Gunadasa Amarasekera: The dentist — philosopher rooted in
Sinhala soil  guna.jpg (15423 bytes)by Malinda Seneviratne Some
people are controversial. Some fall victim to the invective that
arises out of controversy. Some, very few, smile and go about
their work regardless. I suspect that such people are able to
weather the storms they unleash or provoke because they have
resolved to commit themselves to perceive the eternal verities
of life and as such are not perturbed by praise or blame. Some
people demonstrate this quality in their work. In others it is
present in all their life activity. They are rare.  The first
time I encountered Dr. Gunadasa Amarasekera was in the early
seventies, when my parents took me to the Dental Institute to
get a tooth extracted. Or was it a filling? I can’t remember. I
do recall a smiling face. And just the other day, it occurred to
me that the warmth written in that smile had not changed. We
chatted for hours about his life, his extensive writings,
literature, politics, the chan