Ephraim Fernando – An Appreciation

This is a tribute to a senior schoolmate, a fellow boarder at the school by the Beira lake, a scribe to The Island newspaper writing in a bluntly witty prose style of his own, a mechanical engineer who passed away recently at the age of ninety-two.

He was the eldest in a family of several brothers and sisters born to parents in Munnakakare, Negombo. He lost his beloved mother at a young age. He had his early education at St Mary’s College, Negombo, then with the transfer of his father to Kurunegala, at St Anne’s and finally at St Joseph’s Maradana.

At St. Josephs he was an opening batsman of the first X1Cricket team. He represented the school in the sprints, the 100 and 220 yds and the relays. In the 220 yds sprint he established a Public-schools records which still remains unbroken after the dimensions became metric. He entered the University and the Engineering faculty along with an outstanding football player of the school, Peter Ranasinghe, All Ceylon football captain. It is said that both Ephraim and Peter had their places reserved for them by Prof EOE Pereira, the Dean. Ephraim captained the Cricket team at the University.

As he told me he used to borrow books from Rev. Fr Peter Pillai, the Rector, whom he admired for his learning and his outstanding academic career. He even made notes of any important matters discussed in the books he borrowed and used them in his numerous letters to The Island newspaper. The level of his general knowledge was amazing for a science student.

Strangely he was very choosey in making friends who were few in number. Among them were Prof. Carlo Fonseka, Messers Aloy Ratnayake, lawyer, President’s Counsel and Neville Weerasekera, a first class mechanical engineer, former head of the Sapugaskanda Oil refinery and yours truly.

He married Srimali, the daughter of Mr LB de Silva a Judge of the Supreme Court. Srimali, was a Buddhist with whom he lived in a very religious, and harmonious relationship up to the time of her death. They had no children.

One quirky matter in his religious life was that, though a Catholic, in fact a cousin of the late Archbishop Nicholas Marcus, he did not attend mass unless the mass was “said”, celebrated, in the Latin language. There was an exchange of letters between him and another Josephian, a former member of the Civil Service, on this matter , the latter stating that God understood all languages.

Besides his own assets acquired as an engineer of the Colombo municipality and those inherited from his wife for which he never had encounters with the taxman as he was a dutiful taxpayer Ephraim earned and acquired much wealth by working as a financial analyst for the World Bank in the USA. He met Robert McNamara, the President, once during a visit to the Bank.

He and I used to visit each other after I shifted to Pelawatte, Battaramulla, on retirement. There were in fact many exchanges between us in the letters published in The Island. Sometimes he made many complementary remarks about me. Later it was friendly fire between the two on subjects such as native medicine of which he was well read and knowledgeable and on the holy sacraments.

Even after he shifted to a home in Tissamaharama to be looked after by his caretaker he used to talk to me occasionally.

His obsequies were held on Sunday 23 July at the Grand street Church Negombo. After the prayers recited by the Rev Father in Sinhala, I managed to recite the Pater Noster, the Our father, in Latin. His remains were interred in the vault where his mother’s remains had been resting. Reqiescat in pace!

Dr Leo Fernando, Talahena, Negombo