More than just an academic

V. Thanabalasingham

Retired teacher V. Thanabalasingham passed away in February this year. He served on the staff of Ananda College, Colombo from the early fifties to the mid-eighties. Before coming to Ananda he had been on the staff of Mahinda College, Galle and Sri Sumangala College, Panadura for a short period. He excelled as an English teacher. His work was appreciated by the principals. The students loved his teaching. He was a friend to the academic as well as non-academic staff.

As a student he had attended many schools in the north. Out of them his best remembered alma mater was Hindu College, Manipay. He came down to S. Thomas’ College, Mt. Lavinia to finish his secondary education. From there, he entered the University of Ceylon where he read for an English Special Degree. Prof. E.F.C. Ludowyke was one of his teachers, with whom he had life-long contact. He was one of the handful of English Honours graduates who selected teaching as a career.

In addition to classroom teaching he assisted the school in many ways. He was in-charge of magazines and touched up school reports, character certificates, drafted letters for the authorities and helped anybody who sought his assistance. He was an asset to the school. He cultivated the reading habit among his pupils. Long before John Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for Grapes of Wrath, his books were popular among Thanabalasingham’s pupils. He introduced his pupils to the works of such authors as Fyodor Dostoevsky, Thomas Mann, Andre Gide and William Saroyan. A comment he made about James Joyce is worth mentioning. “When many a present day book is no more, Ulysses will be still read, and read perhaps beyond the 3rd millennium.”

Thanabalasingham, the third in a family of four brothers was a bachelor. All four of them were socialists and at one time or other members of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party. When the eldest brother V. Balasingham, a young graduate died in an accident when Thanbalasingham was a final- year student at the university, Barrister V. Karalasingham contested from the LSSP a number of times. His opponent was the Federal Party Leader himself. His younger brother was a teacher in Jaffna. All his brothers predeceased him.

Thanabalasingham was a frequent visitor to the Fort YMCA. He spent his leisure time there. May Thanabalasingham be happy and contented in his sojourn in Samasara.

By Salpitkoralage Gamini Dharmasena.