October 6, 2022, 9:48p10

He was never ashamed to speak of the two and a half years he worked as a Naattaami (labourer) in the Pettah. In fact he was proud of it too. He often said, “carrying those loads constantly helped me realize the burden of life”. That was Darshan Dharmaraj, the young Tamil man from Rakwana and old boy of St. John’s College whose economic problems brought him to Colombo to make it big in the capital city. He nurtured dreams of becoming an actor. The only job that would give him great flexibility of time was that of a ”Naataami”, even though it also meant sleeping on cardboard at times. Such was his dream and determination. The rest is contemporary Sri Lankan cinema history. The news of his sudden death of a heart attack at 41 years on Sunday 02nd October 2022, reverberated across the nation and among all ethnicities. It

Read more...

September 3, 2021, 9:48p09

Priyanthi de Silva Sivapragasam (1944 – 2021) Priyanthi de Silva, as she was known then, was one of those charming figures and memories from my childhood, during those many, many years I went for music lessons to her mother Aunty Dorothy at No 19 Kinross Avenue, in Bambalapitiya. The Priyanthi of my childhood and early teens was a very effervescent and charming woman with a smile splashed right across her face. And through that smile you could feel her warmth and sincerity. It was all pervasive. During those very early years I actually hardly came into contact with Priyanthi. It was always Aunty Dorothy, whom I loved dearly and as I still do even to this day. Music lessons with Aunty Dorothy went on forever. She never heard the clock chime nor did I want to remind her either. There were also times when she invited me to tea in

Read more...

June 24, 2021, 9:48p06

An integral part of Kohuwala’s history is the ‘Kalindu Bilindu Pasela’ and behind this landmark institution was an iconic figure – Bona de Lanerolle. I was privileged to be one of her students from 1966-1967 before entering Wesley College the year after. The ‘Nursely’ was located in her home ‘Green Lodge’ at No 20 on the road that ran from the Nugegoda junction across Kohuwala, past Kalubowila to the Galle Road in Dehiwala. “At that time it was a miserable narrow road”, recalls Kalindi (de Lanerolle) Wirasingha, Bona’s daughter. My earliest recollections of Bona, the grand lady, was the sound of her wooden clogs that announced her arrival which happened moments  later. Clippety-Clop. Clippety-Clop her wooden clogs would sound … and then seconds later Aunty Bona came around But before all of that, my journey from home at No 25, Green Path to the Nursery was another experience in itself.

Read more...

June 20, 2021, 9:48p06

I’m told that I had been a precocious child. It only worsened with age. This might probably also have been, because until my little brother was of an understanding age, my ‘playmates’ were generally an easy fifteen years older than me. There were the Perera ‘children’ (in their early twenties) at the top of Green Path, Kohuwala and then there were the numerous ‘juniorists’ or ‘seminarians’ at the St. Joseph’s OMI Seminary just across the fence. Way back in 1966, as a four year old child, going to the Seminary was like going to some faraway place in a distant land. It was a long walk for my little feet.   As we trundled down the little lane (fringed with a profusion of crotons of various varieties) which turned off Green Path and as we stood at the main gate, the grounds majestically rolled down and away … as far

Read more...

June 13, 2021, 9:48p06

Kohuwala, Nugegoda, in the mid-1960s was a verdant suburb, rural and perhaps village-like too. Life was leisurely and meandering. Green Path was a narrow ‘lane’ with no street lights if I recollect right. If there were, they might have been like 15 watt tungsten bulbs. Houses were far and few between with no parapet walls but hedges instead. Some had basic rickety wooden gates that groaned on their hinges while others had stiles. I never ventured down Green Path. The furthest I would go down was to ‘Mynah House’ to talk to the mynah. This was a little house which had a mynah in a cage dangling from a tree. We would stupidly talk to each other much to the amusement of the elders. The most visible occupant down the road was St. Joseph’s Seminary with its sprawling gardens and to which I shall dedicate an entire chapter down the

Read more...

June 6, 2021, 9:48p06

My birth certificate says that I was born late in the night on Thursday 20th December 1962 at St. Anne’s Nursing Home, Ward Place, Colombo 07. I was named Egodage Justin Charles Kumar de Silva and yes that’s quite a harangue I’ve been saddled with throughout my life. My parents Manel and Justin de Silva were both (Maharagama Government Teacher Training College) teachers. He started off at Royal College and then came to Wesley College, Borella. Mummy was at St. Paul’s Girls School, Campbell Park, Borella (later changed to Rathnawali Balika Vidyalaya in 1968).  They were also parishioners at St. Paul’s Church, Milagiriya where the Rev. Christopher Mutukisna (fondly known as Fr. Sperry) was the officiating priest in charge. (Please note it is Mutukisna and NOT Muthukrishna). I was a Christmas baby, the first born and a son at that. I was to carry our Ambalangoda family name Egodage. There

Read more...

June 4, 2021, 9:48p06

Beating a hasty retreat from the haunted flat at Galle Road, Bambalapitiya, my parents then went lock, stock and barrel, to Nugegoda, to No. 209, High Level Road, to the annexe of the well-known dental physician Dr. Jacob Arnold Gogerly-Moragoda. Our retinue consisted of Nancy an old family faithful (in the photo) and Rocky who saved me from death. This was 1964, two years after I was born. I don’t think my parents ever realised that this was going to be the beginning of a life-long association with this suburb, both for themselves and their two sons, my brother and I. Dr. Moragoda’s baby son Asoka was also there. He was a little white boy. Very fair. Very, very fair. “His mother was a German lady”, Mummy once declared to me in later years, as though she were dispensing a state secret. Asoka and I might have played. We might

Read more...

June 1, 2021, 9:48p06

Gentlemen are aplenty, but a Gentle Gentleman is truly a rarity. And that’s what Cedric de Silva was. He was a Gentle Gentleman. He passed away at home last night (31 May) at the age of 91. He was ailing for quite a while. Three years ago, something snapped in Cedric when Sita (nee Dunuwille), his wife of nearly half a century passed away on 10th June 2018. He came to the AF Raymonds funeral parlour where Sita’s body lay. He slowly walked around the coffin, then sat on a chair and began talking to a friend. After a while, he had got up and said, “I will go home now and come back for the funeral with Sita”. Such had been his state of mind. If Sita was the wind beneath his wings, which she truly was, Cedric was then the rock on which she leant. Their relationship was

Read more...

May 28, 2021, 9:48p05

GYPSY TALES … stories from my life !   As I enter my 60s in December this year, I had this brilliant idea of writing my life story. It felt grand. And then again it felt terribly presumptuous too. “Who would”, I asked myself in all seriousness, “be interested in my life story” however special it might be to me. There was a tinge of embarrassment too. But I knew that I had some interesting stories from the different eras of my life that ran parallel to the changes in society and the world I grew up in. I had to find a compromise. And compromised, I did. I would embark on a long string of stories inspired by the various incidents, situations, experiences, people, etc etc etc and upload them here on my blog. For some comforting reason that option felt less presumptuous. Now for a title. What would

Read more...

May 28, 2021, 9:48p05

I think I was about three years old when we moved to No 25, Green Path in Kohuwala, Nugegoda. Please note that the ‘Nugegoda’ tag HAD TO be added on to Kohuwala. It was the norm at that time, even with the letters the postman brought us. No 25 was a spacious old house with a front ‘office room’ on the right hand side, a large hall and dining room along whose right hand side were the bedrooms. At the back was the kitchen. There was a large garden all around the house with trees of every kind. The back garden was larger, verdant and salubrious. Our landlady was a very kindly old lady call Mrs. Bogaars. I call her ‘old’ because in the mind of a three-year old, everyone above forty was deemed very old. I never knew her first name. She was simply Mrs. Bogaars. She occupied one

Read more...