Prof. Sudarshan Seneviratne, the eminent archaeologist and Ruwan Senadheera, former Lake House Librarian.
Sudharshan Seneviratne and my brother Ruwan Senadheera became friends from the moment they met in kindergarten at Ananda College. I could never comprehend this because their personalities were so different.
Sudharshan was thoughtful, calm, hardworking, a great listener and a massive achiever. He was armed with a PhD, was a brilliant professor at the University of Peradeniya, headed up the Department of Archaeology where he was instrumental in making some of the greatest archaeological discoveries and putting Sri Lanka on the world map. He then did stints as High Commissioner to India and Bangladesh.
Accolades did come Ruwan’s way too – from getting terrific grades at school to being the first international student to become the President of Delhi School of Sociology at the University of Delhi, to joining the US Library of Congress in India as South Asia Publications Head. But Ruwan was also a rebel, he defied authority and challenged socially accepted norms of tradition and behaviour. He made his own rules.
In Sudharshan’s words, “There are fables of Ruwan at Ananda College about how he swam in the opposite direction as the norm”. While Ruwan was perpetually in the permanent opposition, Sudharshan was achieving endlessly at school – from becoming head prefect to captaining the Rugby team. Just two achievements out of many.
But as I got older, I realised what brought Ruwan and Sudharshan together were their brilliant minds, their in-depth knowledge, how they challenged ideas, and their outstanding skill in working a room. Sudharshan did it in the lecture halls – students were drawn to his classes. Ruwan did it as an activist. Crowds were attracted to his protests.
Unfortunately, they also had something else in common. They had kidney disease. While Sudharshan looked after himself, ate all the right food, and went for regular check-ups. Ruwan rebelled –he enjoyed his cigarettes, his scotch and basically tried to impart his extensive knowledge about this horrendous disease to the nurses and doctors and dismissed their advice. Ruwan and Sudharshan died a year apart.
Sudharshan’s eulogy to Ruwan in 2022 read something like this: “Ruwan was brilliant, exciting, often unpredictable in a funny way, always helpful, stood firmly for the unprivileged and did not give a damn for authority. He lived for the day and was almost oblivious of tomorrow. All these made me love him as a friend and a very dependable brother”.
One of Sudharshan’s stories about Ruwan goes like this: “At the GCE (O/L)s, we shared the same class. What glorious days of freedom. It was also our initiation to adolescence taking on the world. Our class was known as Siberia.
Students who were not smart scientists were dumped there, which was the Arts class. That class gave us a social education, character and identity. We defied the accepted rules of the school. Ruwan strategically sat in the last row and his mind perpetually hatching plots and the next action plan unleashing tremors that shook the school. He originated ideas and the rest of us executed the plan with precision. Some indeed were diabolic.”
Their friendship continued into Delhi University days. This is when Sudharshan came to live in India. I was 12 years younger than them and immediately bonded with Sudharshan. He called me “nangi” and my parents “amma” and “thata”. My actual brothers (I had four) would tease and annoy me, but Sudharshan would have proper conversations with me, would actually do my school homework for me if I pleaded, taught me to eat with a fork and knife, and often rescued me if I was getting into trouble from my parents.
In spite of this I was still that annoying younger sister to Sudharshan. I’d invade his books and drawers when he wasn’t at home – just for the heck of it or because I was bored. One day I came across a photo of a beautiful young woman – signed With all my love Harsha.
I announced to the family that evening that Sudharshan aiya had a girlfriend. No one really paid attention to what I said, and my mother told me to mind my own business. But of course, I had to know everything about Harsha akka and asked Sudharshan a million questions. Looking back, it must have been incredibly irritating for Sudharshan.
Their engagement took place in Sri Lanka – one of the most magical events I have been to. I recall it to this day. Harsha’s house was lit up with beautiful tea lights in the garden and she looked a million bucks on the day. They made a gorgeous couple. Harsha later came to live in New Delhi. She became my role model.
Harsha’s dress sense was impeccable – fabulous bell bottoms, long gorgeous hair, big sunglasses and fashionable shirts.
Not only that – she was an excellent cook and hosted wonderful dinner parties in their little room at Jawaharlal Nehru University hostel. Long conversations took place between Sudharshan, Harsha, Ruwan and the rest of the family till late hours into the night. I didn’t really care because the food was so scrumptious. They remain great memories.
We then lost touch – I moved to Sri Lanka and then Australia and over the years, Sudharshan lived in Peradeniya and then in the US. But in the past few years we started communicating via email, and this was when I mentioned that I was doing a television program about Buddhism in Sri Lanka and asked if I could interview him. Everything Sudharshan touches turns to gold – and it was a brilliant interview. Sudharshan told the stories of Buddhism so effortlessly and with such eloquence.
Buddhism, he said, “is designated as a non-violent ethos, compassion, understanding, reaching out to people and treating people equally”. The story explored how bhikkhus have strong voices in Sri Lanka as they belong to the prominent religion in the country – the powerful voices of bhikkhus from the BBS, to the meditating bhikkhus in the forests, who send calm and soothing messages to the people, to the bhikkhus in the city – “the bhikkhus who live in the forest, who leave everything behind.
They often live under trees or in caves and the island is dotted with thousands of such caves. They are the bhikkhus who are pious and interact with the village people. And there is the urban structure – more cosmopolitan.
Bhikkhus who live in monasteries and their relationship often is with the city dwellers”. Words just come easy to Sudharshan, and the program was a hit with Australian audiences. He, of course, was a true scholar.
Sudarshan has now called it a day in his mortal life, and Ruwan will be waiting for him with dishevelled hair, cigarette in the corner of his mouth and a glass of scotch in his hand where the rebel will tell his friend about the next plot he is hatching.
Rest in peace dear brother as you enter the Samsaric journey.
–Muditha Dias, formerly of the Daily News. The writer is Editor of the Religion and Ethics unit at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Sydney. She interviewed Sudarshan for the Compass episode ‘Sri Lanka: Hoping for Harmony’.
