Sri Lanka conjures images of an island of incredible beauty, a tropical paradise of golden beaches, mist-shrouded mountains carpeted with tea fields, 2000-year-old cities and archaeological monuments - a land of apparent peace and tranquillity. It also evokes a brutal, thirty-year civil war, riven with death, destruction, and racial divides. Here is a story of a boy growing up in Sri Lanka in the midst of all that beauty and in the run-up to those bitter times. It paints a picture at once familiar and unexpected, with storytelling that is revealing, deeply personal, funny, and sometimes emotional. Today, young minds are often spent immersed in virtual worlds where long conversations are a thing of the past. To pass on his family history from generation to generation, a migrant father from Sri Lanka writes a record of his family for his son who grew up in Canada. This book is written as a gift to his son and posterity before the story is lost to the shifting sands of time. This is a tale that brings back memories and nostalgia, it is a tale that you will not expect, one that will surprise and charm you.