The Rising Sun comes with bombs on Easter Sunday – By Capt Elmo Jayawardena I am no aviation historian, just an aeroplane driver who spent a long time in the sky. The Japanese bombing of Sri Lanka in 1942 is mainly information that passed from people to people as the years rolled. Some subtracted the truth and some others exaggerated the myths. I want to share with readers what little I found out and perhaps shed a little more light on events that took place a long time ago on an Easter Sunday morning. Squadron Leader Leonard Birchall arrived in Ceylon on the 3rd of April 1942. The flight was from Karachi to Koggala where an RAF base was operational. Birchall was from the 413 Squadron of the Royal Canadian Air Force. They, at that time, had a joint operation with RAF to conduct reconnaissance flights over the southern coast ...
Capt Elmo Jayawardena
Did Birchall really save Ceylon? – Capt Elmo Jayawardena Or was it another story like charge of the Light Brigade? I wrote few days back about the Japanese bombing of Ceylon in 1942. Many who read emailed me asking for more details. Some expressed nostalgic sentiments, remembering what their parents conveyed to them about the Easter Sunday bombing. Some gave additional information, such as the rare photo that is published here. All these made me write somewhat a sequel to the story, perhaps little bit more information for those who are interested in the bygone days and what may have taken place. There was a Japanese young man who came to learn to fly in Ratmalana as a ‘fun flier” in the late 1930s. It was said among the instructors and fellow ‘fun fliers’ that the said Japanese knew to fly and may have pretended he came to learn. It ...
The Way it used to be ” a short story from “Rainbows in Braille” – A collection of short stories – By Elmo Jayawardena This is no Englebert love song – it is something with much more meaning. The gram-sellers at Galle Face Green sold their ‘kadala gotu’ topped with ‘isso wade’ for twenty-five cents. The moviegoers at Savoy cinema came out; couples went to Aleric’s for ice-cream and families miserly budgeted for Chinese fried rice at Golden Gate. Gunawardena opened batting for Tamil Union and Sunderalingam kept wickets for the Sinhalese Sports Club. This was once nostalgic Sri Lanka on easy street sans the raging war and the terrible turmoil; ‘The way it used to be’. The ‘Yal Devi’ took the Madhu pilgrims and the ‘Ruhunu Kumari’ carried the Kataragama clan. Marawila fishermen fished at Mulativ with the monsoon change and Lever’s and Reckitt’s Sales-Reps sold toothpaste ...
Conversations” a short story from “Rainbows in Braille” – A collection of short stories – By Elmo Jayawardena “The bus broke down at Dehiwela, that’s why I am late,” he hurriedly explains. “I even thought I would not be able to come today, luckily they got another bus.” “It was crowded, filled to the brim, spilling people, but I managed.” He goes on and on in his monologue, he is used to it. “They asked me today whether I would like to get transferred to Kandy. They need someone there to do the store-keeper’s job. I would have gone, I like Kandy, I like the green hills and the constant rain and the mist filled mornings.” “But then, I will not be able to come and see you or talk to you.” He knows he will never leave. That would not be too easy to do. “Do you remember the ...
The Defending Champions” a short story from “Rainbows in Braille” – A collection of short stories – By Elmo Jayawardena This is a story, fictitious and with no reference to anyone. Of course if it angers someone, then perhaps the cap might be fitting. “Ramaneee!” The yell comes from somewhere upstairs and Ramani scrambles out of the kitchen wiping her palms on her buttocks, the hands are wet, needs wiping, she’s been cutting cucumber for the Madam’s salad breakfast. “Bring my things, bring my things, I am running late,” yells the Madam on fast forward, similar decibels as the name call and then adds the mandatory order, “find my gym card, find my gym card, I don’t know where the hell it is!” Ramani now having transferred her cucumber wetness to her shrivelled posterior grabs the Lance Armstrong-type water bottle and fills it with the precise instructed measurements, one half ...
Hopeless”Rainbows in Braille” – A collection of short stories – By Elmo Jayawardena If not for the hounding of the innocent and the semi innocent village youth in the late 80’s, Ekanayaka would never have come to Colombo. Then I would not have met him or known who he is. Strange how life unfolds; a remote village, a disturbing time, someone escapes a possible gruesome death for being found guilty for a tenth of a reason. Years later I hear the hardly recallable agonizing details and decided to write this story. That’s how it all began and here I am, locked up in a hotel room in Amsterdam on a cold winter day, making my infantile attempt to reach you and others who may want to know the truth. It is our sacred duty that we should do our best to remember, lest they be forgotten; the sad times and ...
Sellam Badu Kollo ” a short story from “Rainbows in Braille” – A collection of short stories – By Elmo Jayawardena The sunsets were magnificent; long and slow as the western sky got splashed in marmalade and vermillion. The glow in the far horizon was burnt gold where the sun’s thin red rays sprouted through low ‘mackerel shoal’ clouds like a mute symphony from heaven. The beach became copper coloured and the water’s edge a rare purple with white-foamed waves still battering the shore. Far to the right the rotating beam of the Galle lighthouse made its lazy rounds, still an infant blip against the fading last light of a day nearing its end. The sky, the sea and the beach in harmony were picture postcard perfect, an instant painting that would last awhile till the night cloaked it in darkness. The two lay on large Poseidon Inn towels ...
Tsunami ” a short story from “Rainbows in Braille” – A collection of short stories – By Elmo Jayawardena The children were all gathered in the village school premises. Some were standing near the entrance whilst some were seated on the steps. A few loitered around the yard and others stood near the gate. Almost all the girls had come in their white-pleated uniforms, the boys were in their blue school-shorts and white shirts, perhaps the best they owned. A few elders too were present, village types in sarongs and shirts and mostly barefooted. Betel chewing mouths spat jets of red spit from time to time discolouring small patches on the ground. I was part of a team that had come to this remote southern corner of the country, to a beach-hamlet known as Kalamatiya, a few miles away from the well known town of Tangalle. Kalamatiya had once ...
Van Uncle ” a short story from “Rainbows in Braille” – A collection of short stories – By Elmo Jayawardena Piyaratne had come to Colombo in search of fresher pastures. Never mind what colour – green, blue or dirt brown; he was forced into relocation and that was the reason for his hardly-explained migration. It was almost a year ago when Vidanalage Somasiri Piyaratne and his ‘not so’ soul partner, Monkey Face, left Kekirawa and moved lock, stock and dirty-linen to Colombo. “Not that I was unhappy, but don’t you know,” he tried to explain to any and sundry who made inquiries and perversely prompted answers. The “don’t you know” was a reply in limbo. That has been the agreement with Monkey Face. She gets to move to Colombo in exchange for her silence and he retains his dignity and the world was told a made up fairy-tale ...
The Bicycle Man ” a short story from “Rainbows in Braille” – A collection of short stories – By Elmo Jayawardena Piyasiri was dressed, in his available best, which is something you seldom see. His greased black, dirt-brown shorts, eternal costume at his hole in the wall bicycle repair shop had been exchanged for a sakaramutai pink Palayacart sarong and his usually bared body was sporting a clean, cream, short-sleeved shirt which stretched a tad tight. The little shop cum home was closed. No repairing bicycles or inflating tyres. Not on this day. “Manike is coming today from the Middle East, I am going to the airport to bring her home, two years is a long time,” he forced declarations proudly to anybody who cared to even glance at him standing by the road, a beaming smile and intrepid anxiety written all over his face. “I am waiting ...
