By

Dr.Sanjiva Wijesinha

(Text of the eulogy delivered at the service of Celebration of the life of former Ombudsman and Parliament Secretary -General Mr.Sam Wijesinha on 9th September 2014 by his son Dr. Sanjiva Wijesinha)

Sam Wijesinha: 27 June 1921 – 31 August 2014

Sam Wijesinha

Your presence here today – and the many letters, flowers, emails, phone calls and visits we have been receiving since he died on August 31st – have been a reminder to us of how much our father was respected and loved, and how much he meant not just to us his children but to so many of you. This is a source of great comfort to us as we come to terms with his loss.

We are grateful to all of you who, in many different ways, cared for him during the last days of his life – and we particularly want to thank his attendants Chamara and Sunil, our cousin Theja and his faithful doctor Vim Navaratnam who gave so much of their time and of themselves to look after him.

We are also grateful to his friend Bishop Kumarage for being here with us today – and I would also like to express our thanks to the choir of his old school, S. Thomas’ College, Mount Lavinia for their presence at this service of celebration. We would also like to thank the principal of his other ‘old school’ for allowing us to use this beautiful chapel for the service to celebrate his life.

Some years ago I had the opportunity of meeting the Ven Getamanne Saranapala Thero, the Viharadhapathi of the temple in my father’s birthplace of Getamanne, a small village in the Hambantota district. The venerable monk had been my father’s classmate when they were little boys attending the village school. They used to walk to school together, my father from the big house that overlooked the village and his friend from a not so affluent house down the road. They were school friends and playmates from the age of six.

“Even at that young age” the old monk told me, reminiscing, “Your father was always interested in his studies, always reading, always wanting to know more. From those days itself he understood the value of education”

Then he added with a chuckle, “He would never eat of the food that his mother had packed for him without sharing it with me. Even a thalaguli or a piece of pol dosi would be divided into two, half given to me before your father ate the other half.”

Then his face grew more serious. “Another characteristic I remember about your father is that he disliked bullies. Obviously, being Don Aelias Wijesinha’s son, nobody in that village would have dared to bully him. But if he saw anyone being bullied, especially if that child was weak or of low estate, he would step in to protect them.”

It is interesting how these childhood qualities of my father noted by his schoolboy friend shaped the values he later displayed throughout his adult life – a love of learning, the desire to share with those less fortunate than himself, and accepting responsibility for protecting the underprivileged.

As a boy, I remember my father often repeating to me the phrase ‘Knowledge is Power’. He not only ensured that he and my mother gave us three children every encouragement to study and further our education – but this love of learning and desire to help others to educate themselves spread to the children of his siblings, the children of his cousins, the children of his village, the children of his friends and the friends of his children – in fact anyone in whom he saw the potential for education so they could better themselves.

He was a past master at finding places at good schools for deserving children – and scholarships for his staff as well as his nephews and nieces. I must pause a moment here to explain that for my father and mother, their nephews and nieces were not all related by blood or marriage. These nephews and nieces had surnames as varied as Rajasuriya, Reid, Pathmanathan, Uvais, Mirchandani and Bhatkal – but he considered all of them his own, and so believed that he had every right to encourage and help them.

When he was appointed Secretary General of Parliament, he commenced a scheme to provide free school textbooks for the children of his staff. He obtained money for this by selling all the old newspapers and outdated multiple copies of Hansard that had accumulated for years in the parliament storerooms. It was a method that did not perhaps comply with the government Administrative and Financial Regulations (the sacrosanct ‘AR and FR’). It probably would not have received the approval of the Treasury (had they ever been told about it). But he started that fund with about a million rupees – collected entirely from the sale of “parana paththara” – and he ensured that at the beginning of each year the children of his staff had all the textbooks they needed for their studies. He would be so proud in later years when one of these children for whom he had helped provide schoolbooks would come to see him, having by then graduated or obtained professional qualifications.

He spent a lifetime not only encouraging people he knew to spend money on their children’s education – but in situations where he felt they could not afford the cost, he quietly delved into his own pocket to pay for their education.

The second quality that characterized my father was his belief that because much had been given to him by birth, education, personality and position, it was his privilege to use these resources to help others. Just as he used to a little boy share the piece of pol dosi with his school friend, he would freely share his time and knowledge to help others. He was not a rich man – but many were the occasions when he would pay out of his own pocket to help folk who he believed needed to be helped, whether it was to buy a plot of land for their first house or buy a ticket to go overseas for higher studies.

After he retired as Secretary General of Parliament he was appointed Sri Lanka’s first national Ombudsman. This office was established so that the public would have an independent and powerful officer charged with representing the interests of the ordinary citizen by investigating and addressing complaints of maladministration or violation of rights.

The new appointment allowed him to continue exercising his belief that bullies should not be allowed to bully. He used not only his vast knowledge of the law but also his natural ability to mediate as well as his connections at the highest level throughout the country to protect individual citizens from being bullied, so assisting them to obtain redress of their grievances. Red tape and rigid Government regulations were sometimes creatively and pragmatically interpreted (occasionally even bent) so that someone deserving would not suffer injustice.

If there is a single line from the Bible that epitomized my father, it is this verse from the Epistle of St. James: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God is this: to assist orphans and widows in their affliction” My father was not one for religious ritual but he was a very spiritual man who knew, respected and could quote from the Bible, the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita, the Talmud and the Buddhist scriptures of his childhood.

At his funeral, many were the folk who came up to me or my brother or my sister and said “I don’t think you know me – but it was your father who helped me …” and then go on to tell us how in various different ways he had assisted each of them and helped change their lives for the better.

My father was an avid cricket fan, and he knew the value of a good batsman having a good partner. Hobbs and Sutcliffe, Hayden and Langer, Sangakkara and Jayawardena – each of these cricketers were great individuals in their own right who became so much greater because of the partner with whom they batted. Having a reliable companion at the other end, who understood, supported and complemented the man facing the bowling, allowed each in turn to score confidently while the other one held his end up. My father was very fortunate in this life to have as his partner my mother Mukta. Throughout their lives together, my parents formed a wonderful partnership and I am sure that without the freely given support of the other, neither of them would have been able to do the great things that each of them did.

During the week before he died, my father was watching on TV Angelo Mathews batting in a one day international cricket match at Hambantota. Father’s faithful attendant Chamara – who did so much for him during these last years of his life – was watching with him, and when Mathews got out at 93, Chamara said “Sha, thava tikkak hitiya nang, seeyakma gahanna thibuna, ne!”(meaning “Tsk, If he stayed just a little longer he could have scored a hundred, no” ). At this observation my father just smiled.

Even though our father, like the Sri Lankan cricket captain, got out at 93 and didn’t get to a century, he played brilliantly to make it to 93, his was an innings that proved so valuable for his country and his people – and he eminently displayed the qualities of a bold leader whom we could all admire, be proud of and look upon as our own.

There are some lines by the American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson that beautifully describes our father’s life:

“To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.This is to have succeeded.”