A 'whodunit' via legal passage
  LAW: As a teenager, I could remember a cricket match played at
the Colombo Oval between a team of Ceylonese cricketers and a team from
Australia. I couldn't watch the match as I was living in Maddakkalappu
and there was no TV in the late 1940s. I was a keen cricket enthusiast
then.
Famous Aussie cricketers like Don Bradman, Keith Miller, Arthur
Morris, Ray Lindwall, Neil Harvey and the like and from Lanka (it was
Ceylon then), there were big guns then M. Sathasivam, F. C. de Saram, C.
I. Gunasekera, C. H. Gunasekera, Sathi Coomarasamy, Ben Navaratna et al
whom I fancied.
Although I collected the cricket pictures of all the world cricketers
published in the newspapers, particularly in the Sporting Times,
published by the then Times of Ceylon Ltd., I had a special page in my
scrap book for Sathasivam and Keith Miller for their styles in Batting
and Bowling respectively.
I wanted to be an all rounder like Keith Miller and a Stylist batsman
like Sathasivam. But my dream- like adoration for Sathasivam vanished
when I read in the papers that he was alleged to have killed his wife.
Crime those days was shocking and a mortal sin. But these days, crime
is justified in some circles. What a crude world this is!
Sathasivam is a subject of study by Prof. Ravindra Fernando in a
volume of 480 pages published by Vijitha Yapa Publications. The title of
the book is A Murder in Ceylon. It is an expose of the Sathasivam case.
As a 'whodunit' crime story, the author takes us through 17 chapters and
figures of what really happened almost 60 years ago. It is a fascinating
reading for those born after the 1950s.
The author is Senior Professor of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology,
Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo. He is also the Director of
the Centre for the Study of Human Rights of the Colombo University. Dr.
Ravindra Fernando has many credentials which you would gather as you
continue reading his book.
The blurb says: the book objectively examines and presents the
pertinent facts and expert evidence led at the 57-day trial of this land
mark case in the history of law and forensic medicine in Sri Lanka.
It would be interesting for the young people to note that three
famous Lankans were legally involved in one of the notorious criminal
cases in the last century.
The figures were: the late Justice Gratiaen (Remember the Gratiaen
Literary Prizes awarded yearly in Colombo by a Trust founded by
internationally known Lanka born Canadian writer in English, Michael
Ondaatji? ), the late Dr. Colvin de Silva, and Justice T. S. Fernando.
"Despite an excellent scientific analysis of the evidence", 'What did
the Jury decide?'
To find out, you have to read the book. If you are a legal and
enlightened reader, you will find the book very absorbing.
Yes, the book reads like fiction. But it is not pure fiction. And the
writer succeeds in stimulating the reader to follow his account until
the end.
I found that the letter written by the victim Ananda to her husband
Sathasivam gives a clue for the rationale for the murder. But one is not
sure whether she wrote that in English or it was translated from Thamil.
Nevertheless, one notices that she was deeply hurt by the actions of
her spouse. Here are some lines to suggest that:
"I will release you from the bond of this unhappy marriage. It is
because you want something better than me to take about, that you leave
me at home, and take another woman out with you. We are just not made
for each other. I can never tolerate another woman to be seen with you,
so why should we quarrel over this? You must do as you like, and as long
as I am married to you, I will not allow this kind of taking women out
behind my back".
The author writes on page 452: "I had the opportunity to meet the
only daughter of Mr and Mrs. Sathasivam living in Sri Lanka. She told me
that all family members firmly believed that Mr Sathasivam did not kill
her mother. "He was a gentle person. He could not have killed any one.
He did not do it.," she assured me.
Prof. Ravindra Fernando's book is a contribution to a different genre
of writing in English in this country.
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