Book Review:

In a world of dinner jackets and regimental dinners

Derrick Nugawela’s autobiography, ‘Tea and Sympathy: Memoirs of a Planter, Army Officer and Banker’ has just been published. It has a Foreword by Gananath Obeysekera and an Introduction by Ranjith Amerasinghe, and is available at the ongoing Galle Literary Festival and leading bookshops.

Following are excerpts of Justice A.R.B. Amerasinghe’s Introduction of the book.

In the twilight years of a long and eventful life, Derrick Nugawela has recorded his memoirs in this book. He achieved neither fame nor fortune and, except perhaps his relatives and a few friends ‘not yet fallen off the perch’ (to recall the words of his former planter colleague Percy Grey when he visited him in a nursing home in Winchester), people might wonder who he was.

He was not a much talked about celebrity and, in terms of wealth or substance, his stock was scarcely ever significant.

And therein lies the attractiveness of his autobiography. It is a tale simply told of a man of integrity and determination who achieved a degree of success in a multi-faceted career, despite fearful odds and disadvantages that might have overwhelmed or at least dissuaded a lesser man.

His wide-ranging background as planter, army officer, banker, Chairman of the Ceylon Estate Employers’ Federation, Deputy Chairman of the Planters’ Association, Deputy General Manager of the Greater Colombo Economic Commission, consultant for the Asian Development Bank, adviser to USAID and as a struggling immigrant in Australia gives interest to his reflections, his judicious comments throwing open perspectives of value to the general reader.

He was sometimes enigmatic - buying a rare Alvis motor car, a Leica camera, a Rolex watch, a monogrammed cutlery canteen, shopping for crystal glassware and at the same time selling pieces of white home made jaggery at 2 shillings a piece and bartering tins of pineapple and packets of tea to make ends meet; wining and dining at the Governor’s residence in Sydney in elite company while apprehensive that a fellow guest might greet him when he drove into the car-wash place at which he laboured to augment his sparse income.

The author was bereft of maternal affection, for just three months after he was born his mother was taken away with a mental ailment from which she never recovered. Days before his matriculation examination, when he was 17, his father passed away.

His maternal grandfather Sir T B Panabokke and family, in particular his mother’s sister Gladys (Mrs D B Ellepola), and Eddie Nugawela (his father’s brother) and his daughters virtually absorbed Derrick into their families. Given the early loss of his parents, the author suspects he might be an ‘introvert’ and a ‘bad mixer’.

His book contains substantial evidence that the opposite indeed is the case. The author was sociable and hankered after company.

Commenting on his stint at the Tea Research Institute he lamented: ‘Though I was introduced to the families of both senior and junior staff, nobody entertained me to a meal as it was not a practice. I often wonder whether scientists derive stimulation only from mental activities, with no concern about social activities.’

He was a member of several clubs - the Bogowantalawa Club, the Darawella Club, the Golf Club at Nuwara Eliya, the Sea Anglers Club in Trincomalee, the Eighty and Turf Clubs in Colombo - and actively participated in their sporting and social activities.

There is an ancient Maori saying: Ki mau ki au, he aka te mea mu o tea au? Makae ki atu, he tangata, he tangata. (Tell me, what is the most important thing in the world? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s people. It’s people.)

This book might well be regarded as a primer serving as a means of instruction for persons seeking insights into the creation of opportunities and gains that may be made by the cultivation of one’s aptitude to interact. A basic classification of people underpinned his strategies: ‘There is,’ he said, ‘a subtle difference between acquaintances and tangible friends.’

Tangibility suggests that the author perhaps had the old colloquial meaning of ‘touch’ in mind in the sense of coming down upon a person for a favour.

‘Tangible friends,’ he said, ‘are a treasure in life. Looking back, I never felt lonely, as I did have a friend in most places around the world.’

Although he drew attention to the fact that ‘of course it is a two-way’ process, exceptionally that was not the case, the essential thing being the optimum use of contacts made, whether for himself or others as for instance in his efforts after his return from Australia to help disadvantaged people in Sri Lanka.

The book is full of examples of how entertaining visitors at the family mansion at Beragama, or at the Queen’s Hotel during the Perahera (to which he was intimately connected by the fact that the position of Diyawadana Nilame - the lay custodian of the sacred Tooth Relic - was held by a member of his family for half a century), or at his home as a planter gave him the ‘two-way ... access’ to reciprocal domestic hospitality, and much else besides.

He met the Governor-General, Lord Soulbury, when he visited Kandy in the company of his grandfather Sir T B Panabokke and was entertained at Beragama. Derrick Nugawela was invited to spend a weekend at Queen’s Cottage, the Governor-General’s official residence at Nuwara Eliya, and later on he enjoyed Soulbury’s hospitality at his cottage in Hampshire.

He struck up a friendship with Earl Mountbatten from whom, incidentally, he picked up a nugget of wisdom when he was his guest at Dimbulla. The author says: ‘Talking of problems, he made a comment that stood out in my mind thereafter: “If there is trouble on the ship, I start at the bridge”.

Nugawela was entertained by Mountbatten in London and they also met again twice in Sydney at the residence of a mutual friend, Roden Cutler, the Governor of New South Wales. Hosting American Ambassador Bernard Guffler, an alumnus of Harvard, and his wife resulted in his enrolment in 1969 on the Advanced Management Program at Harvard’s Business School.

The contacts he made at Harvard (and later through the Harvard Club in Sydney) proved to be invaluable. For instance John Gough, a Harvard colleague, helped him obtain employment at Gollin & Co when the author migrated to Australia.

When he lost his employment at Gollin after it crashed, he met Glen Moreno, the Chief Executive Officer of Citicorp in Sydney, at the Harvard Club. Nugawela says he ‘dropped a few names of some American Ambassadors who had crossed my path and that I had been a guest of the US Government on a Leadership Scholarship in 1956’ and obtained employment as a clerk at Citicorp.

On his way to Harvard Nugawela located ‘tangible’ friends. Philip Crowe who had been entertained by him was now US Ambassador in Sweden, enabling him to enjoy a stop over in Stockholm.

And then there were Yves and Mary Delahaye of the French Embassy who had enjoyed his hospitality and also met him in New Delhi when his Uncle was High Commissioner.

Nugawela found them in Moscow where Delahaye was the French Deputy Chief of Mission. But their generosity was relatively supplementary, for a lavish state-sponsored tour had been laid out by Nikolov Geogadze the Deputy Premier of the Supreme Soviet who, with his accompanying delegation, had been entertained by Nugawela on his plantation.

There were indeed many friends who rendered reciprocal courtesies. For instance there was Ahrens the German Ambassador, his estate guest, who then hosted him at Wiesbaden.

His ‘connections’ at the American Embassy visiting his estate led to a Leadership Grant that took him on a study tour of the United States in 1956. And there was Sir Roden Cutler, the Australian Ambassador who had been entertained at Beragama and at the Perahera.

He became Governor of New South Wales and sponsored Nugawela for migration to Australia and entertained him at his official residence in Sydney on several occasions.

The remotest connection was it seems sufficient to obtain extraordinary results. For instance, when he was in the USA, the author visited Gregory Peck and toured Hollywood on the strength of the famous actor having been involved in the shooting of a film at Beragama in 1954.

Apart from ‘tangible friends’ who were ‘touched’ as a part of a ‘two-way’ process of reciprocity, there were others who assisted him simply for old times sake.

For example there was his uncle Herbert Tennekoon, a former Governor of the Central Bank, then Ambassador in Japan, who provided him with hospitality on his way back from the United States and whose name the author admits he freely flaunted when he was struggling to establish himself in Sydney.

When his relocation in Colombo at CitiBank was an issue and required clearance by the Central Bank, the matter was resolved through Lakshman Kannangara, the Deputy Governor, ‘a friend from the past’.

When he aspired to the job of Deputy Director General of the Greater Colombo Economic Commission, K H J Wijeyadasa, who had been Government Agent when the author was overlooking military operations during the insurgency in the Kegalle area, was successfully ‘touched’.

The application of the ‘whom-you-know’ and how they might be ‘touched’ strategy for success appears to have constituted a driving force behind a substantial part of his life and work. Yet the expression of his opinion that ‘it is not what you know but rather whom you know that does the trick aided by a bit of luck’ is apt to mislead. Indeed, ‘knowledge’ he expressly recognizes is ‘power.’

But what is knowledge, except to be in possession of relevant information, to be acquainted with or have personal experience with a thing? Surely, what you know cannot be treated with disdain? There are three areas of the life and work of the author which, in terms of public interest, might for reasons of convenience be identified for consideration: planter, army officer, immigrant.

The book also contains details of the recruitment, training process and protocols concerning an army officer. The author was attracted by the army from his early years at school when he joined the cadet battalion.

Since the early thirties, encouraged by the British, young Ceylonese from prominent families joined the volunteer defence forces including, for example, Sir John Kotelawala, Omar Lebbe, and the author’s uncles, Eddie and Clifford, and his cousin Douglas Aluvihare.

The author’s application for a commission resulted in his appointment as a Second Lieutenant in the Ceylon Light Infantry, and in 1969 he was promoted to the rank of full Colonel - the highest rank available to a volunteer officer - and appointed Commandant of the Volunteer Force. But things have now changed.

The author observes: ‘Sadly in today’s context, with the LTTE insurgency in the North of the country since 1983, hardly any relatives of politicians or businessmen or members of elites have enlisted in the forces to combat this menace. Only the sons of the poor, largely rural, segment of the country have rallied actively to its defence.’

The Volunteer Forces, the author points out, have rendered service of national importance. They have been periodically mobilized to perform military operations under ‘Emergency Regulations’ that have been brought into force from time to time.

They have also been enlisted to combat illicit immigration and to assist national development by participating for instance in the Mahaweli Development project. Of particular personal significance was the role the author played while heading military operations in combating ethnic violence the Kurunegala area in 1958 and the later JVP insurrections in the South and Kegalle areas and his reflections on war and politics. At his level, as an officer in command, the responsibilities were burdensome.

To begin with one had to effectively control everyone under orders; and this was not easy, for some went beyond limits, displaying, as he says, ‘animal instincts’.

That was well-illustrated by the notorious case of a young woman suspect, Manamperi - stripped naked and paraded in public and murdered gruesomely by one of the author’s officers during the campaign in the South to eradicate the insurgency of 1971.

Then there was the problem of identifying and reconciling relations with civil authorities.

During the 1971 operations he showed the door to the Tissamaharama Member of Parliament who ‘barged in unceremoniously’ into a meeting discussing matters pertaining to security in the South, with no ill-effects when reported to Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike.

He says: ‘Politics and military operations never go together. Politicians make war but it is Commanders who conduct the battles ... I made it clear to the meeting that the security of the District was my responsibility, but once the areas were cleared, I had no interest in holding on to real estate.

To win the hearts and minds of the people was the responsibility of the Government Agents and civil administration.’

This is misleading, if one reads into it water-tight divisions of responsibility, for the author clearly understood the importance of civil authority. He cooperated with politicians and government agencies in full measure.