Nehru Goonetilleke, the man with the common touch

by Ananda Meegama
It is indeed with a very heavy heart that I write of Nehru Goonetilleke. A life long friend, Nehru was famous for his generosity of spirit. He was the scion of a notable legal family well known as great patrons of Buddhism. Nehru’s father the late Mr. P. F. A. Goonetilleke was a leading lawyer of Kalutara and a Dayakaya of the Kalutara Bodhi Trust during the days of Sir Cyril de Zoysa. His mother’s brother Hema Basnayake was the Chief Justice of Ceylon as well as a great patron of Buddhism and Nehru was destined to follow in their footsteps.

Nehru had his early education at Kalutara Vidyalaya and later joined Royal College where he excelled academically. It was an age where Royal produced many of the country’s eminent professionals and his contemporaries include many persons now famous in the legal, medical and academic spheres. Perhaps the most famous and brilliant among them was the late Gamini Iriyagolla who was a great friend of Nehru’s both at school as well as the university. I well remember as a schoolboy visiting Gamini together with Nehru at Tichbourne Passage in Maradana and meeting Gamini’s father, a striking figure, then an independent socialist member of parliament elected from Dandagamuva to the 1947 parliament, a famous silver-tongued orator of that era in both English and Sinhala and one of the first great translators into Sinhala of the great European novels one of which was the "Last Days Of Pompeii".

From his school days Nehru was a devotee of cricket and in the days before his death he was following the great battle of the spinners in the Galle Test and had being saddened by Murali’s failure to reach the 500 wicket target first. He was himself a left arm fast bowler and was something of a terror during friendly cricket matches in our school days. During our days at the university in Peradeniya long before TV, I remember listening with Nehru and our friend S. A. A. Perera to the radio commentaries on the Australia-England Test series during the days of Lindwall, Miller, Hutton, Washbrook, Compton and Edrich.

At Peradeniya Nehru and Gamini were both students at the law faculty during the days of Professor Nadarajah, Raja Goonasekera, and K. Shinya, when the faculty had in all only about 30 students and when the University at Peradeniya boasted of a great academic reputation. Nehru was at Marrs Hall man where Professor O. H. de A. Wijesekera was our warden and A. V. de S. Indraratne our sub-warden both of whom treated us with great tolerance. Nehru was greatly attached to Marrs Hall and two years ago, I am told, he was one among a group of old alumni who visited the Hall in order to assist the present generation of undergrads. He and Gamini spent very little time with the law and enjoyed those golden years of the 50’s and would nostalgically remember them in later years in particular our many friends and their foibles. He was always a man with the common touch and numbered as his friends until the last many who worked in the Hall. It was an age when the University still functioned as a residential university on the Oxbridge model as planned by Sir Ivor Jennings and the Sri Lankan political leaders who did not envisage what the population explosion would do to their visions. However we were the beneficiaries of this munificence and surveying the performance of our contemporaties perhaps one may console oneself it was not in vain.

It was in Peradeniya that Nehru, like many of our English educated contemporaries, became interested in Sinhala music, the production of Ediriweera Saratchandra’s Maname was a revelation to us all, and Edmund Wijesinghe the famous Vedhi Raja was a great personal friend. Throughout his life when we gathered Nehru would urge our friend Charitha Wijeratne who was a master of the Sinhala classics to recite from the Gutthila Kavya and the Selalihini Sandesaya but he was most happy only when Charitha sang from Saratchandra’s Maname Natya and he would join in and entertain us all.

After completing the LLB Nehru was called to the bar joining Christie Weeramantry’s chambers, he remained an active member of the bar till the end. As a civil lawyer he reached the zenith of the profession becoming a President’s Counsel and although he was invited many a time to grace higher office he declined preferring the peace of his chambers where he presided over a band of dedicated young barristers.

He followed his father in participating in the governance of Buddhist institutions becoming a trustee of the Kalutara Bodhi Trust during the days of Mr. V. T. de Zoysa and a Governor of the Y.M.B.A. By the early 1980’s he had reached the peak of his profession and contributed much to Buddhist activities. It was as much as anyone could humanly be expected to do. But the best was yet to come.

In 1984 a friend of his returning from a visit to the rain fed areas of the northern Anuradhapura district described to him the plight of the peasantry in that area and in particular the abject poverty of the few families who inhabited the area around Tantirimale Temple, one of the most ancient Raja Maha Vihares of the North Central Province, the home of a reclining Buddha similar to that of the Gal Vihare of Polonnaruwa. He was told of the valiant efforts of the then chief monk of the temple to sustain these people and the need to assist them. Nehru thought that he might use his influence in the YMBA and among Buddhist organizations and persons to channel some support and medical assistance to these people. He was urged to make a visit to Tantirimale to do an on the spot survey of the situation. Nehru, essentially an urban man used at the most to his daily trip to Hulftsdorp and occasionally to Kalutara, was aghast but knew the journey had to be done. So together with the late Eric Amerasinghe, another legal luminary and a leading light of the YMBA, with a carefully prepared hamper of sandwiches and other good things the two of them took off on the journey. When they returned they told of a situation of such want and scarcity that moved the heartstrings of many people of influence. Nehru became the kingpin in the plan to revive the Tantirimale community and he became a weekly visitor to Tantirimale supervising the building of houses, wells, support for agricultural activities and the organizing medical shramadanas by doctors.

Today Tantirimale is a vibrant community with many settlers from other parts of the district.

However this success at Tantirimale stimulated Nehru only to greater efforts. This was a period when the LTTE, when making many attacks on the people of Northern Anuradhapura district, the Vavuniya District and on the Weli Oya area, which displaced peasants of all communities to the mercy of the elements. Their condition even in the best of times was bad but in a situation of war they were greatly in need of assistance. Together with the assistance of T. K. Dasanayake, then Government Agent of Anuradhapura District one of the most enlightened and effective Government Agents of the last two to three decades, he formed the Wijeyabahu Trust to channel assistance to the poor people in these war torn areas. They were greatly assisted by superior officers of the services and by the high police officials in those areas who had very direct knowledge of the area and the condition of its people.

Nehru continued his weekly visits now more to Vavuniya and much of it was with the assistance of the services through mine infested areas to villages which could be reached over virtually non-existent roads. He always viewed these hazards with equanimity and continued with his efforts without any hesitation. He was on first name terms with most of the people serving in those areas and many of the mourners today are his fellow workers from these campaigns. In his efforts to raise funds for those in need he did not restrict his efforts to Sri Lanka. Together with the late V. T. de Zoysa he travelled to London, New York and Los Angeles to raise funds from Sri Lankan communities in these cities. In those meetings they were successful in conveying to our Sri Lankan brethren the desperate plight of many of those who lived in their motherland. He had resilient spirit and could work with single minded purpose that stood him well when his country was in need.

Always even in periods of stress Nehru conducted himself calmly, and I believe he more than many whom I have known, embodied these Buddhist virtues. He conducted himself with great humility and would never speak ill of anyone and was always very gentle and self-affecting, but he could admonish those whom he felt were in the wrong without hurting them. Many a time he would tell me with a slight edge to his voice ‘but Ana that is beside the point’ and he would slowly bring me around. A year or two ago I went with him to see Gamini Iriyagolla in hospital and I bemoaned the loss of so many of our old friends. Nehru looked at me and said "but that is inevitable". It is said that to have true and good friends is the only thing that makes life worth living — so it was with Nehru.

He became Chairman of the Kalutara Bodhi Trust and worked hard to support the temples of the Kalutara District. He assisted his dear friend and mentor Christie Weeramantry, without doubt the most eminent Sri Lankan in the international arena in the Weeramantry Centre For Peace, Education and Research. He remained close to the few ssurviving friends of his university days.

He leaves behind his wife Chandra who together with his friends throughout the island will miss him very much.