Go well Errol Alphonso, my friend and benefactor
Almost
a year ago (i.e. on June 24, 2010), I wrote in these columns about a
friend and benefactor. Errol Alphonso. I called him Errol Abu al-Mughith
Husayn Mansur al-Hallaj Alphonso. The reason for the elongation can be
found in the article ‘Say hello to Errol Abu al-Mughith Husayn Mansur
al-Hallaj Alphonso’ (http://www.dailynews.lk/2010/06/24/fea02.asp). I
have, since then, referred to him on several occasions, for he has
sparked my imagination and stimulated my mind through comments as well
as through quotes, articles and facts he would email me.
I didn’t know him. The name was familiar when he first wrote to me,
commenting on something I had written. That’s because he was a
journalist. You might know him from Fanfare for the Common Man, The
Unimportance of being blind, Shakespeare was a Scriptwriter,
Contemplations on a Cardinal Sin, Making Love in Many Languages and
Geneva Ticks! I’ve known him now for almost two years and that’s long
enough to know that ‘journalist’ doesn’t come close to describing the
man.
Voracious reader
Here’s the ‘bio’ I wrote back then for those who place value on such
things:
‘He’s had a wide expanse of experience in mass communications and
marketing. He has been rated ‘the best’ by Sri Lanka’s Dean of
Broadcasters, the late Livy Wijemanne. He has done his hours in
advertising, ground up. He’s a ground-up person in all things, I might
add. A voracious reader of what the internet offers and at rates that
one would usually not associate with someone of his age.
Errol has seen the world. He’s been to Singapore, Bangkok, Hong Kong,
Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka, Hamamatsu, Kofu, Honolulu, Los Angeles, San
Francisco, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, New York, London, Paris, Rome,
Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Dusseldorf,
Idar-Oberstein, Beirut, Kuwait and Tehran.’
I also wrote in that article, that ‘Errol had come home, like all
prophets, to find the truth (of his heaven and hell)’. He was a
rationalist. Didn’t believe in god. He described himself as a Buddhist
and had pinned the Kalama Sutra on the door of his room at the Home for
the Elderly where he lived.
Flute players
Errol taught me a lot. He corrected every mistake I made, consciously
and unconsciously. He taught me a new word every day. He would pick
something I had written and comment at length. He also sent me links to
websites that inevitably widened the horizons of my knowledge on that
particular topic. He had a phenomenal memory and could quote relevant
passages from relevant texts to substantiate claim or drive home a
point.
He was a word man who knew the limitations of text. He left a lot
unsaid.
I’ve visited him a couple of times and was astounded by his Spartan
ways. He had little and the little he had was literally next to nothing.
He had a computer and had access to the internet. He had installed all
the software he needed and knew how to make maximum use of what he had.
He told me once that he indulged in an Aristotelian hope; that
someday the best flutes will finally go to the best flute players, and
that he’ll end up, consequently, with a swank shop laptop. He did not.
He passed on early this morning. A few weeks ago he texted me, saying he
was on his way out. He wanted me to take his computer. He had by this
time already sent me brand new shirts he had received as gifts but never
wore.
Great writings
I think Errol never realized that we don’t always know the dimensions
of the flutes we deserve or need. He lived a life. He made do with the
material that he was endowed with. There is nothing to say that he did
not make the best flute music he could. I certainly think he did ok, all
things considered. He didn’t have a swank laptop, but he did wonders
with the old, occasionally upgraded desktop that was his prized
possession.
Errol wrote to me on the eve of his 70 the birthday, i.e. on February
13, 2011.
‘In the last hours of my seventieth birthday, I send you the first of
the great writings I promised. James Agee wrote like an angel, and here
he is firmly fixed in the firmament. I had this essay in a collector’s
edition called Great Reading from LIFE, shy of half a century back. It’s
to die for.’ This was followed by the relevant web link.
In the first ‘Morning Inspection’ following a break of several weeks,
on May 2, 2011, I quoted Walter Scott’s poem ‘Patriotism’. Errol
educated me. He said it was the first part of Canto Sixth of ‘The Lay of
the Last Minstrel’. He was like that; always a teacher but one who never
admonished. He would not say I was wrong when I made a grammatical
error. He would forward me a link that sent me to a webpage containing
relevant information about the particular principle.
Intellectual treasures
He ended that email, quite uncharacteristically, with a command,
though: ‘To help humankind, I charge you now to press your thoughts
constantly before power, as to say, against all evil, and this you
should do by many means.’ I will remember this.
He ended all conversations with ‘Go well’. He changed this to ‘Go
well, Merchant’ after some time, the reference being Francis Bacon’s The
New Atlantis, written in England in 1623 and the ‘Merchants of Light’ -
individuals whose job it is to traverse the world for intellectual
treasures and to bring them back to share, and to create repositories of
knowledge and learning.
I would respond, ‘stay well’.
I ended the article referred to at the beginning this way: ‘Go well,
Errol; carry your immortality light on your shoulders.’ I could say the
same now, but I would add, ‘I hope you got that damn laptop-flute you
wanted so much!’
[email protected] |