The story I had to tell

Excerpted from Chosen Ground: The Clara Motwani Saga by Goolbai Gunasekare

“You have a story to tell,” said my friend Shirani Captain one day, when we were idly chatting about our parents and the peculiarities of their era. “Why don’t you write it?” And so began this book.

Shirani had an English mother, and like me, was half Asian. There was, however, no other resemblance in our juvenile backgrounds. Shirani’s days were not encompassed by academics. She led a far more normal life vis-a-vis the norms and customs of the day. Her parents, Mr. L.A. Weerasinghe (former Auditor General of Sri Lanka) and his wife, played golf regularly, and led a very active social life: a luxury denied to my Professor/Principal parents, whose careers occupied all their time.

But we did have one link that held us solidly together in our teenage years. We each had a young male admirer. These two young swains, Bunchy and Sohli, happened to be best friends. Ergo, it was inevitable that their ‘girlfriends’ would team up in efforts to hoodwink parental authority as best they could, and aid each other in all the downright lies that are told in the furtherance of illicit meetings and other clandestine rendezvous (the only way we got to meet anyone not ticked off as approved acquaintances in parental diaries).

Romance bubbled merrily behind our parents’ backs. To have a `boyfriend’, even a ‘friend’ who happened to be a boy, was not to be thought of. When it came to boys, even the most liberal parents drew cords of discipline so tight we never got to breathe the heady air of teenage freedom. We had none. Even my mother, so broadminded in general, tended to share in the common adult suspicion that hung around teenage doings.

Strangely enough my parents were agreed upon that one restriction. Liberal as they were, their liberality did not extend to too much freedom of movement where the opposite sex was concerned. Father brought us up on the Rama/Sita mindset. Not that he approved of the chauvinistic Rama’s conduct, but he totally loved Sita’s gracefully yielding ways. Mrs. Girlie Cooke, my friend Mohini’s mother, endeared herself to Father because of her very traditional Tamil appearance and, he assumed, her gracefully yielding ways. He was quite wrong.

Aunty Girlie’s appearance was most deceptive. Beneath her traditional demeanour, was (for her times) a very forward-thinking and free spirit. Her booming serve at tennis, a game she played in a crisp white cotton sari, had her daughter, Mohini and me running off the court rather than face its power.

It was thanks to her intervention that Father allowed me to attend a dance with friends. It was thanks to her that I was allowed (oh, giddy delight) to become modernized outwardly, and actually wear make up. Once I had gone away to university in Bombay, of course, nothing Father said would have prevented that very modernization he disliked.

My parents were mentally and educationally forward-thinking, but they operated within the rules of the East as far as behaviour went. Obviously they did something right. We were given guidelines as to mature behaviour, and then expected to conduct ourselves accordingly.

One or two of my traditionally reared classmates actually braved the wrath of their parents and eloped with quite unsuitable men. They lived to regret it. But the majority … in particular my classmates and closest friends for the last 55 years, Sunetra, Punyakante, Indrani, Mohini, and Hyacinth had marriages arranged for them when they were still quite young. They lived happily ever after as their parents, and mine, expected them to do.

I was away at university when my close friend, Chereen, the class beauty, married. Hers had been a romantic liaison, but parental approval was gained in spite of the fact that in her case a Roman Catholic was marrying an Anglican (and having to brave initial opposition).

Religion was not something our parents harped upon (and when I say ‘our parents’ I mean Suriya’s, Kumari’s and mine). It mattered little to these three sets of parents if the men we chose to marry were theists, atheists, agnostics or even downright heretics. They believed that intelligence should be brought to bear on the matter of personal religion. In their view, organized religion did more harm than good. They felt it divided people, caused wars and resulted in catastrophic disasters.

Suriya, Kumari and I behaved as our parents expected us to do. We did not confound polite society by choosing unsuitable young men. Our partners were approved by all, and somehow we got the impression that our parents expected no less. Religion was never a problem. Our eclecticism caused us to blend comfortably with everyone although truth to tell, I love going to Church. But it is atmosphere rather than dogma that attracts me there.

While Mother and Father were strict in not allowing too much mixing with the opposite sex, they had no objection to boys visiting us at home. They treated all such visitors with courtesy, but did not show them too much warmth. They certainly did not expect every caller to have a walk up the aisle in mind.

“It’s an excellent thing to have many friends,” Mother would say bracingly.

Nonetheless, a wary eye was kept on any trysts that did not take place in full view of parental eyes. Given Su’s record of littering her pathway with broken hearts, it was with a sigh of relief that her wedding in Delhi to young Captain (later Brigadier) Kailash Kalley was greeted. Kailash is an alumnus of the famous Doone School in Dehra Dun, India, and there was a faint surprise in Mother’s happy acceptance of this ‘good’ marriage.

Fortunately, Father did not live to see Su’s marriage end in divorce. It would have caused him much pain, especially as Su has a lovely daughter whom we promptly nicknamed `Bambi’ because of her lambent, doe-like looks.

One of the great sorrows of Mother’s life was that after Su’s separation, she was not granted access to Bambi. Bambi’s father was very embittered by the divorce, and refused to even send his daughter to spend her vacations with us. Mother wrote many times but they were vain attempts. She never saw Bambi again and although she rarely spoke of the deep hurt it caused, I know she mourned the loss of not knowing her other grandchild.

A journalist who interviewed me once for a Women’s Page article in one of the daily papers asked me if I had never desired a more `ordinary background’. Did I not feel that I had always been ‘different’ from my contemporaries, and did I not mind the difference? Frankly, I never thought of it. Mother and Father were always held in such high esteem that both Su and I were very proud to be introduced as Dr. and Mrs. Motwani’s daughters.

In their wisdom, they trained us to think of ourselves as Sri Lankans. Father even brought me back from my school in Ooty in time to offer Sinhala as a subject for my O-Level examination. This qualification made it possible for me to work for a year at the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (then Radio Ceylon). To get any Government job that Sinhala language pass at the O-Level was vital.

I think that as time went by, both Mother and Father felt so Sri Lankan that they were out of tune with the rest of the world. Tours abroad ceased to hold any charm for either of them, and they became typical, retired Colombo-ites. Mother’s doctor used to ask from rime to time if she ever was depressed. Mother was surprised. “Should I be?” she asked. “Retirement often does that to people,” he would reply.

Mother had a secret weapon against depression. Each night, she told me, she would lie in bed and count her many blessings. One day she wrote them out for me. I have the list with me to this day and I am constantly amazed that this well-known public person savoured the small things in life. One of the blessings that she mentions is that she could have tea with her family every day at 4.30 each evening, during the time that she lived with us. It was a time for leisurely conversation and she treasured it. My husband’s and our daughter’s love for her was high on her list.

When we were growing up, Mother’s photograph would be in the papers on a daily basis — so involved was she in dozens of projects. Nor was her name on these many committees merely window-dressing. She really worked with whatever committee she happened to be heading. Leisure-time relaxation was therefore a blessing.

A few days ago, a father brought his nine-year-old daughter to be enrolled at the Asian International School. I asked him why he had opted for this particular school among so many others.

“Well, your mother was my mother’s Principal,” he said, “and my mother told me that if you were even half as good as she was, you would still be pretty good.”

I knew what he meant. It is a comparison which is often made, and one in which I suffer by contrast. Nor do I expect it to be otherwise.

My wise and wonderful mother was one of a kind. What marvellous Karmic links gave me such special and such unusual parents? How were they able to transform an alien island into home? What arcane secret did they possess, that enabled them to become one with the people of the country they chose to live in?

We were not Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim or Burgher but we were, as Mother said, ‘proudly Sri Lankan’. When Sir John Kotelawala’s government gave Mother the Distinguished Citizenship award, the Dual Citizenship Act had not been passed. Mother would have had to give up her American citizenship in order to accept the Sri Lankan one. She did it, despite the world telling her she was crazy to do so. She knew she would never live anywhere else other than here, in the lovely island of Sri Lanka — her chosen ground.

When Mother died there was an outpouring of tributes to her, both as a Principal and as an educationist. What was most touching, however, were the personal messages from those who knew her as a friend and not just as a public figure. She died in her sleep in 1989, on my husband’s birthday, the 21st of July. Following her often-voiced wish that large numbers of schoolgirls should not be forced to stand around in the sun at her funeral, she was cremated immediately, very privately, with only her family and close friends present. Mother assumed, rightly, that the schools she had headed would feel it necessary to make a showing if the funeral was public.

My parents were both believers in the laws of Karma and rebirth. In seeking for the right words with which to close this book, I cannot find them in my own mind. Nothing I can say is an adequate tribute to my wonderful Mother. Let me therefore borrow the words of another:

“This day has ended

It is closing upon us even now as the water-lily upon its own tomorrow.

Farewell to you and the youth I spent with you. It was but yesterday we met in a dream.

If, in the twilight of memory we should meet once more, we shall speak again together and you shall sing me a deeper song

And if hands should meet in another dream we shall build another tower in the sky. “

From The Prophet by Khalil Gibran

It is the mark of that rarity, a true teacher, that she can build these ‘towers in the sky’ for her pupils. Mother did this for thousands of grateful young girls – and most importantly, she did it for me.