Denzil's Stories

The Name’s Bhupathi — Mr Bhupathi Denzil Jayasinghe 3 min read · 8 hours ago T he other day, Abdul Lathief wrote a short note about Bhupathi and Arun Diaz, both of whom had served at the Chartered Bank in Dubai in the late seventies and early eighties. It brought back memories of my own younger days there — days when Dubai was still a quiet trading town, and the bank occupied a corner of my life as permanent as the sea. The first Indian officer sent to us from the Chartered Bank in Madras was a Mr Srinivasan. This must have been the mid-to-late seventies, when the bank had few British officers capable of dealing with the Indian traders who formed the heart of Dubai’s foreign-trade business — the bills, the letters of credit, the guarantees that kept the old dhows, and their modern successors, busy. When I joined the bank, Srinivasan — whose first name, I confess, has escaped me — was already there. A short, dark man in his thirties, with a pleasant, unassuming manner. He wore bright, b...

  Yellow Underpants and a Broken Heart Denzil Jayasinghe 2 min read · Just now In the mid-seventies, when Sri Lanka was still the centre of my universe, mornings had a routine. I would leave Mudiyansegewatta Road and turn into the church compound, tracing the familiar path past the local school, along its sandy road toward the bus stand. I never went into the church, except to exchange pleasantries with the local lads chatting in the front yard. Then I’d move on, walking past quickly. At school, and later among the machinery at apprentice school, there was a phrase that made the rounds: a hole in the heart . Someone would mention a boy who had one. Then another. Nobody ever explained what it actually meant, but the words carried a quiet weight. Before long, I convinced myself that I had one, too. Whenever I walked, a slight, nagging pain would take root high on the left side of my chest. I’d slow my step, catch my breath, and think, this is it. I’m going to die soon. At eighteen,...