Fresher’s Day
Fresher’s Day
On May Day 1972, a boy steps into Aquinas College, uncertain yet hopeful – his first day in an ivy school, amongst Colombo’s world of rules, rituals, and whispered slang.
Myfirst morning at Aquinas College fell on May Day, and it seemed a curious sort of beginning. Perhaps all beginnings are a little odd – like opening a book at the wrong chapter and hoping to catch the thread of the story.
Getting there hadn’t been easy. They thought me too young, and so I had to collect proofs of my worth, much the way a boy might gather stamps or marbles – one certificate here, another document there. I still remember pacing to Brother Lawrence Justinian, the head of the Christian Brothers. He was an imposing man, tall, dignified, the kind of person who filled a room without raising his voice. He signed my paper in blue ink, and in that moment, I felt both blessed and burdened.
My father had the harder task: paying fees in pounds sterling, which meant queuing at the Central Bank under a slow-turning fan, with clerks shuffling papers and asking for things twice. His face shone with the strain of officialdom, though he said little about it. Fathers in those days carried their responsibilities quietly.
Some weeks later, a letter arrived from London – the Cost and Works Accountants. The envelope had the faint smell of the sea, as though it had travelled with the ships that touched Colombo harbour. That letter was the last key to open the gates of Aquinas.
And so I found myself one morning in the Aquinas University College’s 6registrar’s office, listening to his long sermon about rules and regulations. I hardly heard him. Beyond his voice, I felt only the stirrings of something new, something that might belong to me.
I tried to mention to the registrar that his son Sumith had once been my classmate, hoping it might soften him, but he was a man unmoved by such things. Rules were rules, and he was a tough old fellow.
The real test came outside. The college gates opened into a world larger than any I had known. Older boys and a few girls eyed us with amusement, boys calling out strange words – “freshers,” “young butts” – English phrases that belonged to Colombo’s own private slang. I had grown up in schools that spoke English, and yet these sounds were foreign to me, like a secret language spoken by those who knew the city better than I did.
Just then, I spotted familiar faces – Tyrone, tall and smiling, and Errol, short and curly-haired, the elder brother of my schoolmate Romesh. Tyrone towered above the crowd, while Errol, curiously, was the only boy in the campus wearing short pants. I wore one of my two pairs of long trousers – bell-bottoms, wide at the ankle and far too fashionable for me. We were ordinary, swept along in a place that seemed to belong to others.
At the canteen, young men thrust forms into our hands, insisting we join the university union. We signed, not knowing what we were agreeing to, only that it seemed safer that way. Later, I learned the union managed the canteen and the library.
Outside, on the green patch near the entrance, a group of seniors waited. This was ragging. Each newcomer had to perform some ritual of humiliation – kneeling, bowing, obeying silly commands. I went along quietly, hoping to escape notice. By eleven o’clock, the seniors had grown bored and drifted back into the canteen to smoke and gossip, leaving us to find our way.
That was my first day at Aquinas, my first day in a university in Ceylon – before the island became Sri Lanka. And though the day had its share of fear and fumbling, it held within it the promise of a life that was just beginning.
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