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Learning from My Father, Five Years After his Passing-by Aparna Halpé Source:Island I was mingling with the audience at a poetry reading in Toronto, where I had been reading some of my new poems, when I was approached by an audience member. He asked me a question that I’ve encountered before in some form or another throughout my entire artistic and professional career… “Excuse me, are you by any chance related to Professor Ashley Halpé?” When I answered that I was his youngest daughter, the gentleman proceeded to tell me this story. In 1970, he was a young student at Peradeniya, and had been in a literature course taught by my father. He had no intention of studying literature seriously, and when my father asked his students to memorize poems, he found the exercise tedious. One day, he brought this up with my father, asking him what earthly use a ...