That match got him to think. So he thought. Two years later, when he finished thinking, he decided on joining his school’s boxing squad. This was in 2014. Two further years later, by which time he had resolved to concentrate on boxing and boxing only, he had undergone training, taken part in various meets, and prepared himself for the ultimate encounter, the Stubbs Shield. But before we get to Stubbs, the medals and tokens he won there, and the sense of fulfilment it compelled in him, we need to look at those two years, and assess the foreword and afterword they bring out. The protagonist of that story, incidentally, has a name. Vimuth Dewmina.
Vimuth’s story begins many, many years ago. He was born at the Wathupitiwala Hospital at Attanagalla. His father (a pastor) hailed from Bowatte, his mother (a housewife) hailed from Negombo, while in his early years he and his family lived in Kirindiwela until they moved to Kuliyapitiya owing to a shift in the parish. “Kuliyapitiya is pretty urbanised now, hardly recognisable in fact. I remember running as a child, very clearly, and running over an edanda and even falling into it once.” While he didn’t do much at his first school, St Joseph’s Boys College, he did take to athletics there. “St Joseph’s wasn’t endowed with proper infrastructure. Nevertheless, I did what I could with what I had.” In the end, having sat for his Grade Five Scholarship in 2010, he passed with a cool 179 marks and left for Royal College.
It was at Royal that he became enthralled by the prospect of going beyond just studies and taking to sports and societies. He began with basketball, shifted to badminton, got into the B team, and trained well enough to be considered a member of the A team, and by the sidelines played volleyball as well. But then he went for that boxing match. Naturally, he got confused. “What was I to do?” he asks me. “For months, I reflected on this issue. And then, in Grade Nine, two years after I watched that match, played with Trinity College, Kandy, I decided to box. By the time I joined the squad, however, selections for tournaments had been finalised. Half the year had gone by, and I had to spend the other half training.”
For the prospective school boxer there are, in Sri Lanka, various meets organised at the regional and national levels, but of them three stand out: in order, the L. V. Jayaweera Meet, the T. B. Jayah Meet, and the Stubbs Shield. In 2015, about eight months after he was selected for the squad at Royal, Vimuth got the chance to fight at the L. V. Jayaweera Meet. “I remember wading through the quarter and the semi finals, until I reached the finals, where I lost 2-1 to a boxer from Peradeniya Central. My weight category there was 46-48 kg. Then I was despatched to the T. B. Jayah Meet, again in the same weight category. There too I lost at the finals, and again with the same score as before. From there we left for the Stubbs Shield. My weight category was 48-50 kg. I managed to procure a Bronze Shield, but couldn’t go beyond the semi finals. I lost to a contender from Horana Vidyarathna. Ironically, the score happened to be 2-1 again.”
In 2015 they had practised at Pannala, which had a climate that was more or less similar to Colombo’s, and in 2016 they would practise, right before that year’s Stubbs Shield Tournament, at the colder and hence less easy to adapt to Diyathalawa. “I obviously couldn’t play at the L. V. Jayaweera again, given that I played before. But the T. B. Jayah and the Stubbs Shield were open to me. With respect to the former, I waded through until the semi finals, where I was taken aback by probably the most competitive contender I’ve encountered until now. He was from Dheerananda College in Kandy and he had a bodyline that was in many respects better than mine, though he was shorter than me. He could play well. I lost to him that day: 2-1. I have encountered him three times since then. That was the only time I lost to him.” According to Vimuth, this defeat proved to be a turning point: it helped him reflect on what he actually wanted to do.
“By this time I had stayed with the squad for over two years. I asked myself, ‘What have I done throughout all these years?’ When we went to Diyathalawa, I therefore resolved on improving myself. When we were sent home to rest afterwards, I watched as many boxing videos as I could, particularly with respect to taller players, to up my game-play. This was right before the Stubbs Shield. I obviously wasn’t going to go for a Bronze Shield. I needed to achieve more, much more. Diyathalawa, with its cold climate and the long walks we used to take every day to the playground and then to the gym, helped considerably there. So did the fact that we were coached that year by a new person, one Mr Anthony, who had a kind word for us no matter how badly we played. I think those factors contributed to my performance at the Shield, where I encountered that player from Dheerananda again, went through three rounds at the semis against him, and emerged as the winner with a score of 3-0, and as the champion in my weight class, 50-52 kg.”
That year, the Stubbs Shield turned 99. The following year, it turned 100. The problem was that Royal had lost for the last 30 years. Vimuth’s evolution as a contender on his own right, clearly, had a say in the squad’s determination to make the 100th Shield their moment. “We won the quarter finals. Of the eight players from our squad, six made it to the semi finals. We won there as well. At the finals, I encountered a player from Horana Vidyarathna. Earlier another team member, Ansaff Ahmed, had won a match we thought was tilted against him. The next fight was mine. That I won 5-0 helped, because it tilted the scales in our favour. If I had lost, not only would it have discouraged the squad, it would have meant that for us to win, we would have to go through three more encounters. We didn’t need to. Our captain became the Best Boxer, the Most Scientific, and just as importantly, we clinched the Shield after 30 long years.”
To my surprise, Vimuth tells me that after all these encounters, he considered himself done. “All I wanted to do was court victory for my school,” he tells me, “After that was over, I was asked to return to my studies, which I willingly obliged.” But the afterword which the Stubbs Shield compelled form him wasn’t done, at least not yet, so over the next six months, Vimuth was selected to represent the country at two foreign meets: one at Germany, last December, the other in Indonesia, in April this year. While he was unanimously selected along with a contingent from his Royal for the former, he had to undergo trials for the latter. “I loved Germany, but couldn’t get used to its cold climate. That’s why I was happy I got a Bronze Shield,” he remembers. As for Indonesia, the Asian Boxing Championship, he had toured with three other contenders.
Vimuth has other stories to relate, which we ought to delve into when they’ve completed their rounds the way his stints at boxing have. Not that those stints have ended. Far from it, I hope. “Over the last six years, I managed to discover myself. And not just in sports. Being part of various societies contributed too. In that sense I need to remember a few names, particularly my coaches, Mr Abdulla Ibunu, Mr Nisthar, and Mr Senarathna, along with our in more ways than one patron, Mr Lakshman Amarasekara. Then there is our Senior Games Master, Mr Riyaz Aluher, who took the trouble of accompanying us in Germany, and of course our Principal, Mr Abeyrathna. I am grateful to them all.”
Vimuth’s life so far has been adorned by scores, shields, trophies, and ranks. Will they blind him or empower him? I sincerely hope that they will empower him. As we all do.
Written for: The Island YOUth, May 20 2018
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