An eventful off season – Part 28

CONFESSIONS OF A GLOBAL GYPSY

By Dr. Chandana (Chandi) Jayawardena DPhil

President – Chandi J. Associates Inc. Consulting, Canada

Founder & Administrator – Global Hospitality Forum

chandij@sympatico.ca

As the 1975/1976 tourist season ended, I had a lot of free time in a nearly empty hotel. I did not want to waste six months just relaxing and ordering room service for all meals. As the Assistant Manager and Executive Chef of the Coral Gardens Hotel, apart from a few planning tasks, I hardly had enough work to keep me occupied. I commenced looking around for opportunities for secondments to keep busy and learn more about hospitality business.

Fifth Non-Aligned Summit

One day while reading a local newspaper I learnt about Sri Lanka hosting the fifth Conference of Heads of State/Government of the Non-Aligned Countries, often referred to as Non-Aligned Summit, in August 1976. This movement originated in the mid-1950s as an effort by some countries to avoid the polarized world of the Cold War between the pro-Soviet communist countries belonging to the Warsaw Pact, and the pro-American capitalist countries belonging to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The first summit was hosted by Yugoslavia in 1961 with only 24 countries attending, including Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Cub. In the year 2021, the organization has grown to over 120 member states and in terms of the size and scope, second only to the United Nations as a global organization.

Over 50 heads of state/government attending the 1976 summit expected to stay at the only five-star hotels in the country – InterContinental and Oberoi. The venue for this prestigious three-day summit was the newly opened Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall (BMICH), which was built and gifted by China to Sri Lanka. I heard that the government owned Ceylon Hotels Corporation (CHC) would be handling all catering and hospitality operations of the fifth non-Aligned Summit.

I immediately contacted the General Manager of CHC – Mr. Nimalasiri Silva, and offered my services, as I thought that this summit would provide an amazing opportunity for hospitality managers to gain valuable convention management experience at the highest level. “Chandana, thank you for your offer, but CHC already seconded for service to BMICH about ten of your fellow graduates of the Ceylon Hotel School (CHS).” I told him that I was able to work in any department at BMICH. He then said, “As CHC got the catering contract for the summit, our agreement is to only use CHC managers. The only exception is Milroy Fernando who was flown from Canada to lead the catering assignment on the directions of the Prime Minister.”

I was disappointed but was satisfied that at least I had tried. I was happy for my CHS colleagues who got this rare opportunity to serve heads of state/government.

Eventually, from 1990 to 1993, I got the opportunity to manage the entire catering operation of BMICH including large wedding dinners for 2,400 persons. BMICH has been crowned as the Gold Award Winner in the Leading Convention Center category of the prestigious 2020 South Asia Travel Awards (SATA) competition, bringing recognition to Sri Lanka as the premium convention destination in the South Asian Region. It all started in 1976.

Learning At Elephant House

Around the same period, my employer Whittall Boustead (Private) Ltd took over the management of one of the oldest companies in Sri Lanka – Ceylon Cold Stores. It was popularly known as Elephant House, which was the island’s largest producer of soft drinks, ice cream and a range of other food and beverage products. With permission from the Manager of the Coral Gardens Hotel – Muna, I contacted Mr. Gilbert Paranagama, the Director in charge of hotels. After a brief chat with him, he arranged for me to spend two months as a factory management observer at Elephant House.

I spent a week in each of the eight departments of Elephant House, including jams and preserves, ice cream and creamery, bottling plant, butchery, meat processing factory and finally the Fountain Cafe. I experienced different aspects of food and beverage processes, which were useful in my role as a hotel executive chef. Some of managers I worked with at Elephant House had their lunch very quickly and spent half of their lunch interval playing bridge, a card game I did not have time to master for the next four decades.

Working in the butchery, I was happy to use a large industrial electric meat saw, the type which I had not seen or used prior to that. One day, I was using this machine to cut a whole pig when my hand slipped and I had a minor injury. While I was taking the service elevator to get some first aid the lift operator started talking with me. This employee had only one finger in his right hand and I wondered what happened to him.

He said, “Sir, for a long time I operated that electric meat saw, until I had a terrible accident and lost four of my fingers! After that, five years ago the management gave me this easy job to operate the service elevator.” After listening to him, I was no longer motivated to use that machine. I quickly arranged an extended period at the Fountain Café, until I completed my two-month memorable observation period at the Elephant House.

The old advertisement for Fountain Café.

In mid-1970s Sri Lankans went out for a meal only on a rare occasion. Therefore, there were only very few restaurants even in Colombo. The Fountain Café operated by Elephant House was probably the most popular restaurant in Colombo, at that time. It was a useful experience for me to understand the Sri Lankan market for moderately priced food and beverage products.

An Opportunity in West Germany

From 1969 to 1976, two-year long fully-paid scholarships were awarded to the best three graduates of each batch of the Ceylon Hotel School (CHS). These postgraduate industrial and teacher training opportunities in West Germany were funded by the Carl Duisberg Society. Over the years, they were generous in awarding such scholarships to 26 outstanding graduates from CHS.

In 1976, the Carl Duisberg Society considered whether they should continue these scholarships in a different manner by awarding them to CHS graduates who have done well in the industry. A newspaper advertisement about this opportunity placed by the Ceylon Tourist Board (CTB) caught my eye. Although I was not a good student during my time at CHS, I applied for the scholarship, anyway.

A month later I was informed by CTB that I had been chosen for the scholarship. Soon after that I was summoned to the Whittall Boustead head office. Nervously I entered the office of Mr. Gilbert Paranagama who was talking with Padde Withana, Executive Chef of the Bentota Beach Hotel, who trained me as an Executive Chef. It appeared that Padde too had applied for the same scholarship and was chosen.

Mr. Paranagama telephoned the Chairman of CTB and told him that, “Whittall Boustead is proud that both our Executive Chefs were awarded scholarships to go to West Germany, but it is impossible for our company to release both for two years at the same time.” After listening to the response by the Chairman of CTB, he then said, “Yes, I know that Padde is the best Executive Chef in Sri Lanka, and Chandana has shown much promise. We will release Padde for two years, but Chandana will have to wait for a later opportunity after Padde returns from West Germany.” It was agreed upon, and that was the end of the telephone discussion.

“OK, Padde, you proceed to West Germany. Chandana, we will transfer you back to Bentota Beach Hotel as the Executive Chef for two years.” Mr. Paranagama announced. I was very pleased to get the opportunity to become the Executive Chef of the best resort hotel in Sri Lanka at the age of 22. Unfortunately, matters did not materialize as planned by CTB. For some unknown reason, Carl Duisberg Society terminated their scholarship program which helped the hotel industry of Sri Lanka tremendously to upgrade its professional skills.

Supervisor and Competitor Relations

Back at the Coral Gardens Hotel for the rest of the slow-moving off season I focused on public relations (PR) with the union delegates, hotel supervisors and managers of neighbouring hotels in Hikkaduwa. I organized a cycle trip for the Coral Gardens Hotel’s supervisors with the help from the union leader Butler Edmond, as the trip coordinator. He was pleased with the prominence given to him.

PR with the other hoteliers in the area was mainly sharing of best practices, and card games with dinner at different hotels every evening. That developed a useful fellowship among hoteliers in the area. That led to collaboration with competitor hotels to handle a common challenge we all faced – sea erosion. The erosion of country’s coastal zone had been identified as a long-standing problem, since 1920s.

Sea Erosion

In spite of advocacy by well-known divers, environmentalists and respected personalities such as Dr. Arthur C. Clark (British science fiction author who made Sri Lanka his home, for 52 years), damaging the coral reef continued. This was done for short term benefits of individuals and companies. Pollution of the sea, overfishing, destructive fishing practices using dynamite or cyanide, collecting live corals for the aquarium market, mining corals for building materials or to sell to tourists, were some of the many selfish reasons the people damage reefs.

Hoteliers were not able to prevent these issues without the genuine support of local politicians and clear governmental policies. Therefore, the hoteliers focused on measures such as arranging boulders to protect their lands from sea erosion. Such initiatives were costly as well as affected the natural beauty of hotel beach fronts. As the Assistant Manager of the hotel, I worked closely with the Manager, Muna and the Maintenance Engineer, Abey, in projects to fight sea erosion.

After decades of inaction, the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami was an eye opener and a deadly warning to Sri Lanka. This Tsunami resulted in 35,000 estimated deaths in Sri Lanka, and displaced over half a million people in Sri Lanka. Many hotels were damaged and a few never opened again. If people had listened to the experts such as Dr. Arthur C. Clark the total death and disruption would have been significantly lower.

Meeting a Sweet Sixteen

One evening, I was getting ready to go to a nearby hotel for dinner and a card game with some friends. Just before leaving, I received a call from Muna, who requested me to come to his apartment to meet a family who was visiting him for dinner. “I am on my way to Coral Sands Hotel, but I will drop in for a short time before I leave,” I told him. While walking towards his apartment, I heard two girls giggling. I checked with a room boy who was visiting Mr. Munasinghe. He told me that it was a family from Colombo related to Mr. Dudley (one of the local businessmen who was friendly with Muna and me).

Muna was in a good mood. “Hey Chandana, meet Captain Wicks, who is our friend Dudley’s brother-in-law”, Muna said. Captain D. A. Wickremasinghe was a Sandhurst-trained military officer who had become the General Manager of a large security company in Colombo after an early retirement from the army. He introduced his wife and one of the giggling girls as his cousin.

The other giggling girl had long silky black hair down to her knees. While she was turning her head, Captain Wicks said “This is our daughter”. She looked at me with her beautiful big eyes and smiled. I simply froze as she was the most beautiful teenager I had ever seen. She had just turned sixteen and her parents were naturally very protective of her, their only child. We did not talk, but just glanced at each other. After a few minutes, I excused myself and left for my card game resisting the temptation to stay longer.