The Singapore Forum

Sci-fi guru Clarke funeral to take place in Sri Lanka
COLOMBO, March 22 (Reuters) - Visionary science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke will be buried on Saturday in his adopted home of Sri Lanka, where his body has been visited by sci-fi pilgrims and the country's president since his death on Wednesday.
British-born Clarke, best known for his work on the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey", died aged 90 of respiratory complications and heart failure that doctors linked to the post-polio syndrome that for years kept him wheelchair-bound.
The funeral at Colombo's main cemetery would be a private and "strictly secular" service, his secretary Nalaka Gunawardena said, with family members attending from Australia and Britain, including brother Fred and sister Mary.
Clarke left written instructions that his funeral be marked by "absolutely no religious rites of any kind" and apart from a brief family reading, Gunawardena said the main tribute would be the music to the 2001: A Space Odyssey film.
"Asked last year if there would be any monument to his passing, Sir Arthur said 'walk into any good library and you will see my legacy there'," Gunawardena told Reuters.
"He believed that the show must go on. He also wanted us to celebrate, not mourn his passage," he said.
Clarke's body, dressed in a suit and tie, has been on display at his Colombo home since Thursday, with thousands of locals including President Mahinda Rajapaksa lining to pay respects and lay wreaths for the island's most famous foreigner.
"We were all proud to have this celebrated author, visionary and promoter of space exploration, prophet of satellite communications, great humanist and lover of animals in our midst," Rajapaksa said earlier this week.
The president has asked for a minute's silence at 3pm (1030 GMT) across the nation, where newspapers headlines mourned the "final voyage of a titan".
Marking his "90th orbit of the sun" in December, the prolific British-born author and theorist made three birthday wishes: For E.T. to call, for man to kick his oil habit and for peace in Sri Lanka, where a civil war has raged for 25 years.
Clarke was born in England on Dec. 16, 1917 to a farming family, and served as a radar specialist in the Royal Air Force during World War Two.
He was one of the first to suggest the use of satellites orbiting the earth for communications, and in the 1940s forecast that man would reach the Moon by the year 2000 -- an idea experts at first dismissed.
Clarke wrote around 100 books and hundreds of short stories and articles, and wanted to be remembered foremost as a writer. He was knighted in 1998.