ONE - HUNDRED - AND - ONE NOT OUT
The Daya T. Pasqual Friendly Association has organised a get - together today to felicitate the former parliamentarian with his consent. His friends and relatives would attend the ceremony
The oldest politician in Sri Lanka, former Parliamentarian Daya T. Pasqual celebrates his 101st birthday today (09). Elected as MP for Matugama at the General Election in 1956 he retained his seat without a break till 1977 during which period he functioned as the deputy minister of several ministries. The former parliamentarian sitting in the verandah of his ancestral home at Neboda road is a familiar sight to the people of Matugama whom he represented for more than 35 years as a local government representative and also as a Member of Parliament.
Relating some of his experiences in the past, he said: “I have been a vegetarian and a teetotaler from my childhood. I was born on June 09, 1912. There were nine of us in the family. However two of them died very young.
“I entered primary
The oldest politician in Sri Lanka, former Parliamentarian Daya T. Pasqual was elected MP for Matugama at the General Election in 1956. He retained his seat without a break till 1977 during which period he functioned as the deputy minister of several ministries
school in 1918 and the Kotte Ananda Shastralaya in 1924 when Dr.E.W.Adikaram was its principal. I was destined to join the staff of the Ananda Shastralaya as a teacher after the completion of my studies there. Sri Lanka as a part of the British Empire had a fair share of the Second World War. Many of the schools in Colombo and its suburbs were closed in 1941 for security reasons after Colombo came under a Japanese bomb attack. It was then that I sought permission from Dr Adikaram to establish a branch of the Ananda Shastralaya in Matugama. Although he said it was not possible to run a fee-levying school in Matugama when there was a non-fee levying school established by Minister C.W.W.Kannangara he permitted me to begin the school.
“The strength of the school housed in a temporary hut in the temple grounds was nine students and one teacher. Later I shifted the school to a shed in our home garden and that was the origin of the Matugama Ananda Shastralaya which is now a national school.
“I was elected to the Horawala- DodangodaMatugama Village Council in 1943. I was elected its chairman in 1944. I successfully contested the Matugama seat in 1956 and polled the second highest majority at that election. I travelled by bus to Colombo to attend Parliament. When I missed the last bus, I walked from Kalutara to Matugama, a distance of about 12 miles. I never had meals at the parliamentary canteen where oriental dishes were not available.
“I am a healthy man at the age of 101. Many people nowadays are taking medicine regularly for various ailments. However, I have not even taken a paracetamol tablet. When the government changed in 1977, the defence secretary requested me to handover my firearm to the Matugama police and forward the receipt. I wrote them saying that I never used a fire arm and that my only belongings were my umbrella and my ballpoint pen which I would not handover under any circumstances.”