Features
Upali was exceptional, even as a child
BY ARJUNA HULUGALLE
From the moment I met Upali Wijewardene, and that was at the age of five in the baby class at Ladies’ College, Colombo, I had a feeling he was exceptional.
As I stand today, galloping through life and reaching the Psalmist’s span, I look back and recall what a bright boy Upali was! We knew, of course, he had been well tutored by an in-house personal instructress. Studies were not all that Upali bothered about; it was clear to see that he had a great desire to project himself and as a result he glided over every hurdle to reach something bigger – an object we could not visualize at the time.
He came from a family similar to the Kennedys of USA. There was money, a sense of public spiritedness and burning ambition. His family was not restrained by any inhibitions of self consciousness of old families and his path was further reinforced not only by the genes of a Wijewardene from Sedawatte but also those of the Wijesinghes from the deep South. There they were much closer to the soil and to an indigenous ethos. Both his grandfathers had amassed enormous wealth. Upali’s father, Don Walter Wijewardene, died young when Upali was a little child. If I recollect correct this was forecasted in his horoscope. Upali missed a father dearly. This was definitely a gap in his life and in the formation of his personality. With the non existent guiding hand of the paternal influence, Upali fell to mimic it or seek it among other elders. He grew up much faster than his school contemporaries and was in ‘longs’ before any of us.
He rode a bicycle effortlessly before we learnt or even possessed one. He drove and owned his own car with an L board long before we started to dream about cars and may be some of us still don’t own one! Is it not surprising that I remember him going off to a Race Meet nattily dressed in a double breasted suit. He must have been fourteen then. He loved horses and was an accomplished horseman.
Upali’s earliest friends would have been those in Miss Nelly’s Baby Class at Ladies. Among them were Ratna Sivaratnam, later Chairman of Aitken Spence, Nimal Fonseka, whose parents at that time were dominating the medical profession (Dr Marcus Fonseka was the first double MS and ENT specialist) and Dr Brendon Gooneratne, Lalith Athulathmudali was a year senior to us. I remember brothers Brian and Ralph Wickremaratne at Ladies. There was an array of girls who in later years distinguished themselves as outstanding women.
Miss Gwen Opie, was the Principal when we entered the school. She died in January 1944, and her sister succeeded her as acting Principal. Miss Mabel Simon, from Mowbray in Kandy, was appointed later in May 1946.
When Upali and I applied to Royal Primary School to join the 4th standard in 1947, I remember the entrance test. He was flanked by his mother and instructress. I was deposited at the school by my father who then left me to fend for myself. Upali and I had been coached at Ladies for the entrance ordeal and I did not have too much trouble handling the Arithmetic, English and Sinhala papers but I was stumped on how to write my initials (H.A.J.) in Sinhala. Mrs Wijewardene must have sensed my discomfort and moved smartly to help me. Even today, I thank her for my entrance into Royal Primary School. It was a case of ‘For want of a nail, a Kingdom would have been lost’. Upali and I were now in the real world. Royal Primary School was quite different in every way to the cloistered life of Ladies’ College. We were in the rough and tumble of a boys’ world with teachers who were less sensitive and understanding than in a girls’ school. Our main focus was to qualify for entrance into Royal College.
A.F. de Saa Bandaranaiake had been appointed Headmaster and we had legendary teachers like H.D. Sugathapala, H.P. Jayawardene, Mr Arasaratnam, Mr B.J.H. Bahar, Mr Lennie de Silva, Mrs Nicholas and Mr M.E. Piyasena.
1947 was the year of the first general elections and I was at Royal Primary. There are several memories I had of that year, a few stand out. One was of my classmate, Bimal Padmaperuma, who later rose to a senior public service position and became a trusted confidante of President Premadasa. Bimal at that tender age of 10 years was an authority on the elections that took place that year. He collected posters, pamphlets and enlightened us on the candidates. That was my first introduction to Sri Lankan politics.
Another highlight was the lending library of Upatissa Attygalle who had mainly comics! He would to come to school from his uncle Dr Nicholas Attygalle’s home. We had to pay Upatissa 5 cents to borrow a comic. Captain Marvel, Superman, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry Gaby Hayes are some of the names of the heroes I remember.
Sadly from 1946, we were separated and put into streams and from then onwards we missed our Tamil, Muslim and Burgher friends and they missed us. Mercifully, this was changed when we entered Royal College in 1949, because the education was in English and all races blended in the classrooms.
Both Royal Primacy and Royal College were made up of children from a cross section of the population but we soon acquired a common spirit of Royalists and a common culture. Most of the children who were with us had got a flying start for their future lives. The facilities they enjoyed at school whether with studies, sports and the vast range of extra curricula activities equipped them to handle life with confidence. Airs and graces and snobbery were taboo and the rough edges were evened. Upali who came from a wealthy propertied family had to be with the rest of us who had parents who were wage earners with modest incomes.
In later life, our class of 106 at Royal (three parallel classes), produced 23 doctors some of whom are the top Consultants in their fields; lawyers (including two President’s Counsel), several outstanding businessmen; three civil servants; Permanent Secretaries, Judges of the Supreme Court and other courts, diplomats, engineers, planters, company executives, teachers, sportsmen and a Vice Chancellor of the University of Peradeniya and a controversial social scientist and a political chronicler among others. One of this batch who acquired high academic qualifications as an agriculturist opted to live a peasant’s life in a distant village. It was by any standards a galaxy of achievers. If I am excused for not being modest, I would say this was one of the most outstanding classes Royal had ever produced. Certainly 1948, 1949 and 1950 produced a crop of outstanding and interesting men. Upali was one of this fascinating group of individuals.
I have picked at random a few exceptionally interesting characters. Laki Senanayake, the world renowned artist was one of them. He was a nightmare to many teachers because in the mould of great intellectuals like Bernard Shaw, he considered the trappings of a school, a trauma for a child and one which retarded human progress. He made the life of teachers difficult, albeit in a genteel and gentlemanlike manner by his cynical observations and humourous repartee. He broke away from this “jail” of boyhood as soon as he could, having failed in art at the “O” level.
From that time onwards, his pen, brush, hands and mind produced the masterpiece of art which we admire in this country and all over the world. His mind wondered into a wide range of other intellectual pursuits and he filled his spare time with reading and talking as people of his caliber do in other parts of the globe to a captive audience of followers.
A more violent character was Rahula Silva, who to many was a notorious policeman. From the time he could crawl, he was a “Chandiya”. He was gifted with enormous strength and was the Public School Heavy Weight boxing champion winning his event at the Stubbs Shield competition. His body was too powerful for his brain but to his friends he was a kindly man.
Towards the end of his days, he had squandered the great gifts nature had bestowed on him and he died a lonely man but not before my wife and I visited him in hospital where he lay frail. She always recalls how humbled she felt when he tried and tried to sit up when he saw her.
Kumar Ponnambalam was also in our class. He never failed to come to our get together on the second day of the Royal Thomian match and the Colombo leg of the Bradby. He came to Royal Primary from Ladies’ College and then went on to Royal. He had the wherewithal and potential to make a substantial impact on public life. However, all his life lie lived under the shadow of his great father, G.G. Ponnambalam.
He had also gone to Cambridge like Upali. Kumar was referred by Dudley Senanayake to his old College Corpus Christi. After his death, Kumar was honoured by no less a person that Mr Prabakaran for his services.
My wife and I last met him at the fiftieth anniversary of the 49 year group. (We had joined Royal College in 1949). He was amazed when my wife gave him a big hug and greeted him. His father, GG, was a good friend of my father and also my brother Upatissa and his son, Gajendran, was a schoolmate of my son. It was on that occasion that we met Beverley Vandergert, brother of Rodney the former Foreign Secretary and Dr Geoffrey Vanden Driessen. I had not met them since 1955 when I left school. Beverley had settled in Holland and Geoffrey first in New Zealand and then at Alice Springs in Australia.
The contrast to Kumar Ponnambalam was the ascetic Chelvanayagam Vasekaran, son of the Federal party leader Mr S.J.V. Chelvanayagam. He and Nimal Fonseka were the two most brilliant students of our generation at Royal. Vasekaran in later years did a doctorate in mathematics and Nimal became a successful Accountant in London. Vasekaran remained a close friend of my wife and I till his death, and Nimal remains my closest friend today.
Another interesting character was Alavi Mohamed, who was a great oarsman and an institution at the Colombo Rowing Club. He was a good friend of my wife’s brother, Patrick. His passion was to teach his students rowing. He lives in the UK.
The story of Upali’s school mates at Ladies’ College, Royal Primary and Royal College will make fascinating reading if it is ever recorded in detail. His early education was the milieu which moulded Upali to becoming a special personality and a public figure in later years. The potential I had sensed when I first met him at the age of 5 was realized in adulthood.
He and I had both read Wordsworth’s poem The Rainbow at Royal College where the poet wrote “Child is the Father of the Man’.
How true it was with Upali.