Remembering Vijaya Kumaratunga Today-by Michael Roberts

SEE David Jeyaraj’s Vale ….. https://thuppahis.com/2025/08/10/in-memoriam-vijaya-kumaratunga/ … FOR the original Thuppahi version, which does not have the highlighting emphases from my hand that can be seen NOW.

A NOTE: David Jeyaraj provides readers with a wide-ranging and incisive account – one which I recommend strongly. Sri Lanka’s political circles lost a visionary political figure when the JVP assassinated Vijaya Kumaratunga on the 16th February 1988. For Chandrika, Yasodhara and Vimukthi, of course, it was a tragedy.

This brief Item in TPS will be followed by the Wikipedia Item on Vijaya and Digital Items on Yasodhara’s Wedding in UK…..…..and, volare, by fifteen Short Poems generated in Yasodhara’s fertile mind that have been printed as a pamphlet. A copy has come into my hands because a copy had been bequeathed by Yasodhara to my sister Estelle Fernando who passed away some years back.

Yasodhara’s NOTE to Estelle is a testimony to her commitment to learning as much as her reading of a beneficial heritage. I am not versed in assessments of poetical ingenuity and leave it to readers to appraise the capacities of a young mind.

However, the fact THAT she had the presence of mind to present such a gift to one of her teachers attests her humane upbringing.

It is guesswork on my part but I conjecture that Estelle Fernando, nee Roberts, may have been one of Yasodhara’s teachers at kindergarten level at Museus College in Cinnamon Gardens not far from the Bandaranaike Walauwwa in Rosmead Place. It also appears that Estelle erved as one of her swimming coaches at the SSC swimming pool (a service Estelle was renowned for).

It is also probable that Estelle was called upon to teach both Yasodhara and Vimukthi when the family went into hiding after that ghastly situation on the 11th February 1988. That ESTELLE would have faced such a challenge during a period when the JVP was quite active as a devastating underground organisation I have little doubt. ESTELLE was as courageous as indomitable.

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Vijaya Kumaratunga: Charismatic Actor-Politician May Have Changed Nation’s Destiny

Posted by Administrator on 21 February 2022, 1:11 am

by D.B.S.Jeyaraj

The political landscape of Sri Lanka seems gloomy and desolate. Most of the actors who strut about the political stage posing as visionaries and leaders are in actuality empty vessels devoid of substance. Proverbial wisdom tells us that empty vessels make most sound. This is most apparent in the cacophony of voices currently prevalent in the polity. In the words of William Butler Yeats “ The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.” The positive dream of Sri Lanka evolving into an inclusive, plural nation is slowly turning into a numerical majoritarian hegemonic nightmare.