Five crore winner Herathhamy's fortune

The lucky man who claimed the biggest lottery prize .... by chance
A five-crore prize .... for discarded lottery of Herathhamy of Anuradhapura

It was to a person from Anuradhapura that the biggest prize money of a lottery was awarded by the National Lotteries Board and the recipient was Herathhamy Sugathadasa. This was indeed a miracle as Herathhamy was not a person who would usually buy lottery tickets. This fortune came his way by accident. 

He was a person who lived by supplying wholesale lotus flowers by sinking into themud, providing them to people who were devotees, arriving at the Anuradhapura Jaya Shri Maha Bodhi. He was a 32 year old father of 2 children who was engaged in this competitive occupation throughout the day and lived amidst much financial difficulties. He was born as the eldest brother to a farming family and had 2 sisters having had to carry much of the burden on his shoulders on behalf of the family.  Herathhamy Sugathadasa lived a life of honesty and did not believe in luck. He was a man who relied only on effort.

Then how is it that he bought a lottery ticket? From the time it was bought and upto the moment the lottery was drawn; the story is a random happening as such.

Herathhamy was not aware of this lottery called Jaya Malla worth 5 crores which was introduced on behalf of the 50th commemoration of the National lotteries Board last month. However those who were interested in the lottery prepared themselves in advance to buy the tickets. Herathhamy who used to sink daily in the mud searching for flowers got on his bicycle after a bath that day and as usual decided to have a cup of plain tea at the village kiosk. When he was about to sit down with the plain tea in his hand, he noted a solitary ticket remaining on the lottery-board at the kiosk and inquired about it from the mudalali.

"Why  ... don't you know, it is the 5 crore lottery no. Everybody in the village buys it. Now all finished ... only one is remaining. If you want, you can buy it", the mudalali replied.

"Okay mudalali .. give it to me," so saying he bought the ticket and poked it into his top pocket shirt pocket. Later on, on coming back home he kept the ticket he had bought in his wife's hand. "Why this man has all of a sudden bought a ticket ... never bought before!" the wife responded and after the comment kept the ticket safely aside.

Herathhamy was a 'pichcher pissa' (addicted to movies). During his free-time in the house he would bring CDs or DVDs and would watch those movies on TV. He does not like others disturbing him on such occasions. However, his wife having remembered that the draw of the lottery was on that particular day,she came with her hand stretched forward and holding the ticket with the intention of asking Herathamy to check whether there was a win on that draw.

"Get aside ... get aside... there's no use of those things ... this is the best part of the movie ... aney, what ticket are we going to win," Herathhamy scornfully said,grabbing the ticket from his wife's hand ... and after crumpling it in his hand, threw it into a corner of the room. The wife who realised that the husband was not interested in the ticket, went to sleep.

The following day dawned with the ticket lying there still in the corner of the bed in the room. Herathhamy went to work the following morning as usual. His wife was engaged in domestic activities. As afternoon was approaching, the boy who sells tickets on the bicycle was coming that way and was shouting around the village when Herathamy remembered the ticket which was thrown aside the previous day. "Malli ... malli ... wait a minute ... there's a ticket to be checked ... must go and see," said Herathhamy's wife.

The lottery-seller stopped at the house till she came. She could remember the place where her husband crumpled the ticket and threw it. Though she went and looked for it, the ticket was not to be seen. Then she bent down to see whether it had got pushed inside the bed but was missing. It actually was not to be seen anywhere.

"I'm getting late!" the lottery boy shouted while Herathhamy's wife was searching for the ticket that has disappeared. Suddenly she found her tender daughter munching something. "What are you biting baby?" she asked. She then found the thrown away ticket inside the mouth of the baby. The small daughter had found it from under the table and had put it inside her mouth. However, it had not completely been destroyed and she was able to find the numbers on the ticket just as they were.

"Okay ... okay ... I found the ticket ... what were the winning numbers yesterday?" she asked the boy and she was able to find that the numbers 16, 09, 21 and 69 on her ticket were exactly the numbers that tallied with the lottery mega win. She was amazed. "Tell again malli ... I of course can't believe, she asked. The boy read out the numbers once more and then she was confirmed that she had won. She was so mystified that she began to shout with joy, "What ... 5 crores for us ... this definitely has been god-given luck!" She then immediately phones Herathhamy. Even he could not believe what his wife was saying.

In order to commemorate the win they went in front of the Jaya Shri Maha Bo Samindun. Herathhamy and his wife came to Colombo on the 22nd of last month and exposed this incredible story to the media.

Herathhamy has still not decided what to do with the lottery win.