While serving as Surgeon GH Ratnapura in 1982, a well dressed
gentleman, came to see me with a long standing ulcer on one of his legs.
It looked like an allergic origin. On questioning he told me that his
father also had a similar ulcer. I prescribed the necessary treatment.
After he had gone the old attendant standing by me said 'Oka saneepa
wenni nay Sir. Oka paramparawey saapayak'.- 'You cannot cure that Sir.
It is a curse of a generation'. I was intrigued and asked why he
said that. The attendant said that a male ancestor of the patient took
part in the capture of the last King of Kandy. The ancestor a high court
official, had done the unpardonable sin at that time in1815, of kicking
the King's body with his foot. This was a curse laid on generations to
come. I was reminded of a passage from a Russian author. 'The centuries
do not forget the shame of a nation'.
While serving in Kandy as Surgeon in the 1980s, an elderly gentleman
related to me a legend, that when the news of the betrayal of the
Kandyan Kingdom to the British reached Kandy, the angered public reacted
by cutting many 'Ehela' trees in and around Kandy.
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