Birth centenary of A.R.P. Wijeyesekera

A multi-faceted personality with a variety of interests

We celebrate the 100th birth anniversary of our father, Arananda Rajamini Piyasena Wijeyesekera on November 22.

He grew up among eight siblings along with seven elephants including the Maligawa Tusker. The family also owned a rubber estate, going through a hard time during the depression when rubber prices plummeted. A dairy helped them to survive.

ARPs’ secondary education was at Royal College. After leaving school, he enrolled in the Auxiliary Fire Service. One day he was late for work to find that his office building had been wiped out by a bomb!

Thereafter he worked in a number of private and government institutions. Among them were Ceylon Government Railway, CTB, Unilever, Lanka Sugar Corporation, State Hardware Corporation and Richard Peiris Co Ltd

He began as an engineer, but his interests widened to many other areas during his career. His engineering training began at the CGR workshops at Ratmalana. He spent time in England while studying for his IMechE exams and further training. He was also trained on diesel electric locomotives in Canada. The Queen visited Ceylon at this time and he was proud of the fact that he was picked to be in charge of the train that took Her Majesty to Kandy.

ARP had several stints at the CTB where he first worked as Chief Engineer. During his tenure the buses were nationalized. He had to take over the depots and fleets of buses belonging to private companies. In 1968 he was appointed as Chairman CTB. He standardized the fleet to Fiat, Ashok Leyland and Tata Benz used mainly in the up country region. This minimized spare parts inventories. He wanted centralized control.

To us his time as Chairman of the CTB was interesting. Not only did we get to travel with him around Sri Lanka but also got an insight on the influence of politicians on those holding senior posts in the government service. Our father refused to bow down to politicians and resigned from the chairman’s post within a short time of assuming that office a second time

He tried his hands at entrepreneurship. He started Tractors and Roadways Pvt Ltd.; took pride in Walauwewatte Industries; nurtured the family coconut property, Walahena Estate and ran a dairy herd on this property. Then as an out-grower he tried his hand at growing foliage plants.

He also shared his wide experience and knowledge on a number of professional bodies . He became the President of the Institution of Engineers Sri Lanka in 1980 He organized a course at the Institution of Engineers for students to earn a professional degree. The lecturers were from the Faculties of Engineering at Katubede and Peradeniya Universities and professionals. He wrote to the then Prime Minister Premadasa and got Thais experts here for weather modification by cloud seeding. There was a seminar on this subject at the Institute of Engineers.

He was President of the Chambers of Commerce and Industries and Chairman of the National Chamber of Industries. A strong UNPer, he was the joint secretary of the committee that did the first draft of the 1977 UNP manifesto. This report included a section on the protection of local Industry.

His interest in this subject was reflected in his work as a member of the Board of Directors of the IDB. He was also on the Presidential Commission of Tariffs.

He was a man of many parts – golfer, photographer filming with an 8mm cine camera as well as shooting still photos, a wildlife enthusiast, keen cricketer and radio ham. He enjoyed writing to many newspapers and magazines and their archives would unearth many treasures among his contributions.

Always fearless and intelligent, he had a genius for simplifying the complicated and working across disciplines. His credo was “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.”

His children