"Dad... your friend spilt the beans..."

"Dad... your friend spilt the beans..."

She had a hard days work at the clinic and as her last patient stepped out of her clinic, she packed her small handbag to step out of Watford General Hospital in UK. Taking a glance at her mobile,  noticed that, she hardly had enough time to race back to pick her two kids up from the after school club. Half an hour left to cover the nearly 10 km distance on a traffic filled M1 highway. She wondered, if she should call her husband at Luton General Hospital where he was working as one of the Cardiologists to see his whereabouts.

At that instance, she saw a familiar face at the car park where she had parked her car. A Sri Lankan actress who played the main role in "Gamperaliya" which won the Golden Peacock award at the International Film Festival in India apart from many other awards during the early sixties, was standing by the side of the pick up point at the entrance to the hospital.

She had met this lady who is in her early eighties a few times before when her parents were spending a holiday at her place in Abbots Langley, a small English village a few kms away from the hospital. Punya Heendeniya, as known in the silver screen of the sixties and her husband Dr.Milroy are her dad's good friends.

"Aunty what brings you here"

"Milroy was admitted to the hospital last night and I am waiting for Anupama to pick me up"

Although she had not met Anupama who is also a Consultant at NHS at a diffetent hospital in UK, during her toddler days both families had been residing at the Tea Research Institute of Sri Lanka situated in the cooler climates of Sri Lanka during the mid seventies. Dr. Milroy had been the Medical Practitioner at that Institute where her dad also worked during the seventies and moreover they had been neighbours in their hometown Galle.

"Aunty, I am already late to pick my kids.... I will have a look at Milroy uncle tomorrow for sure.... I had the clinic today and did not visit the Ward"

She excused herself and drove her car with the memories of the lunch her parents prepared for Punya and Milroy at her house a few weeks back when her parents were still spending a holiday at her place at Abbotts Langley. They were reminiscing the good times spent together at Talawakele where she was born. She had no memory of those instances since, during this period she was a baby but, tried to make a vague picture of the whole scenario.

The following day she was at his bedside consulting Dr. Milroy who is now a patient of hers. He was beaming with a wide smile and looked extremely happy to see her. His condition had improved a lot and he was more interested in talking to her about the good days he spent with her mum and dad. After spending a good half hour with him she turned back to notice that the whole staff of doctors and nurses were glancing at her with big smiles on their faces.

For a moment she was perplexed why all her colleagues are staring at her and froze in her steps to look up at them with doubt.

Then she smiled back and uttered to herself, "yes... he delivered me and on his hands I took my first breath.... yes my second name was suggested by his wife... the famous Sri Lankan actress"

Dr. Milroy being a highly talkative, outspoken person with a good humour and a friendly smile had spilt the beans all over the hospital staff.