John Hector Dhanapala was a man of gentle ways

John Hector Dhanapala never taught me.  I knew him first as the father of my classmate and best friend, Rajitha.  I knew him also as the brother of a far more commanding teacher, Donald Dhanapala, who taught at Royal Junior School.  

Mr Dhanapala never taught me, but for what must have been a year but felt like several years, I saw him almost everyday, Monday through Friday.  This is how it happened.

Back then while Royal Junior School finished at 1.30 pm, Royal College went on until 3 or 3.30 pm.   We lived down Pedris Road in a tiny, one-bedroom flat which was rented out just so the two-mile radius criteria would be fulfilled when admission was sought for my older brother Arjuna and I.  This, although our father was an Old Boy of the school.  

My brother and I walked home after school.  By 1.40 we would be having lunch.  Rajitha, on the other hand, would trudge to Royal College and stay in the staff room until his father finished his work. 

Somewhere in the year 1973 when Rajitha and I were in Mrs C Liyanagama’s class (3A).  My mother, who also taught at Royal College, apparently, had noticed this eight year old boy sitting in a chair that probably could have held three boys his size.  She had noticed him nodding off to sleep day after day.  She must have inquired or may have figured out that Rajitha’s father was John Hector Dhanapala, a fellow member of the tutorial staff.  

My mother had many sons (and quite a few daughters too) during her long tenure as a teacher.  Knowing her, she would have seen in Rajitha either myself or my brother. Anyway, she had suggested to Mr Dhanapala that Rajitha could stay at our place, have lunch and wait until his father could pick him up.  I don’t know if she knew at that point that Rajitha and I were classmates.  

Anyway, one fine day, Rajitha and I came home together, accompanied of course by our brother.  Those were good days.  Lunch was followed by cricket.  We played for what seemed (and is still remembered) like many hours, but of course it couldn’t have been more than an hour and a half at most.  Mr Dhanapala would come to pick up his son. 

He was quiet.  He hardly spoke.  Probably nothing more than a greeting.  I can’t remember too much of that time anyway, but I do remember him being quiet.  

He was quiet in later years when we moved to Pamankada and I would go over to ‘College’ to go home with my mother.  If I remember right, this was in 1975 or 1976, when school finished at 1.oo pm for us and we had half an hour to kill.  My brother and I would walk to College along with the children of other teachers.  There was Mrs Weerasiri’s sons, Aruna and Kalana, Mr Weerasinghe’s (BAWA’s) son, Dulcie Wijesinha’s son Saman and I think Mrs Jayatilleka’s younger son (who tragically committed suicide a few years later over a stupid rebuke).  We walked up Racecourse Avenue (now, Rajakeeya Mawatha) and jump over the wall (The Vice Principal, Christie ‘Kataya’ Gunasekara, Mr Nanayakkara (Bus Nana) and I think Mr Wariyapola caught us on one occasion, but that’s another story).  There was enough time for a quick game of cricket in the corridor between the science lab and where the tennis courts now are.  There were times I would stray into the staff room.  That’s when I would on occasion meet Mr Dhanapala.

He didn’t speak much.  He smiled.  

He was quiet in 1977 when Rajitha and I (along with Ruvinda Gunawardena) crossed over to Royal College (as permitted by a special provision for teachers’ children).  The three of us were enrolled on the same day and in the same class (Mr Sawaad’s class, 7F).  Ruwinda’s mother (whose name I cannot remember) was a tall lady.  Her presence was felt.  Mr Dhanapala, quiet and self-effacing, was less conspicuous.  

Thereafter, until he retired in 1980, there were many times when I ran into him.  I would politely say ‘Good morning, Sir’ and he would softly return the greeting. 

I never had a conversation with Mr Dhanapala that I can remember.  But I remember him as a decent and refined personality.  He never taught me, but Rajitha says he taught Christianity and Economics (English Medium).  I don’t know if he was strict in class, but I do know he was a good teacher.   After leaving Royal in 1980 he took up a teaching post in Pakistan.  He taught there for more than 25 years.  Rajitha says that his father had once ‘retired’ and had spent 4-5 years back in Sri Lanka, but his employers had convinced him to return.  He must have been a very special teacher.  

A few years after we left school I ran into Rajitha at the Big Match.  I told him that he (Rajitha) was looking more and more like his father: “උඹ උඹේ තාත්ත වගේ වේගෙන එනවා.”  Rajitha responded immediately, “උඹ උඹේ අම්ම වගේ වේගෙන එනවා!”  We both laughed.  We were like that, brothers from different mothers and fathers.  

I met Mr Dhanapala on two occasions after he left Royal.  The first was at the Mercantile Cricket Association grounds in 2012.  He had come to watch his grandson, Thiran, play in an Under 15 match.  I had gone to meet the father of a boy playing in the opposing team.  I saw Rajitha and he said that Mr Dhanapala was also there.  He was eminently recognizable, despite the years.  The smile, that’s it.  And the kindness of gaze.  And when he spoke, he took me back to 1973, a different century and almost a different lifetime.  He spoke softly.  He spoke little.  He said a lot.  He spoke about his time in Pakistan.  He spoke about Thiran, with measured pride.  Looking back, he seemed to have resolved to treat the vicissitudes of life with equanimity.  Always calm, seldom agitated: that’s how I pictured him in the everyday of his life that I had not witnessed.

I saw him last at the Royal-Thomian.  He was in the enclosure reserved for the families of the players.  We spoke about the match.  We spoke about Thiran.  He told me that he enjoyed watching the boy play.  He was proud.  And again, it was measured pride.  Right now, as I write, I have this sense that he would have hid his disappointments (if indeed that was what he felt) way back in 1984 when his son, my friend Rajitha, was denied a place in the First XI that played in that year’s Royal-Thomian.

John Hector Dhanapala died almost two years ago, on January 2, 2016.   He did not get to see his grandson and his teammates complete an improbable, come-from-behind win over St. Thomas'.  That would not be something he would have dwelt on.  He wasn't a man who appeared to have any regrets.   He was 83 years old.  Perhaps one day, those who were privileged to have been taught by him, will write the stories of his teaching.  I saw him from a distance.  A quiet, soft-spoken gentleman who clearly tread so soft on this earth that the marks he left are untraceable.  He scripted, most probably, in texts that are not easy to transliterate.  He did not burden the earth, he enriched it, I am now certain.

May he rest in pace.

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On making the ‘First XI’ and relevant political lessons

Only 11 can play, yes.  This is about some who didn't make it
but not because they lacked talent or had not performed.

Perhaps it is the fact that Sri Lanka is not playing any international cricket right now and has a fairly lean schedule ahead that makes me dwell on cricket these days, forgive me.  I was remembering an article written by my school friend and now architect, Sumangala Jayatillake for a Royal-Thomian Souvenir a quarter of a century ago.  He was relating a dream about playing in the Roy-Tho and coming up with a fantastic performance. He ended the piece, if I remember right, with a quote: ‘Everyone is a hero in his dreams’.  He followed it up with another post script: ‘I knocked out Mohammed Ali in another dream!’

I have had cricket dreams like that and long before Sumangala articulated his.  My dreams were associated with records.  As a young boy there were two things that bugged the hell out of me.  The first was the fact that St. Thomas’ had shot out Royal for 9 runs in the 1885 encounter.  Thomians maintain that Royal didn’t turn up on the second day and considers the game forfeited while Royalists, given absence of any proof, considers the game drawn.  There is no disagreement however regarding the fact that Royal were all out for 9.  That bugged me. It also bugged me that STC had the highest total of the series (at the time): 351 for 7 if I remember right (broken several times since). 

So here’s the dream.  Royal bowls out STC not for 8 runs, not for 7, not for 3 or 1 but zero.  The scoreboard reads: St. Thomas’ all out for 0.  The innings is all done in 10 deliveries and includes 3 hat tricks.  The wrecker?  Self.  Obviously I couldn’t take all wickets if the innings was over in 10 deliveries, so there was a partner in crime. RajithaDhanapala, a classmate who from Grade Three used to come home after school and stay with us until his father, who taught at Royal along with my mother, came to take him home.  Rajitha and I, in my dream, opened batting and we broke the record for the highest total. I am sure one of us broke the record for the highest individual score, then held by Duleep Mendis (184) but can’t remember who it was.  The rest of the match was not dreamt.  It was not necessary.  The point was to dream-out those uncomfortable bragging-rights owned by the ‘other school’.

Rajitha was a cricketer. I was a fan.  He played first eleven cricket. I cheered.  Fast forward to the year 1984.  Check the big match souvenir. Royal was led by Sandesh Algama.  The book will show that the top 4 run-getters of the season didn’t play in the big match.  Chandana Panditharatne and Assaji Ranasinghe, both stylish and dependable batsmen were dropped, along with Rajitha, the only one to score a century that season The fourth, Kapila Dandeniya, was touring Australia with the Sri Lanka Under 19 team.  Royal escaped with a draw thanks to the heroics of Nalinda Premachandra and Chandana Jayakody, both in the team for their bowling skills, incidentally. 

More than a quarter of a century later, I went to see an ‘Under 13’ cricket match being played at the Mercantile Cricket Association grounds.  This is the first junior level cricket match I went to see after leaving school.  Royal vs. St. Peter’s.  Semi-Final. I went there because there was a boy called Thiran playing.  Thiran Dhanapala.  He made some runs. Royal lost by a few runs in a closely fought game.  Whether Thiran will go further than his father is left to be seen, but I was happy to be there with my friend.  It was not exactly justice catching up after a quarter century, but it made me happy. 

It happens a lot doesn’t it, this business of the deserving being sidelined and those with ‘connections’ being penciled in?  It is less about what you have done and what you can do but who’s who you are, isn’t it?  It is about the Old Boys Club, about wining and dining with the right people, throwing parties and having a certain air about you, isn’t it?  And it is not limited to Royal College or cricket, is it? 

In a few days time nominations will be submitted for the forthcoming General Election.  Peruse the lists carefully. Try to find out how many decent people with credentials were ‘dropped’ by the various parties in favour of those who have lots of money or have ‘spectacle’ value.  There will be film stars and sports personalities, the filthy rich and the thugs, I have no doubt.  Already the city walls have been plastered with the ugly mugs of the rich, those who have the bucks, the men and are absolutely free of shame. 

There are rare cases when a good rugby player is also a decent cricketer.  Among those at Royal in my time I remember Ajitha Pasqual, Michael Muller, Jagath Fernando, Graham Lawrence and Rajiv De Silva.  Krishan George and Sampath Agalawatte were likewise multi-sports personalities, the former securing colours in basketball, rugby and athletics.  For the main part, though, cricketers don’t make good politicians and neither do film stars, singers and beauty queens. 

Check the lists.  Let us see if any of the major political parties can come up with candidates with some kind of relevant accomplishment.  I am willing to wager that incompetence and unsuitability will be what describes best those who do make the lists and indeed those who get elected, which of course is an indictment of the voter and supports the contention that people get the governments they deserve. 

Strong and visionary leadership does not on the other hand pander to the least common denominator, does not calculate a candidate’s worth in terms of his/her ‘star value’ or spending capacity but the ability to function as a responsible and honest lawmaker who delivers on tasks assigned. 

The ‘lists’ then will show us what kind of people we are (for candidates are chosen for ability to secure votes) and as seriously what kind of leaders we have. 

Thirty five years after dreaming a crazy dream and twenty five years after burning inside at an injustice my friend had to suffer, I got some kind of consolation.  That is too long for a society to wait, especially since we’ve waited for several decades now for a different kind of politician and political culture to emerge.  Today it is up to the leaders of the various political parties.  And if they don’t deliver then tomorrow they will not be consulted or heeded.  

Read also: This Roy-Tho belongs to Rajitha Dhanapala

Malinda Seneviratne is the Editor-in-Chief of 'The Nation' can can be reached at menevira@gmail.com

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This Roy-Tho belongs to Rajitha Dhanapala

The Royal-Thomian is not just a cricket match between two schools.  It is, but that’s only a small part of the story.  For Royalists and Thomians, both young and old, it is about reunion, reminiscing, re-living the past, envisioning future battles and heroics and a moment to relax, revel and cheer regardless of the status of the match, regardless of the result. 

And yet, the Roy-Tho is a dream for many a schoolboy, a dream one wants to be real.  As it was and as it will be, it was a dream that one young boy did his best to turn into reality, over 30 years ago.  He did his best.  He made it to the First XI.  He even scored a century during the school season, which also happened to be his last year in school.  He was among the top four in the batting averages. He was not selected.  Lesser players made it for reasons of ‘ties’, influence and who knows what else.  Neither were the other three selected, one of whom of course was ‘out’ by default because he was touring Australia with the Sri Lanka Under 19 team.  He was devastated as were the other two.

The big-match came.  They watched from the pavilion.  We can only imagine what was going through their minds.  Years passed. Decades passed. Now we are in the year 2014.  That’s thirty years since that Roy-Tho which is remembered by that boy’s batch mostly (and even only) for the fact that Rajitha Dhanapala, Chandana Panditharatne and Assajith Ranasinghe were dropped to make way for ‘favorites’.  This year, thirty years later, there’s relief and redemption. It comes in the form of a young boy who not only dreamed the dreams his father dreamed, but will see them turning into reality. His name is Thiran Dhanapala.

Thiran will do the keepers’ gloves for Royal.  Throughout the early part of the season when Royal struggled it was Thiran who turned imminent debacles into respectable totals, working hard with the tail.  The season turned somewhere down the line and Royal will go into the big match with confidence, especially after  a moral boosting win over Trinity which came after a bold lunch-time declaration with one batsman unbeaten on 99.  Team comes first, and that point was emphatically made by the captain and embraced by his boys who bundled out the opposition for a little over 100 runs. 

Team comes first, but for the men who were boys in 1984, this match will be special.  Not just because Rajitha gets to smile in a way he hasn’t smiled in 30 years, but another son of another batchmate (Randev, son of Ranil Pathirana) will also be playing for Royal. Randev has emerged as the top allrounder with excellent performances with bat and ball. Indeed, he might be the best allrounder in the schools this year. 

They have both made their fathers proud. They’ve made their fathers’ friends proud too.  They have, as the saying goes, ‘earned the palm’ [Palmam Qui Meruit Ferat].  They will no doubt bear it with grace.  They will be cheered all the way.  And, in the case of Thiran Dhanapala, it’s a cheer that’s could be said to have been held back for thirty long years.  This Roy-Tho does not belong to Rajitha Dhanapala, as asserted, but it is extra special to him.  Not everyone will know why, but that does not matter. 

msenevira@gmail.com 

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The Ranjan Madugalle Column

Ranjan Madugalle remembers Jagath Fernando’s classic 160 not out in the 1971 Royal-Thomian.  I remember being at that match and I remember savouring the scorecard of that match in the 1972 Royal souvenir which had just one dampener, Gajan Pathmanathan being out at 97.  Ranjan remembers Gajan getting out. 

I remember Ranjan walking back after a poor show in the middle in the Big Match of 1975.  He was just 15 then.  Tiny.  I remember reading about his exploits in Pakistan the following year when as a 16 year old he took 8 wickets to help Sri Lanka’s Under 19 team annex the Ali Bhutto trophy.  I can’t remember remembering this fact more acutely than when Mahinda Halangoda and Chandi Richards denied Royal a win in the Centenary Match (1979). I wished Ranjan, who captained Royal in that match, had brought himself on. 

I was just 11 years old then and the controversy surrounding his selection for the Ali Bhutto Trophy game went over my head.  I remember thinking, years later, when the issue was brought up, ‘yes, maybe it was unfair, but he was given an opportunity and seized it with both hands’.  The fact is, Ranjan was a phenomenal talent. 

Cricket captains were held in awe by schoolboys.  Ranjan Madugalle captained twice and was such a performer that he walked or was thought to walk a few inches off the ground unlike other cricket captains.  The fact is, he was always grounded. 

He was very fond of my mother, who was his teacher and who claimed she had carried him as a baby.  I was known, therefore.  I remember Ranjan once catching me on the corridor.  Our class (7F) was next to the prefects’ room and Ranjan was the Head Prefect.  He asked me a question and not having heard what he said I said (in a questioning tone) ’….aaah?’  He said that there was no such word and that if I didn’t hear, I must say so.  A few weeks later he caught me on the corridor.  He mumbled something.  I started with the habitual ‘aaah?’ and quickly changed to ‘what?’  He smiled and said ‘that’s better!’ 

I remember Ranjan and Arjuna Ranatunga saving Sri Lanka’s blushes in the first innings of the first ever test (1982, P.Sara Stadium against England).  I remember listening to the commentary when he scored his maiden hundred (against India) and how the commentator observed that he had got out ‘to a shot by a tired man’.  I remember listening to the commentary during the classic partnership he put together for NCC with Sridharan Jeganathan.  I went for the first test but the other two incidents were random – I hardly ever listened to the radio. 

I remember Ranjan losing his cool only once, when he was hitting the Australian attack to all corners of the field and got into a war of words with Rodney Hogg.  I think Hogg bounced him and it annoyed Ranjan.  I think Hogg got his wicket and had choice things to say to Ranjan as he walked away.  I remember Ranjan stopping in his tracks to (presumably) exchange ‘pleasantries’ with Rodney.  I can’t remember if we won or lost but I think either Ranjan won it for us or else brought us close. 

I met Ranjan a couple of days ago when I went to meet my oldest friend, Rajitha Dhanapala.  He said he was at the Royal-Thurstan match.  When we were chatting he had seen Ranjan.  I hadn’t seen him since my mother’s funeral a little over two years ago, so we strolled to the other end of the ground passing the J.R.Jayewardena pavilion to where he was sitting with several other old Royalists, cricketers all, among them Jagath Fernando, Jehan Mubarak and Zulki Hameed.

He recognized both of us, got up and greeted us.  He greeted me as ‘Mister Editor’.   So we talked about ‘The Nation’ and I asked him to write a column.  He said that Sa’adi Thawfeek, our Sports Editor had made the same request many times but that he was constrained by contractual agreement (with the ICC).  He added, ‘I asked Sa’adi what had happened to you since I didn’t see your articles and he said “we told him to stick to one paper instead of writing to all the newspapers like a prostitute”.’   We had a good laugh over it, and I told him that these days the first article to get the chop for lack of space is mine. 

Getting back to ‘columns’, he said that I could write his obituary notice (for free).  I laughed and said I will write an appreciation.  We don’t know when death comes, so I don’t know if I would be around to do either, so I thought I would write this now. 

A year ago, almost, I wrote an article for the ‘Daily News’ titled ‘On Ranjan Madugalle’s ‘lesson’ in 1982’.  It was something he said when invited by the then Principal of Royal College, L.D.H. Peiris to be a guest speaker at the school assembly.  This is what he said:

‘Whenever I am out of form, getting out cheaply or to poor shots, I revert to the fundamentals.  I go back to the nets. I check my stance. I check the back-lift.  Things like that.  Invariably, I start performing better.  That is a life lesson. Whenever we go wrong, it is good to ask yourself if you’ve got the fundamentals wrong.  Basic things like discipline. Like values.  You will always find that that’s where the problem lies.  That is what needs to be corrected.’

Ranjan Madugalle is not a columnist.  He is not allowed to write or speak to the media.  He spoke to me about the things that people who have known each other for more than 30 years talk about.  Light banter. 

He’s written his ‘column’ in the middle of the ground and outside the boundary line.  He was a technically sound batsman.  He was sound.  He is sound.  Day in and day out.  And that, my friends, counts for a daily column running continuously for over thirty years. 

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