Story of Scottish lady thrown on the streets in Sri Lanka ... after getting cheated by love!

Story of Scottish lady thrown on the streets in Sri Lanka ... after getting cheated by love!

Her age is 61 years. His age is 26 years. This means that the age-gap between the two of them is 35 years. But that age difference did not hamper his or her romance in any way whatsoever. Circumstances being such ... did this love story then flow along nicely? Was the finale of that story packed with happiness? Though this romantic story flowed nicely, it nevertheless ended in tragedy. 

Diani de Soysa was a 61 year old Britisher from Edinburgh, Scotland. Though she was a British
national, her origin was Sri Lankan. Therefore she had a great love for Sri Lanka. So she used to tour Sri Lanka frequently. Coming to Sri Lanka from Scotland and staying here for a week or two means a big expenditure. There are instances when about Rs. million is expended for one such trip. But Diani de Soysa who never gave thought to money in that context would come over here and stay in hotels in the South and hill country. 

In this way she made a tour to Sri Lanka 8 years before this and had to stay in a tourist hotel in Ahungalla. Here at the hotel she comes across a special kind of person. His name ... Priyanjana aged 26 years. The age difference between the two then is 35 years. Their first meeting is indeed splendid. She would ask him about places she should visit in the South. He would then take her to such places. 

On the first occasion of their association was limited to a foreign tourist and local tour-guide. Subsequently it gradually turned into a friendship and later went as far as a romance. The age-gap of 35 years however was no barrier for their romance at all whatever. Diani loved Priyanjana a lot. But did Priyanjana give his love in return to Diani? In any case Diani believed Priyanjan did love her. So even by that time their husband - wife relationship had already started. 

After exactly an year had passed by Diani thought that she should live with Priyanjan. She takes this decision after living together with Priyanjan and after her last meeting with him and having returned to Scotland. Under these circumstances she comes to Sri Lanka after a few months and tells Priyanjan about it. Priyanjan then suggests that they get married in Sri Lanka. Initially Diani is backward in taking that move. But not being able to brush aside Priyanjan's proposal, she gives her consent. 

"We got married in 2012. That means seven years before this. The day before the wedding Priyanjan was in a big excited mood. We then take our vows in the presence of the registrar on wedding day saying that both would accept each other as husband and wife and would be bonded together in both sorrow and happiness. It was at that moment I realised how grave it is". That is what Diani de Soysa said at the interview with a newspaper in London. Diani in fact was not aware that disaster was beginning to beckon her from that moment onwards. What she in fact thought was that the sun of romance in her life was beginning to dawn. It may not have occured to her that after evening-time darkness would settle in and though moonlight was absent, she would be left all alone in darkness. 

This is what Diani thought of this marriage initially: "Priyanjan loves me a lot ... that maybe why he thought of marrying me even without giving thought to the age-gap as such". In any case she finally resolves to give up the mobile life she maintained between Scotland and Sri Lanka and to live in Ahungalla. In this context what she initially does is to dispose of her assets belonging to her in Scotland and earn a sum of a lakh of pounds (Rs. 200 lakhs). 

She thus returns to Sri Lanka with that sum of money in the year 2015. With that money she buys a house and a small bus for Priyanjan. Further she gives another handsome sum of money to his hands. Even after marriage Diani lived at a temporary place in Ahungalla. Priyanjan's mother and others of his family lived in the house bought by Diani. He would spend the night at his mother's home. 

Four years after her marriage to Priyanjana; that is in 2016 she would receive the most sorrowful news of her life. It is that Priyanjan is a person who is married to a girl. However she does not go into a conflict with Priyanjana. But still for all frictions between the two of them used to take place constantly ... relating to money. In the meantime she was to receive the final message; that two gangsters had shot and murdered Priyanjan. She immediately runs to hospital to see her young husband. But a young woman at hospital premises gives the news that Priyanjan passed way a short while ago. Diani remarks that his chest was pierced by two bullets and that because the body has been taken away for the autopsy and therefore it is not possible to see the body. 

"But what everybody began to say was that Priyanjan has faked murder and instead is in hiding. They also said that after I leave Sri Lanka he would come into the open". That was what Diani said in a broken voice. In the process Diani says there are people in Ahungalla who say that Priyanjan's death did take place and that Priyanjan reaped what he had sowed by a gunmen for the deceit he was involved in. That then was their opinion. 

Whatever it is ... today Diani de Soysa is a helpless woman without a penny in her hands. The love which she encountered here in Sri Lanka was covered by a mist which dawned most suddenly on the paradise of love. Sunrays of love which could melt away that mist would never ever fall on that paradise of love!

(The story of Diani de Soysa was broadcast over channel 5 in Britain).

- Yugaththi Yashodhara -