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Scattered yet striking   Andrew Nicholl’s watercolour of Cayman’s Gate Source:Sundaytimes With just a month to go before the country celebrates its 75th anniversary of independence, Yomal Senerath-Yapa visits the Colombo Museum to see its colonial collection In the Colombo National Museum, the colonial heritage of Lanka seems often underplayed. There are galleries sumptuous and magnificent dedicated to the classical eras of Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa and the later isthmus kingdoms leading to the final, Kandyan feudal era, but the four and a half centuries from 1505 to 1948 remain dim lit and ill defined. This is surprising given that the museum was built in 1877, in the height of Queen Victoria – Empress of India’s glory. The largest museum in the country, it is maintained by the Department of National Museums. Built in the Italianate style, the banyan-shaded Colombo Museum located in a prime spot on Sir Marcus Fernando Mawatha, Colombo ...