The 86 Group of DS Senanayake College:

Representations of passions and predilection

Namal LOKUGE

Memories are icebergs. They hit you savagely and can hold you suspended. They even make you feel numb. Recently, I was hit by such an iceberg. Walking through the gates which ushered me off to the world, a quarter century ago.

I felt a disconcerting mixture of elation and unease stalking my very core. Unlike the majority of my fellow Senanayakians, this was the first time I ever ventured into the once hallowed grounds, since I left DS Senanayake College in 1986. Even though there had been many far more alluring events which I could have chosen over the years, my first point of contact - after my long absence from the DS world - was an 86 Batch meeting of the most mundane nature. To make things even less exciting, it was held at a new building-baptized as the OBA building. Bulging into Bullers road, it appeared to have been built in haste, which deterred me from scouring the school grounds and the cluster of classrooms, the immediate refuge of my adolescent years.

After embracing the first few who made me out, in spite of our over score year separation, I felt giddy with memories. Gripped by all-devouring memories, I was trying to place them, whether it was IE in Nagawatta madam or 3C in Rajasinghe madam’s class, I was together with Mohan, then Dhammika Weerakkody, a whole lot of figures who would have been beyond fiction, before I entered that room. In their presence, I was not the loquacious story-teller at all, as they remembered me. I was numb for I am struck by an iceberg named memories.

No sooner had I heard a sonorant voice greeting the room, than I discovered it was same old Sumathi (who asked me to come to the meeting). Once the meeting commenced, it was not difficult to share their sense of enthusiasm. Everybody was carrying their weight to make the forthcoming event of celebrating 25 years since we left school at the Water’s Edge on Sep. 3. Aptly, it is called the Icons of Success, an event of immense magnitude. The ‘86 batch has invited all the teachers who have contributed in moulding and mourishing our lives. Supposedly, now it is pay back time, to pay homage.

By witnessing the rigour and the vigour my friends exhibited as a batch, especially to make sure the Silver Jubilee Celebration on Saturday to be a great success, I realized why the ‘86 Batch has been prodigious in the Old Boys’ history of DS. The meeting was raging; the clamour of exchange of ideas was intense. I started noticing that my initial tremor of unease was soaring. I knew the lurking despondency owed to the fact that my not being able to share the warmth of this precious moment on 3rd September. Repressing a tear, I took solace in Robert Frost’s words:

‘These woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I’ve promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to before I sleep’

Keeping with those quotidian promises, I am here in Oslo, back with my students. Yet my heart is with my batchmates whom, I envy, for being far more fortunate than I am to be in the thick of all this, rekindling 25 year long memories.