The Departure Lounge
I remember the day I was introduced to the Departure Lounge.
It was many years ago – at the time that I was still working as a specialist at the Colombo Children’s Hospital – and I had promised my father that after I finished my Sunday morning ward round that day, I would pick him up from his friend’s place on my way home.
It was about 11 o’ clock by the time I finished my work in hospital, so I drove from Borella to his friend Tissa’s house in Colpetty. By virtue of the fact that Tissa was one of my father’s oldest friends – I believe they had been classmates together in the primary school at Ananda – he had always been called ‘Uncle Tissa’ by me from the time he and his wife had (as he often reminded me) carried me around as a toddler.
As I climbed up the stairs to the living room I could hear several voices raised in what sounded like an animated conversation. In addition to my father there were five other men in the room, all of whom I recognised as “uncles” I had met at various times. They were all about the same vintage as my father and Uncle Tissa – all men who had retired from their jobs in the public service several years before.
“Ah Sanjiva,” exclaimed the host, getting up from his chair to welcome me as I climbed up the stairs, “come and join us. Welcome to the Departure Lounge.”
At my quizzical look, he went on to explain. All the men there were old friends — men who had been together through school or university – and all were in their late seventies. “Every Sunday morning we get together at my place to chat, to reminisce and to talk about old times,” he explained. “We are all now in the evening of our lives and are enjoying the time available to us until we are called up for our inevitable flight to the next world. So we call this meeting place the Departure Lounge.”
I must say it was certainly good company in which to spend the morning. These were men who had been born in the first quarter of the last century, when Sri Lanka was still the British crown colony called Ceylon. They had been schoolboys during colonial times and had gone through university during the time of the Second World War. They had witnessed the transition from colonial rule to independence and then the birth of the democratic socialist republic. Some of them had lived and worked overseas for part of their careers — with UN agencies, the diplomatic service or prestigious universities — and had since returned to Sri Lanka to live out their retirement.
Tissa handed me a beer and gestured to the table on which were plates of murukku and vadai. I helped myself to a handful of the former and one of the latter — a balanced meal — and sat down to listen to the conversation.
And what a fascinating morning it was. The conversation ranged from “And can you remember the time that Sir John told Nehru ….” to “You see, what this young girl Chandrika should do at this stage is `….”
It was nice to hear Chandrika, who was President at the time, referred to as “this young girl” — but these were men who had personally known personalities like S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, Esmond Wickremesinghe and D.A. Rajapakse in their younger days. They were entitled by virtue of age and seniority to talk of Chandrika, Ranil and Mahinda as “this young girl” and “these young fellows”. My father’s friends were men who had moved with kings — or at least the local equivalents of kings — and had in their working life been at the ringside of momentous events in our island’s history. Listening to their conversation was not only interesting but it was also — for a “young fellow” like myself — certainly educational.
As I myself have got older, I have realised that it is a great privilege to grow old in the company of friends — like-minded individuals who have spent their childhood and youth in the same environment as oneself and shared similar life experiences. They need not be friends who agree with you about everything (the conversations that morning evoked arguments about such varied subjects as President Bill Clinton’s behaviour in the White House, the recent resignation of President Suharto in Indonesia, the merits and demerits of the latest movie Titanic and Japan’s entrance to the world of space exploration) but they must be friends with whom you can share a beer and a chat — and the privilege of expressing contradictory opinions in congenial company. I felt privileged to share that morning with my father, Uncle Tissa and his other guests.
Sadly, all those gentlemen with whom I spent that enjoyable Sunday morning over 25 years ago have now left this world – and I myself am now reaching the age at which my father and his friends were when they would meet in the Departure Lounge.
It is time that I too found myself a good Departure Lounge – and a like-minded group of friends with whom I can wait till my flight is called.
And I must also hope that our flights will be delayed for a long, long time.
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