To Grandada at 100
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Anthony Perumal: An amazing life
It isn’t often that a grandchild gets the chance to write about a grandparent turning 100. We, the grandchildren of Joseph Anthony Perumal born May 15, 1916 are blessed indeed.
Blessed, because we had grandparents most kids can only dream of. They spoilt us with gifts and goodies – but most importantly they spoilt us with their love, their time and their pride and joy in us. Our celebrations were their celebrations. Our achievements were their treasures.
Our holidays would be spent lounging on the old black armchair where Grandada still spends most of his day relating his tales at the Magazine Prison following the 1962 coup d’état attempt, of the last days of Somarama Thero and Buddarakitha Thero (accused in the assassination of Prime Minister SWRD Bandaranike) in the Welikade Jail. History came alive in his tales. He would talk of the bunkers they built after the Easter Sunday air raids during World War 2. He would spin tales of his epic ship journey to England around the Cape of Good Hope because of unrest in the Arabian peninsula, but back via the Suez Canal six months later.
As we write this now we wish we had listened harder, taken down more notes than these glimpses from childhood memory…when life was a little less busy and sitting on your grandfather’s lap wasn’t a luxury. But spending time with grandparents shouldn’t be a luxury – it is a privilege and one every child shouldn’t be deprived of in the place of classes and schedules.
Our grandad’s life is an amazing testament. Not just because he lived to a 100 years, but because of how he lived it. He is the only son in a family of four – and his father passed away before he himself turned four. Grandada is a bad asthmatic like his father before him – and they weren’t too sure he would make it to four, let alone a 100. He worked at the Plywood Corporation before joining Ceylon Prisons, retired early and joined the Wellawatte Spinning and Weaving Mills. His favourite joke is that he worked for the government for 12 years and drew a pension for 50!
One of his more interesting prison tales is of a man called Yakadaya because of his phenomenal strength and anger. Nobody dared approach his prison cell. To the staff’s chagrin grandada decided to have a chat with him one quiet afternoon, saying “Yakadaya, ay ohamainne? Monawadhawune?”
Yakadaya as a young boy had watched his sister cry refusing to go to school as their mother couldn’t afford a paint box. Yakadaya saw a bunch of plantains on his neighbour’s tree, plucked it, sold it and bought his sister the paints. So began his life of crime – often resulting in ill-treatment by the authorities. Just like he always saw potential in his own children, our grandad saw Yakadaya’s potential in mechanics. He got Yakadaya to design a state of the art grandfather’s clock for the prison exhibition. Prime Minister D. S. Senanayake amazed at his potential gave him a pardon. Yakadaya ended up using his skills to open a fine garage and if ever a prison vehicle stopped by he would always send a message to our granddad for believing in him.
Arguably our grandad’s greatest strength and weakness is his strength of character. If he makes a decision – consider it made. This steadfastness of character and his independence which is his hallmark never cease to amaze us.
His faith is strong. He worked hard to get a shrine to his favoured St. Anthony built where the old canteen of the Spinning Mills used to be. Today he reaps the benefits, as he sits on his chair listening to mass across the road, waking up to the site of the grotto he got built in his sister Rose’s name.
He was a great brother. My mother relates how he would dedicate his Saturday morning to visiting his widowed sister – and we still recall her eyes as his sister spoke of him even while bedridden with a stroke. That was an amazing relationship – siblings who supported each other every step of the way.
But then he is a great family man. Christmas meant the entire extended family having lunch or supper at our grandparents, come rain or shine. His birthday was the other big celebration. Our grandmother ‘Gaga’ was ever the party queen in her element planning out an amazing Chetty spread. She would have loved to have been a part of his centenary bash. They loved entertaining and having friends over. The more the merrier. The bigger the better.
We remember when he couldn’t go for his morning walk any more because one by one, all of his walking friends passed away leaving him. Then Gaga died – but he took the blow steadfastly, with love and gratitude for a beautiful life and better marriage. They had lived the dream…dogs barking, children running about, the footsteps of friends, many maids, a large extended family which met for the institutional Sunday lunch at their place where dhal was the closest thing to a vegetable and chicken was always crumb fried (and he lived to a 100!), constant merriment, abundance, laughter and gaiety…a happy home, a loving home…one that will hold some of our fondest memories because of the two people who called it ours.
God bless you at 100, Grandada. Thank you for who you are and who you are to us, your grandchildren. We love you so.
- Shivantha, Manjuka, Nilesh and Nishalie Fernandopulle