Who are the Memons? In Sri Lanka this community numbers just over 10,000. However, they are a vibrant group, keeping alive traditions they carried over as Indian immigrants, priding themselves not only on being captains of industry but on their philanthropy as well. Though theories of their origins abound, modern Memons first became known as traders. Reportedly, the first of them arrived in Sri Lanka in 1870.

It was October 1968 and as he took wing to France, he did not know what the future held. Flash forward to December 2010. The boy who went to France with a small suitcase and one suit to call his own, even that the material given as a gift and the tailoring charges paid by his brother, is back home on holiday in Sri Lanka with his wife Marielle.