This Women’s History Month, Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer, Ranmali Bopitiya, considers the impact of the generations that came before us. She reflects on her grandmother’s optimism, confidence, and determination, which inspire Ranmali to this day.
If my house were burning down and I could save only one inanimate object, I would save my grandmother’s notebook. Sitting in my office, sealed up in a ziplock bag, is my grandmother’s old school composition book dated 1929 - 1931. It looks kind of like the old black and white lab books I used to use in school with the stitched binding. On the inside cover, in her impeccable handwriting, she named it “Wayside Gems.” The journal is full to the last page with quotes she copied over from Longfellow, Keats, Byron and Wordsworth.
The themes vary, but they share an optimism and a striving. One of my favorites is a classic, “To thine own self be true…” I love picturing my grandmother inscribing this into her Wayside Gems, her copy of Hamlet laid open, and her long braid hanging down her back. The phrase etched in her mind, resonating with a truth she dare not underline in the original text. She very much wanted to go study at University, but her family lacked the means to pay for the girls to get an education. She was raised in Sri Lanka under a colonial regime built upon the premise that our people lacked the inherent dignity, capability or worthiness to govern ourselves. And yet, she was appreciating Shakespeare, in her second language, with her high school education.
She married my grandfather, a lawyer, and they had five children. We have an old photograph of them from this time. It is a black and white portrait, serious and posed. My grandmother is elegant in her sari and necklaces and my grandfather was dignified in his tailcoat and sarong. They took a steamliner, the two of them, to Japan. I love thinking about them being adventurous and cosmopolitan- taking in different cultures back before there were blogs to tell you where to go and what to do.