Remembrance Day 2024- (2) Srianee Dias

Remembrance Day 2024- (2). We continue to remember our dear departed friends with contributions from batchmates.

Remembering Ganesh and JC
By Srianee  Dias
 
I have some very fond memories of many of the friends who have left us, but I thought I would dedicate my tribute this year to the two special guys who sat on the left and right of me during lectures for five long years: J.C. Fernando and V. Ganesan.
 

Ganesan was soft-spoken and gentle and never had an unkind word to say about anyone.  JC. on the other hand made his presence known wherever he happened to be.  He often entertained me with tidbits of gossip about the guys in the batch. (You didn’t know that he was a ‘double agent’ did you?). In those days the males and females in the batch lived and moved in separate worlds, and I knew very little about what was going on in the ‘male world.’  I only hung out with a few of the guys outside Medical College, when invited to a party or some other social event.  I didn’t quite know whether to believe all the stories that JC related, so I treated them mostly as entertaining diversions.  Both guys had a great sense of humor, and the back and forth banter in hushed tones was a good break when the lectures became somewhat soporific.
 
Ganesh, JC, and I were often thrown together in ‘Sig Groups,’ clinical rotations, etc., along with Roshnara, Doss, Piyaseeli Dolawatte and a few others.  We managed to have quite a bit of fun while getting our work done.  Perhaps the fun dominated the activities.  I remember, somewhat fuzzily though, when we, as a group, were supposed to prepare and present a ‘Seminar’ for Biochemistry.  I think our topic had something to do with the Krebs cycle  (yawn!) a subject assigned by  Prof. Hoover.  My family was living in Mt. Lavinia at the time, almost next door to STC, and a few feet from the beach.  My mother was kind enough to host the gang at our home on a Saturday, and provide lunch so that we could work on our seminar presentation.  All I remember is that we had a good tme that day, lunch followed by a stroll on the beach.  I have no recollection of how much work we  got done.
 

When I received the news about Ganesh’s death, it was an absolute shock, because I had no idea that he had been sick.   I remember calling JC from my office in the hospital where I was working, to get more details.  My last memory of Ganesh was meeting him at the Habarana Reunion.  Outwardly he seemed perfectly fine at the time, but obviously he had been sick although I didn’t know it then.
 

As we all know, JC’s departure sadly followed a long period of debility. It was sad to see his ebullient voice silenced. My only consolation is that I was able to visit him a few weeks before he died, thanks to Suri, who drove me there. Our collective chatter seemed to cheer him up because he smiled often during our visit.
 
May they both find Eternal Peace, wherever they are.