Death of Upatissa Hulugalle – He was one of a kind

From the moment he entered the world, the elders used to say, Upatissa, or Upay as he was called, never stopped moving. The nervous energy demanded that. He had a fertile and brilliant mind when it came to conceptualizing an idea or solving a problem but then he had to move onto the next subject. He never expected anything in return for his services or advice. That would have been purely an intellectual exercise for him. He would have shown gratitude for confronting him with the issue. The astute businessmen lent on him and picked and used his brain. They admired him for his talents but no invoices were sent so they did not feel obliged to remunerate him. Upay was embarrassed to ask for a fee.

Upatissa was moulded in the first instance by his father, H.A.J. Hulugalle, and secondly by his education at Trinity College. H.A.J. had a fertile mind and particularly leaders like D.S.Senanayake lent on him. Upatissa acquired these genes. He too bubbled with ideas. In every conversation with him involving problems he saw opportunities and he liberally shared them opening new vistas to the listener. Many of them followed the ideas and built their fortunes on them. Upatissa was not a practical man. He could not have put them to a successful outcome by himself and for himself and was, therefore, happy that someone else had benefitted from them. Like his father, he showed very little interest in making money for himself.

Ajitha de Zoysa has gone public in the Sunday Island on what Upay meant to the AMW group. So he was to G.G.Ponambalam. When G.G was despondent about his political fortunes, Upatissa advised him not to waste time on a petty mission and to go for bigger stakes. Ponnambalam then gave up hankering after a Ministerial post and opted to represent the country at the United Nations where he made a brilliant impression with his speeches and made an impact on the world scene. Upatissa then focused Ponnambalam’s attention with the take-over of a rupee company with interests in Malaysia. It needed a master mind to figure out a strategy to get the control of the company. Upay’s efforts resulted in GGP and his family acquirimg a large Malaysian asset.

Kumar, son of GGP, a classmate of mine used to refer to Upay as ‘Upatissa Aiya’.

Upay was so close to the Ponnambalam family that during the 1983 riots, he went to Mrs Ponambalam’s residence and took her to his home. The good lady refused to sleep anywhere except on Sita Hulugalle’s bed with her by her side.

A stray loose cannon hearing that Mrs Ponnambalam was in his house, phoned Upatissa and cast threats. Upatissa reply was typical. He said “You will have to take me and my wife and my household first before you can touch Mrs Ponnambalam”.

GG refused to make any decision when it came to investments without consulting Upatissa. So Upay had a hand in Ponnambalam’s acquisition of Arcadia, a company with plantation interests in Malaysia.

So it was with Upali Wijewardene. Upay became Upali’s principal advisor on financial matters. Upali had the knack of being able to dismiss nine out of ten ideas that Upay had come up in a morning after a round of golf at the course and pick up one gem of an idea which was worth several million to him. A lesser brain would have lost his way with one or more of the other nine.

Upatissa’s contribution to Upali Wijewardene’s take-over of Grand Central was similar to that of what he transacted for Ponnambalam. The take-over needed a man with an ingenious brain to master mind the transaction as strong British interests had to persuaded to sell their shares.

One move Upay objected to vehemently with Upali was when he wanted to buy a Learjet aircraft. He felt that this investment was financially suicidal. Upay was adamant about this and refused to travel in that aircraft. When the aircraft disappeared one was relieved that he had taken this position.

Upatissa and Cyril Gardiner, another business tycoon respected each other. When Cyril canvassed to build the Hilton Hotel on the land presently occupied by the Cinnamon Grand he brought Upatissa onto the Board of Hotel International and made him Deputy Chairman in a star studded board of Hotel International. However, the project did not take off.

The legal luminary, Norman Edward Weerasooria was a very close friend of my father and saw potential in Upatissa. He in fact, offered my father to educate Upay in the UK. Upatissa remained all his life close to the Weerasoorias. In fact, he spent a lot of time developing a publishing venture started by my father but administered by N E W called the Saman Press.

Trinity was what had the greatest impact on the making of Upatissa. His grandfather William Jayatilleke Hulugalle, his father H.A.J. had been at Trinity before him. In later years his two sons Ranjit and Harin made the fourth generation to attend the school. At Trinity Upay excelled in sports. He played first eleven cricket, he ran in the public schools meet and was beaten at the post for the third place in the one-mile race by Lakshman Wickremesinghe of Royal. Lakshman in later years became the Anglican Bishop of Kurunegala.

Upay’s greatest love was rugby. A sport he excelled in. He was in the Trinity team in 1944. He was only 16-years old and played against Royal and was awarded his colours. Before the Bradby Tournament was completed that year, he joined Christian College, Thambaram, South India to study for a Bachelor of Science degree.

He was still very young to launch his tertiary education but H A J H was concerned about his inclination to atheism and thought a deep seated Christian atmosphere would be most appropriate. At Christian College, Upatissa was converted to the Catholic faith which he espoused with great devotion to the very end.

Upatissa was a good student. He got an upper second in his BSc in India. Back at home he was the first Accountancy Student to pass his Intermediate and Final of the Chartered Exams in the early 1950s.

Apart from accountancy and financial transactions, Upatissa was firmly committed to agriculture all his life. When Dudley Senanayake was on a mission to make the country self-sufficient in food in the 1960s, Upay joined Upali Senanayake to promote a very successful campaign known as Freedom from Hunger. That inspired him to start a farm in Godagama together with two of his brothers. It was in this farm that he passed away on Christmas day last month at the age of almost 95.

Upatissa, also hit on the idea of revolutionizing the poultry industry in Sri Lanka. On a trip to the US for Junior Chamber of Commerce Convention he arranged a meeting with Henry Wallace, whose father had been Roosevelt’s Vice President and got the agency for Hy- line Chickens. Wallace from Iowa was a corn farmer, had started his chicken business as a subsidiary.

Upatissa came back to Ceylon and started his poultry business on his brother’s land in Kottawa.

No article on Upatissa is complete without giving credit to his exceptional wife Sita, and their four children Ranjit and Harin Hulugalle, Sharmali Mendis and Nelun Guruge. They formed a bond to inspire him at every stage of his journey in life with them. Sita had been a past Head Girl of Bishop’s College. Her acumen and commonsense was of immense value to Upatissa.

AH