Kirtisinghe Generation I: Loku Thatha Comes Home from London

The First Generation of Kirtisinghe’s in front of Siri Niwasa 

As told by Bala Malli

 Thatha says this photo was taken when his Loku Aiya our Loku Thatha  came home.  He had apparently cut frogs and studied them in London and got a Masters degree and later became the Professor of Zoology at the Colombo University.

 In this photo he is in the back row in the middle with his welcome garland of flowers.  Seeya looks quite happy and proud and Achchi looks as if she is already plotting to get a suitable wife for the London educated son. Loku Thatha looks sad as if he has left his heart behind in London. I don’t know how true it is but according to Thatha he wanted to marry an English girl and Achchi wouldn’t have none of that. Everyone had a lot of respect for Loku Thatha and after achchi’s death, he was the undisputed head of the Kirtisinghe clan. 

On the end of the back row to the left is Richie/Richard who changed name to Rathnasara. He is the no 4 son  and looks quite dashing in national dress. He gave it up for an army uniform when he joined as a doctor.  He  kept a good library and had a photo of him in uniform looking really spiffy in  uniform. During his army days, Richie Mahappa loved to go dancing and he would relate to Podi Akka how after a night of dancing he would go to sleep partly dressed so he won’t be late for next day’s army roll call.  When Podi Akka asked him why he didn’t go dancing after he got married he let out a loud cackle – and said “with your mahamma? No, not even thinkable!! Poor man, marriage must have taken all the fun out of his life but then again I might be wrong he lived the longest out of the 7.

Next to him is Albert, the second born, and the only one who didn’t take a Sinhala name. Albert was the first adventurer who changed careers and dumped what must have been a boring dead end job as an Inspector of Schools and went to Hong Kong to manage and run the Windsor jewellery shop.

Next to Loku Thatha is Punchi Mahappa , no 3 son and Thatha’s much loved Bala Aiya. Lionel took Haripriya as his Sinhala name.  ( Haripriya Kathawa/story will follow later on) .  He was  a Botany graduate and worked in the dictionary office and he used to say SWRD – Banda was a friend of his.  Podi Akka says when she went to Colombo Uni, Punchi Mahppa was known as the “Hat and Umbrella man” because when he came to the Uni to visit his pal Prof. B.L.T. de Silva, He would get out of the car with his hat on and then open and umbrella too to protect himself against the sun.  He was dead scared of falling sick.

 Vinnie ( Vincent changed to Vidyasara) is our favourite  Vinnie Mahappa who went on to become a Physics graduate and the Vice Principal at Ananda College where he was known as Kiththa.  He loved radios aand music and was very well read and a very gentle man at home.  But apparently he had a different reputation at Ananda.  In an oft repeated tale, he had once caught Ranjit Aiya (MWRN De Silva a.k.a  known as Dryya) cutting classes and had told  him to go home and pluck coconuts without wasting Ranjit aiya’s parents money.

 Our Thatha is sitting in front of Seeya and Bertie Bappa is seated in front of Achchi. This must be the last photograph of Seeya.  Thatha and Bertie Bappa were in School at Dharmaraja  College in Kandy when Seeya died. But the newspaper obituary notice only mentioned the 5 elder sons and didn’t carry the names of the last two.  So the boys in the Boarding had teased Thatha and Bappa saying they were adopted and couldn’t make any claims as nephews of the Principal of the school P.de S. Kularatne, who was Achchi’s younger brother – our Punchi Seeya.

 Bertie Bappa also became a very successful GP in Moratuwa but unlike the others he changed his name and took another English name Cyril.  However, he was known all his life as Bertie.  He became the wealthiest out of the 7 brothers. Podi Akka christened him Sir Bertie… but then that is another story.

 Next: Coming Soon — 7 Wives for 7 Brothers

Boy Fishing@Dodanduwa

Tsunami Second Anniversary 26 December 2006

I was on my way to Prasanna’s almsgiving, when I saw these boats freshly painted and this boy and some of his friends fishing under the bridge.  I’ve passed this bridge many times since but has never seen the same number of boats.

Happy New Year, Many Happy Returns and the story begins with love. …

 

The phones started ringing, sms beeps came fast one after another, and the New Year dawned in a cacophony of bursting firecrackers in Colombo. First to call was Anjie all the way from Sydney, Australia but I was fast sleep and by the time I reached for the phone  I lost the connection. There was not much point going back to sleep – most of Colombo was out partying and thought there were no sane/boring folks like me who wanted to sleep. They were stepping out of the dinners, parties, and nightclub hopping to call and sms me.    

January 1 is a double whammy for me  - as it happens it is my birthday too.  Not that I ever grumbled about my birthday being the first day of the year.  I grew up feeling special to have a birthday on the brand new day the year started. I felt no different today.  Squirrels were already up and squealing their lungs out, the birds were holding their cabinet meeting under the barren avocado tree, Shoe flowers on my one and only flowering bush were opening out and the arecanut palm tree was casting shadows on my neighbour’s wall.  Blue skies a lovely morning, no complains.

 The view from my bedroom

Being Buddhists, there was never a problem of low cash after Christmas revelries for birthday gifts.  Gifts arrived by post, telegrams instead of sms and I was lucky to get hampers in woven reed baskets from my maternal great grandmother/grand mother with all the yummy sweets I liked. There was always a new party dress from my seamstress aunt and story books from my school teacher aunt.  

Most 31 December evenings we’d sit on the beach and watch the last sunset – a fiery orange red ball that slowly disappeared below the horizon.  Then the focus would shift to the fisherman pulling their outrigger catamarans to sea and wait to see the row of lights near the horizon come on like a belt as the lamps got lit one by one on the boats. Hikkaduwa was a sleepy fishing village then – no hotels, no tourists,  no glass bottom boats –just a wide beach, a sea full of live coral, little rock pools with slimy green seaweeds and a myriad of coloured fish evading our attempts to catch them. 

My father never got tired of telling me that as all good things my life story began with love and a pair of loving genes. On that memorable day for him, the train from Colombo decided to move into express gear at Hikkaduwa railway station. Inside was the midwife that my father was waiting impatiently to meet. His panic was assuaged by a clerk who found him a new nurse and his Dr. brother,  Richie, practicing in the next town stepped into manage the delivery.  Uncle Richie who lived well into his nineties would always remind me rather gleefully “I was the one who pulled you out.”  Apparently “I saw the light of the evening without much trouble,” and his brother’s comment “it’s another daughter,” had little damping effect on my father as the soothsayers said I was a Lakshmi (goddess of wealth) who would bring luck to the family.  So Lakshmi became my middle name. Many years later even when things went wrong at Hikkaduwa I’d get this plea from my father “can you please come home for a couple of days even?.”  

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