Cyril Ayya: The Shield of My Youth
Cyril Ayya: The Shield of My Youth
In the mid-seventies, Dalugama was a world of Afros, bell-bottoms, and reckless youth. Navigating that fragile threshold of manhood, I was green and vulnerable. But I had Cyril ayya. More than a mate, he became my shield — a protective, honourable force who stood between me and the world’s hidden dangers.
Memory has a way of anchoring itself to specific faces, and for me, the seventies in the sleepy village of Dalugama will always look like Cyril Stanley.
Dalugama was my ancestral hometown, a quiet enclave some ten kilometres from the bustling heart of Colombo. Back then, if you wanted to be noticed, you grew your hair into an Afro, flared your denim bell-bottoms, and walked with a certain rhythmic assurance. Cyril and his younger brother Edward had that down to an art. Cyril looked like a younger version of Smokey Robinson; Edward was a junior, darker Lionel Richie. They worked in the city’s only five-star establishment at the time, the Inter-Continental Hotel, which gave them a distinct aura of urban sophistication. I was still a green business college student, navigating the fragile threshold of adulthood, when Cyril reached out to me first.
A casual hello on my walk home from college quickly evolved into an inseparable camaraderie. We became a band of brothers — Cyril (whom we called Sira or, as I always addressed him out of deep respect, Cyril ayya), Edward, Suneth, Nelum, Leonard, Mahinda, and Ajith. We shared everything: our drinks, our smokes, our heartbreaks, and quite literally our clothes. Santana was our anthem. We chased the same girls, paraded along the Kandy-Colombo road, and sat precariously on the open veranda or parapet wall of our friends’ house just to watch the buses and lorries roll by.
But beneath the carefree, broke-by-the-end-of-the-month bravado of our youth, Cyril was something rare. He was our de facto leader, not by force, but by a quiet, protective instinct. While the rest of us were playing at being men, Cyril understood the adult world. He was the one who kept his word of honour, ensuring any borrowed rupees were paid back instantly on payday, despite coming from a family navigating severe economic hardships. He gave his entire salary to his mother to keep their modest home running, yet that home was always open to me, a sanctuary of unconditional warmth.
My vulnerabilities were safe with him. Long before I learnt the boundaries of responsible drinking, I found myself completely incapacitated at a friend’s party, throwing up in front of everyone. It was Cyril who stepped in, cleaned my body, showered me, and put me to bed while the party roared on next door. When it happened again near our hometown after a rough night during my apprentice days, Cyril dropped everything. He carried me over his shoulders, walking through the village streets, ignoring the staring eyes, until he safely delivered me to my father.
He was our shield. When a rival gang member tried to provoke a fight by pulling my long hair under a crowded shelter during the Vesak festival rains, Cyril moved instantly, stepping between us and challenging the bully until he backed down. When the Colombo city cops caught us riding our bicycles past midnight without night lights and threatened to impound our bikes, it was Cyril’s smooth negotiation that saved us from a night in a cell — even if we did have to push our flat-tyred bikes the ten kilometres back home.
That protective presence extended far beyond the streets of Dalugama. On a crowded bus heading to a music show in northern Colombo, the atmosphere turned sinister. A larger, older man sitting next to me crossed a line, putting his hand on my crotch. Shocked, violated, and burning with an uncontainable, youthful fury, I stood up and shouted. The bus froze. Before the situation could fracture into further trouble, Cyril was there. He confronted the offender with a terrifying intensity, forcing the man to vacate his seat and back away into the shadows of the exit. It was a terrifying glimpse of the world’s hidden dangers, but Cyril was the barrier between me and the dark.
Yet, our youth was also defined by a deep, wandering curiosity. We took trains to the pristine blue beaches of Trincomalee, crammed into ramshackle rooms in Nuwara Eliya just to hear local bands like Gabo and the Breakaway, and took a long train journey to the northern peninsula of Jaffna to experience the generous hospitality of Siva’s family.
Once, we cycled a hundred kilometres to the village of Kudagama to witness a Catholic church famous for an exorcist priest. For a boy with a strict Catholic upbringing, seeing hundreds of ranting, screaming women rolling on the ground was a bizarre parody of faith. But it was our trip to Kandy, staying at the Getambe Buddhist temple, that left a permanent mark on my soul. There, among the calm junior monks and the Mahaweli River, I watched a couple of hip lads in bell-bottoms walking through the Peradeniya botanical gardens. In my youthful bluster, I muttered a derogatory comment about them. Cyril stopped me instantly. He looked at me and softly advised me never to speak poorly of those less fortunate. It was a profound life lesson that permanently etched itself into my conscience.
The ultimate test of his big-brother love came when my grandmother passed away. As the casket was lowered into the earth and the weight of grief broke me entirely, Cyril stood beside me. He held my trembling shoulders to steady me. When the ceremony ended, he placed me on his bicycle saddle and rode me all the way home. I cried against the wind, listening to his soothing words as he steered us through the streets.
For all his strength, Cyril was not bulletproof. I still carry the memory of the day his heart broke. He was deeply in love with a girl from a wealthy family, but her parents rejected him simply because he was poor. They married her off to a rich suitor, and that evening, I watched Cyril cry inconsolably. I was too young then to truly grasp the agonizing weight of social divide and class rejection, but seeing my mentor vulnerable showed me the raw, unfair realities of the world we were inheriting.
By 9 PM every evening, I would leave the veranda sessions to head home, honouring my mother’s strict curfew to study. Cyril used to watch me walk away, smiling, and predict that I would become somebody worthwhile in time to come.
Fifty years have slipped by since those dust-blown days in Dalugama. I eventually left the island, built a life across oceans, and now look back from the quiet of Australia. Cyril still lives an uncomplicated, deeply contented life as a grandfather in a simple home in Sri Lanka. We remain in touch. Whenever I call him, I make it a point to remind him of the reckless, immature kid he protected, and the profound impact of his kindness. His voice over the phone still exudes that same calm, gentle touch that steadied me on the back of a bicycle so many decades ago. He was, and always will be, a rare youth leader born on that island — my big brother, Cyril ayya.
Smokey Robinson image belongs to Getty Images.
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