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"My father was abducted

while I was fighting the war"

By Ranee Mohamed

For ten years he went through the agony of losing his colleagues in the war front and on June 2, 2000, just when he was returning home in search of happiness,  he received the heartbreaking telephone call from his sister. " It was on the day I was coming on transfer to Colombo. I was so happy, but I couldn't believe what my sister was saying. She told me that my 72 year old father was abducted. I was so involved in defending my motherland, that I had no time for my family. My aged father used to attend to all the family matters because I was seldom able to come home," said Major Lamahewa, helpless and heartbroken.

Major Lamahewa like countless other  service personnel had realised that he had been neglecting his family and loved ones. But there was nothing he could have done about it, such is the line of duty. Having  to sacrifice personal comfort and happiness comes routinely for men of the armed forces.

But now with peace in the horizon, Lamahewa is optimistic, yet a broken man. Ironically, this is not due to the war, but because he had to let go of a parent and bring sorrow to his family, and yet be acclaimed as the only son of the family who joined the army.

It is been two years since his father, Lamahewage Mahindasa was attending a land dispute case in the district court of  Galle. He was  acting on the power of attorney of his sister's children who are presently living overseas, when he is believed to have been abducted from the courts premises.

Many have fought for justice this hero who dons the Rana Sura Padakkamma deserves. Among them are Lionel Balagalle, commander of the army, who has personally appealed to  the CID to solve the case.

Letters have also been sent by Lamahewa's mother to President Chandrika Kumaratunga,  and also to the ministry of defence and the IGP.

But the mystery remains. Complaints have also been lodged with the Weligama and Galle harbour police

According to Lamahewa, the suspect of this case had gone into hiding and subsequently had surrendered in the Matara magistrate's courts with a lawyer on June 12, 2000. Since then he has remained in remand custody both at the Matara prison and thereafter in the Galle prison. He had been released on bail on March 27, 2001.

"It is strange," said a dejected Lamahewa, "but this suspect is now living in the very premises on which the dispute circled."

Lamahewa lives a life of regret and unhappiness. "There were times when my father begged me to come home. But I could not. The war was at its height and I was in the forefront," he said.

When asked about peace, Lamahewa said that the war is endless. "What we need is a peaceful solution. This is one country and one people. I know what the war is, people killing each other. I have seen death and I have seen people dying. We need not go through all this if we can find peace," pointed out Lamahewa.

 It has always been a difficult life for me. I have only known a hard life. Now I wish there had been no war. Then I would have been able to come home when my parents were pleading me to come. I would have been there for my father, when he needed me," he said. "How I wish I knew where he is. My father has done so much for me, I may be big and strong now, but I was not there for my father when he had to face this trauma," said Lamahewa.

Peace is long overdue in Sri Lanka. There are many who, sadly, will not live to see this peace when it comes. For Lamahewa, there is absence of war today, but there is no happiness. There are many scars that wars leave behind. Most of them never heal.

•  Ninth death anniversary of President Ranasinghe Premadasa

Remembering Premadasa

By B Sirisena Cooray

Chairman, The Premadasa Centre

(This article is based on Sirisena Cooray's memoirs of his four decade long friendship with Ranasinghe Premadasa, Premadasa and I: Our Story, scheduled to be released on the June 23, 2002, on the occasion of the late President's 78th Birth Anniversary.)

After the reconciliation with Jayewardene in 1973 we started working for the party full time. Jayewardene launched a nation-wide propaganda campaign; he would go round the country taking one route and we, the Premadasa group would take another route.

Premadasa wanted to build a village base for the UNP. He was appealing to the people and people accepted him as one of their own.  The UNP never had a base in down South: it was he who changed that because Southerners accepted him as their man.  At the same time people in other parts of the country did not feel that he was an outsider either.  His appeal was a national one.

Premadasa's conception of development was different from that of Jayawardene and his team.  For example he used to say: "We have spent so much money on the free trade zones.  We should have used this money to improve the condition of the tea estates". He also felt that after DS Senanayake, the successive leaders followed an urban centred policy; as a result our villages had been neglected for decades.  There was no national policy for rural development.  Premadasa also believed that the benefits of the Mahaweli project should have been generalized more and that all the small tanks in the dry zone should have been developed as a apart of this programme.

Premadasa understood that the economic policies of the post 77 government benefited only a fraction of society - the business people, the commission agents and the Colombo elite.  He was born and bred among the poor and the downtrodden; he also worked for an with them.  So he understood the problem of poverty very well.  He was seriously concerned about the growing disparities.  He felt that the growth that took place during this period by-passed the poor people.  He believed that the problem was one of wealth distribution.  He wanted to improve the quality of life of the people.  With his Housing Programme he was trying to ensure that the poor people had access to the basic necessities of life, such as the ownership of a house.

Premadasa had his own very different approach to developmental issues; his notion of slum clearance is an example of this.  Usually slum clearance means the forcible eviction of the people living in slums to areas outside the city and developing these city locations for commercial purposes.  You can see this happening now.  This is both a political mistake and a human tragedy.  Most of those people would have been living in that area for a long time.  They work close by; their children go to nearby schools.  If you uproot them from that environment and put them elsewhere they feel alienated.  Their work, education and social life get disrupted.

What Premadasa meant by slum clearance was improving the quality of life of slum dwellers by providing them with better housing and other basic facilities.  That eventually became the official government policy. Only a very few people were removed outside their original habitats and that too was not done forcibly.  We obtained their consent.  (That was not from Colombo Central; it was done under the Canal Development Scheme.  We took these families to Badowita, in Ratmalana.  They are doing well now).

Premadasa told me that he was going to ask the IPKF to leave.  It was one of his main election pledges.  In fact during the presidential and parliamentary elections both the UNP and the SLFP pledged to send off the IPKF.  A major reason for this rare policy consensus was because the removal of the IPKF was a common demand of all the major group in society.  Therefore both major parties had to accede to this majority demand. President Premadasa also wanted to diffuse the JVP situation.  Anti-Indianism and the removal of the IPKF constituted the JVP's main platform; they managed to get the backing of a wide section of society by taking up the demand for the removal of the IPKF. Premadasa thought that the removal of the IPKF would either make the JVP give up the campaign or it would be weakened by the removal of this most popular issue.  The removal of the IPKF was therefore necessary for the restoration of normalcy in the South.  And let us remember that the JVP insurgency and not the LTTE was the main danger facing the country at that time.  Even with the war we can have some normalcy, some development in the South; but with the JVP insurgency there was only anarchy and chaos.  So that had to be handled first.

After Premadasa became the president a private meeting was held with Anton Balasingham and Yogi at the Sucharitha Hall.  This was just before the commencement of the public negotiations.  The first meeting between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government took place at the Hilton.  I was a member of the SLG team.  I remember that there was a pattern in these discussions; Balasingham used to remain silent while Dilip Yogi read out from a prepared statement about IPKF atrocities.  The LTTE did not present any political demands.  ACS Hameed was our spokesman.

The President told us in advance to let Hameed do all the talking.  So this used to go on.  After every round we were supposed to issue a joint communique. Hameed used to say that he will attend to that as well.  He just monopolized everything.  I remember Foreign Secretary WT Jayasinghe once told me: "Don't believe these people.  They are trying a fast one". I told this to Premadasa.  He said: "Sirisena, this is the old way of looking at problems.  Don't worry.  I will settle everything".  He was very confident that everything would work out in the end.  Anyway I was not happy with the way the negotiations were progressing (or rather not progressing) and after the first few rounds I stayed away.

Balasingham, Yogi and some of their people even visited the Mahiyangana Gam Udawa of 1989. Premadasa was thrilled about it. I took them around at Mr. Premadasa's request and showed them all the development work we were doing.  They seemed very impressed.

I think what Premadasa was trying to do was to buy time.  He was trying to keep the LTTE talking while slowly introducing reforms such as instituting the Pradesheeya Sabha system.  That way the North and East would have had a group of elected leaders and it would have been possible to give the people everything they need for a decent standard of living - such as houses, electricity, water jobs.  This is what he meant when he said: "Eelam era Ellam kudutharei" (Not Eelam but everything else).  He felt that once the basic needs of the people are looked after and they were given a measure of self government, Eelam would become irrelevant.  The armed struggle would become unnecessary.  The LTTE problem would be solved automatically, without having to wage a war.  But for these reforms to work, peace on the ground and time were needed.  So that was what he was trying to do with the negotiations.  Unfortunately he underestimated the LTTE; I think they knew what he was trying to do and that was why they resumed hostilities unilaterally, despite all his attempts to prevent it.

Premadasa was very upset when the war broke out.  He felt that the LTTE had let him down.  After hostilities broke out Premadasa come to the conclusion that a negotiated solution with the LTTE was not possible.  I remember that when the Indians carried out the operation that killed Kittu, he was happy; we were in India at that time.  But on the other hand he did not believe that the LTTE could be defeated militarily.  Nor did he want to do so.  He never believed in war and that was why he was unwilling to unleash the military on the JVP.  I think that was a weakness on his part because as a Head of State he could not afford such an attitude.  It was that attitude which killed him eventually.  Because even after the resumption of hostilities he still believed that the LTTE would not do anything to him personally.  After all he was willing to compromise and there was also his anti-Indianism.  Therefore he felt that at a personal level the LTTE was no threat to him.  He was wrong.

Still during Premadasa's time there were considerable successes on the military front. We cleared the whole of the Eastern Province.  The war was planned by the military.  Premadasa was not interested in those plans and there was no political interference.  He did not play politics with the war.  The plan was to gradually move up, clearing one area after the other and finally take Jaffna.  That way the LTTE could have been cornered with no place to retreat to. That was why we first cleared the Eastern Province and put the STF in charge.  That way gradually the LTTE would have got bottled up in Jaffna.  After that it would have been easy to defeat them.  In the meantime we would carry out development work and political reforms in these areas, giving the people a decent standard of living and a measure of self-government.  He also encouraged the strengthening of Tamil alternatives to the LTTE by providing assistance to and working closely with former Tamil militant groups that had entered the democratic process.  Development and democracy - that was his plan.  That way we would have been able to make the Tamil people give up their support for the LTTE and for Eelam.  And that plan was working.  We even managed to have local government elections in the east.

There was a Presidential Mobile in Vavuniya.  Several garment factories were in operation as part of the 200 Garment Factories Programme.  It was also during this time that the Wanni service of the SLBC was inaugurated for our troops in the East Immediately after an area is liberated we would move in and build houses for the people in the area.  Initially Mr. Premadasa wanted 1000 houses to be built in 3 months in the liberated areas.  By the time they were completed he was dead.

I think in the last years Premadasa's plans were falling into place and his strategy was beginning to work. That was probably why the LTTE expedited his killing.

Under Premadasa's leadership we were setting the pace.  True many things were still undone.  Everything cannot be done overnight.  But more was accomplished in those four years than at any time before after that.  Of course there were mistakes.  That was because so many new things were attempted.  Sometimes you have to learn the best way of doing something new through trial and error.  By the time of Premadasa's death we had already learnt what went wrong and why.  The best year were ahead.  He would have been even better in the second term because we were in a position to learn from our mistakes and deliver the best.  But his death deprived him, us and the country of that historic opportunity.

A day of joy and laughter for the orphans

By Ranee Mohamed

They do not have homes, but they had houses to console themselves - Gemunu Viyaja and Perakum. Three hundred and seventy six children of the Vajira Shri home for orphans pioneered by the  Venerable Hunupolagama Vajira Shri Nayake Thero were busy in the first week of April- their motive was to complete giant projects - a gigantic dinosaur, tiger, lion and a helicopter for their sports meet.

This sports meet was different. On April 10, not a single parent came, for they had no parents. Instead they had each other to hug and share their joys and achievements. Unimaginable it was to think that these wonderful creations were the work of children, and that too children without the loving personal touch of parents.

But they seem to have gone somewhere in life. The home which was pioneered by Vajira Shri Nayake  Thero gives a roof above their heads and a meal to hundreds of homeless children from all over Sri Lanka. " Most of them are from the once strife-torn north and east," said this Buddhist priest who has made a change in the hearts of thousands of miserable orphans. This home is no luxury building. But it has enough love and care. Sometimes one tends to think maybe the home does not have enough money. And it is so.

The beds could do with a change of mattress covers and the orphans themselves could do with a change of clothes - perhaps a complete change, by way of wearing new clothes. But life is good only for a few of us. Few of these children have ever seen new clothes, for most of them wear used clothes.

They live a hand to mouth existence on the meals doled out by the home for it is not easy for a home with 376 children to be extravagant, so they are not. Yet this home manages - with a square meal for the children, with a basic education for them and a vision for them. So, each one knows where he is going. Their aim is to study and do well in life. Some of them know about parents, some of them have heard about parents. Some of them don't even believe that something as good as ' parents' exist in this world. So on this hot April 10, they had all the fun they could ever imagine possible.

Their was pride, their was joy and there was sweat and tears of happiness. Their was everything, except blood brothers and sisters and parents. To them each one was a brother, and the other was a sister. Perhaps the ability to be joyous about the achievement of a total stranger, gave a greater sense of confidence and well being to each little stranger here. All of us have  to live, all of us strive to be happy. And here they were trying so hard to be happy.

They may have their tears, those secret moments of insecurity and unhappiness, but on this day, it was happiness all the way. And after it was all over, nobody went home - for there was no home to go to. Home they say is where the heart is and on this day, we can thankfully believe that there was great happiness in their hearts.

LIFE WITH EVE

By Sonali Samarasinghe

Doctor W is my dentist. If that's too much information already, try this for size. He happened, just the other day, to coolly advise me, that in his opinion, it's only a matter of time before all my teeth fall off.

I've never liked the breed really. Prophets of doom if you get my drift. 'Teeth fall off indeed!' With due apologies to Jane Austen, It is a fact universally acknowledged that a single man in pursuit of a large fortune and of a sadistic turn of mind will either become a headman or admit himself into dentists' school.

'You might have to see me a couple of hundred times this year,' he whispered into my ear lobe, while staring dreamily at a large poster of a red sports car hung on the wall.

'Doctor W, I thought dentists surgeries usually had pictures of very bad teeth and gums hung on the walls,' I told him, not without a slight hint of disapprobation playing on my lips. 

'I have a penchant for fast cars m'dear, a little idiosyncrasy of mine,' he gulped. Having the decency to blush a little. 'Hrrmph' I gulped, now harboring one of those silver spoons with the mirror at the end, in my throat. Also a grudge.

'You're just a blur to me,' I told him, as his assistant placed a pair of goggles over my eyes. 'Well, you mean absolutely nothing to me,' he barked, flashing a pair of steely gray eyes from underneath 22 karat gold rimmed spectacles. 

He flip flapped my gums with a pointy thing and looked sad. 'Eve darling', he said. 'I feel compelled to tell you that you are getting rather long in the tooth.' He checked the information sheet and obviously my age and looked puzzled. 'In the natural course of things, you have quite a few more years for that.'

'So what made you study dentistry Doctor W?' I asked, in a feeble attempt to get his attention away from my teeth. 'I always wanted to make a good impression,' he replied.  Then, a man obviously well versed with reluctant patients, he gently twisted my neck upward to a TV monitor.

'Oh! Are we going to watch a nice movie?' I inquired of his assistant. A nice heart girl from the outback, with a mass of freckles enveloping her nose. 'Is it the Panic Room? Because I feel a bit like Jodie Foster now.' 

'No..ooo', she giggled, clanking the torture tools she was carrying on a kidney tray. It made a horrible noise of death and disaster. It's a giant view of your teeth, fillings, decay...the full Monty.'

I won't go in to further details here, save to tell you that if I didn't have private medical insurance I would, even as I write, have been reduced to prowling around Salvation Army family stores. There but for the grace of God and insurance go I.

A visit to the dentist is of course a cinch back in paradise. You may rot for five hours in the waiting room. But once you settle yourself into that contraption dentists' have the audacity to call a reclining couch, (actually they never call it anything. What is it called?) the drilling and filling is over in five.  And off you go with a bearable dent in the wallet.

Down under we do things upside down and if you are really lucky even inside out.  There's hardly any twiddling about in the waiting room unless you're early. But boy, do they want to keep you for hours in the surgery. Once you are out of the torture chamber, the receptionist, smiling a dazzling smile (having got her teeth fixed for free) calmly informs you that you might go bankrupt in the next five minutes.

'Where have you been?' asked Alex, as I loped in late to class yesterday.  I've been seeing the dentist, I mumbled uncomfortably. My left cheek still felt numb.

'Socially, or was it merely a professional call?'

'You think I would date a dentist when all they do is stuff their heads into people's mouths and play about with oversized silver tools.'  I snapped back hot under the collar. 

'Well when you put it that way darling. I can't help thinking that is exactly the breed you would want to date.' Alex replied cheekily, while moving to a safe distance. I'd just taken a heavy book on international relations to bung him over with.

Dentists' chambers, I'm inclined to think are almost as distasteful as lawyers' chambers. Except may be that  dentists actually make you feel better.

Doctor W. is excellent at his profession no doubt about that. But frankly, if I never have to see him again, it will be too often.

Lying about suicide

There is both good and bad news concerning Sri lanka's suicide  rate. The good news is the rate has decreased within the past five years. The bad news however is that experts in the field of suicide prevention believe the decrease in the rate is due to the contribution of negative factors. Families of suicide victims opting to have the verdict on the death recorded as 'cardiovascular' or 'respiratory failure' have contributed to this situation. Speaking to The Sunday Leader, a senior program officer attached to Lanka Sumithrayo who wished not to be named said, "By avoiding to state the actual cause of death as suicide, statistics are constantly positively influenced."

During the first half of the last decade Sri Lanka topped the world list as the country with the most number of deaths relating to suicide.

"Certain preventive measures such as limiting access to poisonous substances, counselling programs and the like can be described as positive factors contributing to this decrease. Nevertheless, what is unfortunate is that sometimes statistical evidence does not always provide us with a clear picture as to what is really going on," she said.

The stigma and shame felt by suicide victim's families leads them to lobby for a verdict against suicide being declared.

"Our country once hit the red letter mark in suicide deaths in the early 1990's. To give an idea as to how serious the problem was during that time, there were reports of upto 23 to 24 suicides a day. In other words, one victim for practically every hour. Attempted suicide was five times that number that somehow failed due to medical treatment, or other forms of intervention," explained the program officer.

Currently, the number of suicide deaths stands at around 16 a day. Which is good news indeed. "If the truth however is couched under different words and data then solving the problem might not be as effective as we want it to be" she said further.

S. Ranadheera, a senior statistician with the census and statistics department had similar views regarding this issue.

"The statistics we receive depend on the data registered at the registrar general's department. Apart from social stigma there are other reasons why most people are reluctant to record the death as suicide. For example, taking one's own life creates problems to victims families when it comes to compensation or insurance claims or even employer pension schemes," explained Ranadheera.

When compared, there is a considerable gap between the data The Sunday Leader received from the census and statistics department to those obtained from the police statistics department. For example in 1996, the census and statistics department has recorded a total number of 5519 deaths due to people taking their own life. In comparison to that the police data indicates 7344 suicides the same year.

In 1997, the statistics department data shows 5808 people as having committed suicide, whilst police records states 6418. What should be noted is that if death is by suicide there is a greater chance of it not being registered at the registrar of births, deaths and marriages. Due to the fact that reporting suicide to the police being a legal necessity, all suicides are recorded in police department statistics.

Explaining her views on the strength of the network for suicide prevention and awareness in Sri Lanka, the program officer at Lanka Sumithrayo said "Certainly the help available is not enough. Whilst state sector mediation is inadequate, we can not be satisfied of the role the media plays in this regard either."

According to her, the general public can actively take part in suicide prevention to a greater extent. "Identifying a crisis situation actually creates the chance to stop a potential suicide victim from taking their life. Signals of a crisis, changes in behaviour, thought and feelings should be recognised and given the right support," she explained.

As the general public being interested in anyone in the community, be it a friend, a relative or a colleague whose circumstances have changed is important. A change in circumstance could either be the demise of a loved one, divorce or separation, or being diagnosed with a serious illness.

These situations naturally leads to depression that can in ceratin cases cause people to consider committing suicide or deliberate self-inflicted harm. Paying deeper attention to people who have previously suffered or suffering from mental illness too is of vital importance.

People who commit suicide fail to realise the pain and darkness they leave behind for the people around them.

According to statistics there is a high rate of youth suicide in Sri Lanka that occurs due to failed love affairs. "Youth suicide simply is a theft of life," stressed the program officer at Lanka Sumithrayo. "Parents should definitely be willing to talk a problem through not merely dictate terms. They should also stop taking children on guilt trips," she added.

"If one comes across a person who is at risk of taking their own life what one can do is get involved. Become available. Show interest and support. A person who is more willing to listen rather than talk can really help," she elaborated.

Dealing with suicide survivors too is a delicate and sensitive issue. There is always the possibility of repeated attempts if the circumstances in that person's life have not been changed. As a community it is a moral duty of all to help stop the unnecessary waste of human life. After all, suicide prevention is everyone's responsibility.

Adults only' corrupt our  youth, scream parents

By Marianne David

Most of the cinema halls in Sri Lanka seem to be obsessed with the showing of `Adults only' movies compared to showing movies that one could watch with all the members of one's family, young and old. The reason for this excessive showing of 'Adults only' movies seems to be the large numbers of cinema goers that these movies are able to attract compared to the smaller crowds that turn out for family movies.

If one were to take a  newspaper and check which movies are being shown, it is obvious that you cannot take young children to many of them because they carry the 'Strictly for adults' or 'Adults only' tag along with the advertisement. In this week's papers, there were 16 'Adults only' movies advertised whereas there were only eight movies that did not carry the 'Adults only' line. This shows that there are twice as many 'Adults only' movies being shown compared to the number of family movies being shown in the theatres in Sri Lanka right now.

The 'Adults only' movies that were advertised are: Hindi Kama Sutra, Mamath gahaniyak, House of pleasure, Love is love, Sexual response, Return to two moon junction, The last boy scout, The dangerous sex date, Viola, Chinese Kama Sutra, Sexy seven, Magenta, The other woman, Miss Shakila, En kadalie and Bed timing.

The movies that did not carry the 'Adults only' tag are; Lord of the rings, Pissu double, Parliament jokes, Thamilan, Tamizh, Sri bannari amman, Roja kuttam and Tomb raider.

To make matters worse, the outside of the theatres are also decorated with cut-outs from scenes of the movie, which encourages easily corruptible children of school going  age to watch these films on a regular basis, thereby taking them away from their school activities. Since the theatres can earn a lot more money with the showing of these movies. ID checking is seldom done, making the theatres a haven for children of school going age who skip school to watch these movies, having been attracted by the cut-outs which show scantily clad women and men in various suggestive poses.

"There have been many instances when we have found school boys coming out of these theatres or going for these movies during school hours. Most of them simply pull on a coloured T-shirt over their school trousers and get in to the theatres very easily. Undoubtedly, the cut-outs are the main problem because they are seen by all the students who have to pass these theatres and they are then curious and interested in watching the movie," said a teacher who wished to remain anonymous.

Renuka, a mother of two teenage boys added, "Not only are there so many vulgar movies being shown everywhere we turn, even the easily accessible X-rated material on the internet and the various Sinhala papers that are unsuitable for children or teenagers increases the opportunity for them to fill their minds with rubbish. Given the problems that have cropped up now, it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep track of what your children may come across.

"The best thing to do if you think your children are capable of getting involved in something like this is to track their activities during their free time and limit the amount of money that comes into their hands. Even though they may hate it, parents should also occasionally check what is in their rooms too. Another thing is to regularly meet with their school teachers to make sure they are in school when they should be."

Meanwhile, a motion was passed at the general meeting of the Colombo Municipal Council on April 10, 2002, moved by A.C.M. Badurdeen as follows; 'Adults only' films are now screening at cinema halls and arrangements are made to exhibit cut-outs of lustful cinemas on hoardings and notice boards opposite such cinema halls and also on hoardings and notice boards of many cinema halls in the city. As a result, children and youth are bound to go astray. This council therefore, proposes to request the Hon. Minister of Cultural Affairs to instruct cinema owners to obtain censor board approval before displaying and hoardings on their premises or in any other places".

Another factor in this issue is the appearance of posters almost everywhere, depicting various scenes from these 'Adults only' movies, and these posters are even put up in the vicinity of schools, thereby deliberately attracting and encouraging children of school going age to watch these movies.

Why these posters are allowed to be put up near schools and educational institutions is anybody's guess but it is a practice which is sending our youth astray along with the hoardings and notice boards also being put up everywhere. Let alone near schools and educational institutions, such hoardings, notice boards and posters should not be put up anywhere at all in the first place because they do nothing but corrupt our youth and contribute towards the degeneration of society.

The indomitable Pradeep Silva

By Mandana Ismail Abeywickrema

They say from birth till death  life is one long journey of ups and downs. Life in the minds of many philosophers is made of sobs, sniffles and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

Being a police officer for ten years, he was a man who loved his job and took pride in doing what is right. SI Pradeep Silva who served in the war torn northern peninsula believed in justice and bringing honour to his profession.

It was this same job that finally made him cripple for life (or will it be life?) The Sunday Leader of May 27, 2001 carried an article in the Review section - All in the line of duty - relating to the unfortunate incident that took place while on duty which has also taken away most of his youth, leaving him a with a disability. On September 16, 2001, The Sunday Leader carried an article in the same section - In search of happiness. In this article, Silva explains that there is some light far away in the long dark tunnel when he learnt through the Internet that he could be cured by a surgery in Singapore which costs US$ 30,000.

After this discovery he made on his own, Silva then had the challenge of collecting Rs. 27 lakhs. He received Rs. 2 lakhs from the police department and Rs. 5 lakhs from the president's fund. Well, finding the rest of the money was in Silva's hands. Speaking to The Sunday Leader he explained that he never liked to be a burden to others and as a result decided on doing something on his own to collect money. Silva who has never painted any picture took to painting pictures in a bid to collect the much needed money.

It was then time for action. Seated on his wheel chair in room No. 10 of the Police Hospital, he spent hours painting pictures. Beautiful and bright scenes of life and environment. For a person who had never drawn before, Silva's paintings sure are miracles.

Silva will hold his exhibition on May 4 and 5 titled Images of Solitude at the Colombo Art Gallery and the Sir Arthur C. Clarke will be the chief guest at this occasion. 35 paintings will be on display and the paintings will be water colour paintings and acrylic paintings. Silva was elated to say that his first painting was bought by a Singaporean for Rs. 1 lakh and 40 thousand. Silva is in need of Rs. 5 lakhs to go abroad for the operation and hopes to generate it from this exhibition.

Thinking positive and being satisfied with what you have are the two precepts of Silva. For him, life has been a challenge every step of the way. "I never thought of my disability. I filled my mind with positive thoughts," he said. "My whole life has been a challenge and winning them. First it was a challenge to catch the crooks with only a number of a van. Then when I was injured it was a challenge to stay alive. From then on it has been a challenge to find some cure. When I found the cure, I had to find the money. Then taking up painting was a challenge. Now I've done it. I've painted about 35 paintings seated in a wheel chair for hours and hours," he added.

"Looking back I'm amazed to see that I did all this. In a way I feel that everything happens for the best. Once I was paralysed, only a few were there to help me. But those few did so much for me. I realised that not everyone was genuine and now I can identify the genuine ones and I also know the fakes. I have met several genuine people who have gone out of their way to be there for me," Silva said. He says that the experience he received as a police officer helped him through this arduous time and face the challenges of life.

Silva who has been facing many challenges in life could now win one of the biggest challenges anyone could but dream of winning. It was with great hope that he said, "Now, I'll be able to go for the operation soon and I might come back walking." Things of joy seem so passe to Silva just a few year back. But now there's hope. Hope of living life serving his country. Silva's bravery from doing his job to facing challenges is admirable and should be considered an inspiration to everyone.