Prasanna Jayawardena, the boss, the banker, the lawyer and the friend

Prasanna Jayawardena

By Hiran Perera

I joined HSBC in 1984 and in 1986 Prasanna Jayawardena was transferred from the Books Department to become the new ‘boss’ of the Credit Department.

I was a relatively new recruit to the department and was navigating through a complex environment with subtle undertones of preconceived notions about my connections to other higher-ups in the bank. Prasanna’s entry into the department was a relief for he was a free-thinking personality and a man of his word. He had no preconceived notions about anything and, more importantly, he had an open mind. From that time, my life in the bank became smooth sailing. 

While my work involved a mechanical and routing processing of work, he was engaged in writing more critical one-page credit proposals to Head Office, in Hong Kong. His flair for writing was impressive inasmuch as he reading skills were. But I was determined to learn from him and he was eager to teach me.

At that time, I improvised an essay on ‘The Portrait of Mr W H’ by Oscar Wilde and reinterpreted the Sonnets of Shakespeare. I was a nonexistent junior clerk in the Bank. But Prasanna was generous and compassionate to lend me his thoughts and ever since that time he became a friend and respected boss where, for me, the bank become a learning ground not only for banking matters but also to gain more insights into other subjects as he was an avid speed reader.

Not only did he have an eye for using the correct word but he had an unfailing ability to appreciate the beautiful things in life despite the routine of corporate engagement. He was so mentally adaptive that he could rise above the stars in his thinking and plunge the depths of the deep waters to get his point across. He started reading for his law exam at that time, maybe in the late ’80s and left the bank soon thereafter.

After he left HSBC, the years advanced and I was in a role that entailed bank’s legal recoveries and litigations. The only lawyer I could trust to take swift action against shenanigans and unwilling borrowers to repay debts was Prasanna. He knew how the bank works and his commercial law was flawless. His grasp was extraordinary and I had to expend little executive time to get the job done. 

Once the bank’s foreign CEO put extraordinary pressure on me to ensure recovery of a loan but little did he know that the Court proceedings get stalled during the time of the Royal-Thomian battle. Distressed as I was, I called Prasanna and spoke to him quite agitatedly to which Prasanna calmly and firmly replied, “First, stop speaking to me this way and, secondly, I am not the one who finalises the plaint. Tell your CEO, he can get some other lawyer if he’s not satisfied. You know well I am not in this profession for the money but for the love of it.”

Gosh I thought, HSBC can’t lose one of the best commercial lawyers and I never told the CEO anything, except that his instructions were carried out!

As a lawyer he had the respect of the judges as one learned judge said involving HSBC vs. a borrower, “Prasanna, I know you will not say anything expedient so I am going to take what you say for your word.”

I was invited to his party in 2012, the day he had one to celebrate his appointment as a PC but he opined that it should have come much earlier. In matters of law I could rely on him to text me back regarding a question I had serious doubts about its legal soundness. Knowing well he was always busy, I used to phrase a question via text in a way he has to either say, yes or no. He would reply me or call me to explain the details at leisure.

A few years ago, after having left HSBC, while I took my morning walk I texted him saying, “I thought of you this morning reminiscing the good times in HSBC and you stand out as one of the best bosses,” to which he replied with something very encouraging. 

In my more youthful days, I wrote an article on ‘Time’ and gave an explanation as to the holistic nature of it. He called me up and said, “I think you’re going insane? How can you walk into buildings which have yet not been constructed?”

On another occasion, and 24 years ago, he looked at my first one-year-old daughter, Mariana, and said, “She’ll be a beautiful girl when she’s older.” I asked, “How do you know this?” He said humorously, “I have lived long enough to know these kinds of things!”

As a Judge of the Supreme Court, I was diffident to talk to him as I hadn’t met him in person for so long but he put me at ease. “You don’t have to be silly to address me formally. We know each other well.”

He called me very recently regarding seeing the death notice of a fallen HSBC comrade’s wife and wanted to send a postcard to him. The latter passed away two decades ago. We bantered about their reunion in heaven. I invited him once home to dinner but he couldn’t make it. This time he said he will come with his wife but I was waiting for that opportune moment but it is now too late.

Fate has its bearing on us, or it may not as Shakespeare said, “The faults … are not in our stars.” But I remember in 1987, he told me how he had met an astrologer and he said he will reach a high position in a field not related to banking but in Government. 

We looked at his hand and saw that the lifeline tapers off in the middle towards the bottom and he confessed that his life according to that same astrologer will be medium longevity. Sure enough, he lived all the days of his life with fairness, integrity and uprightness and the whole of Sri Lanka will grieve at the loss of a fine colleague, banker and legal expert. 

“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.”

I dedicate this Sonnet to Prasanna in remembrance of the article I wrote many years ago on the mystical aspects of Time, which he found incomprehensible:

Perhaps, now, great friend, thou hast but witnessed,

Time’s sleight of hand and seen its flow stalled;

Like a carpet where each thread gets diminished,

And, rolled back with each lifetime sojourned;

How many more threads are intertwined in this

Epic tale, lest we get enmeshed in it?

But for now, enjoy the freedom of bliss,

For this carpet lasts like a counterfeit,

Until those plural thought streams are stemmed;

And like the Archer whose aim is Perfect,

His arrow flies through the clouds without end;

Wherein Time stands still for thou to reflect;

If Time flows from infinite end to end,

Then Man is trapped in a maze my friend!

May he be at peace!