My Home Town

      My home town is Balangoda. It is in the Sabaragamuwa province and in Rathnapura district. It is about 142 kilometres  from Colombo and 42 kilometres  from Rathnapura  town. It is situated along the Colombo -Badulla road.

                                      Balangoda is a very beautiful city. Because it is surrounded by many hills, it has a good climate and fresh water. Therefore, many people like to live here. The main cultivations of this area are tea, coconut and paddy. The population of this area is about 50,000. Most of the people are Sinhalese Buddhists, but Muslim and Tamil people live here too.                                                                                         .               Balangoda is rather a big city. It has many facilities such as medical, traveling, water supply, leading schools and in addition, there are many historical and ancient religious places such as Aluthnuwara Kataragama Dewalaya and Boltube Saman Dewalaya. I like my home town very much.

                                 My email address is shashikachamodani@gmail.com     

The Ceylon Elephant

The elephant is the king of the Ceylon jungle. No other animal dares to challenge his kingship.In their wild state, elephants live in small herds, about twenty-five in each. A full-grown male is usually the leader of the herd. Such a leader in all his majesty and dignity, roams the jungle with his followers. some elephants have tusks from which we obtain ivory; but “tuskers” are now rare in Ceylon.
                                                    Today, the Ceylon elephant belongs to a dying race. The opening up of ceylon’s forests for cultivation has steadily reduced the size of our jungles. The elephant is thus deprived of his natural home and is sometimes forced to roam on cultivated land. When this happens, the villagers shoot the animals. There are about thousand wild elephants in Ceylon today.To preserve the wild elephant and other wild animals, the Ceylon Government has set aside certain forest areas called “Game santuaries’’where animals can live in safety and breed peacefully. No one is allowed to shoot in these areas. The Ruhunu National park is one of these protected reserves, and many wild elephants, leopards,deer and other animals can be seen there in their natural surroundings.
                                                       A full- grown elephant eats a good lot of fodder a day. Elephants are fond of bathing and they spend hours in the water. They lie on their side on shallow river –beds and lift their trunks above the surface of the water.It is a very pretty sight to see baby elephants bathing. They are very playful and full of mischief, just like little children. Elephants have poor eyesight and people can approach within about a hundred yards of wild elephant. A famous photographer, Eric swan, once dared to go so close to a wild elephant that he lost his life in the attempt. Sometimes old elephants develop solitary habits and become dangerous to people. They wander away from their herds and often attack human beings. Such an elephant issues licences to people to shoot such dangerous animals.
                              From very early times the elephant has been trained to help man in various ways. It acts as a beast of burden for us and it ploughs our fields. It is also used in peraheras. What would the annual Kandy perahera be without its richly dressed elephants? Have you seen the famous Maligawa Tusker Raja who carries the sacred Tooth Relic at the perahera?
My email address is shashikachamodani@gmail.com  
 

My Favorite Author

    My favorite author is Mr. Martin Wickramasinghe. He is one of the most talented writers in Sri Lanka. Every school going child has read his novel “Madolduwa’’. His style of writing is very simple and any person can enjoy reading his book.
Some of his books are prize-winners. His books are very good. We have seen “Madolduwa”and “Gamperaliya” on screen. Some of his others books are
“Viragaya” “Yugantaya”and“Kaliyugaya”.
                                      He is a writer who has understood human nature very well.
   My   gmail address is                                                  
 shashikachamodani@gmail.com