It’s not even mid December yet and I’m already getting in to the Roy-Tho mood!! With the Roy-Tho looking for sponsors, guess I got involved sooner I suppose. For some reason or the other you just can’t beat this feeling. I guess, like most that attended either school, I too lead a sorry life and gets excited over a “bloody cricket match” played between two schools!!! Fools watching fools in flannels. Those of you, who don’t understand, don’t even try. We are just retarded. It’s as simple as that.
I’m not going to write about some big match that happened long time ago or about a scintillating inning played by some fool. The year was 1996. My last year in college. Initial pledge was to start studing for A’ Levels from the first of Jan and then take a break during March and start again after the Mustangs Trophy. My plan went as far as my plan. Cricket World Cup happened, Roy-Tho was played, rugby season came a long. You wouldn’t believe the events you have to attend in you final year at college!!! Thank god some smart blighter decided to sabotage the Electricity Board and the exam was postponed by a month. First instance I started believing in God.
Anyway as I started, the year was 1996. At Tuesdays special assembly, Warden W.M.N De Alwis appointed the cricket captain as a college prefect and issued a death warrant against all who would be breaking the law in the next couple of days. The threat was remembered till around 10.00am. Approximately till 5 minutes after assembly was over. Come Wednesday morning a small crowd of around 120 creatures clad in different shades of blue and black meet on top of Orbanside Street Dehiwala. Trying hard to look as inconspicuous as possible. However war paint made us stand out like…….
We wait a good 45 minutes for our ride. A C.T.B half bus!!! Don’t even ask how we got a C.T.B bus to go trucking. Somebody can still go to jail for that!! How 50 teenage boys, 6 members of a papare band, a driver and a conductor fitted in to a 45 seat mini bus still don’t fail to amaze me!!
So we make our way in to Colombo and girls schools. First stop, Bishops College. Of course. This school always made me feel privileged. The only girls’ school in Colombo a boy was allowed to just walk in to, as long as he had either blue, gold or black war paint on him. Structured classrooms, obliging teachers and generous students. That’s like, a hat collecting Thomians wet dream!! Except for one social studies master who didn’t know the secan but was soon taught, everything was a rewarding experience. Your truily and Amila, the opening fast bowler the next day, takes up the challenge of conducting the year 11 history lesion as the teacher was not available. History always fascinated me!!
We exit as peacefully was we entered, passing the Double-Decker bus. Ah, that bus. I am yet to come across a Thomian who has not given thanks and prays to that bus. I love that bus. Next stop St. Bridgets Convent. I remember SBC now with more affection than then. High gates, higher walls (with spikes, what purpose they serve at such an altitude one fails to comprehend) and young security guards. One girls school which didn’t believe in hiring sweet retired old men. All of us generally charge the gate when we sense hostility. In the cheos that follows, a handful will penetrate the forward defense lines of any security measurement. Somehow the gates withstood the force of the blue army. Yours truly and the now infamous Malaka Silva climb the penitentiary like wall. Hurray! Penetration successful. Now we will attack from both sides. Unfortunately the wiseasses on the other side decide the effort was not worthwhile. Now we were prisoners of war. Shit. I fail to remember how but we somehow get on top of the 12 feet high wall. Jumping off it to the tar pavement is another story all together. To add to the agony Malakas’ t-shirt gets caught on one of the spikes. He yells at me to let go. I tell him that I’m not holding on. He threatens to jump. I ask him to fuck off. The next sight haunts me to this day. Malaka bare bodied running to the mercy of the bus while his t-shirt hangs on one of the wall spikes at SBC!!!
We go all the way down to the beach just to get in to Methodist College. Here I end up taking an English class but gets shooed away by the teacher who arrives late. I exit the class by writing down Umeshs’ home number for those who want private tuition. Sadly that never got us anywhere. The most chaotic was HFC Bambalapitiya. It was the mid day break. And when a horde of boys invade a girls school at a time like that, you wouldn’t believe the amount of Chinese rolls one gets to eat!! The most outrageous moment was when Sister Maxine (who’s name we got to know later) pointing to the gate and asking us to “Get out” and Nishantha “Willa” Wickramasinghe taking her hand and kissing it!!! I could have died laughing. Good thing we turned heel and ran or else I would be still at HFC laughing.
Come 1.30pm we end up at Ladies College. Another girl’s school I love in Colombo. Whoever who said that walls were built to be jumped over, built that wall. A Nissan Hilux with the most infamous of the Chikera boys in it enter the school. If he knew the ordeal he had to face, he wouldn’t have mooned Ladies College with his rugby jersey on!!..............................
