How I described him was the main dilemma.
He was a man of a few words.
I have more of his physical appearance than my other siblings, but this quality of few words I was not endowed with.
My younger brother has received it from him (the universe has very mysterious ways of working and assembling things around it).
He showed us the world literally by taking us to various places during school holidays and breaks in between, but his world was just confined to within our shores.
By introducing and encouraging us to read early in our lives, he managed to take us far beyond his physically confined shores.
Every week, he used to bring at least two books from the library, and we were on them like the vultures on a carcass.
He wanted us to think freely and never be afraid of asking questions.
Though he was a man of few words, his political allegiance was no secret, with Das Capital prominently on the bookshelf.
With a rear show of emotions, he clenched his fist and held up in solidarity with his unseen brothers in some part of the world when the Nine o’clock SLBC News announced the departure of the last US helicopter from Vietnam.
We were having dinner in Badulla that day.
His message, though conveyed in a very subtle way but not in words, was “Never come home if you get beaten up by someone else, and the rest of the complications, if any, I can take care of.".
In simple words, it says, "Break the hell out of anyone who tries to intimidate you!".
He was a Southerner, and his words and deeds truly reflected the enterprising Southerners’ spirit.
His two messages, “Think Freely” and “Never come home if you get beaten up by someone else,” came in really handy in our later lives, but I do not think that any of us got around telling him how much we benefited from those two messages.
At least now we have such celebrations like “Father's Day," which we had never heard of when we were growing up.
This allows me to at least say, “Thank You තාත්තේ !"
