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Chandana Thanthrige

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  Chandana Thanthrige Denzil Jayasinghe 3 min read · 18 hours ago 1 A note from the writer: I am Denzil Jayasinghe. In the early nineties, I was the hiring manager for Chandana Thanthrige at Standard Chartered Bank in Dubai. This is his story – and mine, a little. It was triggered by us meeting again in Sydney, on Sunday the 19th of April 2026. T here are people you meet early in life who stay with you, not because of anything dramatic, but because of the quality of their smile. Chandana Thanthrige had that kind of smile. Permanent, unhurried, as though he had decided long ago that the world was, on the whole, a reasonable place. He came to Standard Chartered Dubai in the early nineties, fresh from Trinity College in Kandy – a school the hills of Ceylon have always been proud of, particularly for the cricketers it sends into the world. Chandana had played for his college in his younger years, though he had not come to Dubai with a bat. He had come with something quieter and more us...
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The Man Who Tapped My Shoulder

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  The Man Who Tapped My Shoulder This is the story of a quiet English banker in old Dubai, and how one gentle tap on a young clerk’s shoulder turned into a lifetime of learning and second chance Denzil Jayasinghe 8 min read · Apr 12, 2026 2 A drian Turnbull’s story, as I remember it, begins in a hot, dusty Dubai that no longer exists, and with a feeling I did not yet have a name for — the feeling of being quietly, kindly noticed. In those days, the bank still looked like something left behind by the Empire. At the top were the English officers with their villas, cars, maids and houseboys. Below them, in neat layers, came the Indians, Pakistanis, Yemenis and Sri Lankans: a few assistant officers, plenty of clerks, and at the bottom the peons, or farashes, in their uniforms, carrying files from one desk to another and calling everyone “Sir.” The flag had changed; the habits hadn’t. Into this arrangement walked Adrian Turnbull. He came from London, from Head Office and from a well‑gro...
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