Have I told you the story of P & C ?

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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