A
report by Dhushyanthi Vedavanam with an introduction by Speedy
Introduction:
I am sure all
of you will remember the quiet and charming Susheila who is now based in the
UK. Her Speciality was Psychiatry till her retirement in 2005. I think most of
us can remember her husband R.S.Thiagarajah, who was a Paediatrician and was also
a highly respected Medical Director in the Wakefield and Pontefract NHS Trust.
He was a past registrar to Prof Priyani Soysa. He sadly passed away in 2007. Her sons
Prashan, Ajantha and daughter-in-law Shobana organised a very special Birthday
celebration at the London Heathrow Sheraton Hotel on the 29th of
February this year attended by 150 guests including old school and University
mates and of course family members and close friends. The Chief guests were Dr
Pearl Hettiaratchy and her husband Dr Sidney Hettiaratchy, both eminent
Psychiatrists, she specialised in Old Age Psychiatry and he in Child and
Adolescent Psychiatry, both now retired.
Unfortunately,
I was unable to attend, but many batch mates and their spouses joined her and
this account comes from Dhushyanthi Vedavanam, the wife of our late beloved mate
Sivakumar Vedavanam. Dhushyanthi keeps in touch with “Veda’s batch mates and is
a regular attender of our London mini-reunions. Those from our batch (with
spouses where applicable) and other Medics known to us were:- Vanitha (Shanmugavadivel)
and Palani, Mahes Nadarajah, Edwis and
Tony, Shanthini and husband Edwards, Drs Pearl and Sidney Hettiaratchy and Dhushyanthi Vedavanam.
Event report: by Dhushyanthi
I had the
privilege of attending Susheila’sspecial milestone celebration. It was a very
enjoyable event meticulously organised by her children and held at the
prestigious London Heathrow Sheraton Hotel on the 29th of February this
year.
Susheila looked
radiantly beautiful 80 gone 50! A real beauty Queen! She was dressed so
elegantly in a beautiful, eye-catching saree. The saree was a designer pure
Kanchipuram silk. The body was black
with a Paithani hand woven gold and multi-coloured floral design.The border was
with three colours namely: orange, light purple and mustard. The pallu was
orange and delicate gold thread work. The blouse to match was handwoven printed
soft brocade in orange.
The food was
sumptuous. There were plenty of starters and a great variety of tasty dishes
for the main course with champagne flowing. It was an interesting spread of
food to suit everyone’s palate!
The ambience
was great and the main course and desserts which were delicious were also well
presented. There was a good mix of friends and relatives, and it was lovely to
meet friends I had not seen for a while.
A surprise
sprung on Susheila was a performance by a belly dancer during which she was
invited to join. And did she dance! Being an accomplished and graceful dancer she
was absolutely superb on the dance floor- everyone enjoyed her dance debut. The
finale was when she danced with her four-year-old grandson Ashwin. This was so
touching and beautiful.
Susheila’s son
Ajantha was the compère. He was absolutely superb, a very professional
presenter I must say. Music was provided by BeetSounDs.
The vote of
thanks was given by Dr Pearl Hettiaratchy who has known Susheila for several
decades. I would endorse all that she said about Susheila. She said, ‘Susheila
is a beautiful personality, kind-hearted, caring, helpful, fun-loving and
intelligent”. I too have known Susheila for many years and I must say she is a
truly effervescent personality who radiates joy to others. All the guests had a
most enjoyable time.Susheila won our hearts as she made a special effort to go
round and chat with everyone. Her cousin Kala who came all the way from the US was
the photographer who managed to capture so many lovely photos, a few of which
are included in this brief report. Her children have done justice to a loving
and caring mother by honouring her on this special occasion.
Susheila, May
you be blessed with lasting happiness, good health and long life. My very best
wishes go to you and thank you for inviting me to a very memorable celebration.
Warmest Regards
Dhushyanthi
Speedy and Dushyanthi,
ReplyDeleteThank you for bringing us news of this special occasion.
Susheila, lovely to see how glamourous you still are !
May you be blessed with many many more years of Good Health and Happiness. Cheers
Susheila has been glamorous all throughout her academic days.Wish he rexcellent health in years to come and enjoy many more birthdays.
DeleteSumathi
Thank you Mahen and Dhuhyanthi for this splendid account of a very special occasion.
ReplyDeleteSusheila looks as glamorous as she was at Medical school.Congratulations Susheila;;May you be blessed always with good health ,happiness,peace and prosperity.
To my eternal regret I missed out on female company, at that time perhaps mainly due to my diffidence.
As Mark Twain said “Twenty years from now you will be disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do”I wish I knew about this then.
The last two photos show on the Left, Elder son Prashan, his wife Shoban and grandson Ashwin and on te Right, Ajantha younger sone who compered).
ReplyDeleteThanks Rohini and Kumar for your kind comments.
In these times when good news is in such short supply and the world self isolates, it is so lovely and heart warming to read the description and see the photos of such a happy and wonderful occasion. Sushy is such a happy and bubbly person. Even when she wafts in and out of our London reunions with her personality, charisma and colourful sarees she certainly lights up the room. It is not hard to retrieve some memories of the faculty days of Sushy walking the long corridors of the GHC with her troupe of friends. But in those ‘dark’ and distant days no self-respecting girl spoke to boys just willy-nilly. Boys were mostly from single-sex schools and unable to cope with female company. And so we missed the friendship of such an amiable and friendly girl. Charged with testosterone walking passed those shy and bashful girls did give me an occasional atrial flutter. But we have her with us now having preserved her youth, good looks and remaining lively as ever. I would have loved to be there to wish Sushy a Happy Birthday and many more years of good health and happiness.
ReplyDeleteMy thanks to Dushy for her vivid and detailed description of the event and Mahen for his skilful arrangement of the text and images and his insistence to present this to the blog for the benefit of the many and to preserve it for posterity.
I cannot resist a final comment – Sushy: On your birthday photos you look as if you have just stepped off a Catwalk. Well done.
This is 'Better late than never Zita'! Always late but nevertheless sincere in my appreciation of these fantastic doings by our beautiful batch mates and their friends, and would like to say, well done, everyone! This brings us cheer and good will in this sort of time and we see you enjoying lovely company, making jokes and enjoying time together on a happy occasion. It really cheers me up and I like to say it's a pleasure to see you in this way and I wish you all that's good on this milestone occasion and may there be many more occasions like this! Zita
ReplyDeleteI knew R S Thiagarajah as both of were paediatricians and fond of billiards. In 1968, during the annual billiards championship of the Health Department Sports Club, I beat him on my way to winning the title eventually.He was not Priyani's registrar;I think he was with Hunt.
ReplyDeleteLater on I represented the Health Department Sports Club in various tournaments together with Haleem Sheriffdeen, Narendra Wijemanne and one other
One thing that never fails to thrill me in any Sri Lankan event with a lot of ladies is the sheer glamour and display of gorgeous colours provided by the saree and jacket costume. I observe this at Dances for example. No western dress can come anywhere near this pleasing visual spectacle. I don't take anything away from the beauty of the ladies who adorn themselves in this attire - of course it matters! If you cast your eyes on the photos of Susheila's party, you will know what I mean. Long live the saree and jacket!
ReplyDeleteOne observation I like to make is that as the Sari has evolved with a few variations, the amount of skin displayed has increased and it obeys Speedy's Law, which is Sskn is inversely proportional to Swa, where Sskn is amount of Sari bare skin (not bearskin!) shown and Swa is Sari wearer age. The history of the Sari is also interesting although what I am about to quote is just one view.
ReplyDeleteSari, in Sanskrit, translates as “strip of cloth”, and it usually measures six to eight metres in length. The garment is believed to have originated in the Indus Valley as early as 2800 BC, and today represents the national dress of countries such as India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Traditionally, women wear cholis, or blouses, along with a petticoat, or long skirt, under a sari.
I would love to hear from our Sari clad beauties!
SUSHILA always wore a spree during her days in the Medical school and if I remember right she always wore what we in Tamil say a "Pottu" and it did match her Saree. Her Saree too was draped so gracefully. I had the priviledge of entertaining Sushila and her husband for dinner when they visited San Francisco and for the first time I saw in an elegant Salvar Kameez and not a saree. AS ND said in these days of trials any good news is refreshing. Best wishes Sushila for many more birthdays god bless
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely correct. Some people just know how to dress and appear attractive and Susheila was one such person- always looked elegant and beautiful.She was in the same sig group with me and I remember her and Kamini Gunawardena being together. Poor Kamini was such an innocent person that she was often at the butt end of "kunu" jokes just so that we could enjoy her look of genuine bemusement. Ah! Those were the days!
DeleteHey Rajan (Patas) is it my imagination, that you are not often seen on these pages? It is lovely to see a comment by you! I remember you very well from our Batch days as someone always, friendly, cheerful, never at a loss for words and someone we all liked and got on with. So it is nice to see you on these pages. Hope we'll see a contribution I mean an article or something by you? I am visiting our Blog during our lock down and it just takes one out of the doldrums when one reads these pages. So let us all make an attempt to contribute to our Blog, ok? Anything will be appreciated by our editorial board, of course with certain restrictions obviously. So how about it? Zita
ReplyDeleteNow that is a challenge Rajan! Hope you take it up. I am very happy to prepare it for publication if you send me the draft. How about telling us about chaps like you who went to the USA and had to adapt in so many ways to "fit in" and feel comfortable and happy- the challenges, the opportunities. That would be so interesting. I hope you are recovering well.
DeleteZita,I would like to see Rajan's experience in Malay Peninsula and the US.
ReplyDeleteHey Rajan, now that's an idea you can take up! Please let us read about your experiences in the Malay Peninsular and the US. The latter may be the most popular country for our batch mates to domicile in but each person's experience is unique. So I look forward to hearing about your journey. Zita
DeleteA great idea - it would be like the
ReplyDelete“Decameron” by Giovanni Boccaccio- a compilation of 100 short stories set in the time of the Black Death (bubonic plague) in the 1300s, when 10 young Florentines decided to escape the plague by isolating themselves in a small town near Naples.
While in isolation each one was expected to write a short story which they took in turn to relate at night .
As expected the collection is very varied- some philosophical , some tragic and some outright bawdy .
His idea was to recreate the psyche of the people during that time of uncertainty with death all around them -
The uncertainties of our times feel somewhat similar.
If the writers in our batch each wrote a short piece while in lockdown it would make a great collection - starting with Rajan’s experiences which are already awaited.
A great idea promoted by Zita and Kumar -
Keep well all my friends-
We would of course know to leave the bawdy out !
ReplyDeleteI am about ready to comply with your request. Not sure as to whether I should put into this comment section or in a new article. If a new then speedy or Lucky send me the instructions
ReplyDeleteRajan, this comment of yours seems to have been missed. I would say, write your article on the subject of your choice and we hope it would be influenced by your time in the Malay Peninsula and any of your experiences since leaving your motherland and send it to Mahendra or Lucky and they will make any necessary changes and put it on the Blog for us all to enjoy reading.
ReplyDeleteJust type and email it. And this is an ideal time to do it! Zita