The buzz at the party was The Book – the long, long-awaited memoirs of Bevis Bawa – which was soft launched on a wet Tuesday this week, at the late author’s home, on his 102nd birth anniversary.
Every April 26, friends of the celebrated Sri Lankan bon vivant, artist and landscapist gather at Brief, the Bawa property in Beruwela, to reminisce about “dear Bevis.” It is a private event, with drinks and lunch, attended by close friends and their friends and families. The atmosphere is as Mr. Bawa would have wanted it – brimful of warmth, affection, and goodwill, and with lots to eat and drink. The hosts were Mr. Dooland de Silva and his family, the present owners and occupants of Brief.
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| Bawa book launch and lunch: Friends of Bevis Bawa celebrate the publication of the Bawa memoirs, while drinking a toast to the memory of a “dear friend”.
Among the guests are Dooland and Dan de Silva, Russell Bowden, Scott Dirckze, Danny and Richel Hameed.
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The handsome, heavyweight volume of memoirs was admired and passed around among the guests, many of whom said they could not believe they were actually handling the book.
Mr. Bawa’s unpublished autobiography had over the years acquired a mythic status, and most people in the Bawa circle had resigned themselves to only talking and hearing about the book but never getting to read it. The transition from manuscript to typescript to edited and published reality has taken all of 20 years.
One of the guests, writer and journalist Gamini Seneviratne, said it was he who had looked after the precious manuscript while it was being typed up to be sent to Australia, where it was put in the care of artist and art critic Neville Weeraratne, who edited the text and readied it for publication.
While the coffee-table size book changed hands, the guests recalled their favourite memories and stories of their favourite real-life character.
“Bevis was a hero of mine when I was a teenager, long before I met him in person,” said Siri Perera. “I would see him driving his Goggomobile around Colombo. It was the strangest sight – this exceedingly long-looking person, head and torso sticking up tall out of this two-seater open sports car. I told myself: This is someone I just have to meet some day.”
Lionel Koralage, a hotelier, recalls turning up at Brief one day to find Mr. Bawa and Dooland de Silva arguing about where Mr. Bawa’s pyre should be placed. Bevis Bawa was cremated at Brief and his ashes buried in the garden, according to his wishes.
“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” recalled Mr. Koralage. “These two good friends exchanging heated words over the details of Bevis’s last rites. Each time Dooland suggested a suitable spot in the garden for the pyre, Bevis would say, no, that’s too close to such-and-such a tree. No trees should be hurt or damaged by the heat or the flames from my pyre.”
S. M. A. Hameed, his Swiss-born wife Danny, and Dr. Christie Fernando agreed that Bevis Bawa was the “original environmentalist,” a natural-born landscape artist with a deep love for nature and a way with plants and trees.
Dulindra Fernando, asset management consultant, and grandson of Sri Lanka’s southern writer, Martin Wickramasinghe, pointed out that Bevis Bawa’s artistry lives on in the work of today’s landscapists, who favour lushness and luxuriance – “the forest style” – over stylized, tailored gardens.
Dulindra’s mother, Usha Ekanayake, recalled Bevis Bawa’s anecdotes from his days as the towering aide-de-camp to a succession of British Governors. “He had a lot of great stories to tell, and some connected with the fact that he was the tallest man in Ceylon in his time. These were not tall tales! They were absolute fact,” she said.
Many of the guests had been at some point in their lives involved in the hotel business, and it was in the hospitality environment that they had first met Bevis Bawa, who was a regular visitor at hotels, where he rendezvoused with friends for a drink or a meal, or dropped by to say hello to friends in the hotel business.
“Bevis understood hospitality, and he had a lot of useful tips to share with us – the little details, the things a guest would appreciate,” said Marian Koralage, who, with her companions Srimali Martyn, Anurika Fernando and Ianthi Jayasinghe, are all wives of hoteliers, hotel managers, and players in the hospitality industry.
“Bevis was a wonderful host himself, so he knew how a guest should be treated and pampered,” said Mrs. Martyn. “We learnt a lot from him.”
“And, of course, he was a very gracious guest – the perfect guest,” added Mrs. Jayasinghe.
Upekha, the dancer, recalled Bevis Bawa dressing up formally every evening and crossing the lawn of Brief to join her parents for dinner. Chitrasena, Vajira and family were regular guests at Brief, where they would stay in a separate building at the other end of the garden, and Bevis Bawa would be their daily guest at dinner.
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| Bevis was a terrific raconteur - Laki Senanayake, artist |
Bevis was the most generous of hosts, says Upekha, dancer |
“Bevis was very fond of my father, and would invite us to stay, and insist we stayed for at least two weeks at a time,” said Upekha. “We had separate quarters, and in the evenings we would play host to Bevis, who was our host. He would come over, looking very stylish. It was very sweet, very family.”
George Beven, who lives in Germany, was an especially welcome guest. As artists, George and Bevis had much in common. Three of George Beven’s paintings – dedicated to Bevis and depicting the 6-foot-7 landed proprietor enjoying the fabled Bevis lifestyle at full stretch – adorn the main corridor at Brief.
“Bevis was a wonderfully kind and generous man,” said Mr. Beven. “Brief was like another home to me.”
Other guests at the birthday party waxed about Bevis the entertainer. “He was a terrific raconteur,” said artist Laki Senanayake. “The best of company.”
“You couldn’t have a dull moment with Bevis – not with his jokes and stories,” said Scott Dirckze, former chairman of George Steuart & Company. “Bevis was also very direct, and could be quite sharp in what he had to say, but in a most entertaining way,” said Russell Bowden, former British Council librarian in Colombo.
Mr. Bowden, who prefers arrack to whiskey, raised his glass to Bevis’s memory and recalled a “coconut cocktail” that Bevis had invented. “You took a thambili or a kurumba and you drained off a quarter of the fluid. Then you poured in your arrakku and swirled the fluid around, and you drank it straight out of the shell. A magnificent drink!
“Bevis was larger than life, in so many ways,” added Mr. Bowden.
By this time, the volume of Bawa memoirs was back on display on the main dining table, next to two cardboard boxes filled with copies of the book.
“I hear the original text is pretty much intact, with hardly anything left out,” said one guest. “Oh, gosh, I dread to see what he might have said about some of us,” said another, and, chuckling, they headed to the buffet table laid out in a tent in Bevis’s beautiful garden, among palms and ferns.
The on-and-off rain had stopped, and the afternoon sunshine was turned full on Brief.
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