A Verse from Subhasithaya

My father used to recite this aloud, for no one in particular, very often when he was in a relaxed mood. I was reminded of that fact when Sanath Lamabadusuriya sent me this.

“Pin madha puthun siyayak labuwath nisaru 

Guna nena belen yuthu puthumaya itha garoo 

Eka pun sandin duru wei lowa gana anduroo 

Neka tharu rasin elesata noma weya duroo.”

Meaning

It is futile to have a hundred meritless sons.

Only a son endowed with kindness and wisdom is most honoured

Darkness in the world is dispelled by the moonlight of one moon.

Star light from numerous stars could not do likewise.

Sriani’s APR

By Sriani Dissanayake Basnayake

Speedy, Rohini and Zita, thanks for your concern about my health and how my APR is progressing. 

Rohini, the APR is not a joke, but quite real, and you will laugh hysterically when I tell you the reason for the aggravation of the APR.

I haven’t had time to contribute to the Blog these last two months, because I have been busy going for ‘sports practice’ in preparation for the Ladies’ College OGA inter house sports meet!!! No, I am not down to run in the 100 metres dash, but the events are graded in 10 year slabs, and everyone in their 70s and 80s are grouped into the over 70 category. The most “strenuous” event for us, the over 70 group, is a 25 metre walking race.  There are relays and individual events, and yours truly has had to be ‘rubbed down’ with every kind of “kokatath thailaya” on returning home, for the APR gets really bad after each foray into the field of athletics.

Rohini, you may remember my sister Nirmala winning a Bronze Medal in the 200 metres at the Asian Games, while still in school, but not an iota of the athletic genes came my way. Hence you can just imagine the state of the joints of yours truly…….APR is putting it very mildly.

D- Day, the Sports Meet is scheduled for tomorrow. A long silence from my end will indicate that the old lady has been knocked out after the tremendous effort put in for the over 70 events!

Meet The Sri Lankan Scientist Who Helped Detect Gravitational Waves

Srianee (Bunter) Fernando Dias has sent in this link to an interesting article. Nipuni Palliyaguru happens to be a graduate of Srianee's alma mater Ladies College. She justifiably says that we should all be proud of this young scientist as we all have connections to her country of birth. What Nipuni and the team detected is ground breaking, and blog readers would find it very interesting.

Srianee in turn had received this bit of information from her friend Savitri (wife of Prof. V. Kumar who was Professor of Chemistry at the University of Peradeniya and a daughter of the late Prof. BLT de Silva who was Professor of Botany at the University of Ceylon, Colombo). I remember Kumar and Savitri  as students in the Science Faculty in 1961 when I myself was there doing the 6-months course for the 1st MB.

http://roar.lk/identities/meet-sri-lankan-scientist-helped-detect-gravitational-waves/

Creative Spot - Magic of the British Countryside

This was composed and played by Mahendra (Speedy) Gonsalkorale on his Yamaha Tyros 5. Speedy says that the keyboard is amazing and that he couldn't have done it without its facilities. The visuals are all from his camera at different times, quite often when he goes for walks or plays golf. He further says that he loves walking in the beautiful countryside or just chasing the pocked white ball with a club! The whole thing had then been put together using movie making software from Serif (Movie Plus 6). Finally, he hopes that our Blog visitors would enjoy it and experience the serenity that he tried to portray.

By far the greatest medical personality I knew

(Republished - This was first published in the Sunday Times of 10 January 2010) Dr. P.R. Anthonis - A personal tribute I came to know Dr. P.R. Anthonis when I was a medical student in the mid-sixties. Although an extremely busy surgeon, he always found the time to teach us. Later in 1967 I was his intern medical officer for six months. The period of internship was hectic and we were kept extremely busy. He gave a lot of responsibility to the house officers who responded to the hilt. There were many VIPs in the paying wards but Dr. Anthonis gave the same attention to the patients in the non-paying wards as well. During this period it became evident to me that he was an energetic and technically competent surgeon and teacher/tutor who claimed that work “refreshed” him. This was perhaps the secret of his longevity. Once an attendant came to him and asked him for a few hundred rupees on the grounds that his mother had died. I was bemused when Dr. Anthonis gave him half the money and asked him to keep it. I asked him whether he believed the attendant’s story and his reply was that he did not, but to have said that his mother had died perhaps indicated a dire need of the money and more-over, the mother cannot die twice! Such was his wisdom in mundane matters. On another occasion I was assisting him in the operating theatre, when a doctor came from the adjoining theatre and whispered something in his ear. He immediately went to the next theatre and returned after about 10 minutes. He did not tell us why he was called and carried on with the surgery. When I went to lunch, I met the surgical registrar who was in the next theatre. He told me that his “boss” (a well known budding surgeon) was performing a cholecystectomy (removal of the gall bladder) and had damaged an artery which resulted in the abdominal cavity rapidly filling with blood. The young surgeon had panicked when he could not locate the bleeding point in the pool of blood and had called for assistance. Dr. Anthonis had come over, quite calmly sucked out the blood from the abdominal cavity, located the bleeding point in the hepatic artery and sutured it. His humility and greatness were manifest in that he kept it to himself, without embarrassing his junior colleague. “Never kick a fallen dog!!” was one of his mottos. I have watched him single handedly place fledgling surgeons on a sound footing. The HOPE ship was docked in the Colombo Port during this time, and the American surgeons who came over to assist Dr. Anthonis were astonished by his operative skills. His versatility was testified to by his ability to perform surgery on the gall bladder, liver, pancreas, stomach, spleen, kidneys, adrenals, urinary bladder, prostate bowel, thyroid gland etc., with great dexterity. An overawed American surgeon told me that in their country, surgeons usually specialize only in one organ. Many newly returned surgeons followed his ward rounds and came in to operate on a side table whilst Dr.Anthonis performed major operations on the centre table. We the juniors watched newly qualified surgeons gain their experience thus, and Dr. Anthonis’s unit was never short of clinical material. Furthermore, documenting all the surgical work pictorially and cataloging each and every patient’s details was a unique trait in this brilliant surgeon's professional life. On Thursday afternoons, a wide variety of short eats was made available outside operating theatre C. Young doctors and medical students not working with him also used to come along to enjoy and savour the spread! Dr. Anthonis was the patron of the medical students Buddhist Hostel, Jeevaka, for many years. I am personally aware that he donated furniture etc., when the need arose. He has assisted numerous medical students with books, stethoscopes and finances. His intellectual skills were all embracing. Before he visited a tourist/historic resort, he would read about the place and gain knowledge; during such visits he would educate the fellow tourists including the tourist guide!! His influence was considerable, not only in the surgical sphere but also in historical scholarship. He was a storehouse of knowledge as to what happened - when, where and why. More recently when a younger colleague was researching to write a book about the history of paediatrics in Sri Lanka, I took her along to meet Dr. Anthonis. After listening to her, he meticulously selected many invaluable articles from ancient documents in his vast collection, which ultimately enriched the book she wrote. We watched in amazement as he remembered exactly where the information was stored and more importantly, from which bookshelf it could be retrieved! He was equipped with this ability of retrieval of data sans computers, at the ripe age of 97 years. Meticulous cataloging by him, demonstrated that history was intellectually more strenuous than merely a good memory. Dr. Anthonis was a unique person, extremely skilful in his specialty, very knowledgeable about diverse topics, sober in his habits, deeply religious and extremely humble. Undoubtedly he is one of the most notable alumni of the Colombo Medical School. He rivalled all others of his time in distinction and vigour. He is by far the greatest medical personality that I have come across in Sri Lanka or elsewhere. After my internship, although I specialized in paediatrics, we remained in constant touch and my wife and our offspring also had the privilege of being enriched by his company at many wonderful dinner parties. I participated in his retirement function in 1971, and 37 years later, I was extremely pleased and filled with emotion when my former teacher, Dr. Anthonis attended my retirement function and unveiled my portrait at Lady Ridgeway Hospital. It was unfortunate that he failed to reach his one hundredth year by a mere 35 days, to which he was looking forward to with much enthusiasm. However, his was a life well lived in the fullest sense. May he attain the supreme bliss of Nirvana, via the shortest route through Sansara. Prof. Sanath P. Lamabadusuriya, MBE, Emeritus Professor of Paediatrics, University of Colombo.

E-mail sent by Srianee Fernando Dias

srianeedias@gmail.com	19:33 (1 hour ago)
to me

Srianee Dias has sent you the following from ScientificAmerican.com:

How do bats echolocate and how are they adapted to this activity?

Lucky, could you please post this link to the Scientific American article entitled "How do bats echolocate and how are they adapted to this activity" to add to the discussion on Echolocation, which is the "Active use of Sonar (Sound Navigation And Ranging)" I think it is a very interesting discussion.


http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-do-bats-echolocate-an/

© 2016 Scientific American, a division of Nature America, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

Response to "Important Message"

Just to give you an idea of the pattern of feedback and the type of problems I encounter, the e-mails to the following bounced back immediately.

Gwendoline Perera, Navam, Maheswari Singharayer, Sivananda, Harsha and Revo. There will be more to follow in the next couple of days.

However, Sanath Lama had immediately sent Sivananda's new address. I greatly appreciate such action especially when the sender (Sanath in this case) is still one of the busiest members of the batch. I also had responses from Pram, Sunil Abey, Sumathi, Rasanathan, Yoga, Kumar Guna, Lalini Seebert Rajapaksa, Indra Ananda, Malkanthie Wije, Mahesan, Chitta (Thiagarajah), Zita, Nalin Nana, Suji Lena, Sriani Dissanayake (Basnayake), Vasanthy Thuraisingham, Nithya, Kusuma, Rohini Ana and Vasantha Jayasuriya (Owitigala). I am very grateful to those of you who have helped and offered to help. Above all, your response indicates that you receive my e-mails. This is very important to me. I am sure there will be a few more responses in the next few days. Attale had seen my e-mail and called. He is in SL right now. That's 22 out of the 102 that I wrote to.

As requested by Priya's husband Chula, I have retained their e-mail address in my list. He told me that he would like to know how Priya's friends are faring.

One colleague has informed me that he will be unable to attend due to ill health. Let's not forget that there may be many more out there who are unable even to pen a few lines, even if they have access to a computer. Regrettably, I am unable to contact some locally based colleagues by e-mail. The only way I can contact them is by telephone or calling over at their residences personally! That is a tall order because there will be many such individuals whom I will invariably have to call or visit. 

Fortunately, being a true "RETIREE" in every sense of the word, I have time to do all this. I will continue to do it as long as I am fit and able. As a positive, I am quite convinced that indulging in this type of work certainly helps to keep away dementias, especially the much feared Alzheimer's Disease!

*****************************************************************************************************

Since sending out the above message to those in the mailing list, as expected, more responses keep trickling in. Apart from the above mentioned, I have received messages from the following:

Suren, Anton Ambrose, Shanthy Edwards (Nalliah), Vasanthy Perera (Thuraisingham), Nihal Amerasekera (ND), Rajan (Patas) Ratnesar, Srianee (Bunter), Razaque, Berty Nanayakkara, Rajalakshmi (Chellappah), Sura (Abeysuriya), Manel Wijesundera (Ratnavibhushana), K. Balachandra, Chandra Silva and Mahendra (Speedy) Gonsalkorale.