The professor and his man Friday

by Manik de Silva

The Feb. 6 issue of this newspaper ran a heartwarming fairy tale-like story written by Lorenz Pereira, (Royal College/Cambridge University), an outstanding sportsman of his generation now domiciled in Australia.

Lorenz was the eldest son of the late Prof. EOE Pereira, the legendary founder of the Engineering Faculty of the Peradeniya University of which he was later Vice-Chancellor. The story was about Yoga Mogantas, an estate boy, sent to Mrs. Pereira by her second son, Bryan, planting upcountry to help care for the wheelchair-bound professor, then on the last lap of his remarkable life.

Prof. EOE had become helpless after a hip operation that went all wrong, wrote his son. “He was confined to a wheelchair thereafter in severe unrelenting pain from a wound that never healed” when Yoga, who Lorenz calls the professor’s “fourth son” came into his life and remained there until his death in 1988.

We illustrated Lorenz’s story with a photograph of Yoga polishing his Rolls Royce in England. The car bears the personalized registration plates YOG4S. That told the story of his remarkable upward journey in the UK, which might have come out of Ripley’s ‘Believe It Or Not,’ telling the story of where he began to where he’s now – the owner of a chain of successful restaurants in the UK.

As luck would have it, Yoga, now 53, was in Sri Lanka when we ran his story and through Lorenz’s good offices, I was able to meet him at his apartment at the Hilton Residencies in Colombo. He was visiting his homeland after a Covid compelled two and a half year absence to see his mother, and was just back from a long trip covering Mirissa, Ella, Nuwara Eliya and Mooloya from where he hailed.

His wife and his mother for whom he’d bought an apartment in Colombo were with him when I visited. The mother brought him small plate of nelli (“good for diabetes”) which he relishes, as we chatted in his living room and he proudly introduced her saying “this is my mum.” He had earlier introduced his wife whom he had first met as a result of his stay in the Pereira household.

“I knew nothing when I came there,” he said gesticulating with his arms. “Zero. “The professor taught me everything. During my stay with him I was even able to read him the newspapers. Having nothing to do seated on his wheelchair on the veranda, he got me to read them all aloud to him every day.

“I cleaned, filled and lit his pipe. I gave him his medication at the right time. I poured him his evening tot of Old Arrack which he preferred to drink rather than the expensive Scotch his former students brought him from all parts of the world. I looked after his daily finances and helped him to do everything he couldn’t do for himself. And he taught me almost everything I know.

“He even taught me engineering when his front gate broke and I repaired it under his direction. He trusted me implicitly and was almost totally dependent on me. Christmas was very important to him when the children and grandchildren would fill the house. He insisted I accompanied Mrs. Pereira to Elephant House to make sure she didn’t cut down on the list he had dictated!”

Sunday lunch was a special occasion as the entire family came together for a meal. I was entrusted with the task of going to the Wellawatte market and buying a large seer fish head, the professor’s favourite, which was part of the spread.

There were three Yogas in the professor’s life, his Man Friday, Dr. K Yoheswaran, surgeon and Dr. Yoganathan, physician, Friday told me. There was much confusion when there was more than one Yoga were in the house at one time. It was Yoga who had told Lorenz of a typical EOE Pereira gesture at a time the professor was in straitened financial circumstances living on a paltry university pension.

A large cheque had arrived one day from President JR Jayewardene (President’s Fund?) who had heard about the professor’s problems and, to Mrs. Pereira’s great distress, Prof EOE had ordered Yoga to send it back. “My father never accepted anything he had not earned,” Lorenz told me. “So that was that.”

Yoga also told me the smatterings of a story I had heard before because it was part of an after dinner speech made by Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake when the Burgher Recreation Club (BRC) feted him during his 1965-70 tenure.

Prof. Pereira and Dudley were contemporaries at Cambridge. One night the two friends were out on their bikes without lights when they were copped. The British Bobby took firm grip of Dudley’s handlebar with the front wheel of the bike held between his knees while EOE took off into the darkness.

“What is your friend’s named?” demanded the cop. “I can’t let down my friend,” replied Dudley. “But my name is EOE Pereira.” EOE was subsequently fined. The professor was there to enjoy the story when the BRC collapsed in laughter.

Lorenz wrote: “After my father’s death in 1988, Yoga left our home with little funds but with the best reference and worldly skills any applicant for a job could possess.” He found a job in The Villa at Bentota, a boutique hotel Geoffrey Bawa built, where he proved his ability to learn and acquired many more skills.

He made friends there with a British couple who helped him to get to the UK where his odyssey began in a pub in Northwood Hill where Elton John first sang as a boy of 15. He’s since made is mark in the food industry, once owning a chain of six restaurants now down to three, specializing mostly in Indian food.

He credits much of his success to his wife and the rest to hard work, doing everything himself right from the bottom. “Luck and hard work,” he stresses, “but not only luck. There are opportunities everywhere and when the right time comes you’ve got to grab them. I’ve been to markets at 4 a.m. to shop for supplies but now I have people to do that kind of work for me.”

His apartment at Hilton Residencies was stacked with cartons of Dilmah tea and other supplies he’ll be taking back with him for his restaurants in Britain. He also has ideas of a possible home for himself at Mooloya but all that’s down the road.

His wife, with mum helping, cooked us a grand rice and curry lunch and eating with his fingers talked of his corporate lawyer daughter and a son reading mathematics at King’s College, London.

Yoga Mogsntas has gone a long way from Prof. EOE Pereira’s home in Arethusa Lane, Wellawatte, where he served the professor his half-boiled egg, toast and marmalade breakfast, sponged him, read to him, kept him company and much more. He also played cricket and football with the Pereira boys acquiring knowledge and skills that have served him well. Is is a story of courage and accomplishment.