Fascinating Facets:

‘We planned our life at sweet seventeen’

Charmaine Fernando

A good plan is like a road map: it shows you the final destination and usually the best way to get there, says H Stanley Judd and Immanuel Kant who insist that the best way to predict the future is to invent it. Inventing a sure road to success is what 17-year-old Madhu and her schoolboy fiancé, Arosha Fernando did, once they realized they were made for each other.

They planned their life at such a tender age, with a maturity that promised brilliance, followed by an action plan and next steps all ready and set, to drive their destiny together. It’s amazing but it’s true. The teenagers sat down and like professionals, drew a road map to show them the way to their desired academic and social destination in life. The best part of the story is that it did work, if not every step of the way. Despite many a challenge to test their commitment, their relationship stood the test of time, never to quit come what may.

Life story

Dr Madhu Fernando has a story to tell. This story has all the intriguing aspects of a well-written Russian short story and a spellbinding plot of a true to life novel. The story flows over ups and downs of life and hits at a screaming climax where it’s pitched between life and death.

Then one is shaken back from the edge of the chair to reality. This is her life story and I assure you there is nothing ‘fiction’ about it.

I asked about her home background to get to the roots that always lay the strong foundation to shape a destiny. “I had a happy life at home with two other siblings,” she said, being the eldest of a family living in Nawagamuwa, a hamlet in Kaduwela. Her mother was a qualified doctor in Ayurvedic medicine who realized the value of education in a good school. “My mother always encouraged educational pursuits,” she says tinged with emotion. “I attended Visakha Vidyala, Colombo. That’s where I met my husband, Arosha Fernando at an inter-school event” she smiled her sweet-teenager smile.

“I nurtured a dream in my heart to go abroad and further my studies. I had to make the decision of changing my Advanced Level study from Science to Commerce six months before the exam because my boy friend who was from a affluent family was doing Commerce in a bid to go overseas to further in Business Studies.” She changed from Science stream to Commerce just six months from the examination.

“His parents opposed our relationship and he went overseas alone. I was devastated. But he came back soon after on vacation and insisted that I join him”. Finally, she reached her dream destination, Australia to study at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. “More than anything I wanted to be with him studying together at the same university.”

Magical moment

One by one she clinched her dream achievements. She also did her Diploma in Business and thereafter qualified with a Graduate Diploma in Business (Australia).

“Then we decided to get married while still pursuing our goals. We came back home to get married in the proper Sri Lankan manner but his parents were against his wishes. If there is a will there is always a way. On convincing them with great difficulty, the wedding was all finally set when our story developed a crisis”. “I was struck by dengue and was seriously indisposed almost dying. His parents realized the value of our relationship seeing Arosha devastated. Sometimes, what we think as awful happenings, are God sent to change our stiff attitudes. It changed the mindset of his parents. It worked. They were quite proud of me and warmly welcomed me in to their family when I finally got well and walked down the aisle with their son. Since that magical moment of our lives, my in-laws have been so supportive once they realized how much we cared for each other.

She says, “Studies were our priority. That’s what all youth should do when they have the freedom and support from everyone. We are what we make of ourselves”.

They went back overseas together soon after the wedding and continued their studies. In 1996, Madhu and her husband obtained their Doctorates of Engineering specializing in Telecommunications from RMIT University, Australia. We raised two kids before we got our outstanding results at the university. It was announced by the university that we were the first husband and wife duo passing out with our engineering doctorates together. That was a dream come true for us”.

“We did it. Yes we stood by each other in good times and the bad; in health and sickness. That’s what love is all about” she said with a tear glistening at the edge of her bright eyes. Positive thinking and positive action brings about absolute positive results.

Project Manager

The climb wasn’t easy but because of their determination to get through with their life plan 1997 saw, Madhu joining a leading telecommunications company in Australia as a Management Trainee. It took her commitment to hard work just one year to become a Project Manager. The Y2K Project for the Asia-Pacific Region was left to her responsibility and she saw herself involved in handling Business Contingency and Continuity Planning.

Once back in Sri Lanka after a stint of ten years success overseas she was absorbed in to a telecommunications company as Project Director / Head of the Project Management Office (PMO). Madhu is a Founder Member of Project Management Institute (PMI), and its past President / CEO in Colombo, Sri Lanka Chapter. She is a PMI certified Project Management Professional (PMP), an Associate Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management and she conducts PMP training programs at Singapore Informatics Professional Development Centre.

She unassumingly arrived at the hilt of her academic career when she graduated with her Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) cum laude from the Swinburne University in Melbourne, Australia. The icing on the cake happened when her husband too achieved his Doctorate in Business Management side by side with her from the self same university at the same sitting. This is no coincidence; but sheer planning one’s life and working it to the last tee.

When they, at sweet seventeen, sat there in their school uniforms, making vows to be there every step of the way, did they mean every step of the academic path as well? What determination; what brilliance! Today Dr Madhu Fernando sits at the helm of her career. Positive thinking and a well-balanced life led her to be rated as one of the world’s 25 most influential women Project Managers by Project Management Institute, Australia, which reflects on Sri Lanka’s wealth of resource people who are the pride of a nation.

Professional goals

How do you juggle family and career so magnificently? I had to inquire. “We know women are adept at managing many things simultaneously. I’m lucky to have an understanding husband who backs me, making sure I reach my professional goals.

Responsibilities and commitments are a priority with Madhu and she shares quality time with her family of one son and two daughters, five, two and nine months respectively. Weekends are special fun-days with family where every member has their full share of enjoyment. Perhaps now, we can without a doubt, open a new phrase; behind every successful woman there’s a loving man.

What a story; what a life. If developed in to a film script this would prove, without any proverbial lunu ambul, a sure box office runner.