Love Always Finds A Way

Hash Bandara and Umanga Samarasinghe are not your average couple. As young as they are, they have little over a decade of experience under their belt with combatting the many ordeals which came as a couple. They’re setting a positive tone for the younger gen and showing everyone that it doesn’t matter how you dress, what you look like or what your orientation is, love will always find a way.

- Shihaam Hassanali

Their story, as the dynamic duo many now know them as, began 11 years ago. In school, Hash and Umanga disliked each other and would only get together during girl guiding sessions where they’d concoct all manners of mischief on their teachers. But, it was only once they’d both left school and returned for a sports event that they looked at each other in a new light. “I remember seeing this girl running across the playground with her hair blowing in the wind and I wondered, ‘Woah! Who that?!’” reminisced Hash.

While this wasn’t Hash’s first rodeo, it was a first for Umanga. “I was up for anything and I thought to myself, ‘Yeah, why not? Let’s do this!’,” she said. The first 3 years were very tough for them as a couple— they couldn’t come out because of the social stigma at the time. “We weren’t certain if there’d be a future together. But, we went ahead with what we were feeling,” shared Umanga.

The fact that they’d made it through for this long despite all the hurdles blew my mind and I had to ask what the secret to the sauce is. Unsurprisingly, they get asked this question all the time. “Obstacles still happen, but we now know how to handle them better than before. We were quite young when we started dating and completely inexperienced,” said Umanga. Hash added that there is a lot of trust because they understand each other so well. And, this, in turn, has made things much easier for them.