Hindered though he was, the world was his oyster

Some men forget to live. Some others life forgets. And there are some, a few, that life can never even when it denies them things, most people take for granted. My brother, I think was such.  
He, my only brother, younger to me, Indeevara Kanishka Kumara Samarakoon, passed away last December when he was exactly fifty years and two months old. He suffered from a genetic condition called pseudo miss him.  
Although he very rarely went out of home, the large numbers of men and women and children, who not only showered him with the warmth of true friendship but also benefited themselves from my brother’s encyclopaedic knowledge, show that one does not necessarily have to travel around the world to bring the world and the good things in life, to one’s feet. One of the lessons, he taught us with his comparatively short life is that, you can do it, if you know how to, without moving your feet.  
My brother knew how to do it. It was proved time and again and during the final journey of my brother too. The gentleman who spoke for the Centenary Group of Dharmaraja College, Kandy, my brother’s class-mate, said that people gathered many things in life and finally departed leaving them, but Samare although he did not gather many things, departed taking with him, the thoughts he created in the minds of many of them, of a truly great life. He exercised, truly his kind of magic in attracting the good hearts that beat in this world.  
I heard many people say, that “Samare” never complained about his illness. This trait, which I knew as perhaps his oldest and first friend and play-mate, reminds me of the jovial, practical and matter-of-fact spirit in which he took it, which now makes me see his singular courage and brightness of soul.  

"I heard many people say, that “Samare” never complained about his illness"

He initially attended Trinity College, Kandy but as he often told my parents that he wanted to go to his elder brother’s school, he came to Dharmaraja. When the progressive nature of the muscle disease affected him more, however, he went to St. Anthony’s Boys School, Katugastota, as Dharmaraja was on a hill and later completed his school education at D. S. Senanayake Vidyalaya in Colombo, as he attended physiotherepy treatment in a Colombo hospital. Despite these several changes, he secured a place in the physical science stream at Peradeniya University and obtained a BSc Degree.  
My brother was deeply interested in history. He remembered the exact years of the reigns of many kings in the country, in India and Europe, together with a philosophical analysis, of their times. He set the example that knowledge is not limited to any particular field or discipline. When I saw the Sinhalese translation made by my brother of the poem “Ozymandias” by the English romantic poet Percy Byssi Shelley, I wondered how the two sides of his mind, his extraordinary ability and his deeply intuitive artistic nature, blended to create a work of such perfection.   
He excelled in literary composition including poetry, which I think he inherited from our parents.  
“My name Is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”  
But there is nothing except trunkless legs of stone and a shattered visage. Only the lone and level sands stretch far away.  
Works of stone and brick cannot weather the ravages of time. Yet, the good thoughts created by my beloved brother when alive, embossed like precious gems in his immortal prose and verse, will be read over and over again, by generations. His mind will live again and again, to the end of time.  

D.N. Samarakoon