- The story behind Dr. Gamini Wickramasinghe
The Quiet Maverick – The Dr. Gamini Wickramasinghe Story – the extensive text of which has now been provided by Savithri Rodrigo – is a lively, fast-moving eminently readable text. As prior preparation, Savithri appears to have conducted a large number of personal interviews of many, who have been associated in various ways with Dr. Gamini. These included close family members, as well as many others from varying professions and backgrounds. As a consequence, what has been presented to the reader is a living, vibrant narrative, which appropriately matches the style and manner of the principal character of the book – Dr. Gamini.
The book was officially launched recently, in the presence of Dr. Gamini and his close friends and family. Speaking at the launch, Dr. Gamini graciously thanked Savithri for her wonderful rendition of his life story, as well as everyone else that shared stories and anecdotes. “I’m thankful to Savithri for sourcing all the material for this book and interviewing so many of my friends, family, and acquaintances. It’s truly an honour,” stated Dr. Gamini.
We were able to grab a copy of the book and we noticed that the narrative – while acknowledging the dominance of the principal character – goes much further in combining and interpreting his actions with so many others so that what comes out is a rich tapestry of varied relationships, transforming the book into a rich, social history enriched with vivid vignettes of a considerable number of diverse characters.
There is also the presence of humour. In conversation with Savithri, on this topic, she stated that part of the humour derives from Dr. Gamini’s own escapades and innovative solutions to what looked like intractable problems.
“To give one example, in his early days as a young man in England, he applied for, and indeed obtained a job as a forklift driver, without any experience of him getting into the driving seat of a forklift!”
Adding that he then nonchalantly told his employer that his forklifts were quite different to the ones in Sri Lanka, and that he would have to get used to driving them, she relayed that he therefore got the job with zero experience, related a plausible story, learnt quickly, and then excelled. She also shared that when reading this book, one gets the impression that he would have with equal insouciance applied for a vacancy to fly a plane without any training or experience in flying.
Having glanced through the book, we noticed that it brings out vividness and concrete examples of Dr. Gamini’s extraordinary character. “For him nothing was impossible, and the word ‘cannot’ never resided in his vocabulary, so it can be enjoyed at multiple levels, from the warm glow of close family relationships to interesting and diverse friendships, the pervasive presence of kindness, and examples of carrying out tangible assistance to those in distress and need, to the display of qualities of entrepreneurship, leadership, and initiative leading to rapid assessment and execution,” Savithri commented, when speaking about what motivated her to pen this book.
She also informed us that a quality she admires in Dr. Gamini is that when he wants something done, he wants it done. “There’s never an ‘if’, ‘but’, or ‘can’t’. He problem-solves on the run, finds opportunity in impossible spaces, speaks out for truth and justice, and is a fount of knowledge on any and every subject.”
Giving us a little background on the man of the hour, she shared that through threescore years and 10 and a little beyond, Dr. Gamini Wickramasinghe blazed his own trail, quietly and with absolute conviction. “His life was shaped by his parents who nurtured him in the fundamentals of Buddhism, while his leadership skills became apparent very early on, on the rugby and cricket fields,” she stated, adding that his hardworking traits surfaced in the UK when every job, no matter how difficult, was done in the pursuit of his mission; from being a night guard to driving a forklift, working three jobs while studying for multiple qualifications, and burning the midnight oil to drive revenue for a global petroleum giant.
When his country of birth beckoned, he responded. “His vision for Sri Lanka made him the godfather of higher education in IT on one spectrum and a revolutionary in transforming the country’s largest state bank on the other,” Savithri expressed. In between, she told us, he conferred scholarships on hundreds of young people, brought hope to many internally displaced persons (IDPs), built bridges during times of ethnic strife, and even saved numerous animals from slaughter.
His green thumb also rooted multiple crops in the Mahaweli and he also pioneered drip irrigation across the country.
As his story unfolds, what can be seen most clearly is that Dr. Gamini’s unassuming and straightforward leadership style has transformed people, mindsets, cultures, and leaders, and Savithri stated: “That’s what makes him a quiet maverick.”