June 3, 2013, 7:51 pm


(4th June 1945 to 8th November 2009)

Uncle Ranjith was always full of life and he always loved us coming to his house and similarly we loved going there! We were his ‘favorite’ nieces as he once told long time ago which was nice to hear! He always asked us about our studies and advised us whenever possible. Every Sunday our family gets together at our grandparent’s house and uncle Ranjith also used to drop most often where he always had a special cozy place in that house. He used to lie down on a wooden bench like place, and I was always the helping girl for him with the snacks and drinks! Every time we ate at the table, he always used to scold me saying, ‘How to take this girl to a hotel if she is going to eat like that with her hand’. My parents still mention and remind me about it! There are many pleasant memories such as the Bolgoda trips, Negombo family gatherings and estate trips but there was one that outstood all this. This was when he became the sole person that led my studies to international level and I felt very happy to make him proud of what I achieved because of his help, commitment and dedication.

It was my degree second year group project, where together with my team and lecturer decided to create a math application for the visually impaired students of Sri Lanka. Back then, uncle Ranjith used to help the Deaf and Blind school in Ratmalana a lot. Together with his help we started developing the application and it was great fun! There were times where we visited his office and tried out many gadgets of what the visually impaired used for educational purposes. We even got a chance to demonstrate our application on one of the employers who worked at Uncle Ranjith office who was partially impairer. He helped us so much into getting this right and his efforts were tremendous! My team managed to get an ‘A’ for the project and we were so happy! But we didn’t stop there. We wrote a research paper on our project and submitted it to conferences in Sri Lanka and as well as India and our paper got chosen for both! But uncle Ranjith was not around at that time, but I was pretty sure I made him proud where ever he was and I felt so happy knowing that fact. Not only that, we even gave the application to the blind school where they were very happy about it. I remember uncle Ranjith once saying that he had many applications that he wanted to create and give to the school. With that in mind I, together with my team brought up the idea of creating such an application.

Nevertheless, there are these nice memories that I have within me and cherish a lot about him. Even though he is no more with us, I know he still remains inside me which makes me believe that he is still around and bringing life to all his loved ones!! Uncle Ranjith, if there is ever a newspaper around where you can read this article, I just want to let you know, thank you for being a great uncle to me! Love you always and I know you will smile when you read this one!

Lahiri Soysa