By
Renton de Alwis
Written in October 2010, On this last day of the year, some said would end and is still in tact, I recalled the lessons I learnt not from books this time, but from a few people whom I loved, still love and will love for ever. They are all no more. May they all find the eternal bliss of Nirvana.
Teachers they are all. At school, on the street, at work, at home, our tutors, people we meet, our colleagues, bosses, brothers, sisters and our parents, we learn lessons from them all. Different lessons, some that never escape our minds, others we let go, having learnt a lesson or two, nevertheless. They are all ‘Gurus’; a now universally accepted word derived from the Sanskrit language. Then there are the ‘Deguru’, meaning mother and father. A ‘Guru’ can be anyone. Anyone worth emulating, learning a lesson from, much unlike the popularly accepted meaning of a ‘Sadhu’ or a holy person.
So much care
One of my early Gurus in life was my own uncle, ‘Daha Mama’. He was called ‘Daha’ not as an abbreviation of ‘Dahanayake’ or ‘Daham’, but because that was how he commandeered his favourite animals, the cow and the bull he reared at the back yard of our home in Dehiwela. He was my mother’s youngest brother and his name was Benjamin Fernando. The odd man out in the family, while all others got some education, he had chosen to bite off each letter from his alphabet at school. My mother told me stories of how he had desisted school, but learnt to love animals. His love for his mates who were cattle, dogs and cats was amazing. Each day in and day out, he would look after them with so much care. That was one of the first lessons I learnt on caring, outside of my mother’s loving care.
‘Daha Mama’ was also tasked with taking me to and from school each day. He protected me as if an animal would protect his kind. I resisted his possessive way of caring, often with contempt. It was an embarrassment to be ‘looked after’ when other kids were enjoying their freedom and even making fun of ‘Daha Mama’, until one day, a bully of a bigger boy assaulted me.
Patient counseling
‘Daha Mama’ had found out about the incident and had met that child’s parents to tell them that their child should not be brought up to be a bully. He had not threatened the child or been hasty in action, instead he had approached the child’s parents. A good lesson I learnt on how to deal with difficult issues, with patience extending the same caring we have for our own. I also learnt that there were many lessons the likes of him had learnt from the school of life, which he chose to attend in place of the formal schools we fall over each other to attend.
Load to carry
Then there was ‘Abaram Mama’. He was Daha Mama’s friend and was tasked with taking us to school, in his buggy cart. This was when I was transferred from the girl’s school I was attending in Dehiwela, on completion of the second standard to a College in Bambalapitiya. I recall, my mother giving him a few rupees each month for the ride with seven other children. Like my Daha Mama, Abaram Mama loved his bull ‘Pulli’ that helped him earn his living. With eight kids and him on the buggy cart, Pulli had a load to carry. Each day, each way, Abaram Mama would have two rest stops for Pulli, when he got a treat of some grass and water.
On this fateful day, the cart fell into a ditch and most of us were thrown out of cart. Miraculously, not one of us was injured but it was Pulli that was hurt. His neck had twisted and he was grasping for breath in pain in the ditch. Abaram Mama having found that all eight of us were alright, ran to Pulli and untied him from the viya gaha (the front part of the cart where the bull’s neck rests) and placed his head in his arms.
Mannussakama
It was a lesson on love to see him caressing Pulli’s forehead. His efforts were in vain for in a few minutes, Pulli died in Abaram Mama’s arms. It is then that I witnessed for the first time in my life, a grown up weep. For us kids, it was a sad experience to see someone we dearly loved, weep like I had seen a mother do, at the funeral of my class-mate who died of pneumonia, a few months before this incident. His wailing and weeping lasted a good half hour, when people who gathered took him away from Pulli’s dead body. It was not until later in life, I realized that, what I was witnessing was Abaram Mama’s deep-rooted ‘Mannussakama’ (quality of being humane).
Talking about lessons learnt, I think to this day, that my father was amazing at teaching them. Every morning he would leave home on his bicycle sharp at 7.05, with his lunch box attached to the back-bracket and return sharp at 5.50. It was a ride between our home in Dehiwela and his work-place at Ceylon Railways at Ratmalana. He was on time, each time. I only remember him being late once ever. On that day he had fallen off his mode of clean, green and healthy transport and had a bad scrape on his knee.
Stay open
He never complained or was disgruntled about anything about his work. It was always how good it was and how much he enjoyed it. Yet, I remember long years later when I was facing the dilemma of choosing a profession, how he told me, “Don’t join the Railway. It is a closed Department”. He meant that there could be no other options available for a railwayman once in its employ. When he shared this lesson with me, he was already retired after 35 years of service in that very ‘closed’ Department.
How I hated it then, for he never gave me a toy for my birthday. It was always a book and after a while a ‘Meccano set’ (an assembly kit with which you could design and build things). Today, I thank him for the lessons he taught me on the virtues of reading.
Each of us will have learnt so many lessons like I have, but many of us think of them to be unworthy of recall. These were lessons learnt not in school or university, but from the Guru-Deguru school of life, outside of those formal institutions. There are many we learnt within those formal institutions too and space would not permit me its recall here.
Primsa Sir
Yet, there is one more I must share with you. Mr. Primson Jayasekera (Primsa as we lovingly called him), was our maths teacher in the junior prep class (7th Form). One morning, Primsa Sir brought a basin of water, towel, cake of soap, tooth brush and tooth paste to class and taught us how to wash our faces and brush our teeth; the right way. We later learnt that he had seen one among us in class, with some dirt around the ear. He did not say who it was, yet he taught us a lesson.
Every morning Sir, as I wash my face, I think of you and thank you for the lesson you taught us that day, taking some time off, from teaching us mathematics.
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