Musings :

War memories of friends

by Padma Edirisingha

I remember a certain electronics media Quiz where it was asked as to why Japan who had joined the second world war allying with the Nazi party then went on to bomb Sri Lanka. The bemused one to whom the query was put, scratched his head and thought for a moment and then answered, “For fun”.

That answer drew sniggers.

But years later when listening to a conversation by some big wigs I overheard that what had actually happened was that, believe it or not, a former President, you can guess who, who had very good relations with this land of cherry blossoms is supposed to have pleaded with its war minister, “Dear Mr………..Can you throw a bomb on our Colombo just for fun?”.

“For what the ……..is that?”

“To expedite the Independence Movement”.

“Okay. Just one. Cannot waste bombs”.

Bombs

But once the soldiers were given ammunition there was no stopping them. Bombs and gun powder are ambrosia to soldiers. They even went on to bomb the mental hospital of Angoda defying war protocol that hospitals should not be bombed. For that the victim country has to put up white flags on them but it has not been done here for the attack was so sudden.

You can just imagine what happened when the first bomb fell on Angoda mental asylum. They, both men and women just ran helter-skelter, some running into the gushing waters of the Kelani that flowed about half a mile away in the site of Mulleriyawa. Remember, this was the site where the famous Rasinghe Deiyo coloured blood red the waters of Mulleriyawa field in his famous fight with the Portuguese.

Anyway this is going off the track.

What I initially wanted to write was on my friends who studied in the heart of the city. Remember they were the dear pets in the family and let not one bomb, but just a piece fall on a school desk the parents stopped sending them to school.

To digress again from the topic, this whole exercise of bombing Colombo was utterly illogical and if the facts given above are to be believed had been done more for fun, to frighten a British colony. Bombing Pearl Harbour in America was quite logical as Britain and America were blood cousins. But poor little Colombo, with hardly any affinity to England except that some years back, a group of its ministers had a brawl with their king and invited the white man to come to their rescue.

And now they had begun bombing schools and hospitals, both probably banned in the list of war etiquette. Sorry.

I am unable to give a complete list of the schools that were thus bombed. But they never corresponded with the schools who opened branches in outstations once the main schools were closed .They retained the name of the parent school however and some even closed shop after the bombs stopped falling and returned to the original location. Perhaps it was much ado about nothing.

A few such schools I mention. One was St.Thomas at Guruthalawa off Haputhale, an offshoot of S. Thomas’ at Mount Lavinia. In fact, according to annals, even the Mt. Lavinia site had earlier been at Modera. I came across this fact once while reading the life story of Dr. N M Perera the fiery Leftist of ‘Saginen pelunu vun, dan ithin nagitiyaw’ refrain fame. His father had been a businessman of Pettah and had been looking for a good school for his bright son and then come upon St.Thomas, Modera.

Spacious

As the school developed it shifted to the more spacious land by the coast again.

Anyway, it was not the Jap bombs that had been the motivator.

The girls’ school that shifted was few and far between. In fact, once while on circuit to Bandarawela schools, I happened to enter Vishaka Vidyalaya there and inquired whether it was a ‘war haven’ of the famous school in Colombo 7 or 3 or 4. (I am not sure which). No one was sure about the earlier fact. One is in a query whether Nalanda College of Minuwangoda is such an offshoot of Nalanda College, Maradana.

Log entries are not regularly kept in schools about such matters that prevent important data such as this being left out. But some schools maintain their “logs” very well. The Borella schools need be complimented in this respect. One example is Sanghamitta Vidyalaya. Had it been bombed all the details would have got recorded. But fortunately or not, it was never bombed. Its first site had been along Trichborne avenue where its first principal, an Australian lady had fallen into a well and drowned.

It was a phase when educated ladies in the island were scarce and sometimes there were none qualified to head a school. That is why Marie Museaus Higgins, a German lady found herself in Museaus College, for the luck of herself and for Buddhism. It, according to some, had been once a wattle and daub structure.

Vishaka Vidyalaya of Colombo too had very conscientious heads and if that educational institution was bombed many details would have been inserted.

Results

But isn’t it rather ridiculous that just “for the fun of it” that the capital of the island was bombed leading to some unwholesome results such as provoking some schools to close up making the school populace and its teachers and heads to run helter-skelter. Just imagine the havoc it would have created in the careers of the school children themselves. And what about the Angoda inmates who ended their wretched lives in the waters of the Kelani.

And did the end such as these justify the means? I mean, did the bombing of the city of Colombo in anyway expedite the grant of independence to the island? Wasn’t it all a merry thought hatched in the minds of intellectuals and politicians who should have known better?