Sirimavo Bandaranaike

It has long been cracked." Rasasinghe, a Jewish refugee who escaped Nazi Germany shortly after witnessing Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, made a life for herself in Sri Lanka from 1949.

Her home was just a few doors down from that of the Bandaranaike family, whose husband and wife duo, Solomon Bandaranaike and later Sirimavo Bandaranaike, enacted the anti-Tamil laws that helped prompt a civil war, one that disabled Sri Lanka for decades.

Rarely has so much grief been inflicted on so many by quite so few.

"Grief," noted S. J. Sindu in her remarkable novel Marriage of a Thousand Lies, "is an impossible meal, so we cut it up into little pieces, dress it in ritual, and take it like a pill." Sindu's 2017 novel tells the story of Lucky and Chris, whose parents immigrated from Sri Lanka and who marry to stay in the closet.

In an October 6th statement, Father Ranjith Madurawala, general manager of Catholic private schools in the Archdiocese of Colombo, explained that state-controlled school children face severe hurdles in accessing Catholic religious instruction.

Under 1960 and 1961 legislation during Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike's government, the state acquired 690 Catholic schools, despite fierce opposition from Catholics, Anglicans, Methodists, and Baptists.

Today, only 28 schools remain under church management: 22 in the Western Province, four in Central, and one each in the Southern and Northern Provinces.

Madurawala notes that state schools are deteriorating and forcing Catholic teachers to transfer.