Looking back on those English lessons at school with pride
Dr. Jean Arasanayagam is no more! It is the passing of one of the greatest personalities who ever turned to teaching in a secondary school as a career. She should have been a Professor in a University but her correspondence with me shows how much she enjoyed being a poorly paid teacher but able to mingle among students who appreciated her. Her brilliance in imparting knowledge to us was not as apparent to us ‘cramming’ for mundane examinations in those salad years. In later life, we look back with great pride at the rare privilege of having learnt our English from one of the greatest Sri Lankan exponents of the English language.
We knew her first as Jean Solomons, a pretty but petite, sweet but authoritative, young woman who could control a bunch of unruly schoolboys with great aplomb and acceptance. Jean was charming but her knowledge
as well as her ability to carry herself with great dignity was the key to the respect she won from her students. Mind you, she functioned among some of the greatest teachers of our generation, or of all time. At St.Anthony’s we had Robert Wright, George Macky, George Denlow and Fr. Robinson, among others, all of whom were masters of their subjects.
Jean has been internationally recognized and the accolades received are well known. She commenced her publications with a book of poems in 1973 and the collection of short stories, ‘The Cry of the Kite’. Since then we have been virtually buried under a literary avalanche of stories, poems and learned writings. She was also a gifted artist. She acquired an MA in Linguistics from Glasgow, Scotland. Her books perhaps exceeded 50 in number and included both fiction and nonfiction. Her works have been translated into German, French, Danish, Swedish and Japanese. She received many prestigious awards and was a past winner of the State Literary Award for poetry. She won the Gratiaen Award for 2017. She was conferred an honorary doctorate by Bowdoin College, USA in 2013, the citation included the following words - “a poetic witness to social and political history”. The president of Bowdoin College, Barry Mills commented: “Yours is a voice of conscience, of experience, of wisdom and of hope. You have given generously of yourself in encouraging young writers, including students enrolled in the collegiate Sri Lankan education program.”
Her message to us was that we had an obligation to be noble and adopt proper human behaviour. Her poetry and other writings covered so many topics of paramount importance including human and fundamental rights and the freedom of speech. Sadly, she learnt about the horrors of riots and civil disturbances first hand when she and her family suffered in camps for no fault of theirs and purely because of the brutality of others. She was bold enough to speak out and write of her experiences which as she told me resulted in her being like the proverbial prophet who was not recognized in her homeland for many, many years. She was in deep despair of being recognized internationally but not at home. She was so happy to know that we her students followed her path to greatness with loyalty and pride.
I was more than honoured and overjoyed when Jean requested me her student from the 1960’s to do a review of her book “With Flowers in their hair” a book of fascinating poems published in 2015. The poems showed the deep concern the writer had for peace and harmony. She stressed the need for making our diversity which can be an asset, work for us. She summed up her personal goal as: “the freedom and liberation to be myself and to live with truth and integrity, without bias and prejudice, without rancour, bitterness or hostility towards any being”.
Her writings were always very expressive and carried profound wisdom. In my review of the book mentioned, which appeared in the Sunday Times, I said that: “she may have been a voice in the wilderness earlier, but not so now, with a more enlightened society seeking reconciliation”. That was written when we were sanguine and hopeful about the return of peace to the nation. I wonder what she felt living to see more ethnic disharmony in the last days of her life!
In her poem the Generations one finds the following verse which is a fitting tribute to this remarkable human being:
“All these years I have created my own epics,
Stories, family histories that fired the mind
And imagination, filled page after page after
Page, that witnessing will remain”.
Franklyn Amerasinghe