Malinda Words: Sarath Karunaratne can't stop teaching

More than twenty years ago, around 15 students, all senior scouts, spent almost a week at the Naval Dockyard. The logbook entry, written by President’s Scout Kanishka Goonewardena, the designated scribe, replete with photographs (most of them unfortunately faded) and two very interesting letters makes very interesting reading.

The scouts were divided into two patrols, Belgrano and Sheffield, the names of two vessels sunk during the battle over the Falkland Islands between Britain and Argentina. Those names were also picked, I believe, by Kanishka, who was among the few 17-18 year olds in school aware of what was happening around the world. Apt, for we were to be, after all, at a Naval Base.

This is not a story about ships, battles and scouts. It’s about teachers and teaching. The scouts were accompanied by two teachers, Lal Perera and Sarath Karunaratne; I don’t think anyone knew that the latter was an old boy of the school. They were assigned to accompany the boys because the Senior Scout Master, Mohamed Firdhouse was otherwise engaged and could only get to Trincomalee a few days later.

The night before ‘Firdy’ arrived, the two teachers, who had largely observed things from a distance, wanted to speak with the boys. They said that they felt they should add something small (podi deyak). They spoke about film music. I have a vague recollection that it was a fascinating discussion but do remember clearly that the music of Maurice Jarre in what I still consider my favourite film, Doctor Zhivago.

I never got to learn from either, not in a formal sense. I didn’t forget and neither did they. In later years I would run into both these teachers at the Big Match. They were almost always together. They went from tent to tent looking for their ‘children.’ And the children would invariably surround them, entertain them and talk about old times. Sarath Karunaratne, just like Lal Perera and other teachers, always enriched conversations. They knew things. They seemed to know just what to say and how to say it. They always taught me something.

In March 2023, Sarath Karunaratne came out with a book, a memoir of sorts. ‘Veddah Kanda Abiyasa (At the foot of Veddah Kanda)’ is a collection of recollections of the time he served as the first Science and Mathematics teacher of Gallaellaegama Rajaye Vidyalaya from January 4, 1972 to May 2, 1974.

It is a fascinating account of a different time in a different country. Moragoda, a village in Medawachchiya in the Anuradhapura District is located at the foot of Veddah Kanda. It was one of those ‘dushkara’ or ‘difficult.’ Sarath Karunaratne clearly objects to the descriptive, for he adds a qualifier, ‘dushkara yaeyi sammatha’ which means ‘generally considered to be backward/hard). These are, he claims and indeed proves, memories that are sweet. The book is about honourable people who were not deceitful, an open cultural landscape and a time of ease. It was a time when he was lighthearted and felt fulfilled. He starts his story from the moment he received the letter of appointment and set out to report to work. It ends when he leaves his teachers’ quarters and sets off to take up a new appointment in Colombo.

It is a fascinating journey which of course I cannot recount here. The author has illustrated the story and designed the cover as well. But it is essentially with words that he vividly paints the physical and social landscape in and around the school.

In short he transports us to that place and time and makes us feel we are also witnesses to the encounters he has faithfully transcribed. I read it as though it was a story he was relating to a bunch of attentive boy scouts in the year 1992 somewhere within the precincts of the Naval Dockyard in Trincomalee. It is like a music score of a film that hasn't been made but ought to be.

Reading it, I realised that he was a teacher who never stopped being a student. He observed, analysed and drew conclusions. He found ways of imparting those out-of-curriculum lessons to their students, wherever they go, whatever they are tasked to teach and long after they’ve retired.

There are probably many teachers like him. Not all of them write memoirs, but they should. Sarath Karunaratne, through this book, taught me that experience outside the classroom, especially in areas designated ‘hard,’ qualify them to teach the deeper lessons about life.

Sarath Karunaratne and Lal Perera didn’t have to talk to those boy scouts that night, but they did. They could have stopped teaching but they didn’t. I just want to go to Moragoda, Medawachchiya in the Anuradhapura District. I hope he will join me.

['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is the 294th article in the new series that began in December 2022. Links to previous articles are given below]

15 December 2023

Sarath Karunaratne can't stop teaching

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