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I first met Rex de Silva in April or May 1966. It was on a flight to Karachi. It seemed we were both headed for the same destination. That, I discovered, when we found ourselves on the Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt from Karachi. We were going to West Berlin and to the Berlin Institute for Mass Communication for Developing Countries as it was somewhat condescendingly named then.

Neville and Rex (seated from left) with some of his prote'g'es in 1997 at the Thai restaurant in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong.

It was at the height of the Cold War and we were going to be at the very centre of it in the divided city of Berlin. As journalists we could not have asked for a better location from which to watch for the very physical signs of the East-West confrontation as the phraseology of the day would call it. Perhaps to underscore not only the ideological conflict but also the physical division for the benefit of us uneducated and unwashed of the “under developed world, the institute was located at Kochstrasse, almost opposition Check Point Charlie, the road crossing that tourists and others use to visit the dilapidated East Berlin, the poor cousins in the Communist-run half of the former German capital.

Rex had just been two years in journalism at the “Sun” group of newspapers and I four years at Lake House. So in a sense we were both fresh to the profession or trade. That helped forge closer links between us besides being from the same country. Apart from Ceylon, as we were then, there were two participants each from Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines and one each from South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia and Nepal.

Initially I was provided accommodation in a small bed and breakfast hotel right in the heart of West Berlin and Rex and the others in a hostel for working bachelors in a place called Wedding. After a few days I was found a room in the same hostel which also had en suite and cooking facilities.

Besides an impeccable eye for design and layout, Rex was also a sketch artist. We used to sit next to each other during the classroom lectures and practical lessons. On and off he would pass me a paper. On it was drawn in pencil the face of the teacher of the day and it used to amuse me no end because he would capture some action of the man animatedly trying to instill in us the usual propaganda spiel, the all good and nothing bad of the western model as opposed to the trash on the other side of the Berlin Wall.

Apart from the professional journalists from the leading newspaper publisher in Germany Axel Springer who would come as guest lecturers we usually had lunch at the Springer publishing house which produced the Berliner Morgen Post, Die Welt and Bild Zeitung which allowed us to mingle with and talk with journalists from these papers.

Interestingly from that building we could see over the wall into the East and it was indeed a depressing sight. So one day Rex and I decided to cross over that Sunday to the communist-east. We tried to rope in a few others and ultimately found the two Filipinos reluctantly agreeing to accompany us.

Their reluctance was understandable. Their passports forbade them to visit communist countries. Anyway they came with us nervously, expecting perhaps the closest CIA agent to descend upon them and drag them away their own gulag.

We got to the East German immigration checkpoint and after a glance at our Ceylon passports we were welcomed as great friends and mention was made of “Frau Bandaranaike” and “Ceylon the” meaning tea. We got through within a few minutes but the two Filipinos were still delayed. About 20 minutes later I had a word with Rex about what to do. I rustled up enough courage because I knew as Ceylonese we were quite safe, and employing the few words in my German vocabulary acquired from a phrase book I had bought, I asked the East German officer “Meine freund hier, wo is passport.” Even if he did not understand my attempt at hurdling the Germanic tongue, the word passport definitely struck a bell.

The man reached over and pushed some papers around in a cubby hole and said “Passport nicht hier”. So I withdrew under friendly fire, regrouped and made another foray into East German bureaucracy encouraged by Rex serving as rearguard. This time he searched with a wee bit more enthusiasm and found the two passports.

He then called the two Filipinos who probably feared they would face a firing squad. “Filipin Americano stooge”, barked the officer and hand over the two passports. That was the last time the two Filipinos- Ben Esquivel of Taliba Times and Joe Cruz of the Philippine News Agency went within a couple of kilometres of East German territory.

But Rex and I used to across over every two or three weeks, changing 10 or 15 West German Marks which was enough for a couple of beers, a bratwurst or bockwurst lunch and even a small souvenir. Rex’s initial attempt at cooking rice was, to put it mildly, rather disastrous. Normally I cook, especially on a Saturday or Sunday and Rex would do the washing up.

That particular day Rex undertook the chore. I asked him whether he knew what to do. We had bought some packs of rice from a big department store called Ka De We which stocked Asian food such as Sambal Olek which was the closest to our lunu miris that I could find.

Cooking that rice required boiling water and immersing the pouch of rice for three to four minutes. Rex decided to empty the rice into the saucepan. Having made the other dishes earlier we were ready to eat and Rex brought his rice to table. I knew something was wrong when I tried to serve myself and the glue-like substance would not leave the serving spoon try as I did.

Quite reluctantly we partook of the devilled chicken, cabbage curry and U- Hu as Rex termed it. He never lived it down, his reputation in the culinary arts forever sullied. He was thereafter banned from the kitchen. Many are the stories I could relate specially about our time in West Berlin if I had the space. This I need to say however. He loved pop music and was particularly fond of the Trini Lopez number Lemon Tree a hit at the time. He would even play it on a juke box at breakfast at a small restaurant near the institute where he would have his wurst and I my first beer.

He bought himself a record player and Trini Lopez record. One Sunday morning he opened his windows which faced a public park and turned up the volume. Two policemen suddenly appeared from somewhere in the park, looked up at us and said the music was too loud. I said “not here” and Rex immediately pointed at the room occupied by the two Filipinos. The cops looked towards that room which had its windows closed, laughed, waved at us and left.

The last time I met Rex was in Hong Kong in 1997. He had come over from Brunei where he was editing the Borneo Bulletin to attend a Commonwealth Press Union meeting. I was then working in Hong Kong as Assistant Editor and Diplomatic Editor and Political Columnist of the Hong Kong Standard along with several Sri Lankan journalists who had been on his staff in Colombo and had joined the newspaper before me.

Rex made me an offer. Let’s exchange jobs. To entice me he said I would get a tax free salary, a large rent-free house among other perks. I knew there was a catch. I quietly asked him whether I could get a drink there. He hesitated and broke into his infectious laughter. That was the last time I heard it though we kept in touch even when he moved to New York.
He was a true journalist to the core, sadly a dying breed, and a true friend. May he rest in peace.