During our journey through life we meet travellers of all types and description; many we ignore and pass while some we acknowledge and join for a brief sojourn. A few become fellow travellers and share the journey. Dhammika was one of them.

I first met Dhammika in 1969 when we were both freshmen at Peradeniya. The acquaintance grew into a lasting friendship when both of us were selected to do sociology in the second year. We later went our own ways in the third year, with Dhammika opting to do commerce and I continuing with sociology. Yet our friendship remained as strong as ever till that fateful Saturday, June 14, this year.

Dhammika was a product of Ambalangoda Dharmasoka College, the premier Buddhist institution of learning in the South. He excelled in sports and represented the school in Badminton, TT and Basketball. As an undergraduate too, he pursued his interests and represented the university at both national and international levels. He also captained the University of Peradeniya team for two successive years, an achievement that has only occasionally been equalled but never bettered. He also excelled in studies getting through his finals with honours.

He was perhaps the gentlest person I have ever known, always soft spoken and never uttered a bad word about anybody. He was also a patient man and good listener -something that one needs in a friend and Dhammika was indeed a friend in the fullest sense of the word. He was also a rare individual who had the ability to relate to people and make them feel comfortable anytime, anywhere.

Dhammika was a visionary. With all the qualifications and skills he possessed he could have done a cushy well paid job in air conditioned comfort, like many of my batchmates who did Chartered Accountancy after graduation but he did not want to take the easy path. Instead he went into business, built a company from scratch and established a name in the confectionery industry. Daintee Toffee Limited which marked the beginning of his entrepreneurial adventure, is not only the market leader in the confectionery sector today but also the core business of a dynamic and expanding group of diversified companies. I know that he did not do all this only for his sake but for others as well. He always wanted to be of service to others.

He was not your everyday entrepreneur. His love for his workers was well-known. He always attended to their problems personally and they were not workers to him but part of his extended family. They were sons and daughters to him and in fact he always addressed them so. In the week prior to his untimely death, he had been busy attending to the needs of some of his employees who got caught in the Dehiwala bomb blast. On the day of his demise he was to attend a funeral of one of the employees who had been injured in the blast and later died in hospital. It was not to be. Fate instead decided that he also had to join that employee on a final journey.

I sometimes feel Dhammika had a premonition about what was to happen. In February this year he contacted me to say that he was coming to Kandy with some of our batchmates and asked me to organize a place for the weekend. We spent a memorable weekend in Peradeniya and Dhammika enjoyed himself thoroughly. He also visited the gymnasium, a place where he collected many a trophy during his student days. Though it was a Sunday we managed to get the office opened and Dhammika had the opportunity to share some memorabilia with all of us. Recalling the joy in his eyes that day I am happy that he had the opportunity to share those brief moments with us. We talked about our days in Peradeniya and about what he was doing in Australia, his family and also his business. He was full of enthusiasm and shared his dreams with me and what he wanted to do on returning from Australia, which for him was only a temporary abode for the sake of the children. Sadly these dreams never materialised.

Dhammika called me again about a month ago to invite me to Colombo for an event his company was sponsoring on TV. He wanted some of his batchmates he knew at Peradeniya to share this occasion with him. As I had another engagement I had to excuse myself but promised to see him in Colombo soon or else in October the month we invariably met for our annual reunion of the 69 batch. I did see him sooner than that but not in the manner anyone of us expected.

Dhammika will be sadly missed by those of us who knew him in Peradeniya, when we have our next batch get-together in October. He always came down from Australia for these meetings.

We Buddhists want our dear departed friend to have a happy and blissful after-life, ending in Nirvana. In the case of Dhammika, maybe one is allowed to make an exception and wish that he be born with us at least once more before ending the journey through samsara. It is a purely selfish thought but we need more like Dhammika and not one less.

Sisira Pinnawala