Bahirawakande Archives

Minette de Silva – Architect (A Brief Memoir by Jane Russell) Chapter Two – St Georges “I remember, I remember, the house where I was born.” Thomas Hood (1827) St Georges, the house where Minette was born and grew up, was built on three acres of land on Bahirawakande (Bahirawa Hill) by Minette’s father in 1910. I loved St Georges. The steep winding road up to the house ran through a jungly forest of jak, areca, kittul, bamboo and various tropical fruit and flowering trees. Although in my early twenties, I’d become addicted to Four Aces, the tipped cigarette preferred by government clerks. So, I’d stop at each bend on my way up to catch my failing breat For the fit and enthusiastic, there was a short-cut – a stone staircase of what felt like a hundred steps. It was dangerously slimy in the monsoon and subject to the predations ...

SUJITH MADHUSHANKA – Medical Student – Kandy by Quintus de Zylva SUJITH has just been selected for entry to the Sri Jayawardnepura Medical Faculty. He was a student at Dharmarajah College in Kandy. He was in the Biology stream and received a scholarship from DAANAL – the Dharmarajah Alumini Association of North America. He was introduced to us by Rev. Buddadatha Thero – a priest at Bahirawakande – Kandy. His father is a retired Army Officer and his mother a housewife. Sujith supported himself by tutoring students in Kandy. He has asked for a laptop or i-pad and we are grateful to a generous donor from Moorabbin who has provided us with one. AUSLMAT has extended our medical work in Sri Lanka to include support of students in need. ...