Blog Archives

The Way it used to be    ” a short story from “Rainbows in Braille” – A collection of short stories – By Elmo Jayawardena    This is no Englebert love song – it is something with much more meaning.  The gram-sellers at Galle Face Green sold their ‘kadala gotu’ topped with ‘isso wade’ for twenty-five cents. The moviegoers at Savoy cinema came out; couples went to Aleric’s for ice-cream and families miserly budgeted for Chinese fried rice at Golden Gate. Gunawardena opened batting for Tamil Union and Sunderalingam kept wickets for the Sinhalese Sports Club. This was once nostalgic Sri Lanka on easy street sans the raging war and the terrible turmoil; ‘The way it used to be’. The ‘Yal Devi’ took the Madhu pilgrims and the ‘Ruhunu Kumari’ carried the Kataragama clan. Marawila fishermen fished at Mulativ with the monsoon change and Lever’s and Reckitt’s Sales-Reps sold toothpaste ...