Plus - Appriciations

P. Rajagopal passed away peacefully on July 7, this year at the golden age of 92 years. He hailed from a distinguished family from Jaffna. His father, the late Mr. Ponnusamy established the first ever department stores “The Jaffna Apothecaries” in the late 1920s. It was mainly patronized by the elite of Jaffna.
Mr. Rajagopal was educated at a leading Christian College in Jaffna and after he matriculated, studied engineering. He joined the Mechanical Engineers Department of the Railway as a Trainee Engineer and rose to the position of Chief Mechanical Engineer and later General Manager. Those were the times the Railway Department maintained its high standard, not second to what it was during colonial days, through the efficient and competent administration of the heads of department.

After his retirement from the Railway he served as consultant in a leading engineering institution in the private sector. But his ardent desire to be of assistance to the Railway Department was foremost in his mind. He proposed to the Ministry and the Railway authorities to build coaches locally stressing the advantages particularly the cost factor. This was accepted and a trial order was given to him to build a prototype. This was done and the Railway Department was impressed with the quality of what had been produced and also realized the sizeable savings compared to the cost of the imported coaches. Approval was given to Mr. Rajagopal to carry on the project. With the able assistance of some of his colleagues, retired technical officers, skilled and unskilled workmen he established a workshop and successfully carried on the building of coaches under the auspice of his firm of engineering consultants.

When Queen Elizabeth II was to visit Sri Lanka, the Romanian Government that was supplying steel coaches to the railway, offered to send a special coach for her use. Mr. Rajagopal took this as a challenge and undertook the construction of a luxury coach. What he accomplished was beyond description. The interior décor with elegant tapestries, stylishly upholstered drawing room suite, comfortable bedroom suite, turned out in his own workshop, delightful lighting, were a combination of excellence and class. The Government had no hesitation in accepting this coach for the use of the royalty.

Mr. Rajagopal’s aesthetic sense was beyond perception. He accomplished all matters with his own style and finesse. He had a passion for roses and had a beautiful garden of roses in his home which he tended personally. He was President of the Rose Club and held the office for many years.

Though I served in the Railway Department I had no occasion to work under him; but on my retirement I had the good fortune of working for him. This gave me the opportunity to experience the magnanimity, benevolence and kindness of this gentleman par excellence.

After I left his service he was always in touch with me, as I believe he was with those close to him. Though death is inevitable at his age, those of us who were close to him, no doubt, feel his loss. His daughter and two grandchildren, whom he loved so much, will miss him for a very long time.

May God bless his good soul.

She was the matriarch: loving grandmother, strict disciplinarian - a hard working woman with a penchant for Yardley soap and the scent of lavender. Her life would span the fall of the British Raj and the dismantling of empire across the globe, the rise and triumph of the nationalist movement in Sri Lanka, and two world wars. And it would be a life characterized by journeys - across the island, across the Indian Ocean into the English Channel, and finally, across the Atlantic.

Gertrude Miriam Hewa Sahabandhu, known as Mummy to her children and even some of her friends - and Aachchi to us (her grandchildren) was born on March 17, 1908 in Kadugannawa, Kandy, Ceylon (as Sri Lanka was then known). The daughter of Rev Edwin Lionel and Esther Sahabandhu, she was one of nine children. Like many women of her era she chose one of the few professions open to women - nursing - and practised until, having decided to marry, she was required to give up the job.

She was 22 when she married Moragodage Peter Vincent Pinto, senior health inspector for Colombo. It was 1930 and as the Second World War brewed and loomed across the oceans, Gertrude and Peter set about building a family. They had six children: five daughters - Merline, Barbara, Rose, Lilian and Manel and one son - my father - Joseph.

On April 5 1942 - Easter Sunday - over 100 Japanese planes raided Colombo harbour bringing WWII to Ceylon, and Gertrude was called back to nursing in aid of the war effort. Ever a loyal subject of the Raj, she worked at the British military hospital, caring for wounded and dying soldiers as well as civilians. These were hard times - times of rationing, divided families and siege. Then, as the war was finally drawing to an end, Peter contracted typhoid and died, leaving Gertrude alone to care for all the children - the eldest 12, the youngest not yet born. It was Sept 1944; the couple had been married for just 14 years.

Thus did life become even harder for the family as the children were put into boarding school so that Gertrude could earn enough money to support them. She was transferred across the island, caring for its newborn, ailing and dying in Polonnaruwa, Udugama and other areas. The children visited these far-flung places from Colombo during school holidays, bringing back with them exotic stories of monkeys stealing fruit from kitchen cupboards and elephants roaming at dusk.

In 1964, Gertrude swapped patients for grandchildren, having retired from nursing to care for Merl’s children. Three years later she set sail for England, one grandchild -Bernadette - in tow. The journey took six weeks, the closure of the Suez Canal forcing them to approach via the Cape of Good Hope. They arrived in October 1967 in Southampton where they were met by my dad. After six years in London, she migrated to Toronto, Canada, living with her youngest daughter, Manel and her second eldest, Barbara.

Over those years, she cared for many of us grandchildren (Michael, Tony, Michelle and me): washing us, feeding us, teaching us manners (when seated at the dining table, always keep your legs together and never NEVER shake your feet). She was thorough and consistent in her care.

I was a notoriously slow and reluctant eater.

But I was not allowed to leave the table until I had cleaned my plate - that is to say, eaten all my food. So there I sat, pushing my rice to the perimeter of my plate while Aachchi paced the corridor. The clock ticked 10 minutes, 20, then an hour. When she took a moment to go to the bathroom, I seized the opportunity and threw the remaining food in the bin, covering it with a tissue.

She emerged, I told her I’d finished and made a grand display of washing my plate. But Aachchi would not be fooled. She opened the bin, moved the tissue and found my lie. There would be no chocolate for me for dessert.

She was an excellent cook, too, mincing onions with expert precision, rolling out perfectly spherical cutlets of identical size and proportion. Her beetroot curry and Seeni Sambol remain unrivalled even today.

She was an avid gardener, growing tomatoes and roses. She was a pious Catholic, praying daily and loathe to miss Sunday mass. And she was engaged with the world, watching the news and reading the papers everyday. Truly, she was a woman of many abilities and interests.

In Feb 1993 - 20 years after coming to Canada – Aachchi suffered a stroke while on pilgrimage in Switzerland. The condition slowly and inexorably claimed her mind and her body, but not her spirit. She was supported by all her children, especially Barbara, who cared tirelessly for her day in and day out and was with her to the end. But those 13 years spent confined to her bed deprived her of what she loved most - most being active. It was a difficult thing for many of us to see.

I prefer to remember Aachchi as I knew her: a dynamic woman with hidden depths. There is one memory of her that will never leave me. One of the several summers that Tony and I spent in Toronto, we were sitting with our cousin Michael playing cards. We must have been between seven and 10 years old. We’d finished one game and were trying to start another, but to do so, we had to shuffle the pack. So we tired - each one of us - with shambolic results: the cards kept falling everywhere. Then Aachchi swooped in from the kitchen and grabbed the deck. We thought, this is it, we’re toast, we’re in trouble.

I remember the cards blurring against her hands, her hands drawing them across the table in a row and flipping them over, then blurring again as she shuffled the pack with the dexterity of croupier. Tony, Michael and I went silent, our mouths gaping. Then, unable to contain our curiosity, we spoke out at once, saying: 'Aachchi, where did you learn to do that?!...

Aachchi put the deck back on the table with a smile. And though she didn’t wink at us before she turned away, she left every suggestion of it hanging in the air between us. And with that, she swept back into the kitchen and left us in our wonder.

It is a little more than two months since the demise of Asoka Perera, affectionately known as AP and it is still like a bad dream to me.

I had known AP for over two decades and I am yet to meet a man of his calibre. I was fortunate enough to work with him for a short spell in March this year on a film project just two months before his passing away and consider myself lucky I had the opportunity to do so.

He was like the rock of Gibraltar to many. He had a vibrant personality and always kept us in stitches. The unique quality about AP was that twenty four hours of the day were just not enough for him and he had the knack of turning things around and making things happen.

The word ‘no’ was never in his vocabulary. Many a times have I seen people from all walks of life coming up to him with their numerous problems and he always said ‘ let’s see what can be done’ and had the ability to come up with something to help that person. This was what I admired most in AP.

Asoka, may you attain the bliss of Nirvana.

It seems time heals little, and after just over a year, a day scarcely passes without us thinking of you. The time we had together with you seems unfairly short – 30 years is hardly a lifetime to spend with a father as wonderful as you. Thaththi I miss you a lot and I feel as if I will never be whole again. As I sit in the shade of the Ehala tree we planted together, images and memories come rushing back. I remember how excited we were to see the first blooms of cascading yellow. Today, it seems appropriate not to see a single bloom peering through the green canopy.

Now, all I do is hold on to the memories of the days we spent together and I will cherish them with all my heart for the rest of my life.

Your family meant so much to you. I never realised until recently, that you had kept a file of scribblings, that malli and I had drawn for you as children and of the letters ammi had sent you when you were overseas. You always made time to play with malli and me. I will always remember how you would carry me up high on your shoulder, sit me on a puwak frond and drag me around the yard, or play cricket with the two of us.

But to you thaththi, ‘family’ did not just mean the four of us. You instilled in malli and me a sense of duty and respect for our grandparents and aunts and uncles. And you did this mainly by example. I remember how you used to take three meals a day for achchi amma whenever you were in town and how you were always happy to help your brothers and sisters whenever they needed it. I remember how we would all visit seeya’s grave every Vesak, and how you would make it a point to clean the family burial plot at least a few times every year – a task malli and I will now continue, albeit with a heavy heart. You were always ready to help anyone in need not just the extended family. I still smile each time I recall how you and I went looking for a bottle of Horlicks on a Sunday to give an achchi we met at the Naga-vihara.

Thaththi, it is from you that I learnt that action was more important than idle words of wisdom. You didn’t just quote the dhamma, but instead you lived it quietly. I remember how you rallied us all to collect food and clothes for refugees, worked tirelessly to revive a local temple, taught me the true meaning of joy by getting me to share my tenth birthday party with a group of children at a local orphanage.