Commentary

27th June 1999

Tribute to Mervyn de Silva

Mervyn: Journalist who did it in style  He laughed at the world  He stood sentinel amidst raging fires This page usually carries the weekly foreign column by veteran journalist Mervyn de Silva. Today as a tribute to this doyen of English journalism,his friends and colleagues share their memories of a man whose eath has brought to an end a chapter in journalism

Mervyn: Journalist who did it in style 

By Willie de Silva

Where there was laughter there was Mervyn. He made it. Not laughing at but with people. Perhaps he looked on the passing scene with a smile at the foibles of the world, the journalists. 

Mervyn de Silva came into journalism after a brilliant career as a student of Royal and a graduate of Peradeniya. He was chosen by Esmond Wickremesinghe who had the knack of tasting out talent. 

So Mervyn entered Lake House. He was a cub among the tigers, like Tarzie, Denzil and Padmanabha. Supremely confident he held his own and his first attempt at journalism received a widespread in the Daily News. Mervyn had arrived. 

With his mastery of the English Language, his talents and a keen mind he could write with style as critic-film and theatre, prose and poetry. Though he knew little of Sinhala he could appreciate and write appreciatively on 'Gamperaliya' and Maname.' 

During the 1956 election he followed S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike on his campaign trail and confidently predicted a landslide victory for the MEP. He liked the style of SWRD because his oratory was in the grand style as his journalist writing was. Thus his admiration for Henry Kissinger whose shuttle diplomacy opened doors to China. He studied Mao and his thoughts and his Red Book fired his imagination. 

With the take-over of Lake House by government in 1973 there were major changes in the Editorial chairs. Mervyn headed the Daily News editor- in-Chief of all Lake House newspapers and a Director of the Board. 

As politics began to poke its finger into the working of newspapers the fortunes of keymen in newspaper changed. So was it with Mervyn. 1977 saw him leave Lake House and join The Sunday Times. 

That too did not last long. As JR took over the Times, Mervyn left and started his magazine Lanka Guardian, which he edited. The Guardian had a wide readership here and abroad. It was a must reading for students of politics, specially for its comments on the local political scene. 

His time was put to good use with contributions to local newspapers. He wrote a column on foreign affairs for The Sunday Times. His study of foreign affairs which was new to him when SWRD suggested that he give a local flavour. Since then he had turned into a classic commentator. 

He came with the copy every week at 11 am. He would hand over the article and say, 'Willie' once a journalist always a journalist! Mervyn had made it before the deadline. He was ill and it was telling on him but he was determined to hand over the copy on time. Some days he complained of tiredness and asked for a glass of water to refresh himself. 

The last Friday he came here he said he was very tired and felt faintish. He could not make it to subs' cubicle but sat a few feet away, waved the copy and beckoned me. He told me, 'Willie I feel faintish and tired. I'll sit here for a while" Then he recounted his doctor prescribing his drugs and adding the last line.:One glass of beer. "It's time for the beer." and walked away, perhaps, to his favourite waterhole club for the glass of beer. 

It was not for the beer itself but what it brought with it, friends, conversation, wit and laughter. 

Mervyn was stylist even as the other great stylist and perfectionist Fred de Silva who was his contemporary. He was the fruit of a season; other seasons will bring other fruits. But he was the last of the stylists in English journalism. As Ajith laments one of the last line of greats in what is increasingly becoming an impoverished calling! So we lament. 

He laughed at the world 

H.L.D.Mahindapala.

In hindsight, it is just as well that Mervyn de Silva's son, Dayan, paid him a fitting tribute when he was living. Not that he needed one. He knew what he was worth and there is hardly anything that anyone else could have added to his self-esteem or self-knowledge. 

Dayan's portrait of his father, however, illuminated the little known aspects of his father's life to the public who had known him only through his by-line. Dayan's comprehensive pen-portrait left nothing to be added to it. The rest is likely to be more anecdotal, or a narration of personal relationships with the doyen of Sri Lankan journalism.

After the departure of Denzil Peiris and Tarzie Vittachi he survived as the sole remaining icon of our time. He was also representative of our time that relied heavily on irony as a weapon to attack a world that had lost its traditional moorings. The 20th century had used up all other moral and emotional responses and as it moved towards the brink of a nuclear holocaust and came out of it (?) irony was the last available weapon left to defend and attack. It was a medium that suited his personality and his professional needs. Journalism without a touch of irony is like Sinhala New Year without kavun and kokis. 

He developed this medium to a fine art and excelled in giving an ironic twist to anything that irked his conscience. It was his way of responding to the bizarre antics of the world. In a sense, Mervyn was right. What else can you do except to laugh at an incorrigible world? 

And his capacity to laugh was as big as the Indian Ocean. He was a raconteur par excellence and his stories invariably had a sardonic sting in the tail. Some might even say that he was a cynic. Reading or listening to his ironic barbs one wondered whether he believed in anything at all.

Yes, he did. His ideals were for a different kind of world—perhaps, a more tidy world without any political buffoonery, intellectual treachery and the cant of hypocrites. 

He pilloried bureaucrats and academic gobbledegook. The last one I remember was a long sentence that ran into a paragraph through a convoluted verbal path which would have won the first prize for synthetic and pompous punditry.

Whenever he knew that "The time has come? To talk of many things" he chose not to talk of shoes, ships and cabbages. He talked only of kings. But he had no favourites. He treated them alike, with a touch of irony. 

Mervyn was always his own man. He could not be tamed by the powers-that-be. It was an outlet that gave him and his talents full rein. It fitted his intellect, temperament and his working hours too. 

He instinctively refused to be tied down to a desk. He was more the wandering nomad of journalism. 

Though he could have shone brilliantly in the legal profession (he did go to law college), or even in the civil service, the traditional route for some of the bright sparks of the English Department, he stuck to journalism. Journalistic adventures on the cutting edge of history lured him and kept him there throughout his career.

Mervyn was well known and received in the journalistic community of the SAARC region. I've heard diplomats say that they would first turn to Mervyn's column before reading anything else. There is, no doubt, that if you lived in his time you had to read him.

Mervyn lived in the 20th century and passed away leaving behind a legacy of excellence to the coming generations of journalists who will inescapably face the agonies and ecstasies of their new millennium. Some in the next generation may consider him to be role model though it is a rather ambitious goal to achieve. It is difficult for those in any century to imitate a legend of another.

The writer is a former Editor of the Observer

He stood sentinel amidst raging fires

The Editor's Guild of Sri Lanka deeply regrets to record the death of Mervyn de Silva, our founder President and the doyen of the nation's working journalists.

During a long and illustrious career that has spanned 45 years, Mervyn's contribution to English journalism in particular has been unique and exemplary. From the days he began his trail blazing career as a political writer in the Observer in the 1950s he rose to greater heights to be an accomplished Editor-in-Chief of all Lake House newspapers. 

The vagaries of political turbulence in the 1960s and 1970s tossed him from position to position. He had his ups and downs but he stood sentinel amidst the raging fires. And through it all he bore malice to none and showed magnanimity to all, committing himself to the ideals of a true professional. 

Mervyn founded the Lanka Guardian of which he remained Managing Editor for several years. He was also an eminent Foreign Correspondent, contributing to a host of the most prestigious international journals like Newsweek, The New York Times, the Times of India, The Guardian, The Financial Times, The Economist, The Far Eastern Economic Review, as well as to the BBC.

He was acknowledged as Sri Lanka's foremost news analyst on foreign affairs for nearly three decades. He was equally adept with his pen as he was when he chose to speak before a microphone.

Few in his tribe have brushed shoulders with the high and mighty as he did. In Colombo and during his world travels he met and interviewed Heads of State, dictators, generals, revolutionaries, authors, academics, scientists and a plethora of other personalities. Yet he maintained his common touch with the common man. He wined, dined conversed and socialised equally comfortably with both as any journalist should.

At the time of his demise, Mervyn was involved in a most noble task. He ventured through the Newspaper Society to impart his vast experience and outstanding skills in teaching to a new generation of journalists. That his passing away had to come at a time such as this is a greater loss. 

The Editor's Guild of Sri Lanka pays tribute to Mervyn for having enriched our profession, and for this worthy contribution to journalism in Sri Lanka. 

Hulftsdorp Hill

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