Aloysius Hettiarachchi

Baddegama, the subject village in 'The village in the jungle' though a sleepy poor place has had quite a history. According to my late father his ancestors are from this area and converted to Catholicism by giving them titles by Portuguese and resettled in Chillow in the North Western Province of Sri Lanka. I later found out from one of my university classmates having same title and surname that we are the descendants of one of the two groups who accompanied the tooth relic of Buddha from India to Sri Lanka. The other group having been settled in historical Dedigama, The strangest thing is I have married one from that clan settled in the latter and came to know these things only three years ago when I accidentally met my friend after about fifty years. Perhaps the surname is a Sinhala version of Shresta or Kshathriya or even Shetty.