http://nz.entertainment.yahoo.com//080322/5/4kh1.html
 Saturday March 22, 07:27 PM
Arthur C. Clarke funeral to be in Sri Lanka
COLOMBO (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 (6:30
a.m. EDT) 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 December 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.
(Reporting by Rob Taylor; Editing by David Fox)
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