Clean up op, her mission

The first woman head of the Public Trustee Department, Attorney Tharangani Keenawinna Disanayake talks to Kumudini Hettiarachchi

Do the ‘right’ thing! Throughout the ceremony to mark the assumption of duty by the new Public Trustee on Wednesday, this is the message that was resonating over and over again……and this is what the new incumbent is determined to do.

There is no ambiguity and her convictions are obvious, when we meet Attorney Tharangani Keenawinna Disanayake the next day, the first woman to head this august department established in 1929. The Public Trustee Ordinance No. 1 had been passed just seven years short of a hundred, back in 1922.

Numerous are the congratulatory calls, while the Sunday Times interview is on, which she deals with cordiality and gentleness belying, however, a firmness which comes to the fore when one wellwisher attempts to digress to issues about property.

“Mata anunge depala walata thanhava ne,” says Mrs. Keenawinna Disanayake in no uncertain terms, adding that she is not avaricious for others’ property. “Neither do I have thanhava even for my own,” she says, seated in her office on the upper floor of No. 2, Buller’s Lane, Colombo 7 -- a legacy from none other than educationist and statesman Sir Don Baron Jayatilaka.

Legacies are what we talk about after reticence is her answer when we query about the not-so-good reputation of the department highlighted in the media a few years ago. There is unspoken assurance that the clean-up urged at her welcoming ceremony will see the light of day during her time at the helm, for misuse of public money is anathema to her. (See box for the duties of the Public Trustee)

Only in passing is it mentioned that even for the ‘official’ ceremony when she took over on Wednesday, all the funds for the chairs, the food and the flowers came from her own pocket.

It is to her wonderful childhood as the youngest of eight siblings, her school- teachers’ influence and her seniors’ guidance that she returns to explain how she has been on the straight and narrow path, the principles of which she hopes to uphold at the department.

Cherished she had been as the youngest daughter of Francis and Dingiri Menike Keenawinna, living an idyllic life “getting priority” from everyone including her older siblings, five brothers and two sisters, who adored her in their home in Yakkala. While her brothers would give her special treatment, her sisters treated her like a doll, stitching little frocks and dressing her up.

Her father was one of the last of the Village Headmen, before that post was abolished and it is in tribute to his integrity and honesty that she has taken on a double-surname, her Thaththa’s Keenawinna as well as her husband’s Disanayake. “Thaththa was very straightforward and also helpful to all. He was credited as the ‘ gama hadapu ekkena’,” she says with emotion, adding that Amma was also a good role model. Both her parents are no more.