You are Santa Claus, didn't you know?
Siblings fight, especially when they are young with an age difference of a little over two years. We won’t go into the psychology of all that. My two daughters, if pushed and under certain...
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BOOK REVIEW
An invitation to revisit roots*Pilima Lovai, Piyevi Lovai (The world of images and the real world), Gunadasa Amarasekera, published by Visidunu Prakashakayo, 471, Lake Road, Boralesgamuwa, reviewed by...
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Thank you Murali for all the poetry produced with wrist and heart
[The media pounced on the name 'Muttiah Muralitharan' for reasons that had only a cursory reference to cricket. Made me recall all that he gave us, year after year after year. Took me back to the...
View ArticleThe further greening of politics and other tidbits
The further greening of politicsWhen C.A. Chandraprema wrote 'Kola Paata Samaajaya' (The Green Society) a couple of decades ago, it is unlikely that he would have imagined the kind of greening we see...
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Re-naming Bogambara and other tidbits
The Mandela bandwagonHe was everyone's father or grandfather. He was brother to others. A relation, friend, fellow-citizen. No one needs to make a paternity claim in public. And yet, we had Chandrika...
View ArticleThe many dimensions of artefact theft
The Archaeological Department has a splendid history. The work of the Department has gone a long way in tracing the history of this nation, piecing together the many story-strands, corroborating the...
View ArticleOn the pace and substance of demilitarization
The love that the British have for Sri Lanka is of such magnitude that one wonders if Sri Lankans should bother to love their country. They so loved this island, let us not forget, that they pillaged,...
View ArticleSanta deliberates on the distribution of goodies
[IN A PARALLEL UNIVERSE] Kids are easy. Uncomplicated. Direct. They know exactly what they want and even if they go overboard at times, they quickly adapt to reality. Politicians are the worst....
View ArticleReflections on Christmas (as per Isaiah, Ch 58)
I am writing this on the 24th of December. You will be reading this, hopefully, tomorrow, Christmas Day. So Merry Christmas to all of you, especially those of the Christian faith and all those who...
View ArticleChristmas outside Réveillon*
Christmas came to me as cards, the colours green and red, and pictures of snow. This was when I was a child. I didn’t know back then that Jesus Christ was not a blond-haired, blue-eyed, white man who...
View ArticleThe chains we love too much to lose
‘How is your brother?’ I asked a friend who is now domiciled in Canada and was here in Colombo for a few days. ‘He’s a glorified slave!’ my friend retorted with his signature and infectious guffaw....
View ArticleIt rained upstream this morning…*
[Remembering my dear friend Sidath Dharmaratne] A student of the Arts Faculty, University of Peradeniya who was also a member of the Student Council was found guilty of misconduct and suspended for...
View ArticleDiaries, diarizing and the happily ‘un-diarized’*
These are diary days. Calendar days too. All institutions, big and small, private and public, are busy getting diaries out. It is probably considered a serious come down for a self-respecting...
View ArticleTomorrow is Tuesday the Second of June 2009, did you know?*
More than twenty five years ago, my brother Arjuna and I paid a visit to our father at his office. He was at the time a Deputy Director at the Sri Lanka Institute of Development Administration. We had...
View ArticleThe ‘dark’ of sunshine stories
For years, UNP Parliamentarian Dr Harsha De Silva has regularly claimed that statistics pertaining to the country’s economic and social wellbeing have been doctored. These claims have usually been...
View ArticleThe TNA and the ‘Trust Issue’
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) does not trust the Government. Nothing wrong in that. If all political entities trusted and agreed with one another there wouldn’t be separate political parties for...
View ArticleFishy business
Daya Dissanayake, bi-lingual novelist and commentator on all things he believes deserve comment, offered one of the most pertinent observations on the Indo-Lanka spat over fishing rights. The...
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U.L. Ranjith’s Christmas
‘How’s Christmas?’ someone asked. When everyday seems ok, there’s nothing special about Christmas, even for Buddhist who gets surrounded by ‘Christmasness’ come December. This Christmas was special...
View ArticlePowdered racket?
The Sinhala word for powder would be ‘kudu’. ‘Kudu’ however has acquired a new meaning and one that has become so much a part of colloquial usage that if you translated back into English you won’t get...
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Man of the Year 2013: Karu Jayasuriya
Reticence, resolve and courage marks the manHe is known today as the Chairman of the United National Party’s recently instituted ‘Leadership Council’. Today he is known as a politician, but politics...
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