Response to the publication of the book " Remembered Vignettes"

Dear Philip
It was quite nostalgic reading your book the copy I received thanks to Daya,it brought back vivid memories of College days,I suppose we Bridgatians were quite loudspken (as mentioned by Kappa). Although almost 50 years has passed since we entered for Medicine  reading your book  was quite an experiance, a flash back in time. It was interesting to read about your family. My husband Wickrama a Mechanical Engineer is now retired. I still work as a solo GP we Sri Lankan Australians do not seem to retire like our colleagues overseas.
We have a son a Consultant  Nuclear physician & Oncologist he is engaged to a trainee Radiologist. Our daughter is the Legal counsel to a large company  & is married to an Australian, she has gifted us with a delightful granddaughter  our pride &joy.
Regards to you & your family
Soma Muniratne
(General Practitioner, Australia)

dear Philip,
thanks for the books.I found it very absorbing. Didn't put it down till I read it from cover to cover. One or two factual errors I noticed. The one with the motor bike was sellaraja and not his cousin sellaturay.
The book was not meant to be a who's who of the 300, hence I would not wholly agree with Dawoods comments. I understand that some peope may want to get in touch with some long lost colleagues,as most of us getting on!. may be you could help with email addresses that you may have.
sara (20/5/2008)

(Dr.Sarawanamuththu, UK)

Hello Philip,
Thanks very much for the book. I am reading it at the moment. It's very enjoyable. The address I have for Sadiq is
Mohamed Sadiq
41 Egerton Gate, Shenley Brookend, Milton Keynes
MK5 7HH, U.K.
 Following up on what Dawood has said, I would suggest that we each email to you a short article on what we are doing at the moment as regards work and other interests with some information on our family situation. A second book with this information plus some anecdotes could result in a further publication under a title such as "Where are they now."  Alternately, the information could be circulated through Email.
Thanks again to you and Kappa for the marvellous job you have done.
Buddy

Dear Philip,

Thank uou very much for the "Miracle Cure", which I shall pass on. Thanks also your excellent book which I hope to complete reading at the week end. Trust you are keeping well.

All the Best

Subba

(Dr Subasinghe, USA)

The book is v interesting and my wife felt neglected as i was totally absorbed. I thought Rajasuriya was the last person i would have selected to work.  He hated my sight and i was repeated and fired many times. This is in spite of me being a sinhala buddhist who even wore torn old clothes for his appointment. I can guess the girl who tossed the coin with you. Where did she end up? I feared his sight so much, even after becoming a gynaecologist  in Melb i saw him in GHC and i hooked. Daya J.

Dear Philip’

I am so sorry for the delay in writing to you. As I wrote to you earlier .we are now in Macau and come to Hongkong sometimes during the weekends. So came here last night and the books have arrived. Thank you very much. I have just glanced through and it’s brilliant. I have already srarted reading it takes you back to the good old days at medical college and brings back so many memories. You all have done a wonderful job and congatulations to you and Tissa. I have just written to Tissa as I am having problems sending the money through PayPal. I am in HK this week and I will send it as soon as I receive his reply.

 Thanks and Best Wishes

Devi

Dear Philip,

I received the 4 copies of your book that I ordered. Thank you.

I find it engaging reading and it brings back nostalgic memories of that sweet-sour time of our lives that is gone for ever.

I am no literary critic, but I find the style free flowing and easy to read.

All credit to you for this worthy venture and congratulations for getting it out in book form.

Our warm regards to Ramya and the girls and their families.

Sena. (Dr Senaratne – Psychiatrist Australia)

Dear Philip

I got your book (2) you sent me in the post just a couple of days.  I enjoyed reading your book very much. It must be an enormous task to select the contents of a book to make it readable and liked by the reader.  You have got it just about right.

I imagine you may have got some of those factual and anecdotal details from some of our contemporaries.  Tissa and Karals have made some valuable contributions but the major input appear to have come from you.  The contents are very appropriately selected; the presentation is simple, lucid, full of humour and absorbing.

To my recollection, this may be 1^st of its kind by any of the batches in the medical college history in Sri Lanka. Congratulations and well done.

I am very impressed by the detailed and accurate descriptions of the past- even to the extent of the ‘colour’ and the ‘make’ of the respective motor bikes and the cars. I am fascinated as to how you recollect such details so vividly and with such intimacy and affection.

As a direct 1^st MB entrant to the medical college from an outstation school, I hardly knew anyone in the 1^st year. Ever so busy weekly academic programme and the  environment was totally alien and daunting to me.  But as the years passed by, I came to know quite a number of our batch mates reasonably well. But what you have written about some of our batch mates is ‘fascinating news’ to me.

I read the entire book with great interest. It is indeed a wonderful flash back to reflect and remember with great admiration and respect most of our teachers who managed to  dispel  our ignorance and darkness around us at the time, and  guided  us in the right direction to be useful professionals across the world where ever you may be.  Many of us would have similar anecdotes and we should be able to share those and  laugh our hearts out now.

I have very few  comments to make on your book.

1.       You have covered most of the clinical professors in a fitting way.  I would have liked

to see professor C.C.De Silva (professor of paediatrics) and prof. R.P.Jayawardena also being included amongst the clinical professors of distinction in your list.

2.       Amongst the hospital consultants we may have varied  opinions about some of them depending on how intimate we developed our professional relationship.  Dr. Atygalle was also one of those able and popular physicians worthy of mention.

3.       You have very admirably, shared our grief and the untimely  loss of few of our batch mates who died ‘prematurely’.  As you have highlighted the 2 ‘forms of death’ for all of us, it would be useful  if we could mention at least by name of all those batch mates (total of 26 up to now I believe) who passed away but we remember them with gratitude.

When I was reading the book, I was able to relive all those happy memories with fondness, relish and joy. I would like to echo what one of our batch mates (Dawood) told me very recently “ many of us would like to reach out to those who shared and enriched our early years at the medical college and reconnect, hoping to relive and reminisce those memories of affectionate camaraderie”.

Best wishes

Nana

Today I posted a cheque for your book which you kindly posted to me.You had also asked me for my comments.Well I really need to sit down to make a reasonable one. However all I can tell you is you have put together a masterpiece- the vignettes we all recall and reminisce but never record. Your style and presentation is great. Even though we had experienced these events first hand and you served them daily on regular e- mails, there was still a freshness reading them on your book. Thanks a million for the beautiful memories and good luck for your next edition for which I can I am sure contribute a lot-Regards- Milroy

(Dr.Milroy De Silva UK)

Letter from Dr. Ms. Philine Pieris (26/5/2008)

Dear Dr. Veerasingam,

I had lost your original communication and then when a friend phoned and said there was a nice account of Ernie in the book I had no way of contacting you but God knows how much I was longing to read and own the book. Last week to my great delight – God answered my prayers and I received a gift of the book from Dr.Premini Amerasinghe. I am delighted with what you remember of Ernie – absolutely correct. He on principle never accepted gifts from Medical Students. I know how disappointed they must have been because it was their way of trying to express their thanks to him. One batch the day they were invited  to dinner had bought a lovely clock and set it to run slow and left it in Ernie’s car boot. They said he was so punctual about the time he came to hospital, they thought the clock might give the next batch a little more breathing space in the mornings! He however discovered the clock and when they thanked and were departing after dinner, they had a real shock when he very lovingly handed it back to them with many thanks.

Thank you very much for the true and complimentary account of him and the brief but nice words about me.

I have 4 daughters living. One is with the Lord. We lost her in 1966 the first year that Viral Haemorrhagic Fever surfaced in Sri-Lanka.

I enclose herewith a cheque for Rs.4500/- for (5 copies) Cheque for rupees Four thousand Five hundred. Please autograph all five, They are for CHANDRIKA, MALATHI, ANGALI, ENOKA, PHILINE.

I am eagerly awaiting their arrival.

Have you joined the LMPA?

Warm regards & God Bless you.

Yours sincerely,

Philine T Pieris

Dear Dr.(Ms) Philine Pieris,

I received your letter and cheque for Rs.4500/=. You should have received the 5 copies, ordered by you and autographed by me, by now. My hand-writing is horrid hence, I had to type and paste the messages for your daughters, on the copies. I have autographed it below the messages. I hope they like it.

                Your reminiscences of Dr.Ernie Pieris and the students, will add to my collection. I have my own stories of him.

1.       I remember vividly, his TWO-TONE green Austin Cambridge 55 (Pre Farina model), driving into his parking bay, near his male ward. I remember him getting down in the mornings in his smart white suit and tie. However I have seen him coming in the afternoons, with a bush-coat type of shirt.

2.       When I was at the Bloemfonteyn hostel in 1963, a few of us paid a visit to your house on Christmas Eve, ?singing Carols. Your husband took us in and opened his private liquor bar, and invited us to partake of any liquor on the shelf, which included whisky. We were too over-awed by his presence and very timid to request any.

3.       I was in Kandy after doing my Primary FRCS and was the Resident Surgeon at the Kandy GH in 1970. Dr.Ernie Pieris’s father, old Dr.Pieris was in the 10 acre plot and house next door, at Lady Blake’s Drive. I used to visit the old Dr.Pieris. He used to tell me, about his early years in the Health Department. One day he told me how Mr.Siriskandaraja, the Supreme Court Judge, took him along on a moonlit night, to a past scene of murder. The idea was to verify whether, activities inside the building, could be seen clearly by moonlight, as claimed by a witness in a murder trial. Old Dr.Pieris and Mr.Siriskandaraja must have been very close.

4.       One day old Dr.Pieris had a bout of haemetemesis and I went to see him. I rang up Dr.Mark Amerasinghe who later came in. Subsequently Dr.Hugh Jayasekara and Dr.Ernie Pieris arrived. The old Dr. Pieris wanted to know, from Dr. Jayasekara,  whether he had an attack of ‘Gastric Flu’. I suppose this was the old terminology of medicine.

5.       While we were chatting outside in the porch Dr.Hugh Jayasekara told us about one of his patients working in the post-office at Kandy, who gave him unlimited trunk calls. Dr.Ernie Pieris asked whether this person working in the post-office, gave free stamps, to much laughter from all of us. Dr.Ernie Pieris had this knack, of looking at the humorous side in any situation

I related all this to you to show, that when we remember our friends and loved ones, they live within us. They are not forgotten. The book will perpetuate their memory.

Wishing you and your children all the best.

Philip G veerasingam

To   CHANDRIKA,   

This book is meant, among other things, to recall people, who influenced our lives.

Your father Dr.Ernie Pieris was :-

1.   A superb clinician.

2.   A teacher par excellance.

3.   A human being in whom humor and kindness were a gentle mix.

I salute his memory.

Philip

We are so glad that we gave Philine the book and I am delighted at her response and quite touched by your letter and messages. I don't know whether I mentioned to you that Erny and I were close friends from the age of about  8 or 9. I learned to ride a bike in the first form at Royal on his bike. Philine was in the junior batch and she was staying in the Y during MC days. Erny was first interested in a good freined of hers and then made a switch - thank heavens. I was the kapua (without an umbrella) beween Ernie and Phil, which required my visiting her on many an occasion at the Y. The result was that my batchmates thought that I was the interested party!

The two of them were the most devoted couple I have ever come across. Before Erny died, our entire family spent Christmas Eve with them. They were great parties.

Mrs Henry Nanayakkara (the present wife) who is a voracious reader had read a review of your book in the Island a few days ago-m she could not place the date. She is just after a coronary by-pass of. She hopes to buy the book. If you can please send me a copy of the book.

This morning I had a flash thought. Why not get a batch mate from each of the medical schools to present a copy of the book to each of the libraries. I doubt the libraries purhcasing the copies on their own steam. The other place is the SLMA.

Students must get the feel of an unforgettable and joyous past.

Ole Man

Dear Philip

I have just finished reading your book. Enjoyed it ,recalling the good old days.

In case there is a second edition I thought I would mention a few omissions .

Among the sports personalities N Rasalingam was well known .He was the National Badminton champion Boxer and basket ball player. Rajan Jesudason who was senior to us still recalls how nimble and fast Ras was in basketball to compensate for the height. The clinical group mainly of the R's had two National champions in Rasalingam and Reid .

Among the teachers Prof C.C.De Silva was an omission He and his book "mother your baby" often ref.to as murder your baby by few of us cannot be forgotten

He was a real gent. Titus Dissanayake and I were fortunate to be his intern house officers in Kandy Always approachable and gentle to the children in the ward. Good teacher as well I learnt my paediatrics with him and Co-Prof Dr Aponso before Gomez took over.

I will keep in touch

Kind regards and best wishes to you Ramya and the family

Lawrence

Dear Phillip,
The book was most enjoyable and brought back memories. When you were
sending snippets I was not sure whether to add to some of them. If
many of us did so it would have become too big and thus not so
readable. I am keeing 2 copies to be given to our 2 older children -
Shehan who is the CEO of  group of companies and based in San Diego
and Nimali who is a Rheumatologist in Milwaukee. since they both
lived much of their lives abroad, it would be interesting to hear
their views. I was also talking about the book with  young man from
the village who drops by to practice his english and told him that
the places mentioned in your "Trip to Jaffna" sadly are now in the
news due to the war in the Mannar sector. This section brought back
memories of the trip I made to Jaffna soon after the 2nd MB exams in
the company of Ponna, Bala (A. Balasundaram), JBC, Rama K and a
couple of engineering  students.

Do keep in touch
Regards
Asoka