“The story in this book is wound around a woman in Haputale area where life had been a real drudgery for poor women in remote mountainous villages. This woman, having been married to a ‘drunkard, wife-beating, petty-thief-type, good-for-nothing man,' has given birth to nearly a dozen of children. She does not treat all her children equally: some are favored, some are hated and some are just ignored. Thus, Sannasgala's ‘Mother' defies the role-model mother living in popular beliefs.
The story is told by her last-born son or ‘Bada Pissa' who is feeble, disabled and sick. It is a miracle that this little boy had survived and not died at his infancy. He is not born with any of the desired configurations that guarantee the survival of a child. His life is full of hardships, unquenched hunger and replete with family support. Except for Mother's care, he is like a tree by the side of the road exposed to all natural hazards.”