Aloysius Hettiarachchi

I came across this interesting podcast by a presenter/interviewer Lex Fridman, who has built a name for himself. He is a Russian born Jewish person who emigrated as a child with parents to the US during the break-up of the Soviet Union. He is an expert in the IT and Electrical Engineering field with a PhD. Though his earlier interviews were on science and software programming, it seems he has developed a taste for world history as well. His podcast on ‘The fall of the Roman Republic’ with Gregory Aldrete explains beautifully how a ruler can balance a difficult situation and continue ruling for a long time, in this case for fifty years.

 If we listen to the videos of Professor Raj Somadeva, we will know our country too had a glorious past and had a recognition by the rest of the world, perhaps due to our country being at the centre of the developed world then. According to one of his stories a ruler of Persian Empire even went to the extent of offering his daughter in marriage to a ruler in our country around the first century AD. And as per the recently discovered rock inscription in Dimbulagala we had a well-developed tax system for collecting dues from ships that berth on our ports and a banking system. However, during the rule of our last colonial power everything about our past seem to have been erased. Was it due to the foolishness of our leaders?. It seems they have bent down to such a low level that sayings like lajja nethi kama mahamudali kamatath wada lokui” have emerged in the society. In my experience with Europeans including Italians, British, Jews etc., I have found it to be otherwise. They would even tell me to bring our countrymen when they pass by the city to the camp. This was when I lived with them in the same camp in Africa. This was soon after our cricket team played and won in London. I was even surprised when they mentioned the names of Warnapura and Wettamuni and told me how they played. Once they asked me to umpire the match they played to commemorate queen’s birthday. I declined as I wasn’t well versed with the rules.

So, who are we (Api Kawruda)?.  Here is one guy with a name Ceylan (or Ceyhalan?) belting out a song to felicitate the fiftieth anniversary of the carrier of a popular singer by the name Roland Kaiser in Germany:

 Like those mercenaries that came from ancient Sri Vijaya empire (comprising the regions of Indonesia, Malasia and Brunei) came to defend our rulers and stayed back marring local women, perhaps our men also went to the region knowns as Anatolia (present day Turkey, Greece, France etc) with our elephants for warfare and stayed back marrying their local women. Today we have a sizeable population with suffix as ‘malla’ or prefix ‘malala’ who go as Sinhalese. In my conversations with some youths in that region it became clear to me that they know that history and are proud to be from that empire. Who knows, they may even be our people who migrated from our East leaving behind the creations that we see as ruins today (late historian Jackson Anthony comes to mind).

We have ‘Tungas’ such as Weeratunga, Jayatunga, Ranatunga, etc. all connected with bravery. These Tungas are a North European/Turkish group, my searches revealed.

Let me finish this write up as usual with a popular song by a late Sr Lankan artist titled ‘Api Kawruda’: