10 September 2026

I spoke to the switchboard, of a bank, they routed to mkting dept, they claimed 'workshop', wouldn't "cancel" a meeting

It's kind of annoying. But they were trying to be 'Sri Lankan friendly'. We're aborting after next week.

Why I Chose Thilan

AngryPages®

Hi,

I just realized I forgot to attach the book cover concept to my previous email.

I’ve attached it here, along with a 3D diorama we made to help visualize the direction of the book.

We made these for Hemasiri and Quintus too, and Tenali, and of course our very own Elle, which helps us with sales. People can see the story before they even open the book.

I also read much more about Mr. Wijesinghe after writing to you.

And I want him to know something clearly:

We agree with him. We know he was wronged. We want to be friends with him, and we want to help him.

I know what happened around his BOI years and that he was eventually cleared. I’m not interested in using that history against him. I think he should be able to tell his version, in his own words, properly and permanently.

My mom’s Sumathipala brothers Jagath and Thilanga are super famous in Sri Lanka. Thilanga is a Nalanda guy; Mr. Wijesinghe is Ananda like Jagath and came through that Ananda–Nalanda world himself.

I’m just a young Sinhalese publisher of an American California corporation, trying to put Sri Lanka on the map.

Mr. Wijesinghe was a BOI boss who performed a yeoman service, and that is exactly why I think he will understand what I’m saying better than most people.

I have seen 0 serious investment in what we are building from Sri Lankan enterprise, besides people such as Shanil Fernando, Sanjiva and Kris from the US helping in different ways.

And it should haunt us that even after 2009, Sri Lanka’s investment ecosystem has remained as disappointing as it was during the height of the civil war, if not worse.

HSBC has pulled back. McDonald’s left.

The currency was around Rs 100 to the dollar in the 2000s. It is around Rs 300 now.

What Happened to Sri Lanka

I saw Sri Lanka during Chandrika’s era. Things weren’t that bad. Things have gone very south.

I know people around the IMF world such as Raja, and whatever the economic argument for the bailout package is, I don’t think it is helping our sense of sovereignty.

I also hear the same sad logic from local newspapers and local press: say good things locally, get local publisher coverage, but nobody outside Sri Lanka will buy it.

I think that logic is killing us.

You need to go beyond this. You need to fight where the fight is happening.

People like Shavendra are upset that they cannot even use a credit card normally internationally and are subject to decisions taken in Washington. Once U.S. sanctions or other restrictions exist, there is very little anybody sitting in Colombo can say that simply makes American institutions ignore them.

If that b***h Kamala had won, she would have ordered the CIA to "deal with that war criminal Shavendra or your friend Chandrika or this or that problem", and that'll have been carried out on her instruction. They will blindly follow directives, even that Kimberly Cheatle had Trump shot in the head, that Biden removed IRGC's FTO label, and let them send suicide bombers in, paying them money, so they can kill Trump. That's how people are. The CIA will do whatever their boss tells them. They'll spy on to blackmail, or otherwise, pay, some amount, to go plant a bomb or detonate or shoot. That's how it is. 

You said something important "Sri Lanka went years without a IMF bailout package". That shithole Pakistan's on their 20+ bailout. They're going to go on their 30th one in one decade. 

If the White House tells Shanil, "go put black boards or black out the windows" after 4/21 in 2019, they'll do it. Why would you or anyone imagine anyone who actually works for them, will say no? 

That is the reality of where power sits.

Sri Lanka's a colony. In 10 years, your kids will be finding themselves in a separated, war torn shithole, where China vs America will play out, because the place will collapse without any money coming in. 

And look at what passes for foreign investment around us.

The only “investment” we seem to celebrate is the US side paying JKH to import and sell BYD cars with money by their Gov't finance corp try to running 1 of several terminals in Colombo Port.

Or an Indian company setting car rates and things like a Rs 2,000 minimum basket value for Uber Eats from India.

There is no Facebook office here. No Google office here.

We get a tiny number of executives whose job is essentially to manage this region while the real decisions are made elsewhere.

That is precisely my problem.

Sri Lanka has spent decades talking about FDI while the firms that actually control technology, capital, publishing, distribution and global audiences remain somewhere else.

How is a Sri Lankan publisher, going to win $1 for Sri Lanka? It's just not going to happen. They won't buy it. 

Your efforts with us could pave the way for our nation.

I’m getting virtually no response from Sri Lankan enterprise or Sri Lankan leaders, and with that frustration we’re getting disappointed.

It's great that Wijewardene overrode that Jamila Hussein to publish an interview of me. But I don't think there'll be any Sinhalese left by 20 - 30 year's time to even do that. 

That Indian Nalanda university reality is what's dawning on beggar Sinhalese children of this country.

Shanil has sold a lot of his stock. Kris sold. Sanjiva retired.

There are people here being paid something like $20,000 for work which, if performed as a California job at the figure we use, would be roughly $73,500 a year.

And ultimately an American company will follow American law and American government requirements. If Washington tells an American firm it cannot do something here, somebody in Colombo cannot simply talk the company out of complying.

There’s nothing anyone here can say to make that structural reality disappear.

Commercially, we can always focus on foreign authors, foreign brands and foreign assets instead.

Before We Move On

We’re anyway franchising outward.

In many ways that is easier.

But then we build something internationally valuable and cannot confer upon our own island even the smallest amount of help.

I don’t want that.

Countries survive because somebody decides to back their own builders.

If Mr. Wijesinghe — after the BOI, investment banking, PPPs, property, hospitality, entrepreneurship and decades of actually trying to attract investment into this country — doesn’t document what he knows, I can only predict that most other people won’t either.

And then every other publisher can make the same calculation we can:

good luck with the IMF; next.

We are close to aborting these attempts, documenting what happened, and moving outward by the end of next month.

The worst that can happen if we fail is that there is effectively zero US-based publishing support for Sri Lanka coming from what we build.

The best that can happen is the exact opposite: we prove there are valuable Sri Lankan stories, people, businesses and intellectual property here, and give more American firms a reason to look seriously at Sri Lanka.

That is why I picked Mr. Wijesinghe.

And I don’t want him to misunderstand the $300 either.

If he wants us to do the first part for free, we’ll do it for free.

Forget the $300.

Sit with me. Tell me what actually happened.

What worked?

What failed?

Who wanted to invest?

Why did people leave?

What did the Government get wrong?

What did investors get wrong?

What happened to him?

What does he think Sri Lanka got wrong after 2009?

And after everything he has lived through, does he still believe we can fix this?

We will listen.

We’ll make the structure and first chapter.

He can see what we do before deciding whether he wants to continue.

We believe him. We want to help him. We want to be friends with him.

We might need his help too.

Give me 15 minutes with Mr. Wijesinghe.

Best,

Lehan

AngryPages Inc

Lehan Edirisinghe

Founder

angrypages.com · [email protected] · +1 442 446 6266

2108 N Street, Ste N · Sacramento, CA 95816 · United States

Making Things Happen

AngryPages®

Dear TWC team,

Could you please forward this personally to Mr. Thilan Wijesinghe?

Dear Mr. Wijesinghe,

I’m Lehan, founder of AngryPages, a California publisher.

Your career stood out to me because it is unusually difficult to put into one box.

You co-founded an investment bank, became the youngest Chairman of the BOI, helped pioneer major public-private partnerships in Sri Lanka, moved through property and hospitality, helped build ventures such as Ceylon Tea Trails, and then returned to entrepreneurship through TWC.

That feels like a very good book.

I don’t think the interesting story is simply a record of positions you have held. It is how you repeatedly moved into difficult situations, made deals happen, changed direction when necessary, and kept reinventing yourself across business and public life.

One possible direction:

Making Things Happen

Four decades of deals, risks and reinvention across Sri Lanka.

I’ve attached a cover concept so you can see what I mean.

AngryPages can do the heavy work. You would not need to write a manuscript yourself. I can interview you, identify the strongest stories, structure and develop them, design the book, and publish it under your name.

The first $300 covers the initial book development work — interview, premise and positioning, title, structure, a developed sample chapter and cover direction.

After that, any additional work is $17/hour, agreed with you before we proceed.

Once published, we can make the book available internationally through AngryPages, with you receiving 80% of digital sales.

We can also produce a print edition if you’d like to take it further.

You keep control of your story and approve what is published.

If the idea interests you, I’d be happy to meet or speak for 15 minutes.

Best,

Lehan

AngryPages Inc

Lehan Edirisinghe

Founder

angrypages.com · [email protected] · +1 442 446 6266

2108 N Street, Ste N · Sacramento, CA 95816 · United States

We are offering $300 to SL's top people, because we want to stop the brain drain in a brain dead nation. That's all.

We don't charge such low rates elsewhere.

We are scared to see there's nothing BIG happening yet. There's no major investing into SL. Which is what pisses me off the most.

We want to change this, and I think we can.

I love how there's kids on my homepage. I fuckin love that. I look good in fotos. Anyway. I gotta -- call bank tmrw

I think we need to kill Khamenei. We need to test some nano weapons on the guy. We tested the sonic weapons on the Venezuelan guy. This time, we need to test out the nano weapons on this Khamenei guy.

I don't know about 9/11, I think Tom Leighton, he should be the judge. I think Bush did okayish..

I don't care about Rudy hiding an air quality report. It's not a big deal. I think they were just trying to convince people to work on that day.

I saw BBC News report about Saudi connection.

I dunno about it.

I would personally have, glassed Saudi Arabia, and then captured the oil. But then I grew up, and realized, that Bush is a hero for using all that public rage, to blow up Iraq, because Saddam was a bigger problem.

I would have annexed the oil in Iraq.

And that's why I keep asking Trump to annex the oil.

Tell Charles he can be the real ruler, if he cooperates, or else that British parliament will run that country down the gutter.

We need to annex the oil, in Iran, so we can pay for the war, that's the price they will pay, for the trouble they caused, the international terrorism they sponsored.

We must use a drone to fire a nano weapon on Khamenei Junior.

If some dude tried to steal from me, I'd have invited him to dinner for my Stewie Griffin Spaghetti 'n Meatballs recipe

And I'd have written all about how, I tried to call 9/11, and

Sorry

911, and tried to help them, to rescue them, and how they struggled

And I'd probably cry at the funeral too

About what a f***ing loser they were

That they are nearer thee to thy master Satan, who had no hands or feet, for god cut them off, for what a f***ing thief he was

Anyway back to business...

What was I

Where was I

Today, we have put up Google Pay, yesterday, we put up Apple Pay

And we emailed 3 lucky people a $300 deal, because we saw they would help, if we cooperate, with winning investment

Right now, AngryPages seems to only be, about, making it "cool" to be brave like Hemasiri, or honest like Quintus, or talented like Tenali

Which is good, but not enough

We need people who can help us win real investment into SL too

I'm sad US army, is taking so long w/ IRGC. It's makin Trump look like back in Academy days, w/ a foot on a throat.

They're a shithole. Most of Iran's all desert. It should have been captured by Month 2 or 3 at most. Month 6 tops.

And the oil needs to be annexed.

We should pay $10,000 to every adult American, and $10k to the Trump accounts of every under 18 American child or teenager.

And we can pay that by capturing the oil in Iran.

If the Iraqis, accept to be an American colony, and hand over the oil, we can also agree to manage them.

Sri Lanka's case: I mean, Chamath's a much better public speaker... than me.

Chamath can run SL.

I could probably help.

We're trying to help SL get investment, even as a free state, by presenting its people properly.

I outreached to Janaka Ratnayake. If the kids bail on us, bail on them permanently.

Dear Mr. Ratnayake,

I’m Lehan, founder of AngryPages, a California publisher.

I studied your story before approaching you, and I think AngryPages can help you do much more than simply publish a book.

You built businesses, ran the EDB, dealt with the Ceylinco mess, chaired the PUCSL, fought Parliament, and then actually put your name forward for President.

So I don’t see you as somebody who is finished.

I think you still have a role to play.

You also have exposure most Sri Lankan political people simply do not have. You studied Russian Language and International Relations in Moscow, long before the present geopolitical mess.

Sri Lanka now has to balance the United States, India, China, Russia and everybody else.

You understand part of that world from experience, rather than briefing papers.

That belongs in the book.

I also saw Rachitha and Lekhya at Upali’s funeral. That is partly why I thought of you.

They’re closer to my cousins Chadu or Chathula, who run Betss.com. I was in a different batch at CIS.

And Rachitha and Lekhya are now working inside Trillium with you.

So I see more than one opportunity here.

We know people who live in Trillium.

We could eventually publish a real book about Trillium — the buildings, the residents, the people who bought into your vision, what you were trying to build, what worked, what failed, and what Rachitha and Lekhya build next.

Not an advertisement pretending to be a book.

A real book with real people and real stories.

That can help Trillium win customers and leave a permanent record of what you built.

You’ve done a great job with Trillium. To me, it is almost a metropolitan oasis.

But the bigger opportunity is your book.

If you still intend to do more in public life, I think your problem is remarkably simple:

You don’t have a shortage of experience. You have a packaging problem.

You spent years building companies, talking about exports, fighting over electricity, defending independent institutions, dealing with Government and explaining what is wrong with Sri Lanka.

Then you asked the whole country to judge you and received 2,405 votes.

I don’t think that proves you were without merit.

I think most people never understood the complete case for Janaka Ratnayake.

That is a publishing problem.

And that is something we know how to help with.

What would you actually do differently?

What did you learn at the EDB?

What did Russia teach you?

What did the PUCSL fight teach you? And, by the way, thanks for keeping the bills down during your tenure.

What should Sri Lanka do about exports, electricity, investment and foreign policy?

What did politicians get wrong?

What did businessmen get wrong?

And what would you actually have done if you had become President?

Those answers should exist somewhere permanent. Those answers are part of what will give you what you seek.

I watched the way everybody else packaged themselves.

Namal saw Dhammika’s “Blueprint.” Sajith came with his own Blueprint.

They understand that politics is not only aptitude. It is how somebody is understood.

I think you were presented badly, not that you had nothing to present.

You would have won far more attention if the public had understood the complete story rather than fragments of it.

That is what I want to fix.

Many people have now seen Hemasiri’s and Quintus’ books. They can become more visible than people who technically ranked above them because I can present their stories better.

That is what publishing does.

It changes what people can actually see.

And I’m not asking you to trust us because I’m sending you an invoice.

If necessary, I’ll do the first stage for free.

I anyway make 20% as platform fees and 50% from ads.

If you don’t want to spend the $300, forget the $300.

You don’t have to pay me anything remotely like Rs 30 million to find out whether I understand you.

Give me the first 10 hours across three days.

You can come to our place with Rachitha.

I can visit you.

Or I can send somebody to interview you.

You can even use your own cameras.

I’ll sign an NDA if necessary. You control what ultimately gets published.

But I have one rule:

Be honest with us.

Don’t suddenly talk to me like you are talking to the whole country and turn into a compliance-approved PR pitch.

We are not trying to interrogate you.

We are not ABC News Australia trying to ambush Harshana’s dad, Nimal Perera.

I want the man your sons know — the highs, the lows, the fights, the failures, the good decisions, the bad decisions, and what you actually think when nobody is handing you a prepared answer.

That person is worth publishing.

We want to figure out how your story can be presented so people buy into it in a big way.

This offer is not going everywhere.

I picked Fouzul Hameed of Hameedia, Thilan Wijesinghe from the BOI, Dulith from Kapruka, and you.

I picked Fouzul because Hameedia is a Sri Lankan fashion brand I can actually show foreigners and say: look, this is ours. I also got a good suit from them for Captain Lasantha’s son Uwin’s wedding.

I picked Thilan because I like his thinking around investment and Sri Lanka going years without an IMF programme.

I picked Dulith because I like what he built with Kapruka, and even things like shaving his head when his father had cancer tell you something human about the guy.

And I picked you because there is something good in your vision that deserves not to fail simply because it was presented badly.

We are trying to build Sri Lanka’s name with US investors and international consumers.

Hameedia gives us fashion.

Kapruka gives us technology and commerce.

Thilan gives us investment and BOI history.

Trillium gives us something beautifully built in Sri Lanka that foreigners can actually see, understand and buy.

And you give us something bigger: a businessman who tried to cross from building companies into trying to run the country.

That story is unfinished.

A lot of Rachitha and Lekhya’s friends have already left Sri Lanka. We have many mutuals. A lot of them left.

We are a US corporation still here.

Like Shanil Fernando, Sanjiva who retired, or Kris, we are still here because we are Sri Lankan and Sinhalese and want something good to come back to this country.

Out of millions of American firms, we keep naming the same handful with meaningful Sri Lankan connections:

Sysco Labs. WSO2. Virtusa.

That should tell us something.

We are not here simply so somebody can pay a person $10,000 when the equivalent California minimum-wage figure is around $73,500.

We are here because we still believe something internationally valuable can be built from Sri Lanka.

That is the bet.

If we print through Sumathi Printers, finance the printing and market the book, we would expect 50/50 on profits.

Digital is simpler:

You receive 80%.

But forget the money first.

Give me 15 minutes.

Let me understand what you actually want to do.

If I don’t understand you, walk away.

If I do, I think there is much more here than one book.

There is Janaka the man, Janaka the thinker, Trillium, Rachitha and Lekhya, and whatever role you still intend to play in Sri Lanka.

If you still want to become President, I cannot promise you an election.

But I can help make sure people finally have something serious with which to judge Janaka Ratnayake.

"Why didn't you convince his son to also fly with him?" That's the only next thing I woulda, coulda, shoulda said.

The only thing that must play in Ratcliffe's mind is:

"Khamenei.. bad."

"IRGC bad."

"Lehan good." OR

"Trump good.."

"Khamenei ugly".

"Kill Khamenei.. save Trump. Save America"

"Give Khamenei satellite phone, that works in bad, cloudy weather. Make a deal, or else, no deal."

Give China 50% discount on USA Iran oil. Give Lehan, xyz deal. Find one problem. Deal with one problem.

***

"Khamenei.. kill.." Fred Flintstone, Peter Griffin inner, thinking voice, "young girl. who not... cover.. hair. Khamenei.. kill me next. Khamenei. Iran. people. Hate us. hate America. Cause.. we do not. Cover. Our. hair. Must. Blow up. Iran."

"Anex the oil".

Can't believe UN didn't kick off Iran, after they kill women who don't cover the hair up in public "properly"

We must invade Iran, liberate the people, and use the God given oil, to pay for the humanitarian, rescue operation.

This is perhaps why God saved Trump on July 13th, 2024, because he knew, and saw, that Biden, and Kamala, can't do it.

If we don't save those people, God won't save us.

We must liberate those women in Iran, or else they'll always hate us, they'll harbor an enmity with any who show their hair in public, and they'll be spiting us, and they'll try to strike at us when we least expect it.

We must either win or lose the war with Iran to rescue their people.

Unlike Iraq, where they don't have any capable leaders, to run the place, we can install Shah Pahlavi, or else Salman and Trump and Xi, can buy up the oil, to get in charge of that whole place.

I don't want to see Zohran Mamdani around. Just tell Murdoch, it's great he'll legalize hookers. Don't air him again.

We don't want him to have any more attention. I feel Israel's been pushed to the corner and the back's to the dead sea. It's between the devil we loathe, and the dead sea which won't split for us again.

We've only got Trump, after his 2 terms are up, we can't test God's patience again.

I wrote this to Jetwing. Because I really like that guy. Hiran.

Dear Jetwing team,

Please send this internally to Mr. Hiran Cooray.

Dear Mr. Cooray,

I’m Lehan, founder of AngryPages, a California publisher. I studied your story before writing to you, and I think there is a very good book sitting there.

Your father, Herbert Cooray, started the hospitality business in Negombo in 1973, after a Swedish tour operator encouraged him to build a hotel. Then, when you were only 25, your father put you in charge and essentially told you that if Castro could run a country at 29, you could run a small company at 25. You could have stayed overseas. You’ve spoken about having a girlfriend in America and potentially building your life there, but your father told you to come home.

And you came home.

That struck a nerve with me because I think that decision explains almost everything that followed. You came home, stayed, and then spent decades convincing foreigners to come here too. You carried Jetwing through a civil war, tourism collapses, the tsunami, Easter Sunday, COVID, political crises and everything else this country managed to throw at tourism, while still arguing that Sri Lanka should compete on quality rather than quantity, protect what people come here to see, benefit local communities and sell the country properly.

There is a personal reason I understand part of this. My mom’s family built Sporting Star, which dominated sports gambling in Sri Lanka from the 1950s onward. Decades later, Chadu modernised that same world through Betss.com. My Edna family had another kind of business history. I’ve also had some exposure to the environmental side through Alpex Marine.

So I know, in my own way, what happens when one generation builds something substantial and the next generation has to decide whether to preserve it, modernise it, waste it, or let somebody else define what it meant.

That is why I look at Jetwing differently.

Herbert built something. You came home and carried it. Now there is another responsibility: making sure the story of what your family actually built survives as well as the hotels themselves.

Buildings can be sold. Management changes. Brands get diluted. People die. Memories disappear.

A book fixes the story in place.

Sporting Star is part of my own family history, but most of that history was never properly published. I know what gets lost when everybody assumes somebody else will remember it. I don’t want the same thing to happen to Herbert Cooray, Hiran Cooray and Jetwing.

You were also thinking about sustainability before Sri Lanka really had that word. In the early 1990s, you pushed Jetwing to treat hotel wastewater instead of simply sending it into the sea. Your own executives reportedly questioned why the company should spend money doing it. You did it anyway. Years later, everybody calls that sustainability.

Today Jetwing says it has more than 35 hotels and villas. You became the first Sri Lankan Chairman of PATA, served on the board of Small Luxury Hotels of the World, worked with the UNWTO Tourism Ethics Committee, and repeatedly represented Sri Lankan tourism internationally.

But I do not think your book should be a catalogue of titles, awards and photographs.

I think the real book is one question:

How do you spend your life selling a country to the world when that country repeatedly makes itself difficult to sell?

You have spent decades arguing that Sri Lanka should compete on quality rather than quantity, bring in visitors who actually spend, brand the country properly, protect what visitors come here to see and make tourism benefit communities rather than destroying them.

That is the book.

My working title is:

The Country Comes First

How Jetwing survived, grew and sold Sri Lanka to the world.

I don’t want another corporate interview. I want Herbert as a human being. What was he actually like when nobody was watching? Why did you come home instead of building your life in America? What did your father understand that modern executives don’t? What did you fight with him about? What nearly killed Jetwing? Which hotel frightened you most financially? Why were you spending money on sustainability before it became fashionable? What did the war teach you? What did Easter Sunday teach you? What did COVID teach you? What has Government consistently misunderstood about tourism?

And after everything you have seen, why are you still betting on Sri Lanka?

Those are the stories worth preserving.

I have already made a book cover concept and 3D diorama for you because I would rather show you that we are ready than send you another vague proposal. We have already done this kind of work with Hemasiri and Quintus. We take firsthand memories, interviews and experiences and turn them into structured books, covers, visual material, public author identities and products people can actually buy.

And we know how to finish the job. AngryPages can interview you, identify the strongest stories, structure the book, edit it, design it, package it, publish it digitally and distribute it. When we are ready to put it on paper, we already have Sumathi Printers available to print it here.

This is not something where I hand you a concept and disappear. We can go from the first conversation to the finished book.

There is also a second opportunity later: Jetwing itself. Herbert, you, the family, the staff who stayed for decades, the hotels, the communities around them, the guests who kept returning and the next generation carrying it forward.

Not a glossy advertisement pretending to be a book.

A real book with real people and real stories.

Something Jetwing can leave in a room for somebody arriving from America, Europe, India or anywhere else and quietly say:

This is who built the place you are staying in.

And this matters commercially too.

Sri Lankan companies repeatedly build excellent things and assume the world will somehow notice.

It won’t.

Why do what's hard?

Hilton is not merely a collection of buildings. The greatest international brands understand that the founders, stories, personalities, relationships, reputation and mythology surrounding a business eventually become part of the asset itself.

Jetwing can do that without becoming another anonymous foreign chain and without giving up what makes it Sri Lankan.

Why shouldn’t Jetwing become one of the reasons somebody decides to visit Sri Lanka in the first place?

Not because you sell control to somebody else. Because Herbert Cooray, Hiran Cooray and Jetwing become part of the story foreigners already know before they plan their holiday.

That is where I think the bigger problem sits.

If I am standing here with a till in my hand begging for international business while the IMF is practically part of the country’s operating system, then something has gone badly wrong.

I look at Sri Lanka and ask a very simple question: out of millions of American businesses, in a country of more than 330 million people, all looking for opportunities to make money, why are so few seriously here?

We keep naming the same handful: WSO2, Sysco Labs, Virtusa, and now AngryPages Inc.

No McDonald’s.

HSBC has pulled back.

You can count on one hand the number of serious developed-world companies making major long-term bets here.

That should bother anybody whose livelihood depends on foreigners choosing Sri Lanka.

Everyone I grew up with at CIS seems to have left for America or somewhere else. I am also likely to leave in the next few months.

And that makes me think about your decision again.

You weren’t crazy to come home. Your father was being patriotic.

I understand that.

I’ve seen it in my own family too. Palith helped found COYLE in 1999 with Jagath and others. When he died in 2005, Sharma sold his Intercontinental Hotel stock. That hotel eventually became the Kingsbury.

People build. People die. People leave. Ownership changes. Stories disappear.

And even after the war ended in 2009, investor confidence has never become what people assumed it would become.

When I was a kid in the 2000s, the dollar was around Rs 100. Now we are around the Rs 300-plus world. That is not an abstract economic statistic when your entire business depends on whether foreigners believe the country is worth visiting, investing in and trusting.

The United States Government itself put roughly $500 million of development finance behind the Colombo Port terminal project with JKH. To me, that illustrates the problem: even when American capital comes here, much of the big-ticket involvement is being driven through government-backed finance rather than thousands of ordinary American companies independently deciding, Sri Lanka is where we want to put our own money.

Would you open a Jetwing in Iraq tomorrow simply because somebody told you the war was over?

Probably not.

You would ask about the courts, the currency, the politics, safety, demand, the ability to move money, whether your asset would still be worth something in ten years, and whether the country might fall apart again.

Foreign investors ask the same questions about us.

Sri Lanka says it has independent courts, natural resources, no civil war, democratic elections, free press and everything else investors supposedly want.

And still, the number of serious developed-world firms making big bets here is tiny.

That gap is killing what businesses like Jetwing could have been, should have been and still could become.

That is why I am not dismissing publishing as some vanity exercise.

Putting a serious book about Hiran Cooray and Jetwing into a California publishing system means putting your story in front of people outside the Sri Lankan media loop: foreigners, investors, travellers, businesspeople and people with money who may never read a Colombo newspaper or watch a Sri Lankan television interview.

Going on Daily Mirror is fine.

But a local interview is still a local interview.

I want your story to travel further than that.

If somebody in California starts planning a trip to Sri Lanka and already knows Jetwing, already knows Herbert, already understands what you built and already trusts the brand before they land, that has value.

If the book succeeds, people listen to you for much longer than the thirty seconds they give a headline or social-media post.

If it fails, what have you really lost?

You probably lose 15 minutes a day at a sporting event, a meeting, YouTube or some other distraction anyway.

Give me 15 minutes.

If after 15 minutes of focused work you think AngryPages is a waste of time, then you never have to waste another minute on us.

But if we are right, you get a permanent book, a product you own, something that can earn money, something Jetwing can use, something foreigners can discover, and something your family will still have long after the interview clips disappear.

Normally I charge $300 for the initial development, and it is a lot more expensive for everyone else.

But I am not approaching you because of $300.

I mean it when I say I can do the first stage for free.

Give me roughly 10 hours across three days. Let me listen properly. I’ll build the premise, structure, cover direction and first chapter. You do not have to sit down and write 300 pages yourself.

Then you judge me.

If I misunderstood you, stop there.

If I understood you, we make the book.

For digital sales, you receive 80%. If AngryPages finances the printing, distribution and marketing, we can work 50/50 on print profits.

I am even offering to finance and print a book you have not written yet, knowing perfectly well that it may not sell.

I am willing to take that risk because I believe in your story.

I picked Fouzul Hameed because Hameedia is a Sri Lankan brand foreigners can understand. I picked Dulith Herath because Kapruka represents Sri Lankan technology and commerce. I picked Thilan Wijesinghe because of investment and the BOI.

And I picked you because Jetwing has spent half a century doing exactly what I want more Sri Lankan companies to do: build something here that foreigners actually want.

You came home.

You stayed.

You kept building.

You kept selling Sri Lanka while Sri Lanka repeatedly made your job harder.

That deserves a book.

That deserves a book.

Give me 15 minutes.

Best,

Lehan