Nuwara Seeyaa

The other day when I was browsing through a heap of very old books which were heaped in a neglected corner and left to rot, I found this very enlightening book titled " The ladder of life". The book was published in 1951...Yes it's really old. This book was a property of one of my late grand fathers who, we as little children used to call " Nuwara Seeyaa".

This knowledge about the original owner of the book took me some ten or eight years back in my memory lane, to the times I enjoyed with this very merry soul. Nuwara Seeyaa was a brother of my paternal grand father,meaning the uncle of my father. He resided in Mahanuwara (Kandy), which was the cause of us calling him Nuwara Seeyaa.

The memories of him are associated with happiness. Always an active person, he never missed a chance to crack a joke or two whenever the chance permitted. Used to chew beetle every now and then,which sometimes drew an angry retort from my mother. What I liked in him most was his never dying enthusiasm, and his passion to see us educated. When he faced with some trouble a pain in heart, he used to remark "shah shah" which was his trade mark.

Nuwara Seeya was an educated person. Actually he was the most accomplished one in my fathers family academically. Though he passed his A/L with flying colours his family had no means to support his university education. So he got into job in postal service and retired as a respected civil servant in the area.

Some years back he died of cancer. I heard that he suffered a little, which is not always the case with cancer patients. I could't attend his funeral. But I'll remember him forever not as a feeble man but a man of confidence and energy, which is certainly the way he would have wanted us to remember him.