All about the old days

Saturday, 29 November 2014 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Meeting old friends is always so pleasant, particularly seeing those living in faraway places. During a recent visit to Melbourne I spent a day with bosom pals – the Weeraratnes – Neville and Sybil. Both are painters; Neville’s track record going back to the days when he was a member of the ’43 Group. Both continue to paint, Neville more than the wife.

My contact with Neville dates back to the mid-1960s when both of us were attached to the Observer Editorial. On Saturdays both of us used to stay late into the night till the City edition of the Sunday Observer was ‘put to bed’. One unforgettable night was the historic ‘Landing of the Moon’. With no television or other IT facilities at the time, we had to solely depend on Reuters to get the news. Editor Denzil Peiris was glued to the Reuters ticker – the machine which typed out the news – and every five minutes would rush to our desk with fresh copy. Neville, in charge of layout and editing of the paper, kept on recasting the pages. Lake House vans were ready to take the newspapers with the latest news to the distant places where the readers were eagerly waiting to read all about the drama. If I remember right, we had at least eight editions that night. We had a lot to talk about the Observer days and our colleagues who had migrated Down Under. The Weeraratnes themselves had come over 40 years ago. Among other Observer mates who came were E.C.T. Candappa, Clarence Perera, Eustace Rulach and Harvey Cambell – names both of us could recollect. They are all in Melbourne – some in not so good health, I was told. With the Weeraratne Jrs. moving out of the ‘mahagedera’ to run their own homes, the old couple is by themselves. Their home is of typical Sri Lankan style with a collection of ‘kalagedi’ and other artefacts greeting the visitors. Inside is a ‘home cum art gallery’ with a fine collection of paintings –all Sri Lankan – adorning the walls. Neville took me to his studio – a cosy little place outside the house where he leisurely paints. He is in no hurry. “We used to take our work and exhibit at the Sansoni Gallery once every two or three years, but we haven’t gone for some time,” says Neville. They have no immediate plans either. “Occasionally when there is something interesting to offer, we have a ‘home show,’ creating a bit of awareness in the neighbourhood. People do come and pick up a few,” Neville was very modest about it. An unfinished painting in the studio featured a typical village youth scene. “I always love to depict village characters in their familiar ‘sudusarama’ and banian. I recollect so many interesting incidents. I try to bring them back into my creative effort,” is how Neville describes what he likes to paint. Sybil is listening. “I, of course, now spend more time sweeping the garden as I used to do in my young days with the ‘idala’,” she responds and goes inside to give the finishing touches to the ‘buth curry’ lunch. Neville’s first assignment at Lake House was as an illustrator in the Silumina in the early 1950s; then on to the Daily News as a cartoonist and soon as a sub-editor on the Observer. He joined the Ceylon Tourist Board just before moving over to Melbourne where he continued his journalistic career, ending as the editor of ‘The Advocate’, the weekly newspaper of the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne in the 1980s. In the 1990s he authored several books on painting starting with the ’43 Group: a Chronicle of Fifty Years in the Art of Sri Lanka’, ‘The Art of Richard Gabriel’, and ‘Visions of an Island: Rare Works from Sri Lanka in the George Ondatjie Collection’. He also wrote ‘Sculpture of Tissa Ranasinghe’ and edited the ‘Applause at the Wendt’, ‘A Select Catalogue of the Sapumal Foundation’ and ‘Brief’, the memoirs of Bevis Bawa. An impressive record indeed! We continued to chat after Sybil’s delicious rice and curry lunch complete with ‘parippu’, ‘pol sambol’ and chicken curry.