Focus on Books :

ABC and his world of books

PROFESSOR Sunanda MAHENDRA

Our good friend and mentor in so many things ABC de Silva is no more. He left forever last week, when we all recalled his literary and academic career par excellence bold and strong in his outspoken mannerisms and actions.

Most of those who were with him knew him well as an English teacher and a trade unionist who fought for the rights of the teacher, for which at moments he was punished and sent to a remote place. He stood upright and took the punishment for his own gain sake. With diligence he mastered the right way to teach English and obtained a brief training period in East West Centre in Honolulu, Hawaii. This he remembers as a significant starting point from which he introduced distance learning of English in Sri Lanka. He established his own little school or the training unit from where he executed the technique of distance learning with a group of his colleagues drawn from the scholars and universities.

Though he was well known for teaching English, he was quite aware of the classics and the need to introduce some of the world class writers and their works into Sinhala. Hence his experiment with a group of translators, inclusive of me, to bring out two compilations of world short stories in Sinhala. This mission was possible as he was entrusted with the chairman's position in the State Printing Corporation in 1995.

The two compilations of the stories by master writers such as Ernest Hemingway, Bernard Malamud, D H Lawrence, Rudyard Kipling, Willa Cathar, Katherine Mansfield, Anton Chekhov and a few others proved a pioneer government project which instantly brought a good demand for a series of such works. But he was also bent on other projects that mattered much for the printing industry. He wanted to usher in a new local exercise book project of good quality to prevent a colossal sum of money flooding into other countries.

But following the untimely death of the minister Dharmasiri Senanayaka, all things went wrong. Senanayaka's successor unfortunately failed to notice the good intention of our master planner ABC de Silva. However much ABC tried to convince the authorities the good mission, it did not work out as usual in such affairs. Like many great men of his calibre ABC too was reluctant to stay in his position when all his plans went wrong. ABC quite gloriously gave up the position and came back to his favourite distance learning mission. He wanted to try his hand at writers as he was well read in some of the known English memoirs.

One of his dreams, as we friends knew, was to compile a book called 'Scattered Thoughts'. In a pensive mood he liked to share some of his experiences with those who visited him. He was a trained journalist and as well as an English teacher.

Back in 50s he was working with my teacher at Ananda College, S P Perera who edited the first digest type of Sinhala periodical called Patakaya as an assistant editor and translator.

Patakaya was popular among students as well as teachers. But certain times are bad for some publications. The publishing house situated closer to Ananda College, during the tram car era, was closed down. But ABC's mission was not so. He joined Dinamina's editorial and was in for some time. Then he had been the editor of newspapers such as Atta and Dinakara.

As a bilingual teacher he conducted the teaching process utilizing his own teaching techniques. He once told me that his method of teaching is known by the term 'you talk, I listen; I talk you listen'.

This, as he told me, is the only way of teaching English to a local audience who so desire to learn English in the shortest possible manner. Then he started writing simple books on learning English. He titled them as 'English for beginners'. I am not too sure of its progress. But the books were in demand.

Various sicknesses kept him away from writing more books. One of his academic inclinations was to conduct simple English classes in remote areas in the country. This he experimented in several places. Right throughout his career he remained as a teacher of English who disliked and abhorred the quack English teaching tuitions. He had two catchphrases in his vocabulary. If he sees or feels that something is good intentional he would say, 'great'. If some one seeks a help he would say 'simple'. That was ABC.

Whenever a State Printing Corporation book was launched in Colombo, ABC would try his best to get the children and parents to let them feel the pulse of the book launch. He would also distribute quite a number of books to the needy. With his effort he had several good manuscripts published under the State Printing Corporation imprint.

He was worried about he quality of the publication; he would get two reports from learned readers long before it goes to the press.

ABC's world of books was simply fascinating and resourceful.

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