The Laughing Buddha of SAS-9: Chanaka Sandaruwan Haggalla

Mornings are very difficult for me. I hate to get late and make people wait for me. But unfortunately I cannot overcome my desire of sleeping till the time after which spending a second in bed, can get me late. Today was one such morning and my mood was already offset. I took a backseat in car and guess what happened next? The first thing I noticed was, 'big-bright' smile of Chanaka and all stress of getting late and facing my guide after a bad performance in project evaluation, flew away.

Mimansa Shastri with Camera Man Chanaka Sandurvan Haggalla.. :-P

Chanaka is a simple person with very less needs and the cheerful smile on his face depicts the contentment in his heart. His attitude of taking care of others and going beyond his limits to see others happy, impresses me the most. His personality lacks " I " and so far I have not been able to find out any trace of selfishness in him. His simplicity is most charming and his minimalist approach towards life, inspires me to be like him. Less needs.. more happy. He has very good sense of humor and can make you laugh in worst of your moods.  He is a hard working and organized person. He maintained regular database of the lectures and categorized them lecturer wise which was of real help during exams. I remember going to his room to collect material to read, a day before test.  

I'll always miss  those numerous music sessions in the class and hostel rooms where Chanaka used to play drums on wooden stool with pens. We (Chanaka, DP, Turro, Kudrat and me) created awesome music that even I used to fall in awe after listening to our recordings. If we did'nt have those boring tests and presentations during the course.. , the music session would have been a routine by now. His playlist contains all dhin-chak dhin-chak bollywood songs and we have used many songs of his collections to dance in the after party bashes.

He is most favourite amongst girls of our group as he is ever ready to take our photos. SAS-9 group will have lots of memories and one of the reasons would be Chanaka. Whenever we went out, I have heard those 'Chanaka...photo' shouts, a million times from the group. He is extremely photogenic but always refrains from getting his own photos clicked. I have to forcefully make him pose in front of camera and no wonder... few of his best pictures are clicked by me.
      

Being a Sri Lankan, he is much closer to India and we never considered him as a foreigner.  You'll know if you can resonate with feeling of  "Indian-Indian' connection. His company is very homely and his acceptance for Indian culture and languages is incredible. He possesses distinguished skill of speaking pinching satire in a humorous way.. skill, which almost every Indian posses and this makes him more popular in the group. He thoroughly enjoys traveling with his camera and has captured some best stills of nature's beauty when we were touring in other parts of India.
  

His stories from Sri Lanka are really very interesting and I am planning to fly off to Sri Lanka for few days as soon as I am able to collect enough money for my short trip in his country.         

With all due #Respect for you Chanaka.. I wish you all the best in life.. Keep smiling and laughing forever. :-)