Prof. Anil Jayasekara: A mentor par excellence, a friend for all seasons

It is with great sadness that we remember Prof. Anil Jayasekara the founding head of the Department of Agricultural Technology, Faculty of Technology, University of Colombo, who passed away on April 2, 2024. 
Prof. Jayasekera hailed from Gampaha and grew up in Colombo as the eldest son of Dr. Lionel Jayasekera, one of the most respected and sought-after family physicians in Gampaha and late Leelawathie Piyaseeli Wikramaarachchi the daughter of the island’s most renowned Ayurvedic Physician and senator late Pandit Gabrial Perera Wickmaarachchi. Coming from such a background his fate to serve the people of this little island was imprinted in his genes, and so he did.
He was schooled at Royal College Colombo, and leaving school he read for an honors degree in botany at the University of Colombo. Following graduation and securing a permanent faculty position in the Botany Department, he travelled to Canada to obtain a Master’s in Plant Physiology and a Doctorate in Plant Molecular Biology at the Department of Plant Science, University of Calgary.  While his contemporaries including yours truly flew the nest seeking adventures and greener pastures Prof.  Anil was always determined to return to Sri Lanka, to his family, his University and his country, and he did. He returned to Sri Lanka and continued at the Department of Botany at the University of Colombo as a senior lecturer. 
Second only to his commitment to his family his biggest passions were research and teaching. He was always convinced that improving crops, especially rice through genetic alteration was far healthier and safer than using unregulated quantities of potentially carcinogenic chemicals on the rice plant. But against the strong winds of anti GMO rhetoric, his work had to be confined to the lab bench, the greenhouse and peer-reviewed publications.  

At various times during his career, he acted as the Chair of the National Committee on Biotechnology, the Director of the Biotechnology Education and Information Centre at the Department of Plant Sciences University of Colombo, the Secretary for the General Research Committee and Section D (life and earth sciences) of Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science, the recipient of fellowships from the Norman Borlaug Foundation USA and the International Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology at Trieste Italy.  Through all that he contributed immensely to the education and research of plant biotechnology in the country. He made presentations at various national and international meetings and was a highly respected scientist. 
He received multiple grants from the NSF, NRC and the University for his research but there were many times he contributed his personal funds to obtain expensive consumables for molecular biology research. That was the level of dedication he had for his work and his research students. Even after coming under a neurodegenerative condition Prof. Jayasekera made an enormous contribution for the initiation of a new Faculty of Technology, especially in the construction of new laboratories, which he did with integrity and transparency and also in developing the curriculum. The latter he hoped would direct his students from a classical system of education to one that is technology and opportunity driven which is what his 
country needed.  
Anil was never the Professor who sat behind a large desk and peered at his students over a pair of glasses. His door was always open, the students had his personal telephone number and if his students didn’t come to him he went to them. The outpouring of emotion on social media from his students at his death is a testament to what he was to them. While one said “He was the greatest human being I met”, another said “He was a father to us as much as a Prof”. One student called him “The best teacher she ever had and that she left each lecture excited about doing great things in science”, and to another “He was the man who quietly inspired, motivated and shaped their lives”. What surfaced through their sorrow was Anil’s unparalleled dedication and empathy towards his students. 
Humility was undoubtedly his trademark; he grew up at Gregory’s Road in Colombo 7 but was more humble than all of his contemporaries to the extent that as a student he hid his car up Queen’s Road and walked to campus.  He was a friend for all seasons.  Whether it was a joyful trip or a fearful disease he was there for his friends. On that fateful and shameful day in July 1983, he braved his life to save his Tamil-speaking friends. I was fortunate to be his co-pilot when he drove our best friend and her sibling to safety through bellowing smoke and fire and madmen with chains and clubs who stopped cars and beat people to mush.  

A lifetime teetotaler he didn’t need alcohol to sharpen his razor-sharp wit, always leaving us in stitches of laughter. He was our Chandler Bing!
Anil was fortunate to be blessed with parents and siblings who loved him deeply, a life partner Hiranya (nee Gunetilaka) who dedicated her life to his and their children’s well-being and two great sons of  whom he was genuinely proud. In the words of the Roman Philosopher Seneca, length of life should not be counted in calendar days but in how much one lived, and in that sense Anil lived for over a century. May his journey through the universe be lined with green fields of rice and be surrounded by discoveries.  
Vindhya Amarasinghe and Palitha Dharmawardhana, Colombo Botany ’82.