My father the visionary

Affectionately known to his family as Chandra Aiya or Chandra Maama, Senarath Jayasena, my father, passed away last April leaving behind a bereaved family, friends, employees and numerous others he had helped in the course of his productive and successful life.

He was born in Galle to A.K.D Jayasena and Esawathi Jayasena nee Nanayakkara.

Growing up as a young child, he had a reputation as a precocious and mischievous kid. His father worked in the provinces and before his return home for the weekend my father would clean up his act by Friday evening to avoid punishment.

After his early education in Galle at St. Aloysius’ College, he moved to Colombo to study at Royal College and lived with his maternal uncle in Thimbirigasyaya. During World War II the family lived in the relative safety of rural Galle while Colombo underwent Japanese bombardment.

After having been admitted to Ceylon University College, he had to drop out due to the sudden death of his father. As the oldest surviving son he took upon the responsibility of managing his father’s properties and being a father figure to his young siblings. That responsibility was carried through his entire life.

Subsequently he worked at the government factory and earned his professional qualifications as an engineer, as a member of the British Institute of Engineers.

Never one to conform to the security of middle class life, he got involved in left leaning politics. He never ran for public office but supported causes dear to his heart. Fair treatment of his employees was very important to him. He considered them partners rather than traditional employees.

Owing to his sense of adventure, he once travelled overland to Europe. I still remember getting a postcard he mailed from Kabul, when he was travelling through Afghanistan. This was 40 years before the Internet and cell phones, and we would not hear from him for weeks. As children we didn’t fully realize it, but this must have been extremely stressful for my mother.

In the late ’70s and ’80s he worked in West Africa where we visited him on an extended holiday. There he got interested in fish processing and exporting and on his return to Sri Lanka, started his own business exporting seafood. After many years of struggle, failures and successes, he built a thriving business employing hundreds and acquired his own processing factory.

Later, he got interested in health supplements and the benefits of Nelli and started growing Nelli trees in Bibile. His goal was to process and market the fruit as a health supplement.

He had a wide ranging interest in music, literature and history.

As a parent, he left the day-to-day matters of raising us children to my mother. But from him we learned about different cultures and food. He introduced us to classical music and opera.

He had a large collection of records which he played at home, helping introduce us to a world of culture.

In contrast to me who always played it safe and exercised caution, my father was a visionary. He was also a thinker who took risks. Most times it paid off. When it didn’t he shrugged off the negative results easily.

If we have acquired any sense of social justice and fairplay as his children, we got that from our father. We inherited our values of kindness and empathy from our mother.

He never craved for creature comforts or fancy cars. However, he enjoyed a good drink of arrack or a beer in the evenings. For the last 30 years or so of his life he became a pescatarian, shunning meat.

He was not overly religious but he appreciated the philosophical teachings of the Buddha.

May he attain the supreme bliss of Nirvana.