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4th October 1998

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A view from the hillsRe-opening of Kandy's Garrison Cemetery

All Souls Day - the 1st of November - will see the re-opening of Kandy's Garrison cemetery, that 1817 resting place that has almost slipped into oblivion due to neglect and disrepair. Thanks to the concern of the British Ministry of Defence, the British High Commission here, and the Trustees of St. Paul's Church, Kandy, the cemetery is now transformed. Complete re-fencing, the removal of four to five feet of top soil that has eroded on to the gravestones and tombs, new run- off drains, rebuilding of some of the tombs and turfing has made this cemetery the quiet, beautiful place it always was.

The British Wives Welfare Association has turned the old Chapel of Rest into a small museum cum office and there yet remains the need for a sponsor for the proposed establishment of a Garden of Remembrance, where it would be possible for ashes to be scattered.

Pitching into restoring that road to this historic place, were the Kandy Municipality, the Sri Lanka Army and the Cultural Triangle authorities who have all helped in the maintenance and in overall beautification with turfing and flowers.

I am told that High Commissioner David Tatham and Robert Kendall of the British High Commission will be at the Garrison Cemetery on November1: also the Mayor of Kandy , Harindra Dunuwile, Dr. Nihal Karunaratne, Mrs. Jenniffer Blacker, Mr. Chris Worthington, Mr. Durand Goonetilleke, the archdeacon of the Kurunegala diocese and representatives of the Army, Police, Planters and Professionals of the Central Province.

It will be a simple memorial service among the graves of many illustrious men and women of the 19th century. The Restoration Committee wishes to set up "Friends of the Garrison Cemetery Inc," a concerned body of people who will ensure that the cemetery is maintained and who will also seek fund endowments for this purpose.

So history sleeps..... and history rises on November 1. Flowers and greensward and the stones that record those who sleep the long sleep. Will a Committee of All Souls also nod approving heads? 1'm sure they will!

Anura gives a month's Parliamentary salary

Remember my recent piece on the Blue Gold and Blue Exhibition and Carnival by the Royal College Old Hostllers Association as a fund raiser for a new hostel building? Things got a bit hairy what with a newspaper exposure of Midnight Frolics at the Hostel and the Association was naturally most disturbed. The members went in delegation to the Principal demanding that a full inquiry be conducted. This is now being done. Met Padmasiri Dissanayake, the Association's Secretary who insists that it is virtually impossible for any of the present day hostellers to be party to any of those midnight frolics. "Our current hostellers consists of the poorest segment of the students at Royal," he says. "There have been cases where the parents of some of these boys have not been able to afford the Rs. 1030/- as monthly boarding fees. The boys have no money. I know for certain that if all the seniors in the hostel pooled their money they would barely have Rs. 500".

Meanwhile , I learn that Bishop Kenneth Fernando, the Hon. Lakshman Kiriella and Journalist Karel Roberts and many others including a number of old Thomians and Trinitians are solidly behind the hostellers. The Association has already addressed an appeal to the President for financial assistance from the President's Fund for the building of the hostel and has launched a global fund raising project. And for the cheering news, the Hon. Anura Bandranaike has sent the Association the following letter.

"..In these times where conscience and sympathy remains insensitized, the Royal College Hostel Project deserves our every support and assistance. My heart melts for these youngsters who come to Royal from the villages to bring credit to the school in public exams and inter collegiate sport. I am aware that our good results at GCE O and A Levels directly bear a relationship to the performance of the hostellers and without them, it would be a different story. There is no question that we must help them if we can make out of these rural scholars well balanced and integrated young men who will fit the bill of 'scholars and gentlemen.'

"I am not a rich man but be my guest to have one month of my Parliamentary salary pledged for this good cause.."

As an old Royalist, I feel that what is most important is the new hostel. It is the new hostel that is vital for the ultimate goal of the Association's a "Super Hosteller" programme, a programme that will transform poor village boys into polished, self assured, smart young men to be the pride of this country. This is what needs all our energies. This column thanks and salutes Anura Bandaranaike.... and see you at the Blue, Old and Blue.

Politician with a heart

No one is more pleased than our Central Pro vincial Council Speaker, Mr. Sarath Sikurajapathy, that the Kandy District's first Rural Hospital at Mampitiya, has been upgraded this year to the status of a District Hospital. After all, it was his father, G. Piyadasa Sikurajapathy, who donated the land for the building of this hospital which was declared open by the then Minister George E. de Silva, in 1942. A second Rural Hospital was later opened at Titthapathgala, but Mampitiya has a special place in our Speaker's heart. He gave one acre himself for a Regional Health Service Centre there, which is today the Regional Health Office. He did so, he told me, in the name of his mother, Mrs. Sumanawathie Sikurajapathy. Also, while remaining patron of the Health Service Centre, he donated a Budu Medura at the same premises and again, half an acre for a village burial ground.

"I'm simply continuing a family tradition of care and concern for the area," he said, and reminded that his mother also gave two acres for a temple in the same village. Sarath Sikurajapathy is very concerned with rural upliftment and is a tireless worker. It is heartening to know that he had initiated the distribution of spectacles to over 5000 persons in the Udunuwara, Gampola and Hewaheta electorates. And, most important, he has been instrumental in the opening of as many as 86 Rural Welfare Societies (Maranadharas) over the years in the Udunuwara area. He dislikes detailing what he does because as he says, he's a worker, not a talker, but I dug around and spoke to many in his own home turf at Handessa. "He did not just say, let's have a society," a man said, "he has given equipment to all the societies too."

As far as I can make out, our Speaker has given to each of the 86 societies 10 chairs, two mammoties, a crowbar, a Petromax lamp, a national flag and a Buddhist flag. Multiplied by 86, that's a lot

I'm not giving you these details for the heck of it. Just to tell you that we have, in the hills, a politician with a heart!

The illicit firewood line

Followed Kandy's illicit firewood line the other day... all the way from the Hantane Forest Reserve to Suduhumpola. Nice green forest saplings, chopped down by an organised gang of men and women. The women carry out the bundles of wood on their heads. The men do the chopping and hacking, and are ready to brandish wicked-looking knives at anyone who gets in their way.

Hantane Forest Reserve has 1700 acres of spectacular trees. Even the road that skirts it is called "Forest Reserve Road". It is the property of the Municipality and the Municipality pooh-poohs the thought of handing it over to the care of the Forest Department.

So it's a reserve, mind you, but slowly, surely, it is feeding the firewood trade and the trees are being cut most methodically and unfeelingly.

Nearby residents have tried to intervene and been threatened by louts and thugs and received a barrage of the choicest Sinhala from women with sweat in their armpits.

The whole racket is well organised. The firewood is taken to a point on the road, dumped into a waiting pick-up and taken to Suduhumpola. All the cutters and fetchers and carriers sit upon the wood and they simply sail through town, looking for all the world like a grimy labour gang on their way to some quarry. The wood is gathered into bundles for sale at Suduhumpola. Price per bundle - Rs. 65!

If the Municipality cannot effectively protect this Reserve, why hang on to it? Or are we to expect yet another dust bowl here after all the trees are cut?

A Satyodaya summing-up

Among the trustees of Satyodaya, Kandy, are Dr. (Mrs) Lakmini Illangasinghe, Sudarshan Seneviratne, S.F.M. Zavahir, and Jesuit priest Chriso Pieris. The Satyodaya Centre for Social Research and Encounter, I am told, began work in April 1, 1997, and, the trustees claim, is on its way to becoming a "true peoples' organisation". Anyway, with no further comment, I give you some extracts from the Centre's annual report:

* According to figures computed by us in September 1997, the cost of living, meaning by it only the cost of basic food, house rent and a few toilet articles (but not clothes and medicines and travel) for a family of five, was Rs. 7071 a month.

* The five-cent and ten-cent coins have completely gone out of circulation and are being followed by the 25 cent and 50 cent coins. Only ten years ago, even the Rs. 100 note was hardly seen in daily circulation. Today it would be foolhardy for a poor housewife in a working class family to venture into the market for the day's provisions without a Rs. 100 note in her hand.

* The rich, including the specialist doctors in the "channelling centres" and the tutors in many private tutories, are making a lot of money which is not even declared to Inland Revenue. Even the Government school principals make it clear to parents that a "donation" should be made if the child has to be admitted to school...

* These practices are violations of the law but in an era where everything revolves around money, law enforcement officers prefer to look the other way.

All this may be most valid and known of full well, but certainly bears repeating. As for the rest of the report it has its obvious Marxist undertones, but who cares? As it says in conclusion, "we shall have to swim against the current of the social order promoted worldwide by international capital buttressed by international financial institution." See what I mean?

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