Hewage appearing in a TV interview during his tenure as ambassador for Nepal
Halfway through my self-quarantine in Toronto, I was devastated to hear the death of an old friend, senior Sri Lankan civil servant and ambassador Thosapala Hewage.
Known as ‘Thosé’ among close friends, I was sharing a room with him in a boarding house in Punchi Borella, opposite Aquinas College in the early 70s.
Hewage, born to a farming family of ten siblings in rural Kalawana, was a beneficiary of the free education system. He had to trek miles to school barefoot. After studying in his village school, he won a scholarship to Pelmadulla Central and entered Peradeniya University to follow an arts degree and joined the People’s Bank after graduation. Hewage counted among his batch mates two greats of the Sri Lanka stage, Jayalath Manorathne, who passed away recently and Nissanka Diddeniya.
A leftist at heart, he was active in the heady days of trade union politics and was passionately involved in the banking strike, which was the longest in the Sri Lankan history.
I remember the days he crammed for the civil service exam at No. 1069, Punchi Borella, where we had a lovely time with many other office workers who shared the rooming house. A few of the people I remember are Sathyamoorthi and Ramasivam, the natives of Matale. Sathya worked for the Bank of Ceylon and Ram at the Ministry of Labour. Other paying guests were Dharmadasa of Badulla, an amateur bodybuilder who worked at the CTB, and a few other Tamil office workers from Jaffna.
Mr. L.S. Perera, a senior government clerical officer, owned the house. He had two daughters. One, Yamuna, is working as a doctor in England. Mr. Perera served as the ambassador to the Maldive Islands before his passing. The house does not exist anymore after the road broadening project along Borella Road.
I remember the adjoining Highland Undertakers, which also has disappeared, paving the way for modern commercial buildings. It was where Hewage and I watched shooting of a scene of the film Hara Lakshe Mankollaya.
Another incident I remember is accompanying Hewage to see LSSP politician Sarath Muththetuwegama, MP for his Kalawana electorate, who was recovering after a road accident. I also remember bumping into former minister V.A. Sugathadasa, recuperating in the Merchant Ward, who directed us to Muththetuwegama’s bed.
I fondly remember many nights we chatted and argued over bottles of arrack at the famous Borella watering hole with a French name, Hotel du Roi. We were not alone. Our friends from the rooming house and the government press, where I worked, too joined in the fun.
Hewage was an unusual name, and once I asked him how he came to acquire such a unique name. He said his father had rushed to an astrologer a few hours after his birth to consult about his birth time, and the oracle had given him four letters to be used as the name of the new-born: THA, SA, PA, LA.
His father had no hesitation in naming the boy Thosapala, using all the letters without even changing their positions. The name has a meaning: Ruler of Happiness.
He is indeed a ruler par excellence, judging by his sterling track record and his meteoric rise as a top civil servant. He joined the Sri Lankan administrative service in 1973.
Hewage worked at grass root levels as a district land officer in rural Moneragala and Rajangana, very similar to the pastoral landscape he grew up as a barefoot school kid. Later he rose to the post of Assistant Land Commissioner in the Land Commissioners Department, Deputy Director in the Ministry of Lands and Land Development, Director, Forestry Planning and Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Forestry and Environment, Secretary to the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, Secretary, Urban Development and Water Supply, Secretary, Enterprise Development and Investment Promotion, Secretary, Ports and Aviation. He capped his prolific public career of 43 years as the Ambassador to Nepal.
He earned a Postgraduate Diploma in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge and a Master of Philosophy from the University of Wales. The University of Idaho, conferred him another Post Degree Certificate in Land Use Planning in Natural Resource Management. In his career, he travelled to more than forty countries as a member of various government delegations.
Sorry, ‘Thosé’ we, kids coming from rural schools, drifted apart on our separate paths and our contacts since the Borella days were minimal.
I have checked on the internet where you will rest and happy to note the tranquil, pastoral surrounding of Auckland Memorial Park in New Zealand. It may stand in for rural Kalawana where you passed forests and rivers in your trek to the school every morning, rain or shine. Your hard work, humility, humanitarian approach helping the luckless in remote areas, and dedication to serving the nation in the best possible manner paid off. Very few public servants have achieved the heights you scaled in the civil service hierarchy.
So long ‘Thosé’. I am blessed to know you and call you a friend during the struggling days of our early lives, just out of our teens. Rest in Peace my friend and may your journey through Samsara be brief. – Somasiri Munasinghe
