{"id":93907,"date":"2019-10-15T15:53:56","date_gmt":"2019-10-15T22:53:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=93907"},"modified":"2019-10-15T15:53:56","modified_gmt":"2019-10-15T22:53:56","slug":"old-memories-of-development-a-youth-i-will-never-forget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/10\/15\/old-memories-of-development-a-youth-i-will-never-forget\/","title":{"rendered":"Old memories of development: A Youth I will never forget"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Garvin Karunaratne<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Seeing\nwhat is happening in Elpitiya my mind travels back decades to a youth that\nstruck me most in my eighteen years\u2019 service in the Administrative Service of\nmy beloved country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a youth from Elpitiya. In 1970 I was the Deputy Director in\nthe Small Industries Department in charge of making allocations of foreign\nexchange to small industrialists to import an item that was required to make\nsomething useful for sale.  Mr Kariyawasam the Member of\nParliament for Bentara Elpitiya met me with a youth. Mr Kariyawasam introduced\nthe youth to me with a number of side mirrors of cars, which he had made. The\nside mirrors were good replicas.  They were very well done. An allocation of\nforeign exchange was sought to import mirrors to be fitted into the side mirrors\nthat he had made. It was a reasonable request. I immediately summoned one of my\nInspectors and told him to inspect the process of manufacture and submit a\nrecommendation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a weeks\u2019 time the inspector reported that this was a bogus\ncase, a youth that did not have an industry. I sent for Mr Kariyawasam and gave\nhim a piece of my mind. Mr Kariyawasam said that he stood by what the youth\nsaid and added that the youth was not a bluff case and requested me to look\ninto the case further. I told Mr Kariyawasam that I will myself come to inspect\nthe industry and gave him an appointment  to inform the youth. Later\nhe phoned me to meet the youth at the Lorry Garage of the Cooperative Union at\nElpitiya. On the appointed date I was at that place ten minutes earlier and\nneither the youth was there nor was there any place where side mirrors were\nmade in the vicinity. I waited a while and the youth appeared with a bag slung\non his neck. I told him to take me to the place where he had the smithy where\nhe made the side mirrors. He opened his bag which was full of all sorts of\nmetal pieces of different shapes along with some sheets of metal cut up to\ndifferent sizes. Sir these are all my tools and all these are side mirrors I\nhave made.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Show\nme the machinery with which you make.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sir,\nyou have to wait a while till one of the Coop Union lorries come back. I know\nsome of the drivers who allow me to use their jacks. I have a number of iron\nrods with bolts which I fix and make a jig and use their lorry jacks to get\ndifferent shapes of metal made.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nlooked at his bag and there were a few iron rods about two feet long and bolts.\nIt was a mass of metal. I could not even imagine what he was speaking about and\nhow he made anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sir,\nplease believe me. Please wait till a lorry comes. I am sure a lorry will\nreturn soon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The youth looked genuine and his tone was pleasant and I felt I\nshould listen. I then understood what my inspector had reported that the youth\nhad no industry. He had only a bag of tools and pieces of metal of different\nshapes. I waited and waited. He looked to be too genuine for me to tell him not\nto fool me.  In a while a lorry came in and the youth\nran to the driver and got back to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sir\nthat driver is not going to give me the use of his jack. I will wait for the\nnext driver.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nwaited a few minutes and luckily another lorry came in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is a good driver. I can get his jack.\u201d He ran away and\nreturned with the lorry jack. I yet could not fathom what he was going to do.\nHe moved to a corner of the lorry garage pulled up his bag and got hold of the\ntwo feet rods which he fitted with bolts to make a jig. He tightened the nuts\ntill the jig was very firm. Then he pulled out the pieces of metal and scouted\naround for some bricks which he fitted into the jig. Then he got the lorry jack\nwhich he placed at different angles and moved the jack lever till the piece of\nsheet metal was made into a shape. The then took the piece that was shaped up\nand fixed different pieces of metal and used the jack to shape it up further.\nIt took a while but he did it again and again till the shapes were fully\nacceptable. Then he sat on the side shaped further with a file and cut off the\nends. It took a while but he made a replica of a side mirror that was exact to\nwhat was imported. I gave him an allocation of foreign exchange and asked him\nto call over at my office to collect the allocation paper. If only that youth\nhad access to a lathe and welding equipment he could have done wonders. Is it\nnot sad that we do not yet make a bicycle in our country!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I called Mr Kariyawasam and thanked him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know not where the youth is now. Perhaps he happened to be one\nof the intelligent youths who lost their lives in the 1971 JVP uprising. That\nmistake of the JVP done to make Sri Lanka an appendage of the socialist block-\n-then it was North Korea that tried to get the JVP to wrest control of our\nisland. That insurrection  took away the lives of many\nintelligent youths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have an intelligent cadre of youths and we have to enlist their\nsupport, help them to march on an import substitution venture to make\neverything we import. Later as Government Agent Matara, I was able to direct my\nstaff to find the art of making crayons and also able to ensure that a\ncooperative industry was established.  It took three months of\nnocturnal experiments locked up in the Rahula College science lab from six till\nmidnight for three long months to find he art of making crayons. Then it took\nthree weeks for Sumanapala Dahanayake the member of parliament to establish it.\nHe was the President of the Morawaka Coop Union. In a few months Coop Crayon\nwas sold island wide. That was a feat done by the katcheri staff and\nSumanapala\u2019s   cooperative youths. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To my mid therein lies the path for the development of our industries.\nNo foreigner or foreign country will come to our help. We have to do it\nourselves. The above true achievements I can speak of tell me that it is a task\nthat can be won.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garvin\nKarunaratne, Ph.D. Michigan State University<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former Government Agent,\nMatara\n   15 th October 2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Garvin Karunaratne Seeing what is happening in Elpitiya my mind travels back decades to a youth that struck me most in my eighteen years\u2019 service in the Administrative Service of my beloved country. It was a youth from Elpitiya. In 1970 I was the Deputy Director in the Small Industries Department in charge of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-garvin-karunaratne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93907\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}