Instructor Lieutenant Commander, SLN

The 1960s were the years when we were young, the world was young and we were in the Navy. Just three of us, all from the same vintage of the only University then. Robert Abeysingha, Bala Mahadewa and I. Robert was the first to go. Then, it was Bala.

Bala was my closest friend in the Navy. We had been exact contemporaries in the University, but after one term at Thurstan Road I went up the hills to Peradeniya fifty years ago. In the programmes of our stage plays then Bala’s name occurs among the group of "Ludeken’s boys" who handled the lights, sound, and curtains. But our friendship was to blossom far away in time and space from the groves of Academe, in a Naval training school, Her Majesty’s Ceylon Ship "Rangalla", amongst the rolling hills of Diyatalawa.

We were Instructor Officers, both of us, teaching different subjects to recruits, Artificer apprentices and Officer cadets. We shared a spacious cabin in the Wardroom, till he left us bachelors to marry Pathma, who had been a year junior to me in Peradeniya. I would spend much of my time in their house. Pathma and Bala knew my tastes in food (he and I shared a liking for what he called "village vegetables") and when, in time, I got married they taught my wife my favourite foods.

In those spacious days, a good friend of one became the good friend of all the family. So Bala became close to my family and my father was "Uncle" to him. They had much in common, particularly in the matter of punctuality: so much so that, when I delayed to reply a letter, Bala would get one urging him to prompt me! Like an elder brother he got me to open a bank account. I remember his brother meeting my father, a Buddhist worker, to plead that the plight of the Hindus be also linked to that of the Buddhists. How right he was!

Our families grew specially close when we were in Trincomalee. Pathma and Bala loved children and were all the children’s favourites but, alas! they couldn’t have any of their own. Our children were part of their lives — peering over shoulders while Bala experimented with potato and beet "wine" sitting at their feet to enjoy the wholehearted attention they got (unlike at home!), sitting on the steps of the Kovil to get the "goodies" that were passed around on festival days, taking part in the celebrations of Maha Siva Rathri day and other festival days. What a wonderful way for children to learn that it did not matter whether we were Sinhala or Tamil, Buddhist or Hindu.

We both finished with the Navy around the same time and both found careers in mercantile service. He became the Manager of Palm Garden Hotel virtually building it. Later, he managed both that and Confifi Hotel, built the Riverina and became a Director of Confifi Hotels Ltd. This was the most comfortable time of their lives and we would spend many happy days together. Our daughter often spent week-ends with them, who were her surrogate parents. Young people gravitated to them and vice versa. Some, star-crossed lovers who could not get parental blessing for their marriages, had them to stand in as parents at their weddings!

Not long after, the bad days hit him, us, and the country. Bala was essentially a cosmopolite, having been born and raised in the Federated Malay States, where he had lived under Japanese occupation. But he was much attached to Jaffna, where he had grown up, and where he hosted us on holidays, keeping our daughter for an extended holiday. But he was a citizen of the world. So after 1983 he continued to live in Colombo till man’s inhumanity to man drove him to seek refuge in Jaffna as a deck-passenger. Jaffna, though, was too stifling for him and he made the trek back to Colombo, "to die among friends, if necessary". Once again, he was with Confifi Hotels, but the long arm of discrimination reached him and the company relegated him to the limbo of forgotten things. Finally, much against his inclinations, he sought refuge in Australia; our daughter spending their last day and night with them, helping them pack.

Another life began for Bala and Pathma, as Civil Servants there. I can speak little of that life save for my memories of a week-end spent with him. He was a staunch supporter of the Army and Navy Club, which must have given him a service atmosphere. Without children, however, life had lost is flavour. The events in Sri Lanka upset them. Each, in turn, brought their mothers to Australia and looked after them till they passed away. They looked after their brothers, their nephews and nieces unselfishly. But the lack of children and the sorrow at what was happening here was too much, and life became bitter for him. Ill-health in retirement is not pleasant. To the end he remained a hard worker in the senior citizens’ groups, working for others, as always. When we heard of his last illness, there was little we could do: telephone calls, last-minute letters and common naval friends in Australia who went to see him, for us.

No man, not even an Arahat, can avoid the consequences of his karmic past, as Bala understood well. But he who follows down stream from Bala will, I know, benefit from all the selfless good that Bala generated all throughout his life.

Anicca vata sankara!
Somasiri Devendra,
Dehiwela.