Abstract:
As a researcher I got interested in the use of diaries as a method of capturing qualitative data
and constricting life histories, with the encounter of a personal experience. Biographers, historians
and literary scholars have long considered diary documents to be of major importance
for telling history (Corti 1993). In Sociology, medical research, and psychology researchers
have counted on diaries as useful source of data since the early 20th century, (Kaun 2010).
This research presents ‘a time capsule’ encrypted in diaries over four decades that is from
1943-1982. The researcher explores the handwritten entries of a respected lay religious leader
who is also a politician and an eminent businessman of this era. Therefore this research is
primarily concerned with the construction of everyday life. Even then it also strives to reconstruct
a time period in history spanning from pre-independence and post-independence Sri
Lanka from a non-political view with the narrative reconstructed through these diaries. Since
the gentleman concerned is my maternal grandfather, I felt the diaries gave me a personal
entry into his life and made me closer to him and the events in my family history. However
reading through these diaries convinced me that they through some new insights into certain
nationally important events or even family incidents, some of which were easy to frame, but
others were difficult comprehend. The research is a work in progress and the diaries will be
further analyzed to counter validate a large collection of photographs in constructing not just
the life of the individual but certain important events in history. Therefore the preservation
of these diaries and personal journals are important especially for the understanding the particular
period of history and the cultural heritages of Kandyan society.
