A senior interpreter honoured

K.S. Sivakumaran

One of the Senior English /Tamil /English Interpreter was felicitated by the Speaker of The Parliament, Chamal Rajapaksa when he retired from service after serving from 1961 to 2012. He is Selliah Kumrasamy who joined the then Senate in 1961 until its disbanding and was absorbed into the Government Translators' Service from 1972.

He worked in some Ministries as an English / Tamil / English translator and was invited by the then National State Assembly to be an interpreter especially during budget sessions.

Later, in 1978 he joined the staff of the Secretary General of Parliament for 10 years. Then after retirement he worked as Relief Parliamentary Interpreter from 1997 until February 2012.

The current Secretary-General of Parliament, W B D Dasanayake endorses that the total period of S Kumarasamy in the Senate, the House of Representatives, the Constituent Assembly, the National State Assembly and the Parliament is 40 years of Service. He adds that S K "performed long and dedicated service to the Parliament. During his career he has earned the respect and the commendation of political leaders, Members of Parliament and the Secretary-General with whom he had the privilege to work with."

Another feather in Kumarasamy's contribution includes his involvement in translating the trilingual manual of Standing Orders of the Senate.

According to the Secretary-General S K attended many local and international conferences assisting political leaders in their deliberations.

"Kumarasamy had a London Matriculation Certificate with English, Latin and Tamil when he joined the Senate coming first in the competition for recruitment of Interpreters in the Senate. We learn that he had contributed his unstinted services in the routine production of the Order Paper, Minutes etc," said Dasanayake.

The then President of the Senate noted in the Personal File of KS his sense of loyalty and dedication.

He also complimented him in his foreword to the Tri-lingual Manual Standing Orders.

When the switch-over to the National Languages, some Senators were only familiar with Tamil and they were very articulate so much so that KS had to translate their fiery speeches into English simultaneously with International Press keenly listening to the Interpreter. At that time the First woman Prime Minister of Lanka, Srima Bandaranaike was a Senator.

Selliah Kumarasamy has done interpreting at Conferences of wide and varied hues including the long-drawn out All Party Conference on Ethnic Issue, Sessions of the Law Reforms Commission, the Inquiries of the Ceasefire Monitoring Committee and the International Islamic Conference. His acclaimed performance at the historical Thimpu Talks in Bhutan in 1985 was of significance.

In July 1969 the landing on the moon by two Americans came over the Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Ceylon engaged him to tell the Tamil listeners what the VOA commentaries said.

Despite all his achievements Selliah Kumarasamy remains simple, unassuming and humble. Contributions by such Lankans deserve to be recorded as part of Lankan contemporary history.

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