Re-visiting PWC - Part VI
I am thankful to those old Cambrians, Sebastianites, one Thora and a
Rajan, who responded to the series with some of their own experiences
which goes to show youthful fun we shared, as much as the quality of the
teaching staff we were privileged to learn from during our era, are
being rekindled. E-mail interaction, in this respect, certainly goes to
show how the series has managed to hoist a different kind of dormant 'Kundalini'
among old Cambrians!
The dedicated members of staff at the PWC did not concentrate blindly
on a syllabus alone, but their dedication extended towards inculcating
morals, ethics and values in pupils' future lives which helped to
transform many boys in Khaki shorts to men of the world.
This fact has been reinforced in one of the emails as follows:
"Talking of men of value, PWC has produced many men of the world
especially Senior Police officers at home who have earned people but not
wealth"!
Some old Cambrians while paying tribute to their favourite teachers
had come up with few names such as Messrs. A.P.M Peiris, Tilan Perera,
Tissa Gunawardena, Godahewa, Rajapaksa, Santhanam, Oliver Martin,
Norbert Dias, Mrs. Lakshmi Perera, Mrs. Indrani Peiris, Mrs. Pastsy
Fernando, Ms. Kanakasundaram, Miss. Israel, the late Mrs. Senaratne and
Mrs. Uluwita. This should not leave room for any misunderstanding about
the missing names of other erudite teachers of a by-gone era.
Public caning
The late Mr. A.P.M. Peiris had a personal interest in my studies when
he was the Headmaster, perhaps because of my family connections. I had
private English tuition lessons from him when he was the editor of the
PWC magazine - The Cambrian - and he made me sit and write an article to
the magazine during a tuition session, which he edited and published
later.
'APM' visited middle school classes after every fortnightly test to
monitor student performances and warned students who failed to achieve
set standards. Once, my position went down from first to the second, and
he spared no time in giving me a severe warning with a remark, "Pull up
your socks next time". Fortnight later I had descended to the third
position, consequently I was subjected to a caning session on my
buttocks with a few others.
As much as engaging in fun and a trace of boisterousness, on and off,
we collectively respected all our teachers in a mixture of discipline
and exuberance. Similar to students, we did have an assortment of
teachers too of diverse personality with a mixture of excitement,
amusement, discipline and diplomacy barring the odd one or two who
always pretended to be serious.
Grammar and bisection
The following story I picked up from a feedback which relates to an
experience of one of our excellent teachers who taught us Sinhalese
during a grammar lesson.
The Master had been interrupted by a student halfway through, before
he completed a written sentence on the blackboard which read as:
"Aayathanya Pihita aththey" ........... (The Institution is situated
at ...................)
The cheeky student bisected the first word Ayathanaya (Institution)
into two sections which read as 'Aya Thanaya' (Servant Woman's breasts)
and queried the teacher thus:
"Excuse me Sir, Aya ........Thanaya ..........Pihita........ Athey
.....Koheda?" (Where would Aya's breasts be)?
There was a roar of laughter inside the classroom, but the teacher
turned a Nelsonian eye to impudent behaviour and remained as cool as a
cucumber and quipped "Eka nam ahanna owne Ayagen thami" (That of course
you need to ask Aya) and continued with his lesson as if nothing had
happened.
As I was writing this column I received some email pictures from my
nephew that had appeared in the 'Gossip Lanka.com' website under the
caption "Happy Old Boys day at Prince of Wales College' with an
appropriate comment: "You are not to be seen anywhere"! Of course not,
even I could recognise any of the faces there after a long spell of
about five decades being away from the country, but one of the old
Cambrian names what Merrill mentioned (as Clinton) in the pictures took
me straightway back to an interesting episode.
It was during Sir John Kotelawela's last days of premiership when
three boys, Clinton, myself and another student (can't recollect his
name) went riding our bicycles from Moratuwa to Sir John's Kandawela
Estate at Ratmalana, on an excursion. There were no security or
bodyguards during that era and Sir John was reading the Evening
Observer, lounging on a Hansi Putuwa (easy chair with folding arms),
dressed in sarong and a vest.
Nervously we retracted the moment we set our eyes upon Sri John in
the verandah (after all, he was the Prime Minister of the Land and a
fearsome one too, as we had heard). Clinton bravely approached Sir John
from a side while the PM continued to read the newspaper seriously.
"Excuse me Sir! Can we please have your permission to wander around
in your garden?" Clinton just managed to complete his sentence with
courage when Sir John growled, without batting an eye lid and still
looking straight into the newspaper:
"Katha Karapia Yako Sinhalen!! Palayaw gihin Balapipyaw....!! Mage
Watta Balanna Ka Genwath Avasara Ganna Owne Neha!" (Speak in Sinhala,
you rascal! Go.. go ... and enjoy yourselves, there is no need to take
permission from anyone to visit my estate). We parked our bicycles
against a mango tree and walked about like beaten dogs in the garden
which had a pond, a cabana style cabin surrounded by a canal with a
decorative wooden bridge to access.
Few minutes later, Sir John walked out to the garden where we were
and started feeding animals who were wandering about (it was like a mini
zoo). We stood next to him as proud as ever after all, it was a
significant event to stand next to the Prime Minister of the Land in
Sarong and 'Baniyama' (vest) and the one who said 'Call me maama'
(uncle).
As I was about to dispatch this episode, Merrill followed his
previous email with another one. Alas! it was a different Clinton that I
was thinking of - may be a junior one! Hope my friend Clinton reads
this...?
[email protected]
To be continued |