Features
FATHER
Excerpted from Chosen Ground: The Clara Motwani
Saga by Goolbai Gunasekera
Much of Father’s life was lived away from us. His work as Professor of Sociology both in India and the USA meant that his holiday times did not necessarily dovetail with ours. Mother was more inclined to take us wherever he was working, thus ensuring that vacation time was used as gainfully as possible in educationally guided travel.
The minute Father heard we were coming to India, he would acquire every brochure put out by the Tourist Department. He would then write to us telling us what (to him) were exciting ruins, dams, game reserves, palaces, heritage sites and such like destinations we would be visiting that vacation. Our holding agendas were as perfectly timed as a Bach Fugue.
We were expected to read up, and be thoroughly familiar with the background history of wherever Father decreed we would be going. We often wandered off the beaten track and since five-star hotels were not found dotting the Indian countryside at that time as they do today, much of our accommodation was terribly basic.
The result was that India was ‘done’ so well that we were familiar with much of that vast sub-continent, ranging from Kashmir to Kerala, and from Pondicherry to Calcutta. Our holidays were not pleasure trips. They were seriously educational, and I cannot say that we always enjoyed them.
Su, in particular, had a low tolerance of Father’s idiosyncrasies. She did not believe in keeping her thoughts to herself, unlike me, her far less confrontational elder sister.
“I see no reason to be damn uncomfortable just to see where the Buddha was born,” she complained, after one exceptionally dreary overnight stay near Bodh Gaya. It was all that was available. “I’m not a Buddhist.”
Father almost had apoplexy … a condition in which he often found himself when Su was around.
“You have been brought up as a Theosophist and all religions are to be considered worthy of respect, young lady,” he thundered. “One of the world’s greatest religious teachers hails from this place, and she turns up her silly American nose.”
That last remark needs explanation. Su was born in the USA and carried an American passport. Whenever she was being obstreperous (which was very often, in Father’s opinion) he disclaimed any genetic heritage: Su became Mother’s child. On the other hand, the year that Su won both English Literature and Sinhala Literature prizes in Grade Ten he crowed: “That clever, clever child. She gets her flair for languages from me, of course.”
He would then add modestly: “You know I speak, read and write Sindhi, Hindi, Urdu, Farsi and English as well as any native of those areas.” It was true. Father would often read poems to us in Urdu or Farsi, though we understood not a word. “The beauty of sound is enough,” he would say, continuing to bore us mightily.
At the time Father gained his PhD in Sociology, the subject was not being taught in Indian Universities. In embarking on a crusade to get Sociology included in the better Indian colleges, he enlisted his guardian’s help. Jamshed Mehta had a great deal of influence and he used it now to help his former ward. At the end of this chapter I reproduce the letter Jamshed received from Jawaharlal Nehru, just before Nehru became India’s first Prime Minister.
Father was caught up in the work of the Indian National Congress; and, like many academics, he submitted his proposals to the National Committee for Education. It is worth noting how early in the day the future leaders of India begin planning the education of their country.
Nehru kept his word. Sociology was included in the new curricula of many leading Indian Universities. Father was ecstatic. He embarked on a round of lectures intended to popularize the subject, and did his best to get either Su or me to offer sociology for our university degrees. Neither of us was even remotely interested in it. For this we blamed Father. He had an irritating habit of getting both of us to proof-read his books whenever he felt we had a free moment.
Wading through such exciting tomes as India: A Synthesis of Cultures or The Manu Dharmashastra, Su and I were pretty sick bf the whole topic. I read for a History Honours degree in Bombay, while she opted to do the Home Science course at Lady Irwin College in New Delhi.
Father died the year my daughter, Khulsum, started at my old College (Sophia College) in Bombay. All India Radio announced his passing and gave him credit for having brought sociology to India. It was a tribute Father would have appreciated above all others. He did not have the pleasure of knowing that sociology was Khulsum’s chosen field at that time, although she shifted focus when she transferred to the USA.
It would have delighted him to know that one of his books was recommended to her class as a reference book: Khulsum very much enjoyed telling her professor that the author, Dr. Motwani, was her grandfather. With her Sri Lankan surname, it was unlikely that any connection would normally have been made. But as I said earlier, life moves in circles and my grand-daughter, Tahire, is now doing a degree- in Sociology at St. Lawrence University in New York. She quotes Father as a reference in her work there. Would that he knew.
As a parent, Father would be considered to have been too remote and uninvolved, if judged by today’s criteria of good parenting. He was distant both physically and emotionally. He probably liked us well enough, but we never felt he really loved us. Su and I would discuss this. As said before, we came to the conclusion that the only person Father ever really loved and communicated with was Mother. With her, he was concerned and caring, although it cannot be said that he was an easy husband.
She understood him. But adding to the distance between Father and his offspring was the earlier mentioned fact that he was (inevitably) on a lecture tour at the time of our birth. Ergo, we never really bonded at any stage. If consulted, Mother would have probably put down his inability to show much affection to a lonely childhood, which was probably the case.
Father was a dedicated member of the Masonic Society. It grieved him greatly when the secrets of Masonic ritual became public. He rarely used his Masonic links to further himself, but just once he was tempted. Macmillan’s in Britain had rejected one of his books for printing, as the quota for serious texts that year had been filled. Father wrote to Mr. Harold Macmillan, then Prime Minister of England. In his letter he included a Masonic phrase. His book was accepted.
When fulfilling a two-year lecturing contract in Kansas at Wichita University, Father spoke glowingly of the fabulous collection of silver donated to the Masonic lodge by older members there. Naturally he was a visiting Mason for the duration of his Kansas stint.
When India gained Independence, Father was offered a diplomatic appointment in the newly formed Foreign Office. It would have meant our moving to South Africa where Sir Benegal Rama Rau was being sent as High Commissioner. Putting an academic like Father into a job requiring tact and charm was not one of Nehru’s better ideas. Seeing someone else’s point of view had never been my sire’s forte: he usually felt he was right about everything.
Father knew his own weakness. He turned down the offer, much to Mother’s relief (and Jamshed’s great disappointment), although her personal charm might have done much to mitigate Father’s belligerency.
In his later years, Father paid fewer visits to the US. He had travelled so much that he once told me he used to have nightmares about missing flights and being left in airports. His lecture tours were almost whistle-stop affairs. Sometimes he was just in time to catch a plane for his next engagement. This was specially so in the USA, when bookings of visiting lecturers tended to run very close together.
Father made a distinguished figure in his kurta coat and Nehru cap: a handsome man who kept his youthful appearance with daily Yoga exercises and (he claimed) his vegetarian diet. Father daily stood on his head with no support whatsoever until the age of seventy-five. I was lost in admiration, while Su would acidly ask why anyone would need to do something so patently silly. Fortunately she never dared say this in Father’s presence.
Father had many well-known men and women of letters among his close friends. One of them was Pearl Buck. We read all her books, and were forbidden to ever allow the autographed copies out of our home library. Others were philosophers and sages, such as Jiddu Krishnamurti and George Santayana. I wish now that I had kept Father’s letters. I do not know what happened to them, for he died in the Theosophical Society in Adyar, Chennai, and I did not ask for his personal effects to be forwarded to me. In fact, it never occurred to me how valuable such letters would have been today.
Ananda Bhawan Allahabad, July 10, 1940
Shri Jamshed Nusserwanjee Machimiani Road,
Karachi.
Dear friend,
I have your letter of July 6th with, the pamphlets “Sociology” by Dr. Motwani. I entirely agree with you that sociology as a subject should be included in the curriculum of Indian Universities. I am forwarding this pamphlets to the Secretary of the General Education Sub-Committee of the National Planning Committee.
Yours sincerely,
Jawaharlal Nehru
It could be quite premature to claim that the US has closed ranks completely with the world’s foremost fascist states: Russia, China and North Korea. But there is no denying that the US is breaking with tradition and perceiving commonality of policy orientation with the mentioned authoritarian states of the East rather than with Europe and its major democracies at present.
Increasingly, it is seemingly becoming evident that the common characterization of the US as the ‘world’s mightiest democracy’, could be a gross misnomer. Moreover, the simple fact that the US is refraining from naming Russia as the aggressor in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and its refusal to perceive Ukraine’s sovereignty as having been violated by Russia, proves that US foreign policy is undergoing a substantive overhaul, as it were. In fact, one could not be faulted, given this backdrop, for seeing the US under President Donald Trump as compromising its democratic credentials very substantially.
Yet, it could be far too early to state that in the traditional East-West polarity in world politics, that the US is now squarely and conclusively with the Eastern camp that comprises in the main, China and Russia. At present, the US is adopting an arguably more nuanced approach to foreign policy formulation and the most recent UN Security Council resolution on Ukraine bears this out to a degree. For instance, the UN resolution in question reportedly ‘calls for a rapid end to the war without naming Russia as the aggressor.’
That is, the onus is being placed on only Ukraine to facilitate an end to the war, whereas Russia too has an obligation to do likewise. But it is plain that the US is reflecting an eagerness in such pronouncements to see an end to the Ukraine conflict. It is clearly not for a prolongation of the wasting war. It could be argued that a negotiated settlement is being given a try, despite current international polarizations.
However, the US could act constructively in the crisis by urging Russia as well to ensure an end to the conflict, now that there is some seemingly friendly rapport between Trump and Putin.
However, more fundamentally, if the US does not see Ukraine’s sovereignty as having been violated by Russia as a result of the latter’s invasion, we are having a situation wherein the fundamental tenets of International Law are going unrecognized by the US. That is, international disorder and lawlessness are being winked at by the US.
It follows that, right now, the US is in cahoots with those powers that are acting autocratically and arbitrarily in international politics rather than with the most democratically vibrant states of the West, although a facile lumping together of the US, Russia and China, is yet not possible.
It is primarily up to the US voting public to take clear cognizance of these developments, draw the necessary inferences and to act on them. Right now, nothing substantive could be done by the US voter to put things right, so to speak, since mid-term US elections are due only next year. But there is ample time for the voting public to put the correct perspective on these fast-breaking developments, internationally and domestically, and to put their vote to good use in upcoming polls and such like democratic exercises. They would be acting in the interest of democracy worldwide by doing so.
More specifically it is up to Donald Trump’s Republican voter base to see the damage that is being done by the present administration to the US’ standing as the ‘world’s mightiest democracy’. They need to bring pressure on Trump and his ‘inner cabinet’ to change course and restore the reputation of their country as the foremost democracy. In the absence of such action it is the US citizenry that would face the consequences of Trump’s policy indiscretions.
Meanwhile, the political Opposition in the US too needs to get its act together, so to speak, and pressure the Trump administration into doing what is needed to get the US back to the relevant policy track. Needless to say, the Democratic Party would need to lead from the front in these efforts.
While, in the foreign policy field the US under President Trump could be said to be acting with a degree of ambivalence and ambiguity currently, in the area of domestic policy it is making it all to plain that it intends to traverse a fascistic course. As has been proved over the past two months, white supremacy is being made the cardinal principle of domestic governance.
Trump has made it clear, for example, that his administration would be close to ethnic chauvinists, such as the controversial Ku Klux Klan, and religious extremists. By unceremoniously rolling back the ‘diversity programs’ that have hitherto helped define the political culture of the US, the Trump administration is making no bones of the fact that ethnic reconciliation would not be among the government’s priorities. The steady undermining of USAID and its main programs worldwide is sufficient proof of this. Thus the basis has been adequately established for the flourishing of fascism and authoritarianism.
Yet, the US currently reflects a complex awareness of foreign policy questions despite having the international community wondering whether it is sealing a permanent alliance with the main powers of the East. For instance, President Trump is currently in conversation on matters in the external relations sphere that are proving vital with the West’s principal leaders. For example, he has spoken to President Emmanuel Macron of France and is due to meet Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the UK.
Obviously, the US is aware that it cannot ‘go it alone’ in resolving currently outstanding issues in external relations, such as the Ukraine question. There is a clear recognition that the latter and many more issues require a collaborative approach.
Besides, the Trump administration realizes that it cannot pose as a ‘first among equals’, given the complexities at ground level. It sees that given the collective strength of the rest of the West that a joint approach to problem solving cannot be avoided. This is particularly so in the case of Ukraine.
The most major powers of the West are no ‘pushovers’ and Germany, under a possibly Christian Democratic Union-led alliance in the future, has indicated as much. It has already implied that it would not be playing second fiddle to the US. Accordingly, the US is likely to steer clear of simplistic thinking in the formulation of foreign policy, going forward.
by Upali Gamakumara,
Upali.gamakumara@gmail.com
The Clean Sri Lanka (CSL) is a project for the true renaissance the NPP government launched, the success of which would gain world recognition. It is about more than just cleaning up places. Its broader objectives are to make places attractive and happy for people who visit or use services in the country, focusing more on the services in public institutions and organisations like the SLTB. Unfortunately, these broader objectives are not apparent in its theme, “Clean Sri Lanka,” and therefore there is a misconception that keeping the environment clean is the main focus.
People who realise the said broader objectives are excited about a cleaner Sri Lanka, hoping the President and the government will tackle this, the way they are planning to solve other big problems like the economy and poverty. However, they do not see themselves as part of the solution.
From the management perspective, the CSL has a strategic plan that is not declared in that manner. When looking at the government policies, one can perceive its presence, the vision being “A Prosperous Nation and a Beautiful Life,” the mission “Clean Sri Lanka” and the broader objectives “a disciplined society, effective services, and a cleaner environment.” If the government published these as the strategy, there would have been a better understanding.
Retaining the spirit and expectations and continuing the ‘Clean Sri Lanka’ project is equally important as much as understanding its deep idea. For this, it needs to motivate people, which differs from those motivators that people push to achieve selfish targets. The motivation we need here is to evolve something involuntarily, known as Drivers. Drivers push for the survival of the evolution or development of any entity. We see the absence of apparent Drivers in the CSL project as a weakness that leads to sporadic hiccups and free flow.
Drivers of Evolution
Drivers vary according to the nature of envisaged evolution for progress. However, we suggest that ‘the force that pushes anything to evolve’ would fit all evolutions. Some examples are: ‘Fitting to survival’ was the driver of the evolution of life. Magnetism is a driver for the unprecedented development of physics – young Einstein was driven to enquire about the ‘attraction’ of magnets, eventually making him the greatest scientist of the 20th century.
Leadership is a Driver. It is essential but do not push an evolution continually as they are not sprung within a system involuntarily. This is one of the reasons why CSL has lost the vigour it had at its inception.
CSL is a teamwork. It needs ‘Drives’ for cohesion and to push forward continually, like the Quality Improvement Project of the National Health Service (NHS) in England. Their drivers are outlined differently keeping Aims as their top driver and saying: Aims should be specific and measurable, not merely to “improve” or “reduce,” engage stakeholders to define the aim of the improvement project and a clear aim to identify outcome measures.
So, we think that CSL needs Aims as defined by NHS, built by stakeholder participation to help refine the project for continuous evolution. This approach is similar to Deming’s Cycle for continual improvement. Further, two more important drivers are needed for the CSL project. That is Attitudinal Change and Punishment. We shall discuss these in detail under Psychoactive Environment (pSE) below.
Aside from the above, Competition is another driver in the business world. This helps achieve CSL objectives in the private sector. We can see how this Driver pushes, with the spread of the Supermarket chains, the evolution of small and medium retail shops to supermarket level, and in the private banks and hospitals, achieving broader objectives of CSL; a cleaner environment, disciplined behaviuor, efficient service, and the instillation of ethics.
The readers can now understand the importance of Drivers pushing any project.
Three Types of Entities and Their Drives
We understand, that to do the transformation that CSL expects, we need to identify or adopt the drivers separately to suit the three types of entities we have in the country.
Type I entities are the independent entities that struggle for their existence and force them to adopt drivers involuntarily. They are private sector entities, and their drivers are the commitment of leadership and competition. These drivers spring up involuntarily within the entity.
Type II are the dependent entities. To spring up drivers of these entities commitment of an appointed trustee is a must. Mostly in state-owned entities, categorized as Boards, Authorities, Cooperations, and the like. Their drivers do not spring up within or involuntarily unless the leader initiates. The Government of a country also falls into this type and the emergence of drivers depends on the leader.
Type III entities have neither independent nor dependent immediate leader or trustee. They are mostly the so-called ‘Public’ places like public-toilets, public-playgrounds, and public-beaches. No team can be formed as these places are open to any, like no-man-land. Achieving CSL objectives at these entities depends on the discipline of the public or the users.
Clean Sri Lanka suffers the absence of drivers in the second and third types of entities, as the appointed persons are not trustees but temporary custodians.
The writer proposes a remedy to the last two types of entities based on the theory of pSE explained below.
Psychoactive Environment (pSE) –
The Power of Customer Attraction
Research by the writer introduced the Psychoactive Environment (pSE) concept to explain why some businesses attract more customers than others who provide the same service. Presented at the 5th Global Conference on Business and Economics at Cambridge University in 2006, the study revealed that a “vibe” influences customer attraction. This vibe, termed pSE, depends on Three Distinct Elements, which can either attract or repel customers. A positive pSE makes a business more attractive and welcoming. This concept can help develop Drivers for Type II and III entities.
pSE is not an all-inclusive solution for CSL, but it lays the foundation for building Drivers and motivating entities to keep entrants attractive and contented.
The structure of the pSE
The three distinct Elements are the Occupants, Systems, and Environment responsible for making a pSE attractive to any entity, be it a person, institution, organization, or county. Each of these elements bears three qualities named Captivators. These captivators are, in simple terms, Intelligent, Nice, and Active in their adjective forms.
pSE theorizes that if any element fails to captivate the entrant’s mood by not being Intelligent, Nice, or Active, the pSE becomes negative, repelling the entrant (customer). Conversely, the positive pSE attracts the entrants if the elements are Intelligent, Nice, and Active.
For example, think person who comes to a Government Office for some service. He sees that the employees, service, and environment are intelligent, nice, and active, and he will be delighted and contented. He will not get frustrated or have any deterioration in national productivity.
The Significance of pSE in CSL
The Elements and the Captivators are universal for any entity. Any entity can easily find its path to Evolution or Progress determined by these elements and captivators. The intangible broader objectives can be downsised to manageable targets by pSE. Achievements of these targets make the entrants happy and enhance productivity – the expectation of Clean Sri Lanka (CSL).
From the perspective of pSE, now we can redefine the Clean Sri Lanka project thus:
To make the Elements of every entity in Sri Lanka: intelligent, Nice, and Active.
How Would the pSE be A Remedy for The Sporadic Hiccups?
We have seen two possible reasons for sporadic setbacks and the discontinuity of some projects launched by the CSL. They are:
The absence of involuntary Drivers for evolvement or progress
Poor attitudes and behaviors of people and leaders
Remedy for the Absence of Drivers
Setting up a system to measure customer or beneficiary satisfaction, and setting aims can build Drivers. The East London NHS principles help build the Aims that drive type II & II entities. The system must be designed to ensure continual improvement following the Deming Cycle. This strategy will create Drivers for Type I & II entities.
This process is too long to explain here therefore we refrain from detailing.
Attitudinal Change
The most difficult task is the attitudinal and behavioural change. Yet it cannot be postponed.
Punishment as a strategy
In developed countries, we see that people are much more disciplined than in the developing countries. We in developing countries, give credit to their superior culture, mitigating ours as rudimental. The long experience and looking at this affair from a vantage point, one will understand it is not the absolute truth. Their ruthless wars in the past, rules, and severe punishment are the reasons behind this discipline. For example, anyone who fails to wear a car seatbelt properly will be fined 400 AUD, nearly 80,000 LKR!
The lesson we can learn is, that in Sri Lanka, we need strong laws and strict punishment together with a type of strategic education as follows.
Psychological Approach as a Strategy
The psychological theory of attitude formation can be used successfully if some good programmes can be designed.
All attitude formations start with life experience. Formed wrong or negative attitudes can be reversed or instilled with correct attitudes by exposure to designed life experiences. The programmes have been developed using the concepts of Hoshin Kanri, Brainstorming, Cause-and-Effect analysis, and Teamwork, in addition to London NTS Quality Improvement strategies.
The experience and good responses we received for our pSE programs conducted at several institutions prove and have built confidence in our approach. However, it was a time, when governments or organisations did not pay much attention to cultural change as CSL expects in the country.
Therefore, we believe this is a golden opportunity to take the CSL supported by the pSE concept.
Although they are visually impaired youngsters, under the guidance of renowned musician Melantha Perera, these talented individuals do shine bright … hence the name Bright Light.
Says Melantha: “My primary mission is to nurture their talent and ensure their sustainable growth in music, and I’m thrilled to announce that Bright Light’s first public performance is scheduled for 7th June, 2025. The venue will be the MJF Centre Auditorium in Katubadda, Moratuwa.”
Melantha went on to say that two years of teaching, online, visually impaired youngsters, from various parts of the island, wasn’t an easy ride.
There were many ups and downs but Melantha’s determination has paid off with the forming of Bright Light, and now they are gearing up to go on stage.
According to Melantha, they have come a long way in music.
“For the past few months, we have been meeting, physically, where I guide them to play as a band and now they show a very keen interest as they are getting to the depth of it. They were not exposed to English songs, but I’ve added a few English songs to widen their repertoire.
Melantha Perera: Invented a notation
system for the guitar
“On 7th June, we are opening up for the public to come and witness their talents, and I want to take this product island-wide, giving the message that we can do it, and I’m hoping to create a database so there will be a following. Initially, we would like your support by attending the show.”
Melantha says he didn’t know what he was getting into but he had confidence teaching anyone music since he has been in the scene for the past 45 years. He began teaching in 2015,
“When I opened my music school, Riversheen School of Music, the most challenging part of teaching was correcting tone deaf which is the theoretical term for those who can’t pitch a note, and also teaching students to keep timing while they sang and played.”
Melantha has even invented a notation system for the guitar which he has named ‘MelaNota’. He has received copyrights from the USA and ISO from Australia, but is yet to be recognised in Sri Lanka.
During Covid-19, Melantha showcased MelaNota online and then it was officially launched with the late Desmond De Silva playing one of his tunes, using MelaNota.
Melantha says that anyone, including the visually impaired, can play a simple melody on a guitar, within five minutes, using his notation system.
“I’ve completed the system and I’m now finalising the syllabus for the notation system.”
Melantha has written not only for the guitar, but also for drums, keyboards, and wind instruments.
For any queries, or additional information, you could contact Melantha at 071 454 4092 or via email at thebandbrightlight@gmail.com.
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