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| Wednesday, 17 November 2004 |
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Enter Pieter Keuneman
Very few of us would have known who this handsome young man was, but
later we learnt that the man was a 'revolutionary' - a communist to be
exact - who had just returned from his studies abroad. Unfortunately for
me this time there were no 'Piligenime Kavi' (Welcome Verses) to be
recited to the guest. I have a feeling that young Mr. K would have rejected the idea wholesale, being the revolutionary that he was. So there I was in the back of the open-air audience together with a whole lot of other equally bewildered children. I remember young Mr. K as a very lean, tall, fair, very handsome young man. His crop of dark hair, not combed down properly, but rather carelessly pushed back, kept invading his forehead each time he made any emphatic gesture during the course of his speech. Not that he was much of a gesticulator; in fact his was a calm and steady sort of delivery most of the time. But on the occasional gesture of the head, the hair would invade his forehead and he would push it back negligently, but rather attractively! Mr. K, unlike J. R. Jayewardene, our earlier visitor, spoke in English and we kids understood very little of what he said, but his manner, his particular stance and the way of his delivery were very impressive indeed. I believe he spoke of the rotten state of affairs of poor countries like ours, whom the colonialists had usurped and sapped and about the new order of things to come. He thanked our new Principal for giving him an opportunity to speak to such an attentive set of young men and women (Yes, we had female students too at Lorenz) and hoped that some of us would be the future leaders of the coming 'revolution'. Thunderous applause There was thunderous applause for young Mr. Keuneman's speech - especially from the older students. Another feature of Mr. K's presence was that he smoked most of the time. I don't think he smoked during his speech, but seated, he was almost always with a lit cigarette between his fingers. This, I am sure would have suited our Principal well. He too was almost a chain-smoker. I came to know Mr. Pieter Keuneman much later in life but by that time he had given up smoking, not to mention that he had lost most of his handsome black locks which kept prancing down to his wise forehead! I am not sure of the "Revolutionaries" that Lorenz College produced after young Mr. K's lecture that day, but soon after we did notice quite a few young emulators of our guest. Young men who were fortunate enough to have a good crop of hair on their heads suddenly chose not to comb it down but to let it be kept carefully unkept and let the locks stray down their youthful foreheads and some others were noticed to have changed their style of walking and standing. Yet others, good 'speakers', like my brother Dharmaratne, seemed to have changed their style of public speaking! As I said earlier (or, did I?) we were quite a 'receptive' lot as far as our distinguished visitors were concerned. I did say about Drama being introduced and encouraged by Mr. Jayatillake, the new Principal. I remember one of the very first dramas that was put up on a rather make-shift stage by the more senior students. It was a 'historical' play with lots of 'Raja Andum' - stately costumes - songs, patriotic dialogue and a couple of Kadu (sword) fights. The play was written by one of the older students - a very 'patriotic' looking young man with a flowing head of curly black hair, a nicely trimmed moustache and a rather captivating smile. His name, if I remember right was Jayatillake, a fitting name to be the hero of patriotic drama! Yes, Jayatillake had given himself the male lead of a prince in hiding, somewhere and sometime between the Portuguese and the Dutch invasions and the prince comes out in pursuit of marauding foreign invader captain who seems to be playing merry hell with the helpless locals. Then there is the inevitable Kadu Fight between the two, a rather vicious fight, and finally the marauder is vanquished. Different signals The play was put on the boards on the due date at the due time with the new Principal, Mr.J other staff and practically the whole school in attendance. By this time we, the smaller chaps were fairly familiar with the play and we eagerly awaited the last Kadu Fight between the Prince and the marauder. Incidentally the role of the marauder - the villain - was played by that devil of a fellow called Donald Wijesinghe, whom I mentioned earlier as the captain of the newly formed Football team of the College. And the fight did begin. And then something went wrong. The fight did not seem to end and it went on and on and poor Jayatillake, the playwright and Prince, was seen to be fighting more to save his skin, than to conquer! You see, Donald was a very strong man and quite a devilish chap who enjoyed playing pranks. He was in full fighting spirit with all those boots and straps, feathered cap, sword and whatnot. Poor Jayatillake - no mean swordsman himself, was hampered by his heavy flowing robe and the traditional 'Raja' costumes. He was seen signalling frantically to his opponent to give up and be vanquished, but nothing of the sort happened. Old Donald was determined to have his own way and was seen giving his opponent different signals. Finally, out of sheer exhaustion, Jayatillake managed to leap into the wings and disappear swearing revenge, bloody revenge at some later date and the situation was saved by some of the other actors invading the stage and chasing the marauder away! As a man of the theatre, I wonder how such a scene would have effected me today although at that moment all of us smaller brats enjoyed the confusion thoroughly. Devilish Donald must have been castigated thoroughly later, not only by the playwright/director, but also by the Principal himself because he never appeared in a play again. Long years later, I met Donald at Diyatalawa where he was working for the Electrical Department and I was employed at the Executive Engineer's office of the Public Works Department where we had some excellent times. But that's another story. **** Back **** |
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Mr. Sirinipala de Zoysa Jayatillake, our new Principal at Lorenz
College, Gampaha was no mean speaker - in fact he could be all thunder and
brimstone when that kind of thing was called for. After he had settled
down and brought in a whole new order into the school, one particular day
he invited a guest speaker to address the newly revolutionized students
and that speaker was Pieter Keuneman.
