The daring boys of St. Anthony’s Wattala

4 min read

St. Anthony’s College in Wattala had the sort of permanence one doesn’t initially notice. It was not proud of itself. There was no effort to impress. The buildings did not gleam, the gates did not boast. They stood, as they had for a decade or two, weathered and indifferent, bearing the marks of monsoons and generations. The college seemed content to exist quietly, in a way that some people learn to accept a life they never chose. It had the humility of something that had endured — like the soft residue at the bottom of a cooking pot, or a prayer whispered more out of habit than faith.

Five miles north of Colombo, the school stood just far enough to escape the city’s reach, though not its shadow. To most, it was unremarkable. A missionary school, one of many, run by male Brothers. But for those who had walked its corridors, it left an imprint — subtle, but permanent, like the faintest scar on skin.

The primary building had no ornamentation. Its floors, cool even in March, remembered every footstep. The white walls once had grown porous with time, absorbing not only weather but voices. The roof sagged slightly, from rain, from sun, from the weight of boys’ eyes turned upward in silence. When it rained — and it always did — there was a kind of music to the place: the soft rattle of water down clogged gutters, the low sigh of moisture in the plaster. The building did not resist its age. It yielded.

The De La Salle Brothers ran the school. They wore white cassocks and moved like apparitions — too present to ignore, too aloof to approach. They carried themselves with an unnerving stillness, as if noise were something profane. Chief among them, in our eyes, was Brother Sylvester.

He never raised his voice. He didn’t need to. His cane, long and thin, did the speaking. He claimed it was symbolic, a gesture of order. But we knew otherwise. We had seen it lifted, flicked, and landed. He didn’t aim for the back or the hand, but always — ritually — for the bum — a quick, precise motion, as though correcting not the body but the soul. The strike was never spoken of afterwards. There was no comfort, no apology. Just the sound of the cane, the breath held in shame, and the slow walk back to one’s desk, trying not to cry. Some boys did cry. Others didn’t — the silence after was the same.

And yet no one ever said they hated Brother Sylvester. He was feared, but not despised. Like a storm or a season. Part of the fabric of the place. Part of the education.

In the lower school, children learned their alphabet and numbers and how to navigate a system built on vigilance. There were rules, but the real lessons lived in the spaces between: in a raised eyebrow from the tuck shop uncle, in the slow walk of a Brother down the corridor. There was a way to hold your hands, modulate your laughter, and occupy space without drawing attention. The world was filled with signals. You either learnt them or paid the price.

Kindness, when it came, was a surprise. A borrowed pencil. A shared piece of mango. A teacher who smiled without suspicion. It was never predictable, and so, it was never trusted.

Of course, there were the boys who didn’t care. The ones who slipped between cracks like water. They watched for signs, not of authority, but of absence. The moment Brother Sylvester’s door stood ajar, the sun catching the floor like an invitation, they moved. The staircase railing was their stage. They would climb it, perch like sparrows, then slide, feet tucked, arms flared, faces full of that momentary flight. Their landings were never perfect. Knees scraped, trousers rumpled. But they landed smiling. They always did.

Younger boys watched them, their mouths slightly open, lunchboxes forgotten. It wasn’t envy they felt — it was longing. A longing for that brief taste of defiance, unpunished.

But it never lasted.

Soon came the sound. Click-tap. Click-tap. The cane on tile. The signal that the game was over.

Brother Sylvester appeared at the end of a story. His face was unreadable, shaped more by routine than rage. He didn’t shout. He didn’t have to. The boys froze, straightened, and stilled. Their hands went behind their backs. Their eyes searched for something to focus on. They waited. Not for pain, necessarily, but for judgment.

And in that moment, we all understood something the adults had perhaps forgotten: that power wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be. It simply required belief. And we, children still, believed in it completely.

So the school endured, as it always had, changing in small ways but never in spirit. The puddles came. The monsoon left. The chalk dust floated, the uniforms faded, and the walls absorbed more names.

And somewhere, faint but familiar, the sound of feet skimming down that rail remained. A thud. A gasp. A brief, bright burst of joy. Before it vanished into the silence