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The Housesitting Weekend

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The Housesitting Weekend A quiet weekend in a borrowed Dalugama house becomes an enduring memory of youth, freedom, and a woman who chose to live entirely on her own terms before time scattered us all. Denzil Jayasinghe 8 min read · 1 day ago L ucky’s house sat on Old Kandy Road, set back from the road behind a low fence and a metal gate that squeaked when you pushed it. It was larger than most houses in Dalugama. Three bedrooms, a proper sitting room, louver windows, a kitchen with actual counter space. Lucky’s father had done well for himself, though nobody talked about how exactly he rented it. Lucky’s family had gone to the hill country for the week. Kandy, probably. Maybe Nuwara Eliya. He needed someone to watch the house and he asked Shirley, which was the sensible thing to do. Nobody in the village was going to break into a house that Shirley Fonseka was guarding. Shirley asked me to join him. I said yes without asking too many questions. I was nineteen. An empty bungalow for a ...
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Cyril Ayya: The Shield of My Youth

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Cyril Ayya: The Shield of My Youth In the mid-seventies, Dalugama was a world of Afros, bell-bottoms, and reckless youth. Navigating that fragile threshold of manhood, I was green and vulnerable. But I had Cyril ayya . More than a mate, he became my shield — a protective, honourable force who stood between me and the world’s hidden dangers. Denzil Jayasinghe 5 min read · Just now M emory has a way of anchoring itself to specific faces, and for me, the seventies in the sleepy village of Dalugama will always look like Cyril Stanley. Dalugama was my ancestral hometown, a quiet enclave some ten kilometres from the bustling heart of Colombo. Back then, if you wanted to be noticed, you grew your hair into an Afro, flared your denim bell-bottoms, and walked with a certain rhythmic assurance. Cyril and his younger brother Edward had that down to an art. Cyril looked like a younger version of Smokey Robinson; Edward was a junior, darker Lionel Richie. They worked in the city’s only five-star e...
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The List

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The List Denzil Jayasinghe 20 hours ago The nearest thing I had to a plan was a list I made at seventeen. Not a career plan – I wouldn’t have known what to do with one of those. Just a few things I wanted, written down in no particular order. To write short stories. To speak English well – really well. To make films someday. To be an author. To be an artist. Press enter or click to view image in full size I remembered it again recently. It still makes me smile. There was no ambition in it, not really. No ladder to climb, no office to reach. Just a boy in a room somewhere, trying to put words to what he felt stirring inside him. I never did have a career. I’m not sure I missed it. Written by Denzil Jayasinghe
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