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I
knew Sama Dharmaratne, who was also known as Sama De Silva, first as
the mother of a trio of young Nalandian chess players. She was also the
teacher-in-charge of chess in that school. The eldest was Shehenaz, who
was my age, the second was Sidath and the youngest was Dinoo, who would
have been around eight years of age.
This was in 1978, at Ananda
College, where the Inter-School Championship was being held. I believe
it was later that I found out that they had an older brother, Samath,
who attended Royal and became a member of the senior chess team.
There
were the usual rivalries but all of that was just over the 64 squares.
Friendships were formed and they erased school-related distinctions.
There were tournaments held at Nalanda and since the Dharmaratnes lived
close by, that’s where we went after the rounds were done.
She
was kind. She was always with a smile. I remember Dinoo clinging to her
whenever things went wrong. I remember his younger sister Sanjeewa
hanging around until the brothers were done. They were a handful, but
their mother managed somehow.
Years passed. I played on the same
team as Samath, who was a few years older. He went on to become a
doctor, as did his sister. I really don’t know what Shehenaz did or
does. Sidath, who passed away around 16 years ago, was the one closest
to me. We served together in the Chess Federation almost twenty years
ago. Dinoo became a lawyer.
We never kept in touch, but whenever
we met, randomly and infrequently, it was like old time — friends,
brothers, reminiscing and affection untarnished by distance or years.
Last
morning Dinoo called me. He said he wanted to meet because he wanted to
see all his friends before he died! He was always mischievous and
irreverent. So we agreed to meet at 6 o’clock in Kottawa. I was late. We
talked for several hours. And he told me about his mother, the sweet,
kind lady who I last met at Sidath’s funeral and who passed away a few
years ago. Dinoo told me her story or rather the story of his mother,
chess and Nalanda College.
The boys had been into outdoor sports
such as cricket and hockey. There had been a chess board at home but no
one played. No one knew how to play.
One day, their mother had
gone to the British Council and borrowed a book titled ‘Simple Chess.’
She had taught herself the game so she could teach her children. This
was when she realised that although there was a board at home, there
were no pieces.
‘She cut a sheet of paper into squares and wrote
letters on them to indicate what the piece was. Q for Queen, B for
Bishop etc. Upper case for the white ‘pieces’ and lower case for the
black.’
That’s how it all began. Sidath won the National Junior
title, i.e. for players under 12 years of age. Dinoo won it three years
in a row. Shehenaz was solid but his younger siblings were the stars.
Sidath even made it to the Nationals. Samath never played junior chess.
‘He would have been around 14 when Amma taught us chess. She could be strict. She would say “sit” and that’s what we did!’
Samath was one of the few who made it to Royal’s senior team without ever playing in the junior team.
‘Nangi
wasn’t interested, although she played for Colombo Campus and
represented Medical College the year I captained the Law College team.
So we were on opposite sides of the Law-Medical encounter,’ Dinoo said.
We talked late into the night. I dropped Dinoo at his place in Maharagama and came home. I couldn’t stop thinking of his mother.
Apparently,
she was one of three or four girls who had attended Mahinda College,
Galle. Arisen Ahubudu had taught her. She later moved to Visakha
Vidyalaya. Her husband, Dharmaratne De Silva was a principal who served
in Kotmale, among other places, and eventually retired as Commissioner
of Education.
She may have told her children why she wanted them
to play chess. I should check with Dinoo or Samath. What matters is how
she went about it. Learning a game from scratch, indeed teaching
herself the basics, the A-B-C of the moves, so to speak, could not have
been easy, especially with five children to take care of. It must take a
special kind of determination not to be deterred by the fact that there
were no pieces. And then, to start chess at in one of the leading
schools in the island!
Nalanda has produced many strong players
over the years. Susal De Silva, won the national title at the age of 16
and went on to retain the title the next two year as well. Susal is the
youngest Sri Lankan to secure the International Master title. Then
there’s young Chenitha Karunaratne, just 10 years old and already one of
the strongest players in the country.
It’s many years since she
passed away and even longer since she retired; I wonder if present day
Nalandians know what Sama Dharmaratne did for their school and in
particular chess at Nalanda. Those of us who played chess as schoolboys
in the 70s and 80s got to know her boys. We played with and against
them. We became friends. We knew their mother was the teacher-in-charge
of chess.
We didn’t know her, really. A kind, sweet, lovely
lady who treated us as though we were her own sons, yes, but not as the
formidable force that turned Nalanda into a chess heavyweight, so to
speak. Nalanda’s success made other schools stronger. That’s how it
works. We all owe her much.
How little we know about teachers, I
find myself thinking. My thoughts go back to that tender time at her
house, at tournaments and finally at my friend Sidath’s funeral. She
smiled when she saw me and softly spoke my name. ‘Aney Sidath,’ she said
even more softly.
She’s a poem that cannot be transcribed and
therefore I must end this with the following (favourite) verse from the
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam:
'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.
We’ve lived well, I must tell Dinoo. Fortunate were we. Privileged to have been sons to Sama Dharmaratne.
