User:Swarna Sugunasiri/sandbox

Swarna Sugunasiri in 1998
Swarna Sugunasiri (nee Bellana) (August 18, 1937 – April 20, 2017) is a Canadian professional educator, author and world traveler. Born in Panadura, in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), as only girl in a family of 7 boys. she was, with a high level of concentration, also the only student out of 16 to enter university from her school, Panadura Balika Maha Vidyalaya. Living in North America for over five decades since 1965 (USA; Canada), she passed away at age 80 in Toronto, Canada, at the Mt Sinai hospital, through a bleeding in the skull, following three falls. Author of two publications, she retired as Head of English as a Second Language in Toronto (1998). Devout Buddhist practitioner, and a life-time teetotaler and non-smoker, she has been hypothesized to be a born-streamwinner, on the Path to liberation. Upon her passing away, her body was donated for medical research as per her signed request.

1 Early life: Birth and Childhood
Swarnalatha  (as was her birth name), literally meaning ‘golden creeper’,  nee Bellana,  was  born in 1937 to  Buddhist parents   Marynona and James Bellana, a jeweller,  in the city of Panadura [LINK: ,]. Located in the Western Province, 16 miles  from  the capital city of Colombo,   it  is the city  where  the famous Buddhist - Christian ‘Panadura Debate’  was held in 1873 [LINK: https://www.scribd.com/doc/113061389 The-Panadura-Debate]. It was reading a report on it by  J. M. Peebles [LINK:https://www.scribd.com/doc/113061389 The-Panadura-Debate] that  Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott, co-founders of the American Theosophical Society,  come to be Buddhist, first on their own while in the US, and later on Ceylonese soil [LINK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panadura] “apparently the first from the United States to do so” [1],   taking the Five Precepts,  also visiting the the city, and  Debate ground itself. Only girl in a family of seven boys [2],  she received “preferential treatment”, everybody referring to her as “the lamp” in the family,  in the sense of “lustrous and illuminative” [3]. From her youngest days, she was  fun-loving, and mischievous  [4]  But she was also responsible,  one of her “cherished” preoccupations  being  to look after her two younger brothers. From her childhood, she also had an   idiosyncrasy  of not eating meat. [5].

2. Life in Ceylon
Her education began at age 5, when she entered Mahanama Buddhist Mixed School, a Sinhala medium school in her hometown Panadura, when in every grade, she became first in class, or tied with a boy [6]. Leaving the Sinhala-medium school after passing the Senior School Certificate,   she joins Panadura Balika Vidyalaya [LINK wikimapia.org › Panadura-balika-maha-vidyalaya]], the only  English medium school for girls in town, having had a limited exposure  to English at Mahanama. Studying for two years at the University entrance level, she enters   Peradeniya University (1959), as the only girl out of 16 from her school, and passing in all four subjects  - Economics, History, PoliSci  and Sinhala. A girl  who “soaked up everything she read” and    ‘concentration’ her  cherished ally  [7]. Graduating with a BA in 1962, she was to get a teaching appointment at Sri Sumangala Boys School,  in her home town Panadura. Next she was to be  at Malabe Boys School teaching up until 1965  when she heads for the US,  with her one-year old son.

3. Life in the US and Canada
On a leave of absence from her teaching, she was joining  her  husband ,  Suwanda H. J. Sugunasiri [LINK: <http//individual.utoronto.ca/suwanda36] in Ann Arbour, Michigan. Though   originally   at the University of Pennsylvania on his  Fulbright Scholarship [LINK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulbright_Program],  he was now  at the University of Michigan, completing a Master’s degree. Already with a BA (London), prior to going overseas,   he was a government  servant of many years, actor,  dancer,  short fiction writer,  newspaper columnist and   translator (Bertrand Russell (Commonsense and Nuclear Warfare) [LINK - www.amazon.com › Common-Nuclear-Warfare-Bertrand-Russell].

After two years in AA  (1965-1967),  the family was to emigrate to  Canada.. Attending  a  two-year Teacher Training Program at the  University of Toronto, she  earns a Certificate, while also earning  a second BA.

Visiting  Ceylon for a short one year, now with a daughter in the family, they were  to return  to Canada, where they were to live  for the rest of their life. Swarna comes to be hired at Vaughan Road Collegiate Institute, continuing to teach English as a  Second Language, having taught the subject at Humber College of Applied Arts upon graduation. After a few years, she ends up as Head of English as a  Second Language at Weston Collegiate Institute, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, retiring in 1998 [8] Upon retirement, she was to set up an annual Award in her name for the best student in English as a  Second Language.

Among her domestic interests were sewing,  and knitting blankets for the granddaughters in the family, including the wider family whom she had helped to emigrate, among them her three brothers and their families. Spending much time at the TV, her favourite was watching tennis, from Australia to England to US to Canada, also attending at the Courts. Another favourite was the western movies. - TCM (Turner Classic Movies])  in particular [9].

4. Author
Upon retirement, she comes to be the author of  two books. While growing up, she had never stepped into the kitchen, a growing family in North America had come to make demands of her culinary responsibilities. And the two children in particular had come to cherish mom’s non-traditional dishes, and was to ask her to keep a record of the dishes. And it was these recipes that  were  to be eventually  published, under the title, Cooking from my Heart: Loving Spoonfuls from a Sri Lankan Kitchen (2008). [LINK: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/cooking-from-my-heart-swarna-sugunasiri/1015096394]. Her dishes are not always easy to be pinned down to a particular culinary tradition, drawing as she does from an international pool (back page).

With time on hand, she was about her early life in Ceylon, titled  Girl Among Boys – Childhood Memories of Growing up in Ceylon (2012). [LINK  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3139847 .Swarna_Sugunasiri].

She was also to publish two articles, “Women in Buddhism: a Personal Note” [10]. But in her own field was a paper on English as a  Second Language Theory “Structuring Structure: A Rationale” [11]  As discovered after her passing away,  she has also written a short story, “The Lady in the White Osariya”.

On occasion into the public life, she comes to be featured in Hamilton Spectator [12] along with two other women, Jewish and Muslim,  in an interfaith dialogue setting. Earlier, while on her short stay in Ceylon, she was featured in Ceylon Daily News [13].

5 World Travel
Both Swarna and Suwanda selected for an International Student Camp, in San Francisco, USA, the money for the train ride for the two had been pooled together to buy a car. Her  husband at the wheel and son in the back seat, first going from AA to San Francisco,  they  were  to traverse the US,  East (New York; Wash DC) to West (LA), and to the south (Florida).

Once in Canada, with two months summer holidays in particular, there was to be much travel across the vast land, British Columbia to Newfoundland,  by car,  train or airplane,

On a tour of Europe by car,   family joined by family friends, among the countries visited were UK, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland

A  Caribbean Cruise taking her to the  West Indies, she was to be in Cuba twice – 2009 and 2010.

On way back to Ceylon  in 1972, she and her  family were to visit  Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand. While in Sri Lanka, she was to visit the holy cities of Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa, and the well-known rock fortress at Sigiriya [LINK], https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigiriya],  well known for its nymphs (Apsara)   and poetry  on  the mirror wall [14].

6 Spiritual life
The story on Swarana Sugunasiri would not be complete without reference to her spiritual life and the  Buddhist values she lived by. To begin with,   she was a lifelong non-smoker and teetotaler, this, however,  true of women in general of her generation, in Buddhist Sri Lanka. Beginning with her young days, she was a regular visitor, with family, to the nearby temple    [15]     Looking after parents  being a ‘Blessing’ as per the Buddhadhamma,   she was to bring  over her mother to Canada, with dad passed away.

She was known for her generosity, her last gift   a blanket made by herself,  given to a just born baby in the family,  on the very night of the fatal fall in the wee hours of the following morning.

While in Canada, she was to support the temples in Toronto, and  needy students in Sri Lanka. She was also to donate her body for medical research, upon her passing away, the whole family at her bedside as she passed away.

But she also seems to have had psychic skills. It was to everyone’s surprise that her favourite brother Chandrarathna, who was working in a far away place, showed up at home  on the very day of  her   coming of age [16], this at a time with no telephones. It was as if she had acted on her  brother’s mind! After passing away, it was also to be discovered that she would possibly have been    a  jati-sotapanna ‘born stream-entrant’  [17]. This, in Buddha’s Teachings, is the first phase on the Path of liberation, the Buddha guaranteeing no more than 7 more lifetimes.

7 Influence
If Swarna’s  personal qualities were to serve as an inspiration for  the two children,  the more practical influence was on her  own family,   helped to emigrate to Canada. At a professional level,   the clear beneficiaries were the students as well as the York Board of Education. Inspirational at a distance, however, was for her alma mater, Panadura Balika Girls School.

8 Books
Cooking From my Heart: Loving Spoonfuls from Aa Sri Lankan Family Kitchen.

Girl Among Boys: Childhood Memories of Growing Up in Ceylon.

9.1 Footnotes
1. Lori,  2006. p. 637.

2.  See the title of her Memoir, Girl Among Boys, 2012 [LINK www.goodreads.com › author › show › 3139847.Swarna_Sugunasiri].

3.  Sugunasiri, Swarna, 1983, 78.

4. “I started my tree climbing career when I was seven…..As a  scrawny little kid with a big appetite for mischief, I was proud of my achievement” of climbing up the branches,  for the fruit she was eyeing, and then jumping  (Sugunasiri, Swarna, 2012, p. 7).

5.   Sugunasiri, Swarna, 1983, 78;  Sugunasiri, Swarna, 2012, p.22, 23.

6.  Sugunasiri, Swarna, 2012, p. 26..

7. Sugunasiri, Swarna, 2012, p. 237.

8. Sugunasiri, Suwanda, 2017.

9.  Sugunasiri, Suwanda, 2017.

10. Sugunasiri, Swarna, 1983.

11. TESL TALK,  vol. 7 No 4, Sept 1976.

12.   Hamilton Spectator, July 25, 1987, C 11.

13 Ceylon Daily News, Oct.. 14, 1972.

14. Paranavitana,1956. .

15. The information here and in this section is from Sugunasiri, 2012 ,  and / or the other literature identified above.

16. Sugunasiri, Swarna, p. 213.

17. See  http://individual.utoronto.ca/suwanda36/Gratitudinal-Family.html, F A M I L Y - SAMSARIC PARTNER.

9.2 Bibliography
Ceylon Daily News, “Healthy pupil-teacher relations in Canada”, Oct.. 14, 1972

Hamilton Spectator, July 25, 1987, C 11.

Paranavitana, S., Sigiri Graffiti. Being Sinhalese verses of the eighth, ninth and tenth centuries, 2 vols. London: Oxford University Press, for the Archaeological Survey, Ceylon, 1956.

Pierce, Lori, 2006,  "Origins of Buddhism in North America", in Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America, Rosemary Skinner Keller, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Marie Cantlon (eds.). Indiana University Press, 2006. p. 637.

Sugunasiri, Suwanda, 2017 “Death of a Golden Lady”, The Island, April 29, 2017.

Sugunasiri, Swarna,  1976, “Structuring Structure: A Rationale” TESL TALK,  vol. 7 No 4, Sept 1976.

Sugunasiri, Swarna, 1983, “Women in Buddhism – a Personal Note”,  Canadian Woman Studies, Vol 5, Number 2, Winter 1983.

Sugunasiri, Swarna, 2008, Cooking from my Heart: Loving Spoonfuls from a Sri Lankan Kitchen, Authorhouse, USA

Sugunasiri, Swarna, 2012, Girl Among Boys: Memories of Growing Up in Ceylon, Vijitha Yapa.

10 External links.
www.lankaweb.com › news › items › 2017/04/29.

http://individual.utoronto.ca/suwanda36/Gratitudinal-Family.html.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helena_Blavatsky.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigiriya.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/cooking-from-my-heart-swarna-sugunasiri/1015096394.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3139847 .Swarna_Sugunasiri

wikimapia.org › Panadura-balika-maha-vidyalaya.