The Quiet Courage of a boy
The quiet courage of a boy
A suitcase and a spine
4 min readJust nowInthe gentle hills where some boys learn to grow up too soon, Denzil grew up differently. Not with the soft cotton of comfort, but with something coarser — rough homespun — stitched with hardship, and a quiet kind of defiance that comes not from anger, but from knowing one must go on.
At twelve, when most boys still chased dragonflies and skinned their knees, Denzil walked into a Christian Brothers school, a place wrapped in promises but cloaked in silence. There, in the long shadow of the chapel and the echoing dormitories, he learned that cruelty sometimes wore a cassock. But he didn’t let the darkness devour him.
No, one morning, just as the crows were stirring and the mist still curled around the frangipani bushes, he packed a small suitcase and walked out. Not with loud declarations, but with a kind of grace. That, I’ve always believed, is the real face of courage.
Later, he returned — not to the dormitory, but to the day school. A “free boy,” they called him. And free he was. He walked the same corridors, but this time with his head higher. He helped other boys find the same door he had found. That sort of bravery is rare. Like a match still lit in the monsoon.
By fifteen, while others dabbled in poetry and awkward affection, Denzil taught himself a new language. His mother didn’t speak it. No one at home did. But he brought it home anyway — like a bright feather found in the forest — and coaxed it gently into the rhythm of their daily life.
When school ended at tenth grade, and others stepped into colleges with thick books and thin purpose, Denzil chose a different track. Accounting, at first. Then telecommunications. Then hospitality. Each choice another stone in a road he laid himself.
At eighteen, he wore his only good shirt and walked into a job interview, knowing the others had fancier papers and impressive qualifications. But Denzil had something they didn’t — quiet grit. He got the job.
During that apprenticeship, a senior took a special interest in him. At first, Denzil mistook the attention for kindness. But kindness that comes with strings is never truly kind. And when the fog lifted and the strings began to tighten, he did the hardest thing — he broke free. At nineteen, that takes more than bravery. It takes soul.
He tried his hand at politics too, in the way of youthful idealism. He tried to join the workers’ union — not because he had slogans to chant, but because he believed in fairness. He lost. But there was no shame in the loss. Just a quiet acceptance that this, too, was part of growing up.
He had seen injustice before, but when it came from his own uncle, it stung deeper. One evening, with a firmness that surprised even the walls of that old house, Denzil stood his ground. There were no loud words, just a quiet finality in his voice. And with that, the uncle — who had once ruled the household with fear and entitlement — was shown the door.
He challenged the treatment meted to juniors at work. It met with harsh resistence. Yet. he did not give up, he pursued and led the resistance movement.
And then came the road out.
A chance to leave Sri Lanka. No passport. No sponsor. Just the call of a life not yet lived. He queued, signed, waited, and got that passport in record time. And then, without fanfare, he boarded a plane — the first in his family to do so.
That’s how I imagine him now: a boy just turned into a man, standing at the departure gate, the weight of a country on his back, and a heart full of tomorrows.
In the new land, he adapted like a banyan tree in a concrete yard — stretching outward, absorbing all he could. He shed the weight of caste and custom like an old shirt. Within four months, he shifted from hospitality to finance — his fourth reinvention. And soon, the promotions began to come. Not because he chased them, but because he stayed — learning, doing, listening.
He married outside his caste — gently, without apology — and raised his children outside the borders of identity. They belonged to the world, not to the echoes of ancestral pride.
Then came another leap. He left Dubai, that shimmering land of glass towers and mirrored lifts, for Australia. No job. A pregnant wife. Three small children. Some might call it reckless. But he always believed that the heart, when truly sure, doesn’t ask for certainty.
Within a month, he bought land — manageable, full of promise — and began to build. He changed industries again, moved into digital banking, learned new systems, built again. And when his children were ready for university, he let go of title and comfort and took up contract work — where freedom lives, if you can live with uncertainty.
After 27 years of marriage, he left quietly. No bitterness, no court battles. Just $1000 in his pocket, and the silence of a house he no longer called home. He began again.
Love came again — tentative, later in life, and tender. For seven years, it filled the cracks in him. When that too ended, he did not collapse. He simply moved forward. Built again. A new home, fully paid. A new career, at sixty-four, in government service, serving quietly in customer experience design, marks a shift away from a 42-year career in fintech.
That’s how I see him now. Not as a hero in the newspapers. But like the boys I once knew in school — shoulders set, eyes watchful, already halfway down a new path. Life gave him many reasons to falter. But he chose, each time, to rise.
And that, dear reader, is a kind of story the world doesn’t tell enough.
Inthe gentle hills where some boys learn to grow up too soon, Denzil grew up differently. Not with the soft cotton of comfort, but with something coarser — rough homespun — stitched with hardship, and a quiet kind of defiance that comes not from anger, but from knowing one must go on.
At twelve, when most boys still chased dragonflies and skinned their knees, Denzil walked into a Christian Brothers school, a place wrapped in promises but cloaked in silence. There, in the long shadow of the chapel and the echoing dormitories, he learned that cruelty sometimes wore a cassock. But he didn’t let the darkness devour him.
No, one morning, just as the crows were stirring and the mist still curled around the frangipani bushes, he packed a small suitcase and walked out. Not with loud declarations, but with a kind of grace. That, I’ve always believed, is the real face of courage.
Later, he returned — not to the dormitory, but to the day school. A “free boy,” they called him. And free he was. He walked the same corridors, but this time with his head higher. He helped other boys find the same door he had found. That sort of bravery is rare. Like a match still lit in the monsoon.
By fifteen, while others dabbled in poetry and awkward affection, Denzil taught himself a new language. His mother didn’t speak it. No one at home did. But he brought it home anyway — like a bright feather found in the forest — and coaxed it gently into the rhythm of their daily life.
When school ended at tenth grade, and others stepped into colleges with thick books and thin purpose, Denzil chose a different track. Accounting, at first. Then telecommunications. Then hospitality. Each choice another stone in a road he laid himself.
At eighteen, he wore his only good shirt and walked into a job interview, knowing the others had fancier papers and impressive qualifications. But Denzil had something they didn’t — quiet grit. He got the job.
During that apprenticeship, a senior took a special interest in him. At first, Denzil mistook the attention for kindness. But kindness that comes with strings is never truly kind. And when the fog lifted and the strings began to tighten, he did the hardest thing — he broke free. At nineteen, that takes more than bravery. It takes soul.
He tried his hand at politics too, in the way of youthful idealism. He tried to join the workers’ union — not because he had slogans to chant, but because he believed in fairness. He lost. But there was no shame in the loss. Just a quiet acceptance that this, too, was part of growing up.
He had seen injustice before, but when it came from his own uncle, it stung deeper. One evening, with a firmness that surprised even the walls of that old house, Denzil stood his ground. There were no loud words, just a quiet finality in his voice. And with that, the uncle — who had once ruled the household with fear and entitlement — was shown the door.
He challenged the treatment meted to juniors at work. It met with harsh resistence. Yet. he did not give up, he pursued and led the resistance movement.
And then came the road out.
A chance to leave Sri Lanka. No passport. No sponsor. Just the call of a life not yet lived. He queued, signed, waited, and got that passport in record time. And then, without fanfare, he boarded a plane — the first in his family to do so.
That’s how I imagine him now: a boy just turned into a man, standing at the departure gate, the weight of a country on his back, and a heart full of tomorrows.
In the new land, he adapted like a banyan tree in a concrete yard — stretching outward, absorbing all he could. He shed the weight of caste and custom like an old shirt. Within four months, he shifted from hospitality to finance — his fourth reinvention. And soon, the promotions began to come. Not because he chased them, but because he stayed — learning, doing, listening.
He married outside his caste — gently, without apology — and raised his children outside the borders of identity. They belonged to the world, not to the echoes of ancestral pride.
Then came another leap. He left Dubai, that shimmering land of glass towers and mirrored lifts, for Australia. No job. A pregnant wife. Three small children. Some might call it reckless. But he always believed that the heart, when truly sure, doesn’t ask for certainty.
Within a month, he bought land — manageable, full of promise — and began to build. He changed industries again, moved into digital banking, learned new systems, built again. And when his children were ready for university, he let go of title and comfort and took up contract work — where freedom lives, if you can live with uncertainty.
After 27 years of marriage, he left quietly. No bitterness, no court battles. Just $1000 in his pocket, and the silence of a house he no longer called home. He began again.
Love came again — tentative, later in life, and tender. For seven years, it filled the cracks in him. When that too ended, he did not collapse. He simply moved forward. Built again. A new home, fully paid. A new career, at sixty-four, in government service, serving quietly in customer experience design, marks a shift away from a 42-year career in fintech.
That’s how I see him now. Not as a hero in the newspapers. But like the boys I once knew in school — shoulders set, eyes watchful, already halfway down a new path. Life gave him many reasons to falter. But he chose, each time, to rise.
And that, dear reader, is a kind of story the world doesn’t tell enough.
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