Meeting Mr Darcy

by Sumi Moonesinghe narrated to Savithri Rodrigo

While I was in training in England, there had been a change at the helm of the Ceylon Broadcasting Corporation. Neville Jayaweera had been transferred as Government Agent to Vavuniya and a new Director General had taken his place. His is name was Susil Moonesinghe.

As the end of my training period loomed close, I realized I wasn’t ready to leave England just yet. I wanted to stay on, just one more year, to complete my PhD. I sent in my request for an extension of one year to the new Director General but my request was denied. It was then that finality hit and I had to make arrangements to return.

I returned to my familiar surroundings at the station in 1971 and settled in. Even though I had been away for some time, nothing much had changed in a way. It’s quite amazing how good branding transcends time. The name change of Radio Ceylon to the Ceylon Broadcasting Corporation had made no difference to everyday conversation. Nearly everyone referred to CBC, which came into being through the CBC Act of 1966, as Radio Ceylon – the name stuck. What I didn’t foresee however was that the name Ceylon Broadcasting Corporation would be short-lived.

With the transitioning of Ceylon into the status of the Republic of Sri Lanka on May 22, 1972, CBC would get a yet another name change, just six years after, to what the station is presently known as – the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation.

A few days after my return, the Director General wanted to see me. This summoning was nothing out of the ordinary as I had been sent by CBC on training and he would want to know the value addition I now bring to the station. I walked the corridors leading to his office and the moment I set eyes on him, I couldn’t speak. This was unusual for me because throughout my years of school, university and England, I was not a woman who would get fazed or dumbstruck by any male. I had studied, lived and worked as the only female in the room and had always considered males as part of my life and not to be romanced around.

But this was totally different. Here I was in the Director General’s room, looking at the most handsome man I had seen in my entire life. If there is anything called love at first sight, this was it, although I didn’t recognize it at the time. I don’t remember much of that first meeting.

I returned to my usual routine. My engineering room was upstairs, in a building with three floors, at the back. It became a habit for me to peek out of the windows whenever I had the chance to check if the Director General was walking those long corridors that the station was famous for. A bonus was the car park being close to my office and at a vantage point from my window. Each morning I would see him park his car and I wouldn’t take my eyes off him as he walked all the way down to his office.

I would make various excuses to go out of my room, just to catch a glimpse of him or to go to his room to get information or ask a question. I could have done all this by phone or by sending a memo but I would drum up an excuse just to see him.

I think there was some mutual affection building up because Susil too started calling for me at various times and sometimes for issues totally unrelated to my role. He would ask me to sit through recruitment procedures and interviewee evaluations with him. While I worked in his room, I noticed the incessant telephone calls he would receive. Having been appointed by Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike into this post of Director General, Susil was a political appointee and as was the norm, he was inundated with politicians asking him to employ their various supporters at CBC.

I soon realized there was a subtle flirtation on his part as well He called me into his room one day and said, very stiffly, “Miss Senanayake, I have two tickets for a play. Would you like to go as I can’t seem to make it?” This was totally unusual as it was not work related and out of the blue. Not daring to ask him why he was giving me the tickets, or how he got them or what it was for, I simply said, “Yes, definitely, Sir. Thank you.”

He gave me the tickets and I went with my uncle to see the play. While we were quite engrossed in it, my uncle said, “Sumi, who is that man looking at you constantly?” I turned my head and saw Susil in the front row, staring at me but trying not to show that he was. It dawned on me that he gave me the tickets not because he couldn’t attend the play but because he knew I would be there too. I pretended not to notice, although my heart was beating very fast and by way of explanation told my uncle, “Oh that’s my boss at the station. He’s the Director General. He’s probably surprised to see me here.”

Work went on. SLBC had some visiting engineers from Yugoslavia and Susil placed me in charge of accompanying them to see the Esala Perahera, which is believed to be Asia’s grandest festival. A vantage point to view the pageant from the Queen’s Hotel in Kandy was generally reserved for CBC, as thousands gather for the parade that takes Buddha’s tooth relic, which is generally housed in the Temple of the Tooth, around the streets of Kandy.

The engineers and I were to spend the night at the Hotel Suisse, which had also been arranged. Susil apologized to the Yugoslav engineers of his inability to accompany them but assured them of being in good hands, pointing to me.

That night as we readied to watch the perahera, Susil surprised us by arriving at the Queen’s Hotel and taking a seat among us. He explained that he had completed his work and decided to make it to Kandy. I was secretly very happy to see him although I maintained my composure. The arrival of the whip crackers, those who herald the start of the pageant may have saved me from some embarrassment, if only he saw my face, beaming with delight.

In my hurry to pack for Kandy, I realized I hadn’t brought any toothpaste. We were by now back at Hotel Suisse and I was getting ready for bed. I am very fastidious so the thought of going to bed without brushing my teeth filled me with dread. I had an idea. I knocked on Susil’s door and asked him if I could borrow some toothpaste, which he willingly passed on to me. After brushing my teeth, I went back to his room and knocked on his door in order to return the toothpaste. Looking back, going back to that room to return the toothpaste was a rather flimsy excuse on my part, although at the time, my intentions, at least to me, seemed good.

Years later, Susil would recount this story with all the bells and whistles he could muster, saying, “I was seduced by Sumi with a tube of toothpaste!” He considered this the start of our romance and for my birthday one year, hung up a giant cut-out of a toothpaste tube at the entrance to the house. His sense of humour was endearing and definitely one of the reasons I fell in love with him.

Getting back to the perahera night, I had fallen asleep having brushed my teeth with Susil’s toothpaste. Around midnight, there was a knock on my door. Not used to having people knock on my door in the middle of the night, I asked tentatively, “Who is it?” Imagine my surprise when I heard, “It’s me, Susil. Please open the door. There’s been an accident.” I quickly opened the door and let in a very distressed Susil. “One of the officers at the Seeduwa Transmission Station has been killed. He was shot dead accidentally by a security guard on duty.” He slumped into a chair, looking ashen.

True to my nature, I took charge because I knew we had to manage a bad situation that could escalate into something truly worse. Several phone calls later and after some fires had been dampened, Susil asked me if he could remain in my room. “With all this going on, I can’t sleep,” he said. He made himself comfortable in his chair and we talked until morning, while I sat on the bed.

The conversation slowly gave way to other topics like my life. I told him of my fiance in England who was still employed at the State Engineering Corporation but on a leave of absence as he was reading for his PhD. By this time, we were chatting as if we had known each other for years. I gleaned that Susil had a wide network and basically knew everyone — an expansive directory of the who’s who. So I asked Susil if he could speak with the Chairman of State Engineering Corporation Dr. A N S Kulasinghe to obtain a leave extension for my fiance as he wanted to complete his studies but needed the job to come back to. “Ah, anything for love,” was Susil’s reply.

The next morning, not only did Susil call Dr. Kulasinghe and get an agreement for the extension, but also manipulated proceedings so that the Yugoslav engineers traveled back to Colombo in his official car with his driver, which meant, I would be traveling to Colombo with him. By this time, it was understood that a romance was blossoming.

While we were driving back, Susil remembered our conversations earlier. I had told Susil that my parents lived in Kegalle and he suddenly suggested we visit them. When we got to my parents’ home, I introduced Susil as my boss and the Director General of CBC. I believed that by meeting my parents, Susil would know my roots and the family I came from. There was nothing to hide. I was an open book.

My parents, who were used to always seeing me in the company of males, didn’t bat an eyelid when I brought him home. Over the course of a cup of tea, Susil, who was his absolute charming self, gained the complete confidence of my parents. Just as we were readying to leave, my mother looked at Susil and said, “Please see that she doesn’t get married to that Tamil boy. I am lighting two lamps appealing to the gods to break up that relationship.” Susil promptly replied, “Amma, please light one more lamp and the affair will end.”

He then asked my mother to give him my horoscope saying, “I have a good astrologer and I will check on whom she will get married to.” Of course, my mother promptly gave him my horoscope, such was the trust he had built up in the briefest of times.

While Susil knew all about me, I knew little of Susil or his lineage. I knew he had studied at Royal College and was a lawyer with an amazing gift of the gab. I did know he was married but in the middle of a budding romance, that didn’t seem to matter. But what I didn’t know was that he came from a very distinguished line of an elite Sinhala Buddhist family. His paternal grandmother was Anagarika Dharmapala’s sister. They were the children of Don Carolis Hewavitarane.

As a child, I remember learning about Anagarika Dharmapala, who was renowned for his non-violent Sinhala Buddhist nationalism and a leading figure in Sri Lanka’s independence movement against colonial rule. A global Buddhist missionary, he pioneered the revival of Buddhism. However, this was not what impressed me at all. It was simply Susil who held my undivided attention and now, love!

Susil had politics in his blood and in 1960 had contested the Polgahawela seat in the General Elections under the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna. His network and influence in politics saw him appointed organizer for the Southern Province of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, in preparation for the 1970 General Elections. When the United Front, led by Sirimavo Bandaranaike won the 1970 elections, Susil’s hard work towards the win paid off and he was rewarded with the appointment of Director General of the Ceylon Broadcasting Corporation.

His business contacts too were expansive. But his strong urge to be politically active never left him and he continued being a livewire in pushing a people-centric political agenda with whatever party he supported.

(To be continued)