Lassana people in Lassana Sri Lanka

ALL SMILES: The most Sri Lankans like to see the darker side of life or the other side of life. Please note, I say most, NOT all. A friend once said, "We always try to find fault. Go even to the theater and we find a negative audience.

Why can't we look at the brighter side of life and the plusses not the minuses?" True. That's why we at the Daily News started this campaign to greet our readers from all over the world six days of the week and give you the beauty of Sri Lanka and its people with a front page picture as 'Lassana Sri Lanka'.

It has done a lot and I could say it is doing a lot. We are told that it enlivens the hearts of many. A reader once said, it was heartening to see a Lassana picture daily after reading news, and other stories.

Another reader said, "Now, I first look at the Lassana Sri Lanka picture before anything else". Even President Mahinda Rajapaksa told us how delighted he was to see a picture of Lassana Sri Lanka daily.

He even corrected a mistake one of our photographers made on the caption on Hummanya. When we carried a small news item asking our readers to send pictures to be published under Lassana Sri Lanka, the response we got was amazing and their pictures are amazingly beautiful.

We at the Daily News are having a hard time selecting those pictures. My Secretary Champa says that we have got pictures for nearly a year. We are getting more, not only from Sri Lankans but also from foreigners.

The response has also shown us the love Sri Lankans have for the country. How much they have traveled in the country and the interest they have taken to preserve some of those photographs.

The pictures we are publishing now are not from Lake House photographers but from you, our readers and our people and those who see the beauty of Sri Lanka though we are faced with difficulties.

It shows that though the conflict and the terror unleashed on Sri Lanka the leaders of terror have failed to destroy the beauty of this teardrop island, the Pearl of the Indian Ocean.

I decided on the word, Lassana (beautiful) because of the beauty of the word Lassana. For many years an Indian actress a friend of mine had been so fascinated by the word Lassana.

She says it is the most beautiful word she has heard. I do agree and now instead of her real name I call her Lassana because she too is Lassana.

A word that is beauty as beauty. As we receive the photographs from our readers by e-mail and by post I also think of the people who see the Lassana of Sri Lanka.

The people who have been encouraged by our campaign for Sri Lanka. Those people are Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, Malay, Burgher and others.

We feel they are Lassana people, we feel they are people with Lassana (beautiful) thoughts. We know that they are all Lassana Sri Lankans, because they see the Lassana of Sri Lanka against all odds. Thank you. Bohoma Isthuthi, Nandree for your Lassana.