Basil Fonseka

 

Basil Fonseka was my godfather.

My grandfather was the manager of Mawatte Estate, a large coconut plantation, in the 1930s and early 40s. One of the main products of the estate was copra, which had to be sent to Colombo for export. For this purpose, the estate owned two barges, which traveled along the Hamilton Canal, which flowed not far from the estate. 

The "captain" in charge of these barges, known in Sinhala as "thandale", was a Fonseka. Basil was his son and thus became good friends with the Braine children. He was in and out of "The Meet", their home at nearby Boralessa.

This is what my father "Teddy" Braine wrote:

"The British navy called for applicants to open a Fleet Air Arm Unit to work in co-ordination with the Royal Navy. I thought this was a good opportunity to achieve my ambition of flying and having obtained Daddy’s permission went along with a few classmates for an interview at Maharagama. Only Basil Fonseka was selected as he was over 20 years in age. ... The camp buildings at Maharagama were subsequently used as the teachers training college."

That's why Basil Fonseka is wearing a uniform, that of the Fleet Air Arm.

Basil uncle, as we called him, was in and out of our home. Later, he joined the Public Works Department (PWD) as an overseer, a lucrative job, got married, and fathered a number of children. Towards the end of his life, he faced financial difficulties.

The photo was given to my sister, who lives in Negombo, by Basil uncle's niece, who is my age.

Mike Boyd-Moss and the Passing of an Era

 

@ History of Ceylon Tea

 

The following obituary appeared in a Sri Lankan newspaper some years ago and it brought back many memories.

BOYD MOSS M.R.P. MIKE Late Manager of Telbedde Estate, Badulla. Husband of Shelagh, father of Nicolla and Robin, father-in-law of Giovanni and Debs, grandfather of Paola Jemma James Chiri and Georgina, brother of Tony and John, passed away in Nairobi 16th October. Funeral 21st October P.O Box 14483, Nairobi, Kenya 00800. Service of Remembrance in Sri Lanka Saturday 24th October 6 p.m. Church of the Good Shepherd Jawatte Road, Thimbirigasyaya, Colombo 5.

After graduating from teachers college, my first job as an English teacher in 1972 was at Kandegolla Maha Vidyalaya, an overnight train journey from Colombo, in the remote hill country. The school was a 2 km. uphill trudge from the nearest bus stop. The villagers were subsistence farmers. Due to poverty, many students came to school on empty stomachs. I was young and didn't mind the hardship.

The area was dominated by Telbedde Estate, managed by Mike Boyd-Moss. He was, indisputably, the local monarch, but a benevolent "suddha" that people respected and were in awe of. I met him only once, when I organized the school's first ever sports meet and sought his help for the cross-country race, which would be run partly through Telbedde Estate. I needed his permission as well as a support vehicle to follow the runners and pick up stragglers. Lacking even a bicycle, I walked all the way to his office to meet him, enjoying the early morning walk through the greenery, inhaling the aroma of pine and eucalyptus along the way. To reach his office, I remember climbing a steep flight of steps. He gracefully agreed, and, during the race, a van from the estate followed the runners.

I invited him to be one of the chief guests at the sports meet, but he declined, perhaps because the other chief guest was the local MP, a prominent member of the Sirimavo Bandaranaike government, which was in the process of nationalizing plantations. But he donated a trophy to be awarded to the winner of the cross- country race.

Mike, and other British planters like him, were clearly on their way out of Sri Lanka. The Prime Minister Mrs. Bandaranaike, who led a left-wing coalition government, had misguidedly nationalized tea plantations, and the era of large plantations owned by companies such as Brooke Bonds and Liptons were coming to an end. British planters were leaving Sri Lanka, mostly for East Africa where their expertise was welcome. More about that later.

I previously published a version of this article on my blogsite. An anonymous commentator, who had worked with Mike Boyd-Moss as a divisional superintendent on the Westmoreland and Kendegolla Divisions of Telbedde Estate, wrote the following as a comment: “I consider myself most fortunate to have worked for a gentleman of the highest order and above all an Agriculturist of top quality. Over this period of time (1965-1976), 350 acres of VP tea was opened up. Telbedde in 1975 was one of the highest yielding estates in Uva, close to 2000 pounds per acre. The happiest days of my life were spent at Telbedde working with Mike as my manager.”

The planters worked hard, played hard, and partied hard, too. Life on the estates was lonely, with children away at schools in Britain. They mostly played rough and tumble rugby and their clubs such as Uva, Dickoya, and Dimbula that seem to be only a faint memory now. Many of these planters had been in Sri Lanka for generations. (My own great-great grandfather, great grandfather, grandfather, and father were also tea or coconut planters.) According to a short piece in The Island newspaper, Mike's brother John had been a planter at Downside Estate near Welimada. Another brother Tony was a planter at Luckyland Estate in Uda Pussellwa. Their parents and are probably buried in Bandarawela.

According to the article in The Island, Mike’s management on Telbedde had been legendary. Apart from his expertise in planting, he had sound engineering and management skills, too. He had been equally fluent in Sinhala and Tamil and apparently spoke Sinhala without an accent. The newspaper called him an "elite band of Britisher" who loved Sri Lanka and contributed much to our economy and way of life with their enlightened management of the vast estates that were their domain.

The obituary gives his last address as Nairobi, where he probably resided after his retirement from planting in Rwanda. With the expertise gained in Sri Lanka, these planters gave a fillip to East African teas, which sometimes outperformed Sri Lankan teas in the world market. In place of British planters, Mrs. Bandaranaike's government appointed its stooges, including gramasevakas, bus drivers and bus conductors to manage these plantations. I saw firsthand the consequences of the devastation caused by these appointees. When I visited my friend Brian Howie at Kataboola Estate in Nawalapitiya, he showed me where the previous "assistant manager" had done the cooking. It was in the living room, on a makeshift village hearth, with three large stones for support with firewood underneath. The previous occupant obviously didn't know how to use kitchen appliances. The whole bungalow was covered in soot. The furniture, carpets, and everything that could be moved had been carried off.

Mike’s son Robin, born in Ceylon, is a Cambridge Blue in cricket and later played county cricket in England.

The British planters had their clubs and their churches. Driving through the hill country even today, we come across tiny churches nestling in the hills, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Now, the congregations probably consist of Christian Tamil staff of the surrounding tea estates.

Indeed, the passing of Mike Boyd-Moss was the passing of an era.

From Moonshine to Whiskey and Beer

From Moonshine to Whiskey and Beer

I moved to Boralessa, my ancestral village, in 1977. Many villagers – who made a living as masons, carpenters, workers in tile factories and brick kilns – supplemented their income by brewing pot arrack. The main ingredient, coconut toddy, was readily available and so was the demand.  Pot arrack was a cottage industry: the males did the brewing and the women sold it from home.

Some of my immediate neighbors were brewers, the small time mudalali across the road being the main supplier for the area. In the evenings, a steady clientele of regulars could be seen going into his house. As the evening drew on, drunks, mainly middle aged men, would be staggering down the road, some singing bawdy songs and others picking quarrels with anyone around, using the foulest language.

Cleary, the making and selling of pot arrack was illegal. So, why didn’t the police crackdown? The MP for the area, who also happened to be a cabinet minister, had requested the police to go easy on the pot arrack dealers. Those who indulged in the business were not well off and it provided an essential supplementary income to “feed their families”, never mind the damage done to the consumers’ health and family harmony. Anyhow, not to be put off, the police also went around to the dealers every month collecting their cut!

Distribution

When the supply exceeded local demand, the brewers found a ready market in nearby Negombo and further afield in Colombo and the suburbs. Transport was through two modes, train and car. In those days, I was teaching at Kelaniya University and took the “office train” to work. Boralessa has a tiny railway station, manned by an agent (not a station master), with no security whatsoever. Men with four-gallon plastic containers filled with pot arrack would be hiding in the bushes around the station, and, as the train was pulling off, make a mad dash and scramble on to the train. The containers would be quickly hidden in the toilets or under seats. Although this was a daily spectacle witnessed by hundreds of passengers, not once did I see a raid by railway security, the police, or excise officers.

Transport by car was more spectacular. The chosen model was the sleek Austin Cambridge A50, vintage 1950s, perhaps the fastest and most maneuverable car in those days of tight import restrictions. Cars loaded with pot arrack would set off for Colombo, both day and night. The natural boundary between the north western province, where Boralessa is located, and the western province, where Colombo is, happens to be the Ma Oya river, crossed by the legendary Kochchikade bridge. 

Once the cars carrying pot arrack crossed the bridge, they were under a new jurisdiction and at the mercy of the police. Avoiding the main road on which a number of police stations were located, the drivers took circuitous back roads, but the police did their best to stop the cars. So it was a cat and mouse game - roadblocks, checkpoints, ambushes, gunfire, and high speed chases, the stuff of thriller movies. One of these drivers, I’ll call him Primus, recently told me of being fired on when he sped past the police. He is still alive to tell the tale, about 90 now.

Dankotuwa, a nearby town that was surrounded by large coconut plantations (providing coconut toddy, the essential ingredient for pot arrack), also supplied the brew to the Colombo area. The best of the liquor, on par or even better than the legitimate variety, whether from Boralessa or Dankotuwa, was known as “Dankotuwa Special”. Many local musicians in those days were heavy drinkers, and a top musician told me not long ago that whenever he managed to get a bottle of the coveted “Dankotuwa Special”, he would get together with another well-known musician to enjoy the treat.

From pot arrack to kasippu

In the 1980s, due to various reasons, the supply of coconut toddy declined, but the demand for illicit liquor prevailed. Ever creative, villagers found a new way to continue with production. Instead of toddy, they began to use sugar dissolved in water, with generous doses of added yeast, to produce alcohol. This was kasippu.

The 1980s were a turning point for Boralessa because large number of villagers began to travel to Italy, both illegally and legally, in search of work. Because the “Italians” had brought more prosperity to the villagers, the local MP, took a hands-off approach to the illicit trade; the police were given a free rein and could arrest and prosecute illegal brewers.

In the manufacture of kasippu, the fermentation process would take place in large, rusty barrels over a few days, and the barrels had to be hidden from the police. The village had enough hiding places – coconut groves, a weed-choked irrigation tank, long abandoned paddy fields, culverts, thickly wooded area - for the purpose. The bottom of my property has a pond surrounded by overgrown shrubs, and one day I found two barrels there. After I spoke with the prime suspect, the barrels disappeared.

Not all barrels were properly sealed, so passing lizards, rats, snakes and other creepy crawlies would fall in. To improve the “kick”, ammonia fertilizer, rusty barbed wire, and anything handy was added. Kasippu, unlike pot arrack, is very much a poison brew.

A grocery store not far from my house probably sold tons of sugar every week. This could be estimated from the lorry loads of sugar that were unloaded there. It also showed how much illicit liquor was brewed in the village.

The Italian sojourn brought prosperity and some villagers developed a taste for whiskey. The dealer across the road, who had given up his illicit trade because he now had two sons in Italy, once boasted to me that he now drank only “whishkey”.

Effects on the Lifestyle

A large number of villagers, both young and the elderly, consumed kasippu. I now realize that many, who worked as masons and carpenters, were alcoholics and this caused problems well beyond the immediate households.

Sundays were reserved for heavy drinking, which meant that, being severely hungover, nobody turned up for work on Mondays. A head carpenter I knew, who built roofs (backbreaking work under a blazing sun), who had a small team of assistants, dreaded Tuesdays because getting his men to turn-up for work took all morning. First, Anthony would call them, and they dutifully promised to turn-up at the worksite. But, often, they didn’t. Then, Anthony would have to go around to their homes in a hired tuk, pleading and coaxing the men to join him. This was repeated weekly and the Anthony was fed up, till the pandemic hit and put an end to house construction. 

Kasippu also affected family harmony because the men were habitually drunk, broke, and in poor health, leaving the womenfolk to keep the home fires burning. Domestic abuse was common. I know of broken homes where the women had fled, unable to bear their misery.

Beer

About ten years ago, a liquor store opened in Boralessa. Hard liquor was too expensive for most locals but beer sales exceeded expectations. The consumers were mainly young men, who had not developed a taste for the hard stuff. Perhaps, they had also seen the scourge that kasippu caused, even within their families, and spurned the stuff. Most evenings, they would converge on the beer shop and hang out for hours, even sitting on the railway tracks.

Boralessa had come a long way from the days of pot arrack. People still drank, some copiusly, but I no longer see anyone staggering down the quiet Kiragara Road that runs along my property, singing bawdy songs. Most of the heavy drinkers have passed away, and the younger generations, bolstered by cash infusions from abroad, have become “respectable”. But I do miss the old Boralessa, where moonshine was king and daredevil drivers played cat and mouse games with the police.

 Adventures in Academia 2: Asleep at The Oral Defense

About a week after I returned to Hong Kong upon delivering a keynote address at a joint China-US conference in Beijing, a new doctoral student from Mainland China walked into my office. When I asked Ming if he had attended the Beijing conference, which incidentally had been held at his university, he said no. Puzzled - who would avoid an international conference that came to one’s doorstep - I asked why. He mumbled an excuse, and I left it at that.

At the English department, doctoral students are paid a stipend. In return, they are affiliated to a professor each semester, and required to do a teaching assistantship (TA) as well as a research assistantship (RA). This involved attending and assisting with course lectures, teaching two small tutorial sections, and helping with the professor’s research. During his first semester, Ming was assigned to me.

Once, I asked him to photocopy 30 handouts to be distributed to students at the next lecture. Ming turned up, but without the handouts. When asked, he mumbled something incomprehensible, avoiding eye contact. When this happened twice more, I stopped asking him to do any more tasks. I also received complaints from students about his sloppy handling of the two tutorial sections. So, at the end of the semester, I asked the departmental secretary not to assign Ming to me again.

With other professors, too, Ming’s behavior did not change. After a few semesters, none wanted him. Hence, while his doctoral classmates performed their TA and RA duties, while conducting their own research and writing their theses, Ming had a free ride. To this day, I am not sure if he was incompetent, plain lazy, or an ace con artist who had found an easy way out.

A doctoral student needs four professors on his/her dissertation committee: the thesis supervisor, two committee members, and an external examiner. One day, Ming waked into my office and invited me to be a member on his committee. I inquired about his research topic, and on hearing that it related to memory mapping in vocabulary acquisition, a topic about which I knew nothing, I politely turned him down.

Before long, James, his thesis supervisor, came to me, and, as a favor to him, asked if I would oblige. Apparently, Ming’s past sins were catching up on him: no one wanted to be on his committee. After some cajoling, I agreed, telling James that I would not read the entire thesis. He said “OK”; all he needed were four warm bodies at the oral defense. (At the English department, only the committee members are allowed to attend an oral defense.)

About two weeks before the scheduled date for the defense, Ming handed me a tome, his thesis, more than 400 pages of dry, pedantic writing. I was bored reading just the first chapter. But, I would be expected to ask at least one question at the defense. So, after reading the first and last chapters, I formulated a question that would give the impression that I had carefully read the entire thesis!

The oral defense was scheduled for an afternoon, just after the lunch hour. We met at a conference room. The external examiner, Rupert, was from a smaller, liberal arts university in Hong Kong. Besides me, another professor, Janet, served as a committee member.

James, the thesis supervisor, suffered from sleep apnea, and his night sleep being often interrupted, tended to fall asleep at meetings. I, too, was missing my afternoon nap.

Ming began his defense with an oral presentation, droning on in his mumbling voice. True to form, James, who sat nearest to Ming at the long conference table, was soon fast asleep, with his head resting on an outstretched arm. I was sleepy, too, but, with a superhuman effort, managed to stay awake.

When Ming’s presentation ended, James woke up, and asked a few questions. The committee members were next in line, and I made the fatal mistake of telling Janet that she could go ahead with her questions. I was startled when she asked almost the exact question that I had come prepared with, leaving me high and dry. While Ming mumbled his answer, I quickly glanced through the thesis and came up with a new question. The day was saved. Rupert, the external examiner, who had come well prepared, wound up the defense with his questions.

But, there was more to come. At that time, the ranking of universities was a hot topic in Hong Kong. Being a small liberal arts institution, with little emphasis on research, Rupert’s university was ranked last in some polls. This stung, and Rupert came to his university’s defense by writing a letter to the local newspaper, criticizing the rankings. But, what matters here is how he concluded the letter: “This year I acted as external examiner of a PhD at, according to the poll, one of the most prestigious universities in Hong Kong. One internal member of the examinations board fell asleep during the student’s presentation and another, to judge from his question, apparently had not read the thesis …”

Guilty as charged!