How many roads must a man walk down?
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How many roads must a man walk down?
The journey has been long, very very long. It started
in a little village called Dandu Bendi Ruppa in
Nuwara Kalaviya when Dingiriamma rolled
Jayathilaka in a ‘borrowed’ wheel chair for his first
day in the village school. “Hodatama Wahinawa
Mahaththayo” she told me, the skies were gray
and raining and the distant clouds were coughing
thunder. She had covered her 10 year old
handicapped son with a plastic sheet and pushed
him on rickety old wheels which were gifted to
them when some old man died in the next village.
Such was the beginning....
That was then, twenty five years ago.
The ceremony was solemn, opulent and almost
sacred. The National University of Singapore does
not spare anything when it comes to their ‘lime
light’ events. The Class of 2011 all gathered in their
robes of black and flat hats, mostly young, ‘this
medal winner’ and ‘that medal winner’ of
Singapore’s best brains in youth. The recipients of
the prestigious degrees totalled more the 400. Then
there were the chosen few representing the elite in
education, the ones who had read and completed
their PhDs in this world renowned institution. The
audience gathered was the ‘who’s who’ of
Singapore in their Saville Row suits and Bally feet.
Pahalagedara Jayathilaka too was there, sitting
among the Doctors of Philosophy, his crutches
folded across his knees waiting to be called to end
his unbelievable journey.
I sat with Dingiriamma, Jayathilaka’s mother along
with his brother and sister-in-law whom he had
brought down from Sri Lanka to witness the final
walk. This sure was a different planet to these rural
people and they sat in their village innocence,
making feeble attempts to come to terms with the
grandeur of it all. If anybody had a right to be
there, it sure was Dingiriamma. The name was
announced, “Pahalagedara Jayathilaka” and I
glanced at the 70 year old mother and saw her
staring ‘blink-less’ as her beloved son walked on to
the stage. Eyes glued and tears pouring down a
mottled skinned cheek she celebrated with
absolute awe each step Jayathilaka was taking,
crawling the final crawl in crutches to receive his
PhD.
What enormous battles she had fought along with
him? What roads they had walked together, poor
pilgrims in an unknown odyssey? Hand in hand and
crutches clinched, they trudged the unimaginable
tortuous steps of a very long journey that had
impossible mountains to climb. What wringing they
would have done to squeeze out the drops of
courage from their dented and battered lives to
see the far distant light and to be where they are
today?
“How many roads must a man walk down, before
you can call him a man?” the immortal words of
Dylan come to my mind. The answer is not in the
wind, but in the unbelievable achievement of
Jayathilaka who had surmounted all obstacles to
stand tall today with his ‘Fluid Dynamics’ doctorate.
The other side of the coin of course is Dingiriamma,
the simple uneducated mother who cultivated
vegetables and raised him with 8 other siblings as a
single parent in an obscure village. What visions
would she know of education? What ambitions
would she have hoarded as all other mothers do
for their sons? What hopes? What ways to even
think of him attending school let alone entering a
university? She had only the purest of love, in a
cruel world of ‘cripple-look-down.’ “Mata dukai
Mahaththayo, abbagathayekne,” she just wanted
to make the little disabled boy play some little part
in life other than to be an intrinsic failure with lame
legs. That was her call, to give her son some
normalcy. Dingiriamma, when she pushed the
wheel chair to school on the first day, in the pouring
rain, would never have thought in her wildest
dreams how far this magnificent young man would
travel in his long and gruelling trail.
Yes, the old unheralded mother sat among the elite
of Singapore, a poor vegetable seller from a village
near Dambulla, dressed in a pale brownish white
sari, a long necklace of metal and some coloured
beads around her neck and a hanky to constantly
wipe her eyes, watching a very rare impossible
dream take form and shape in reality.
“The bravest battle that ever was fought
Shall I tell you where and when?
In the maps of the world you would find it not
It was fought by the mothers of men.”
I am sure all you mothers who read me in this article
would silently cheer Dingiriamma, applaud her in
your hearts and sing her praises to those you meet.
She certainly deserves that and more, the unknown
and unsung optimum of motherhood which she in
her own simple way had displayed in almost
unparalleled achievements of emotion filled
courage and has unknowingly laid bare for others
to emulate.
It was Jayathilaka who told me how he heard on
his first day in school one teacher telling the other
“Why is this cripple allowed here? He is going to be
a problem’, and the other teacher saying ‘May be
he can at least learn to write his name.” That he
remembers well along with the other almost ‘fairy
tales’ he told me of his childhood and the way he
scrabbled to where he is today.
Jayathilaka received repeated double-promotions
and he went from the village school to Kurunegala
to do his ‘A’ levels where he scored the highest
marks in the district and entered Katubedde
University to study Mechanical Engineering.
That part had been extremely difficult,
Dingiriamma’s meagre earnings from selling
vegetables was hardly adequate to support young
Jayathilaka. His best eating had been a ‘banis or a
malu paan’ at Mallika Bakery and the ‘foodfestivals’
they laid out on campus to those who
survived on subsidised meals.
I had very close interactions with him at this time. By
then he had joined CandleAid Lanka as a
sponsored student. I do remember asking him in his
last year how he was faring in his Uni work and how
he answered in a humble tone “Captain, I am sure
of a First Class.” That bowled me completely. Here
was a handicapped student crawling in crutches
and broke as the ‘ten commandments’ and yet
‘dead-certain’ of his unamplified ability to obtain a
First Class Honours degree in the subject he was
reading.
Jayathilaka did not get a First Class, what he
received was a Super First Class. I did not even
know what that meant, but my basic English told
me it was better than a First Class.
The journey is now over; Dingiriamma has done her
part as a mother to bring her little handicapped
boy to where he is today. He too has done more
than his share, where much more able people
would have given up even before they began,
Pahalagedara Jayathilaka plodded on to a golden
finish line.
Dr. Jayathilaka has been offered employment at
the National University of Singapore as a
postdoctoral researcher. He will continue there for
two more years.
“I want to go back, I like to teach in Sri Lanka, I owe
that to my homeland that gave me a free
education,” such were his words after the
ceremony, spoken in true patriotic vein, sincere
and laced with gratitude.
That night we gathered and shared a simple meal
to celebrate. They had brought ‘kalu dodol’ from
home, just the right Nuwara Kalaviya touch. There
was no one to interview them nor flashing lights and
TV cameras to record their fable. Dingiriamma
recalled some of the stories of Jayathilaka’s
childhood, how he used to crawl around the table
when the others were studying and how his brother
taught him to write. And how he went to school
pushed in his ramshackle wheel-chair and how he
painfully walked small distances bending and lifting
his bad leg with his hand to take a few steps. The
conversation was all about the road they travelled,
and the stories sounded unbelievable, almost
mythological. I wish I had space to write, but then
my words would be superfluous and colourless,
totally incapable of capturing the full essence of
their journey, let alone the accompanying
emotions of the mother and son.
I wonder how Mother Lanka would recognise and
praise someone like Dingiriamma. It matters not to
her and it certainly matters not to Jayathilaka, they
have already won their race in super splendid
fashion. These are stories that should not be
forgotten. They are rare, of how a mother and son
walked an extremely demanding trail from the
village of Dandu Bendi Ruppa to the National
University of Singapore and a PhD in Fluid
Dynamics.
The shine is on them, it is for others like you and me
to see and recognise the simplicity and the
greatness. Pale brownish white sari, long chain with
beads and hanky in hand to wipe her tears,
Dingiriamma stood the tallest at the Class of 2011
celebration. As for Dr. Pahalagedara Jayathilaka in
his black and green gown, clutching his crutches,
he walked the proudest, yet the humblest at the
ceremony, to the loudest possible ovation.
I was so privileged to be there to share that rare
moment.
Capt Elmo Jayawardena
elmojay@sltnet.lk |
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