Senior Citizens Day 16 March 2009

 By Sunil De SIlva

If you were at the Thornleigh Community Centre on Sunday the 16th of March, you would have seen the Sri Lankan Seniors disprove the belief that age slows down body and mind.

The morning began with Chitran Duraiswamy lugging an enormous key board and Ezmal Lye plucking the strings of his guitar. As the music wafted across the room, the energetic compere Kishan Lye welcomed our Seniors and guests.

As the floor microphone was set up, Dr Tom Silva, Arthur Seneviratne, Inthiran Chelvadaurai and our own Chandra ‘Sinatra’ showed us that they had neither forgotten the words nor the tunes of yester year.

The singing co-ordinator Deanna Sathanathan soon had Anoja de Alwis, Nalini Cooray, and many of the other ladies adding their melodious voices to the male ‘ivasanta bari tones’

While the song birds kept our ear glued to the stage, our olfactory senses began to twitch. The aromatic Sri Lankan food was permeating the Hall.

Lanchani Gamage, Chandini Dharmakeerthi, Rukshi Edirisinghe, Lasha Renguathevan, Nirupa Paul, were laying out a combination of the Flavour of Ceylon and the sumptuous cuisine excellence of our committee members and their spouses and the friends of Sri Lanka  Association.

The multiple desserts and the elegant table décor completed the feast for the tongue and the eye.

Though our generous benefactors Ramani and Lakshman Jayaweera enabled us to pour liberally, We entrusted the task of pouring out the red and white wine for our guests to ‘non consumers’ Bashur and Nufail as we did not want to inebriate our Seniors.

Dr Palitha Abeywickreme gave us an insight into the preventive measures that none of us are too old to take, He clarified a question that was in my mind and was raised by Nizzar Sappideen, whether medication is less effective in later years.

The next event was a game of passing the parcel that brought out the dancing talents of Alan Hendricus and the ladies. Once the parcel was laid to rest in the hands of Arthur Seneviratne, a game musical chairs began with Tamara Wickramanyake and Upali Dharmakirti acting as the animators, but the Seniors worked up so much steam that nearly bowled the animators over and moved with youthful agility to grab the vacant chairs.

There was a raffle draw and a game of bingo to round off a memorable day.

As Ruwan informed the guests, it was the generosity of the Hornsby Council and contributions in time money and effort from members of the Committee of the SLA that enabled us to repay our gratitude to the Seniors who had nurtured us and given us the Sri Lankan cultural values which we treasure and pass on to the younger members of our community.

Our President Dr Ruwan Walpola and the organising committee chaired by Dr Nimal Edirisinghe had done the Sri Lanka Association proud.