When the Queen of UK and the Commonwealth was gracious
To honour my work for her kingdom, National Health Service
Many moons ago one day, paper Daily News made me famous
Like to share with pride the news item, with my closest friends
Ariya
Ariya,
This is another jewel in the crown of Batch’64
You have always made our Batchmates and SriLanka very proud
Thanks for sharing.
Sam
News, Views and More from Batch'64, Faculty of Medicine, Colombo, SriLanka 
Congratulations Ariya
Proud of your achievements
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Well done Ariya we are very proud of you. Praxy and Ranjit
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My dear Ariya,
Congratulations. You have achieved a lot in your life for which you worked hard. Well deserved recognition. We can see a very happy & elegant Thavamani in the top photo. Did you get excited when the Queen “touched” you ?
I knew about the OBE earlier but I didn’t know about the 3 Charter Mark Awards. Also didn’t know that you were the 1st Sri Lankan to get it – may be the only one .
Congratulations.
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Congratulations Ariya we are proud of your achievements
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My dear Ariya
We are very proud to read of your great achievements and as a dear friend and colleague, it gives us great pleasure to read your life story from humble beginnings to achieve such great dizzy heights ! As a young kolla, in your Kurunegala days, I could still vividly remember your mischievous pranks and your happy-go-lucky style of life and who would have thought you would achieve such greatness in life except for people like me who knew you closely could always see your hidden brilliance that was just waiting to shine given the slightest opportunity. You still continue to emulate your greatness with your many contributions even to this Blog and your emails expressing Ariya Thoughts.
Congratulations and best wishes to you and Thavamani
Mahilal & Mahila
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HI my dear Ariya !’
This surely is the most precious Jewel on The Crown of the Class o f 64.
I did not know, that you were an OBE Recepient till we met at the RU 2014 .
I was soooo impressed and honoured to see you proudly wearing the OBE Award , that day , on the day of the Saturday night Dinner Dance , and believe me, I am humble enough to say I did now know what it was , till I saw it on your jacket and asked you what it was !!!
This is because, I never had the oppertunity to meet any one personally, who was an OBE Recepient , unitl I met you .
It was only y’day, I knew that you received it back in 2011.
I did not know till you sent me this notice y’day, on my private e-mail, that you were the ONLY ASIAN to receive such an honour – The Charter Mark Award , and I requested Sam to post it, after I saw your mail, and after I saw the Honours of Jeeva Martin .
Thank you Sam, for this post on Ariya .
The Web has been such a wealthy source of communication among us, because if it were not for the Web, we would know nothing about anyone .
You are soooo humble to keep it quiet for sooo long .
This shows another part of your soul– Humility — a very valuable gift to have in this ego driven world we are living today .
YOU have done Mother Lanka, proud , along with your own Mother and Father , your siblings , your dear Thavamani and your two sons, your little village home of Narigama near Hikkaduwa, school in Patuwatha in the deep south, and then on to good old Kynsey Rd , where we all met .
I have already ‘saved ‘ your e-mail to me y’day, with this write up in my Ariya’s Poems . This brings to my mind another question — When are you going to publish your poems ?
The one you sent me of Narigama village Del Maduwa Tales was soooo nice – captures the beauty of the little Village of Narigama .
Well done– Son of Lanka, Son of Narigama !!!!
Good Wishes to you and your family,
Your good friend- EagleDeepthie .
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I forgot to ask you the same question Seelan asked ” did you get exited when the Queen touched you? ”
I might add another Q– did your heart go pitter pat and give you a momentary episode of atrial fibrillation ?.
I have never really met any one who ever met The Queen , though I had the oppertunity to shake hands with the youngest prince, and princess Sophie , when they visited Canada, and our Drum Circle was asked to perform for the Royal Visit some yrs back .
More about this later !
Today is YOUR Day !
eagleD
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Well done . Congrads very proud
R.Aley
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Hi Ariya what a Resume . We are proud to have you as a batch mate. You have brought recognition to Sri Lanka.
I knew about your receiving the OBE , but was not aware of your other achievements. The first Asian to receive the Charter Mark Awards – What an honor.
I was impressed about your work at the Matale and Nuwara Eliya hospital. You improved the standard of care at both hospitals. I hope they still maintain the standards you created.
All the best.
Nisantha
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Dear Ariya
Thinking of Nehru’s quotation ”
We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open”
and thinking of my experience with you in the Bloemfontein when you used to come to my room :
1.After you finished playing table tennis,
2.After you finished the evening meal and
Comming to my room cracking jokes and repeating almost every word of some the lectures we had on particular days
I knew you will reach this height one day.
It will be really nice if Thavamany and you visit all the aspiring schools ( I am a wholesale product of a Vidyalaya in The Northern part of Sri Lanka and you are a product of a Vidyalaya in the Southern part) and inspire the future generation in Sri Lanka to achieve their potentials with rubbish politics not affecting them in any part of our beautiful country.
I took a photo of Bloem when we were there in 2014. I will try and send it to the web.
Maha is conveying her kind regards to Thavamany and You.
May The Almighty Bless You With Health and Happiness to get the 100th year Birthday Blessings from the Queen ( or her successor ) and for many years beyond .
Sree.
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Thank you Sree- for the very lovely words expressing Ariya- specially the Bleom days !
Mahilal — you sure took the words out of the mouths of my self and Maithri – when we met in Buffalo, just two weeks ago ! and we had such a good laugh over those crazy internhship days in K’gala , and me at Ragama .
Ariya- Maithri told me of your days at Kurunegala, when she shared the room with Thavam, and all the crazy things you would be doing , as a young intern .
Who ever thought that you would reach such great heights- to be the ONLY Asian to receive such a prestigious award as The Charter Mark Awards .
I am soo proud to say, that I belong to the same class as you– The Wonderful Class of 64 !
Well Done my friend and Blessings to you and Thavam and family, in all your future endeavours .
Deepthie .
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Hi Ariya, Well deserved accolades for a life time of hard work and leadership in Dewsbury.Warm regards.Eddie.
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Hi Ariya ( Podi ),
After all those accolades from numerous mates from 64 batch, it is truly great to have achieved all you have in your lifetime. Please accept my heartiest congratulations. Could I please add my good wishes to those from others.
Annesley
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To all my mates in the batch sixty four whom I coined the term ‘my siblings’
Thank you for pouring on me much kindness with beautiful emotive sayings
The ‘Maker’ I deliberately met before being born into this world human
Had a list of choices, riches, chirisma or to be blessed with adorable friends
As I was the first in the queue when the door was opened, had all three choices
Obviously my preference when reaching the world was to have the best of friends
So no charisma, under five foot potbellied with a pair of bowing legs will stop the list!
Two others who eagerly followed me were Bill Gates who got all the riches in the world
And youbwould have guessed, third boon was grabbed by ‘ Clinton’ chiarismatic president
kind regards,
Ariya
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Dear mates, please forgive the typing mistakes by this old fellow
For trembling fingers, failing eyesight, is a mischivous bedfellow
Forgot to ask from the maker for sharpness of thoughts and eyesight
But that would have been greedy so mispelled words, I beg you to accept
Ariya
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Hi Ariya,
My heartiest congratulations on all your Achievements. There is nothing more to add, but to join all the batchmates in being proud of you. It is so nice to able to share all these with each other. thanks to Sam. if not for him we would not have heard about your greatness.
best wishes.
rajes
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Congrajulations Ariya for reminding us of our past precious achievements. We are very proud of you to be a very friendly Batch mate of 64.
My memories went back to the incidence of defecting a big frog for learning at Kandegoda house in 1962.
Indragee
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Dear Ariya,
Congratulations Ariya my good friend on your achievements, accolades and awards.You richly deserve all.Your achievements in the field of medicine is exceptional.You have great ability to compose beautiful poetry both in Sinhalese as well as English. You are well versed
in Buddhist philosophy.In fact you are an allrounder par excellence.
You are an ornament to our batch, Gt. Britain and whole of Sri Lanka. . In fact I call you the “Flower of the Flock”.
I am a frequent receiver of your brilliant poetry which I enjoy immensely. You frequent the web site and your comments I do always appreciate.
We are so fortunate to have a person of such great ability as a batch mate.
I wish you the very best in life and many more years of great joy. I would encourage to publish your literary works so that many could read and appreciate your literary prowess.
Esiri
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congratulations ariya
It is a great pleasure and pride to know that so many of our batchmates were talented and have excelled in their careers.
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Dear Ariya,
Congratulations on your outstanding achievements in UK and in Sri- Lanka. May you continue to contribute and expand your horizons for the benefit of Mankind. Thanks to Sam and others who have worked hard to keep the rest of the class of 64′ appraised of all the achievements of the batch mates around the globe. It gives me great pride and joy to hear the great achievements of the batch mates who are scattered around the World.
Best wishes to your family,
Ranjit
Winter Haven
Florida.
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I have congratulated you before and I do so again. Always very proud of you and Thavamani ,both of whom I came to know well in Kurunagala. Hard work brings its rewards and now you are in a holiday mood. Proud to be your friend, OBE.
Narme
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Dear Ariya
“Congratulations “ Well done very proud of your achievements . Thank you for sharing with all of us. If not for the Webb we would not have come to know the achievements of all our batch mates and their hard work.
Best wishes
Marina
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Dear Ariya, Congratulations on your achievements.You have done your batch and country very proud indeed.
Best wishes
David Selvarajah
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Dear Ariya, I join all the batch mates congratulating in extra ordinary medical career and and contribution to humanity in SL and UK. They say “behind every successful man, there is a great woman” – Thavamani. congratulations to both, keep up the good work and keep on “cruising” .
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