Traditional letter writing has been minimal but Charles maintains contact with friends (and that especially includes his former students) via email. The following was received from one of his students (of the period 1990-1994, and working now in the UK)
Even though Rukmal has his blogs at
http://rukmal.wordpress.com/ and http://rukmal.blogspot.com/
With all respect to Navin, Charles is not quite sure as yet whether he will go for a blog in the full sense of the word. What he has done so far has had very little of online interactivity and has depended on 'circular type letters' and emails. Whether it will go beyond that remains to be seen!
The second was after Charles went to Belgium in 1968 for studies. It was written in December as a Christmas letter to friends in Sri Lanka.
After that there were occasional letters ...
But the real tradition of an annual Christmas letter started in the late 80s. And there were the occasional ad-hoc letters linked to events in Sri Lanka ... and with growing use of e-mail ciruclation by email caught up too.
Here are just a few as a sampler.
A single page 1991 Christmas letter which was a reflection on the social situation of that period.
It went out with the signatures of the family as a whole.
Here is something from 1994 ... with a reflection on page one, and family news on page 2.
In the late nineties the Christmas letter sometimes reached a length of 10-12 pages.
And there were annexes too. Here are two annexes to the Year 2000 letter.
The Christmas letter of 2004 included reflections on Higher Education too.
On the night of the 2005 Presidential Election in November 2005 (and before the results were known), Charles sent an e-mail to friends.
Some of the issues brought up then and the comments made ... comparison between the two main candidates (one the current President, and the other current Leader of the Opposition), "Peace" getting mixed up with a pro-Western neo-liberal agenda etc ... doubtless remain valid even for today!