Learning To Bounce Back – Part 8

CONFESSIONS OF A GLOBAL GYPSY

By Dr. Chandana (Chandi) Jayawardena DPhil

President – Chandi J. Associates Inc. Consulting, Canada

Founder & Administrator – Global Hospitality Forum

chandij@sympatico.ca

The Second Chance

After reading the letter from the Principal of the Ceylon Hotel School (CHS), strongly suggesting that I should leave CHS, my father became silent. With his deep disappointment, he stopped talking to me for a few days. My mother commenced gently inquiring about other career options for her only son. Now that hotel-keeping was not an option for me anymore, I continued with something I have enjoyed in the past – sports. This included Rugby Football representing my neighbourhood team (which had four national players and an unbeaten record for years), Judo and organising track and field athletic events in my neighbourhood.

One day towards the end of 1972 summer, my father spoke with me again and he asked me to get ready to go to CHS for an important meeting. My father had made an appointment with Mr. Eardley Edrisinha, Vice Principal of CHS (and at that time, the Acting Principal). Herr Sterner, the Principal was in West Germany on his summer vacation. Mr. Edrisinha was an excellent teacher of non-hospitality subjects and a highly respected educator. Having worked in the UK for several years as a teacher, he was well experienced in balancing student discipline with strategies for student success.

My father spoke privately with him, while I waited nervously outside. I was summoned into the office at the end of the meeting. My father then told Mr. Edrisinha, “Please give this buffoon one last chance, as he has promised to study seriously, work hard and behave himself at CHS from now on.” That worked. As the Acting Principal, Mr. Edrisinha made the final decision to give me a second chance at CHS. He told us that he will inform the Principal when he returned to Sri Lanka. Knowing that Mr. Sterner was adamant to get rid of me, I was pleasantly surprised about this. I understood that it was a bad cop – good cop strategy. I made up my mind to do a little bit of studies and stay out of trouble at CHS, during my second year.

Lifelong Friendship

Mr. Eardley Edrisinha was the best teacher I had in Sri Lanka. He was also a lifelong learner. Nineteen years after this incident, in 1991 as the Managing Director, I founded the International Hotel School of Sri Lanka (IHS). I hired Mr. Edrisinha to be the Principal of this new hotel school. When I continued to address him as “Sir” during management meetings he was somewhat annoyed and told me privately, “Chandana, you are my boss. Please stop calling me Sir.” I responded, “OK, Sir.”

During the second year of IHS operation I developed and delivered an Executive Diploma Program in Hotel Administration. This program was accredited by the Hotel & Catering International Management Association (HCIMA), UK. It was worth 34 valuable HCIMA education points towards membership (a British bachelor’s degree in hospitality management was worth 60 education points). Mr. Edrisinha participated in that program as my student, without any reluctance. After he completed his dissertation under my supervision, I sponsored his membership of HCIMA, as his referee. He and I also did a few joint writing of conference papers. These were chosen and presented at large annual conferences organized by the University of Sri Jayewardenepura held in Colombo and the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) held in Bali. He was an excellent team player and a true gentleman. He worked with me until I left Sri Lanka for good in 1994.

After that, during each of my annual trips to Sri Lanka I visited him, and on his invitation, I presented a few guest lectures to his students. After he passed away, Mrs. Edrisinha invited me to their home and gifted me her husband’s favourite tie. She said that “Eardley wanted you to have this.” Thank you, for giving me a second chance at CHS and your friendship, Mr. Eardley Edrisinha. I shall remain forever grateful and cherish your memory, Sir!

Sports Meet Organiser

Almost all students who spent 12e years at Ananda College and passed the GCE Ordinary Level examinations at their first attempt, and entered grade eleven were made College Prefects. I was an exception. Although I was a senior student with all pre-requisites, due to my long history of mischief, the teachers simply could not simply authorise me to enforce discipline. The only leadership role I held during my high school years was when I got elected by popular vote, as the Captain of one of the four college houses for sports in 1970.

As the house I led had around 1,500 students, it was a big responsibility for a 16-year-old. I quickly fitted into this responsible job by wisely surrounding myself with friends who had better leadership and organisational skills. With their help I motivated members of the house to take part in track and field team and individual events organised by the Master of Sports of the college. I always did better in action learning a new skill. Soon after gaining that experience, I wanted to organise a similar sport meet in my neighbourhood.

Since September 1970, I was the leader of a small group of teenagers who organised an eight-event annual neighbourhood sports meet. This was for all children above ten years of age in 92 homes within Bambalapitiya Flats, Colombo. I did the overall plan and delegated functions such as fundraising, logistical arrangements, time-keeping, score-keeping, printing of certificates, purchasing of trophies and organising the awards ceremony; to neighbourhood buddies of my age group. These annual sport meets provided entertainment to the neighbourhood for a few days every September. I also competed in all eight track and field events in 16+ years category, as I wanted to win the overall championship. Having done this event in 1970 and 1971, during my summer break from CHS in 1972, I organised the third annual sports meet. It was a big success, although I, as a participating athlete, failed to win the overall championship by one point.

Tournament Secretary

Mr. Vernon de Alwis, a neighbour in his early thirties made an interesting offer to me soon after the award ceremony. He had heard that I was a student of CHS, and was impressed with the manner in which the 1972 neighbourhood sports meet was organised. He worked for the Ceylon Steel Corporation and was the Secretary of the Nationalised Services Athletics Association (NSAA) of Sri Lanka. The member organisations of this association were large government-owned corporations and boards, including the Bank of Ceylon, Air Ceylon (national airline) and Ceylon Tourist Board (organization which administered CHS). He told me that his association’s executive committee needed some new blood and efficient young office bearers. He then inquired if I would be interested in the post of the Tournament Secretary for Athletics of NSAA. To convince me, he mentioned that this honorary post would look good on my resume.

I went to my first ever NSAA committee meeting riding on Mr. Alwis’s motorcycle pillion. When I was elected uncontested, as the Tournament Secretary I became the youngest office bearer in NSAA’s history. I quicky settled into this role. I learnt a lot from my much elder and experienced colleagues in the committee. Apart from giving me rides to the committee meetings, during my two-year term as the Tournament Secretary of NSAA, Mr. Alwis became a mentor to me. NSAA also had a Rugby Football Club and the committee decided to commence a new seven-a-side Rugby Football Tournament with me as the Tournament Secretary. After my successful persuasions with NSAA committee colleagues, CHS was allowed to compete in this tournament on behalf of the Ceylon Tourist Board. Unfortunately, the CHS team got knocked out in the second round. Some of the twelve teams competing were very good with several national Ruggerites, representing their employers.

Cleaning Supervisor

Upon returning to CHS after the summer break in 1972, we had to do extra seasonal cleaning. Some of the younger Lecturers tried various new methods to get students motivated to do these ‘unpopular’ cleaning tasks. Due to my bad reputation during my first year at CHS, one young Lecturer, Mr. Felix Bartholomeusz refused to give me any type of responsibility when I returned to CHS for my second year. Therefore, I was surprised when a colleague of his, Mr. Rohan De Silva, gave me a temporary title as the ‘Cleaning Supervisor’ and allocated a group of my batch mates to work with me.

Mr. Rohan De Silva delegated all cleaning tasks to me and empowered me to get those tasks done through my team of peers. I quite enjoyed that and ended up not doing any manual work, but just supervision. Decades later, Mr. De Silva told me that his technique helped him to get the CHS Principal off his back and reduced the time he spent on assigning individual tasks to a large group of students. Then he said “Chandana, I knew that you would not do any work. I did not mind that as I was sure that you will get the job done through others.”