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Advice my mother gave me, founding Sujatha Vidyalaya and a national honour

Published

3 years ago

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Mother receiving the Deshabandu Award from His Excellency, J. R. Jayewardene, President of Sri Lanka

(Excerpted from Chosen Ground: the saga of Clara Motwani by Goolbai Gunasekera)

Mother had frequent staff meetings so that she could guide us in teaching methods to her liking. I give below some of her rules, which I now pass on to my own younger teachers at Asian International. What she taught then, holds good even now. And what did she teach me?

1. Begin all your classes standing. Never sit as you enter a class. You must dominate and show you mean business.

2. Do not talk too loudly. A teacher with too strong a voice will irritate pupils and they will begin tuning out.

3. “Always be perfectly turned out. (By this mother meant all-round neatness, not high fashion. One morning Mother was electrified to find Indrani Mendis, a former Games Captain just recently turned teacher, wearing a hipster sari. Indrani had a lovely figure and the hipster looked stunning. Nonetheless, Indrani will never forget what followed. Mother made her drape the sari all over again in her office with the minimum of bare skin showing. Nowadays I should think that would be considered an infringement of one’s personal rights! No one thought such traitorous thoughts then. Indrani now teaches at Asian International, and still has her good figure.)

4. Give your class one written assignment a week under test conditions. They must do the work in front of you, otherwise much of the work done at home will be actually their parents’ doing.

5. Corrections must be done within two days, or else a child will lose interest in the result of the assignment.

6. If a child is doing really badly all the time, try giving her a slightly better grade than she deserves. She will then make that better grade on her own the following time.

7. A child’s energy curve soars when praised. Try to do this more often than giving her a scolding which will probably have no effect.

8. If a class is noisy never say, “Don’t talk, class.” Pick out one of the children and say, “Don’t talk, Nimi.” The whole class will stop talking just to hear what you are going to say to that one child. It is a ploy I have often used.

9. If you do not know the answer to a question, never bluff. Tell the child you do not know, but you will look it up at home and tell her the following day.

10. Never try to fool a child. It cannot be done.

11. Be perfectly prepared before you attempt to take a class.

12. Never read from the textbook. You should know what is in it.

13. Give unexpected one-word answer tests. Children will never know when one is coming and will therefore listen all the time.

And so on. The list was even longer, but these are some that I remember. Certainly the teachers at BLC (Buddhis Ladies College) and I were highly successful, as our excellent results proved. My English Literature results at the O-Level were only rated ‘Most commendable’ in Mother’s parlance, while the word ‘Superb’ sprang to my own mind.

Teachers under Mother practically memorized their textbooks, as she had a disconcerting habit of turning up in classrooms with a deceptively kind smile saying:

“Now you just continue with your lesson, while I sit here quietly at the back and learn something new.”

None of us was fooled. It was a tactful way of checking whether we knew our texts or not.

‘One morning I was teaching Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel The White Company to the O-Level Literature class. It was the Government text for that year, and its plot is set in Europe, in the Middle Ages. Medieval History had been my forte at University, so while Mother sat calmly at the back of the room I wickedly switched the subject-matter of my lesson, and gave the students a little background history of the Middle Ages.

Most fascinating to girls of that age is the Droit de Seigneur, which literally meant that the nobility of Europe had the right to sleep with the wife of a tenant farmer on his wedding night. The all-girl class was somewhat shocked, very thrilled and full of questions.

Mother sat through it all and then left, saying, “An interesting lesson!” to me. A few minutes later her peon handed me a note which read: “See me when free.” I assumed I’d gone too far and resigned myself to a lecture. Obediently, I trotted off to her office to face the music. Mother was all smiles and for once, full of praise.

“That is one lesson the girls will never forget,” she told me. “Frankly, neither will I, but that is hardly relevant. What pleases me is that such a lesson may get them reading History on their own in search of equally strange facts. That was good teaching , darling.”

I walked on air the rest of the day.

My old schoolmate, Smith College-returned Susheela Paul, also a teacher with me at BLC, had her entire class gaining Distinctions and Credits at the O-Level in Botany one year. Mother’s paean of praise had Susheela quite overcome. Susheela married Chari de Silva (who eventually became Chairman of Aitken Spence) and stopped teaching to bring up her family. Strangely, Mother did not protest at losing her fine teacher. Mother always felt family life should come first. One morning Susheela came to school but asked for leave midway through the morning.

“Is it urgent?” Mother asked.

“Fairly,” Susheela had replied and went on to explain why she wanted the rest of the day off. Apparently Ladies’ College follows the custom of not releasing prize lists until the very morning of the prize giving itself. Susheela had just been informed that her little daughter, Sharmini (aged six or seven) had won the Form Prize. She therefore had just a few hours to rush home to get Sharmini into a starched uniform, white shoes and a red ribbon to match.

“Run along then, my dear,” Mother is supposed to have said, and congratulated Susheela on a clever daughter. I snorted angrily when Susheela gleefully reported all this to me. I was recalling Mother’s refusal to grant me similar privileges for any reason at all.

“No one must think I favour you, darling,” Mother said soothingly to me, as if any one would be that demented, seeing that I was the hardest worked teacher on her staff.

Although Mother’s contracts with the schools she headed always had a furlough clause written into them, she rarely took advantage of it, preferring instead to have my grandmother come to Sri Lanka. The result was that both my grandmother and my aunt Arline visited the island several times and made many friends here. They needed to do so if they wanted to see my busy Mother.

But now Mother needed a holiday. After ten years or so, BLC was doing very well indeed. Leaving me in charge of the school for six months, she departed for the US, not without much misgiving. Right up to the time she went through the Customs gates she continued to hand out advice to me on just about everything.

“I’ll manage, Mother,” I eventually told her in exasperation.

“Oh, I have no doubt at all that you will,” said Mother, proceeding nonetheless to prove that she didn’t believe it for a minute.

Disastrously for me, my more lenient approach to the length of school uniforms and generally relaxed administrative manner (I preferred to use the phrase ‘modern manner’) resulted in one of the senior students eloping with the Geography master. I did not have any desire to read Mother’s outraged letter to me more than once, and so I tore it up instantly. It was quite some time before Mother gave me so much responsibility again in subsequent schools, as her days at BLC were at an end – though at the time she did not know it.

Mother was expected to return to Colombo after about six months, but before she could do so a blaze of adverse publicity left Mother initially more puzzled than hurt. Religion was at the bottom of it all.

As a Theosophist, Mother had no difficulty in running Buddhist schools in the manner Buddhists wanted. She followed the philosophy, and was good friends with the Bhikkus of Vajiraramaya – notably Bhikku Narada and Bhikku Piyadassi.

She did not go to Church and make a display of her Christian beliefs. Neither was she a temple-goer. The only places of worship we visited as a family were the religious sites to which Father took us in India. In Sri Lanka we visited and worshipped at the Dalada Maligawa, the Madhu Church, the Nallur Temple (when we were in Jaffna), and at Kataragama when Father decided our souls needed a little burnishing.

The fact that Mother rarely went to Church was just that she had very little time for it when she first came to the island. Hers had not been a very church-going family back home in the States, in any case. Now, as she entered her fifties, Mother decided to take up the study of her own religion again. She was studying Islam at the same time, but no one talked about that.

In one of her regular letters to the Chairman of BLC, Mr. de Mel, she mentioned the fact that she was enjoying the Church services in her mother’s parish. Reacting as if he had been stung, Mr. de Mel told Mother that on no account would he tolerate a practising Christian at the head of a Buddhist school.

Mother might have mentioned that at that very moment Visakha Vidyalaya, a premier Buddhist school, was getting along very nicely with a Christian Principal at its helm, and no one seemed to mind. She was more puzzled than hurt by her Chairman’s dictum, especially because Buddhism was not a subject that was ever discussed between them. But her bewilderment soon turned to anger when she was told of the manner in which the news that she would not be returning was broken to students and staff of BLC.

Mr de Mel summoned the entire school to an assembly in the Hall. He then had a priest from the Vajiraramaya speak to the captive audience who sat silently aghast, while Mother was literally vilified in front of her pupils and her teachers for no reason other than that of going to Church.

Unfortunately, Bhikku Narada was not in the island at the time, and the priest who came to deliver this bombshell was not someone who should have been entrusted with this delicate and tricky situation. Quite unsuspecting of what was going to be said, I was in the Hall myself and heard, to my complete fury, this Bhikku speak against my Mother in the most unacceptable language possible. He spoke in Sinhala and a literal translation would make his words border on vulgarity.

I got up, and walked out of the Hall. The priest was by now in full spate and did not connect my exit with my Mother. He carried on. That evening my husband accompanied me when I visited the Vajiraramaya to personally tell the Bhikku what I thought of him.

To this day my respect for many priests remains low. The Bhikku concerned denied saying anything.

“I heard you myself,” I told him angrily.

“You must have misunderstood,” he replied blandly, not accepting any blame. “In any case, I was told to make sure nobody got upset that your mother was not returning.”

With the benefit of hindsight, I realized that Mr. de Mel had been trying to forestall a repetition of the Musaeus College walk-out. He need not have worried. Many years had passed since that time, and the situation was not the same. Mother was not in the island, and did not return until after my daughter Khulsum was born.

But what really made Mother wonder sometimes if her life’s work for the Buddhist girls of Sri Lanka had been worth the effort she put into it, was the behaviour of certain chauvinistic Buddhists who not only refused to speak to her, but also saw to it that the newspapers played up the story.

“Principal Sails Away,” ran one headline, while Letters to the Editor debated the issue endlessly. Close friends rallied to Mother’s defence. It deeply concerned Mother that I was left to face all this criticism alone. My sister would have done a far better job than I did of confronting those who chose to be judgemental. I was quite unable to think of suitable retorts to questions such as “Isn’t Buddhism good enough?” and other nasty little innuendos.

“Tell everyone Mother has returned to the religion of the Ancient Greeks,” Su said dismissively on the phone.

“The Olympian gods? That was hardly a religion.” “Exactly.”

“I can’t say that sort of thing,” I quavered.

“Try the Druids then,” she said unsympathetically, and rang off.

In the end, Mother herself took it all philosophically, in spite of pinpricks which were often more like stabs. It was a bad time for me in many ways. No one enjoys hearing things said about one’s parents, even when the matter was so trivial. My husband’s family rose nobly to Mother’s defence. They made the next few months bearable, for it was not pleasant to have one’s mother’s religious preferences debated by those who knew very little of the matter. The Gunasekara family are strong Buddhists. My sister-in-law, Lakshmini is a devout adherent, yet her sensivity in the handling of this entire episode, particularly of my wounded feelings, is something the Motwanis will never forget.

It was a matter of bad timing. Buddhists were becoming very protective of their faith, and Mother’s actions were taken as a kind of slur that they found hard to forgive. Yet there were those like Lakshmini who remained totally non-judgemental and accepted that religion is, after all, a private matter. Is it any wonder that she remains from then to now, my closest friend and confidant.

One hurtful incident involved a lady who had been one of Mother’s favourite pupils at Visakha. Lillian was a girl with no mother. Her father would, more often than not, delay to pay her hostel fees. Mother was very fond of Lillian and would often tell me what beautiful long hair she had. On Mother’s first furlough back to America (I was four years old at the time), Lillian was sitting for her Matriculation examination in Colombo.

Running true to form, Lillian’s father had not paid the fees and she was withdrawn from the exam. Hearing of this, Mother indignantly cabled the office and insisted that Lillian’s name be entered on the list of those being sent up. Lillian always remained a favourite with her, probably because she had no mother. When the Bandarawela evacuation began, Lillian was taken along in a student/teacher capacity, and Mother even arranged for her to be paid a small salary.

Yet Lillian did not repay Mother with loyalty … or even with sympathy. She was the first to be openly critical of her in public — and, of course, Mother was told of this, for there are always ‘friends’ who enjoy passing on hurtful gossip. That was one of the few times I have seen Mother weep. She smiled when she heard that well-known civil servants or other VIPs had not been at all kind, but Lillian (who was by worldly standards not a person of importance) … Lillian hurt her most of all. When Lillian died shortly afterwards of cancer, Mother wept again at her funeral. Less forgiving, I refused to accompany her to it.

When Mother’s old friend, Bhikku Narada of the Vajiraramaya, heard of the whole matter, he sent for me. I told him that I had vowed never to enter any temple again after my brush-up with the representative of his order, who had been so hurtfully libelous of my mother. But Mother visited him, and he was saddened that it could not have been he who had given that talk to the students of BLC.

Still, memories are very short. Within a year of returning to Sri Lanka, Mother was being asked to write a series of articles on education for the local papers. Everyone forgot about Mother’s religious preferences and she decided to return ‘home’ permanently and enjoy retirement with her newly born granddaughter, Khulsum, and us. She ignored my husband Bunchy’s sardonic smile at the word ‘retirement’. Surrounding herself with books, Scrabble boards and bridge-playing friends, she managed to get along nicely for two months.

She enjoyed all this, but it was not in Mother’s nature to ‘retire’ and not be actively engaged in more strenuous educational work. When she was approached by Mr. Linton Kuruppu, the owner of a small school in the suburbs, who asked,her to transform it into a bigger and better Colombo school, she accepted the challenge. Thus, Sujatha Vidyalaya opened its doors in the fashionable Queen’s Road area in Colombo 3, and has been very successful.

Becoming wealthy through education was something that never entered Mother’s head. If she had been business-minded, she might have had a clause written into her contracts which gave her a percentage of the profits of the new schools she started, because there were profits. Mother never knew what they were, because she left finances to the Board.

I always told her that she had no head for business at all, for the owners of the Buddhist Ladies College and Sujatha Vidyalaya certainly did not make any losses while she headed them. Mother’s reputation, her genuine love for her students, her care and concern for all aspects of education, made her a legend in her time. Her name was a magnet that drew pupils to any school she headed, and the many thousands of children who passed through her hands were proud to say: “Mrs. Motwani was our Principal.”

While she was at Sujatha, the President of Sri Lanka at the time was J.R. Jayewardene. He instituted a system of National Honours which gave national recognition to citizens who had ‘done the state some service’. Mother was on that first list of recipients, and was the first person to be honoured in the field of Education. I was standing by her when the call came from President’s House, asking if she would be willing to accept the Deshabandu Award for her services in the education of Buddhist girls in the island.

It took some time for the President’s secretary to make Mother understand she was the chosen one. Mother was essentially a very humble person. It never occurred to her that she was considered important enough for a National Honour. I was always so proud to be known as her daughter and often told her so.

“It’s nice you feel that way, darling,” she would say, not really understanding that she had an awesome reputation. My husband and I were invited to watch her receive her award from the President’s hands. It was the first and last time I had a meal at the President’s House and it was a memorable occasion. Making the day all that much nicer for Mother, was the fact that Dr. P.R. Anthonis was also a recipient of a national honour in the field of Medicine.

Just before I married, Mother had needed to have very serious stomach surgery due to strangulated intestines. Before she went into surgery, she made my father-in-law-to-be promise that if she died he

would ensure my marriage went ahead (if not the reception). He promised, and it was perhaps a premonition of a mishap that made Mother extract that promise, for in the course of surgery, Dr. Anthonis told me later, he almost lost her.

Dr Anthonis was the foremost surgeon of the time in Sri Lanka. He still is! His gentle manner and almost aesthetically sensitive looks had endeared him to Mother at once. They became good friends. When the time came for Mother to settle her hospital bill she noticed there was no surgery charge. She queried it, and was told by the office that Dr. Anthonis had said he could never charge someone who had been nothing but a boon to his country.

It was a tribute he would pay her on two more occasions when she needed his services again. And so it was with much pleasure that these two people who had done so much in their respective careers for the people of Sri Lanka sat down to lunch together at the President’s House at the Inauguration of the National Honours List. Mother’s Deshabandu Medal and the Certificate of Honour she received at the hands of the President of her adopted country, are now treasured family heirlooms.


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Features

Day of Judgements and Political Fallouts

Published

12 hours ago

on

2026/09/27

By

Supreme Court

Rajan Philips

The second anniversary of Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s election as President has come and gone, but not before getting marked by a spate of judgements delivered and announced on a single day following the anniversary. Far away in New York, it has been a week of speeches by state and government leaders making their pilgrimage to the 81st Annual Sessions of the United Nations that is entering its ninth decade. President AKD did not make the trip this year to the UN Sessions, which are now reduced to being a convenient meeting place for world leaders to hold sideline meetings on bilateral as well as other contentious matters.

Sri Lanka is not in the crosshairs of any such contentions, but there are enough internal crosshairs that the NPP government and a feckless opposition are constantly trying to avoid. The day of judgements too has come and gone. All in all, it was a good day for the NPP government, at least in the sense that the government suffered no reputational damage from any of the three judgements. There were two Supreme Court rulings, one on the bill for the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution and another on the constitutionality of the Anti-Corruption Amendment Bill. The third court ruling was the verdict given by the Colombo Permanent High Court following the Trial-at-Bar of 24 people accused for their role in the 2019 Easter attacks.

Easter Justice

The three trial-at-bar judges, Navaratne Marasinghe, Ramanathan Kannan and Sujeewa Nissanka, reached a unanimous verdict and found 15 of the accused guilty and found the other nine not guilty and released them forthwith. The accused were spared of the death sentence, but the lengths of rigorous imprisonment sentences are just as bad. One was sentenced to 260 years, four got 240 years each, five 220 years, and another five 200 years. In addition, the court ordered the instant confiscation of the movable and immovable assets of all 15 found guilty.

The verdict marks a substantial milestone in the search for justice on behalf of the victims of the Easter attacks. The government can claim some political credit for the conclusion of the trial after seven years of fits and starts, and high level stymying under three presidents who preceded President AKD. Much greater credit of course belongs to the hundreds of law enforcement officials who built up a mammoth case of 23,270 charges against 25 suspects (one of whom died in hospital during the trial) and won convictions of 15 of them.

But this is not the end of the journey for those seeking Easter justice based on the whole truth. There are other trials going on and the elusive mastermind is yet to be found. Mohammed Ibrahim Mohammed Nawfar (alias Naufar Moulavi) is one of the 15 convicted by the Permanent High Court. Naufar Moulavi was identified in May 2021 as the mastermind by the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government. The government claimed that FBI investigation had confirmed it. This claim is not supported by the FBI affidavit filed by agent Merrilee R. Goodwin in a US Court in California, in December 2020.

The purpose of the FBI affidavit was to support the indictment of Mohammed (Moulavi) Naufar, Mohamed Anwar Mohamed Riskan and Ahamed Milhan Hayathu Mohamed “for conspiring to provide, providing, and attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, namely ISIS” (Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham), in violation of US laws. But neither Naufar nor the other two were identified as masterminds. The only mastermind identified in the affidavit is “Jahran Mohamed Cassim, also known as (“aka”) Mohamad Cassim Mohamad Zahran, aka Zahran Hashim (“Zahran”). Zahran killed himself in the suicide bomb he detonated, along with scores of victims, and spared himself from earthly trials.

To close the loop on this, the three men identified in the FBI affidavit, namely, Moulavi Naufar, Mohamed Riskan and Ahamed Milhan, are among the 15 convicted by the trial-at-bar High Court. But their conviction does not bring closure to the enduring question whether there was a political mastermind(s) behind the 2019 Easter attacks. There is still no clarity on what the former Attorney General Dappula De Livera publicly alluded to as evidence of “a grand conspiracy behind the attacks that killed 269 people and injured over 500.”

That was on 18 May 2021, and the statement was a follow up to the letter that Mr. De Livera had written on the state of the police investigations, to then Inspector General of Police (IGP), the late C. D. Wickramaratne. Mr. De Livera soon went on to retire after a remarkable prosecutorial career, and reportedly turned down the government’s offer of appointment as High Commissioner to Canada. Mr. Wickramaratne himself has since died under rather tragic circumstances.

Those who allege that the Catholic Church is making unproven allegations about Easter attacks masterminds, conveniently gloss over the fact that the Church is not accusing anybody of being a mastermind, but is only asking for a thorough inquiry that will put to rest, once and for all, the perennial question about the Easter mastermind. The difference now is that after suffering frustrations with three presidents and their governments, the Church is experiencing a positive response from the current president and his NPP government.

Amendment Politics

Aside from the lawfare politics of the Easter attacks, the politics of the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution is running its course after the Supreme Court ruling that a referendum is not required for the amending bill to become law, but only a two-thirds majority in parliament. The ruling was widely expected but not because of some ‘fix’, but because it would have been silly to find a judicial reason to have a referendum on the retirement ages of judges. This is not to absolve the government for its missteps on this matter and for putting everyone through months of constitutional contortions. Rather it is to highlight the absurdity of getting exercised virtually over every constitutional amendment and insisting that enacting the amendment without a referendum is tantamount to an assault on democracy. The referendum requirement has become a constitutional curse.

The 1972 Constitution of the First Republic had a very straightforward amending procedure with no referendum requirement, so straightforward that JR Jayewardene was able to throw out a whole (1972) constitution lock, stock and barrel, and replace it with his new constitution of a totally different (presidential) persuasion, simply through a parliamentary select committee process and a two thirds majority in parliament. No one called for a referendum to justify so momentous a change, but now a referendum is required to determine at what age a superior court judge can retire. Nonetheless, as President Jayewardene’s admirers and followers celebrate his 120th birth anniversary, there is no gainsaying that regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with his presidential achievements and legacies, JR Jayewardene was without question the most consequential political leader of Sri Lanka in the 20th century.

In the 21st century and on the 22nd amendment, with no referendum required, the Bar Association is changing tack and calling on parliamentarians to vote with their conscience, without toeing the party line. After Friday’s vote, it may want to poll the MPs to find out who among them voted listened to their conscience, and who toed the party line. The Association may be having a difficult time going through the withdrawal syndrome after months of heightened exertions. As for the opposition and Sajith Premadasa, the latter has simply promised that a future SJB government will repeal the 22nd Amendment. To what end? To reenact another episode of confusion and distraction.

An Economynext commentator has described the Supreme Court ruling on the referendum requirement for 22A, as being “surgical in its constitutional analysis.” Well said. The ruling plausibly addresses every good and bad argument that was flung at the judges and demonstrates, citing copious precedents, that at the end of the day, no matter who the individual judges and their abilities are, and what anyone thinks of them, the ‘Court’ can find its collective voice and express itself with clarity and authority.

The same Economynext commentary interprets the 22nd Amendment as “a foundational prerequisite for operationalizing the newly enacted, stringent Anti-Corruption Act, which is a key commitment of the government era for the IMF.” The commentary suggests that “multiple clauses in the 22nd Amendment are designed to satisfy governance and anti-corruption structural benchmarks within the ongoing IMF Extended Fund Facility (EFF) agreement.” While noting the risk of scaring investors who might view 22A as being anti-democratic and antithetical to judicial independence, the commentary goes on to opine that the passage of 22A combined with a strong and systematic anti-corruption drive could be a boost to investor confidence, especially in the critical sectors of logistics, renewable energy and technology.

The above is an interesting interpretation even though I am not sure whether anyone associated with the government has formulated the intentions of the 22nd Amendment quite this way. Objectively, the argument is plausible and will justifiably rile the ire of the left opposition to the NPP government and its inclination towards the IMF. At the same time, there is no mistaking the government’s intention and determination to fight corruption in politics and public life. Apart from, or rather as part of, its arresting politics, the government is also going ahead with the passage of the Anti-Corruption (Amendment) Bill, which too has had its determination by the Supreme Court, albeit by a different three-judge Bench, almost concurrently with the 22A ruling by the five-judge Bench. The Supreme Court’s determination on the Anti-Corruption Bill was triggered after it was challenged by Transparency International Sri Lanka.

But unlike the SC ruling on 22A, the ruling on the Anti-Corruption Bill singles out a provision as requiring approval in a referendum for its enactment. The provision involves Clause 17 of the Bill which elevates the bail granting threshold for determination by a High Court and not a Magistrates Court as currently practised. The subject offence involves a bribe not less than Rs. 100,000, or causing a government loss of not less than Rs. 500,000. The Court held that such a change infringes the fundamental rights of citizens against arbitrary detention and will require a referendum approval. The Bill of course could be passed without a referendum after removing the specific provision. Remarkably, the government argued that the proposed amendments to the Anti-Corruption Act are necessary to remove current bottlenecks, achieve conformance with UN standards, and comply with the IMF program in Sri Lanka.

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Features

Father’s horoscope reading on the worst time in my life seemed coming true

Published

13 hours ago

on

2026/09/27

By

Vidyodaya University

Little breathing space between papers at the final exam and my mind goes blank answering Sinhala paper

(Excerpted from The Art of Governance, autobiography of MDD Pieris)

Then came the final blow. When the time table for the final examination was out, I discovered that I would have to answer all my nine papers, of three hours each at one continuous stretch without even a half days break! I was due to answer the European history paper one afternoon; then go on next morning to British history; afternoon to Ceylon history; the next morning to English Poetry; afternoon to English drama; the following morning to English prose; and that same afternoon to suddenly switch from thinking and writing in English to thinking and writing in Sinhala, answering the first of the three papers in Sinhala, with the other two coming morning and afternoon the following day! Several of my friends urged me to go and speak to the university administration about a change, but at the same time, others who had had difficulties and sought recourse reported that they were rather rudely treated by the officers concerned.

This deterred me from going. I was a polite person by nature and just as in the case of Mr. Athulathmudali about whose insistence on politeness I have already written about, I too resented the prospect of being treated rudely. Therefore, I decided, quite foolishly no doubt, and come what may to go through and sit for the nine papers in four and half continuous days. Thus began the most difficult and harrowing period of my life, a period even worse than the experience at the university entrance examination.

In that instance, there was certainly disappointment and frustration but since I was attempting a near impossibility, there was less stress because mentally I was prepared for failure. This was reflected in a reasonably good appetite, and the ability to sleep. This time, at the final examinations, I lost both. Normal eating was impossible. My stomach was in knots. I just went through the motions and nibbled something and basically sustained myself with a combination of powdered milk and Ovaltine. Sleep became disturbed. After six hours of strenuous concentration a day answering question papers, there was little the mind could absorb by way of preparation for the next day.

During the day, nothing was possible since the morning’s paper was over at noon, and by the time you walked back from the Arts block to Marrs Hall just to look at the food and freshen up and then walk back to the examination hall to be there about 10 minutes before the 2 p.m. start of the next paper, there was neither time nor inclination to look at or absorb anything. I did try to look through whatever I could for the next days two papers during the night whilst keeping in mind the necessity to get some rest and sleep. Therefore, I did try to get six hours of sleep in the night. But it turned out to be an unhealthy and disturbed sleep leaving you not fresh, but jaded in the morning.

The mind was overactive. By this time, the numbers in the hall had dwindled due to the vacation. Only the few sitting for their final examination were in residence, and they were busy with their studies. There was therefore also a sense of loneliness and isolation prevailing. Added to all this was the horrible thought of failing and having to repeat all nine papers the following year. One had very much to try to find some degree of good cheer from within one’s own resources. Given my predicament I had precious little of that.

In these almost nightmarish conditions, I struggled through eight of the nine papers. The last paper during the final afternoon was the third paper in Sinhala literature, which was on prose. I still have a vivid memory of that afternoon. Rain clouds were building up and as we got down to answering the paper, it was getting quite dark. The lights shone brightly in the examination hall. There were five questions to be answered and I had just finished answering one, and had barely started on the next, when my mind went completely blank. I have never experienced such a thing before or since. The thinking processes suddenly stopped as if a plug had been pulled out from an electricity supply. I was in the middle of a sentence, I found impossible to complete. It was total disconnection.

There was just nothing I could do except to lay down my pen and gaze out of the window. There were two things in my favour at this critical moment. I possessed a temperament that didn’t panic easily or once embarked on a course, give up easily. I therefore calmly decided to stop trying to struggle, and relax. I was aware that precious minutes were ticking by. But I knew that what could not be cured must be endured, and that any attempt at force and struggle would only serve to aggravate the situation. That part of my mind was clear and rational. I spent almost 20 precious minutes doing nothing. Then gradually I found that I was able to focus once again.

I cautiously and with a degree of fear took up my pen and leaving room to complete the question I had begun to write on, started on a new question. The ideas flowed once again. I had however to be careful. There was no guarantee that everything would not come to a stop once again. I had already lost valuable time. Any further problem now would be the end of the paper and the end of perhaps the whole examination. I therefore deliberately slowed down my pace of writing and wrote slowly and steadily not pushing myself.

When the time came for the papers to be collected I had been able to answer only three out of the five questions in full. For the balance two, I was only just able to write down a few points. Answers in continuous prose were not possible. Up to this time, I had hope of at least passing the whole examination and obtaining my degree. Now, I was not so sure. There was a distinct possibility, I would fail the last Sinhala paper.

The next day I went home to Colombo, utterly drained. It appeared that my father’s prediction after reading my horoscope was not only accurate but frighteningly so. I too believed with him that there could not possibly be a worse period in the future. Starting from the stress of suddenly having to change schools in mid university entrance course to the end of my participation in school cricket through contracting measles, to the enormous trials and tribulations of the university entrance, to the disappointment of not being able to read for English “honours,” and now this situation at the final examination was almost too much for one person to take.

I was in a state which perhaps verged on a nervous breakdown, For a good two weeks at home, I was listless, unable to concentrate on anything. I could not read anything. Even the newspapers repelled me. The sound of music was irritating, and sleep desultory. I was taken to see the doctor, who advised complete rest. He did not give medicine. It was clear that I had severely overtaxed the system, and time would be the healer, as indeed was so gradually much to the great relief of my parents and myself. The newspaper once again began to interest me, and gradually books. Even then, I could not read for long periods for some time. I used to lose concentration and the mind began to wander.

In due course, I received a letter from the university, inviting me to teach an English course to the new batch of students about to enter the university. This was the vacation course in English for them. But I was just in no mood to teach. I was now back to normal, but did not wish to take upon myself the responsibilities of a teaching assignment. Therefore, I wrote back politely declining. But the letter from the university was a boost to my confidence. I knew that I would not have been called unless I had fared reasonably well, at least in my English papers, and got at a minimum a “B.” But what of the rest? I was still apprehensive. What came to mind was the unfinished Sinhala paper, and its possible impact on the whole examination.

Assistant Librarian Vidyodaya University

When the results came in due course, to my great relief I had passed. There was no question of a class. Nor was I expecting one. What I dreaded was sitting for the whole examination once again. I could now get this episode of my life out of the way and decide how to proceed. By this time the new Vidyodaya University had just begun to function. My father was a member of the Governing Council of the Vidyodaya Pirivena, the Vidyadhara Sabha and for long an associate and a friend of the renowned scholar Ven. Weliwitiye Soratha, the head of the Pirivena, who was the first Vice Chancellor of the new university.

Our family had many connections with Vidyodaya, including my maternal grandfather Mr. C. Don Bastian Jayaweera Bandara, himself a renowned scholar, writer, publisher and social worker, having had his higher education there. I for my part, for a period studied Sinhala under Ven. Soratha. Busy as he was, he found the time to teach me because of these family connections. I must have been a good student in his opinion, because he very graciously presented me a two volume set of his monumental work of the Sinhala dictionary, a task which he undertook and completed all by himself, a set which is one of my valued possessions even today.

When it became known that I had passed out, Vidyodaya was keen to have me and my father was equally keen that I should help out in whatever capacity. Finally, I was appointed as an Assistant Librarian and along with others, plunged into the task of setting up a proper library for the new university. At this time, the university functioned in the premises of the Vidyodaya Pirivena at Maligakande and it was rapidly becoming apparent that space was becoming a serious problem.

One of the most important tasks of a librarian is to classify knowledge accurately and correctly and this had to be carefully done. The system of classification adopted at the time was the Dewey Decimal System, and I spent much time at home poring over the volumes containing the system, so that during the working day classification and the typing of the card indexes, etc., could proceed with speed. Accuracy and speed were both necessary, accuracy, because a misclassified book is a lost book, speed because hundreds of books were lying on the floors, in cartons, in crates, on windowsills and all over the place.

I found the wide reading that I had done whilst at Peradeniya now of great assistance. With a quick perusal I was able to determine the classifications and sub-classifications. This was important. For instance, if one took up a book on European history, one had to determine whether it should be classified and appear on the shelves as general history; a history of a period; diplomatic history; economic history; social and cultural history; military history; a history of important treaties, and so on. This was so for all subjects and the wider your reading the easier it was.

But always at the end of the day was a general conference at which we took up for discussions amongst other matters, certain books which were exceedingly difficult to classify, partly because their contents approached the borders of many different subjects. Titles were frequently misleading. For instance, the book “Two eggs on my plate,” had nothing to do with cuisine. It was a tense memoir of certain military activities during World War II.

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Features

The Cinnamon Captain’s Circuit

Published

13 hours ago

on

2026/09/27

By

Three Maps of Ceylon Cinnamon

From the Pathfinder Collection

By Jennifer Moragoda
jennifermoragoda787@gmail.com

A remarkable Dutch map of Ceylon made in 1719 allows us to follow cinnamon through the country almost village by village.

Part of a series of thirty-six maps showing territories of the Dutch East India Company, it was drawn by Joannes van Campen and shows mainly the south-western portion of the island then under Company control. The twelve korales or provinces are distinguished by colour and extend, in the map’s description, from the river Caymelle to the Valave. Brohier notes that Caymelle was the Dutch name for the Maha Oya. A brown line marks the boundary of the Kandyan king’s territory. Within this political geography, a red line encloses what might otherwise be described simply as ‘Canelle Landen’: “the expanse of the luxuriant cinnamon bushes from the Chilaw river to the hook of Dondra.”

What makes the map extraordinary, however, is its detail. It marks the old administrative divisions through which the cinnamon country extended; villages and places associated with the seasonal work of the peelers; the forty-six numbered points along the annual route of the Cinnamon Captain; and the five coastal places to which the peeled bark was delivered.

Two further Dutch maps narrow the lens. A plan of Salpiti Korale maps cinnamon gardens and grounds among localities that are now part of greater Colombo and its suburbs. At an even more microscopic level, three drawings of a single chena near Hanwella represent individual trees by letters and colour and enumerate them.

Together they preserve an unusually detailed geography of Ceylon cinnamon and the enterprise built around it under the Dutch.

Van Campen’s map in facsimile M. F. N. Rotteveel’s 1901 facsimile of Van Campen’s 1719 map.

Much of that detail can be recovered today through the meticulous work of R. L. Brohier and J. H. O. Paulusz. Their descriptions and translations of Dutch maps and records provide the context that makes otherwise cryptic routes, symbols and localities intelligible.

A Circuit Through Cinnamon Country

Van Campen’s map immediately provides an overview of the country from which cinnamon was obtained. It is divided according to the old Sinhalese territorial and administrative divisions of korales and pattus. Many of their names, and the places associated with them, remain recognizable today, although their old boundaries are now less familiar. The map may surprise modern readers who are unaware that its cinnamon country extended as far north as the Chilaw River and south to Dondra.

The map also makes clear that the geography of cinnamon did not coincide neatly with political boundaries. It marks the limits of Dutch territory and the adjoining lands of the Kandyan king, while cinnamon also grew beyond Dutch-controlled territory. Access to cinnamon in Kandyan territory could therefore depend upon relations with the Kandyan court.

The most striking feature of the map is the minute detail with which this cinnamon geography is recorded. Forty-six numbered points trace the ordinary land route followed by the Cinnamon Captain, head of the Mahabadda or Cinnamon Department, on his annual general visitation at the commencement of the harvest. Starting from Colombo, his circuit took him north and then through a succession of korales to the south before he returned along the coast to Colombo.

The route recorded in Brohier and Paulusz runs through Negombo, Pittigal Korale, Hapitigam Korale, Sinna Korale, Rayigam Korale, Pasdun Korale, Wallalawiti Korale, Galle Korale, Beligama Korale, Morawa Korale and Dolosdas Korale, the latter embracing the Gangaboda and Welaboda Pattus of Matara and the eastern and western Giruwa Pattus of Hambantota.

On the map, the numbered stations allow that journey to be followed across the country. Even where individual names become difficult to decipher on a reduced reproduction, the extent of the circuit can be grasped.

But another set of small red circles gives the map an even more unusual human geography. In the words of its description, these indicate the villages and places “in which and near which” the cinnamon peelers commonly pitched their tents during the peeling season “in order to gather that costly bark.” These temporary encampments belonged to the older system of harvesting in which parties of peelers travelled through the cinnamon country, cutting suitable stems and bringing them back in bundles to be peeled and fashioned into quills.

The red circles are scattered through the cinnamon country densely enough that the map gives a visual impression of the scale of the seasonal harvest before one has deciphered every locality. J. H. O. Paulusz considered the map “of unusual value, indeed indispensable for studying the history of the Salagama community because it illustrates their manner of life, the districts in which they lived, and the hardships and dangers they endured.”

The Captain’s numbered route and the peelers’ encampments therefore record two related geographies. One is the official circuit of inspection. The other is the far more dispersed geography of the people actually gathering and preparing the cinnamon.

The map completes the picture by identifying five coastal delivery points—Negombo, Colombo, Beruwala, Galle and Matara—to which the peeled bark was “carried on their shoulders and transported with great labour.” Taken together, these details allow the old cinnamon enterprise to be visualized almost in motion: the Captain moving between his 46 stations; peelers establishing seasonal camps in and near particular villages; cinnamon being gathered and prepared in the surrounding country; and the finished bark moving towards five points on the coast.

The map also bears the letters A–H on a smaller circuit associated with Maradana, “where the best of that fragrant bark is peeled.” Brohier’s explanatory note identifies the area within this orbit as including Maradana, Wellicadde, Kirilepona and Bamblepitie—names recognizable today as Maradana, Welikada, Kirulapone and Bambalapitiya. These are now parts of a densely built city; on Van Campen’s map they belonged to the geography of cinnamon.

That juxtaposition is one of the pleasures of reading the old maps. Familiar names survive, but the landscapes attached to them have changed almost beyond recognition.

Salpiti Korale, Plot by Plot

A second map sharpens the focus further.

Where Van Campen’s map provides an overview of the geographical reach and movement of the cinnamon enterprise, the detailed plan of Salpiti Korale attaches cinnamon more closely to individual grounds and localities in and around what is now greater Colombo. Similar detailed plans were drawn for other korales and areas in which cinnamon grew.

The plate itself carries a striking collection of names familiar to a modern resident: Kotte, Mirihana, Welikada, Nawala, Pepiliyana, Kollupitiya, Wellawatte and Galkissa, or Mount Lavinia, among others. They appear beside or among numbered and outlined cinnamon grounds. The importance of the map is not that all of modern Colombo lay within Salpiti Korale—it did not—but that it allows particular 18th-century cinnamon localities around the expanding city and its eastern and southern approaches to be set against places we know today.

A related survey shows how closely Dutch mapping followed Colombo’s expansion. Brohier notes that, as settlement spread beyond the Fort and Pettah, a map made about 1766 by Lieutenant C. D. Wentzel surveyed the Colombo district for a radius of five miles in all directions from the Fort. Particular care was taken to mark the cinnamon-growing districts, partly for the information of the authorities and partly as a warning to inhabitants.

The records preserve some striking glimpses of areas we do not normally associate with cinnamon. A Dutch governor deplored the number of valuable bushes being “pitifully cut down for firewood especially near Liveramentu (Thimbirigasyaya-Narahenpita) where it grows luxuriantly.”

It is difficult now to associate Thimbirigasyaya and Narahenpita with luxuriant cinnamon, yet that is precisely why this cartographic detail matters. Pepiliyana, Nawala, Welikada, Wellawatte and other familiar names cease for a moment to be simply modern suburbs and become part of an older cinnamon geography.

In this sense, the Salpiti map performs a different task from Van Campen’s. The first shows the astonishing geographical reach of the cinnamon enterprise. Salpiti brings us down almost plot by plot.

Down to the Individual Tree

A third example reduces the scale to a single piece of ground. Three charts dated 1720 depict a chena called Katugalavila in the village of Degambedda in Hevagam Korale, about half an hour’s journey from the fort at Hanwella. The original survey was by L. Boomgart; the version reproduced by Brohier and Paulusz is an 1899 facsimile by M. F. N. Rotteveel.

The three drawings show the same ground before clearing, after cutting and burning, and after planting and regrowth. Seventeen kinds of tree are identified by letters, with their Sinhala names recorded in Dutch spelling. Before clearing, the plot contained five cinnamon trees; in the third stage it contained 229 cinnamon shoots and young trees. Brohier called the plan both “a picture of the ground” and a “working-plan,” and remarked on its striking representation of detail and use of colour.

This small survey is useful here chiefly because it shows just how far Dutch cartographic attention could descend: from an extensive cinnamon country, to individual grounds, and finally to individual trees.

The 1719 map shows the cinnamon country extending from the Chilaw River to Dondra. The Salpiti Korale map brings us into recognizable localities around Colombo and its suburbs. At Degambedda, near Hanwella, the cartographic lens descends to a single chena and finally to individual cinnamon trees.

Taken together, the three maps turn the broad designation Canelle Landen into something much more precise: a country of rivers, political boundaries and old administrative divisions; roads, villages and seasonal encampments; identifiable cinnamon grounds; and, finally, individual plants.

They also help explain the practical appeal of later attempts to concentrate cinnamon production in more accessible and systematically cultivated grounds. Van Campen’s map makes visible the enormous geographical reach of the older, dispersed system—the distances travelled, the seasonal encampments and the labour required to bring the prepared bark to the coast. The hardships of that system are less visible on the map itself, but they are amply recorded in the contemporary documentation. The later transformation of cinnamon cultivation is another chapter. These maps preserve the geography that preceded it.

Retracing the Circuit

There is a modern postscript to this story. In recent years, the Pekoe Trail, a long-distance walking route through the tea estates of the hill country, has offered a new way of experiencing Ceylon’s montane landscape and tea heritage. The Cinnamon Captain’s circuit suggests the possibility of a low-country counterpart.

It need not be a walking trail. Selected stages of the forty-six-point circuit could be retraced largely by road, linking surviving place names and old cinnamon localities with places where cinnamon is still cultivated today. The korales no longer function as administrative divisions, roads have changed and much of the old cinnamon country has been transformed or built over, but enough of the underlying geography survives to make the old route intelligible.

Three centuries ago the circuit was travelled at the commencement of the harvest by an official inspecting the cinnamon country. Retraced today, it could offer a way of rediscovering a geography that these extraordinary maps have preserved in remarkable detail.

Notes: This article draws extensively on Volume II of R. L. Brohier and J. H. O. Paulusz’s Land, Maps & Surveys: A Descriptive Catalogue of Historical Maps in the Surveyor General’s Office, whose detailed descriptions, annotations and translations of Dutch maps and records make it possible to reconstruct much of the geography discussed here.

Images 3–5 reproduced from R. L. Brohier and J. H. O. Paulusz, Land, Maps & Surveys, Vol. II (1951).

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