Hantana – A Fond Farewell – By GEORGE BRAINE Three years ago, in March, I drove away from Hantana for the last time, ending a long relationship, perhaps a romance. As with any relationship that ends, the memories are bittersweet, for the house at Hantana had been our beloved second home for 35 long years. For those who have been students at Peradeniya University, or for older fans who recall the hit movie Hanthane Kathawa, or more recent fans of Amarasiri Peiris’ Hantanata payana sanda, Hantana has an aura of romance, of nostalgia, of lost love. But this is not about that Hantana; over the range of hills from Peradeniya, above the city of Kandy, is the other Hantana where my house was located. In the mid-1980s, when I was planning to travel abroad for higher studies, my son was schooling in Kandy. “If you buy us a house in Kandy” my ...

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