The general election of 1970 reduced the UNP to 17 seats in Parliament and installed the SLFP led United Front in power with 135 seats.
Gamini Dissanayake, aged 28, was one of the 17 to win a seat from the multi-member constituency of Nuwara Eliya- Maskeliya.
Srima Dissanayake was in the visitors’ gallery when the new parliamentarians were sworn in. She was in the Speaker’s gallery to listen to Gamini’s maiden speech. Gamini was unseated on an election petition and was reelected at the ensuing by-election.
Again, Srima Dissanayake was in the Speaker’s gallery watching Gamini being sworn in for the second time during his first term in Parliament.
Gamini experienced adversity and setbacks early in his career and developed a charmingly sanguine vision of his political curve. Here comes the point when the cliché – ‘behind every successful man there is a woman’ becomes unavoidable and mandatory.
Srima Dissanayake was a supportive wife who believed utterly and unconditionally in her husband’s purpose, promise and providence.
Gamini’s exuberant charisma was deeply anchored in Srima Dissanayake’s graceful nonchalance in the ego-driven, pitiless world of politics.
His parliamentary contributions were well researched. In this he was more than adequately helped by Srima Dissanayake who had an unpretentiously cerebral world view as a lawyer and the spouse of a decidedly restless and determined politician.
She was the steely strength behind the scenes that gave her gifted husband free rein in the pursuit of his dreams. These were times when men of towering intellects and oratorical brilliance strode the national political stage. On either side of the ideological divide, they were engaged in the great game brimming with promise and hope for the future.
By their side, were women who epitomised grace and dignity, partners and equals as much as they were home-makers.
In this exciting milieu Gamini and Srima Dissanayake depicted the promise of Camelot with many shining spots to adorn their collaboration, while Gamini, quietly but assuredly reached high political office. When his political ascendancy was brutally intercepted by terror, the shell-shocked UNP decided to field the grieving widow of the slain icon.
Not quite prepared to engage in regular campaigning due to security concerns, still dazed by the horror of it all and the prospect of raising a young family, she was no match for the Chandrika Kumaratunga wave that swept the country in 1994.
But the image of her entering the polling booth unaccompanied, wearing a simple white sari, to cast her vote in that historic election, will endure.
Srima Dissanayake has passed on. The Song of Camelot echoes in the rich forests of the beyond.
In those rich forests of Camelot, a future King lowered his sword. A quarter century later, amidst the noises of the night, she floated down to Camelot, so that he can rest in the arms of his sweet Lady.
(The writer had known Gamini and Srima from 1970-1982).