We made history

We made history…..

On the request of some young Sylvestrians, last few days I was cajoling with the idea of writing my past experiences with my alma mater. Out of the many school day incidents during the sixties an irresistible but scarcely credible incident, yet true to its last word, related to the big match with Vidyartha kept haunting my mind.

The heroes of our team were Mevyn Rodrigo who never spoke in Sinhala with a European suit-clad dad who owned a garage quite close to our school premises and Sarath Basnayake who hailed from a simple family at Katukele with a dad who excelled as a tailor.

Mervyn Rodrigo excelled with the bat and represented the Sri Lankan schoolboy team on a tour to Australia.

Bassa, as he was called at that time, was a fast bowler and excelled in athletics too. I was his buddy since I too was a fast bowler and an athlete too, although I never joined the cricket team. That was due to a brawl I had with the cricket coach.

During the sixties, there were no tents, no car parades but only cheering squads.

Apart from “ we are the jolly jolly Sylvestrians” there was “ he's a jolly good fellow…” sung throughout the encounter with Gorilla, Singhaya, Zimbo, Mark කොටා, හොට්ට, Pytho, Pun, Amare, Napoleon, Kandiah, Nille and many others from the staff keeping a keen eye on the infamous rascals like Arthur Lowden, myself, දෑල, Nihal Java, Micheal Kulatunge, Chin and a few others.

Gorilla -  Mr. D.J.N.Seneviratne, the Principal

who had an unblemished record as one of the best Principals, drove a black Peugeot 203 car. He had a very strong wife with two daughters and one son. It was rumoured that his success at school was due to the petticoat government at home. I always argued against this because she was such a lovely lady and we were family friends.

Singhaya - Mr. Singharachchi, a strict disciplinarian who taught history had two sons and the elder son was a classmate of mine. During this time “Singhaya” was a popular brand in aerated waters and their publicity drive was boosted by a rhythmic verse broadcast frequently by Radio Ceylon. Between periods when Mr. Singharachchi entered the class we sang this verse and the class starts with a cherry red faced teacher.

Zimbo - Mr. M.O.Fernando, a bald headed sinhala teacher in baggy ගොනා කානුවෙ trousers worn far above the naval was a very decent gentleman who sported a “ Bombay lookin Calcutta” look due to his squint eyes. During this time a Tarzan type Tamil movie was screened at Wembley Theatre and as he enters the classroom we all get up and say “Good Morning Sir” with a few of the rascals shouting “Good Morning Zimbo”

At this exact moment whoever is closest to him gets a thundering slap amidst the roaring laughter from the hard nuts who are always seated at the rearmost row of seats.

මාක් කොටා - Mr. Mark the librarian who expected students to call him as Sir. The hard nuts never obliged and that included me. I hated him for no valid reason but my conscience bothered me when he was seen entering my favorite teachers house every evening. Miss. Seetha Fernando wore her saree in a very cute manner and for the rascals, she looked very sexy. I was almost in love with her and hated a short alien like Mark going after her. Somehow he won her heart and got married.

Getting back to this particular big match which made history as the first car parade within the whole of Sri Lanka, I am compelled to limit my nutty episodes on the staff to avoid making this write up going into volumes.

The next week started with the usual announcement “ Attention please, please pay attention” the rough and most unwanted voice of the Principal came through the public address system. During this time, even though I cannot vouch to the fact that only Sylvesters had a public address system in the whole of Sri Lanka, yet I am sure it was the case when it comes to Kandy schools.

The usual announcement complimented the team and the coach for their performances and culminated with a footnote requesting some or all of the above-named rascals to come to the principal's office immediately. Punishment time as seen through the eyes of the staff but we treated this as compensation for the heroic and witty cheering squad who contributed to the morale of the players.

“ Kamal Chandrasiri of JSC class please come to the office immediately” At that time grade, 8 was JSC or junior school certificate and held the selection exam that divided the class into science or arts. For science students then comes prep 1, prep 2 and SSC. If you qualify, you go to  HSC 1 then to HSC2 and to University. For art students, there is only prep 1 before SSC.

I immediately sensed the outcome of this whole episode.

A few days before the big match my good friend Stanley Perera met me at his house at Katukele. Since he had an elder sister and two younger sisters, I preferred to go there rather than him coming to my house for obvious reasons. His elder sister Mallika was a high school girl where we often change the spellings from High to Thigh on our way back home after a 9.30 movie at Regal theatre.

The next morning the Principal at Girls THigh School could be seen washing the name board making it Girls High School.

I had a strong crush on Mallika who was a famous netball player who went to the extent of captaining the Sr Lanka Team. She was much elder to me but age was no barrier for me for a brief fling although my childhood girlfriend was in Galle. It never materialized and even to this date, I am sure Mallika never knew about this.

“ Machang, we must find a car for the big match”

Stanley was an Antonian and was the only son of Mr Perera an old car dealer with a tummy that hung down to his knees probably hiding his testicles.Stanley has access to all the cars in the car sale but, only during the night. Whenever we stole a car we raced against the sun to keep it in place before the sun rises. He was also a great mechanic and could do marvels with cars. This time we needed a car for two days for the St. Anthony's big match as well as the Sylvester’s. That means for about 2 weeks.

We were expert radicals and always excelled in executing radical ideas which are stranger than fiction that could be turned into volumes if the time permits for me to lay them down in black and white.

I had no idea how I could get our hands on a car. That was beyond my imagination. Give me any mathematical equation, I will solve it or get me into any brawl, I will come out of it unscathed. But this was out of my world. I was only brains and he was the practical guy. On top of that, I knew that he already had an idea.

“ There is an old car at Deiyannewela, shall we go and try it”

I never hesitate even to be the devil's dentist. I am also confident of his prowess to lure an Eskimo to buy a refrigerator.

In minutes we were staring at an old Ford car covered with dust parked by the side of his uncle's house with all four tyres flat on the ground. His first job of luring the owner to part with this scrap was as easy as finding a girlfriend from Mahamaya.

A battery was not a problem since there was a handle and as an athlete who had won the under 16 champion athlete trophy, it was an easy task once I got the hang of it.

Just a few feet away was a කමත where straw was in abundance. When he started pulling out the tyres, I brought heaps of straw from the කමත. We packed all four tyres with straw and started the engine after cleaning the spark plugs. Albeit we were dead tired at the end of the day the engine started and we drove a few meters with the gallon of petrol we bought at less than Rs. 2. The tyres went flat again.

We opened the tyres again to see the straw already ground to smithereens but filled the tyres again with extra straw stacked on the back seat. I did not have a count on how many times we refilled the tyres but ultimately we invented our own version of ගල් tyres and the next day we started driving this car around Kandy town.

On the day of the big match, I spent most of my time singing “we are the jolly…..” on the roof of this car while Stanley drove the car around Police grounds.

We created history at the big match between Sylvesters and Vidyartha and subsequently at the big match between Anthonys and Trinity.

At the Principal's office, I stood very obediently in attention while the Principal gave me a heavy warning sporting a tough expression on his face but did not cane me. When I left his office I undoubtedly sensed humour on his face. He too was enjoying the episode.

By: ka-se blogspot: blogwithkase.com