An evening filled with yarns and yawns and loud yells!

Fun filled get together with some of my Sun/Weekend journalist pals during our recent visit to Sri Lanka

By Chris Dharmakirti

Apparently Trevine Rodrigo had hidden Shiranthi Perera’s hangbag at the SUN subdesk in 1984, and the poor thing had misplaced some vital possessions. In order to develop a bionic vision to spot her regularly disappearing handbag, she had quit the SUN paper and flown to Russia to study and become the Eye Surgeon she is today.

So our guest of honor Trevine Rodrigo stood accused of not only putting this poor eye surgeon into distress in her first job, but also for leading poor Louis Benedict into puddles of water, on the pretext that he was assisting him to avoid the puddles given Louis’ poor eye sight. Louis recounted the mischief making Trevine’s antics and how he and others at the SUN sub desk were introduced to Lord Bacchus and his intoxicating brew that filled the drawers of the SUN subdesk.

Many more hilarious stories emerged from Aruna Kulatunga, Lalith Allahakkoon Alvin Sallay, Louis Benedict, Chris Dharmakirti, and Shiranthi Perera, about the good old days and Trevine’s better half and a cousin were surprisingly not too surprised that such feats were managed by the boys and gals of Hulstdorp. We were all shocked to hear that even the gals at the SUN sub-desk were running truant on assignments, when Shiranthi let the cat out of the (missing) bag, stating that Iqbal Athas had spotted the gals ducking out of Regal Cinema after an afternoon Matinee, when they were supposed to be out on assignment!

Some of the stories were quite heavy, with Aruna and Trevine recalling the tall stories of a particular cop they befriended on their rounds, and how he became the police boxing champion by getting his subordinate opponents to go easy on their punches with him, whilst he took full advantage of their servility to knock them out with a left hook. Apparently he is now on the Police Commission!

When the yarns and yells ended, and the yawns were emerging, we managed to consume a few dozen hoppers and strings, washed down with red and white wine, and headed out for last night cap with the remaining stragglers.

The evening began at the DBU in Thunmulla, and ended on the rooftop of the Kingsbury, with Mojito as the night cap to bid farewell to a chill evening. Maryanne Perera, Tyron Devotta and Malkanthi Leiten were the NO SHOWS, and Sinha Ratnatunga had to be excused for not making it despite the intention to do so.

Lasantha, Charnika Munasinghe and Ranee Mohamed managed to speak to Trevine on the phone whilst Jennifer Henricus and Kumundini Hettiarachchi could not make it due to prior commitments. TD was too far gone by lunch time, that he was unsure whether he would be copped on the way their for driving under the influence, and thus his no show, caused some consternation, as we are still pondering if he was indeed copped enroute.