Afraid that they will be sent away to work or given up to the police, Upali and Jinna run away from home and end up working for a farmer named Podigamarala. When he returns home, the two boys are caught trying to raid an orchard. Upali is eventually sent to away to a new school, and has to live with a school teacher. The two boys get into a lot of mischief in the village with their boy gang, and is severely punished by Upali's father as a result. Jinna is the servant boy of their house, and is a close and devoted friend to Upali. He had lost his mother at a young age about 7 years old, and is under the care of a stepmother. Upali Giniwella is a boy living in a village in southern Sri Lanka.
The novel has been translated into several languages, and was made into a film of the same name in 1976. It later describes the efforts of Upali and his friend Jinna to lead their lives in a small deserted island. The book recounts the misadventures of Upali Giniwella and his friends on the Southern coast of Sri Lanka during the 1890s. Madol Doova ( Sinhala: මඩොල් දූව is a children's novel and coming-of-age story written by Sri Lankan writer Martin Wickramasinghe and first published in 1947.
