20th July 1997

A plea for Priya

Cancer is a cowardly disease. It is truly malicious. Otherwise it cannot attack Priya Silva.

For three years Priya Silva has been battling with cancer and people barely knew it. And today she lies suffering, awaiting humanitarian gestures to seek the recommended further treatment at the Apollo Hospital in Madras. There is no further effective treatment available for her in her motherland.

It is learnt that doctors are confident that she can be cured if she receives a big dose of chemotherapy with peripheral stem rescue treatment.

Sounds like just another plea doesn’t it? But few people know Priya. She is too wonderful a human being - too precious a friend, wife and daughter - to let go.

Priya Silva, wife of Wing Commander Anura Silva of the Sri Lanka Airforce has always had her feet firmly on earth. Her only weakness was that she treated friends and foe alike and could never distinguish the two.

We lived as neighbours in Mirpur, Bangladesh, with a meandering stream on one side and the realties of life on the other. Thus sandwiched we had a balanced view of life.

On any evening if I were to glance from our high rise building I would see Priya on a bench by the stream, staring pensively at the unstill waters. Her face was always serene, however turbulent her surroundings were on any given day.

Priya was one of the pioneers and an ex-captain of the Sri Lanka Army Women’s Corps.

This plea is for Priya. Please help put the dew drops back on this flower which has given on much fragrance. Write to Cancer Fund of Mrs. V. P. Silva, Account No. 1-007165-3 Bank of Ceylon, Lake House Branch, Colombo.

Return to the Plus contents page

Read Letters to the Editor