MEMORIES & TRIBUTE TO AN ANTONIAN TEACHER – Mrs Chandra Bandaranaike (1925 -1960) – by Tilak Pananwala
Mrs Chandra Bandaranaike (nee Kulatunga) was a Teacher at St Anthony’s College, Kandy from 1951 to 1960. Her younger brother Cecil Kulatunga now domiciled in Sydney, Australia is a distinguished product of the college passing the University Entrance exam and obtaining a BSc (Eng.) degree from then University of Ceylon, Peradeniya. Mrs Bandaranaike was among the group of excellent Teachers the college was blessed with during this decade. She hailed from the village of Pujapitiya in the Harispattuwa district from a respected ancestral Kandyan family and had a primary education at the Girl’s High School, Kandy before qualifying as a Trained Teacher and taught History, Geography, Civics & Sinhalese to Form 1 & 2 classes at St Anthony’s. We still remember her with admiration for the clarity and erudition as a teacher, her friendly demeanour and the close attention to the needs of her students as a Teacher. She was a Teacher in whom students had the confidence to go to with any problem or concern.
She was married to Mr Reggie Bandaranaike, himself a Teacher at Trinity College, Kandy and had three children. In 1960 she sadly passed away at a comparatively young age of 35 years due to complications at the birth of a child, much to the grief of her family, other staff, students and friends. The college thus lost an excellent Teacher with a great future in the prime of her life.
We as students knew her well as a good looking and outstanding Teacher with pleasing manners and caring ways and were deeply saddened by her unexpected demise. It took us a long time to get over the tragedy but memories of her endearing ways and appreciation of her dedicated work remains with us to this day.
May her journey through Samsara be blessed with happiness and contentment, until the supreme bliss of Nirvana is achieved.
“Those we respect and cherish dont go away
They walk beside us everyday
Unseen, unheard, but always there
Still loved, still missed, but remembered with affection”.
Tilak Pananwala
(Retired Group Captain).
