Preparing to leave for Australian after the 1971 insurrection

Excerpted from Nimal Wikramanayake’s Life In The Law

Christmas was soon upon us in 1970. We “rice Christians” comprised a small minority of the population, something less than five per cent. We were called “rice” Christians because our ancestors converted to the Christian religion, not out of any religious fervour or conviction, but because they wanted benefits from the British by converting to Christianity.

There were various denominations of the Christian faith, the majority being Roman Catholics. I was among a small number of members of the Church of England. When I got married to Anna Maria, who was a Roman Catholic, my mother insisted that she become a member of the Church of England, which my dear wife dutifully did. It often surprised me that Jesus Christ, who was a dark, brown-skinned man born in the Near East, had very few followers in the East.

Christmas was celebrated with great joy and extravagance in our household. On the night before Christmas, my mother would deliver a large cane basket hampers to my brother, sister and me. The hamper was a magnificent creation. It was a cane basket about three and a half feet in height. Included in it was a bottle of Dimple Scotch whisky, a bottle of Martell Cordon-Bleu cognac, a bottle of Gordon’s gin and numerous other goodies.

We would usually spend Christmas Eve with our friends, Ralph de Silva and his family. At midnight, we would attend the mass at the Church of St Paul’s Milagiriya then return to Ralph’s home for a celebratory breakfast of “kiri-bath” or milk rice with large lashings of chicken, beef, pork and prawn curries. We would then return home in the early hours of the morning and sleep until close to lunchtime. This took place even in December 1970, when our hearts were heavy with sorrow and we felt we had nothing to look forward to but a dark, desolate future.

We normally went to my parents’ home for lunch. My brother Ranji and his family were away in England. My younger brother, Prenitha, was at Sussex University in England. My sister, Dileeni, had marked antisocial tendencies. After her marriage in 1962, she had shown a distinct dislike for socializing with people, especially with the members of her own family. She would arrive at my par-. ents’ home for lunch at 12 noon and she, her husband and children would consume a magnificent lunch, then leave before 1 pm.

This year, Anna Maria and I turned up for lunch shortly after 1 pm. My mother was lugubrious. She hardly spoke a word when the four of us sat down for lunch. Halfway through lunch she blurted out, “This is not Christmas without my Putha. ‘

“Putha” in Sinhalese means “little son” I looked at her curiously and said, “Am I not your putha?

My mother snapped. “Of course not’

The rest of the meal continued on in silence. As I was leaving I said to my mother, “I hope you enjoy yourself next Christmas when I am not here to celebrate it with you”

The insurgency

Then, again, I got cold feet. Several months passed without us going for our medical examination. We had to go for a medical examination before we could finally be cleared for immigration. That’s when what Benny Hill called “the pickled pinger of pate” intervened. It was Maundy Thursday in April 1971 and I was invited for a game of poker at the ‘Tamil Union Cricket Club. I arrived there at 6.30 and joined my friends, including Basil Gunasekera, who was then Commander of the Navy. We had an extremely enjoyable and convivial night, and left the club shortly after midnight.

When I awoke on Good Friday, I turned on the radio to hear an announcement that the government had declared a 48-hour curfew. Members of the Jathika Vimukthi Peramuna, known as the JVP, the newly formed young leftist party, had staged an insurrection against the government. The announcement advised members of the general public that if they were found on the streets, they would be shot on sight.

We had sufficient provisions at home to tide us over this event. The whole country was housebound and rumours were flying thick and fast about what was happening. On Saturday morning, the government announced on the radio that anyone spreading rumours on the telephone would be sentenced to five years’ rigorous imprisonment.

On Sunday morning, a friend of mine, GG Mendis, who was a strong government party supporter, and who had recently, in keeping with the government’s policy, been appointed chairman of the Fisheries Corporation, telephoned me and told me that he had heard that the army was deserting in large numbers and that the military situation was extremely grave.

I immediately telephoned my friend, Basil Gunasekera, to obtain confirmation of this delicate situation. Basil was horrified and asked me who had told me. I couldn’t let my friend GG down, for not only would he lose his job as chairman of the Fisheries Corporation, but he would have to spend five years in a Ceylonese jail, which was not a pleasant prospect.

That Sunday afternoon while I was having a rest the telephone rang. It was Basil. Basil said, “Nimal, I am in the control room with the prime minister and she wants to know who told you that the army was deserting in large numbers?” I was immediately alarmed and petrified, for it had been rumoured that when people were taken in for interrogation by the police, they were often be thrown out-of the fourth floor window of the police headquarters in Fort Colombo.

I told Basil that I could not remember who gave me this interesting bit of information. Basil kept insisting that I name who told me this, and for my part, I kept on insisting that I could not remember.

I went back to sleep. Barely half an hour later, I heard the rumbling of what sounded like thunder. I looked out of the bed. room window to see three large army trucks drive up and surround our apartment. There was a loud clattering sound, and I saw a large number of fully armed soldiers rushing into our compound.

Words cannot describe the terror inside me. The front door bell rang and I was confronted by an Inspector of Police. When he saw me he exclaimed, “My God, Nimal, it’s you! I have been sent to arrest you for spreading rumours on the telephone’

Anna Maria heard this and was screaming in terror. The inspector of police turned out to be a classmate of mine, LJP de Silva. I ushered him into the sitting room, and he decided to sort this matter out so that I would not be the subject of an arrest. I told him that I had not been spreading rumours on the telephone but simply telephoned my friend Basil to confirm what I had heard. I could not remember who had given me this news as I had spoken to many people that morning. LJP and I then arranged my statement and he left without arresting me.

We later learned that the reason for the curfew, apart from the insurrection by the JVP, was that the army had run out of ammunition. They had flown in ammunition from India over the weekend, but martial law was declared and the curfew was to commence from 2 pm until 7 am every day until further notice.

I left for work the following morning and arrived at Hulftsdorf, the home of the Colombo Law Courts. I was greeted with gasps of incredulity, for the rumour had gone around, probably on the telephone, that I had been arrested for spreading rumours on the telephone. No cases were heard as there was insufficient time between 10.30 am and the time when the curfew commenced, 2 pm.

When I got home the telephone kept ringing throughout the day from friends all around the country, enquiring after my health. A cousin of mine, a proctor in Galle, telephoned Anna Maria to ask whether he could be of any assistance. He was astonished when she put me on the line. Another friend of mine, Chula de Silva, telephoned me from Balapitiya and enquired of Anna Maria if she needed any help in her time of distress. He too was astonished to find me safe and well.

We spent the next few months playing poker every day during the curfew. It was then that we decided to leave the country of my birth and emigrate to Australia. Shortly thereafter we went for our medical examination and passed it with flying colours. Our plans had to be put on hold because my parents decided to spend my younger brother’s summer vacation with him in England. My other brother left in June to spend a holiday with “their favourite son” He was an afterthought, turning up 17 years after I was born. He was the apple of my mother’s eye and my plans for migration had to wait until their return from England.

We made our preparations for our great new adventure. The stories we heard about life in Australia were legion. I was told that “coloured” people were second-class citizens there. The last days In 1971, the months dragged by slowly. The curfew was shortened from 6 pm to 7 am, and finally by August, it was fixed at 10 pm to 7 am. We continued with our regular daily games of poker.

Anna Maria and I decided to have a farewell party on August 11and celebrate my birthday at the same time. We divided the guests into two lots. Those who were to arrive at 6 pm and leave at 10 and those who were to arrive at 9 and leave after the curfew was lifted at 7 am. The party was a riotous affair and we carried on carousing until 7 am.

I stopped working at the end of August 1970 and made preparations for our departure. We terminated the tenancy on our flat and arranged for an auction of our furniture, I had an Interesting collection of books, which I decided to get rid of. I was an avid reader of comics and I had a massive collection of comic books, which today, forty-five years later, would be worth a king’s ransom.