Features

HIGH JINKS AT MEDICAL COLLEGE

Published

5 years ago

2022/03/6

by ECB Wijeyesinghe

Just after I left school I thought I should help in a small way to solve the over-population problem, which was then beginning to rear its head. I joined the Medical College in the hope that some day I would become a doctor. A merciful Providence, however, had other plans for me.

Among the students who joined with me were men who later acquired fame in different fields of medicine or surgery. Many others did not specialize at all and preferred to be general practitioners, which was probably much more remunerative. Some of the specialists like Dr. G.R. Handy, are now at the top of the cardiac curve, while GPs like the beloved Dr. G.R. (Raddy) Muttumani of Wellawatte also continue to flourish. Despite the fact that the hair on Dr. Muttumani’s head is grey, the grey matter within remains unimpaired.

Dr. Shelton Karunaratne, of blessed memory, who passed away a few years ago, was the life and soul of the batch of students who entered the portals of the college with us. For some unknown reason someone called him “Carroty” and the name stuck. He was an old Josephian with an extraordinary sense of humour and his best cracks were directed at his numerous relatives, some of whom were near-millionaires. Dr. C.H. Gunasekere, the All-Ceylon cricketer, was his brother-in-law.

`RAGS’

Though he was a Buddhist, Shelton was a great believer in the Biblical aphorism that “the love of money is the root of all evil,” and did his best to drive it into the heads of his richer colleagues like Dr. Reggie Allen. Shelton was a good footballer and a light-footed dancer. He also possessed a fair singing voice. But he had a special gift for perpetrating bizarre practical jokes and he figured prominently in every “rag” and extra-mural activity of the student population.

Among our seniors at the time were Dr. Wijesena de Zoysa, (affectionately known as ‘Walhamu’), Dr. Albert Rajasingham, Dr. M.V.P. Peiris, Dr. Arden Ratnayake and Dr. Nicholas Attygalle.

The acknowledged leader, however, was Wijesena de Zoysa, whose impromptu speeches, delivered with such grace and in a beautiful mellow voice, gave one the impressions that he had lost his vocation in Hulftsdorp.

He would have made a mark just as his brother, the late Gunasena de Zoysa did in the Civil Service. But Fate plays strange tricks, and Wijesena vegetated in the Medical College, while less intelligent but more studious colleagues overtook him in the race for the licentiateship.

Almost as soon as we became medical students, the Ceylon University College was inaugurated and we came under the wing of Professor R. Marrs, the Principal, a stern disciplinarian, who came with university experience in Calcutta. His office was at Regina Walauwa, the old Thurstan Road home of Mr. and Mrs. T.H.A. de Soysa, and students in their leisure hours used to leave the lecture rooms with the notes in their hands and a song on their lips.

During one of these ebullient intervals, Professor. Marrs was disturbed by a gang of singing students. He stopped them, summoned his clerk and asked him to take down their names. The students co-operated readily and the clerk, with a weak smile, noted down the names of numerous Pereras, Silvas and Fernandos. I do not think there was a single correct name in the clerk’s list.

DIPLOMAT

Marrs was a diplomat. He invited all the office-bearers of the University College Union to tea and clock-golf after the annual general meeting. There, in his bungalow near the race-course, he must have noticed some of the faces he saw earlier near his office. I had to be there, because incredible as it may sound, I had been elected captain of cricket in succession to Lalita Rajapakse.

Marrs, however, put on a poker face, while we consumed the sandwiches wearing absolutely innocent looks. My early days at the Medical College were uneventful, except that during the first week I cycled under a ladder after a zoology lecture. Some superstitious spectators held up their hands in horror and said it was very unlucky and that I had had it.

They were right. Or maybe they were wrong. But the fact remained I could not attend another lecture for a long time to come. I contracted enteric fever, which kept me in bed for nearly two months, and then as I was about to get back to work, I developed para-typhoid. Thus my first three months in the Medical College were disastrous and I felt that my hopes of becoming a doctor and reducing the population were being dashed to the ground.

DR. V GABRIEL

In course of time I went on to the Anatomy Block, on probation as it were. The lecturer was Dr. V. Gabriel, a handsome young man who had just returned from England, glowing with the FRCS degree. The man fascinated us, especially when he started speaking. He clothed the dead bones of his subject in almost poetic language and Gray’s popular text-book on Anatomy was like a rubbish heap of dull prose, compared with Dr. Gabriel’s picturesque descriptions of the devious ways of nerves, veins and arteries.

We concentrated not on what he said, but on the way he said it. Very soon I had to meet Dr. Gabriel in another capacity. University College was engaged in a soccer match against a club called the Chums at Campbell Park and our team which was captained by my friend, Shelton Karunaratne, was one man short. Shelton asked me to deputise for the goal-keeper and I promptly removed my shoes and stood between the posts.

But alas, instead of kicking the ball at one critical moment, I missed. the ball and kicked one of the hard wooden goal posts. The impact broke two metatarsal bones in my right foot. I dropped down in agony and was immediately rushed to the OPD, where Dr. Gabriel was on duty. I was given to understand then that it was one of his first assays in setting broken bones. I believe it. There is a big knob on my right foot to prove it.

Dr. Gabriel, however, starting with me gained so much experience that eventually he became one of Ceylon’s most skilful surgeons and during his eventful career his knife had probed the insides of half the socialites in Colombo. One thing I must say about Dr. Vraspillai Gabriel. His English diction was impeccable. There were few other I know who spoke with the same fluency. One was the late H.A.P. Sandrasagara, K.C. and another is G.G. Ponnambalam, Q.C., who is still in active practice. If you placed them behind a screen and asked them to say something no one would say they were not natives of the United Kingdom.

My stay in the dissecting room of the Anatomy Block was short but breezy. One of the few things that annoyed me was to find the dried-up sector of a male reproductive organ in my coat pocket when I went home. The following day I did some detective work among the cadavers laid out in the block and was almost sure who the culprit was. But I could not have my revenge as I was dissecting a female body. There was a tit for tat I could have perpetrated, but it revolted against my aesthetic senses and I rejected it as being flat, stale and unprofitable.

RAGGING

When so many blood-curdling stories are told about ragging in campuses these days, I must say that the freshers in my time had a very easy time. The most they were asked to do was to shell out some cash according to their means. As the hat was passed round the seniors stood round them and solemnly intoned the words: “Let us prey.” The students theme song followed. The words of the song consisted of most of the deadly drugs and tinctures in the British Pharmacopoeia.

The ditty, as it was in Latin, sounded suspicious to untrained ears. While the chorus “Glory, glory, alleluia” was intoned the party marched in procession to the tuck-shop, where ‘kalu dodol’ and cakes were consumed with avidity till the stocks were exhausted. With the freshers own money their health was drunk to in hot milk tea.

But the other “rags” in which the whole college participated were of a different order. They were organized on a grand scale and had the elements of a dramatic extravaganza. One such “rag” was got up to protest against the Salaries Commission’s report of the early twenties, which ignored the claims of the medical profession to higher emoluments. A hearse and all the trappings of woe were hired from an undertaker and within the hearse, drawn by a black horse, was a small black coffin which contained the Salaries Commission’s report.

A special hymn condemning the report was composed to the tune of the Dead March in “Saul” and hundreds of students in black arm-bands and carrying appropriate banners followed the hearse. The chief mourners were the senior students, who were soon to feel the pinch of the miserable recommendations. We, the juniors, were in the rear but gained Importance owing to the fact that some of the best singers – S.C.Thurairajah, Botha de Kretser, Daniel de Alwis and Claude Fernando – were in our batch.

And so we proceeded, slowly and sadly to the Galle Face Green, our destination and crematorium. En route people raised their hats in salute to the “corpse”, not being aware of what the coffin contained. On the Green the funeral orations were delivered. “Walhamu” de Zoysa, with his voice of silver, excelled himself and convulsed the listeners, bringing them to the verge of tears.

One bottle of kerosene and a match did the rest. As the coffin and its contents crumbled in flames a mighty roar went up and mingled with the roar of the waves beating on the rocks. It was a great day and a great “rag” — something that the whole country applauded. It was original as well as clever, and the entire proceeding was conducted on the highest intellectual plane. A protest such as that had never been staged before nor since.

The rest of the evening was devoted to merry-making or what some people would call a “wake.” Every pub in Slave Island and the Fort did a roaring business. Five or six students they say, were carried home. But that is an exaggeration. They were merely taken back to college as they could not remember where they lived.

(Excerpted from The Good At Their Best first published in 1976)

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Features

Defend civic space upon which peace is built

Published

4 hours ago

2026/09/22

Sahan Weerasooriya

by Jehan Perera

International Peace Day was observed on 21 September. It finds Sri Lanka with a genuine achievement to record and a demanding test to meet. The UN’s theme this year was “Invest in Peace: For Everyone, Everywhere, Every Day.” It also honoured the “everyday architects of peace”—people driving local action and building a lasting peace from the ground up. In the 2026 Global Peace Index, Sri Lanka rose 30 places, from 97th to 67th among 163 countries. Over the same period, global peacefulness declined for the twelfth consecutive year to its lowest level since the index began, and South Asia suffered the sharpest regional deterioration. The test is whether the government will protect the civic space in which those architects of peace work.

Sri Lanka’s improvement is real and deserves acknowledgement. In this year’s review, issued a few weeks ago, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights acknowledged progress in the form of action against corruption, arrests and investigations linked to political killings, enforced disappearances and the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks, and continued official denunciation of racism. A ranking, however, records conditions at a particular moment. It does not guarantee that they will last. Sustainable peace will depend on three factors. These are whether the government addresses the unresolved causes of conflict, whether it strengthens accountability for past and present abuses, and whether it protects the civic space in which peace is built from below. On the first two the record is incomplete. On the third, the draft NGO law threatens to weaken the very organisations that press for the other two.

What holds Sri Lanka back from a higher place are the same things that fed the war at home and also feed international conflict that rages elsewhere in the world. These are racism or ethnic nationalism that is narrow-focused, corruption and lawlessness. Equality, accountability and the rule of law are their remedies. The present government has committed itself to these, and is a significant improvement over governments of the recent past. But these pillars are not held up by governments alone. Peace is made in villages, workplaces and university campuses. It is made by families who insist on the truth about their disappeared, by journalists and lawyers who expose abuse, and by community organisations that bring Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese into practical cooperation.

Unfinished Work

The UN High Commissioner’s report to the current Human Rights Council session, covering October 2025 to July 2026, shows how much remains to be done. The Prevention of Terrorism Act is still being applied, producing arbitrary arrests and long detention without charge. The report calls for a moratorium pending repeal and for the release of long-term detainees. Military-occupied land has not been released, memorialisation lacks support, and tensions over land and religious sites persist. The Batticaloa district illustrates how such problems endure. In the past three years, two Presidents, Ranil Wickremesinghe and Anura Kumara Dissanayake, have visited and instructed that the dispute over grazing land in Mailaththamadu and Mathavanai be resolved. It is a dispute between Tamil cattle farmers and outside Sinhala cultivators, and it has not been resolved. When two Presidents issue instructions and nothing changes, the fault lies in the machinery of State. An unresolved dispute does not stand still. It hardens into the next grievance.

Accountability shows the same pattern. The report documents torture and deaths in custody, and surveillance and intimidation of activists, journalists and civil society. Serious cases remain stalled for years, among them the killing of seventeen aid workers of Action Contre la Faim in Muttur two decades ago. Sharper still is the case of the Eastern University refugee camp at Vantharamoolai, where in 1990 the army took away 158 persons in a single day. They were never seen again. The camp’s officer-in-charge, Dr T. Jayasingam, later Vice Chancellor of the university, identified the officers responsible. More than three decades on, those officers have not been questioned. These cases are still remembered because families, survivors and independent witnesses have refused to let them be forgotten. Meanwhile several commissions of inquiry have completed their investigations but nothing further has happened.

What South Africa, Argentina and other post-conflict societies have found indispensable are four pillars of what is called “Transitional Justice” which are truth, accountability, reparations and non-recurrence. In Sri Lanka’s circumstances, truth means credible, independent investigation of what happened to the disappeared, and support for memorialisation. Accountability means prosecuting Muttur, Vantharamoolai and comparable cases, and removing credibly accused persons from senior office. Reparations mean compensation for victims and the return of military-held land. Non-recurrence means repealing the Prevention of Terrorism Act, releasing those held under it in the meantime, and resolving local disputes such as Mailaththamadu before delay hardens them. A country that buries its past does not escape it. The past returns in the next generation.

Civil Society

It is against this background that the draft NGO law is most troubling. The proposed legislation contains sweeping provisions for State oversight and control of civil society organisations. Among these are enforcing a licensing requirement on NGOs, which is to be renewed every three years, and severe penalties for not submitting reports on time, or for spending on emergency flood relief (for instance) when the NGOs mandate is peacebuilding (as an example) with possible sanctions including deregistration and having to shut down. Civil society groups have warned that it would confer excessive discretion over their registration and operations. Officials in Sri Lanka have abused such powers in the past. Additional power without effective checks invites further abuse. Sound regulation would have clear criteria for registration, an independent registrar and a right of appeal to the courts. What cannot be justified is a regime in which registration becomes a licence to be withheld from organisations that scrutinise policy, expose abuses or advocate for the rights of citizens.

Democracy is based on checks and balances. Those who press for accountability are part of those checks. The contradiction is plain. A government that has pledged accountability, equality and the rule of law ought not to be preparing to weaken the very organisations that press for their fulfilment. The organisations most exposed are those working on disappearances, land, memorialisation and reconciliation in the North and East, where the State’s record is weakest and the need for independent witnesses greatest. Silencing them would not remove the grievances they document. It would remove the channel through which those grievances are addressed peacefully. The government appears to be relenting, which is welcome, but a pause is not a withdrawal. The bill should be withdrawn and any replacement drafted in genuine consultation with those it would govern.

Investment in peace as called for by the UN in its International Peace Day theme implies commitment over time, with returns that come slowly. Sri Lanka’s 30-place rise on the Global Peace Index is a first dividend and nothing more. It can be built upon only if the government matches its commitments with action: withdrawing or fundamentally redrafting the NGO law, repealing or suspending the Prevention of Terrorism Act, and bringing Muttur, Vantharamoolai and Mailaththamadu to resolution. A higher place in a global index is not a certificate of success. Sri Lanka’s higher ranking is an encouraging start, but it will endure only if the space in which citizens speak, question and organise is protected. Peace is built from below, and a government that is serious about it will treat civil society as a partner rather than a threat.

Features

Africa is buying: Sri Lanka must start selling

Published

4 hours ago

2026/09/22

Sahan Weerasooriya

A call to Sri Lankan exporters and agencies: Can Sri Lanka compete with China and India in Africa?

By Kana V. Kananathan
Former Ambassador

Sri Lanka has spent decades concentrating its exports on traditional markets in Europe, North America and Asia. Yet across the Indian Ocean lies a rapidly expanding market that remains significantly underdeveloped by Sri Lankan exporters: Africa.

The opportunity is not theoretical. Sri Lanka already exports packaging, textiles, rubber products, pharmaceuticals, paper, machinery and electrical goods to African markets. The question is whether these modest beginnings can be transformed into a serious export strategy—and whether Sri Lanka can compete against the enormous commercial presence of China and India.

The answer is yes—but Sri Lanka must compete differently.

Kenya: Gateway to East Africa

Kenya should be the starting point.

Sri Lanka exported approximately US$32.08 million to Kenya in 2025, while importing US$11.41 million. But US$32 million is tiny compared with the opportunity: Kenya imported more than US$24 billion in 2025. Even a 1% share of that market would represent nearly US$240 million in annual exports.

And the commercial base already exists. Sri Lanka’s 2025 exports to Kenya included approximately US$9.99 million in paper and paperboard products, US$9.73 million in knitted fabrics, US$3.64 million in pharmaceuticals, US$1.24 million in rubber products and US$1.20 million in machinery.

Kenya’s import structure is equally revealing. In the third quarter of 2025, industrial supplies represented 34.4% of imports, machinery and capital equipment 19.2%, food and beverages 9.0%, and consumer goods 7.3%. The opportunity for Sri Lanka, therefore, extends well beyond consumer goods—we can become a supplier to African industry.

But competition is fierce. Asia supplied around 70% of Kenya’s imports in 2025, with imports from China rising 16.5% and those from India 11.3%.

Sri Lanka cannot challenge China and India across every product category. Nor should it try. We must target sectors where quality, specialisation, reliability, technical capability, smaller production runs and flexibility matter more than simply offering the lowest price.

Where Can Sri Lanka Compete?

Packaging is an obvious starting point. Cartons, boxes, bags and labels are already among Sri Lanka’s exports to Kenya. Importantly, some Sri Lankan companies operating in Kenya are themselves importing these products from Sri Lanka. The market already exists; the challenge is to scale it.

As Africa’s food-processing, pharmaceutical, apparel and consumer-goods industries expand, demand for sophisticated packaging will grow with them. Sri Lanka already possesses the manufacturing capability and industry experience to capture a larger share.

Industrial rubber products, tyres, gloves and specialised rubber components offer another opportunity where Sri Lanka has established manufacturing expertise.

The apparel supply chain is equally promising. Rather than competing directly with African garment factories, Sri Lanka can supply fabrics, elastics, labels, packaging and specialised textile inputs.

Some Sri Lankan apparel manufacturing and export companies already established in Kenya, Togo, Ghana and Ethiopia are importing several of these inputs from Sri Lanka. The supply chain, therefore, already exists. The next step is to move beyond supplying Sri Lankan-owned factories and become a competitive input supplier to the wider African apparel industry.

Other sectors deserving systematic market development include pharmaceuticals and medical consumables, processed foods, biscuits and confectionery, coconut products, cinnamon and spices, electrical products and cables, industrial chemicals, ceramics, light engineering, agricultural equipment and food-processing machinery.

Sri Lanka should also look beyond physical goods. IT, fintech, banking technology, engineering, healthcare, hospitality management and professional services largely escape the freight disadvantage confronting merchandise exports.

The Tariff Problem Can Become an Opportunity

Market access cannot be discussed without tariffs.The East African Community applies a Common External Tariff with bands of 0%, 10%, 25% and 35%, while certain sensitive products attract still higher protection. Simply filling containers in Colombo with finished consumer goods will therefore not always be commercially competitive.

But that obstacle points towards a bigger opportunity: manufacture in Africa.

Sri Lankan businesses could export intermediate materials while undertaking final assembly, manufacturing, processing or packaging in Kenya. Packaging companies could establish converting plants; electrical manufacturers could assemble locally; pharmaceutical companies could explore manufacturing or packaging partnerships; and food companies could undertake final processing closer to consumers.

Kenya would then become more than an export destination. It could become Sri Lanka’s manufacturing and distribution gateway into East and Central Africa.

With the East African Community now comprising eight partner states and extending geographically from the Indian Ocean towards the Atlantic, establishing a regional presence is increasingly more important than viewing each African country in isolation.

West Africa Cannot Be Ignored

Sri Lanka simultaneously needs a West African strategy.

Ghana offers potential as an English-speaking commercial gateway and host of the AfCFTA Secretariat. Nigeria, with its enormous population and consumer economy, should be approached as a major market in its own right, despite its greater regulatory, currency and operational complexity.

ECOWAS tariff bands of 0%, 5%, 10%, 20% and 35% again make product selection critical. Sri Lanka should concentrate on products with sufficient differentiation and margins to absorb freight, tariffs and distributor costs.

Pharmaceuticals demonstrate both the opportunity and the challenge. Nigeria imported approximately US$766 million in pharmaceuticals in 2025, with India supplying roughly US$394 million and China US$131 million. Ghana imported approximately US$301 million, with India supplying about US$140 million.

Sri Lanka cannot simply offer another generic product and expect to beat India on price. We must identify specialised products, reliable supply arrangements, partnerships and, where commercially justified, local production or packaging.

Stop Promoting Sectors—Identify Products

Sri Lanka now needs an Africa Export Opportunity Study based on individual products, not broad sectors.

The Export Development Board, Foreign Ministry, chambers and private sector should jointly identify 15–20 priority products. For each product, Sri Lanka should calculate the HS code, African annual import demand, principal suppliers, Chinese and Indian market shares, applicable duties, freight from Colombo, regulatory requirements, distributor margins and final landed price.

That will tell us where Sri Lanka genuinely has a competitive advantage.

The Commercial Test

Before spending resources promoting a product, apply one simple test:

African import demand + Sri Lankan production capability + tariff + freight + distributor margin + regulatory cost = final landed competitiveness against China, India and local African production.

Only products that pass this test should receive concentrated export-promotion resources.

This would move Sri Lanka away from exhibitions, delegations and general discussions towards what ultimately matters: specific products, specific buyers, specific distributors and actual export orders.

Give Our Missions Targets

Commercial diplomacy must become results-driven. The Government should set clear annual trade and investment targets for every Sri Lankan mission in Africa.

Missions should be evaluated not merely on diplomatic activity, but on buyers and distributors identified, business introductions made, investments facilitated, market barriers resolved and measurable exports generated.

In a competitive Africa, our missions must become active economic frontlines not merely diplomatic outposts.

A practical strategy could operate through three commercial gateways: Nairobi for East and Central Africa, Accra for selected West African markets and Lagos for Nigeria.

Sri Lanka’s total exports of goods and services reached approximately US$17.25 billion in 2025. Capturing even a small additional share of Africa’s enormous import market could, therefore, make a meaningful contribution to export earnings, investment and foreign-exchange generation.

Africa Will Not Wait

Sri Lankan exporters must stop looking at Africa as a distant or difficult market and start treating it as a strategic growth market.

We cannot compete with China and India on scale, but we can compete on quality, specialisation, flexibility and reliability. Exporters must identify country-specific opportunities, establish strong local distributors, build partnerships with African businesses and use Sri Lankan companies already operating on the continent as gateways into regional supply chains.

Where freight and tariffs weaken competitiveness, businesses must be prepared to move towards local assembly, joint ventures and manufacturing in Africa. Exporters cannot do it alone. They need aggressive, measurable and results-driven commercial diplomacy from Sri Lanka’s missions.

Africa is buying. Its markets are being captured now. Sri Lanka must stop watching from the sidelines. We must enter, compete, build our presence and secure our share.

(Ambassador Kana Kananathan is a businessman, Diplomat, lobbyist and an expert in African affairs, with over four decades of experience on the African continent. A long-time resident of Africa, he served as Sri Lanka’s envoy to Uganda and Kenya, with concurrent accreditation to 22 African Nations, and was the permanent representative to UN Habitat and UN environmental Programme. Over the years, he has been the Elections Monitor across the continent, working closely with African governments, and built enduring partnerships with African leaders. He also served as Economic and Investments Advisor to former President Professor Alpha Condé of the Republic of Guinea)

Features

Memories and Midnight Magic: Recipe for a perfect 31st Night dance

Published

4 hours ago

2026/09/22

Sahan Weerasooriya

The heart of a great 31st Night dance is memory, and memories come rushing back when those 70s, 80s and 90s golden oldies begin to play — those timeless tunes that make revellers, young and old, rush to the floor and dance the night away.

A perfect 31st Night is not just a party. It is a journey. A journey through time.

The music should flow like a love story. Start slow, start soft. Let couples glide into a waltz for romance. Let the floor come alive with a twist, a rock ‘n’ roll, a jive. Let nostalgia build with beautiful sing-along oldies generally associated with a New Year’s Eve dance.

This is the art that many of our entertainers seem to have forgotten.

The final hour, before midnight, is sacred. It should be collective energy at its peak. The entire crowd, on the dance floor, linking arms, swaying together, singing, at the top of their voices, those sing-along favourites.

Yes, I’m referring to those immortal, nostalgic favourites that unite the world: ‘This Land Is Your Land,’ ‘You Are My Sunshine,’ ‘When The Saints Go Marching In,’ ‘Roll Out The Barrel,’ ‘Celebration,’ ‘She’ll Be Coming Round The Mountain,’ ‘Happy Days Are Here Again,’ and so many more.

One wonders if some of our modern entertainers have even heard of these nostalgia anthems that traditionally lead up to the dawning of the New Year! This is not just music; this is ritual.

Then comes THE moment: Lights dim. Music pauses. A hush falls. The countdown begins — 10, 9, 8… — hugs, wishes, tears of joy, and then … ‘Auld Lang Syne.’ Hands crossed, voices united, bidding farewell to the old and welcoming the new. That moment makes or breaks the night.

Here is the truth that many genuine 31st Night revellers feel but hesitate to say — an overdose of baila music at New Year’s Eve events is NOT welcome.

Of course, baila is required. Baila is our Sri Lankan heartbeat! But a 31st Night dance is for everyone.

When it’s ONLY baila, the twist and rock n’ roll lovers, the waltz kings and queens feel left out. And they are the very people who MADE nostalgia! They are the die-hard revellers who have kept the 31st Night spirit alive for decades.

A family mentioned to me that they went along with friends for a 31st Night dance, in the city, to usher in 2026, and were thoroughly disappointed with the setup.

The bands in attendance, they said, failed to generate the excitement generally associated with a 31st Night event.

If given a free hand, the music at certain Colombo venues will be mostly baila, and that is going to disappoint many. Some are already worried that it will be just a baila scene this year, as well.

A memorable 31st Night respects all rhythms … yes, a waltz for romance, a twist and rock n’ roll for that 60s magic, a cha-cha, a slow foxtrot, and then the baila, after the countdown anthem.

That balance is what makes it inclusive, classy, and truly fun-filled.

Organisers, especially in Colombo, should keep this in mind: let it be 70% nostalgia – Western, and 30% baila, with the last hour left for pure baila madness, after the New Year is in!

Organisers must work out the programme for their 31st Night and instruct the entertainers to follow those instructions. The band should not dictate the night; the spirit of nostalgia should.

This New Year, let’s give Colombo what it truly wants — memories, midnight magic, and music for every soul on the floor.

Let’s dance into 2027 with class.