The word Serendipity means unexpected blessing and unsought for
gifts. The word was coined in 1754 by Horace Walpole. In a letter
to his friend, Sir Horace Mann, Walpole wrote that he found a
Persian fairy tale about three princes in Serendip (the ancient name
for Sri Lanka) . The princes happened to come across unexpected
gifts and fortunes and valuable things not sought for. Such things
happen occasionally to many of us. Sometimes the events start with
the appearance of calamity and we may not recognize that pleasant
surprises are on the way. Let me quote some personal experiences.
I was in Nikaweratiya forest in Sri Lanka inspecting fence posts
for use in one of the livestock farms. When I finished the work, the
sun was setting. I hastened on my bicycle along a wild animals
track under a canopy-like covering in the forest. I had to go
about five miles to get on to a human foot path and another five
miles to reach the road. After going about two miles, I
encountered a herd of elephants. Immediately I back tracked and
tried to find another trail to get away but could not find any. The
only route was the one blocked by the elephants.
Hoping the elephants would move off, I waited. It was getting dark
and I had only a three-cell torch for light. Luckily for me, a herd
of water buffaloes came along. I moved aside, allowed them to pass,
then followed them with the assurance that they would warn me of
the elephants. Fortunately for me, the elephants had moved off and
the buffaloes went along and I along with them until we got out of
the heavy forest. I could ride my bicycle and leave the
buffaloes. It was pure serendipity that the buffaloes came along
when I was in a predicament.
During the 1956 racial riots in Sri Lanka, I was caught up in
another dangerous situation. The racial riot started because the
Government of Sri Lanka cleared about 100,000 acres of forest land
in Batticaloa, a Tamil district.
D.S.Senanayake, the then prime minister, constructed a dam across
the Gal Oya river and created a 35 square mile lake to irrigate this
land and convert it into paddy fields. The government distributed
the newly cleared land to Singhalese peasants from the south. Each
family got two acres of dry land and three acres of wet land. In
the beginning, the settlers occupied the upper valley. Later they
were given lands in the lower valley, adjacent to the Tamil
villages. The Tamils objected to their land being given to
Singhalese. This created friction between the Tamils and Singhalese
living in the valley. The Singhalese majority with a Singhalese
government and Prime Minister felt that they were superior.
In the Gal Oya Valley the Tamils were the majority. So they
thought they were more powerful. Small discords between individuals
spread to groups and it flared up into an uprising against the Tamils
in the Gal Oya Valley.
At this time, I was the veterinarian in charge of livestock
development for the Gal Oya valley. I wanted to duplicate the work I
had done in Chilaw-Puttlam Districts to improve livestock there
before I moved to Gal Oya.. That earned me meritorious citizenship. I
wanted to make the Gal Oya valley a showplace of livestock
development. As part of this program, I supervised the distribution
of dairy cows, draft bulls for plough, and exotic poultry by the Gal
Oya Board. So I was liked by all colonists.
Simon is a common name among the Singhalese. Therefore the Tamils
thought that I was a Singhalese. But I could not speak the Singhalese
language fluently. Therefore the Singhalese thought that I was Tamil.
Thus, I was the target from both groups but more so by the
Singhalese when there was a racial conflict.
During the riot, Singhalese mobs wandered the district looking for
Tamils in the neighborhood of Uhana, a center for Singhalese
colonists. My residence was in an isolated area about ten miles
away from Uhana. My friend, Mr. Thomas, the office administrator,
thought it unsafe for me and my family to stay in that isolated
area. So my wife and I with our four children moved in with him and
his family in the Singhalese center at Uhana village.
The rioting continued for a few days. One evening, we saw a Tamil
man about 500 yards away being beaten by a crowd of Singhalese. We
came to know that the mob wanted to search the houses of Singhalese
officers for harboring Tamil officers. At nightfall, we received
news that a crowd of about 200 Singhalese people were coming
towards our house to see who the guests of Thomas' were. That meant
danger for us.
Knowing that mob behavior is unpredictable, I walked out by the
back door and asked my wife and children to follow me into the
jungle at the back of the house. I run out towards the forest in the
back of the house. During my blind hurry in the dark, I fell into
a ditch, hurt my leg, and could not get up. That was my luck. a
serendipity.
Before the children could clear the compound, the crowd surrounded
the house and my wife and children were taken captives.
Fortunately for us, the leader of the group happened to be one whose
son I had saved a few months earlier from drowning in a lake. He
recognized my wife and told the crowd how I risked my life to save
his son and he made the crowd disburse.
After awhile, when the crowd went away, Thomas came in search of
me, and helped me to get back into the house. The next morning I
found the crowd gathering and I concluded it was unsafe to stay in
the village. I decided we should make a dash for safety before the
crowd became very large, because at any moment the mood of the
crowd could change. I was endangering the lives of my hosts and
our own.
The roads were crowded with roaming Singhalese searching for
escaping Tamils. I was afraid that if I was caught driving in the
direction of the Tamil villages we may be caught, assaulted and
even killed. However, we had to escape because the situation was
getting worse. I got my family in the Gal Oya Land Rover, given to
me for my use, put the blinds down to avoid being identified and
got ready for a dash to escape.
I had to go through the crowded road. I drove slowly with
determination to go through the crowd at a steady, slow speed
giving time for the unwilling mass to move and give room. The crowd
moved and we were out of the village. Still I had to go about 15
miles to reach the safety of the Muslim village across a river. I
drove as fast as I could. We safely reached the river and I left the
rover as arranged, took my family across the river in a canoe and
settled them in the house of a Muslim friend.
There were three Singhalese men in the Muslim village who were
afraid for their lives from Tamil marauders. They begged me to save
them and transport them to Uhana. They were in the same predicament
in this Muslim village as I was in the Singhalese village. I agreed
to take them within a mile or two of Uhana if there was no crowd on
the road. Otherwise I would drop them where I felt unsafe and they
would have to find their way back to Uhana.
I managed to come close to Uhana from where they could walk into the
village. There was no crowd on the road. On my return trip, when I
was about five miles away from Uhana, I saw dust rising from a
section of the road and realized that a lorry was coming from the
opposite side. Not wanting to be caught in a narrow part of the road
where the two vehicles could not pass each other, I spotted a wide
area where I would not be blocked by the lorry, stopped and waited
for the lorry to come.
Seeing the dust raised by my land rover, the lorry driver stopped,
evidently to block the road, and waited. A while after the dust
subsided, the lorry came forward to investigate. When the lorry saw
the rover, he stopped to block my track. On the lorry was a large
group of men armed with rifles, machetes, and clubs. By a commanding
wave of my hand I ordered the driver to move out of my way. My
gesture was so forceful that the driver moved the lorry to the side
and I drove off with a cheer i o-wave. The driver did not get a good
look at me to ascertain wether I was a Tamil or Singhalese driving
the Gal Oya land rover. So he turned around and followed me but I
drove so fast that the lorry could not catch up and abandoned the
chase.
From the Muslim village we went over to Batticaloa and stayed there
for about a month until the rebellion settled. My escape from Gal Oya
was an episode of daring, uncertainties and luck. However this was
the best thing that happened because it forced me to leave Sri Lanka.
I searched the world over for opportunities to migrate.
During this time, Dr. Evans Hardy of Saskatoon was working in Gal
Oya as the FAO representative in assisting the Gal Oya Board to
start a Technical Training Institute. One day, we happened to meet
on a narrow bund of an irrigation canal where the vehicles could not
pass each other. I backed my vehicle a few hundred yards and gave
room for Dr. Hardy to go by. Thereafter, we had many opportunities
to meet and discuss professional matters. We became good friends and
I discussed my future plans with him. When I told him that I would
like to go for higher studies to Canada, he immediately wrote a
letter to his friend Dr. Stan Wood at the University of British
Columbia requesting him to help me. In that letter, he described me
as an industrious person and ended the letter with the remark "Simon
will be an asset to Canada." He gave me a copy of this letter. This
pleasantly surprised me and I immediately wrote to Dr. K.F. Wells,
Veterinary Director General, Department of Agriculture, Health of
Animals, Ottawa. for employment as veterinarian. Dr. Hardy was
known to Dr. Wells. When he saw such a compliment from Dr. Hardy,
he was impressed and lost no time to get me recruited. He sent me
a Civil service application to fill in and send to him. He forwarded
it to the Civil Service Commission and I was selected. He asked me
to join duty immediately. This was in May 1956.
But I could not leave without a substitute veterinarian for the
Gal Oya Board and in addition I had to move my family from Gal
Oya Valley to some safe place in Sri Lanka. So I needed time and
wrote back that I would report for duty in May 1957, a year from
then, requesting that the vacancy be kept open. Dr. Wells was good
enough to do me that favour. Thus my agony and troubles ended as a
serendipity.
________________________________________________________
Resource Box:
Dr. Simon is a retired research microbiologist, philanthropist and
author of two books, The Philosopher's Notebook and The Missing Piece
to Paradise. Visit his website at
http://www.interchange.ubc.ca/psimon/book2.htm
