M.B. Mathmaluwe turns 90:

The educationist of the under-privileged

Satharathilaka Banda Atugoda Former Ambassador

What an auspicious moment for Mathmaluwe to look back with utmost contentment and happiness on a life well-spent in, the service of humanity, advancement of knowledge and grooming of generations to come, and sending them forth to usher in a new world.

Also, what an opportune moment for his pupils, friends, professional colleagues,media persons, and any one who knew him to bless him with long long life, in the pursuit of his 'vocation and avocation' which were fused into one in Mathmaluwe's life.

He was an intellectual par-excellence who chose education as his vocation to mould young lives, and inculcate in them the best practices of intellectualism - culture, literature, drama, writing both prose and poetry, painting, developing their head, heart and hand; his avocation was similarly, giving life to intellectual cultural products and reviewing and producing lucid cultural material, produced by others, thus demonstrating what he preached by practise by becoming an avante-guarde, cultural reviewer.

An educationist of a unique calibre, gave up his personal advancement as a young teacher, to give his best to children who needed his services the most, during the early 1950s.

He passed out as one of the best students in the hands of educational stalwarts, of the time, S. F.de. Silva, Principal of Maharagama Teacher's Training College and Dr. Douglas Walatara, and Gedes; Mathmaluwe had been requested to take up a post in the Practicing School attached to the GTC, by the Principal, and staff led by Wanigatunga, the Sinhala lecturer, with a view of promoting him to GTC itself, may be subsequently.

He was also requested to choose a school from Colombo or Kandy where he could continue his further studies.

He respectfully, relented, these.

To digress a little, in a series of articles written to the Sunday Times, captioned, 'Notes from an English teacher's diary,' 'Those Shining Stars' by a contemporary of Mathmaluwe, had to say this in September 1999, which substantiates what one of his old pupils say;

GTC days

'Mr. M.B. Mathmaluwe, whose name is now well-known among those who read the feature pages of English newspapers was with us, at GTC. Recollecting in tranquility those glorious GTC days of fulfillment when we sat at the feet of Geddes and Walatara, he wrote nostalgically and in his own inimitable style, 45 years later:'

"Among the concourse there, a small exlusive circle took shape. We were brought together not withstanding the many differences, by a common interest - a love of the English language and its Literature. After the prosaic business of 'learning' were over for the day we used to often gather in a quiet room on those long afternoons to read, to listen, to discuss, to evaluate, English Literature, mostly poetry'. The relevance of this piece later! In fact he was the President of the Literary Association of GTC during his time.

Mission in life

Mathmaluwe, hailing from the picturesque village Kambarawa, nestled deep inside the Knuckles Ranges, where educational facilities were minimal, Mathmaluwe perhaps, had in the back of his mind that, one way of serving these under-privileged in the villages was to choose a school where they had access to.

Those were times when the Father of the Free Education Dr. C. W. W. Kannangara had established 52 Central Schools; and Maharagama trained teachers, who were a rare commodity, were being posted only to these Central Schools, and Assisted Schools in cities. Mathmaluwe, our Gurudev, could choose any school in Matale or Akuramboda, to which the children from Laggala, his native area, with fifth standard scholarships, were being admitted. He chose the latter and children including this writer were the beneficiaries, when he took up duties in 1952. He perhaps, experimented all what he learnt at GTC, both in class and the afternoon literary circles.

Akuramboda Central School was one of the first such schools to be established, in 1942, and in 1952, it had late E.C. K. Abeysekara as Principal, who was an English Honours Graduate who could speak very little Sinhala; he was coaching the children to improve English, by varied educational methods, like drama,writing poetry and reading advanced literature. Mathmaluwe who had a trained mind in this field had novel ideas; he implemented them in the classrooms and outside; those were not the years of tuition or classes of tuition teachers, and it was thought to be infra-dig even to think of such classes.

Methodology

Our Gurudev started afternoon classes, in drama, poetry and readings of his own writings. The methodology used was novel to pupils who were in the Form11, (equivalent to present Grade Seven) who were not from English speaking families. Mathmaluwe, made these extra classes so interesting that the whole school, (it was a small school then) stayed back for his renderings; one instance was the rendering of the poem' ' Sohrab and Rustum', published by Mathew Arnold, in 1853, and it was there that we had an 'entree' into a semblance of other literatures such as Persian Literature. The emotional poem based on Persian literatist, Ferdowsi's(940-1020 A.D.) famous epic, Shahnameh (Book of Kings), poetises, the tragedy, Rustum, the warrior king slaying his own long-lost son Sohrab, in single combat on the Banks of the Oxus. While the experience emotionalised the pupils, it led to a search for more of the similar vein literature, by them; they came to read Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyyat, of course of a different genre. 'Sir' as we call, enjoyed every bit of the literary pieces that he taught the pupils. He lived in teaching as a profession and considered it as a hobby.

Creating a liking

With a draw of pupils generally to literaure and diverse cultures, Sir was able to entice children to aesthetics. In English Literature, in particular, he saw children could develop their creativity and love for humanity. Mathmaluwe being our history teacher as well, found it easy to combine the influence of the age of Renaissance with the Age of Humanism it gave birth to, and its effect on English Literature and Literatures of Europe; the birth of lyric poetry, prose-fiction-the first English novel, (Eupheus and His England by John Lily), poetry (sonnets) and the development of Drama, under Shakespeare were areas Mathmaluwe got us to read on.

In this process he read and explained to us pieces from John Milton's Paradise Lost, and almost all plays by William Shakespeare; in fact we read a book on Shakespearian plays in an anthology form and we performed the more prominent plays, like Julius Caesar. Mark Antony's funeral oration was the high point in that drama.

"I come to bury Caesar but not to praise him. The evil that men o lives after them and good is oft-interred with their bones. So let it be with Caesar." The most quoted portion which was used by pupils to develop oratory. While the literary talents were developed in the same vein other aptitudes were given a boost by his style of teaching. The writer could in fact, win an orator's award in the Central Province with the training he received in these classes. It was thus a complete being was the ultimate goal of Sir's teaching.

Best of English poetry

No special effort was made in memorizing the poetry that he taught us. The pupils enjoyed it so much that the writer could recite poetry, taught by Mathmaluwe. Among Shakespeare sonnets, like 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day, My mistress' eyes, Weary with toil and many others, let me write by memory, the last one, merely to say how our Sir, spoon-fed literature to us.

"Weary with toil I haste to my bed;
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;
But then begins a journey in my head,
To work my mind when body's works expired:
For then my thoughts from far where I abide,
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
And keep my drooping eye-lids open wide,
Looking on the darkness which even the blind do see;
Save that my soul's imaginary sight,
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
Which like a jewel hung in the ghastly night,
Makes the black night beautious and her old face new.
Lo, thus by day my limbs, by night my mind,
For thee and for myself no quiet find.”

Authors introduced

Mathmaluwe introduced poets, novelists and dramatists gradually to his pupils, narrating their life stories, and laid their contribution to literature before children, so succinctly that they remained etched in their minds. In those formative years the appreciations, which he did, on poets, S. T. Coleridge, Y. B. Yeats, William Wordsworth, P. B. Shelly and Alexandner Marlowe William Shakespeare, led the pupils to read them later in life; the works of authors, Charles Dickens, W. Somerset Maugham, Sir Arthur Connan Doyle and Rudyard Kipling and Russian authors, like Maxim Gorky, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Pushkin adorned his rich library, from which pupils attempted to get acquainted with their contribution to world literature.

The unique nature of Sir, in teaching varied works, was by reciting a poem a prose piece which pupils would love listening to. One such was Rudyard Kipling's' 'On the Road to Mandalay' written by him to his girl friend, in Burma. Two verses were as follows:-

'By the old Moulmein Pagoda looking eastwards to the sea,
There's a Burma girl a singing who thinks of me------'
When the moon was on the rice fields and the sun was dropping slow,
She 'd get her little banjo and sing kulla-lo-lo
With her arm on my shoulder and her cheek against my cheek,
We used to watch the steamers and the haththis piling teak,
Elephants a piling teak, in the sludgy squadgy creek,
When the silence was that heavy ------'
She was half afraid to speak
On the road to Manalay!

The pupils little realised that they were being taken through a brief history of English Literature and introductions made to a vast array of prose, verse, poetry and novelists, whose themes were the innate feelings of the humans which were analysed in a literary form; which of course, helped pupils in later life to identify better literature.

In fact reading G.B. Senanayake's poem 'Nishshabbathawaya' 'Silence' later in life, the writer felt that his creation of a quietness and silence around, with the loved one besides, was comparable to Ruyard Kipling amidst silence.

To be continued