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.
Recently i got my hands on to very fascinating book named the "Human Zoo".actually what I'm reading is the Sinhala translation of it.The original literature was done by the zoologist Desmond Morris.The author successfully tries to convince the reader that "man" is essentially an animal, and whatever the advances we have made today we still haven't been able to conquer the inner animal tendency and the common tribal behavior. He also points out though the man has evolved tremendously as a super tribe he has not evolved biologically to bare the great burden put upon by the civilization. He also speaks about self imposed restrictions upon the human being and tries to logically point that we are no better than some caged animals. But nevertheless he is not altogether pessimistic. He shows us that wen use our infinite brain power to solve these problems to some extent. I think reading this book worth its time.
