APPRECIATIONS
View(s):The unforgettable Aunty Leela of Kandy
Leela Bibile
Growing up in Kandy, our lives were dotted by larger-than-life personalities, all friends of our parents.
Sadly, many of them including Daddy (Dr. Mark Amerasinghe), Uncle Bibs (Prof. Senaka Bibile), Uncle Bas (Prof. Valentine Basnayake) and Uncle Barr (Prof. Barr Kumarakulasinghe) have passed on.
Last week, the most elegant and vivacious of them all – Aunty Leela, left us too.
Musical evenings were very much a part of our lives then. Known as P4’s (only Kandy folks who grew up in the ’70s would probably know of these), these classical evenings, were much awaited events. Of course, we children would sometimes doze off and awaken when Uncle Bas would move on to the lively finale movement of a classical piece or Daddy would sing a light classic. These were hosted in any one of the above-mentioned homes and I recall such evenings at Uncle Bibs’s and Aunty Leela’s too when they were living in the campus bungalows.
Uncle Bibs and Aunty Leela later built their own beautiful home atop a hill in Anniewatte. Although we lived in Anniewatte too, a visit to their house was always quite an adventure. For one, back then going “up” to Aunty Leela’s, as we would say, was quite a thrill as there were two sharp bends to take and a steep hill. Sometimes, if Daddy couldn’t take the bend in one go, he would have to reverse and since it was quite an incline and a sharp precipice, it used to be quite scary for the four of us siblings seated in the back seat of the car, especially at night. It was a unique, modern looking house. One had to go up a little incline and then reverse into the area in front of their garage.
We then entered the house through a flight of wooden steps and there at the top, would be Aunty Leela with her ankle-length hair, looking elegant and welcoming us with a beaming smile. We loved that house. As we took the flight of wooden steps, on to the left was a huge batik wall hanging; some of Keyt’s paintings and sketches adorned the walls. It was a beautiful home and the view as dusk fell was spectacular. We would get a panoramic view of the Hanthana hills, then devoid of ungainly constructions. A few lights would flicker from the hills and the chilly night breeze would add to the magic. While Daddy, Amma, Aunty Leela and Uncle Bibs would be sipping their drinks and chatting, we four girls sought our favourite spot, a white woolly rug draped on a wooden platform bedecked with pot plants. We would sit there, dangling our legs, listening and enjoying the grown-ups’ conversations.
Uncle Bibs and Aunty Leela were an elegant couple and always complemented each other whether in attire, deed, interests in life or even narrating stories. They were so much a part of our childhood years including our birthday parties and more. When on a social visit, Uncle Bibs would always be dressed in his batik sarongs and Aunty Leela in her elegant Kandyan sarees. In later years, still looking elegant, she shifted to the lungi.
With Uncle Bibs’s passing, sadly in the prime of his life, Lilani, Aunty Leela’s daughter became her constant companion in life. With the years we would await their visits as Aunty Leela and Lilani would regale us with their entertaining stories, narrated with such animation and character imitation. Aunty Leela’s eyes would crinkle up as she would burst into laughter at the end of a humorous story, tears streaming down her face and all of us in fits of laughter.
Aunty Leela’s magnetic personality, drew many interesting people to her home.
Once when my sister was on a flight from India, an Indian gentleman seated next to her got chatting. When he knew she was from Kandy, he mentioned how he had visited this beautiful home, graced by a vivacious mother and daughter duo. Immediately my sister had asked, “Is it by any chance Leela and Lilani” and he said, “Oh my goodness, yes. Do you know them?” Such was the impression Aunty Leela made on anyone she met.
Despite Aunty Leela’s frailty in the past few years, Lilani would make it a point to invite a few close friends and relatives for her birthdays, even as recently as April when Aunty Leela turned 95. Lilani took care of Aunty Leela with great devotion even taking her up to Kandy to their beautiful home on and off. Lilani’s staff too adored Aunty Leela. Her passing will truly leave a void in Lilani’s life.
Thank you for the wonderful memories, Aunty Leela.
Ishika
Eminent and compassionate Anaesthetist
Dr. Mal Weerasinghe
It is with great sadness and gratitude that I pen these words in memory of my dear Loku Amma who passed away three months ago.
Dr. Malini Padmalatha Weerasinghe or Dr. Mal as she was popularly known to her friends, was born in 1936 at her maternal ancestral house in Ahangama.
Although her strong personality sometimes portrayed a strict demeanor outwardly, deep inside she had the kindest of hearts, full of compassion. It is hard to find anyone in her immediate or extended family that was not touched by that kindness and compassion. And so, she was always sought after and trusted for any matter in the family, especially when it came to medical advice.
She was an ardent animal lover, and was known for her extraordinary acts of kindness to all animals wherever she went. Once when driving she noticed a bull limping and struggling to draw a heavy cart. She followed the cart to the owner’s home and noticed an injury on the bull’s leg. Afterwards she had advised the owner to attend to the wound and to rest the animal till it recovered. She had given enough money to the owner for treatment and to cover the income he would lose. This was typical of Loku Amma. She had this compassion for both man and beast alike.
The decisions she took when helping others were extraordinarily selfless. Acts of kindness if gone wrong could have hurt her, but she didn’t think of consequences to her when she helped. She did it out of the pure goodness of her heart.
Loku Amma was the eldest in a family of two girls and two boys. Her father D.E Weerasinghe was a headmaster at Ananda College Colombo and a respected community leader in Gampaha. Her mother Seelawathie Weerasinghe, a housewife, was one of the first batch of students during the inception of Visakha Vidyalaya Colombo. After Loku Amma’s birth, her father named the house “Padmagiri” after her second name Padmalatha.
Her primary education was initially at the Ananda College branch Gampaha. Her secondary education was at Musaeus College Colombo where she won class prizes regularly and moved to Ladies’ College for her A’ Levels. Although a bright student, she twice failed in her attempts to get through to Medical College, and her father advised her to choose another degree. But her passion for medicine was such that she implored her father to let her sit one last time and got through.
She belonged to the first batch of students at the newly founded Peradeniya Medical Faculty and had the privilege of closely associating with stalwarts such as Prof. Senaka Bibile and Dr. Osmund Jayaratne. Those associations had a lasting impression on Loku Amma’s principles and outlook to life.
She travelled to the UK after her postgraduate degree in Anaesthesia and fell in love with Europe and its culture. I still remember how we as kids sat around with the whole family as Loku Amma enthusiastically portrayed photos of her travels to us, as a slideshow on a projector.
She also had a deep affection and pride for Sri Lanka and Buddhism. And however much she loved travelling and learning about different cultures she never forgot her roots and was happiest when serving the downtrodden people in rural Sri Lanka, her beloved motherland.
The crowning moment of her career was when she was elected as President of the College of Anesthesiologists of Sri Lanka in 2001. She got there through sheer dedication and hard work.
She was very conscious of others’ suffering and as an anaesthetist was blessed to relieve the pain of thousands of patients. I remember once she noticed how frail patients without subcutaneous fat suffered pain when taken on metal stretchers without mats. And she donated cushioned mats specially made for trolleys transporting patients. Such was her empathy.
In her day it was quite easy to emigrate to greener pastures and many an opportunity came her way, but her priority was her parents and her family. She always wanted to be there personally to care for her parents when they needed her, and she was indeed blessed in that endeavor. She took care of all their medical needs to relieve discomfort and pain and enabled a long and comfortable life for both. She took them to Dambhadiva for the ultimate pilgrimage which was her proudest moment.
All these blessings came to fruition in her old age, where although she suffered from dementia and was bed-bound for four long years, she was rarely in discomfort or pain as she was lovingly taken care of by her close family who attended to her every need.
She finally passed away very peacefully without any discomfort or pain.
Dear Loku Amma, Loku Akka and Loku Nanda, you will always be close to our hearts, and be remembered with eternal gratitude for all that you did for us.
May you attain the Supreme Bliss of Nibbhana.
Sunethsri Jayasinghe
Remembering his subtle performances
BRIAN RUTNAM
Brian Rutnam in “The Caucasian Chalk Circle´”
Some days ago, Brian Rutnam left us. His period of illness was peaceful and short, ending with a gradual decline of the heart. To speculate whether a sudden exit is more blessed than to have time to think about it while ending, may not be necessary for thoughts about the end need not be depressive, if the mind encourages itself to be active alongside feelings of sadness about departing from family loves. Thoughts, composed arrangements in the mind about an afterlife as well as the concept of nothingness.
Brian had such an intellect, self-acquired or inherited from the family progression, or both. His family is too well-known in Lanka for me to occupy more than brief space. He was the son of Walter and Doreen (Ferdinands) Rutnam – Walter was the son of Christmas and Mary Rutnam, a Canadian. Mary has been much written of in Lankan journals and newspapers as a woman deeply and humbly patriotic in another country, a way of saying, dedicated to the country of humanity. Brian inherited this quality.
My wife Nalini and I met and became friends of Brian in the Colombo Lionel Wendt days of the 1960’s. Those still around will remember his wonderfully elusive performances in many plays of that decade. Brian was a very subtle actor, an insightful interpreter of the playwright’s suggestions of the human condition. I recall a line in his performance as a wayward priest in Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle, presiding over a woman being married to a man on his deathbed, for political reasons.
“My dear wedding and funeral guests deeply touched we stand before this bed of death and marriage.”
This line the memory brought back, with another view, when a few days ago I visualised Brian’s wife Laleen seated by his side at the hospital bed, holding his hand, both of them knowing that their marriage of love was slowly breaking up, but only temporally. It was a “bed of death and marriage”, in that Sydney hospital.
Laleen Jayamanne, Brian’s wife has recorded that for her creative work, her husband was always a complement, keeping her on track as sometimes she loosened into wild excursions in thought. This was interesting because Brian was not of the beaten track himself. He once told me he regretted missing out on Peradeniya University, his family having channelled him to Cambridge.
Some words Nalini wrote yesterday relate. “He was one of a kind and not quite like anyone else I know. Kind-hearted, even being silent when offended by another’s behaviour. His privately slanted face though, gave expression, which occasionally I chanced to interpret.”
He was due to be an earthly grandfather in the coming November, daughter Anusha’s first baby, identified as a boy, in the extents of human knowing. In the great unknown, it can be imagined, in comfort, that as the grandson is on his way here Brian will greet him.
Ernest Macintyre
You were a gift we will forever cherish
Naomi de S. Wijeyeratne
We give thanks for the life of our little angel Naomi on her first death anniversary. She was the beacon of light in our world. Her life was a dance of innocence, a symphony of laughter, a treasure of love.
As a family, we grew, we learned, and we loved all through Naomi’s grace. She was our teacher, our inspiration, our guiding light. Her innocence taught us the beauty of simplicity, her gentle smile taught us the joy of living, her love taught us the power of kindness.
Naomi girl, although your physical presence may be absent your spirit lives on. Your laughter echoes in our hearts, your love surrounds us, your spirit guides us. You were a blessing in our lives, a gift we will forever cherish, a love we will forever hold.
Although your loving eyes echo still through dark skies, we thank you for the love, laughter, lessons, memories and joy of being our little girl. You will always be loved, always be missed, and forever be remembered.
Rest well, with ease, Noma Boonja until we all meet again!
Vinodini Jayawardena
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