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| Sunday, 5 May 2002 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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The death of Gamarala Gamarala is dead. The old newspaper trooper who delighted 'Sunday Observer' readers from this space for several years adding a light touch to the political pontifications and heavy sermons on this page and its counterpart opposite wrote his own epitaph to a long life last week. Few newspaper readers, except those who are congenitally curious, would have known that it was D.B. Udalagama who took shelter behind the pseudonym of 'Gamarala'. That was a throwback to the days of journalistic anonymity fostered by early Ceylonese newspapers. This in turn was modelled on the tradition of English journalism. Udalagama who began life in that delightful heyday never lost his fondness for anonymity. And the choice of 'Gamarala' itself was no fad or a guilty urban scribe's homage to the peasantry. 'Udals' as he was known saw himself as the archetypal Gamarala among the sophisticates of urban journalism. A man born in the wilds of Maho he pictured himself essentially as a villager. Beginning life as the Kurunegala correspondent of the 'Daily News' he did several postings as a provincial correspondent before surrendering with the greatest reluctance to the lure of the neon lights. So it was that Gamarala arrived in the Big City. Although Udals started at the 'Daily News' his vintage period was at the old 'Times of Ceylon' where he retired as Assistant Editor. At the Times he held his own easily with the city slickers such as Tori de Souza, Felix Goonewardene and the rest. Perhaps it was this milieu of urban elegance which made him dress well for this Gamarala was no bucolic, betel-chewing creature. He went in for well-cut suits and sometimes over-flamboyant ties. Obviously the man from the village was determined to show the boys from the Big City that he could compete on their own turf. Gamarala originally appeared as a double-column at the foot of the Evening Times everyday. After he retired Udals wrote the same column for 'The Island' and until the other week to the 'Sunday Observer'. One day when I was editor, his column plopped on my table with an almost apologetic explanation of who he was. I phoned back to tell him that, of course, I knew him and that he was more than welcome to adorn our pages. As any regular reader would know the tone of the Gamarala column was an ironic chord of disbelief at the chicaneries of the political process and mind you this had been going on for years. With the worldly-wise tone of the village elder Gamarala would pretend to be bemused at the foibles and posturings of politicians and statesmen, and their absurdities and vanities. It was not only local Prime Ministers and Ministers who were grist to Gamarala's mills. Some recent columns took on both Tony Blair as well as British Royalty. After the death of his wife and the migration of his children D.B. Udalgama lived at the Bambalapitiya flats watching the passing scene and delighting our readers with his wry observations on men and matters. His was a life lived to the full and now no doubt he is in some well-deserved Valhalla somewhat in the manner of that Gamarala in the Sinhala folk-tale who ascended to heaven (and Udals, I know, will relish this final flourish) on the tail of an elephant. by Ajith Samaranayake |
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