Denzil's Stories

Bell Bottoms and the Miracle of Television Denzil, with quiet generosity, bought Vijitha’s first bell bottoms and later took him to OTS, where together they watched France vs Argentina before TV reached Sri Lanka. Denzil Jayasinghe 4 min read · 1 day ago 1 In early seventies Colombo, the world was shifting in ways both small and monumental. You could sense it in the cinema posters, in the way boys slicked back their hair, in the sudden defiance of trouser legs flaring wider than reason allowed. Yet our allowances — the coins pressed into our palms by parents — lagged behind. They covered bus fares, a copybook, perhaps a tea bun from the kade. Nothing grander. Vijitha, with his restless stride and quick grin, was always talking about bell bottoms. He had seen them on the big screen — actors dancing in Technicolor, arm in arm with women in chiffon. To him, they weren’t just trousers but a key to belonging to something greater than our narrow lanes. Whenever we wandered through Pettah, he...

The Boy with the Pilot Pen Denzil Jayasinghe 5 min read · 3 days ago A lonely fourteen-year-old finds solace in his books and in rare companionship during a difficult holiday. At boarding school he meets Rohan – reserved, kind, unlike the rowdy boys around them – and in shared moments of writing, family, and small adventures their quiet friendship blossoms. Decades later, it lingers. It had been a lonely sort of month for a boy of fourteen. The holidays began cheerfully enough, with a few bright days in Dalugama in the company of my parents, sister, and brother. But then Father left for Teldeniya, and Mother, absorbed in her own mother’s company, seemed to forget me altogether. My other grandmother, Kadayamma, was there – watchful, fussing over meals and ensuring I was cared for – but companionship is something else altogether. The house grew too still, as though waiting for voices that never came. Now and then, the neighbour’s boy, Linton, appeared like sunlight after rain. In the mor...

  The Policeman, the Tyres, and the Hoppers Denzil Jayasinghe 4 min read · 7 hours ago An excerpt from “The Policeman, the Tyres, and the Hoppers” by Denzil Jayasinghe, a memoir of a 1973 incident in Sri Lanka. The author and his friends, after a late movie, are stopped by harsh policemen who deflates their tires for riding without lamps. Forced to walk, hungry and dejected, they find a small restaurant selling hoppers. The simple meal revitalises their spirits, transforming their misfortune into a source of laughter. In those days, the Humber bicycle my father owned had passed into my hands. It was a solid, respectable machine, with a black frame and chrome handlebars that still bore traces of his pride of ownership. On that night in 1973, I was riding it in the company of my friends — Cyril, Nelum, and Mahinda — returning from a late filmi show in Colombo. The streets were half-empty, the air unusually cool, and the sound of our pedalling echoed faintly in the silence. We set off...