British sci-fi legend Sir Arthur C. Clarke was put to rest today in Sri Lanka. The government, which called Clarke "a titan," ordered a minute's silence across the island.

"We feel so privileged that you left your mark on us. Your footprint will never fade. If anything, it will only magnify what we do," said Tamara Ekanayake, daughter of his business partner, Hector Ekanayake, to mourners gathered at the funeral, according to AFP. "He wanted us to write on his tombstone: 'Here lies Arthur Clarke. He never grew up, but didn't stop growing'. And with that, we celebrate your life to this day," she said, per AP.

Clarke was 90 when he passed away Wednesday, March 19. He had left written instructions that he did not want his funerary ceremony to have the pomp of a state funeral or any religious rites of any faith associated with it. He was buried at Colombo’s General Cemetery in a plot owned by his friend and diving company partner with whom the writer lived for decades.

Sri Lanka became Arthur C. Clarke’s adopted home in 1956. In the recent years, he was bound to a wheelchair due to post-polio syndrome. Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse has described Clarke’s death as a loss to the island. Clarke had left instructions for his personal letters to remain unopened for 50 years after his death. His scientific papers, literary productions and other unpublished work will be available to the public.

The author’s aide also reiterated the three wishes Clarke had once said were his last: conclusive proof of extraterrestrial life, clean energy to stop global warming and peace in Sri Lanka during his lifetime. None of them were fulfilled.

Clarke wrote more than 100 books on space, science and the future and is best known for the 1968 story “2001: A Space Odyssey” and his collaboration with director Stanley Kubrick on the film of the same title. As a science fiction writer Clarke won the Nebula Award of the Science Fiction Writers of America in 1972, 1974 and 1979; the Hugo Award of the World Science Fiction Convention in 1974 and 1980, and in 1986 became Grand Master of the Science Fiction Writers of America.