By Renton
de Alwis
The backdrop to this story is the ‘Senior Common
Room (SCR)’ of the Kaleniya University in the mid 1970’s. By the way, for those who may wonder what this strange
sounding place is, it was used to call what was then an ‘institution’, in the university glossary of terms. I wonder
if they continue to call it the same, now.
It was the place reserved for university
teachers to rest, read newspapers but refrain from talking about anything
serious. I must mention that there was very little fun in there. All the fun
was within the class rooms, tutorial classes, halls of residence, student’s canteen
and where some student groups met in secret. For a few of us, we also sought
regular fortnightly fun on the beaches of UK. Don’t get me wrong, my reference
is to the fun all day sessions we had, to discuss serious affairs with the
accompaniment of some undiluted toddy, a la Usswatekeiyawa style.
Yet, like the description I heard once
about the famous Orange Free State of South Africa, that said; “There are no
oranges here, it’s for sure not free and we are in a hell of a state,” there
was nothing ‘senior’ about the Senior Common Room. The cub lecturers we were
then, we also had license to be there.
There was nothing ‘common’ about it too, for that was reserved
exclusively for lecturers. Students and ‘minor’ employees, as they were
pathetically called then, were certainly not welcome in there. It was bigger
than any tutorial room I had seen, and given the use we put that into, I
wondered why we did not call it a lounge sans the glamour.
There was once a case in the Colombo University,
when a very senior don who was President of the Senior Common Room Committee
there, barred any other lecturer, except those from that university from
entering the SCR. That ban was a folly
and only lasted a few months.
Well! Getting back to my story, on this
day, a lecturer was reading a newspaper and his mind’s eye had caught on to a
story of a very serious road accident, that killed a few people. It was clearly
a case where preventive action, could have saved the loss of those lives and
being the good and kind soul he was (may his soul rest in peace and find the
eternal bliss of Nibbana), he exclaimed loudly for all of us in the room to
hear “Oh! No! prevention is always
better than Corray”. Note that our late
friend had got the pronunciation of the word ‘cure’ wrong, be it a mistake made
or a genuine ‘lapsus de langue’ i.e. a slip of the tongue.
But wait! The best is yet to come. Our
friend Dr. Cooray, a very senior don then, had heard this statement while being
engrossed in the pages of the newspaper he was reading and was quick to quip “I
say … who is this Prevention, who is better than ME, ” with a strong emphasis
on the me.
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