A Great Son of Moratuwa

Mudliyar M. Seeman Fernando Sri Chandrasekera, more popularly known in his time, as Singho Appu Baasunnahe, was a man of a humble beginings. By sheer single minded perseverance, he rose from rags to fabulous riches. One of his daughters became the wife of Dr. W. A. de Silva, the national hero and builder of “Sravasti”. And among his grandchildren were Sir Susantha de Fonseka, one time Deputy Speaker of the State Council, Miss Cissy Cooray of Mahila Samithi fame, and Mrs. H. W. Amarasuriya.

Singho Appu Baasunnahe, later to become Mudliyar Sri Chandrasekera, munificent philanthropist, was born in the village of Horetuduwa, in Moratuwa. He began his adult life as a maker of the tea chests. (He was very proud of his humble beginnings, and would recount incidents from his early life with enormous delight.) As his business expanded and the money started coming in, he began to buy land for his requirements of timber for his industry. This was at the time that European planters of the British Raj were buying land for a song at land auctions to plant tea and coffee, and Singho Appu Baasunnahe out bid them all, settling all his transactions in cash which he carried around with him in large bags. (He was all his life, suspicious of cheque transactions).

When the planters realized that it was quite useless competing with this resourceful “native”, they approached him with an attractive proposal. If the Mudliyar allowed them to buy the land at their price, without outbidding them, he could have all the timber in the land entirely free. Mudliyar Sri Chandrasekera saved a lot of money by this arrangement.

With hardly any education to talk of, he was nevertheless a proud and arrogant man.

Once Maha Mudliyar Sir Solomon Dias Bandaranaike’s father in law, Sir S. C. Obeysekera, Member of the Ceylon Legislative Council, wrote to Mudliyar Sri Chandrasekera “My dear Mudliyar Sri Chandrasekera, if you are in need of plumbago, I can supply you with any amount. Please let me &w at once.”

Replied the arrogant Mudliyar Sri Chandrasekera: “My dear Sri S. C.Obeysekera, I do not need your plumbago. But if you are in need of money, I can supply you any amount. Please let me know at once.”

The motor car hadn’t been invented yet. And, at the time, the rickshaw was the most popular form of locomotion and was fast becoming a status symbol. But only the rich could afford it. A leading European firm was the sole importer.

Dressed in his simple cloth and banian, with a towel slung over his shoulder, this millionaire walked into this firm and asked the price of a rickshaw from a salesman. The salesman looked contemptuously at the cloth wearing Mudliyar Sri Chandrasekera, and said to another salesman in English “This fellow has come here to waste our time, as if he can afford to buy a rickshaw.”

The Mudliyar understood what the man said and shouted in Sinhala in his stentorian voice, yakko! bring out all the rickshaws you have. I’ll buy every one of them!”

He bought all the rickshaws in the shop, numbering 12, paying in ready cash. And the story goes that he hired some men to draw them and went in a rickshawcade” to Moratuwa, gifting a rickshaw to every Buddhist temple he passed!

A similar incident had occurred at a horse auction, where the Mudliyar, angered by the haughty attitude of some European bidders present, had bought every horse.

Today to see some VIP going about in a bullet-proof car with several other vehicles acting as a “convoy” is a common sight, but these things were unheard of a few decades ago. So Mudliyar Sri Chandrasekera created a sensation in his life being threatened by some business rivals, he went about in a rickshaw surrounded by five or six other rickshaws carrying armed bodyguards.