Lost in Floral Rain: 2021

Sunday, September 12, 2021

Project Home Owl – Update - 2021

Good day from Sydney!

The world has experienced the devastation of Covid-19 since my last update. No country was spared by this pandemic and the lengthy lock downs have resulted in closure of schools and universities for indefinite periods of time. There has been a great transformation to remote teaching and home learning to maintain the education for primary, secondary, and tertiary educational institutions.

This year we have acknowledged this change in our "Project Home Owl" donations.

Our donation to University of Peradeniya consisted of ten (10) Samsung Galaxy tablets for the students to access the necessary textbooks and to facilitate home learning.

This donation was made at the start of the new academic year at University of Peradeniya, Faculty of Medicine in May 2021. My sincere appreciation goes to the Dean, Faculty of Medicine, Professor Asiri Abeygunawardena and to the chairman of the scholarship committee, Professor Sanjaya Adikari. The ten Samsung Galaxy tablets were distributed to the students with greatest financial difficulties.

The total outlay of this donation was Rs. 329,900.

I would like to acknowledge the generous contributions, donations at the book launches and your contributions to this project by purchasing my novel “Lost in Floral Rain”. Your contributions have made this project a success. A big thank you to each and everyone of you for your kind generosity.

-Pushpa Suriyaarachchi, Author of “Lost in Floral Rain”

Copies from the second print of the novel "Lost in Floral Rain" are available for sale in Australia. Those who are willing to purchase a copy are kindly requested to refer to information given in the following location: https://lostinfloralrain.blogspot.com/2023/05/how-to-buy-copy-of-lost-in-floral-rain.html

All revenue raised from the sale of "Lost in Floral rain" will be used for the charity named "Project Home Owl". For details of "Project Home Owl" charity please visit: https://lostinfloralrain.blogspot.com/2019/05/introducing-project-home-owl-charity.html

For details contact: pushpa.suriyaarachchi@yahoo.com.au.

Thursday, September 9, 2021

Subhashini Jayatilake reviews "Lost in Floral Rain"

An extremely powerful story of a young girl and her journey from her pre-primary school days through to medical faculty of university of Peradeniya.

I got the chills so many times in the beginning of the book as it resonates so much with me and my early life before going to school. I used to go to my amma’s school like Kusum, and the food shared in the staff room was completely a feast to me as explained in the book.

This storyline of yours bringing back the bitter-sweet memories of how the zoology laboratory looks when we did the first practical lesson dissecting ‘Bufo Melanostictus’ the goose bumps the whole bio class equally had! I remember our zoology teacher used to say ‘be a doctor one day and get rid of all these demerits, you are doing this for a good cause’, I could not go that far, but Kusum achieved what she wanted in the end so did the author.

You have a very rich vocabulary which I have noticed while reading the book describing complexed situations in a very simple way where you could yet attract readers’ attention while the reader becomes inquisitive to read the next chapter. My view is that it is a great characteristic of a great book.

The political revolution in the seventies in our country is something that we always heard while growing up associated with riots, youth unrest, the punishment transfers for innocent government workers etc. Your attempt to describe the frustration of general public was surprisingly successful and it’s an eye opener for a reader today I believe. Most importantly the trauma those two young girls went through must have been something common in the families during that era in our country.

Initially thought a poetic verse to begin each chapter is not appropriate as I see myself more into poetry and stuck in my own thoughts whether poetry and novels are two different lines of writing. However towards the end I was longing to see the next poetic expression of yours before reading the chapter and eventually got used to your new style! I guess the creativity can go hand in in any form and you have demonstrated that very well in this book.

This is your debut novel, but seen so much maturity in it with complete control of the story. Congratulations on publishing and surely so much effort gone in!

Looking forward to see the Lost in Floral rain 2, any hope?

Subhashini Jayatilake
Author: ‘Seya Sankalpana’