Facile Dictu - Difficule Factu
Easy to say - difficult to do :
 A Senior Manager at HNB Rohan Fernando who is an old boy of my alma
mater, surprised me with an e-mail after reading my article on fast
food. I met him last when he was the Manager at HNB Kalutara some years
ago during my holiday in Sri Lanka. A lot of water has flowed under the
bridge ever since, but he managed to trace me through the Daily News.
A special request in his e-mail struck me: “Why not write something
about our alma mater, sadly how many readers would miss you are an old
Cambrian! Ours may not be the school by the sea, but our lagoon delights
and the antics with Princess of Wales girls and the rivalry across the
river with ‘ Sebas’ cannot be second to none”.
Sure, Rohan made me’re-visit’ Prince of Wales and for that matter
nearly four decades where some of the monkey pranks we were up to as
young students can still tickle our memory. After all, an amazing
college prank or two is the best way to inspire future generations of
students ... and the world! I guess.
Teenage fun
If I were to state that boys in my class were the most incorrigible
lot PWC ever had, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration. Rohan gave me a cue to
write about by reminding me of the vice Principal Ram (bless his soul),
a formidable Brahmin who never smiled.
His funny ‘slanting-walk’ while shaking a bunch of keys amused
Clinton who used to derisively sing a Hindi song Ramaya Watha Waya to
rhyme with his name whenever he passed our class room which made us
giggle but had to control our laughter for the fear of a thrashing.
During a single semester our particular class was transferred to
seventeen different rooms? It was all due to innocent teenage fun but at
the time regarded as unacceptable and indiscipline by the Principal.
A five foot tall drawing master, adoringly known as Pacha Martia, was
a character by himself. It was a hilarious sight to see him riding a
full-size bicycle to college in full European attire where he had to
push one pedal and wait for the other to come up! To evade drawing
periods, we flattered him about his hunting trips which he always used
to boast about (thinking we were a gullible lot!). The most hilarious
anecdote was how he combed his friend’s hair (thinking it was his!)
without looking at the mirror in a hurry to leave for a birthday party.
Our English teacher, a matured Tamil spinster, would not tolerate any
nonsense. With a thick long pencil about 12 inches long, she used to
hammer students on their forehead with it for the slightest slip-up, and
pinch ear lobes with her pointed sharp nails. One radical in the class
once cut his ear lobe with a blade and ran up to the middle school
master with blood oozing out from his ear to report her. One glance at
the student’s blood stained ear made the alarmed Head Master rush to the
class room and warn the teacher not to repeat such ‘brutal punishments
‘again! The whole class room reigned dead silence while we all had to
conceal our cheeky smiles with caution.
Lunch break
Who on earth would imagine there would be a crow inside the drawer of
the class master’s desk? During lunch break we managed to catch a crow
and ‘imprison’ it inside class teacher’s drawer. When the teacher
attempted to mark the register for the afternoon session, the frightened
bird flew off like a rocket nearly blinding him. We all received well
deserved six whacks from the Principal.
Our Latin master was a compassionate man. Prior to the exam one boy
would approach him, cry in desperation and plead for help saying he
might fail the Latin paper. Expressing in Latin, Facile Dictu -
Difficule Factu, he would give the Latin question paper out of sympathy
to him as a special favour, which went round the whole class and
everyone got excellent marks.
Short and stubby physics master’s strong South Indian English accent
we could not possibly empathize when he pronounced ‘L. O’ for Yellow and
‘Yen to Yen’ for end to end! It was not easy to take down notes at speed
with such impediments of speech. Somapala Perera who’s front tooth was
missing could not possibly control his laughter in such instances and
the laughter had to burst out with a loud hiss, through his front gap,
which made several others also to gust into laughter - needless to say
for the annoyance of the teacher.
When the young Indian female teacher was taunted by pulling her Sari
Pota from behind and pummelling her pony tail by my best friend Pemasiri,
whom I hear ended up as a Parish Priest later, got us debarred from
sitting for Chemistry exam once. Would love to contact him after all
these years!
Fun and games
Those were only a few of the pranks we were up to as school children,
but despite all the fun and games, discipline and indiscipline (at
times) due to excessive haemoglobin element in our circulatory system,
we had a full childhood to accommodate both studies, extra-curricular
activities and come out of the tunnel at the end of the day.
But it is rather pathetic to see the modern children being turned out
into robots where there is no extra time for any such fun or activity or
to hear about such innocent fun, except being pushed, pushed and
hard-pressed into unbearable mental state, which is going to affect them
psychologically and physically, especially with excessive home work from
schools, tuition classes of varying degree and the worst being making
them carry heavy loads of books in their satchels not only makes them
look like androids but as Hunchback of Notre Dame!
“Work while you work, play while you play, that is the only way, to
be happy and gay.”
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