How many roads must a man walk down?

The journey has been long, very very long. It started in a little village called Dandu Bendi Ruppa in Nuwara Kalaviya when Dingiriamma rolled Jayathilaka in a ‘borrowed’ wheel chair for his first day in the village school. She had covered her 10-year-old handicapped son with a plastic sheet and pushed him on rickety old wheels which were gifted to them when some old man died in the next village. Such was the beginning....

That was then, 25 years ago.

The ceremony was solemn, almost sacred. The National University of Singapore does not spare anything when it comes to their ‘limelight’ events. The Class of 2011 all gathered in their robes of black and flat hats, mostly young, Singapore’s best brains in youth. The recipients of the prestigious degrees totalled more than 400. Then there were the chosen few representing the elite in education, the ones who had read and completed their PhDs in this world renowned institution.

Jayathilaka receiving his PhD (top) and with his mother Dingiriamma

The audience gathered was the ‘who’s who’ of Singapore in their Saville Row suits and Bally feet. Pahalagedara Jayathilaka too was there, sitting among the Doctors of Philosophy, his crutches folded across his knees waiting to be called to end his unbelievable journey.

I sat with Dingiriamma, Jayathilaka’s mother along with his brother and sister-in-law whom he had brought down from Sri Lanka to witness the final walk. The name was announced, “Pahalagedara Jayathilaka” and I glanced at the 70-year-old mother and saw her staring ‘blink-less’ as her beloved son walked on to the stage. Eyes glued and tears pouring down she celebrated with absolute awe each step Jayathilaka was taking, in crutches to receive his PhD.

“How many roads must a man walk down, before you can call him a man?” the immortal words of Dylan come to my mind. The answer is not in the wind, but in the unbelievable achievement of Jayathilaka who had surmounted all obstacles to stand tall today with his ‘Fluid Dynamics’ doctorate.

It was Jayathilaka who told me how he heard on his first day in school one teacher telling the other “Why is this cripple allowed here? He is going to be a problem’, and the other teacher saying ‘May be he can at least learn to write his name.” That he remembers well along with the other almost ‘fairy tales’ he told me of his childhood and the way he scrabbled to where he is today.

Jayathilaka received repeated double-promotions and he went from the village school to Kurunegala to do his ‘A’ levels where he scored the highest marks in the district and entered Katubedde University to study Mechanical Engineering.

That part had been extremely difficult, Dingiriamma’s meagre earnings from selling vegetables were hardly adequate to support young Jayathilaka. His best eating had been a ‘banis or a malu paan’ at Mallika Bakery and the ‘food-festivals’ they laid out on campus to those who survived on subsidised meals.

I had very close interactions with him at this time. By then he had joined CandleAid Lanka as a sponsored student. I do remember asking him in his last year how he was faring in his Uni work and how he answered in a humble tone “Captain, I am sure of a First Class.” That bowled me completely. Here was a handicapped student crawling in crutches and broke as the ‘ten commandments’ and yet ‘dead-certain’ of his unamplified ability to obtain a First Class Honours degree in the subject he was reading.

Jayathilaka did not get a First Class, what he received was a Super First Class. The journey is now over; Dr. Jayathilaka has been offered employment at the National University of Singapore as a postdoctoral researcher. He will continue there for two more years.

“I want to go back, I like to teach in Sri Lanka, I owe that to my homeland that gave me a free education,” such were his words after the ceremony, spoken in true patriotic vein, sincere and laced with gratitude.
That night we gathered and shared a simple meal to celebrate.

They had brought ‘kalu dodol’ from home, just the right Nuwara Kalaviya touch. Dingiriamma recalled some of the stories of Jayathilaka’s childhood, how he used to crawl around the table when the others were studying and how his brother taught him to write. And how he went to school pushed in his ramshackle wheelchair and how he painfully walked small distances bending and lifting his bad leg with his hand to take a few steps.

These are stories that should not be forgotten. They are rare, of how a mother and son walked an extremely demanding trail from the village of Dandu Bendi Ruppa to the National University of Singapore and a PhD in Fluid Dynamics. I was so privileged to be there to share that rare moment.