By our special correspondent

On a late autumn Saturday of 24 May, a day blessed with golden sunlight as if from some twelve thousand miles away, by the Devas of Peradeniya University’s Hindagala temple, the members of the New South Wales Chapter of that University’s Alumni Association set out on a bus trip to meet, greet and create possibilities for future ventures with their brothers and sisters of the Canberra Chapter.

The social and educational bus trip was, and is a vital Peradeniya University institution and has been memorably recorded in the following excerpt from Professor Ediriwira Sarachchandra’s perceptive English novel, Curfew and a Full Moon: “Before long they all began singing.  Some of them had brought musical instruments with them expecting apparently, to strike up a tune on the way.  Professor Amaradasa who was seated in front beside the driver could hear the singing voices behind him accompanied by some notes played on strings…..They went on from one song to another, drawn from a repertoire that seemed inexhaustible.”  

Some forty years later, these words could just as well have described this excursion but there was no Professor seated beside the driver.  Instead it was the Secretary of the NSW Chapter.  And the driver of the bus was the President of the Alumni Association.  The “students” were also much older, ages ranging from about seventy five down to the early thirties, but the spirit was bursting young, and the songs of the journey both to and from were “drawn from a repertoire that seemed inexhaustible” and a surprisingly great range from Sinhala classics and folk songs, to Tamil baila andevenBrahms’s famousGerman Lullaby sung in English!  

And oh! Sri Lankan food generously provided by the eager travellers across times!  Absolutely no different from the delicacies described by Sarachchandra in his Peradeniya novel.

At Saint Jude’s School, Holder the hosting Canberra Chapter led by the MC for the occasion Bandula Hewage embraced us in the way only brothers and sisters would.  

A great lunch, informal discussions, meetings with old friends, an impressionistic journey across Peradeniya University through literary excerpts as well as video reproductions of the classic dramas that came out of that university from the genius of Sarachchandra and those he influenced made the afternoon.  

The impulsive community sing–song and a compulsive burst of free form dancing preceded re-entry into the bus, and then Sri Lankan music wafting into and sometimes piercing the quiet dark all the M5 way!

Click here to enjoy an album of photos submitted by the organisers