My grandfather, my great grandfather Soosaipillai became the… was the person to come to Negombo. First was he. And started this business in a small shop, small way. After that he expanded it in such a way and he got down some people from Jaffna to help him. And cigars. The most important was the cigars. 

Those good days here in Negombo, you can’t get any. All fishermen, no? They want cigars. So when they demanded him, so he got them down from Jaffna because they know everybody there, no? So somebody bought some cigars and started moving. So with that he was able to build up a good reputation. 

Those good old days. The fishermen. 

Negombo is famous for fish. So the fishermen, those days.. the old people, they buy cigars. And when they go to the sea, they smoke and enjoy and catch the fish and come back. 

The tobacco that have been used to rub these cigars was not seen anywhere in Sri Lanka except in Jaffna. The people like that because they like the cigars. The taste is very high compared to other cigars. 

Now, the fishermen, old people now all dead and gone. The present generation, they don’t smoke cigars. They smoke only cigarettes.

Those good days before the trouble started, the train was going up and down. Very cheap to transport the goods in a box. It comes in a big box. So it cost about 150 rupees to transport. Now you get even 10,000, you can’t get a transport (laughs). 

There was a big box from there to there. You sell 3000 cigars for a day.

My grandfather, my father…I’m the third man here. That means more than 150 years old. 150 years old.

People who come here to Negombo, they don’t feel like going back to any other places. That is why people come here and take the houses to rent out. When the communal disturbance came, all came to Negombo. There was a big crowd, mostly from Jaffna, they came here.

There was some problem. But I was safe. Because everybody knows me everything. So my shop was safe. Nothing happened to my shop. 

In Main Street, there were so many problems, but no one came and touched us.