The best of both worlds
View(s):Asiff Hussein shares with his readers some happy pen pictures of his mixed parentage and childhood in the 1970s and 1980s in his new book ‘Accha House & Umma House’.
The author who grew up in Colpetty recalls his childhood with his siblings, enjoying the best of both worlds of their mixed Muslim-Sinhalese parentage. Their adventurous parents among other things ran an auctioning business in Colombo, started a mobile food restaurant on the Galle Face Green, founded a village by the beach on the South coast and owned a horse and a pack of ponies that raced in Nuwara Eliya. He talks of those balmy days of peace when cultures co-existed in harmony; the fairs and festivals, fasts and feasts, beliefs and customs, phobias and manias, games and pastimes and many other things that went to make his childhood memorable.
The book gives an insight into local Muslim and Sinhalese customs as they were traditionally practised in those days as well as the culture of those times – places, foods, books, movies, music, toys and fads. The lives and times of an earlier generation and their shared experiences written in his reader-friendly style will make the book appeal to readers of any age.
(The book priced at Rs.1250 is available at Vijitha Yapa, Barefoot and CIS bookshop)
Book facts
Accha House & Umma House -A mixed childhood in Sri Lanka- by Asiff Hussein. Published by Neptune Publications (Pvt) Ltd 296 pages & 32 colour plates