The story of a banker’s journey
Rusiripala Tennekoon, ex-banker and trade union leader, released his autobiography titled ‘My journey: Across time and trials’ in Colombo last week. The event had been attended by his friends and well-wishers, including a galaxy of politicians. The autobiography is almost entirely on his working life as an adult and a senior citizen; his childhood travails and trials are confined only to seven printed pages.
He has qualified it in the preface as follows: ‘This book is the story of my journey – a journey that began in a small village in 1941 and has since crossed many paths of service, struggle, achievement, and surprise. I have worn many hats: banker, trade unionist, reformer, political worker, chairman, advisor, and above all, a student of life’. He has omitted here one important hat he had worn and is still wearing. That is, he is a writer and a columnist for Sri Lanka’s main business and economics daily, Daily FT, and the popular global website on national and international issues, Colombo Telegraph.
He further elaborates that he did not set out to write history, but to record the experiences, lessons, and values that shaped him. He says: ‘Along the way, I met extraordinary people, encountered unexpected opportunities, and at times, faced challenges that tested my courage.’ His life had not always been a success. As he says, some doors had been opened, others had been closed. Yet, he had never fallen below the steady line of purpose that guided him through the hassles and struggles of the life of an ordinary person.
An octogenarian above all Gens
Rusiripala – that is how he likes to be addressed – is an octogenarian and people in his age group are normally branded as old people who are different from those in new generations, Gen Y, Gen Z, or Gen Alpha or any new Gen that is to be identified in the coming years. The differences are identified with respect to purpose of life, motivation, inclination to science and technology, ability to face challenges and so on. It is said that, while the new Gen people are always riding high in these life attributes, the old people are completely withdrawn from them. By what Rusiripala has presented in his book, I am compelled to conclude that Rusiripala rides above all these Gens and if a new Gen Beta is identified, he has a place in that Gen too. That is Rusiripala and his travails and trials are worthy of being emulated by all of us including those in new Gens.
He explains this in the book as follows: ‘Importantly, some of the areas I have traversed through have not gone into oblivion; one can see them re-emerging in today’s context.’ As he has always been, he becomes philosophical here: ‘This gives me hope that the lessons of the past may continue to inspire the struggles of the present and the future.’ This reminds me what Albert Einstein has famously said: ‘Knowledge is experience; everything else is just information’. Rusiripala has a remarkable ability to convert information into experience and add it to his depository of experiences as well as retrieve them at will when the need arises for it.
Delivering the valedictory address of the book launch, Rusiripala said that once he started writing down his memoirs, names, incidents, situations, came to his mind’s screen as if they had happened yesterday. If one compares a human being to a modern computer which has a high-capacity hard disk to store memory and an equally high-capacity RAM or random-access memory to retrieve that information instantly, Rusiripala is full of them.
A challenging journey of a banker wearing many hats
As Rusiripala has said in the preface to the book, he has worn many hats during his journey across time and trials. His core had been serving as a professional banker, a career spanning over four decades. He started his banking career as an initial recruit to the newly formed People’s Bank in early 1960s, just after completing his schooling. He has worked almost in every area of banking and risen in the hierarchy to hold a senior managerial position by the time he retired from the bank. Associated with that core, he had been a trade union leader heading the largest trade union body in his sector. In the same core, he had been placed as the head – more precisely, the Chairman – of the Bank of Ceylon, the largest Sri Lankan bank, for a brief period. That was a rare recognition of a trade union leader for a high position in a bank by Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Finance.
Outside that core, he had been a politician cum political activist, writer, public speaker, gemology expert, public policy advisor, educationist, renewable energy producer, and a TV star to mention but a few. I had always wondered how he had been able to accomplish all these tasks without overstraining himself and overstressing his physical and mental systems. On top of that, he had been an exemplary family man who had raised two children who had walked even far beyond the rugged trails he had treaded.
A free man after retirement
I had known Rusiripala during most of his professional life as a banker when I had been at the Central Bank. But my close association with him started after our retirement from service and after we had been released to the wide society out there as free people not under obligation to anyone in our thought or action. It was not just an association but an intellectual venture in which we had played the roles of the mentor and the protégé in that as well as in the reverse order. I had been his mentor on some occasions, he the opposite side. On other occasions, he had been my mentor, and me, the faithful protégé.
Critique of infamous Central Bank bond scam
Rusiripala came to my attention in early 2015 when he wrote a well-structured and cogently argued article to Sunday Times analysing the exact state of the Central Bank bond scam, a politically hot topic at that time. This was a time when not many citizens had ventured to take the opposite view of a Government that had just been formed and presented itself as a ‘good governance government’. The Government leaders, including its Prime Minister, had defended the Bond transaction at issue claiming that there was no irregularity in it and it was a measure taken by the Government to make the Bond market more transparent and market friendly. Rusiripala disagreed and wrote continuously critiquing the Government action, appeared on TV talk shows and argued with Government party supporters, and even published a book outlining the ABC of bond dealings and presenting the full story of the scandalous side of the Bond deal for the benefit of Sri Lanka’s vernacular readers.
I recall the launching of this book in the presence of top politicians, legal luminaries, academics, bankers, trade union leaders, and media men and women. But this was not without costs. I recall Rusiripala confiding in me that he was threatened with legal action for alleged defamation by those who had been directly affected by his critical public action. All they wanted was to silence him. But Rusiripala being the seasoned trade union leader was not the one to be subdued by such threats. He continued his agitations much more vigorously and rigorously against what he perceived as a major financial scandal in Sri Lanka’s history. The subsequent events such as the report of the Presidential Commission on Bond scam, the follow-up forensic audit reports and legal action taken by the Attorney General’s department against the perpetrators have proved Rusiripala correct.
Widely-travelled banker
Rusiripala was a well-travelled person in Sri Lanka as well as outside. As Chairman of Bank of Ceylon in mid-1970s, he travelled the breadth and the length of the island promoting special loan schemes for the down-trodden poor sections of the country. He vividly recalls his visits to the Northern Province and meeting poor Tamil people. As a die-hard trade unionist, they were comrades in arm for him. He sought to serve all Sri Lankan communities without bias, favour, or prejudice, a discipline he had acquired through his left-leaning political orientation.
Despite this left-leaning, Rusiripala equally appreciated and admired what he saw in USA when he travelled to California to attend some functions relating to the global gem and jewellery trade. There had been plenty of opportunities for him to stay back in USA engaging himself in the gem and jewellery trade. But he chose to return to Sri Lanka, and to this date, he does not regret his decision.
Policy advisor
After retirement, he had been engaged in public policy making, active politics, private enterprise, and promoting education. He was the senior advisor to the minister of education in early 2020 and his job was to present a blueprint for the establishment of a Government arm for the accreditation and quality assurance of both state and private universities. He went to the extent of studying similar systems in Australia during his private visits to his family. He also consulted both local and foreign experts on the subject. His committed engagement helped him to come up with a fine blueprint for such an authority in Sri Lanka. But as he has narrated in his journey, his report was shelved by Sri Lanka’s authorities after the Minister of Education lost his portfolio.
Anyone who is interested in reforming the university education in the country could dig up this report and represent with necessary amendments. He has also served as the senior advisor on banking and finance to Sri Lanka’s prime minister. His engagement in active politics had landed him as a member of the Colombo Municipal Council. This break was used by him to support the educational aspirations of the poor students within the Colombo Municipal Council area. He had also functioned as the local head of a private mini-hydro project that had promoted the use of alternative renewable energy in the country.
Colombo Municipal Council member
When he was in his late seventies, Rusiripala became a representative of people in the Colombo Municipal Council. That was also an experience of a different kind for him. About his experiences as a member, he says: ‘My interventions in Council debates soon established me as a respected and serious speaker. I kept my contributions constructive, concise, and anchored in the larger public interest. When I criticised mismanagement, waste, and corruption, I always paired criticism with practical remedies. This approach earned me the respect of colleagues across party lines as well as the appreciation of officials and staff of CMC.’
About his experiences as an elected member of the people, he says that ‘looking back I see those years helped me to broaden my perspective on public service. I learned that even in an environment where competing interests were strong and pressures constant, it was still possible to introduce constructive ideas and seen them take root. Amidst rough-and tumble local politics, I was able to stand on principle and act for the people – make possible by the fairness and impartiality shown to me by Mayoress Rosie Senanayake.’ Rusiripala and Rosie were on two different political camps with no possibility of peaceful cohabitation. Yet, professionalism practiced at all stages have thinned those differences and allowed them to work together for the welfare and benefit of the people.
Versatile writer
Rusiripala has been a versatile writer as demonstrated by the advanced English he has used in the present journey. He addresses the ordinary people with simple language. That is a remarkable quality which he possesses. That is not an unusual attainment by a banker turned trade unionist cum political activist. Though he has achieved many accolades through his journey, he remains a simple man with humbleness and humility.
I recommend Rusiripala’s journey across time and trials to Sri Lankan readers.