Appreciations
View(s):The old family home will never be the same without you Wapamma
Nafathul Hamsa Marikar Thahir
When my father called that Wednesday morning informing me that our beloved Wapamma was ill and being brought to Colombo, I felt that despite her age, everything was going to be alright. She was a strong and independent lady and most importantly, a fighter. I knew she would pull through, just as she did the last time she suffered a stroke almost 20 years ago. Alas, it was not to be, and my false blanket of security was taken away, as she quietly passed away three days later.
When I think of my beloved Wapamma, my heart fills with pride for being the much loved grand-daughter of that amazing lady. She was a phenomenal leader, holding our large family together and never letting us fall apart. The century-old family home at Marikar Place in Maradana, Beruwela will never be the same without its cherished matriarch.
She hailed from a prominent Moor family in Beruwela, and was the beloved daughter of the late Sirajudeen Marikar (Deen Mudalali) and late Mrs. Ummu Zulaiha. She married my grandfather, Alhaj S.M.M. Thahir (Founder, Thahirs Pvt Ltd) and went onto have nine children, Ifthikar, Ayesha, Arusiya, Zulficar, Bishiriya, Munthaz, Kamal, Muheena and Kubra. A loving mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and great-great grandmother, she found great joy in her offspring who went onto qualify as doctors, lawyers, engineers and teachers and brought much pride to her.
Her warm smile would greet us every time we visited her at her home. She would enthral us with her witty comments, custom-made rhymes and tales of yester-year. She would also maintain a remarkable sense of calmness and patience in times of calamities and always advise us with her wise words.
Wapamma was born in the 1920s but was very young at heart and up-dated on all the current affairs including the latest trends. It was a practice to “surprise” her for her birthday with a cake, balloons and gifts. The child-like joy on her face was absolutely rewarding, and I am eternally grateful that we were able to celebrate her birthday annually, bringing much joy into her life and precious invaluable memories to us.
My father, Ifthikar Ahamed, her eldest son, was one of her favourite children. He would devotedly visit her every Sunday, travelling from Colombo to Beruwela ignoring all other commitments, and taking with him her favourite goodies.
They shared a very special bond, and it was such a great lesson to us all, that nothing and no one can take the place of a beloved parent.
Late in the evening on Friday, August 3, my beloved Wapamma passed away at the age of 94 years, after a sudden and brief illness. Her funeral was on the following day, on Saturday, after the mid-afternoon prayers. The vast number of people who flocked to pay their last respects to this wonderful lady was testament to her popularity and admirable personality. She was laid to rest at the Masjidul Abrar Mosque in Mardana, Beruwela where the rest of her family are buried.
Wapamma, your passing away marks a sad end of an era at the Marikar residence. May Almighty Allah grant you the highest abode of Jannathul Firdouse.
Sabrina Ifthikar Ahmed
Honouring the memory of one of the Top Floor Six at Pera
SHANTHI DE ABREW
Shanthi de Abrew, the idol of countless sportsmen and sports women who were fortunate enough to encounter her during her distinguished career at the University of Ceylon in Peradeniya, was also the intimate friend of a small group of women undergraduates who shared a balcony on the top floor of Sanghamitta Hall during the mid-1950s. We were, I think, six in number, strangers to one another, hailing as we did, from different schools – three from‘Colombo’ schools, Shanthi herself having entered from Methodist College – the other three from ‘outstations’ that included Kandy and Kurunegala. We had little in common but language – all six of us spoke and wrote English and Sinhala, albeit with different degrees of fluency – and the fact that we were all in our first year of university study, our object in that first year being the University’s General Arts Qualifying Examination.
One of that Top Floor Six, however, had come to Peradeniya with a different objective; and although her activities necessarily included study and visits to the University Library, her principal interests lay elsewhere. Not that Shanthi was uncomfortable in the presence of books –(her leisure reading included the stories of Ernest Hemingway) – but, as she told me once, she had been drawn to Peradeniya, not by its superb library nor even by tales of its stellar academics – among them E.F.C. Ludowyk and Ediriweera Sarachchandra – but by the fact that the only cinder track in the island at that time was known to be located on the Peradeniya campus, and she was determined to run on it.
Shanthi’s home town was Mount Lavinia. She was one of four siblings, and both her brothers (Kamal and Palitha) were Thomians.
Her approach to University life was a lively one, her relationships with our male contemporaries were comradely rather than romantic (they were, most of them, as dedicated to sports as she was), and her room on the Top Floor was decorated with portraits of sports stars such as Jesse Owens and Carl Lewis, rather than with the prints of Renoir, Degas and Gauguin bought from K.V.G. de Silva’s bookshop in Kandy’s Trincomalee Street that ornamented ours.
One member of our little group remembers Shanthi, tennis racquet in hand,walking down the Quadrangle at Sanghamitta; and, although she must occasionally have worn a sari, and certainly wore an academic gown on Convocation Day, I cannot visualize her except in the dark crimson tracksuit of the University of Ceylon.
Soon after graduation, Shanthi took up the post of Sports Director at the University after the retirement of G. Brant Little, an American, who had been the first person to occupy that position. When the University, which took its responsibilities towards its students very seriously, invited her to chaperone the national women’s athletics team to the Asian Games in Manila, Shanthi was most amused at the idea that the team needed a chaperone at all. “If anybody tries to get fresh with any member of our team, she would only need to raise a little finger to send him hurtling into outer space.”
No, Shanthi de Abrew was no ordinary undergraduate. One of the Top Floor Six is no longer with us – Chitra Fernando died in Sydney a few years ago – but the surviving Four remain to mourn our friend, and to honour her memory.
Yasmine Gooneratne
Remembering our very own calypso singer
Noel Brian Ranasinghe
The third death anniversary of legendary Sri Lankan singer/songwriter Noel Brian Ranasinghe falls on September 14.
Noel, who crafted a new style of singing with trademark sarongs, straw hats, and calypso music with a local flavour in the 1960s, was in his 70s when he passed away after ailing for several months.
As leader of the La Ceylonians, one of the few bands to survive as a unit for decades, Noel was known widely for landmark compositions like ‘Tharuna jeevitha apa vinodaya yen (about young people having fun based on British singer Cliff Richard’s popular ‘Young Ones’)’ and ‘Hoiya hoiya (tribute to the fishermen)’ among hundreds of other songs that are sung by many bands today.
Influenced by kaffringha music, the La Ceylonians used simple box guitars (without amplification which is still evident today in all calypso bands), congo drums and Guiro (a instrument made by cutting a bamboo strip of S’lon pipe to give a screeching sound).
Feizal Samath