In loving memory of Professor Kopalapillai Mahadeva's 1st year Remembrance.

To the many friends and family of Kopan Mahadeva:
One year after our father's passing, he is remembered and missed more than ever.The legacy of his achievements in Sri Lanka, his writings in Tamil and English, what he taught us, and the help and support he gave to many, lives on.He was an utterly unique man with a big personality who thrived on social interaction, whether in person, on the telephone, on video calls or with his Facebook friends and admirers. His 90th birthday would have been on 5th January 2024, and we hope he was celebrating it with our mother, his beloved Seetha. Ula is hoping to complete and publish his autobiography over the coming year, and launch it at a remembrance ceremony. This was one of his favourite poems,

"If", by Rudyard Kipling:
"If you can keep your head when all about you
 Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
 If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
 But make allowance for their doubting too;
 If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
 Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
 And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
 If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
 If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
 And treat those two impostors just the same;
 If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
 Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
 And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
 And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
 To serve your turn long after they are gone,
 And so hold on when there is nothing in you
 Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
 Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
 If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
 With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
 Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
 And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!"