thin partition walls of the railway quarters?
Melo was a real one.
With a deft flick of her wet fingers she sprinkled water into a hot pan of old bacon fat.
Dottie, with her ears against the wall, heard the sizzling sound of water sprinkled on hot oil and aroma of bacon fat was in the air.
She resigned herself to the fact that her Andy could hardly be expected to bring back pork or bacon from Muslim dominated Puttalam.
Eric downed the remnants of the bottle in a single 'gallop".
He was ready for food after having had for dinner only a tasty but small parcel of rice and curry given to him by a certain tootsy-wootsy in Badulla - a middle-aged wife of a much older retired Sinhalese head guard with whom he had a discreet understanding.
When the plate of ox tongue stew had been wiped clean with the last chunk of bread, he released a subdued belch akin to a short blast of his steam hooter on seeing a jaywalker on the tracks ahead of him.
He rose from his chair unbuttoning his shirt, and loosening his belt and waistband he lounged in the armchair with his feet up on the extended foot-rests.
"Duckworth and Joppe coming for lunch. Buy some soda and beef. Duckworth bringing brinjal pickle. Rice and curry. Wake me when they come", he said in a rare long speech.
In three minutes he was fast asleep.
Melo spent half an hour de-stoning the rice, washing the dhal and peeling the potatoes to fry later.
She then stepped out dutifully towards Dematagoda with a shopping basket in her hand to buy some chicken necks for bites.
She could hear Dottie somewhere in the front of her quarters and was sure that she would be seen going out.
She put on a fleeting self-satisfied smile.
She tossed her short hair and smoothened it down on a side with her free hand.
She then wiggled her hips and hitched up her knickers.
How to disappoint that woman about the matinee, chile.
By Nalin Fernando.
Where have they all gone?
I am thinking about the Railway Burghers, not the flowers in the plaintive melody made popular during the Vietnam War.
Recently, I met one of them who did not uproot himself while almost everyone nearest and dearest to him had sought new pastures abroad to work or to retire.
He was the ultimate railway man, born in Mount Mary and he hoped to die in the vicinity in which he had lived all his life.
Once upon a time (he told me, over an arrack at the Twentieth Century Club where he was a guest) Eric de La Motte was bringing the 72 Up Night Mail from Badulla to Colombo.
He was piloting the old steam war-horse that had chugged along for well over thirty years, never failing if it had enough coal and water.
Melo, his ever-loving wife (home calling Melo, outside calling Maloney) was all a twitter as she was wont to be when he stays away overnight after taking the 463 Down Passenger two mornings before.
She had spruced up the railway quarters they lived in.
The floor was mopped, brushed and gleaming.
Although cobwebs stretched across the ceiling, one could comb your hair looking down at the floor as in a good Burgher home.
She dusted the paper flowers in a glass vase on an imitation ebony tea-boy.
She kept her quarters shining just as Eric liked his steam gauge glass and brass fittings in the loco cabin to sparkle.
The leftover ox tongue stew had been warmed up.
The raw onion and green chilli sambol and the bread cut in practical three-inch thick chunks were on the dining table that was draped with a blue and white checked plastic tablecloth.
The table stood on four tinned fish cans full of Jeyes fluid to keep the ants away.
Eric and Melo were well known in railway circles as a "lovely couple".
There was a grand do at the Railway Institute three years before when they celebrated their silver wedding anniversary.
Melo, now was shunting towards fifty, but she still maintained vestiges of her pleasant face and figure that had been the rage of the institute get-togethers in the days gone by.
Her bust, tummy and hips were about five inches rounder and her once delicate rear brake wagon was more prominent.
But, after two children, now grown up, what happened to Mrs. Hepponstall happens to all.
When they first met, Eric was a dashing young fireman who shoveled a stylish spade of coal.
He was tall, handsome and had a tattoo of a snake coiling round a totem pole on his left upper arm.
Melo often recalled those leathery palms of his in her soft hand and on her softer shoulder when he came up to her at a Christmas social and said, "dance".
They were married three weeks later and her mummy and daddy, also railway folk, approved of the match.
Old Meerwald was very proud of his s-I-l, especially his ability to drain two drams in one "gallop" and then nonchalantly crush the glass with his leathery bare hands.
Melo was giving the front steps a final swish and sweep when she spotted Dottie (outside calling Dorothy) doing the same chore in the adjoining quarters.
Dottie was Melo's good friend although socially inferior since her husband, Andrew, was still on the Puttalam run drawing cattle wagons and a few second and third class carriages.
"Erico coming soon", cried out Melo. "Bringing a leg of farm pork and bacon from Nanu and a bottle of Tiddenham Barrow from DLA. Making bacon and eggs. Pork for lunch".
"So, so, matinee show today", she replied mischievously.
Melo tried hard to blush at Dottie's naughty suggestion, failed miserably and only managed to coyly toss her short crop of hair.
"Don't be silly, Chile", she replied and walked in with a sly smile.
Eric arrived soon after in his favourite rickshaw.
It had been a satisfying run from Badulla.
The steam charge had been steady and he had not got any red signals approaching Fort that tested his patience after a long run.
He carried under his left arm-pit a parcel and on his right hand a bottle, both wrapped in old newspaper.
His overnight bag was slung on his left shoulder.
Moreover, if you think that the items wrapped in newspaper were leg of pork and a bottle of passion fruit, you were sadly mistaken.
The parcel was two pounds of fresh bread that Eric got from a florist cum undertaker after every run to Fort in appreciation of bringing back safely a basket of flowers from Blackpool.
The bottle had the last two shots of black arrack, the original contents having been progressively reduced at Bandarawela, Pattipola, Nanu Oya, Gampola and Polgahawela.
Eric walked in and placed his cargo on the dining table, took his shoes off and reclined on the armchair.
He turned to Melo and said "glass" in the same tone and timbre as he once said "dance" or says "coal" to his fireman when the steam gauge hits the warning line.
He paused until the glass was fetched and then said "food".
He was a man of few words.
Now, Melo had to fry bacon and eggs as previously boasted to Dottie.
If there was no bacon in the house, how was she to produce the sound and smell of frying bacon for which Dottie must surely be waiting with envy on the other side of the thin partition walls of the railway quarters?
Melo was a real one.
With a deft flick of her wet fingers she sprinkled water into a hot pan of old bacon fat.
Dottie, with her ears against the wall, heard the sizzling sound of water sprinkled on hot oil and aroma of bacon fat was in the air.
She resigned herself to the fact that her Andy could hardly be expected to bring back pork or bacon from Muslim dominated Puttalam.
Eric downed the remnants of the bottle in a single 'gallop".
He was ready for food after having had for dinner only a tasty but small parcel of rice and curry given to him by a certain tootsy-wootsy in Badulla - a middle-aged wife of a much older retired Sinhalese head guard with whom he had a discreet understanding.
When the plate of ox tongue stew had been wiped clean with the last chunk of bread, he released a subdued belch akin to a short blast of his steam hooter on seeing a jaywalker on the tracks ahead of him.
He rose from his chair unbuttoning his shirt, and loosening his belt and waistband he lounged in the armchair with his feet up on the extended foot-rests.
"Duckworth and Joppe coming for lunch. Buy some soda and beef. Duckworth bringing brinjal pickle. Rice and curry. Wake me when they come", he said in a rare long speech.
In three minutes he was fast asleep.
Melo spent half an hour de-stoning the rice, washing the dhal and peeling the potatoes to fry later.
She then stepped out dutifully towards Dematagoda with a shopping basket in her hand to buy some chicken necks for bites.
She could hear Dottie somewhere in the front of her quarters and was sure that she would be seen going out.
She put on a fleeting self-satisfied smile.
She tossed her short hair and smoothened it down on a side with her free hand.
She then wiggled her hips and hitched up her knickers.
How to disappoint that woman about the matinee, chile.
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