Suresh Perera, sheet anchor of the Sunday Island

Suresh Perera, 59, the news editor of the Sunday Island died unexpectedly of Covid 19 last Wednesday and was cremated the same day, leaving his wife and only daughter, Ahinsa, on whom he doted. He last came to work on Friday, Aug. 6 with a bad cold whose severity he attributed to his not having had a cold for over two years. With this newspaper now being printed on Friday nights in the context of the pandemic, he reported to work that day despite considerable physical discomfort out of a characteristic sense of duty. In these days of many working from home, he was a physical presence in the news room on most days of the week.

He had tested positive in a rapid antigen test over that weekend, although the results were delayed; his wife and daughter testing negative, much to his relief. Suresh was ordered home quarantine with some emergency telephone numbers provided in case of necessity. He was hospitalized soon thereafter with most colleagues confident he would recover and soon be back on the job he loved. But, sadly, that was not to be.

I first met Suresh when I became editor of this newspaper in 1997. But having been in journalism from the early sixties, I knew of him. In my previous tenure as editor of the Daily News I would see well-written news stories under his byline, demonstrating a keen news sense. He was also a skilled parliamentary reporter, breaking up what he wrote into short newsworthy stories that would hold reader interest. This was different from the long Hansard-style reports many of his colleagues favoured.

He adopted this same reporting-style covering weekly cabinet briefings and I used to tell my own staff that his would be the better way of approaching such stories.

Suresh joined Upali Newspapers as a young man in 1984, having previously had some journalistic experience stringing for the sports desk of the now defunct ‘Sun’ published by the Independent Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd. That was about three years after this group of newspapers was launched. He since worked 37 years for Upali Newspapers, on the Island and Sunday Island, from that time until his premature death.

As his editor for nearly 25 years, I can say that he had a strong work ethic, was bilingual (or perhaps even trilingual) and did not baulk at translating Sinhala news stories from other group newspapers into English. He willingly wrote the stories of reporters not fluent in English for them, generously rewarding them with bylines.

In an extremely staffed-strapped situation, he was both chief reporter and news editor of the Sunday Island, a veritable sheet-anchor and a jack-of-all-trades, supervising page make-up and coping with emergencies. An intensely private, soft-spoken man he interacted comfortably with his colleagues, never raising his voice of exhibiting any form of anger or irritation. The number of condolence messages received in this office, many from people who had never met him but had spoken to him on the phone, testifies to his unfailing helpfulness. He was also kind and sympathetic to the less fortunate, often publishing news reports of people in distress that could evoke generous reader response.

My colleague Prabath Sahabandu who edits the Island, and had known Suresh much longer than I has written that he proved his mettle in the Premadasa years covering the second JVP uprising and the state’s counter terror operation. I was then in Lake House and he was only a name to me. But I did know that my colleague, AS Fernando, who covered the president for us, was Suresh’s good friend.

Although a Lake House journalist who was one of Suresh’s neighbours says he was a foodie who enjoyed cooking, I didn’t know that side of the man though I would often see him enjoying a chew of betel and attacking his lunch with relish when he ate in the newsroom during our Saturday printing days. He was an organized person who had CR registers in which he entered the stories he passed to keep track of them.

Our colleague, Zanita Careem, who rode from work with him says he would often stop on the way home to buy his daughter a treat. May he rest in peace.

Manik de Silva