The ‘Sir’ who made such an impression on us students

A young teacher joined Royal College, Colombo in January 1962 as soon as he qualified as a “Trained Teacher” from the Maharagama Teacher Training School. He was Upali Attanayake (Sir/Upali). He was in a batch trained to teach science subjects for Ordinary Level classes in the Sinhala medium. This smart and witty teacher won the admiration of almost all the students as well as other teachers within a short time.

I shall address him as ‘Sir’ when describing school day activities and as ‘Upali’ on his personal achievements, in this article to save space.

‘Sir’ was assigned a Buddhism class for second-form or Year Seven students. I was in that class. Later when I was in OL classes he taught me Physics. He did not have the indepth knowledge of a physics graduate from the university. He had to study at home to teach the class the next day. But his dramatic way of teaching helped us to remember the subject matter so well that many of us still remember the theories he taught. Another unique feature we appreciated was that he taught the subject to the entire set of students in the class, whether they were weak or strong, without discrimination.

A voracious reader, ‘Sir’ always carried an English novel to read in his spare time. One I remember was “The World of Suzie Wong” by Richard Mason about a woman from a Hong Kong brothel. About this time the film of the novel was being screened at the “Savoy” cinema in Wellawatte. One of the students had seen this film and told his Physics master he would like to read the novel. ‘Sir’ gladly lent it to him. Thereafter both of them exchanged books.

Another occasion he discussed an English movie was when ‘Dr. No’, the first film in the James

Bond series was screened at the same theatre. He told a few of us that he was impressed by the unique start to the movie, with an introduction to the character through the view of a gun barrel and a highly stylised main title sequence together with iconic theme music.

One witty student asked him, “Sir, with whom did you go to see the films?” Without batting an eyelid, Sir said, “With my girlfriend.” When we started giggling he said, “What’s funny about it -wait and see you will do the same thing when you leave school and walk into the adult world.” We were the lucky bunch to get a treat from ‘Sir’ when he married his sweetheart from the same training college a few months later.

Upali Attanayake had his primary and secondary education at St. Joseph’s College, Maradana during the time of Rector Fr. Peter Pillai, an eminent educationist. S.E. Dias and E.C. Gunasekara, two of his teachers at St. Joseph’s later joined Royal and went on to become Deputy Principals. He was very fluent in both languages Sinhala and English displaying the high quality of education he received at this institution. The famous film artist Tissa Liyanasuriya, Shyamon Jayasinghe who acted as

in Ediriweera Sarachchandra’s Maname and famous singer Sidney Attygalle were some of his classmates.

He related many stories of being punished by the teachers and the Rector. One such incident was when he penned a song for his friend Sidney while doing science practicals in the school lab. Both of them were caught by the teacher and punished when trying to create the melody. The song was

which became a big hit in the sixties.

According to his friend Tissa, Upali was a good debater and according to Mr. Gunasekara (the discipline master at Royal), he was a mischievous student. Once Rector, Fr Peter Pillai summoned his mother (a teacher herself) and warned him in her presence. Yet ‘Sir’ had a lot of regard for Fr. Peter Pillai and his teachers.

We were surprised when it came to light that ‘Sir’ had written the lyrics of the then-popular song

sung by Sidney Attygalle. Being a Hindi film fan ‘Sir’ had taken the melody from the Hindi song sung by Talat Mahmood.

He also wrote a beautiful Christmas song,

probably for his friend Sidney to sing.

Upali entered the Teachers Training College, Maharagama and was in the 1960/61 batch. He met his future wife, ‘Padma’ while at this institution.

Late Ratnapala Happuarachchi, one of his students at Royal who was very close to ‘Sir’ wrote about his teacher’s acting skills in the “Royal People” blog;

“When they were at the Teachers’ Training College, Maharagama, a Dramsoc (Dramatic Society) was formed to improve the English and Sinhala of the future teachers. Mostly English classics of Shakespeare were the popular ones. At one premiere, Upali Atte (Atttanayake) was Brutus, who stabbed Caesar from behind. The time came when Senna (Cinna) stabbed from the front, with the dagger still intact, Caesar turned to say “Et Tu Brute” (And you too, Brutus) but there was no dagger in Brutus’s hand to complete the stab from the back. The audience realised the miss, and catcalls and hooting started. Finally, the missing dagger had to be thrown across to complete the part. Anyway, they were hooted out the stage.”

While at Training College, he wrote the lyrics of songs in the film

along with Arisen Ahubudu. The film was directed by Herbert M. Senewirathna and released on October 6, 1961. The songs of this film became very popular.

At Royal, ‘Sir’ was appointed as a Vice President of the Dramatic Society and Oriental Music Society and produced several Sinhala stage plays. was one such play staged at the college hall. In addition to coaching the students in acting, Drama guru Upali Master also acted in a major role in Ämutta. He introduced a unique feature in this stage play.

“A drunken set of hooligans entered the hall from behind singing and dancing, carrying Arrack bottles and walking through the aisle keeping the audience in suspense. Many thought that some hooligans had entered the College hall to assault some mischievous students. But they were all actors and the scene was part and parcel of the play. In another scene where shooting was involved a shot was fired from a real shotgun creating panic among the audience. (Actually, it was a blank cartridge, yet the sound of the explosion confused everyone around including some members of staff, the Principal Mr. Dudley K.G. De Silva knew about it and permission had been granted for the plot when master-in-charge Upali Attanayake briefed him.)”