PROFESSOR ABHAYA ATTANAYAKE

Source:Island

Last week brought news of the death of Professor Abhaya Attanayake at the ripe age of 84-years after a distinguished career as a pioneer of teaching of Cartography at graduate and post graduate level at the University of Jayawardenapura.

Abhaya and I entered Peradeniya  University in 1957, he from St Peters College and I from Trinity. We were both lodged in Arunachalam Hall and we began a friendship which lasted over 50 years. We both belonged to a small group of like minded students who were interested in the arts and culture which included HL Seneviratne, JB Dissanayake, Dhammika Amerasinghe, HL Perera, PAS Saram, Rex Casinader, PR Fonseka and Dudley Dissanayake. They are now spread all over the world and Dudley passed away several years ago.

We sat at the same dining table which was reserved for beef eaters because we found the vegetarian food served at table to be insipid. But hours spent together daily at breakfast, lunch and dinner for years naturally brought us together on campus and our friendship continued even after we left Peradeniya and adopted different occupations. Our links were further strengthened because we all married campus girls who were themselves friends or at least knew of each other at Peradeniya.

Attanayake married our contemporary Chandra Munasinghe who also read for a geography degree and later became a renowned scholar and university professor. They complemented each other admirably and brought up a family of three who also distinguished themselves both here and in the United States. The Attanayakes chose to do  their post graduate studies in the US and I believe revisited the same university several times on their sabbaticals. These were enduring links and one of their daughters married and settled down there.      

 What specially brought us together was our involvement with Sarachchandras plays. At this time Sarath was basking in the glory of the phenomenal success of Maname and thinking of extending his experiments in Sinhala theatre. He wrote “Kadawalalu’’ in the classical tradition and “Rattaran’’ and “Elova Gihin Melowa Awa’’ based on traditional Sinhala folk drama. He brought in a host of new players who had entered Peradeniya after Maname and were available for auditioning for his new plays. Among these newcomers were Attanayake, Somalatha Subasinghe. Namel Weeramuni, Sarath Jayawardene, HH Bandara and Samarakoon Banda who played the role of the horse. For “Kadawalalu’’ he chose Sunethra Buddhadasa, Nalini Unambuwa and me for leading roles. We were joined by the superlative senior players Edmund Wijesinghe and Charmon Jayasinghe who had contributed so much to the success of Maname.

This crew would meet for weeks for rehearsals in a room in the Arts building or on the lawn of Sarachchandras bungalow situated on Sangamitta hill.We were a jolly crowd and there was much horseplay among us till the professor made his belated entrance to begin rehearsals. Even more fun was our weekend bus rides to Colombo and the leading towns for our shows and the evening dinner parties that followed our performances. While we novices were strict teetotalers adult veterans like Edmund insisted on strong drinks much to the consternation of our genteel hostesses like Nalini Wickremesinghe and Somi Meegama. Gunasena Galappatty who was a trouble shooter for Sarachchandra ,usually solved the problem by smuggling in a few bottles of arrack which were used to spike the fruit drinks which were graciously offered to us by the cultural cuties.

The  bus trip back to Peradeniya in the dead of night also saw lusty singing by us in higher decibels, perhaps even outperforming our on stage renditions. If I remember right Attanayake played the role of a foolish villager and later a member of a group of demons. He made a great contribution to the success of the play and won the admiration of Sarachchandra and Theatre critics. He was also an uncompromising student supporter of the UNP. This was a time when the campus boasted of a strong membership of the leftist parties, LSSP and the CP. The UNP had only a minimal presence and the dedicated few led by Attanayake made a valiant ,and successful ,effort to bring the UNP also into the campus limelight. Fortunately they could depend on brilliant speakers like Dudley ,JR and Premadasa who could easily impress the neutral students and outwit their leftist critics.

This was the time of the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayakam Pact and Dudley and JR were going round the country arousing Sinhala opinion much to the discomfiture of the leftists.A pompous LSSP student attending such a meeting asked Dudley “What is your Land policy?’’ Dudley chuckled and replied ‘’My policy is that we should be free to land anywhere’’ The house caught the double entendre and erupted in laughter. Even as a University Don Attanayake was in the forefront of UNP support groups. I do not know whether he also was later disillusioned by the idiotic behaviour of the party leadership. Party leaders were conspicuous by their absence at the final goodbye in Kanatte.

Both Abhey and his wife were products of the Peradeniya Department of Geography in its heyday. The Department had moved into a spacious new building which housed all its sub departments. Its presiding deity was Professor Kularatnam who insisted on a hard academic regime including proficiency in either French or German. He was assisted by George Thambiapillai, Panditaratne, Vithanage and Gerald Peries who constituted a strong presence on campus and catered to an ever-growing enrollment of undergraduates who looked upon it as an opening to easy job opportunities. We used to joke that there is no such thing as Geography since it was only a catch all phrase for individual disciplines such as germophology, cartography, geology , chemistry etc.

Attanayake chose to specialize in cartography partly because he was a good artist. He devoted his post graduate studies also to that subject and taught it at Jayawardenepura. He was probably one of the few experts on that subject in the country and it is a pity that his expertise was not fully utilized by successive governments for whom mapping of land and sea resources of the island must remain a priority. It is particularly tragic that his own party, to which he remained steadfastly loyal,  could not use his expertise in both land,  mapping and University administration at least during its own tenures of office.

It was  a symptom of the malaise that finally marked the murder by the leadership of the grand old party. Many of the old brigade and his students who are now well established in all walks of life will miss him and remember him with gratitude.      

SARATH AMUNUGAMA