A tribute to late Dr Upali Mahanama my guru

Dr Upali Mahanama was a man of many parts, an internationally recognised marketing consultant, one of the best orators in Sri Lanka and above all a humble human being.

I first met him at Anglo Asian’s and he was the Managing Director marketing and I was a subordinate of his, he came from Lever Brothers where he was outstanding with his marketing strategies. He was head hunted by Anglo Asians to resurrect their flagging marketing division. He believed in team work and I found him easy to get on with, and he made some useful changes to that set up.

My next meeting with him was after a long time at Weli Park, Nawala, where I met him and he invited me to his home. At the time, I was about to embark on my third cricket book “The Saga of The Maroons” and I desperately needed his guidance. He was a hard task master, but the tips and advice he gave me was invaluable in spite of his busy schedule. He was a Marketing Consultant to many prestigious companies in Asia then.

I used to meet him at 11am sharp at his residence in Nugegoda, and I suppose that was his auspicious time and he used to give me about 40 precious minutes of his invaluable time. He did not interfere with my flow of writing but gave me good advice on editing, the contents, and how to approach people for interviews and conduct them; his knowledge of writing was out of this world. He never hesitated to “call a spade a spade.” He was a simple down to earth, gentleman who was always at ease, either in his sarong and banian at home or in his three-piece suit delivering lectures to prestigious audience’s right around the globe. He was raconteur par excellence, who could hold and audience spell bound for hours on end.

I owe a great debt to him for resurrecting my career as a writer. After writing for a couple of newspapers and, getting nowhere, he recommended me to the present sports editor of this newspaper who graciously gave me the opportunity to write my own weekly column called ‘Reminiscing with Tilak.’ Without this introduction by Doc (I always refer to Dr Mahanama as Doc), I would have still been an also ran.

Doc my guru guided me all the way to the launch of my book as follows, booking the hall, list of invitees, designing the invitation cards, etc, etc.

The last time I saw him was during the “New Year’s Day”. On that day he looked hale and hearty, and encouraged me to keep going and wished me luck. From then on, I did not want to trouble him much. His family and Roshan Mahanama in particular did their best till the very end but nobody could stop him from going to heaven.