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Sinhala educated parliamentarians, Island 28/01/2009
Reading Jayatissa Perera’s letter, titled above, appearing in your issue of 20th January and also the earlier article of Tissa Devendra, my thoughts and memories went back to my school days – studying in a school up in the solubaious hill country. As mentioned by Jayatissa Perera in the good old days, when Sri Lanka was known world wide as Ceylon, school children were compulsorily taken to the supreme legislature, then called the State Council, to hear and witness the debates.
In the senior form in my school, there were only four students and our class master was invited by Mr. R. E. Jayatilaka, once a teacher and later a member of the State Council representing Nawalapitiya electorate, to bring us to Colombo and visit him at the State Council, which was situated at Galle Face, facing the Indian Ocean. We decided to accept his invitation and took the early morning train one day and reached Colombo by about 9 a.m. A hurried wash at the Railway waiting room, which was clean and tidy, (not as now remaining filthy), we walked to the State Council from the Fort Railway Station. Mr. Jayatilaka took us to the public gallery and watched and heard the eloquent speeches with wit and humour of Mr. S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, G. G. Ponnambalam, and our own State Council Member, R. E. Jayatilaka, who was also a fine orator. One event is still etched in my memory, where Sir John Kotalawala seeing us with R. E. Jayatilaka, in a lighter vein asked “Are these your boys?” to which he replied most respectfully in the affirmative – “Yes Sir” and an invitation to have lunch at the State Council canteen. What a gerous and jovial, sporty Sir John was!.
After sightseeing – the Sea and the Museum, – it was time up for we ‘Goodayas’ to take the Night Mail home. After a having a hearty feed at Ananda Bhawan – (Thosai kade in front of Fort Railway Station)where two (two thosais, one Ulundu Vadai and a plain cup of tea, costing less than – 10/- cts each)- we crossed over and stood in front of the Fort station and watched the tram cars running on rails with a pole connecting wires overhead. These are the tram cars which Tissa Devendra wrote about and the burly tramcar driver, stamping his foot a on a bell.
Now to comment on the most important statement made by Jayatissa Perera, “Whenever I watch parliamentary debates telecast in Sri Lanka, as Ediriweera Sarathchandra remarked,they speak only Sinhala and that too without any intelligent humour at all because they don’t seem to know even Sinhala.” Not that the Sinhala language is starved of good humorous sayings or episodes but most of our parliamentarians are not so educated, even in Sinhala, to deliver a speech with substance or wit or humour. To overcome this drawback or deficiency, they speak “Sudda Sinhala” (Mariakade Language) which the Speaker orders to be deleted from the hanzard. They also use another kind of language, the fist and legs and once a hilarious case where a revered priest, member of parliament, had his vital organ squeezed to the extent he had to seek treatment in a hospital. That is the parliamentary language of our unparliament members.
No wonder, when Sir John Kotalawala left politics and this country which he dearly loved and served had remarked “Gus Nagina Un Conciliate Aville”. -Tree climbers have invaded the Council. One could add much more such qualifications to suit the present lot – worse than “Gus Nagina Un”.
We live now, cursing the present and enjoying the past in our retirement.
G. A. D. Sirimal