APPRECIATIONS
View(s):An all-rounder in the truest sense
Tambyah Murugaser
I thought long and hard before I put finger to keyboard to write this eulogy to my father, whose 101st birth anniversary falls today – July 28.
Muru, as he was affectionately known, “Appa” to me, was born with the proverbial silver spoon to a prominent Tamil family. His maternal grandfather was Sir Ponnambalam Arunachalam, the erudite scholar and statesman, and his father the property tycoon, Murugaser Tambyah.
Muru’s academic career in Royal College was crowned by the Lorensz Prize, awarded to outstanding Classics students. He was one of those amazing all-round students, whom we don’t see very many of these days due to the heavy emphasis on academia. He opened batting for the First Eleven, played soccer, tennis and table tennis for the college and also indulged in rifle-shooting while being a member of the college Cadet Corps. I believe he was a Coloursman in all those that offered the award.
I remember my grandmother telling me how she surreptitiously bought him his cricket gear, to avoid him being reprimanded by his father for neglecting his studies. If I recall correctly, his father didn’t even know that he played in the Royal-Thomian in 1941. He played in 1942 too.
One of Muru’s biggest regrets was that he wasn’t allowed to study at Cambridge (the family had a long lineage of Cambridge scholars) on account of World War Two, as his brother Professor T. Nadaraja, (later to become Dean of the Law Faculty) was allowed to do. Muru entered University College, the precursor to the University of Ceylon, in Colombo. He continued following his passion, Classics, and secured a Second Upper, while captaining the University cricket team. He also represented the University at tennis and table tennis. Appa could play just about any sport.
In 1947, he married his childhood sweetheart Maheswari, who happened to be his first cousin. They were a smart, well-groomed couple and very socially involved. They were intrepid travellers both in Sri Lanka and abroad. They had a daughter Sarla, a son Pratap and me!
Muru joined the star-studded Tamil Union side, which won the inaugural P. Sara Division One tournament in the 1951/52 season. Some of his contemporaries in that side were Sathi Coomaraswamy, M. Sathasivam, Kasipillai, Dharmalingam and the brothers Parathalingam and Jayalingam. He continued playing for the Club for many years, captaining it, and then ending up as President, and Patron in his later years. The Tamil Union honoured him by naming its prestigious “B” block after him, for which the family is deeply grateful.
He loved sharing stories of his early days and would proudly tell me of his first job cycling from butcher to butcher as a meat inspector in the Food Dept. Obviously, this was not his true calling as he entered the Inland Revenue Department, and swiftly demonstrated his prowess with the taxation process.
The enaction of the Official Languages Act in the late fifties saw a mass exodus from the government service and my father was no exception. He was warmly accepted into the mercantile sector, where his good friend and mentor Terrence De Soysa welcomed him to the country’s biggest rubber exporter C. W. Mackie and Company.
He retired in the mid-eighties as Senior Director in charge of Finance, Personnel and Administration, and many are the tales I’ve been told by people who worked for him of how he nurtured them in their careers, sorted out their personal and financial problems, and steered the company through the turbulent early seventies with the insurrections, strikes et al.
Muru did not confine himself to the rubber industry alone. He was a Director of the Central Freight Bureau, Chairman of the Sri Lanka Shippers’ Council and was instrumental in setting up the Association of Shippers’ Councils of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka (ASCOBIPS), and for his efforts, was made its Founder Chairman, which was quite an achievement, given the status of his contemporaries from the other countries.
He was also invited to serve on many Boards – Ceylon Shipping Lines, Riverina Hotels, Eden Hotels, Ladyhill Hotels, Ceylon Services and Supplies are some I remember. He had a gut instinct for commerce and business and was one of the first investors in tourism, which soon developed into being a thrust industry of the future for Sri Lanka. He was so convinced that I too was shepherded into the fledgling Aitken Spence Travels as one of its first three employees.
Appa lived, loved, and breathed cricket. Soon after his retirement from playing the game, he became extensively involved in the then Board of Control for Cricket in Sri Lanka (BCCSL), ably led by Dudley Senanayake’s brother Robert. A dedicated band of people guided cricket into the major leagues, working pro bono and many times dipping into their own pockets to ‘get the job done’. I still remember the early morning starts on match days and late nights this fun-loving, multi-ethnic band of die-hard cricket enthusiasts endured.
I don’t think there was a prouder man than Appa when, as Vice President of the Cricket Board under Gamini Dissanayake, Sri Lanka attained Test Status in 1981. They had compiled the bid and other processes presented by Gamini to the TCCB in his own inimitable way. Implementing the plans was also their responsibility.
Appa was overjoyed that the Colombo Oval, owned by the Tamil Union, was the venue for the inaugural Test Match in 1982. In July 1983, just after our first Test win over India on this very ground, the Oval Pavilion was burnt to the ground by a hostile mob, all its treasured documents, records and photographs lost. Appa was heartbroken but along with the Club Committee at the time (people like Dr. G. Wignarajan, Chandra Schaffter, Felix Perumal, Tryphon Mirando, Somasunderam Skandakumar, P. Somasunderam (also the BCCSL Treasurer then), and others too numerous to mention here, they put their shoulders to the wheel and raised funding to rebuild the Club.
I don’t think there was a happier man than Appa when he was appointed Manager of the Sri Lanka World Cup Cricket team in 1983 under Duleep Mendis. Players like Roy Dias and Sidath Wettimuny still regale me with anecdotes about my father and Sir Gary Sobers, Consultant to the Board on that tour and a legendary party animal. Muru was the ultimate social diplomat, comfortably able to network at all levels of society.
An important facet of his life was his clubs – he was also President of the 80 Club (where many a Saturday afternoon was spent, much to my mother’s chagrin!), CR & FC and the Golf Club.
Muru also loved spending time on his Annaletchumy estate, a little over 100 acres of coconut and paddy in Nattandiya. He would visit almost every weekend, and stay over at the lovely old bungalow on the property. Savouring the cool breezes, the inspection walks, the home-cooked food (including lagoon crabs, if we got lucky), and his beloved milk cows brought him deep contentment. Although there was no electricity, he had hooked up a Lister generator, so we could get a few hours of evening light before bed. He ensured that he kept up with the latest cultivation techniques to obtain bountiful crops.
Given all this activity, it is fair to say that in my early years, I didn’t get to see much of my father. He took a keen interest in my life when I was well into my late-twenties – especially when my family and I decided to seek greener pastures in Australia in 1988. He was overjoyed when I returned in 1992 for a few years, as he then got to know his two grand-daughters Divya and Archana, and I know how much he enjoyed having us all together.
This was probably when I got closest to him and was able to absorb a lot of what he knew about “mice and men”. I know I am the better man for the advice I gained, and it has helped me immensely in both my business and personal life. It’s difficult to encapsulate all the facets of his marvellous life but I’ve tried my best!
Suresh Murugaser
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