Rajpal's Column

Never mind the editor, this was his life

By Rajpal Abeynayake

The passing away of a journalist would ide- ally interest the cosy journalistic community alone, but if the man was someone whose story any biographer worth his salt would want to have a go at, then it's a different matter.

So much has been written about Mervyn de Silva since his death last week, therefore this definitely is not a hagiography. But if one believes that one glorious hour of life beats a lifetime spent in boredom, then definitively Mervyn de Silva's life, which would have contained several of those glorious hours, would be interesting material for any writer, reader or maverick. 

Perhaps it was in Peradeniya that Mervyn first decided, consciously or through some pained process of growing-up, that he is going to set himself up as the ideal foil to the crusty old establishment. Knowing Mervyn, it's astute to think that the decision was a conscious one. 

Though the anecdote has now assumed almost cliché proportions among journalistic circles, the one about Mervyn and Ludowyke is worth repeating. Ludowyke was the reigning deity nay god almighty in the English department, and Mervyn was his supremely restless student. 

One day, as they are fond of recalling these things at the invigorating watering holes, Mervyn had walked in to Ludowyke's lecture a full forty five minutes late. Ludowyke was in full flight, and the lecturer had enough legitimate reason to fancy himself as the wittiest and the brightest soul in the room. Ergo, he is supposed to have decided to have some fun at de Silva's expense. As Silva passed by the lectern, Ludowyke turned to him and said, "Mr. De Silva, I suppose you have come after your afternoon siesta.'' The repartee apparently was quick. "No sir, I have come for my afternoon siesta,'' said the student, and thus probably bade goodbye to his first class in English.

This authoritative irrelevance never seems to have left him in later life, and it earned more detractors than admirers (most of whom if nothing else, were lesser endowed than him in the wit department). In his time he is supposed to have dismissed a colleague who was getting too big for his boots, saying "my shoe knows more journalism than you do.'' Now, now… 

But in a country where one cannot these days do a review of a bad play without being called a cantankerous curmudgeon, Mervyn de Silva's crustiness was always reassuring to journalists or perhaps the few of them who still kept to the bluntspoken traditions of pugnacious commentary. 

Faults he had many, but somehow, hats off to his panache and manner, he seemed to wear these like decorations. Many say that he was diffused and rambling in his later years as a columnist but that's only to be expected. But in the waning seventies and early eighties when English language journalism was turning a corner and there was an efflorescence of new talent and technology in the profession with the advent of (then) brave new papers like the Island, Mervyn still was there. 

Now, a lot of the younger generation wouldn't know what he wrote as Deadalus at Lake House, but many would remember with nostalgia the Sunday morning barbs in Kautilya which could make a man's day — provided the man was halfway intelligent. 

Every columnist (worth his salt again) has his style, and Mervyn's was the style of the intentionally clever. He seemed to want to show that he was being clever, and if anybody thought so, it was as if he was saying, well, so be it (… and stuff it….) 

And so, if only a few writers could take the tedium out of puns, Mervyn's were the most demonic in their wit. In 1989, when there was a very suspect election in the offing, Kautilya as most columnists did, hinted that the election was going to be less that pretty. As foretold , the elections turned out to be rather chaotic and riddled in malpractice.

In the post-election Kautilya piece, Mervyn somewhere middleway in his column let slip that "……Howard Wriggins couldn't have predicted the outcome of this elections.'' ( Poor Howard Wriggins, former American Ambassador and political analyst of the Sri Lankan scene!) Then again, on a typical day, when Professor Carlo Fonseka got involved in one of his ding dong battles and went into didactic mood, Mervyn intoned " dhamassavana Carlo….'', before he launched into Carlo's particular beef of the day.

This man Mervyn, the journalist of the breaking-story who had a healthy disdain for journalistic pretenders from academia was nevertheless more readable and more incisive than the academics historians and political scientists of his time. Reason being simply that he had a great mind — astute, and wittily original. 

Small wonder he settled for journalism after having nodded at a career in law, and having got his name up there with some of the greats as the winner of the Hector Jayawardene Gold Medal. (The Hector Jayawardene is the hall of fame for successful lawyers who generally went on to become the professions stars, or some other professions stars, as the case may be . Among the winners were J R and H W Jayewardene and Felix Dias Bandaranaike. The award, incidentally, is for address to the jury and not oratory as commonly stated in most newspapers.) 

What's said about Mervyn de Silva by the veterans of Lake House journalism is indubitable, but he straddled two eras in journalism, one the so-called golden age of Lake House and the other the post - takeover, post-linotype era beginning the eighties. The cliché is to say an era has ended, and perhaps one era in journalism has ended with de Silva's death. But another still lives, inspired in some measure and somewhat headily by what used to be his presence. 

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