Professor Panduka Karunanayake of the Faculty of Medicine, Colombo has issued a very welcome book: mostly a collection of essays and notes he wrote to newspapers and two public lectures. They cover huge areas of social policy and therefore are very likely to give rise to public debate, all very welcome.
Panduka (if he will pardon me) belongs in a tradition of medical personnel who have interested themselves in problems in this society, well beyond health and medical care. Gunadasa Amarasekera, a dental surgeon, is the grand master of them all. He contributed innovation in Sinhala fiction and poetry and more recently has been very articulate about public policy on a large number of issues. Carlo Fonseka was a superb academic leader, a fine teacher of Physiology, a public intellectual of the first order who was a member of the LSSP all his adult life, a rationalist who did much to dispel superstition, a lyricist, a connoisseur and patron of the arts and a debater par excellence in print. S.N. Arsecularatne, a distinguished member of the Peradeniya Faculty who cultivated many interests, addressed a narrower audience on the growth of knowledge. Susirith Mendis, another highly distinguished teacher of Physiology, brought new perspectives to bear on whatever social phenomena he examined. N.A.de S. Amaratunge, an outstanding oral surgeon, has taken up many issues. More recently, Upul Wijayawardhana an eminent cardiologist, Sarath Gamini de Silva an eminent physician and B.J.C Perera a distinguished paediatrician have begun to comment on features in our society. Occasionally A.H. Sheriffdeen, an eminent surgeon, also contributed. Panduka Karunanayake joins that brilliant galaxy not too far away from earth, that has shed much light on murky areas in our society. His main area is education, especially university education. Sarasvati is the goddess of knowledge in the Hindu pantheon, and some of us prefer to signify a university in Sinhala as sarasaviya.