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| Sunday, 10 March 2002 |
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Features |  |
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By Chitra Weerasinghe
He has just finished writing his second novel - `The King who keeps his crown' - based on a fictitious island in the Indian Ocean; one which has an ideal social structure and peace as its only priority. He is Prasanna Wijesinghe Jayewardene the author, hotelier, environmentalist - a man of many convictions who professes a great love for this, his motherland and within which island's framework, he says, he has been able to do what he has always wished - no matter how far he has succeeded. Since leaving Trinity College, Kandy after completing his schooling, he obtained a diploma in hotel management and tourism from Salzburg's Klessheim Hotel School in Austria; lived and worked in ten countries among them France, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, Austria, Malaysia, Maldives, Seychelles and in Karachi when it was Pakistan's capital and completely different to what it presently is as Islamabad. Now, basking in the glory of his experiences and, probably achievements; and having put his thoughts on paper, he is dreaming of the time when what he visualises for Sri Lanka will become a reality.
What made him focus on peace as being a country's sole priority in this, his second novel (not about Sri Lanka) - the first titled `A journey forward' was based on the Sri Lanka of a couple of decades ago seen through the eyes of a foreigner visiting this country for the first time to attend the funeral of his father? That peace is what his heart aches for I was able to gather as I sat talking with him one poya afternoon at the Hilton Colombo's Thorana Lounge. I enjoyed listening to him philosophise, fantasise, and convey useful messages of wisdom preached and practised by sages and men whom he admired. The Dalai Lama maintains that a human being is essentially a good person; that violence is only a surface emotion and that deep down in a person's heart he yearns for goodness and a sense of value; and also that if you look at a person from a positive angle as the Dalai Lama constantly reminds us, then the vast majority of people will also react positively towards you, he said. That then is the theme on which he bases his story and weaves subtly into it the threads of his thinking on the environment and its biodiversity.
A society can, taking into consideration the inherent good in a person, engage him in helping preserve the environment and its biodiversity and so to be one with nature as human beings are expected to live, says Jayewardene a keen and committed environmentalist who boasts of having held a leopard in his hands when it was a cub and which cub he nurtured till full grown at the time he was General Manager at Negombo's Brown Beach Hotel. ``It slept in bed with me and my wife. But today keeping most forms of wildlife in domestication is banned," he said. Jayewardene's love for the environment and for wildlife stems from that great concern his ancestors spanning three generations (as far as he could remember) had for plants and animals. His father, E.D.W. Jayewardene was an officer in the British Army and a man who had captained the University Rugby team; represented the CR & FC and Ceylon at Rugby; was also the author of two books `Water Gardening in Ceylon' and `Sinhalese Masks. More importantly he was a great believer in the peaceful co-existence of people, plants and animals in the environment. He lived in some of the jungles in Sri Lanka besides the towns. And he created the right environment in the home for his family to imbibe and take to his great love and interest in nature. Is it not natural then, for Jayewardene to seize every opportunity he possibly could to express his concern for the environment? And how could you forget those days when he was General Manager of the Mount Lavinia Hotel, the time he spent ensuring the cleanliness of the hotel's vicinity, the nearby railway station and roads? He even roped in the residents of the area to join him in his shramadana campaigns of the beach and the streets where they lived. How many hours does he spend writing and how did he find the time to do so with all his work, interests and social service activities? I never take myself too seriously and think I am so busy that I cannot think of anything else. Everyone is busy in his/her own way and you must not think of yourself as being busier than the other person. That is what I learned from former President J.R.Jayewardene. He says he socialises but not too much; that he shifts his priorities as the need arises and that he does fulfil his social and family obligations and spends profitabily whatever time he has - focusing, of course, on his happiness - a priority in any person's life. But all in all he devotes two to three hours a day to his writing. And that is not all. He has lots more things to do and lots more things happening. Having had considerable experience in running skiing hotels, city hotels, resort hotels and jungle hotels, he is now in the throes of planning and building yet another type- lifestyle hotels. He has planned ten such hotels in areas like Hambantota, Maskeliya, Wilpattu, Trincomalee, Maduru Oya Jaffna and a few other locations which he was averse to disclose until all the customary procedures have been complied with and completed. But `Elephant Corridor' a lifestyle designer 24- all suite Boutique Hotel - the first of this series of ten and a unique blend of art and architecture located in the wilds of Sigiriya is almost ready and he is awaiting that most opportune time in tourism this year - that is when tourists will once again begin to trickle in greater numbers, to open its doors to them. It is an exclusive, upmarket, luxurious boutique hotel for the discerning visitor and affords him the opportunity of being with nature and studying and watching the flora and fauna there, he says. What I can do for Sri Lanka from my side is to pioneer a new generation of hotels and project Sri Lanka which when looked at objectively is a great destination - a very attractive girl on the beach as it were; but we must remember and he quotes Dr Anandatissa de Alwisd as saying ``we are not the only girl on the beach. We must make our girl attractive and scintillating.' Jayewardene talks of the location for a hotel as being of paramount importance. It is priority number one. priority number two and priority number three - a view, he says, expressed by a famous international hotelier and it is the specific features of each location that he wishes to bring out and capitalise on in his boutique hotels. You design a hotel within a particular location - primarily to enhance that area and improve the living standards of its people - but without damaging or destroying that area and also bearing in mind that a hotel has a shelf life unlike that of land - the shelf life depending on the eventual demand of the market. Three other hotels besides the `Elephant Corridor' are in the process of being developed. They are the `Leopard Mountain' in the tea estates of Maskeliya and `Flamingo Plain' amidst the sea and paddy fields of Hambantota. Jayewardene has met the Dabane Veddas in Mahiyangana to ensure whether he could integrate his hotel with the vedda population and to see how he may introduce their dances and rituals for the benefit of tourists. I want to give the tourists the opportunity of getting married, if they wish, in traditional veddha style. And he has managed to pick up a few words of andarademala (the gypsy language) as disclosed to him by Lalith Athulathmudali. Having been to Jaffna as a schoolboy and still remembering his father drawing his attention to the architecture and other attractive features - culture and people of Yalapalam; having seen the varying terrain from palm trees to beaches, visited islands like Delft with its ponies and Nagadipa, he has already embarked on plans for achieving his desire for a hotel there. He has named it the `Peninsular Beach Hotel' and it will be located in Casurina Beach. It will serve as a city hotel and an airport hotel and all that stems from his optimism that peace is at hand. |
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