It was a privilege to have been trained under this ‘surgeon for all seasons’

The demise in Australia of Prof. Chelvarayan Barr Kumarakulasinghe on May 13, saddened all of us who were his ‘Golayas’ and friends. ‘Barr- Kum’ to all of us, was ‘a man for all seasons’.

‘ Time’ to him was not staccato’d by mundane events such as eating schedules; he would hold forth on his erudite discussions with medical students. His meandering mind waded from the nuances of surgery, through social policy, to music and whatnot. His students enjoyed the ride, even with aching bellies. I remember once his wife ringing me, his Golaya, in the operating theatre (OT) in the wee hours of the morning trying to find the whereabouts of Barr Kum. Informing her that he had left the OT around 8 p.m. I stepped out of the OT to find him. As I went out to the compound I heard the characteristic laugh, almost a guffaw, from outside, where BarrKum and the anaesthetist Dr Kumar de Silva were in Barr’s car enjoying a joke and munching into a ‘thosai meal’ bought at Muslim Hotel!

Concerned about the downtrodden he would go to lengths to help. His patients enjoyed his kindness and competence. An insightful diagnostician with a sound decision-making ability, a surgical craftsman with immense natural ability, I was privileged to be trained by him in the late ‘60s.

That was a time when the Peradeniya Medical Faculty and Kandy were teeming with talent. The names of Senaka Bibile, Valentine Basnayake, T. Vargunam, Brian Seneviratne and Mark Amerasinghe come readily to mind. A piano is shifted into the Physiology Dept: Barr’s wife Nirmalini, a keyboard artiste in her own right, joined them to make music, the night air made melodious with their endeavours.

Academia was Barr Kum’s forte. Curiosity, innovation a natural gift. The youngest Professor of Surgery to grace this land; his talents so special to this country, pruned by the fell stroke of a mindless rabble, in the ’83 communal riots. His mother’s house in Mount Lavinia was set on fire, just because her close relation was the Leader of the Federal Party, Mr. Chelvanayagam. The country lost many consultants who were gifted, as many emigrated - Barr Kum and family left for Australia.

May his memory be etched indelibly in the annals of the surgical history of this land.