My colleague, my critic, my friend, Lalith Edrisinghe

I doubt if I will ever forget my first encounter with Lalith Edrisinghe. Seething with fury I had stormed up to him on my second week at work, with one of the Feature pages in my hands where a sub editor had mutilated my article beyond comprehension. Lalith had listened to me nodding now and then to show he agreed totally that the gist of my article was lost due to the heavy editing.

After letting me blow off steam he summoned the sub-editor and listened to her side of the story. To my chagrin he totally agreed with her too - saying that it was her responsibility to "edit" the articles on her page. But, there are exceptions he added, exceptions where editing should be curtailed to the minimum. This was how Lalith handled us - the over-sensitive writers and the egoistic sub-editors - without discouraging either party.

Even though he was considerably older than me, the rapport between us was instantaneous. He would not listen to me calling him "Mr. Edrisignhe". "Call me Lalith" he would insist and throw his head back and laugh when I kept saying "Mr. Ed.., I mean Lalith..." during those first few weeks at the Sunday Observer.

Since then, till February this year it was heartening to see Lalith seated at the News desk, in front of the windows over-looking the Regal Theatre.

"Your room with a view" I said to him once which triggered off memories of his travels abroad; about his trip to Hydrabad sometime ago and the one to Singapore where he had had to share a room with a very homesick man from Bangladesh. "He must have been around thirty but he kept missing his family - even his mother-in-law", laughed Lalith.

Recalling the years he spent in the Middle East he said he never got used to the familiarity between the high officials of the ministries and their clerical staff in the dessert. "I was surprised to see the Minister's peon seated on the arm of the Minister's chair, and smoking a cigar while the Minister was chatting with us" recalled Lalith and said the stint he spent as a teacher in a remote Arabian fishing village was unforgettable, because the food had been terrible.

"Only fish to eat. No vegetables, no rice". But he had had an Indian friend who had taught him how to prepare dhal curry in a special way. This friend (if I remember right) had committed suicide upon his return to his motherland.

Apart from chatting about books and his travels with me Lalith also talked a lot about growing up in Galle. He was happy to realize that I knew or had heard about the people and the places he mentioned in his long "harangues" (his word not mine).

I had heard from my father about Miss Norah Roberts the Librarian who was hard of hearing. Lalith recalled how he had shocked her once, by asking for Lady Chatterley's Lover, when he was in his Advanced Level classes.

She had given the book which she had kept locked in a cupboard with pursed lips. I still remember the smile on his face when I gave him the book Miss Roberts had written "Galle as Quiet as Asleep" as a Christmas present last year. The next day he came to me with the book in his hands saying he had spent the whole of the previous day reading the book. He had underlined the pages where his wife's ancestors were mentioned.

"You are our very own Wikipedia" I would tell Lalith whenever I sought his advice while in the middle of writing an article, knowing quite well he would have the answer. From history to literature, from astrology to Ayurvedha, his knowledge on almost anything under the sun was immense.

Though he was terminally ill Lalith never grumbled and took everything that came his way in his stride. Whenever I came across him in the library I would exclaim "Lalith you look great", simply to cheer him up and he'd laugh and say "Looks can be deceptive. I don't feel great".

Even after leaving the Sunday Observer Lalith continued to show a keen interest in my articles and it was inspiring to listen to his sometimes teasing, sometimes serious but never discouraging comments... which makes me wonder how he would respond to this tribute - he would look at me with that twinkle in his eyes and probably quote Oscar Wilde - "Its perfectly monstrous the way people go about nowadays, saying things against ones back that are absolutely and entirely true".

Aditha Dissanayake