From student days to specialist, he was an inspiration to all

We met in a school in Negombo for the first time not being aware that we were related by marriage. This was a time when English reigned supreme. Not coming from an English speaking family and equipped with only a little fluency in the language, I used to admire his manner of speaking the King’s language. That was in 1945 when we were fellow students in the fifth standard.

There were the three of us Wilfred Jayasuriya, Carlo Fonseka and I performing well in the term tests in that order although in the final government examination the order changed to the reverse order as in the Biblical aphorism that the first shall be last and last first. Upto the time of Carlo’s demise on September 2 only the three of us remained in Sri Lanka as almost every one else in that class of 30 students led by that deeply religious teacher Leonard Obris had passed away from our midst. One of the other two old timers is the playwright Ernest McIntyre living Down Under and the other Lionel Abeysekera, a food technologist, living in Canada.

Due to Carlo’s skill as an elocutionist he was the class representative in the school’s elocution contest.

Carlo was the eldest in a family of four boys, two of whom became medical doctors. His father was an Apothecarist in private practice after retiring from the government service.

In the following year, 1946, the two of us met at St.Joseph’s College in Maradana while Wilfred joined us a few years later. In the fullness of time we joined the University, me one year earlier to the Arts Faculty and Carlo to the

Medical Faculty having performed brilliantly in the two biology subjects. Medical students at that time had to spend one year in the Science Faculty in Colombo. Being intellectually and culturally a multi faceted persona, Carlo formed a close association with the Professor of Mathematics, the versatile Douglas de S. Amerasekera which could have disrupted his smooth educational career. Carlo rounded up his medical studies by earning a first class in the final examination in 1959/1960.

Soon after his internship in the General Hospital he joined the Colombo Medical Faculty from where he proceeded to Edinburgh for a higher research degree which he secured doing research on, if I am not mistaken, the functioning of the pancreas.

He was a Marxist by conviction from his schooldays and a card holding member of the LSSP. The Rector, Fr Peter Pillai was aware of his Marxist affiliations but he did not punish Carlo the way he punished Carlo’s classmate and kinsman, the late Oscar Panditharatne by throwing the latter out of the school boarding.

As an honest Specialist medical practitioner he did not earn money to enrich himself. In fact he treated the patients who sought his help free many coming from his hometown Divulapitya. He was honest to a degree that it became an irritant to his fellow specialists as was evident from the confession he wrote as an article published in the newspapers titled “To err was fatal”. I understand that this piece was published in the British Medical Journal. Even in the matter of the death of the Ven. Sobitha Thera Carlo’s expiatory piece published in the Island drew an inquisitorial response from some specialists.

He had his other lay detractors. Someone wrote to the media about alleged illicit earnings in a European country to which he responded satisfactorily in defence. Then he had a running intellectual battle with another Professor of Mathematics on both matters of science and culture.With respect to this feud in an article published in the Island I compared the two intellectuals to Plato and Aristotle. As a rationalist and anti-superstition promoter/propagandist, Carlo had received many challenges and threats from charlatans for their hocus pocus only to be quickly and devastatingly exorcised and their mumbo jumbo demystified by him. As Dr. B.J.C. de Silva mentioned in his appreciation of Carlo published in the Saturday’s issue he could explain intricate scientific matters in simple language. This is what the Nobel Laureate Feynman had said to the effect that if a teacher could not explain a difficult concept in simple terms then he has not understood the matter himself.

Carlo was the first of that trio of schoolboys of 1945 to earn a doctorate while Wilfred was the second to do so on a subject related to English literature and I the last, writing on finance.

One of the unexpected exhilarating honours thrust on Carlo could be the invitation he received to preside at the annual prize giving in his old Catholic school, St Joseph’s College where under strict orthodox Catholic tradition a Marxist would not have been welcome. This was many years after the time of the rectorship of Fr. Peter Pillai.

At one time, after his retirement, he wore three hats concurrently as the head of three public institutions, the Sri Lanka Medical Council, the Arts Council and the National Narcotics and Tobacco Control Board. This was, indeed, a rare achievement for a medical professional.

The last occasion I met him was when he visited me at my home in Pelawatte, Battaramulla about four years ago to hand over his autobiography, Essays of a Lifetime, to me. In turn I had the privilege of giving over my book written on public finance. About a year ago I sent him by post another book of mine, “The Story of Chemistry”, a bilingual publication meant for the general reader in the cause of popularization of science, to which Carlo made a great contribution throughout his professional career.

Dear friend, let me end with the words of Virgil, the poet, suitably changed ‘Dulce et decorum estcorpus suum pro scolatradere’.(It is sweet and fitting to give one’s body to the school)

Requiescat in pace (May he rest in peace)

Leo Fernando