August 18th marks the 10th death anniversary of Ray Wijewardene, the practical thinker, intrepid aviator and visionary inventor. Here Yomal Senerath-Yapa looks back on the man and his legacy.
The one thing in Ray Wijewardene’s low-ceilinged, ship’s cabin of a study that really sucks you in is a David Attenborough poster of a magnified dragonfly- its great red eyes boring into you like intelligent pearls against the bright tropical greenery. It is a symbol of Ray’s own undying curiosity about nature. Where Wordsworth and Burton and most of us saw the beauty of nature only, Ray glimpsed the greater plan of Gaia- the way her reasoning and seam and chalk lines run.