A friend of mine, Kumudu, told me the whereabouts of Mr.Bandusena. When I dig more, I didn’t have any doubt, he can’t be anyone but one of the pioneering commercial divers in Sri Lanka. I had read about him. According to Kumudu he was living in Sydney. Then I was really interested in seeing this legendary diver who should be now in his old age. I told Kumudu could you please introduce me. Then Mr.Bandusena has asked why he wanted to see me? is he a journalist? Anyway, after convincing him that I am no one but a diving enthusiast who have read about him, he agreed. Then it was hard to schedule a day since he had a strict time-table and I too was very busy since I was working as an IT Consultant in Sydney at that period. Once I asked him can I come this Friday? He said NO!, Fridays I cook for my children.
Anyway, at last I got the chance to see him in his residence at Frenches Forest, North of Sydney on March 2014. I visited him along with Kumudu. On our way we bought a bottle of Barossa Valley wine as a gift. We were greeted by his wife, who was a very charming English lady. It was a lovely warm home. In no time he was so thrilled and started to tell me his good old stories.
I was listening to those jaw-dropping stores while having a beer on that cold evening. As far as I knew, he has been the first Sri Lankan commercial diver commissioned in Colombo port development activities. He also showed me old diving equipments like Diving bells and classic diving manuals kept carefully. His wife assured he was happily talking about his legendary diving life in Sri Lanka to someone after a long time.
I kept on asking questions.
How did you ended up being a commercial diver?
It was a fateful thing. After finishing my school education, I applied for many jobs and I was selected by port authority to train as a diver. For some reason I picked it.
It was very hard in the beginning. All divers working there were Englishmen and they were the worst people I have ever come across. They humiliated me continuously.
"You may haven’t heard such filthy words they were using."
ඒ තරම් නරක වචන ඔයා අහල නැතුව අති!
They were tough and quite uncivilized.
Once I was so fed-up with this craziness and decided to leave. Then famous engineer Mr.Kulasinghe came to me and told;
Son, please don’t leave, if you leave today, we will not be able to get this technology to our hands. Please be patience.
පුතා යන්න එපා, ඔයා අද ගියොත් අපිට කවදාවත් මේ ශිල්පෙ මුන්ගෙන් ගන්න වෙන්නෙ නැ, තව පොඩ්ඩක් ඉවසන්න
By the time goes, one day those English rascals started arguing with each other and divided themselves into two groups. This situation was affecting the work as well. This made manager to assign me diving tasks. So that was the start of my journey.
Mr Bandusena in his heydays, while working (Images: taken from internet)
He also explained me of his accident. Once he was working underwater, constructing a breakwater, huge concrete block collapsed towards him, trapping one of him palms in between two structures. His palm, almost chopped, had been just hanging by a strip of flesh after the terrific hit. Visibility had vanished with debris and particles around and blood was flowing heavily from his palm. While he was in life threatening situation, he realized the danger he was in. Mr.Bandusena pulled his had tearing remaining flesh, released himself from the clutches of the structure, ascend carefully. He had been in very bad shape. Someone had already sent a message to his family telling Mr. Bandusena died in an accident! Luckily enough, he was recovered. Mr.Bandusena didn’t forget to show me his plam without fingers, only remaining physical evidence of the accident.
After listening to such great history, we left Mr.Bandusena’s home on that cold autumn day promising to visit him again.
Myself and Mr Bandusena @ his residence in 2014
Same year, in winter, my second daughter, Vipuli, was born and I ended up being very busy. I couldn’t visit Mr.Bandusena again.
It was a coincident, on 31st December 2015, while everybody in Sydney was getting ready to see the fireworks, I decided to make a dive in Cabbage Tree Aquatic Reserve. After finishing the dive, I checked my mobile phone since I am texting my wife as a habit to ensure her that I have completed diving and out of water. Then I saw a text message from Kumudu. “Hey Buddy, Bandusena Uncle passed away”
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