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A toast to life!
Journalist and counsellor Anne Abayasekera tells the story of her family in her latest book.
Last December, the 19th to be precise was Earle Abayasekera’s 90th birthday. And in celebration of this very special day, his seven children, fondly called ‘the Magnificent Seven’ all came back to their parental home down a quiet seaside lane in Wellawatte to share the occasion, some even flying in from different continents.

There is no mention of her husband’s birthday and the joy of that day with their children putting on a hilarious skit featuring memorable moments of their lives, in Anne Abayasekera’s new book ‘Hurrah! For Large Families’. “A few days after came the tsunami,” says Anne and “how could I include such joy in the midst of so much suffering?”

The book was Earle’s idea and in the midst of her sorrow at his passing away on August 18 this year, Anne is deeply glad that she was able to fulfil his wish. “He saw the final proofs and even the cover design, she says, recollecting how he once told her in exasperation “when you have to write a story for Clare (former Lanka Woman editor Clare Senewiratne) you somehow do it, but when I ask you to put this book together, you don’t take any notice’. The book published this month is dedicated ‘To Earle, but for whom neither the Magnificent Seven nor this book would have seen the light of day’.

‘Hurrah! For Large Families’ is a celebration of family life. A story of a family, facing many ups and downs along the way, yet knit together by strong bonds of love and commitment. It is a celebration of the simple things in life, of picnics at Galle Face, story-time at night, holiday journeys, Christmas fun, pillow fights and other frolics-- a way of life now all but consumed by the rat-race.

It is also the chronicle of a journalist. For though also known as a counsellor whose problem page in the Lanka Woman was avidly read by both young and old, men and women, Anne Abayasekera has been writing most of her life. And the book is a compilation of her articles, mostly about the growing pains of her young brood as published in the newspapers from 1947, ending with her journeys to visit them as they settled abroad.

Anne’s journalistic days began when she was a slip of a girl of 17 in 1943. A family friend introduced her brother to the doyen of journalism D.R. Wijewardene but at the interview her brother spoke so enthusiastically of his sister’s writing skills that D.R wanted to meet her. It was wartime and newsprint shortages had curtailed many of the feature sections where a woman journalist of that time would normally work, so she was asked to join the Secretary’s Department of Lake House, where as fate would have it, she met Earle Abayasekera, then Asst. Secretary of the company. He was ten years older but romance blossomed and before 21, she was married.

Meanwhile her hopes of being a journalist had been strengthened by the articles she had been contributing, encouraged to write by D.R. himself. But marriage also meant leaving Lake House as husband and wife could not continue to work in the same department. So it came as a wonderful surprise when one day there came a call from the Great Man himself asking her to take over the women’s pages as the editor was leaving.

And so at the age of 22, Anne was living her journalistic dreams and remembers the fun she had with great glee. “The highlight, of course, was being asked to cover Independence Day,” she says recalling D.S. Senanayake’s speech and the ball at Queen’s House where she watched the society ladies dancing in all their finery, while filling out her own dance card with the names of the ambassadors present that evening.

Fashions were not her forte, she admits wryly, but journalists have to go where their editors send them and when it came to the races, Anne remembers how on one occasion describing an Englishwoman’s attire, not being sure of the colour she wrote that it was ‘between blue and green’, only to have an irate caller telephone the newspaper offices the next day to ask her in stiff British accents “whether she had never heard of ‘eau-de-nil’. Fresh too is the memory of how she and colleague Sita Jayawardena got Indira Gandhi, visiting Ceylon with Pundit Nehru to pose in different sarees for a Daily News/Observer fashion spread.

In the midst of those exhilarating newspaper days, however, came the babies, in quick succession and after the birth of their third, Anne decided she needed to devote herself to her young family. The book covers this period through many humorous chapters, with candid accounts of bringing up her young brood, including a chapter devoted to “I won’t set the world on fire’, the realisation that she could despite her ‘glowing dreams of girlhood’ settle down to being a happy housewife.

Yet all through the years of bringing up ‘the Magnificent Seven’ four boys and three girls, Ranmali, Rohan, Ranjan, Dilip, Sarla, Ranil and Anusha, Anne continued to write, being invited to do so by different Editors and so the chapters in the book are not only from the Ceylon Observer, but also the Sunday Times of Ceylon, Focus and latterly the Lanka Woman.

In the early days, they didn’t know I was writing about them, Anne chuckles, recalling how her naughtiest son whom she referred to as the ‘Little Savage’ stormed home from school one day to tell her accusingly that his friends had said his mother called him a Veddah. ‘I look at him now and marvel that there was a time when I doubted my little savage would ever become civilized,” she writes. “I thank Heaven that little savages can and do grow up into magnificent men.”

In the foreword to the book Anne expresses some diffidence about publishing what is essentially a family saga. “Why you may wonder, publish a book about family?” But she goes on to explain that in her 30 years as a counsellor she continues to hear many sad stories of marriages disintegrating and hopes the book may serve a useful purpose. Lots of little incidents and anecdotes scattered through the book illustrate her belief that in family togetherness lies true happiness.

That is the golden thread that runs through this book.
What she will tell you with conviction is that parents today must make time to give of themselves to their children. Many fathers don’t participate in their children’s lives, she says, like making time for school concerts and other activities important to the child and when that parent-child bond is not established at a young age, then sometimes it’s too late when they are older. “Our boys are all over 50 now,” she says, “but they still remember all the things they did together like going for walks and playing checkers; my husband in his quiet way had a profound influence over them.”

She adds with a twinkle in her eye that the chief guest at the book launch had suggested that perhaps her children should now write a book on how they viewed their childhood.

‘Hurrah! For Large Families’ is Anne’s second book, her first ‘Love, Sex and Marriage’ having been co-authored with Dr. Pat Weerakoon in response to the urgent need, which she feels is still evident today, for frank and open discussion about sexual matters. “I remember when I first started writing my column for the Lanka Woman in which I would openly refer to these problems, one male reader was so outraged, he wrote to say that he was cancelling his subscription.”

She’s 80 now, still counselling, still busily involved in writing. “Still young at heart, but of course with some of the physical frailties that come with age,” she smiles. “If you are interested in people and what’s happening in the world around you, you don’t feel the age. But I must say I am not the same person I was when I was 20 for there’s accumulated wisdom from all the learning experiences along the way.”
-Renuka Sadanandan

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