Journey with books to Situ Medura

From Artist to Managing Director

by Aditha Dissanayake

Lunch time at the Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Limited. A young man leaves the main entrance, stays out till his friends have had their lunch and strides back to his desk saying he had "lunch from outside".

He is too embarrassed to reveal he could not afford to have lunch. He doesn't want anyone to know he can afford to eat only one meal a day. That was at the beginning.

Today, the Managing Director of Seedevee Offset (Pvt) Limited, D.M Pushpakumara does not mind letting the world know how hard life had been when he gave up sitting for his Advanced Level exams to pursue a career as a freelance artist.

"The day I was to sit for the first paper of my Advanced Level exam coincided with an interview at the Lake House. In spite of the protests made by my parents, who were school principals, I decided to skip my exams and go for the interview.

I was happy when I got the job", recalls Kumara. An old boy of Kuliyapitiya Madya Maha Vidyalaya he is grateful to his art teacher Ubeythunge for introducing him to the editors of several ANCL papers through which he managed to create a name for himself as Deegoda Kumara.

Later he joined the Wijeya Newspapers but gave up his career when he fell in love and married D. Indralatha who worked at the accounts department of the same company.

After working for six months at the Catholic Press he ventured out into a field about which he knew absolutely nothing. Having found a room at Thorana Handiya in Kelaniya he started selling Motor spare parts. Not surprisingly the business failed and he ran into heavy debt. "We had to sell even the furniture. Unable to find work, we returned to my hometown, Kuliyapitiya, with only a bed and a table as our only possessions".

"I have never been short of new ideas" says Kumara, undaunted about the way his new ventures almost always ended up as failures.

This includes the first paper for children he published called Chandi and a stint as an artist at Udaya Graphics. But proving how true is the adage "Sooner or later the man who wins is the man who thinks he can", the turning point in Kumara's life had come when two reputed publishers began publishing the books he had written for children. Soon with the encouragement of his wife, Indralatha, Kumara started to publish his own books. The first of these was titled "Lazy Friends".

"We returned once again to Colombo from Kuliyapitiya with the bed and the table. Unable to afford anybody to assist us, Indralatha and I worked hard into the night to bring out the books we published. I cut the edges of the pages with a penknife and Indralatha clipped the pages together".

They would carry the books to the Bo tree in Pettah and while Indralatha stood guard over the books Kumara would trudge from shop to shop searching for orders. One day watching him climb three flights of stairs carrying bundles of books, Indralatha, feeling sorry for her husband who should have been seated at a desk writing or painting, had suggested instead of letting others sell his books Kumara should open a bookshop of his own. Thus was begun the Seedevee Bookshop at Boralessgamuwa.

Today, as the Managing Director of several other companies; Seedevee Publishers and Seedevee Marketing Private Limited, Deegoda Kumara, is one who has proven the importance of making big plans and aiming high in hope and work.