Tribute

Ranjith Wiratunga

My friend and former colleague from the World Bank, Ranjith Wiratunga passed away recently in Maryland. He has left a wonderful family to whom he was a devoted husband and father, a large group of devoted friends from Maryland, Sri Lanka and many parts of the world and his former colleagues who respected and appreciated his contribution to Bank's work and many those who counted him as a good friend.

I first met Ranjith in 1975 when I and my wife and our family of three young children were met at the Dulles Airport by Ranjith. I had corresponded with him through a mutual friend that we needed a place to stay for a short while until we found a house for ourselves. Ranjith's wife Christine and his son were going to London to be with her parents to have their second child and we stayed with him. From that day Ranjith was a wonderful friend to our family. We became so close that I felt he was en elder brother that I never had and he made me feel like a younger brother that he never had. My wife calls Christine, her sister-friend.

As a professional, his work was exceptional. This was much appreciated and he spent four years in Rome as the head of financial control and disbursements division at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

The World Bank was doing IFAD a favour by giving Ranjith a leave of absence to get things started in IFAD, at that stage, a young institution. He was missed in Maryland then. But many of us visited the Wiratunga family in Rome on our trips on home leave or in rest stops in our official travels.

Ranjith brought to his work sound banking experience from the Bank of Ceylon both in Sri Lanka and in the London branch and from National Westminster Bank, a leading merchant bank in London. His work at the World Bank and IFAD took him to many corners of the world, from Latin America to Asia and to Sub-Saharan Africa. He had a great empathy for the poor of the world and he always felt that his work was to help them.

Ranjith fought hard in the past five years, battling a dreaded cancer. But he faced it with great grace. I called him our hero when we met with a group of friends to thank God for giving him a lease of life after three complicated surgeries. And, I reminded those who gathered on that occasion, that each hero has a heroine. In his story it was Christine who looked after him with so much dedication and highly intelligent management of his health with sharp and pointed discussions with his doctors, scouring the internet to read about latest advances in cancer research and appropriate therapies for his condition. It was a hard and heroic fight that our friend and his family fought.

We are all very lucky and blessed to have known and associated with Ranjith as friends and many as his extended family. On his departure from this world, we celebrate his life, so full of grace, empathy and compassion. We shall miss him to our dying days.

- Sarath Rajapatirana