A new beginning in 1971 and departure to Australia

Excerpted from Nimal Wikramanayake’s A Life In The Law

(Continued from last week)

Time flew by and it was getting close to the date of our departure. I was terrified about our future, not knowing what was to befall us. I had no prospects of employment, no friends, save for Ronnie de Kretser, whom I had not met, and Australia was not the country of my birth. To whom could I turn for help if we were in trouble?

In the meantime, my parents returned home in October and my mother became extremely antagonistic and hostile towards me. She kept calling me a coward, saying that I was running away from home. I spent the last few weeks tossing and turning at night. I did not want to burden Anna Maria with my fears. It was only many years later, when we were safely ensconced in Australia, that she told me she was terrified at the thought of leaving Ceylon and did not sleep a wink in her last few months there.

We set about packing three large containers full of our furniture. I watched our furniture leave with a heavy heart. It was to be transported by sea to Melbourne. On the night of October 31, 1971, Anna Maria attended to the final preparations while my father and I sat down in his spacious lounge room. We sat there for nearly three hours in complete silence, each of us absorbed in our own thoughts. Not a word passed between us, although I wanted to get up and hug my father, and tell him how much I loved him. But my father, like all fathers of his generation, was a stoic, and he had never shown me any affection, even when I was a little boy. We had our dinner in silence and retired to our respective rooms.

For once in many months, I had a peaceful night’s sleep. But when I got up in the morning I was tired and depressed. I felt as though I was 101 years old. I wanted to run away and hide, but the die was cast. I had made my decision and I had to live with it. I was leaving a safe harbour and journeying out into treacherous stormy waters.

I staggered to the bathroom, my bathroom which I would never see again. Twenty years earlier, when my father was building his dream house, my brother and I were given a choice of selecting the colours for the bathroom fittings and the tiles for the bathroom. We chose baby-blue for the fittings and black for the tiles. I sat down on the commode and eased myself and then moved over to the bidet. Would I ever see a bidet again, would I ever use a bidet again? I remember walking into the bathroom when I was a young man and watching my friend Arthur Samarasundera washing his face in the bidet. I did not have the heart to tell him its purpose.

The servant boy had already laid the toothpaste on my toothbrush, and I brushed my teeth, shaved and got into my shower at home for the last time. The cool early morning water had a cleansing effect on me as I toweled myself and got ready for the inevitable.

Anna Maria and I had breakfast with my mother and father while we had to listen to my mother’s hysterical rantings about us: how we were running away; how we were not staying to fight; what a disgrace I was to the family. I listened in silence, for this was not a time to upset my mother, as she was clearly distressed by the fact that we were leaving her, and she might never see us again.

I wandered about the house for the next two hours, looking at it sadly, for I knew that I would never see it again. The time came for us to leave and we got into my father’s Pontiac motorcar. I thought, this is the last time I will be sitting in a big Yank tank.

The drive to Katunayake Airport was a painful one. My mother was sobbing in the back seat as all of the old familiar places flashed by. It was 1 November 1, 1971, a Monday, and one o’clock in the afternoon. The road to the airport was a single lane carriageway. As was customary in Ceylon, pedestrians were oblivious to the traffic that passed along the highway. They would wander across the road without paying any attention to the traffic. But God help anyone who ran over one of these miscreants.

Anyone who had the misfortune to run over a pedestrian would have been extremely foolhardy to stop. The brave citizens of the area would attack the miscreant mercilessly and beat him or her within an inch of his or her life. The Only course open was to drive from the scene of the collision like a bat out of hell and go to the nearest police station to report the incident. We also had to overtake a number of bullock carts which meandered along the road in a desultory fashion.

We arrived at the airport and got out of the limousine. Our driver took our suitcases out of the boot and gave them to a waiting attendant. Our chauffeur Wilson had come to us as a young inexperienced boy in 1943, when I was nine years old. He had been with us for over 27 years, a faithful servant, and more like a familiar uncle. He said goodbye to me in the manner and custom of an old family retainer, the custom which has long since disappeared in Sri Lanka (the country I knew as Ceylon). He fell down at my feet and worshipped me, kissed my shoes and wished me God speed. He was sobbing. I laid a gentle hand on his head, but we both knew that we would never see each other again. He left and we collected our luggage and went into the airport.

My father collected all the necessary forms, immigration, customs and the like, took Anna Maria’s and my passport and filled in the necessary forms for us. He was a great organizer. We strolled through Customs and Immigration with the officials bowing deferentially to my father. We were ushered into the departure lounge and soon it was time to leave. In those days, there were no aerobridges leading into the plane. One had to walk across the tarmac and climb up the short gangway to the plane.

Dad led us up to the plane, my mother clinging to my arm and sobbing loudly and begging me not to leave. This was something I was completely unprepared for. I quickly disengaged her arms and hands, shook my father’s hand, embraced and kissed my mother on both cheeks and darted up the ramp. Anna Maria also kissed my parents and followed quickly behind. Mummy was still wailing when the air hostess closed the door.

Singapore

We were flying first to Kuala Lumpur, disembarking there, and flying on to Singapore. We were to stay with a close friend of my dad’s, Mr Kulasekeram, and his wife Wimala. Kula was a Supreme Court judge in Singapore and had been one of my father’s apprentices in the 1940s. He had migrated to Singapore, established a big law practice there and been appointed to the Supreme Court bench.

We caught the plane to Singapore and were greeted by Mr and Mrs Kulasekeram.In the confusion, I had forgotten to buy cigarettes and I asked Kula whether he could stop at a convenience store so that I could buy some. I went into the convenience store, bought a packet of Peter Stuyvesant cigarettes and got back into the front seat of Kula’s Mercedes Benz. I tore the wrapping off the packet then wound the window down and threw out the wrapping. This was something we did in Ceylon.

The car screamed to a halt and Kula looked at me sternly and said, “Don’t you realize that you have committed a very serious offence and you could end up in jail for that?” I was aghast. I got out of the car and quickly walked back, picked up the wrapping and deposited it in a rubbish bin that was close by. I then realized that the entire city was spotless, unlike the dirty, filthy streets of Colombo.When we arrived at Kula’s home he showed us into a lovely spacious bedroom which opened onto a large, beautifully manicured lawn. We unpacked our suitcases, then went down for dinner. After dinner we chatted briefly as Kula said he had to sit in court the following morning. We went up to the bedroom where there were two single beds which Anna Maria pushed together.

She was soon fast asleep while I lay there, sobbing softly to myself. This was indeed one of the saddest days of my life. We had left everything behind, everything. I was going into a bleak uncertain future, leaving a life of absolute luxury.

There was a streak of lightning and a clap of thunder, the like of which I had not heard for several months. It was deafening and suddenly the skies opened up. The rain came down in proverbial buckets. This added immensely to my misery. I was devastated. I went through all the unhappy and unfortunate things that were going on in Ceylon at the time. I started with Mrs Bandaranaike’s government – nepotism, the 10 pm curfew, and the like. By the time I reached fifteen items I was asleep. I did not think of Ceylon again as I have a penchant for putting horrible things out of my mind.

The Ceylon government in its wisdom had given Anna Maria and me £150 each to start our life in Australia. It imposed strict exchange control regulations carrying a draconian penalty if they were broken – a mandatory term of imprisonment of five years. We had arranged to have £1,000 paid to us in Singapore and £1,500 to be paid to us when we arrived in Australia to start off our new life.

All this money had been purchased for us on the black market at some four times the exchange rate, although we had nothing to do with its purchase.We had three days of glorious shopping in Singapore and were preparing to leave on Thursday morning when we learned that there was a BOAC strike in London so we were now stranded in Singapore. Fortunately, we were able to change our flights and we left for Australia late on the night of Thursday, November 4, 1971.

(To be continued)