by Jayantha Perera

Seniors’ ragging of ‘freshers’ was rampant on the Peradeniya campus. Marcus Fernando Hall, where I was a fresher, was notorious for ragging. A gang of nasty seniors woke us up at 4 am and forced us to crawl naked around the hall pond, pretending to be reptiles looking for water. Some seniors were lenient and wanted to have a good time with freshers. They asked us to sing, dance, or write letters promising to marry off sisters to their lordships – seniors. Once, I wrote a long letter promising to marry off my only sister to a senior. (I had only three brothers). He read the letter, thanked me for my generosity, and asked whether my sister was pretty. When I hesitated to reply, he told me he was uninterested in my sister.

The registration of undergraduates on the ground floor of the Senate provided an ideal opportunity for seniors to catch freshers for ragging. Seniors ordered freshers in their halls of residence to wear long-sleeved white shirts for the registration and to return to their halls after the registration. Seniors waited for them about 100 yards away from the Senate building, picked up freshers, and took them to their rooms for ragging.

During the ragging season, freshers had a busy life. Attendance at the University Health Clinic for a health checkup was mandatory. Weak hearts and poor eyesight were common defects among freshers. A nurse declared me fully colour-blind. Another fresher found that he had only one testicle.

I attended University Welfare Committee interviews to obtain free financial assistance. In the personal information form, I wrote that my mother had no income. Prof Sarachchandra, Chief Welfare Officer, called me for an interview. I told him about Amma’s difficulties in getting essential food with the stipend she received from my granduncle. He was sympathetic and gave me a cheque for Rs. 100. Then he approved a bursary of Rs. 300 per term. He told me although poverty was quite common in rural communities, villagers had enough resources to survive. However, for the urban poor, living was difficult unless a family member earned wages or made profits from a small business. He said he understood the difficulties I encountered.

Ragging lasted for two weeks and ended with an ‘initiation ceremony’. After taking the hall oath, freshers drank cheap arrack and danced until dawn the following day. They promised to respect seniors, not grab their girlfriends, and introduce them to female batch-mates with good recommendations. From the third week, all became equal, and university identity preceded other alliances such as school, region, religion, and ethnicity.

The most famous teacher among the freshers was Professor Sarachchandra, who taught Sinhala and literary criticism. He was a student of Professor A. J. Ayer, a world-renowned logician and philosopher at London University. About 200 students attended his class at the Arts Theatre. Sarachchandra brought a bundle of cyclostyled pages of books and distributed them among the students. He read a poem or an extract from a book aloud, inviting students to express their views, feelings, and thoughts. Most of the time, the class laughed at those students who expressed their opinions and beliefs, which were irrelevant to the discussed topic. Sarachchandra was patient and listened to each student who wanted to talk. Although we did not take notes during his lectures, we knew we had learned a lot.

Professor K N Jayatilleke taught logic and the scientific method. He was also a renowned Buddhist and Pali scholar who studied at Cambridge under the famous philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Jayatilleke taught us deductive and inductive methods and how to use Venn diagrams to develop precise statements and definitions of phenomena. ‘Is there a God?’ was a popular question we discussed in the classroom. He summarised all the points we put forward on the blackboard and wrote his views in two lines at the bottom.

The teacher who taught us economics was a clever man with his own teaching style. He first gave us a summary of the topic and a question or two. He wanted us to discuss the issue and our answers in the next class. Economic history was my favourite subject. A Tokskyist taught us political theory. He criticised the British monarch and the Parliament and ridiculed maxims such as ‘The Queen can do no wrong’ and ‘The Queen reigns but not administers.’ He taught us how to think critically and independently and to approach a complex issue by dividing it into a series of questions.

It was a novel experience for me to associate with female colleagues. The names of some of my colleagues were new to me. At school, my friends were Hillary, Bonaventure, Joseph, Ivan, Winston, Bernard, and Lucian. At the University, my friends were Premathileke, Piyaseeli, Piyadasa, Gamage, Tilakaratne, and Wijeratne. In the first term, I got used to such names. The other significant difference was that most of them were Buddhists, and I was a Catholic. With religion came many different cultural practices.

I went to the Catholic Church on the campus on Sundays. My friends went to the Dalada Maligawa during the weekends and to a nearby Buddhist temple on a full moon day. They worshipped their parents by kneeling and touching their feet. I usually greeted my mother and other female relatives by kissing their cheeks. When they left home, their parents told them, “Theruwan saranai” (may the triple gems bless you). My mother bid me farewell by saying “Jesu pihitai” (may Jesus bless you). Parents usually brought cooked food sufficient to serve many friends of their sons or daughters. I was thrilled when my granduncle sent me a large cake from Kandy for Easter, which I shared with my friends. Most of them did not know Easter. For them, April’s Sinhala and Tamil New Year was the time to celebrate. I once visited a friend in his village during the New Year season. I was amazed to see how well women played the rabanas and men competed in thirikkal (cart) races.

Freshers joined various political parties. I was interested in joining JVP, but JVP leaders were reluctant to accept me as a JVP member. A friend told me that was because I was a Catholic and came from an urban school. I then joined the Communist Party (Peking Wing). I took part in campus student elections and political seminars held in Kandy. A friend from the Science Faculty became an ardent political theorist with great sympathy for the poor. He engaged in various welfare programs in rural areas. Once, he returned to the hall at midnight and found no food. He shouted at the hall steward and demanded food. The steward told him that dinner time was 8 pm, and he was late. My friend barked, “I can be anywhere in the universe. You should keep my dinner regardless of the rules.”

I occasionally visited the SK shop in Kandy (which my granduncle introduced to me). I obtained milk powder, packets of biscuits, writing paper, file covers, and pens on my granduncle’s account. I shared writing papers, Marmite and Horlicks (a hot milk beverage) with my two room-mates. When I got my bursary, I gave my two younger brothers some money. I frequently travelled home to see Amma and my brothers.

I often thought about Thaththa and imagined discussing my new subjects with him in the backyard of our house. I wanted to tell him how well I did in Sinhala, economics, and philosophy. Sometimes, my mind wandered. Once, I lost the teacher’s critical line of argument. When he wrote ‘V’ on the blackboard, I asked him “V stands for what?” He told me ‘Vimala’ (a girl’s name), suggesting I was thinking of a girl during my lessons. The entire class laughed. But immediately he said ‘V’ was for vishwaya (universe).

At the end of the third term, I returned home to revise for the General Arts Qualifying examination (GAQ). My younger brothers were at Padiyapellala. Nihal was at the minor seminary in Colombo. Amma was thrilled to have me at home. On Sundays, we went together to church, where she proudly introduced me to her friends. She boasted about me, saying I might someday become a university lecturer.

This calm and happy interlude in my life was shattered again when Amma fell ill. She got a severe throat and lung infection. We had about Rs. 50 at home, and within three days, it dwindled to Rs. 10, as medicine cost a lot. She was lying on the floor with great pain. I did not want to go to my granduncle to get more money.

Amma

could not eat any food because of her throat infection. I was worried that I too, would get the virus and fall sick. I decided to eat bread with brown sugar for all three meals. I bought a loaf of bread in the morning for 25 cents. I soaked a piece of bread in water and forced Amma to swallow it, and I ate a slice of bread with sugar. For lunch, I ate another piece of bread with sugar and fed Amma with bread and water. Dinner was also bread with sugar. I left for Peradeniya when Amma recovered from her illness.

Soon after the examination, I visited my granduncle’s shop at Padiyapelalla. One morning, at the cashier’s desk, I met the most beautiful girl in my life. She was about 16 years old and came with her sister, who was about 10 years old. The girls were breathtakingly pretty and talked with a different accent. The elder sister told me that the sugar she had bought from the shop was not properly wrapped, and by the time she reached home, there was no sugar in the packet. I asked her, “What can we do for you?” She said, “Please give me another sugar packet; otherwise, my mother will punish me!”

I told a shop assistant to give her a packet of sugar. That decision was correct. But no sooner had they left than the senior workers criticised me for giving them an extra sugar packet. One asked me, “Do you know those two girls are of the lowest caste? They are padu (untouchable) girls. That is why they are so pretty. A young man like you should be cautious because they are known for charming men with their beauty and 64 mayam (strategies). You should not walk alone in villages because they may trap you to marry one of their girls!” Their nagging went on for over an hour. Fortunately, the story did not reach my granduncle. I never saw the two girls again.

The GAQ results were out in mid-August. I did well and was among the four ‘exhibition’ prize winners. I consulted several professors before deciding whether to do a special or general degree. My desire was to do law. Peradeniya University did not offer law as a subject. It was available only at Colombo University. I could have joined the law faculty in Colombo with good advanced-level results. But I did not want to burden Amma as she had little money. Also, studying law requires a good knowledge of English as it is taught in English. I was not confident I could switch from Sinhala to English to read law. At that time, I had the false impression that legal studies were for wealthy and well-connected students.

I applied for a special course in sociology. The Professor of Sociology asked me to translate two passages from English to Sinhala to check my English proficiency. One passage was from an anthropology textbook, and the other from a political science textbook. I translated the first passage without any difficulty. The other was a difficult passage. Two days later, at the interview, he told me that I got 1 out of 10 for the translation while others got 0/10; therefore, he would allow me to study sociology! I did not know whether he was joking or serious. I expected to get at least 5/10 for the translation. His statement hurt me. I should have enrolled in Philosophy or Sinhala ‘special’ degree. In fact, the heads of the philosophy department and the Sinhala department invited me to read their ‘special’ degree courses. I did not join them because I thought a sociology degree would help me find a job after graduation.

The Professor taught two students in the English medium. A lecturer taught the seven Sinhala medium students. He arranged a special English class at the English Department to help us understand Sociology textbooks written in English. Social and Political Thought class was at the Department of Political Science. The Professor stammered a lot, making his lectures challenging to follow. He brilliantly summarised the ideas of thinkers such as Aristotle, Plato, Aquinas, Machiavelli, and Gandhi. By the end of the year, I understood the main currents of social and political thought and how they had affected various political regimes and civilisations. This knowledge formed the foundation of my future studies.

I conducted field research with visiting researchers at the department. Professor Nur Yalman of Chicago University recruited me as a research assistant to study the changing Buddhist culture in rural Sri Lanka. I visited about 20 Buddhist temples and discussed with about 50 bhikkus topics, such as whether Armstrong landed on the Moon. Only 30% of them believed that Armstrong reached the Moon. A communication specialist engaged me in fieldwork on mass communication and development in rural Sri Lanka. Each of them paid me a daily stipend. I bought my first saree for Amma with the money I earned from the fieldwork.

The Sociology department’s annual field trip to the Udawalawe region was a memorable episode in my second year at the University. Our first stop was at the Ratnapura Resthouse, where the Government Agent of the District, a Sociology graduate, hosted us for lunch. We had lots of beer and a sumptuous lunch. Each ate with a spoon, fork, and napkin tucked into the shirt or blouse. One vegetable served at lunch was murunga (drumstick). We did not know how to scoop the flesh from open lengths of murunga with a spoon. Most of us did not touch the dish, saying that we did not like murunga.

At Embilipitya, we stayed at a government circuit bungalow. We spent one day at the famous Victorian-era mansion of Maduwanwela Dissawa (Chieftain) in Thanamalwila. We learned from villagers that the government held elephant kraals in the 1940s near the small stream there. They explained how the hasthi rajaya (lead elephant) in one of the kraals attempted to break the stockade to protect its herd and how a marksman shot and killed it. We sang the song Panamure ath rajaya, written in memory of the elephant, before leaving the spot. Although our interactions with the local people were limited, we had an opportunity to observe rural living and to listen to folklore.

I sat next to a female undergrad on the bus during the trip. At the journey’s end, my friends thought I was ‘hitched’ to her. They mockingly blessed us for being the fortunate ones on the field trip! When I returned to Peradeniya, I had strange disorientation and loneliness. I thought I was sick. A friend told me that I was in love. He promised to talk to the lady concerned. I told him that I was not ready to start a relationship. About 40 years later, I checked facts and rumours of the bygone era with her. With more effort from each side, our mutual interest could have led to a lasting life relationship.