Under cover of darkness, three young men travelled by taxi to the bo-tree junction at Borella. While two stood at the bus-stand, one walked into the Ritz cinema, found several of their sahodarayas (comrades) watching a movie, came back and whispered that it was not time yet.

Wildly excited the boys were that Sunday, April 4, in 1971, almost exactly 40 years ago. It was the eve of a public performance in Colombo of Lady Windermere’s Fan, the famous Oscar Wilde comedy. The play was to be put on by the drama society of a leading boys’ school, its young men dressed up as Victorian ladies and gentlemen, and it was to be performed at a leading girls’ school round the corner.