Around the World in 560 Days

When I read Ronald Perera's article, I was reminded of a visit to the Ratmalana airport long years ago. Although many viewers would have read the chapter "Around the World in 560 Days" in my Memoirs, a re-read is called for. The reasons why I am posting this as a new article are many. For one thing, my Memoirs ("From Hikkaduwa to the Carolinas") was published a decade ago and many would have forgotten its contents. It is also due for a reprint as I was compelled to omit certain items because it was written when I was resident in South Carolina where I had limited access to facts and figures. For example, I had failed to mention Speedy's father Edwin Gonsalkorale in the opening chapter "My Birthplace Revisited". This I think is unforgivable because I distinctly remember my mother talking about the Gonsalkorale family long before I met Speedy in 1962. Secondly, I wish to publish a photo from my book and it is easily done here.

 In this picture, I am in front on the left. It includes two domestic aides Jane and Jossie and of course my mother, two sisters and my brother.

Around the World in 560 Days

It is very seldom that someone travelling by air for the first time gets a chance to circle the globe on that very first trip, albeit in stages. When I set off from the Bandaranaike International Airport on March 13th, 1974 on a Swissair flight to Zurich, it was 560 days later on September 24th, 1975 that I returned to the same airport in Sri Lanka on an Indian Airlines flight from Madras. On one single air ticket that I never had to pay for, I was able to visit as many as thirteen major cities in eight different countries. My itinerary included Zurich, New York, Washington DC, San Francisco, Honolulu, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Calcutta, New Delhi, and Madras. I had actually circled the Globe in 560 days, crossing the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and going over parts of the Indian Ocean and many continents.

However, that was not the first time that I had boarded an airplane. I remember how thrilled I was as a young boy on the day my father took us to see the inside of a plane at the Ratmalana airport. Air Ceylon’s tiny fleet of DC-3s was probably on display when not in use and open to visitors. They were all named after queens – Sita Devi, Viharamaha Devi and Sunethra Devi. As we boarded the last named “Sunethra Devi”, even as kids, we were old enough to know that she would not take off, and that we were only on a sightseeing visit!

The Benefactors

My first ever flight in March 1974 was the first leg in a long journey that would take me to the University of California in Berkeley where I was to get my post-graduate training in Public Health and Health Education. Thanks to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), I not only got an opportunity to do a tour around the world, but also obtained a Master’s degree from a prestigious US University at absolutely no cost to me. Such an extensive itinerary was possible because my academic programme, field assignment and study tour were all packed into one single Fellowship. The flexibility afforded by a full-fare ticket also helped me in getting a few stopovers and free hotel accommodation in some big cities. In terms of the agreement that I signed, I was to serve my country for 15 years on my return. I fulfilled this obligation to the letter by working in the Ministry of Health in Sri Lanka until 1990 – a continuous period of 23 years of Government Service from 1967 to 1990. As if to show my gratitude to the United Nations, I also worked for two UN agencies (WHO and UNICEF) for a further period of eight years before opting for early retirement. Although I am presently serving another country that too has given me so much, no one in my homeland can make the accusation that I have not given back anything to the country that gave me a free education up to university level, and to the UN System that helped me with my post-graduate education.

New York by Night

Landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport on a clear starlit night, from my window-seat on the plane I was able to feast on the fabulous spectacle of the glittering lights of Manhattan. There to meet me was not my “Mama and Papa” as Tom Jones described in his popular song “Green Green Grass of Home”, but one of the many Tamil batch mate friends that I am proud and privileged to have even today. He is none other than Dr. Indra Anandasabapathy who is a Consultant Anaesthesiologist and now lives in Staten Island, NY. Despite unfortunate events such as the so-called Black July of 1983 and the protracted war that raged for years in one part of Sri Lanka, I still count them as some of my closest friends.

My scheduled appointment with the Fellowships Officer at the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) in Washington DC was still a couple of days ahead. That gave me sufficient time to meet up with a host of other friends who were all doing their Internships and Residencies at that time having come over to the US on a permanent basis in the preceding years. Most of them were attached to the Coney Island Hospital in New York where Sri Lankans have left an indelible mark by winning the Intern of the Year Award so frequently. A few others were employed in other NY hospitals and in neighbouring states such as New Jersey and Massachusetts. Names like Indra Anandasabapathy, Desmond Gunatilake, Sunil (SR) de Silva, Adiel Anghie, Chandana Bopitiya, N. Visveshwara, Kandiah Wigneswaran, John Mahadeva and Lakshman Weerasuriya would show how race and ethnicity have never been an issue in the matter of choosing friends. I met them all during that brief stay in the North East of the US in 1974. One of them - my dear friend “Sunna” (Dr. S. R. de Silva) even came over to California to see me before I left the US in 1975. Thereafter, he never failed to visit me whenever he came to Sri Lanka, whether it be in Colombo or 100 miles away in Matara. But not any more, for Sunna’s tragic and most untimely death in a traffic accident in Florida saw to it that we never met again.

Helicopter Ride

After meeting the PAHO Fellowships Officer to whom I had to report on arrival in the US, and completing other formalities including the all-important arrangement to receive my monthly stipend through the Wells Fargo Bank, I then took another long-haul flight right across the country to San Francisco on the West Coast. Not only did this first ever overseas trip provide me with my first experience of flying in a commercial jetliner, but it also gave my first taste of a helicopter ride. From the San Francisco International Airport, I was ticketed to travel by helicopter to a helipad in Berkeley. From there, it was a very short taxi ride in a Yellow Cab to the “International House” (on-campus housing for international students) that was to be my home for the next three months.

Classmate in Berkeley

Having settled down in my 4th floor room at the “I House” (as it is popularly known) and enjoying for a brief moment the fantastic view of the San Francisco Bay Area from my room window, I lost no time in visiting fellow Sri Lankan and Health Department colleague Dr. Marcus Fernando whom I did not know very well at the time. Marcus had arrived in Berkeley ahead of me and had rented a private apartment on the fringe of the campus. Along with his older brother Dr. Joe Fernando who retired a few years ago as Secretary to the Health Ministry, Marcus had attended medical school in Ireland. That being the main reason and the fact that he was much senior in service I had not had the good fortune to get to know Marcus before. Back in Sri Lanka, I had met Marcus very briefly at the Fellowships interviews that were held in the Old Secretariat (behind the Parliament building) where the Health Ministry was then housed. When we got to know that he had not only been awarded the same Health Education Fellowship but also a placement to Berkeley, my wife Mangala and I made it a point to visit him at his Longden Place residence on the eve of his departure to the US a few days before I myself left the country. That was where I met his wife Sunila and brother Dr. Joe Fernando for the very first time at a personal level. Dr. Joe Fernando was not a total stranger because I had attended his lecture on Maternal and Child Health during my Public Health training at the Institute of Hygiene (present National Institute of Health Sciences) at Kalutara in 1971. In my humble opinion, he is easily the best Ministry Secretary that I served under, in my own period of service as a Health Ministry employee.

Move to Married Housing

After my temporary stay in “I House”, I moved to the married students’ housing complex in nearby Albany where my wife Mangala and son Shehan (who was just two years old at the time) joined me. Marcus was also fortunate to get an apartment in the same complex when Sunila joined him a few months later. We also had another Sri Lankan neighbour Chandana Wirasinghe who was doing his PhD in Transportation Engineering. Unlike the two of us who went back to Sri Lanka, Chandana proceeded to Canada on completing his PhD. He retired recently as Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Calgary.

Sri Lankan Visitors

Berkeley was on the itinerary of many Sri Lankans coming on study and observation tours to the University. We therefore had the rare privilege of meeting and even entertaining quite a few VIPs and VVIPs whom we had never met before. We were delighted to host the then Deputy Minister of Justice Ratnasiri Wickramanayake to dinner at our humble two-roomed apartment in 1974. Had I known at that time, that this SLFP politician was later to become Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister, I would have censored the lyrics in some of the songs I belted out that evening in the singsong where the future Prime Minister readily joined in! He was accompanied by another lawyer late Elliot Gunasekara who had LSSP leanings and who I believe was a relative of late Minister Leslie Goonewardene. Two other important visitors that we invited to our apartment (for which we were paying a heavily subsidised monthly rent of only $40) were Professor Herbert Aponso and late Professor Jasmine Nanayakkara – two distinguished paediatricians who also shone in the academic world. We also met two up and coming SLFP politicians at that time, at dinner at the Foster City home of my cousin Suri Gunatilake. Late Speaker of Parliament and one-time Opposition Leader and Minister Anura Bandaranaike and former Minister Anuruddha Ratwatte were staying at my cousin’s home during their visit to that part of California. Apart from them, we were also very happy to have my own boss at the Health Education Bureau Dr. Tilak Munasinghe stay with us when he was attending an International Health Education conference held in Berkeley in 1975. In an old photograph album, I still have pictures of our distinguished guests including one in which our Prime Minister as a young man is seen carrying our two year-old son Shehan!

Field Training and Study Tour

Although I could have done my field training that forms part of the MPH programme in the US itself, I opted to do it in a country where the culture is not too different from that of Sri Lanka. I was therefore fortunate to be attached to the Public Health Institute (PHI) of Malaysia’s Health Ministry to do my fieldwork. It is interesting to note here that Dr Siti Hasmah Mohammad was attached to the PHI at that time when her husband Dr. Mahathir Mohammad (later to become Prime Minister of Malaysia) was the Minister of Education. In 1974 she became the first woman to be appointed the State Maternal and Child Health Officer. The supervisor of my field training Dr. Jones Varughese (who later rose to be the Director General of Health Services in Malaysia’s Health Ministry) was the head of the Public Health Institute and himself a Berkeley Alumnus. This was Kuala Lumpur of 1975 when the city did not have a single expressway and the skyline was totally different with only a few skyscrapers in the city.

On completing the field training in Malaysia, I had the opportunity to observe health education programmes that were implemented by Singapore’s Health Ministry. The last leg of my study tour covered the Central Health Education Bureau in New Delhi, the All-India Institute of Hygiene in Calcutta and finally the Ghandigram Institute of Rural Health and Family Welfare in Tamil Nadu.

Bonds of Friendship

After 560 days of travel, I was happy and relieved to be back home in Sri Lanka. Just prior to my departure in March 1974, I had been attached to the Health Education Bureau on a temporary basis. My appointment as Medical Officer (Health Education) was made permanent on my return in September 1975. When I resumed work in the Health Education Bureau (HEB), I had a “reunion” with my Berkeley classmate Dr. Marcus Fernando who too had been appointed to the HEB. We had shared some happy times together in Berkeley where we were bonded together in friendship. I had thoroughly enjoyed that regular Sunday evening rice and curry meal (expertly turned out by Chef Marcus himself) preceded by a few beers in his cosy “Americana” studio apartment.

But it was a sad moment when one day we heard that his beloved father had passed away in Sri Lanka. He was inconsolable especially because he was unable to be there for the funeral. We were very close to each other at that time. But our friendship was further consolidated and we were drawn even closer, when we had the opportunity to work together in the same office for 15 more years. We parted company as office colleagues only when I retired from government service in June 1990 to join UNICEF. But we continued our friendship until the day he departed this world, parting company forever. It is with a heavy heart that I record here that Marcus passed away 10 years ago at the early age of 62. I recall how happy he sounded and how delighted I was for him on the day he called me to proudly announce the birth of his son Dinesh in 1976. I knew how much he longed to have one. I was elated when I heard the news that he had been appointed Director of the HEB in the early nineties. But the day I attended his funeral at the churchyard burial grounds in Marawila will always be one of my saddest days. The only consoling factor was that I was able to attend the funeral. I was due to leave for the US on a permanent basis a few days later. The opportunity to travel around the globe and the post-graduate degree that I collected on the way, were definite gains from the WHO Fellowship that I was fortunate to be awarded. But what I cherish most is that the Fellowship also enabled me to find another good friend in Rovino Marcus Fernando to whom I dedicate this chapter.