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Liquid Addiction

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Liquid Addiction Denzil Jayasinghe 3 min read · Just now In our house in Dalugama, liquor did not arrive with drama. It arrived quietly, in a brown paper bag, and then disappeared into the cupboard as if ashamed of itself. My father drank only at weddings or office functions. The bottle he brought home would stand upright behind folded table linen, gathering dust with a patience that seemed almost moral. I never saw him drunk. Never heard his voice thicken. Never saw the foolish gaiety that cinema associated with men and drink. If anything, the bottle seemed more restrained than the rest of us. That was my first lesson in alcohol: that it could exist without ruling a household. My own first drink — that awkward initiation I have written of elsewhere — came not from rebellion but from curiosity. There were friends, older boys, the scent of adulthood in the air. A glass passed to me. Laughter too loud for the hour. The burn startled me; it was less pleasure than proof. Proof that I could...
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Imti, the magic of Sholay

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  Imti, the magic of Sholay Denzil Jayasinghe 4 min read · 2 days ago 1 W orking in the bank was not the polite occupation it appeared to be from the outside. The day began at seven sharp, before the heat had properly lifted, the telex machines already chattering themselves awake. Messages arrived from everywhere at once — payments to be cleared, import and export credits to be checked, authorisations, guarantees, wire transfers shuttling restlessly between London, New York, Bombay, Karachi, Bahrain, and Hong Kong. By mid-morning the air felt spent, heavy with carbon paper, ink, and the quiet anxiety that precision demanded. Among the clerks, one figure stood apart. Imtiaz was solidly built, self-possessed, and spoke English with an ease that immediately commanded attention. He was from Kerala, but languages seemed to gather around him naturally — Malayalam, Hindi, English, and others besides — worn lightly, without display. He spoke thoughtfully, as if words carried weight. Friend...
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A Church I No Longer Recognise

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  A Church I No Longer Recognise Denzil Jayasinghe 4 min read · 4 days ago It is forty-nine years since I left Dalugama, a small, drowsy village ten kilometres north of Colombo. In those days, even Colombo felt tentative — an unambitious town stretching no higher than a handful of buildings, the tallest barely seven storeys, as if the city itself was unsure how much space it was entitled to occupy. Life moved without insistence then. Days were shaped by habit, not hurry. Dalugama, despite its proximity to the capital, was unmistakably a village. The roads were narrow, some little more than gravel tracks, and traffic was sparse enough to be memorable. People cycled everywhere, though I never recall seeing a woman on a bicycle — one of those unspoken boundaries that passed unquestioned at the time. Places south of Colombo were thought refined, aspirational. Dalugama, by contrast, was considered neither urban nor particularly important. It existed quietly, without ambition. When I ret...
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Walking Between Missed Connections

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Walking Between Missed Connections Denzil Jayasinghe 3 min read · Jan 29, 2026 1 O verseas travel brings familiar disruptions: missed connections, altered plans, routines undone. Yet it offers a freedom almost too much to handle: the permission to stop, linger without explanation, and move according to one’s own schedule. I have never found it tedious. Perhaps my mild compulsions help; walking steadies my mind and shapes thoughts that might otherwise drift. A morning walk through Independence Square in Colombo can be disorienting. The paths curve back on themselves, and walkers move in steady circuits, their purpose no longer entirely mine. Yet in their rhythms — faces set in effort, habit, quiet resolve — I catch a faint familiarity: the country I left behind fifty years ago, rehearsing its daily routines without me. I have visited Colombo six times in the past two years, a personal record. In my early years in Dubai, I travelled more frequently, returning every six months to see my p...
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