I first met Pradeep Jeganathan when I was around 4 years old. Back then my brother and I would be taken by our mother for what we referred to as ‘Elocution’. Pradeep’s mother, Lakshmi Jeganathan, talked us effective speaking, speech and drama, and much more besides. I can’t remember being enthusiastic about attending Aunty Lakshmi’s classes, but I can say with conviction that I learned more about language, literature and theatre from that formidable and excellent teacher than anyone else.
I knew that Pradeep was in the same class as my brother Arjuna. Grade 1A, Royal College, Colombo 7. The class teacher was Mrs Rajapaksha. She would be my class teacher the following year. I hadn’t met Pradeep.
My first recollection of Pradeep is when his mother got him and his sister Praveena, to act out a short dramatic passage for the benefit of the students in the class. My second recollection is Pradeep’s 6th birthday party. They lived at the time off Charles Way. His parents had come up with a game where we had to look for hidden treasure (mostly 1 cent and 2 cent coins; a 5, 10, 25 or a rupee would be a rich strike!). I remember Aunty Lakshmi and Uncle Jega looking on with amusement as the bigger kids found ‘the mother lode’, under the front door carpet.
I can’t remember the presents we gave him, but Pradeep remembered my parents taking him with us to the Royal-Thomian. He has always been fond of my late mother and has great respect for my father, as I have for his mother and had for his late father. He still enjoys meeting old friends at the Royal-Thomian.
My mother and his mother were schoolmates. That’s how we ended up in Aunty Lakshmi’s class. We lived in a small rented flat down Pedris Road, so we were almost neighbors. I heard from my mother and my brother that Pradeep was a bright kid. I think he was consistently second in class — Gamini Galappaththi almost always came first.
As happens in a big school, it was rare to hang out with kids in other grades or indeed in other classes in the same grade. So Pradeep was not really a school friend.
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| My brother Arjuna (captain) is in the middle, Pradeep is on the right |
He became a friend when he was in the 9th Grade. I was in the 8th grade. By that time I was a senior member of the school’s junior chess team, having played since I was in Grade 4. Pradeep took to the game relatively late, but he improved quickly. We were in the teams led by my brother Arjuna and S.P. Fernando that won the Junior Inter School Chess titles in 1978 and 1979 respectively.
Pradeep was way too smart to continue with chess in that he was among the few tipped to get 4 A’s at the ALs, which he duly achieved in 1982.
I believe my mother helped him when he was applying to colleges in the USA. He was accepted by the Massachusettes Institute of Technology (MIT). I vaguely remember Pradeep writing a ‘peer review’ when my brother applied to Brown University the following year, unsuccessfully though. I also know that he studied Buddhism for the OL Examination (1979) and got a Distinction. Well, he got 8 D's. He was and is conversant in all three languages.
By that time, we had moved to Pamankada and Pradeep’s family had moved to Dickman’s Road. I had quietly dropped out of Aunty Lakshmi’s class when I was in the 10th grade, and didn’t sight the place for years, that was how terrifying that great teacher was (years later, I would take my daughters to her and they too benefitted immensely, as did the kids of other students like me who had for reasons of fear dropped out of her class!).
We went our separate ways, but hooked up briefly in 1991 when Pradeep visited Boston in the Summer. I believe he did an MSc in Electronic Engineering before shifting to Anthropology. He was reading for a PhD at the time at the University of Chicago.
We talked politics, especially things related to ‘the ethnic issue’. Pradeep was a good teacher. He explained things gently. Some years later, he sent me a document titled ‘Sinhalayin vetha aadarayen (To the Sinhalese, with love)’. It was written by a Tamil man whom I had met briefly but whose name escapes me now. Back then ‘online’ exchanges were mostly in a group called soc-culture-sri-lanka. I remember translating it into English. I remember Pradeep saying I was a good activist.
Then we lost track. Until 2001 or so. I was walking down Dickman’s Road and saw him standing outside that house which was a place of tortured learning. I crossed the road. Pradeep hugged me and invited me in.
I had a brief association with the political party Sihala Urumaya and Pradeep knew about this. He was ideologically opposed to Sinhala nationalism. I remember him saying ‘since we are meeting after a long time, I don’t want to argue with you machang.’ He did congratulate me on an interview with Dr Wimala De Silva, founder principal of Devi Balika Vidyalaya. He appreciated the appreciation of a serious academic. We had tea and talked.
We have met many times since then. I invited him to write to ‘The Nation’ and he contributed a thoughtful column which he titled ‘Ginge(r)ly’. We talked more deeply and more often on politics. I interviewed him on the now defunct ‘Prime TV’. I learned about his other ‘half lives’. Pradeep, quite apart from being an academic, is a writer (his collection of short stories, ‘At the water’s edge,’ was short-listed for the Gratiaen Award), a really good portrait photographer and an excellent cook (he has a food blog and another for his articles on politics, culture and society). He told me that he got interested in cooking while at MIT. Several people shared a kitchen and if I remember right, they shared their food.
I remember the article he wrote titled ‘Two or three things I know about my country.’ He says things gingerly. We cannot but listen.
I consulted Pradeep on several occasions regarding political issues. First, regarding certain unsavory matters at the International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES), Colombo, where he had been the Deputy Director. He helped me a lot during the drama over Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake. I sent him the editorial I had written for ‘The Nation’. He commented. He didn’t agree with everything I said, but was gracious enough to say (referring to a section towards the end) ‘this is where you are strongest’.
We were once on the same panel at the Galle Literary Festival. We shared a room with my sister Ru Freeman, a far more accomplished writer than either of us). This was in 2010. We attended an event where my sister was being interviewed. She mentioned both of us. Pradeep, older brother to both of us and sitting next to me in the audience whispers ‘she’s making us look good, how sweet!’
Pradeep, my sister and I were invited to read poetry and short stories that year at the Closenberg Hotel. I had injudiciously chosen to read a poem I had written about my mother, who had passed away three months previously. I couldn’t finish reading it (my sister, who is made of sterner stuff completed the reading). I remember walking back to my seat and sobbing on Pradeep’s lap.
Recently, we exchanged comments on Facebook posts regarding the events following President Maithripala Sirisena sacking Ranil Wickremesinghe and dissolving parliament. We disagreed regarding a point of law. A classmate took strong objection to Pradeep’s position and brought in extraneous matters. To Pradeep, he was a racist. When I ‘shared’ a post by my friend (on a different subject), Pradeep was upset.
He said ‘It pains me deeply to see you share anything with a racist. I know you, and we are family. We disagree on the situation, and I respect the disagreement. But take care. Don't get carried away. I am telling you as your brother.’ I removed the post.
Pradeep is a friend. Looking back, he’s the closest childhood friend outside my grade at Royal. He’s a brother. We are family.
Pradeep turned 54 today. I’ve attended a couple of his birthday parties, apart from the one down Charles Way, there was one at Dickman’s Road, where my brother and I reached ‘the final’ of a competition to toss cards into a wastepaper basket. Aunty Lakshmi has on occasion got me to have lunch at their place if I was early for a class. Pradeep ate butter with rice and encouraged me to do the same. Aunty Lakshmi said ‘it’s not good for your health…you’ll get a heart-attack!’ Pradeep responded, ‘that’s after you are 40 machang!’ He’s 54 now.
Pradeep once wrote or spoke about the most poignant line in our national anthem, ‘එක මවකගේ දරුකල බැà·€ිනා’ [since we are children of a single mother]). It holds for us and I hope, with him, that it will hold for the entire nation one day. We are family. My mother treated Pradeep as a son, as did his mother treat my brother, sister and me. He’s my brother. I wish him good health, good times and simple joys.
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