Memories of the old Alma Mater

by Vijaya Chandrasoma

My father, an employee of the old Ceylon Civil Service, finally got a posting in Colombo, after many years in the outstations as we Sri Lankans refer, often disparagingly, to our boondocks.

We moved into an old house my mother owned on Fifth Lane, Colombo 3, a stone’s throw from Royal College, the leading government boys’ school in Sri Lanka. My father, being an old Anandian, would have preferred to have his sons study at his alma mater, Ananda College, the leading Buddhist boys’ school in Colombo. My father was, yet again, overruled by my mother, who persuaded him that we should seek admittance to Royal, pleading proximity and convenience. Being a snob at heart, I suspect she wanted us to attend Royal more for its upper-class, English/colonial overtones.

I was an above-average student at Royal Preparatory School and College, one of those students who ended their schooldays with average results expected of them by their parents. I participated in many sports, again with insubstantial success. I was compelled to end my school career prematurely in 1957, when my father went on assignment in London with the company for which he worked. My early departure was hardly a great loss to the school.

I do recall a few incidents of my schooldays. I was an average cricketer, who due to the various quirks of cricketing bureaucracy – quirks that exist today at the highest levels of Sri Lankan cricket – achieved the captaincy of the Harward House Under 14 and Under 16 cricket teams. Harward was one of four Houses into which the student population at Royal was subdivided, the others at that time being Hartley, Marsh and Boake. More Houses have since been added to accommodate the increased student population at Royal.

I had an aversion to be a member of the school’s Scout troop, where a “leg glance” was rumored to have a different connotation to the delicate stroke played at cricket. I dodged enrollment by persuading my mother to get a letter from our family physician that the rigors of marching in the hot sun would be deleterious to my “weak constitution”.

I had been a regular member of the College Under 16 cricket team for early season games. Imagine my dismay when I went to the notice board one day, found that I had been dropped from the eleven and demoted to first reserve for the match to be played the next weekend. The only function of the first reserve was to carry out drinks during breaks.

I hoped a mistake had been made and immediately sought out the Under 16 cricket master who unfortunately also happened to be a scout master. With a sardonic smile, he told me that he had dropped me from the team because of his concern for my well-being. After all, as I was medically advised to avoid marching in the hot sun in the Scout troop, it would be irresponsible, even cruel, to ask me to play cricket under the same hot sun. That was the end of my college cricketing career, which hadn’t shown much promise, anyway.

I was also a contender for the college’s junior (Under 16) team for the Public Schools Tennis Tournament. Due to the illness of our star player, I crept into the team, being selected to represent in the College B team (doubles), in the 1956 Public Schools Championships. I silenced all critics when my partner, a star Rugby player and later a member of the Canadian Diplomatic Corps, and I beat the highly ranked Royal College A Team, to win the Junior Doubles. In straight sets, no less.

The main reason for bringing this up today was a conversation I had last week with a member of the aforementioned Royal College A team, who has remained a good friend over the decades. During our conversation, I told him that I had included this achievement in a lighthearted narrative about my life I was writing for my grandchildren. My friend, who had gone on to be a nationally ranked tennis player, and is today an illustrious Buddhist scholar of unblemished reputation, expressed surprise.

He said it cannot be, that I must have my facts mixed up, as he and his partner had never lost an event in the Public Schools Championships, in 1956 or any other year. There is no way I can find the records of such an insignificant tennis tournament 65 years ago. I tried, but the archives at Royal were closed for the vacation. I will try again, because I want to prove a point: that successful men tend to forget their few failures, while we mere mortals treasure and jealously guard our few successes in our memories.

One of my most enduring teenage memories was when I was running in the school sports meet in the 440-yards event. My father had been a national class hurdler, and a member of the Colombo University 4 X 100 relay team which held the national record for this event for many years. He was watching at the final bend, cheering me on, “Come on, Vicky, Come on Vicky”. An event made memorable only because it gave birth to the name I have been known as all my life.

Of course, no narrative of school memories by any Royalist of my vintage would be complete without deference to the greatest and most versatile teacher Royal had, among a coterie of excellent teachers: the late Bevill St. Elmo de Bruin. There was nothing he could not teach, be it in English Literature, Mathematics, and any sport played at Royal. Together with my father, he was responsible for my abiding love of the English language.

I left school in early 1958, and lost touch with him, until I failed a paper in Mathematics in my Prelims examination at Oxford in 1960. Twice. So I was rusticated, which meant that I could resume reading for my degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Christ Church if I passed Prelims. I was spending my rustication in London, and heard along the grapevine that Bruno, as he was affectionately known to all, was also teaching at a school in London.

I got his address, visited him and explained my predicament to him. He immediately offered me three evenings a week to tutor me in Math, but not even his God given brilliance as a teacher was able to penetrate my mind with the torturous intricacies of calculus. So I failed. Again. One of the few failures of his career, many in mine.

Fast forward to 1996. There were quite a few old boys in Los Angeles who had kept in touch with Bruno, or “Mr. Dibs” as he was called during his lengthy teaching career at Cornwall College in Montego Bay. I got his address and wrote to him, hoping he would remember me. His response in beautiful calligraphy, a letter which I treasure, states inter alia, “I remember you all right. That was in 1961, in the chill (to me) of an English autumn – and I hated the cold and the dark clouds. And while I would not have stepped out for a pack of cigarettes without wearing a ton of protective clothing, there you were with your shirt open at the neck, making nothing of the elements. That should convince you that I have reason to remember you”.

In my letter to him, I had told him how proud I was of my children, and praised my wife (this was in 1996, things have changed since). His conclusion: “If you remember Carl Muller, now a best -selling author sponsored by Penguin Books Ltd., he wrote about his third wife in much the same way that you praised your wife’s loyalty – even asking the Pope to canonize her. Please give your good lady my regards and best wishes. You can be proud of your wonderful family. God bless you all. Elmo de Bruin”.

25 years later, three out of four ain’t bad.

I believe Bruno or Mr. Dibs as he was known in Jamaica received Jamaica’s highest teaching honour, the Order of Distinction. He has been described as “a living treasure of Jamaica”. A treasure that was rightfully ours.

The only trouble I got into in my school career was during my final year, when we had forsaken our Kollupitiya home to live in government housing in North Colombo. I had to fend for myself for lunch. My mother gave me Rs. 1.50 to treat myself to a plate of mixed fried rice at a nearby Chinese restaurant. Some of us occasionally cycled to lunch at a vegetarian restaurant in Bambalapitya, the famous Saraswathie Lodge, a couple of miles from school. We used to polish off copious quantities of traditional Tamil food, followed by a Marcovitch Black & White cigarette, all at a cost of 47 cents, which enabled me to make a substantial profit from my lunch allowance.

These excursions had gained currency in the school, and prompted one of the school prefects to conduct a “raid”. We were caught red handed. The raider of the thosai joint reported us to the principal. I cannot remember the punishment meted out, only that it was not corporal.

This story is interesting only because the officious prefect who “copped” us was none other than the illustrious, though less so in his role of a college prefect in the incident under reference, Mr. Lalith Athulathmudali, who went on to be the President of the Oxford Union and a leading cabinet minister of the then ruling United National Party. He was tragically assassinated during the violence of presidential politics of the 1990s.

In those days, Mr. Athulathmudali lived in, I think, Deal Place, Colombo 3, and he had to walk down the drain, as 27th Lane was then called, passing our house on his way home. We had moved back to Fifth Lane at the time, after my father resigned from his government position at the Port of Colombo.

There were often one or more attractive aunts living with us while they were pursuing their university studies in Colombo. I was occasionally able to persuade one of them to make “funny faces and noises” from the balcony at the then pompous prefect, while I was greeting him most respectfully from ground level.

My classmates at Royal have ended up as masters of industry, eminent physicians, lawyers of international repute, towering above me in their achievements. I have no chance of equaling them in any way. So I plan to outlive them all.