Untold story of a first-class academic, gifted musician and jovial and dear friend
“Thadiya”. I was a bit of a bully, taking unfair advantage of my Sinhala vocabulary, but Rajeewa never gave in.
After the GCE O/Levels, Rajeewa joined the Arts stream and I joined the Commerce stream. We were in adjoining classrooms. We spent as much time together as we could, laughing through the day. Not a day went by without a joke. We spent our entire pocket money on “godamba rotties” at the tuck shop.
In the Commerce class we sang songs, this time with a real guitar, owned by me. Rajeewa did a show with Srinath Chandrasekara, now a medical professor, and Shane Wanigasekara, the rugby legend of Lemuel House. The show was a huge success. We were fanatical fans of the Lionel Richie album “Hello”.
After our A/Levels, we went our different ways – Rajeewa on an academic career and me on a banking career. We didn’t meet for years, but I remember Rajeewa coming to hear me play in the band Dreams during a gettogether at the Commercial Bank, Kandy, in the early ’90s.
Life has it that best friends will meet once again towards the end of their lives. Rajeewa came into my life again in 2009, after we met on Facebook. He visited my home in Homagama. The last time we had met was 13 years earlier, in 1996. The photos we took that day are still on Facebook. Many of our friends have commented on the pictures. Rajeewa was a hardcore Facebook fan. I joked that he was Sri Lanka’s No. 1 FB addict. He became very close to me and my wife Nimali and we met at every Bradby thereafter, followed by the Bradby Ball, where the Batch of ’85 meets every year.
In 2012, Rajeewa came to me with a request for a sponsorship from my bank for a lifelong dream of his. The event was a musical show titled “Rajeewa J Live in Concert – An Untold Story of the Music of ’80s. The show featured highlights from Rajeewa’s music career, with ’80s songs, backed by the evergreen Hezonites.
A musician myself, I was amazed by Rajeewa’s talent and the ease with which he sang all those hits of the ’80s. The concert was held at the Old Trinitians’ Sports Club, in Asgiriya. In the audience were his loving parents and family. Rajeewa was a long-time member of the Club and ended as its Secretary. It gave me tremendous satisfaction that my Bank had sponsored this great show by a truly talented singer.
That above show was not his last wish in life, although it was his last realised wish. His last wish was to reduce his bulk, which had bothered him from the days we went running around in the Trinity Junior School.
He may have been heavy, but he always looked smart. Rajeewa dressed well, although his size in clothes was not easy to find. He made a point of being on a par with the others when it came to clothes and smart appearances. Losing weight was his ultimate wish, at the age of 46.
I visited him on the morning of the operation. As always, we joked around. I wished him good luck, but Rajeewa’s luck had run out. The operation that would help him slim down proved fatal, and Rajeewa left us without saying goodbye.
For me, Rajeewa will remain the jovial little schoolboy of Trinity Junior School, running around with me wearing his dark-blue shorts, baggy white shirt, and brown Bata Super Star shoes.
He was one of my best friends ever. May he attain Nirvana.
Naleen Edirisinghe