By Garvin Karunaratne

All of us do some jobs to find a living and later in retirement get to oblivion, some become activists, others don robes, finding paths for self-salvation.

The greatness in Mahindapala is that in unpaid lifetime, in retirement, he fought for Sri Lanka for the downtrodden, and provided ideas for new paths that could have taken our country out of the mud it is now entrenched in.

We were once classmates, at The Government Teacher Training College School at the present Thurstan College premises studying in the second to fifth standards. We were taught by a few classmasters and what was very interesting was a few classes taken by some specialists- I can yet remember Holsinger teaching us about Thumbergia- a lesson in botany. We were great friends.

Since we parted at Training College School we never met-me in the Administrative Service and he is amongst the editorial staff of premier newspapers. Then Mahinda went to Australia while I went roaming to many countries. However, we met again in writing endless papers trying to put our Motherland on the right track. He wrote Endless from Australia and me from the UK and Sri Lanka.

Once Mahinda wanted to meet me. We met over a cup of tea at the residence of one of his relatives and had a long chat on development. That was some eight years ago. Sorry, I did not know that Mahinda was in Sri Lanka for the past four years. If I knew I would have met him.

Mahindapala made a great contribution to Sri Lanka in his unending papers and that will stand for him wherever he is.

Good friend, we will meet once again somewhere in Samsara when we will again fight for the downtrodden.

May your path in Samsara be happy and swift.

Garvin Karunaratne 01022024

Mihindapala’s funeral is tomorrow at Jayaratnes and I hope to be there