Features

FRESH AIR FOR THE LIONEL WENDT

Published

3 years ago

2022/04/16

by ECB Wijeyasinghe

When Julius Caesar said: “let me have men about me that are fat,” he must have been thinking of persons like Lionel Wendt.

Wendt was half a dozen extraordinary characters rolled into one and would have delighted the heart of Caesar’s recruiting sergeant. Naturally, Wendt was a heavy man where adiposity was concerned, but he was not in the same class as, say Percy Cooke, or N.J. Martin. Percy Cooke was one of the most highly respected solicitors of his time.

He traveled in a limousine specially built for him by Colonial Motors. The front seat which he occupied had no doors for obvious reasons. N.J. Martin, Crown Proctor in distant Chilaw, had an enormous office table, carved out in the centre to fit the shape of his body. When he retired, Albert Peries, the former Speaker, took over Martin’s office, lock stock and barrel, but re-modelled the furniture to suit his slender frame.

Lionel Wendt, on the other hand, despite his heavy build was a bundle of energy and when he walked up the steps of Lake House, two at a time, he was obviously putting an undue strain on his great heart. The premature death of perhaps the greatest Dutch Burgher of this generation put an end to a brief but sparkling career.

It is difficult to believe that the one and the same man could be a photographer with an international reputation, a brilliant pianist, a conversationalist who could bandy wisecracks with Oscar Wilde, and an aesthete, if ever there was one. Wendt’s father was a staid and scholarly judge of the Supreme Court. But the secret of his versatility probably lay in the fact that his mother belonged to the old De Saram family.

BURGHERS

Whether they play cricket, tennis or golf, or perform on the ‘cello or piano, or merely manufacture castor oil for ICI, they are always at the top of the class. It is also a curious thing that some of the most enthusiastic admirers of and authorities on Sinhala Art and Culture should have been non-Sinhalese. There was Ananda Coomaraswamy, of course, but most of the others were Dutch Burghers.

Take these for examples – Andreas Nell and Cyril Nicholas were antiquarians of the highest order. There was one more thing that was common to both of them. They were bachelors. In the evening of their lives, instead of hitching their wagons to some falling star, they spent their time studying things that were old but beautiful.

L.E. Blaze, the founder of Kingswood College, Kandy, wrote one of the most readable histories of Ceylon. R.L. Brohier, now an octogenarian, is still the last word on ancient irrigation systems which provide food for thought to modem engineers. George Keyt has absorbed the beauty and grace of Oriental Art to such a degree that nobody thinks of his Dutch connections.

There are people who are convinced that Keyt is the re-incarnation of one of the painters who kept old Kasyapa happy on the Sigiriya rock, by taking his mind back to the houris who had done their bit for King and country.

There are other Dutch Burghers of this generation whose contributions to culture and art cannot be ignored. In the field of drama, the work of Professor E.F.C Ludowyk, Arthur Van Langenberg and Percy Colin-Thorne are outstanding. All of them were friends of Lionel Wendt who in some respects resembled Nataraja, the Hindu deity with two legs but four arms, especially when he played the piano.

PHOTOGRAPHER

D.R.Wijewardene, the Boss of Lake House, always on the lookout for talented young men saw the camera-artist in Lionel Wendt and made his plans accordingly. Wendt was given a free hand to design and build a modem photographic studio where excited bridal couples could keep cool while their features were being recorded for posterity.

Even fathers-in-law who had reluctantly parted with big dowries looked happy under Wendt’s barrage of witticisms. Chitrafoto ultimately became a permanent adjunct of Lake House and the model for up-to-date studios. There were other good photograpers in Colombo, but very few people could tell their children and grand-children that a man with an international reputation handled the camera when they posed for this picture.

HAROLD PEIRIS

One of Lionel Wendt’s most intimate friends and admirers was Harold Peiris. Harold who occupies a part of Alfred House built by C.H.de Soysa, is also an aesthete like Lionel and a patron of the Arts. Since his youth he has cultivated the habit of doing noble things, not dreaming them all day long. One of his dreams was to build a permanent memorial to his bosom pal and nothing more concrete could have been raised than the Lionel Wendt Theatre and Art Centre.

Harold built it on the very site where Wendt used to give impromptu recitals of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms for his high-brow cronies, but something simpler to low-brows like myself. One of the documents I prize highly is a note written by Wendt in blue pencil on copy paper, after seeing “The Cardinal” a high-powered drama staged at St. Peter’s College Hall. After a most generous reference which I scarcely deserved, he said: “But my gawd ” And added some unprintable comments on the performances of one or two others who happened to be his friends.

A couple of days later he dropped in at the “Observer” Editorial room and extended an invitation to Editor Hilaire Jansz and myself to a drink at his home. There, looking very much like Mark Hambourg, his teacher, he sat at his grand piano, wearing a scarlet dressing gown. For half an hour he entertained his two-man audience with music and words.

Probably thinking that the classics were not good for our digestion, he let himself go in a species of Boogie-woogie, with variations of his own, in order to please our simple musical souls. There was no cant in his make-up and he did not pretend to be a plaster saint. To most of his friends and pupils however, he was a demi-god. When Harold Peiris conceived the idea of a memorial, the play-song public heaved a sigh of relief that Colombo was going to have a model theatre at last. The plan was to make it sound-proof and heat-proof. In fact it was going to be air-conditioned.

THEATRE

“But how oft the schemes of mice and men gang aft agley!” The Wendt Theatre at present is merely air-tight. That is all. After the first act of a play the animal heat of the audience begins to make itself felt. However amusing the comedy the people who come to laugh either remain to gasp for breath, or quietly follow the dramatic critics to the well-stocked bar to recharge their enthusiasm for Drama.

There is a body of Christians who believe that sinners must go through Purgatory before entering Heaven. St. Peter is supposed to stand at the Golden Gate and check up on this. There is also a formidable body of opinion inclined to the theory that visitors from Sri Lanka to the celestial regions are absolved from this penal formality, on one condition. They have to prove that they spent a certain number of hours at the Lionel Wendt before the footlights. But air-conditioning will change all this. The fever and the fret will go for ever and you will not be able to sit in the dark and hear each other groan.

To cut a long story short, a big drive is now on to help Harold Peiris to achieve this meritorious goal and make the Lionel Wendt Theatre worthy of its name. Besides, every cent given towards this corporal work of mercy will receive its reward, if not at Guildford Crescent, at least in a higher region where there is no comedy or tragedy and the only man who raises a laugh is Harpo Marx looking for his brother Groucho, who had evidently given him the wrong address.

The next step after getting the air to blow in the right direction is that a section of the Lionel Wendt Complex should be named after Harold Peiris, who has almost killed himself physically and financially to keep alive the flambeau of his friend’s fame.

(From The Good at their

Best first published in 1978)

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Features

BRICS’ pushback against dollar domination sparks global economic standoff

Published

11 hours ago

2025/07/10

Sahan Weerasooriya

BRICS leaders at the recent Summit in Brazil. /United Nations

If one were to look for a ‘rationale’ for the Trump administration’s current decision to significantly raise its tariffs on goods and services entering its shores from virtually the rest of the world, then, it is a recent statement by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that one needs to scrutinize. He is quoted as saying that tariffs could return ‘to April levels, if countries fail to strike a deal with the US.’

In other words, countries are urged to negotiate better tariff rates with the US without further delay if they are not to be at the receiving end of the threatened new tariff regime and its disquieting conditions. An unemotional approach to the questions at hand is best.

It would be foolish on the part of the rest of the world to dismiss the Trump administration’s pronouncements on the tariff question as empty rhetoric. In this crisis there is what may be called a not so veiled invitation to the world to enter into discussions with the US urgently to iron out what the US sees as unfair trade terms. In the process perhaps mutually acceptable terms could be arrived at between the US and those countries with which it is presumably having costly trade deficits. The tariff crisis, therefore, should be approached as a situation that necessitates earnest, rational negotiations between the US and its trading partners for the resolving of outstanding issues.

Meanwhile, the crisis has brought more into the open simmering antagonisms between the US and predominantly Southern groupings, such as the BRICS. While the tariff matter figured with some urgency in the recent BRICS Summit in Brazil, it was all too clear that the biggest powers in the grouping were in an effort ‘to take the fight back to the US’ on trade, investment and connected issues that go to the heart of the struggle for global predominance between the East and the US. In this connection the term ‘West’ would need to be avoided currently because the US is no longer in complete agreement with its Western partners on issues of the first magnitude, such as the Middle East, trade tariffs and Ukraine.

Russian President Putin is in the forefront of the BRICS pushback against US dominance in the world economy. For instance, he is on record that intra-BRICS economic interactions should take place in national currencies increasingly. This applies in particular to trade and investment. Speaking up also for an ‘independent settlement and depository system’ within BRICS, Putin said that the creation of such a system would make ‘currency transactions faster, more efficient and safer’ among BRICS countries.

If the above and other intra-BRICS arrangements come to be implemented, the world’s dependence on the dollar would steadily shrink with a corresponding decrease in the power and influence of the US in world affairs.

The US’ current hurry to bring the world to the negotiating table on economic issues, such as the tariff question, is evidence that the US has been fully cognizant of emergent threats to its predominance. While it is in an effort to impress that it is ‘talking’ from a position of strength, it could very well be that it is fearful for its seemingly number one position on the world stage. Its present moves on the economic front suggest that it is in an all-out effort to keep its global dominance intact.

At this juncture it may be apt to observe that since ‘economics drives politics’, a less dollar dependent world could very well mark the beginning of the decline of the US as the world’s sole super power. One would not be exaggerating by stating that the tariff issue is a ‘pre-emptive’, strategic move of sorts by the US to remain in contention.

However, the ‘writing on the wall’ had been very manifest for the US and the West for quite a while. It is no longer revelatory that the global economic centre of gravity has been shifting from the West to the East.

Asian scholarship, in particular, has been profoundly cognizant of the trends. Just a few statistics on the Asian economic resurgence would prove the point. Parag Khanna in his notable work, ‘The Future is Asian’, for example, discloses the following: ‘Asia represents 50 percent of global GDP…It accounts for half of global economic growth. Asia produces and exports as well as imports and consumes more goods than any region.’

However, the US continues to be number one in the international power system currently and non-Western powers in particular would be erring badly if they presume that the economic health of the world and connected matters could be determined by them alone. Talks with the US would not only have to continue but would need to be conducted with the insight that neither the East nor the West would stand to gain by ignoring or glossing over the US presence.

To be sure, any US efforts to have only its way in the affairs of the world would need to be checked but as matters stand, the East and the South would need to enter into judicious negotiations with the US to meet their legitimate ends.

From the above viewpoint, it could be said that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was one of the most perceptive of Southern leaders at the BRICS Summit. On assuming chairmanship of the BRICS grouping, Modi said, among other things: ‘…During our chairmanship of BRICS, we will take this forum forward in the spirit of people-centricity and humanity first.’

People-centricity should indeed be the focus of BRICS and other such formations of predominantly the South, that have taken upon themselves to usher the wellbeing of people, as opposed to that of power elites and ruling classes.

East and West need to balance each other’s power but it all should be geared towards the wellbeing of ordinary people everywhere. The Cold War years continue to be instructive for the sole reason that the so-called ordinary people in the Western and Soviet camps gained nothing almost from the power jousts of the big powers involved. It is hoped that BRICS would grow steadily but not at the cost of democratic development.

Features

Familian Night of Elegance …

Published

11 hours ago

2025/07/10

Sahan Weerasooriya

The UK branch of the Past Pupils Association of Holy Family Convent Bambalapitiya went into action last month with their third grand event … ‘Familian Night of Elegance.’ And, according to reports coming my way, it was nothing short of a spectacular success.

This dazzling evening brought together over 350 guests who came to celebrate sisterhood, tradition, and the deep-rooted bonds shared by Familians around the world.

Describing the event to us, Inoka De Sliva, who was very much a part of the scene, said:

Inoka De Silva: With one of the exciting prizes – air ticket to Canada and back to the UK

“The highlight of the night was the performance by the legendary Corrine Almeida, specially flown in from Sri Lanka. Her soulful voice lit up the room, creating unforgettable memories for all who attended. She was backed by the sensational UK-based band Frontline, whose energy and musical excellence kept the crowd on their feet throughout the evening.”

Corrine
Almeida:
Created
unforgettable
memories

Inoka, who now resides in the UK, went on to say that the hosting duties were flawlessly handled by the ever popular DJ and compere Vasi Sachi, who brought his trademark style and charisma to the stage, while his curated DJ sets, during the breaks, added fun and a modern vibe to the atmosphere.

Mrs. Rajika Jesuthasan: President of the UK
branch of the Past Pupils Association of
Holy Family Convent Bambalapitiya
(Pix by Mishtré Photography’s Trevon Simon

The event also featured stunning dance performances that captivated the audience and elevated the celebration with vibrant cultural flair and energy.

One of the most appreciated gestures of the evening was the beautiful satin saree given to every lady upon arrival … a thoughtful and elegant gift that made all feel special.

Guests were also treated to an impressive raffle draw with 20 fantastic prizes, including air tickets.

The Past Pupils Association of Holy Family Convent Bambalapitiya, UK branch, was founded by Mrs. Rajika Jesuthasan née Rajakarier four years ago, with a clear mission: to bring Familians in the UK together under one roof, and to give back to their beloved alma mater.

As the curtain closed on another successful Familian celebration, guests left with hearts full, and spirits high, and already counting down the days until the next gathering.

Features

The perfect tone …

Published

11 hours ago

2025/07/10

Sahan Weerasooriya

We all want to have flawless skin, yet most people believe that the only way to achieve that aesthetic is by using costly skin care products.

Getting that perfect skin is not that difficult, even for the busiest of us, with the help of simple face beauty tips at home.

Well, here are some essential ways that will give you the perfect tone without having to go anywhere.

* Ice Cubes to Tighten Skin:

Applying ice cubes to your skin is a fast and easy effective method that helps to reduce eye bags and pores, and makes the skin look fresh and beautiful. Using an ice cube on your face, as a remedy in the morning, helps to “revive” and prepare the skin.

* Oil Cleansing for Skin:

Use natural oils, like coconut oil or olive oil, to cleanse your skin. Oils can clean the face thoroughly, yet moisturise its surface, for they remove dirt and excess oil without destroying the skin’s natural barriers. All one has to do is pick a specific oil, rub it softly over their face, and then wipe it off, using a warm soak (cloth soaked in warm water). It is a very simple method for cleaning the face.

* Sugar Scrub:

Mix a tablespoon of sugar with honey, or olive oil, to make a gentle scrub. Apply it in soft, circular motions, on your face and wash it off after a minute. This helps hydrate your skin by eliminating dead skin cells, which is the primary purpose of the scrub.

* Rose Water Toner:

One natural toner that will soothe and hydrate your skin is rose water. Tightening pores, this water improves the general texture of your skin. This water may be applied gently to the face post-cleansing to provide a soothing and hydrating effect to your face.

* Aloe Vera:

It is well known that aloe vera does wonders for the skin. It will provide alleviation for the skin, because of its calming and moisturising effects. The application of aloe vera gel, in its pure form, to one’s skin is beneficial as it aids in moisturising each layer, prevents slight skin deformity, and also imparts a fresh and healthy look to the face. Before going to bed is the best time to apply aloe vera.

* Water:

Staying hydrated, by drinking plenty of water (06 to 08 cups or glasses a day), helps to flush toxins and its functions in detoxification of the body, and maintenance the youthfulness of the skin in one’s appearance.