Regi Siriwardena

Kala KeerthiRegi Siriwardena (15 May 1922 – 15 December 2004) was a Sri Lankan academic, journalist, poet, writer, playwright and writer of screenplays.

Reginald Siriwardena (known as 'Reggie' until the 1980s) was born in the Colombo suburb of Ratmalana to middle-class Sinhalese Buddhist parents. His Macaulay-quoting father sent him for his schooling first to St Thomas', Mt Lavinia where he found the Anglican elite colonial atmosphere uncomfortable. In his poem 'Colonial Cameo', he remembers the day his mother, who only spoke Sinhala, took him to school and said 'goodbye' in that tongue, to the amusement of his English-speaking classmates:

He later went to Ananda College, where he felt rather more at home in an atmosphere that combined his father's Western classical erudition with the home-grown culture of his mother.

He was awarded a scholarship to University College, Colombo, and read English under E. F. C. Ludowyk and Doric de Souza, graduating with a University of London degree.

While at university during the Second World War, he joined the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP). He became part of the underground leadership of the LSSP under the pseudonym 'Hamid' and attracted the attention of the British authorities as an anti-colonial activist. One of his tasks was arranging a safe house for Dr Colvin R de Silva after the latter's escape from prison on 5 April 1942.

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