Features

Some campus stories and my mother’s visits with loads of goodies to eat

Published

3 weeks ago

2026/09/20

(Excerpted from In Pursuit of Governance, autobiography of MDD Pieris)

Now that we are on the subject of veterinary science, one must refer to Gina. The Hall had a beloved mascot. She was a bitch of no distinguished pedigree. Her name was Gina. Those familiar with the history and folklore of the hall told us she was named after the famous film actress Gina Lollobrigida for the “sexiness” of her walk and the “prominence” of her teats! Leaving aside any comparisons, our Gina indeed had those qualities which were so vividly indicated. But her principal characteristic was her good nature. She had a pair of kindly eyes set in a composed and mellow face. She was of medium size and her colour was white.

She was very friendly and affectionate, and many an undergraduate at Marrs who was grappling with some problem and in a state of some worry were soothed by her wagging tail and a kindly inquiring look. Judging by the number of her pregnancies, she undoubtedly extended the same compassionate consideration to the dogs in the neighbourhood. In this pre maternal condition she was looked after with great care and dedication by the students of veterinary science then in residence, and when the time came several were in readiness to assist at the birth if necessary. They were also available to answer anxious inquiries from other undergraduates in the hall as to “Gina’s condition” and to offer suitable reassurance.

Everyone kept an eye on Gina, and any slight change perceived led to inquiries from the vet students. Gina herself appeared either to have complete faith and trust in her “doctors,” or had some sixth sense about the possible unreliability of these uncertified practitioners attending on her and stoically resigned herself to her fate. From her expression it was difficult to say which. Fortunately things always worked out well, and in due course it was a delight to see a whole litter of mischievous and frolicking puppies trailing behind the mother. Preoccupied as she was with such an abundance of maternal responsibilities, Gina still always had the time as well as the interest to wag her tail and look with kindly eyes at mere human beings who came to her notice and tolerate with a placid indulgence any move by them to play with her children.

Laughter

Laughter was omnipresent. Laughter at the inconsistencies, incongruities, indirections, foibles and the pomposities of human kind. Laughter which in my own personal experience was “the best medicine,” as seven or eight of my friends proved as they gathered in my room one night when they heard that I was ill. I was indeed having a high temperature and feeling chilly and cold when they descended on me with the cheerful exhortation, “you have no business to be ill.” Within half an hour of their collective dramatizations of stories, anecdotes, caricatures, exaggerations and the performance of mime I had laughed so much that I was sweating and no longer in need of the blanket. Within the next half hour my tee shirt was sopping wet and I had to change. By the time the troupe left me I was permanently cured of the fever!. I was only left with body pains, particularly stomach pains not of disease, but of pains caused by mirth. So much for the therapeutic effect of laughter.

Ingenuity and adventure

I can go on, but these reminiscences are already getting too long. I would like to end these recollections with one other tale to illustrate the great practical ingenuity of some. Two very able undergraduates were successful in bringing up a huge buffalo to the second floor of Marrs hall in the middle of the night, and tying him to the Sub Warden’s door. That the Sub Warden nearly died of shock the following morning when he opened his door, was a relatively minor matter compared to the skill daring and sheer practical ability of these two gentlemen, who were able to persuade a large shod buffalo to negotiate about 25 steps of a fairly steep staircase which also had a sharp turn. In later life, quite fittingly, one of them, W.R.B. Rajaguru became the Inspector General of Police and the other, Major General Ariyapperuma, who had joined the Army was tragically killed in a land mine explosion in the North of Sri Lanka.

I myself had a modest share of adventure whilst on the campus. About once in six weeks or so, I along with several others went home to Colombo. We took the train on a Friday afternoon and returned by the late afternoon train leaving Colombo-Fort on Sunday. There was one inconvenient factor pertaining to this journey. The train did not stop at the Peradeniya campus station. It stopped at the station named “Peradeniya Junction” quite some distance away. The next stop was Kandy. Peradeniya Junction was closer to our halls of residence than Kandy. We therefore, got off at the station and walked over the railway bridge spanning the Mahaweli river.

There was a narrow pathway consisting of planks made of old railway sleepers, adjacent to the rail track for people to walk on. Some of these planks were very old and rotten. If one gave way, there was a long drop to the river below. This journey was particularly hazardous, when the train got late and we had to begin this walk in pitch darkness. Your heart did beat faster as you entrusted yourself to fate and gingerly groped your way in the dark testing each plank with your foot, before taking the next step. Viewing it in retrospect I don’t know why we took such a risk. Perhaps it was due to the optimism of youth that nothing untoward would happen.

Then there was the occasion of the Kandy perehera when an enraged elephant ran amok. Some of my friends and I were in the crowd, fairly close to the incident. All we knew was the sudden shouting and panic before a human wave hit us. I was lifted and carried by the force over the wall of a school and duly deposited in the grounds of the school, a fitting preparation for a future Secretary to the Ministry of Education. It was with great difficulty that I avoided being trampled and seriously injured.

Fortunately, I was able to struggle and get up fairly quickly, and therefore escaped with a few bruises. One of my friends had a more interesting experience. The wave carried him into a nearby petrol shed and jammed him between a petrol pump and another hard object adjacent, so that he was stuck and helpless. Whilst in this condition, a woman carrying an infant, and who was being swept past him, desperately thrust the baby into his arms! My friend therefore had the unique experience of being stuck and immobile, and with the responsibility of tending to a wailing infant in his arms!

It took quite a while to sort ourselves out. The elephant had to be shot. We decided to stay near the petrol shed because we knew that hopefully if nothing untoward had happened the mother would come looking for the baby. In the meantime, we tried to keep the baby amused and he was just beginning to co-operate when to our great relief the mother arrived on the scene looking for him. She thanked us profusely, imploring the gods to look after my friend in particular. By this time my friend had several damp and dark patches on his trousers as proof of his good deed, because the baby had left tangible and visible evidence of the normal functioning of some of his important organs.

An unusual train journey

I thought I would record just one more episode to illustrate the interesting life we had at Peradeniya and the indiscretions of youth. One night two of my friends and I went to Kandy for dinner, and duly ended up at the Chinese restaurant in town. It was Friday night, we were relaxed and in high spirits. We were assigned a table quite close to a surly looking Chinaman doing some calculations on an abacus. When the menu appeared one of my friends asked us in a loud tone, “What does this Foo Yang Hai mean?” What followed was an absolute coincidence. We both of us blurted out simultaneously, “Must be a relation of the Manager.” The man with the abacus put it down and glowered at us. He looked quite menacing. It was clear that he did not appreciate any discussion of a possible connection between the menu and any of his relations. We got the message and went on to the discussion of other diverting topics completely clear of references to anything Chinese.

It was an enjoyable meal and one that was quite relaxed. In fact too relaxed for we suddenly realized that the last bus to Peradeniya would have already departed, the time being close to midnight, and that we faced the prospect of burning up all we ate with a long walk to Peradeniya. Someone suggested trying the railway station. When we arrived a train was drawn up by one of the platforms. We made polite inquiries from a sleepy ticketing clerk. He said that the train was due to leave in 10 minutes, but that its first stop was to be at Peradeniya junction. It was not scheduled to stop at the campus station.

None of us relished the prospect of walking over the railway bridge in total darkness and at that lonely time in the night. We were desperate to hitch a ride and spoke with the Station Master. He was quite a sport. He suggested that we talk to the guard and the engine driver and see whether anything could be done. We must have been very persuasive and soon negotiated a deal. They said that they just couldn’t stop the train at the campus railway station, for that was against regulations and they could get into trouble if it got out.

As an alternative they suggested that if we were game, the driver would slow the train down when approaching the campus station, if we were prepared to jump out! We were. A bargain was therefore struck. The driver would slow down the train to a crawl, and when he gave two toots on the whistle we were to jump. We were generously not charged for the journey. No tickets were issued. We hoped this was not a last gesture to a group that was not expected to survive the adventure. We got in and the train started. We were of course very nervous and began to have second thoughts of what we had got ourselves into. But it was far too late. The die was cast.

The challenge now was to cast out without dying. The train gathered speed, and soon the carriages were rocking. We looked ruefully at each other rather tense. The matter did not look quite so simple now. Soon, we felt the speed being cut down. In any case from experience we knew that the station was getting close. We were looking out through the windows and saw the lights of the station in the distance. The engine driver cut down speed further and as the train began to crawl we opened the door. I still remember vividly how incredibly fast the crawl of a train seemed to be when you looked out of an open door.

There was no time for further reflection. We heard the two long and distinct blasts of the whistle, and jumped. Almost immediately we heard the train pick up speed. None of us landed on our feet. I rolled into a bush. The others fell in other places. But all fell. We heard shouting from the station as we picked ourselves up. Someone was running towards us. We didn’t wait for greetings. We just ran in the dark cutting across uneven terrain to reach the road. We were in good shape with only one or two slight bruises and a bramble or two in our ankles.

We were of course not going to repeat the exercise. I for my part was later considerably amused, at the thought that my parents as well as anyone who knew me would never have imagined or even dreamt in their wildest dreams that I was capable of jumping out of a moving train, or of even getting into such a situation. But you sometimes do strange things when you are young.

My mother’s visits

My mother came up to see me periodically with the luggage boot of the car packed with different varieties of confectionery, food and drinks, some in cans, some fresh, and fairly large quantities of specially made rich cake. Of course such quantities could not be kept secret. Nor were they meant to be. By now many of my hall mates had a good relationship with my mother and she therefore deliberately brought quantities that could be shared with others also. They used to point to my robust physique and tell my mother, “See, he is getting thin. He does not have enough to eat. See how pale he is. You must come more often.”

My mother enjoyed this good natured ribbing, and also replied effectively saying, “In that case you don’t eat everything. Leave some for him also.” Within minutes of her leaving, to the chorus of invitations to “Come again soon,” most of the food was nationalized and distributed amongst the hungry masses. Generously, they left a little for me, but certainly not in any kind of sufficiency for one who was diagnosed as growing “thin” and pale.”

All teaching in the university was in the English language except of course, disciplines such as Sinhala and Tamil language and literature. Given my subject combination I had the rare experience of reading the plays of dramatists such as Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Synge, Shaw, Eliot and others; the poetry of Donne, Marvell, Dryden, Pope, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, T.S. Eliot; and others, and the prose of Fielding, George Eliot, Henry James, Hardy, D.H. Lawrence and others in English Literature, and Gurulugomi, Vidya Chakravarti, Ven. Dharmasena, Ven Veedagama Maitriya, Ven. Sri Rahula and many others in Sinhala Literature, including a host of modern poets and other authors.

European, British, and Ceylon History also necessitated wide reading. This was the time of Sarachchandra’s experiments in Sinhala drama and the production of his classic “Maname.” It was an interesting and even exciting time to be in the university. I found the time for both cricket and table tennis right through my stay and did well in both sports. But most of all I was attracted to read widely. I read much outside prescribed syllabuses, reading Satre, Gide, Kafka, Flaubert, Dostoevisky, Tolstoy, Gogol, Chekov and other writers, as well as books on various areas other than my subjects, such as economics, sociology, anthropology, philosophy and so on.

In retrospect, it was clear that I did not in a disciplined manner address the syllabus of my subjects, and strangely enough, once I got into the General degree course I did not think much of obtaining a class in my final examinations. My general reading was of such proportions that when almost three months before the final examination, I borrowed some books from the library, one of the library officers at the counter whom I knew asked “Mr. Pieris, you have only three months more for the exam, are you sure you have the time to read all these?” He had a point, and I settled down to revise.

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Features

Coercive laws recipe for future misrule

Published

11 hours ago

2026/10/13

Sahan Weerasooriya

by Jehan Perera

The NPP government is going after powerful figures from the past and present who have engaged in corruption, fraud and criminal activity in a way that no previous government in Sri Lanka has done. Former ministers, politicians and senior state officials are among those facing investigations and legal proceedings. The government has placed before Parliament a document listing 50 cases involving corruption, fraud and other crimes. These include not only financial offences but also cases relating to the Easter Sunday attacks, the killings of Lasantha Wickrematunge and Wasim Thajudeen, the disappearance of Prageeth Ekneligoda and attacks on journalists Keith Noyahr and Upali Tennakoon.

The significance of this effort is that it can demonstrate that nobody is above the law, regardless of political connections or social standing, which will help restore public confidence in institutions that have long been distrusted. It could also recover public resources, improve the investment climate and strengthen the foundations for a more prosperous and just Sri Lanka. When criticised for focusing on the past and not the present, the government position is that these investigations were initiated under earlier governments, particularly between 2015 and 2019, and that it is now allowing investigators to proceed to deal with the backlog without political interference.

But there is an aspect of the government’s approach that is less justifiable. While pursuing past wrongdoing by powerful individuals, it is also advancing a triumvirate of draft laws that could give the state sweeping powers over citizens, organisations and dissent in the present and future. The draft Prevention of Terrorism legislation, the Prevention of Organised Crimes Bill and the NGO Registration and Supervision Bill raise serious questions about the over-centralisation of power. Each of these laws strengthens the powers of the state while weakening the rights and safeguards that protect people from their misuse and thus questions the basic rights of people in democracy where ‘the power of the people is vested in the government’. This is a recipe for future misrule rather than the rule of law. As the well-known saying goes, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Proposed Laws

The real test of system change, for which the government obtained an overwhelming mandate, requires not only a government willing to hold others accountable, but one prepared to subject itself to the same principles of legality, transparency and restraint. The three proposed laws that are particularly important in this regard are the Protection of the State from Terrorism Bill, the Prevention of Organised Crimes Bill and the NGO Registration and Supervision Bill. Each of these draft laws has been presented as serving a legitimate purpose. Preventing terrorism, combating organised crime and ensuring that NGOs do not facilitate money laundering or terrorist financing are proper responsibilities of the state. Sri Lanka has international obligations in these areas, and no responsible government can disregard them. However, the existence of a legitimate objective does not justify every means adopted to achieve it.

The proposed Protection of the State from Terrorism Bill illustrates the problem. Although its definition of terrorism draws on a model developed by a former United Nations Special Rapporteur, the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka has warned that the definition of terrorism extends beyond the model and could bring legitimate political protest, trade union action and civil disobedience within the scope of counter-terrorism legislation. Its concerns also include prolonged detention, inadequate judicial oversight and restrictions on access to legal counsel. These are objections that go to the heart of the relationship between the citizen and the state. The government cannot credibly promise to protect democratic freedoms while creating powers that could be used to restrict them. It is necessary for the government to reassess the draft through transparent consultation and revise provisions that could criminalise legitimate dissent.

The Prevention of Organised Crimes Bill raises similar concerns. It is presented as giving effect to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised Crime, which Sri Lanka ratified in 2006. The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) has argued that the convention does not require many of the bill’s provisions. The proposed law extends to a broad range of offences, permits detention orders lasting up to a year, makes confessions to police admissible for purposes of legal evidence, and introduces extensive surveillance powers. A law intended to dismantle criminal networks should not create a parallel system of exceptional powers that could be applied far beyond organised crime. Nor should safeguards developed through years of experience with abuses under the Prevention of Terrorism Act be weakened through legislation bearing a different name. The government should review whether or not existing laws could be used effectively to control these crimes or whether each exceptional power is necessary.

Civil Society

The proposed NGO Registration and Supervision Bill presents another test of the government’s intentions. The government may reasonably seek transparency in the finances of organisations receiving public or foreign funds, including measures to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing. It seeks to justify its overreach on the grounds of meeting the internationally mandated requirements of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) for the Asia-Pacific region. But these objectives do not justify placing civil society and NGOs under excessive administrative control when even the FATF ranks them as low to medium risks. The draft bill would require registration and renewal, impose extensive obligations on organisations and empower authorities to suspend or deregister them on broadly framed grounds. It is important to redraft provisions that confer excessive discretion over registration, renewal, suspension and deregistration of NGOs.

Among the concerns raised by United Nations human rights special rapporteurs with regard to the draft NGO law are provisions requiring organisations to align with government policies and restrictions that could affect advocacy, dissent and freedom of association. The implications extend well beyond organisations that engage directly with the government. Community groups, human rights organisations, independent researchers and organisations working on reconciliation or accountability could find their activities constrained by uncertainty over how these provisions might be interpreted. Organisations that criticise government policies are not thereby working against the country. Their freedom to do so is part of what distinguishes a democracy from a system in which the government determines which opinions and activities are acceptable.

The government has generated considerable public goodwill through its pursuit of corruption and criminality. It should not assume that this goodwill gives it an unlimited mandate to strengthen the coercive powers of the state. The NPP knows from its own history that governments can treat dissent as a threat and use the machinery of the state against their opponents. There is still time to correct the drafts through transparent public consultation, narrow definitions of offences, meaningful judicial control over detention and surveillance, and effective remedies against arbitrary decisions. A government that pursues corruption while weakening safeguards against state abuse risks undermining its own achievements. Besides bringing to light the abuse of power by previous governments, the NPP government needs to build a system in which no future government can abuse power in the belief they can get away with it.

Features

Quality assurance without quality enhancement: The irony of university QA

Published

11 hours ago

2026/10/13

Sahan Weerasooriya

By Ramya Kumar

According to the Quality Assurance Council (QAC) of the University Grants Commission (UGC), quality assurance (QA) refers to “the means (i.e. the policies, attitudes, actions, procedures, etc.), by which an institution can guarantee with confidence and certainty, that the standards and quality of its educational provision are being maintained and enhanced”.

An expansive structure has been in place since 2005 to govern and implement QA processes within the state university system. The QAC is the focal point at the UGC that implements external reviews of state universities and institutes. Each university has its own Centre for Quality Assurance (CQA) tasked with performing QA in line with QAC directives. Faculties, in turn, have Internal Quality Assurance Cells (IQAC) performing their own QA; they are answerable to the CQA.

The big question is whether this all-encompassing top-down QA system, that in many ways undermines the internal dynamics of university governance, actually supports universities to enhance the quality of education. This article highlights some concerns.

Top-down check-box activities

The QAC conducts external reviews of universities and degree programmes. A review team appointed by the UGC (who may or may not have experience in the institution/programme in question) examines the self-evaluation report submitted by the said institution/programme. The team then conducts a site visit to verify the claims made in the university’s self-evaluation report, clarify issues identified during the desk review, and examine how QA procedures operate in practice. The team holds meetings with the university administration, members of the Council and Senate, Deans, Heads of Departments, academic and non-academic staff, students, and others. Following the visit, a draft report is submitted to the relevant institution/programme for comment before final publication. The reviewed institution/programme then prepares and publishes an action plan addressing the recommendations, with subsequent monitoring of progress.

There are some worthy QA initiatives under implementation, such as improving facilities for students with disabilities and strengthening mechanisms to address sexual- and gender-based violence. However, for the most part, QA activities have little to do with improving the quality of education. They are mostly preoccupied with monitoring faculty and department websites, digital transformation, student feedback, subject evaluation, course evaluation, peer evaluation, and, more recently, staff appraisal. These activities, which consume an inordinate amount of time—so precious at understaffed universities—have become check-box activities completed to generate evidence for the next review. Below is an excerpt of a conversation between two academics (1 and 2) that conveys how QA plays out at universities (reproduced with permission).

1: … .it’s like social media you know, like posting things on Facebook or twitter or Instagram. When people do a lot of social media, everything they do, they do thinking, “okay I’m going to post it in this way… this I have to put on my Instagram.” QA is a little like that… everything is considered in light of, “ah we can use this for the review, as evidence… for example very recently we were encouraged to have all the things that we do in our department in the faculty newsletter so then they can put in the review. Every little thing has to be noted down….

2: And with pictures and all…

1: At the very least it has to be written so that you have written evidence .. you can’t be doing something for the sake of doing something or because it is good for the department … and sometimes people tell me “oh yea that’s a good idea we can fit that under this x, y section of the review..”

2: Yea, and nobody really thinks about the actual outcome… whether it’s actually helping anyone..

1: I also find that a lot of the words that we used in different ways have now been co-opted to the QA discourse ..including quality.. I can’t actually say what I want as an “outcome”, for example, that the outcome of this workshop is that my students “think about” … then I am told “ah but no that’s not one of the Bloom’s taxonomy words, “think about”.…

2: And the worst part is these medical and agriculture people, these types of people go around spreading it like some kind of gospel!

1: Yea, this cookie cutter way of doing things, they think is the height of innovativeness or creativity, when actually it is so mundane … for me the most awful thing about it is like some fungus of mundanity has taken over through QA reviews.

2: yea, when you say QA, my mind closes off immediately and I stop listening…

Auditing everything but power

QA leaves out crucial aspects of university governance. For instance, there is no review or assessment of the “quality” of university administrations under Criterion 1 or the integrity of procedures governing the promotion of academic staff under Criterion 6 of the institutional reviews.

The majority in the Council—the university’s executive and governing body, which is responsible for selecting the Vice-Chancellor (VC)—are appointed in ad hoc fashion. Apart from the Ex-Officio members in the Council (VC, Deans, etc.), and the two members elected by the Senate, the remainder are appointed by the UGC with no formal consultation or vetting procedure. The VC appointment process described in UGC Circular No. 03/2023 exemplifies how an ostensibly technical process can become entangled in political sycophancy. The Registrar invites applications for the position of VC through advertisement. Applicants must submit a curriculum vitae, a statement of vision for the university and supporting documents. The University Council appoints a three-member Search Committee of senior academics to encourage “eminent persons” to apply, while the UGC appoints a former VC from another university to “observe” the selection process.

A Special Meeting of the University Council is convened. Candidates are interviewed and must make a presentation to the Council Members, followed by questions. Each Council member “gives marks” for seven prescribed criteria: strategic focus (20%), effective leadership (20%), holistic thinking/conceptual skills (10%), academic and research excellence (15%), personal integrity (10%), professional communication (10%) and managerial competence (15%). Marks are averaged, and the Council recommends three candidates to the UGC in rank order. The UGC-appointed observer separately submits a confidential report on the selection process.

This procedure is expected to guarantee quality, but does it? Applications are submitted to the Council Members, who have been appointed on questionable bases, and who are expected to review the applications and give scores, based on objective assessments. But, in reality, most Council Members are manipulated by VC candidates, who often have personal ties with them. The UGC-appointed observer usually has no genuine interest in the outcome. And there is no way for anyone to actually question the Council’s decision once it is made. Although the highest-ranked candidate may ultimately be appointed, the selection remains a political decision made by the President, who retains the discretion to appoint any one of the three.

External reviews also do not look into the promotions of academic staff, except to scrutinise whether there are policies and procedures in place to govern promotion. Academic staff may apply for promotion to Professor once they satisfy the prescribed eligibility requirements, which typically include the period of service, academic qualifications, research and publication achievements, teaching experience, and contributions to the university and wider community. Applications are evaluated against specified criteria, with research output and academic contributions assessed through documentary evidence and expert evaluation. Under the UGC’s scheme for Professors, two experts from outside the applicant’s institution assess specified aspects of research and knowledge dissemination. Again, beneath this technical process, which is externally evaluated, lies a problematic points-based scheme that can be manipulated and abused with impunity.

Rethinking university QA

Like the VC election process and the schemes of promotion for academic staff, QA reviews are open to manipulation. Before a review, there is a chaotic rush to complete evidence gathering and reporting. Academics leave all other work aside, including at times their teaching, to focus on completing documentation and preparing reports. The standardised criteria in the review manuals and scoring sheets often do not reflect differences in disciplines and institutional contexts. But this does not really matter because any serious problems experienced by institutions or programmes are hastily brushed under the carpet to conceal any evidence that could taint the review. The goal is to obtain an A or at least a B grade at whatever cost.

QA may result in positive change if it moves beyond top-down check-box activities towards internally designed and owned processes encompassing all aspects of university governance, led by departments and faculties, and supported by adequate resources. The current QA system needs to be dismantled and replaced by procedures that are accountable, not to the UGC, but to our students and the communities we serve.

(Ramya Kumar is attached to the Department of Community and Family Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Jaffna)

. Kuppi is a politics and pedagogy happening on the margins of the lecture hall that parodies, subverts, and simultaneously reaffirms social hierarchies.

Features

Down Memory Lane — the Grand 20th Edition!

Published

11 hours ago

2026/10/13

Sahan Weerasooriya

Down Memory Lane: Ready to sing again

Yes, Down Memory Lane, the beloved Sing-Along concert series that first struck a chord, way back in 1997, returns for its landmark 20th edition this Saturday, 17th October, at the beautiful Bolgoda Grand Resort, Moratuwa town centre.

Having celebrated its glorious 25th anniversary with the show in 2023, this milestone 20th concert promises to be even more special.

The organisers, the ever-popular Moratuwa Arts Forum, are pulling out all the stops to present yet another unforgettable evening, brimming with camaraderie, fellowship, and pure nostalgia.

Get ready for two-and-a-half hours of non-stop singing as veteran vocalists, from the Moratuwa Arts Forum, will take the stage to lead and inspire the happy audience to sing, sing and sing to their hearts’ content.

The repertoire? Absolutely magical, according to the organisers.

Veteran Arun Dias Bandaranaike: Will handle the evening’s proceedings / Priya Peiris: Event Conceptor

Around 40 golden oldies — from timeless English vintage evergreens and hits from the 50s to the 90s, to toe-tapping calypsos, soulful American plantation melodies, rousing cowboy and Dixieland favourites, aa well as cherished Sinhala standards. All to be sung with much gusto!

This year’s dedicated organising committee comprises Brian Coorey (Chairman), Priya Peiris (Event Conceptor), Hiran Fernando, Suranga Fernando, Viranjan Perera, Hemka Fernando and Neelesh Silva. Guidance and support comes from Moratuwa Arts Forum President Sarana Guneratne and Secretary Chandani Silva.

Adding his signature charm to the evening, as Master of Ceremonies, will be the veteran Arun Dias Bandaranaike.

Don’t miss this landmark celebration of music and memories!

For further details, contact Hiran Fernando on 0772636446 or WhatsApp 0783636446.