REMEMBERING MILROY de SILVA
Sad as it is, we have reached the age when it’s not unexpected to hear that one of us has left friends, loved ones and family. It’s at times like this, however, that we recall facts and events that have left our memory over the years and have been long forgotten.
When I think of Milroy I picture a fellow in our ‘Batch of Three Hundred,’ dressed for College in starched white shirt and longs, hardly without a smile, and always ready for some clean fun.
As a Bloemite, he occupied a room on the uppermost third floor. From here one had a bird’s eye view of a section of the Carey College principal’s house. This provided for exciting entertainment, the nature of which will be confidential, and limited to just a discreet few of us! At Bloem, Milroy was a good mixer and a regular spectator at the daily post-dinner events of fun and frolic prior to returning to the books.
He was a kind man, and no one had anything even remotely negative to say of him. If at all he lacked in inches, he made up for it abundantly in heart. His room mate at the Bloem was ‘Loku Makuls,’ who’s view was that Rugby should be considered of preeminent importance in the life of a medical student! Returning after practice one day he had been so exhausted he had shed his clothes and gone to sleep. The next morning he found that Milroy had washed and hung them up for drying. I never had the pleasure of meeting his wife, Punya. In one email I had told him that they have to be commended for producing two children who are both Consultants, Anupama, in Gastroenterology and Purnima, in Neurology. His response was that all the credit should be given to his wife. Such acts defined this unassuming and modest man, and I value the privilege I had of being called his friend.
In Milroy we have lost a Doctor and a Gentleman. Likewise, in death someday, all of us will part company with friends and family. But for those who live on, remembering never dies.
Geri Jayasekara.
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