Recalling that first Independence Day celebration

I could clearly remember that it was a Sunday, when my father took out his China silk suit from the pettagama, a wooden chest often found in homes in the Kandyan region. He requested my mother to air it outside the home and iron it. Those were the days when before electric irons, when we had coconut shellfed irons. My father told my mother to be careful when ironing it as it was the only China silk suit he had.

China silk was usually bought from the Chinese cloth peddlers who visited all parts of the country calling out "Redeep, redeep". Chinamen were a common site in most villages, then.

My brother and I questioned my father as to why he had taken out the suit. He said that he had to go to Colombo for Independence Day celebrations, as he had been invited. For us kids born with the shackles of colonialism, the word ‘Independence’ meant nothing.

My father was a businessman who had his shop and quarters in Colombo 7. He was known and respected by many. It was during the first bombs of the Japanese that we moved to our mother' s home.

That Independence Day at Torrington, on the tarmac for British aircraft, a part of the Racecourse of

the Ceylon Turf Club, there stood a magnificent stage set for celebrations.

So my father in his silk suit went to Colombo and stayed with his brother a Police officer, living at Police quarters in Maradana. I think the invite was for my mother as well, but she hates crowds and perhaps refused to go.

After he arrived home we got around him and asked questions. He said that the King was present and that the first Prime Minister of the country was there in top hat and coat.

We did not know what that was and questioned him further. Then he told us what all this meant, and he said that we were under the Suddas but that we were now to be looked after by our own people. My brother and I listened, but we could not gather what this Independence meant. It was years after that we began to understand it.

A few years after 1948 Independence Hall came up on the spot where the 1948 celebrations took place. The building is along the style of the Kandy Audience Hall created by eight notable architects led by Tom Neville Wayne Jones. This was also used for some time during the ceremonial sittings of the House of Representatives and the Senate.