• Did you ever get an opportunity to talk to (Junius) Jayawardene about it (about handling the IPKF affair more sophisticatedly)? Jayawardene wouldn’t talk to you about this.

No. We were at that time very junior people. Though I had experience of 10 years. I knew him because he was with me.

• He would also have seen a class distinction with you, to be frank.

Yes. But he was very close to us. When I was an MP, he was a MP too in 1970s. He knew my father and cousins. We had that friendship because I used to live in a house adjoining his when I was in school.

• I keep going back to Sri Lanka’s showing gratitude to IPKF and Rajiv Gandhi being attacked in 1990 by a Sri Lankan soldier. That showed resentment in the Army.

I spoke to that soldier, the navy man. He said that seniors, people who came out from the sides, were preaching anti-Indianism.

• Your sons have joined the navy now.

Yes.

• Do you think Sri Lankans, or Sinhalas, have got over that anger?

Yes.

• You are a fitness freak, as it seems from your gym.

Yes.

• You never went to the army, but you look a lot like a soldier.

I acted as a soldier.

• You acted as a general in a movie.

Yes.

• Movies apart, war is a dirty business.

I had a very good friend, a good actor. He is one of the best actors in Sri Lanka, Gamini Fonseka. He asked me to act in the 1970s but I said no. When I was a young MP in 1970, he asked me to act in a film but I declined. Then he became an MP and became the deputy speaker. One day he invited me to come and act as a general. My brother, who is the defence secretary was a colonel that time, and I thought . . .

... contd.