Palm leaves and Douglas
My father‘s horoscope was written in a palm leaf book. The exact minute of his birth used by an astrologer to predict the life he was likely to lead. I wonder to what extent he realised the promise of his astrological auguries?
His story is an unlikely one. Born to a Sinhalese family engaged in politics, culture and media in a country navigating its way away from colonisation and towards independence, Douglas was a complex blend of western, anglophile sensibilities which sat heavily on a very eastern, Buddhist foundation.
Douglas and his car in the English Lakes
My great grandfather, Simon, published an influential English Language Newspaper, The Ceylon Morning Leader. The paper campaigned for democratic reforms to the Legislative Council of Ceylon and supported indigenous arts and culture which was largely ignored by other English Language Newspapers. He also published the Sinhala language Sinhala Samaya (the Sinhalese Times). His son, Richard, superintended coconut and rubber estates enabling him to develop a lucrative business as an estate agent by buying the larger estates and splitting them up into smaller parcels. This enabled him to send my father to London to qualify as a charted civil engineer. Here he met a group of Sri Lankan students who became his lifelong friends. He also met my mother who was studying religious education, Anglican Christian, and lodging at the same hostel in Earls Court, London.
Boldly, given the social mores of the time, they decided to marry and made the sea journey via the Suez Canal to Sri Lanka. Their wedding took place on my grandfather’s rubber estate, 30 miles north-east of Colombo. The wedding photographer’s car skidded off into a paddy field. These grainy amateur snapshot captured the occasion.
Douglas and Judy at Puwakpitiya Rubber Estate
Richard, Amara, Chitrika and Judy at Puwakpitiya
Wedding Guests including Sujatha
