We were just 17!

by Dr. Duke Ebenezer

Sumi is clever and wise, magnanimous and kind, benevolent and practical, humorous and witty, single-minded and ambitious. But also somewhat impatient, uniquely successful and full of love for her family and friends. She has had a profound influence on my life.

I first met her when we were both just 17, during our first year at the Engineering Faculty at the University in Colombo. She was the only girl amongst 100 boys. Our social lives were, different during those undergraduate years despite the fact that she ‘hung the block from the hook’ instead of `the hook from the block’ in her first drawing exam. But she passed with flying colours.

When we began our careers in Colombo after graduation something clicked but we had different plans for our postgraduate aspirations. Sumi won a scholarship to do her Master’s in Southampton University, while I was heading to California on a Fulbright scholarship. Sumi must have impressed her professor, because coupled with her powers of persuasion, I too was offered a scholarship for a research degree. I put all my other plans aside and headed off to the UK.

Sumi returned to Sri Lanka and her job at Radio Ceylon while I chose to remain in the UK.

It was at Radio Ceylon that she met Susil and the rest is history but our friendship has remained strong throughout the decades.

I met my wife Kathleen while working for a US technology company in Edinburgh and have a daughter Kirsty, who consults Sumi whenever she needs advice. She has effectively become a younger sister to Anarkali and Aushi. In fact, she followed Anarkali’s footsteps to Oxford for her engineering and economics degree. Aushi, who was at Bristol during her undergraduate years, spent much of her spare time in our Somerset home, with her graduation celebration also held at our home. I was very honoured when I was invited to speak on behalf of her father at her wedding. Tiny and Eroshan have added large doses of friendship to our extended family.

Susil, Sumi, Kathleen and I have spent many holidays together and our children are jointly involved in start-up ventures.

It has been very rewarding to watch Sumi transform from a clever undergraduate to an outstanding postgraduate in the UK and the US, to an academic in Singapore and a pioneering business leader and head of a bank in Sri Lanka. And right through, she has, with little fanfare, helped not just family and friends, but hundreds in need.

We have much to learn from you Sumi.

(Dr. Duke Ebenezer lives and works in the UK, and is the President and CEO at M5 Data. He has a B.Sc from the University of Ceylon and on M.Sc and PhD from the University of Southampton).