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Reflections on the young poetic heart
All great writers have one thing in common. They all began with a first publication. All great writers develop their craft by voracious reading, continuous writing and agonising over words and phrases....
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Journalism inadvertently learned
In the year 1992, a subcommittee, perhaps, of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL), devoted to ‘human rights’ undertook to file a fundamental rights application on behalf of a group of activists,...
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History is new(s)
The late Jayalath Manoratne was arguably one of the finest actors this country has seen, on stage and on screen. He made each character he portrayed utterly memorable. Among all of them, perhaps the...
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Gifts, gifting and their rubbishing
Nanda Malini’s album ‘Pahan Kanda’ includes a song, written of course by her principal lyrical collaborator Sunil Ariyaratne, titled ‘බෝ මැඩ වගුරන.’ It doesn’t exactly ridicule Buddhist lay practices...
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Did you notice 'the tiny, tiny wayside flowers'?
Pic by Kasun De SilvaA quote greeted me this morning from one of the walls of my sister’s house in Bala Cynwyd, a suburb of Pennsylvania. The walls of her house are decorated with quotes, paintings and...
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Ownership and tenuriality of the Wissahickon
Wissahickon Creek is a tributary of the Schuylkill River, flowing through the Montgomery and Philadelphia Counties of Pennsylvania. For Edgar Allen Poe, writing in the middle of the 19th Century, it...
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Home worlds
I am not sure if Ghare Baire (The Home and the World) was the first Satyajit Ray movie I watched. It may have been Ashani Sanket (Distant Thunder), based on the novel by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay,...
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The responsible will not be broken
A couple of years ago when the country, like the rest of the world, was battling the Covid-19 pandemic, we saw a surge of volunteerism that is not uncommon in times of trouble. No one died of hunger...
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Poisoning poets and shredding books of verse
Pic courtesy www.sierraclub.comDuring a rare but typical gathering of siblings, the eldest, in the thick of a relationship conundrum, declared, ‘I just want these people out of my hair so I can sit...
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Re-‘residencing’ Lakdasa Wikkramasinha
Lakdasa or Lakdas Wikkramasinha? A collection of his poems edited by Aparna Halpe and Michael Ondaatje, published by New York Review Books (NYRB) and just recently released, has it as ‘Lakdas.’ His...
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Towards an intellectually robust political lexicon
At the Galle Literary Festival, in 2008, I believe the late Sunila Abeysekera pleaded that ‘LTTE’ and ‘Tamil people’ not be conflated. She was pointing fingers at Sinhala nationalists. The following...
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There's sea glass love that few will see
Until a few years ago I had never heard of sea glass. I probably had seen sea glass before but had never thought twice about these glass shards. I was more interested in shells. A friend from another...
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Through strange fissures into magical orchards
Walt Whitman, the great grandfather of North American poetry, writing about strangers, noting the pleasure offered in passing of eyes, face and flesh and the fact that he in return gave his beard,...
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A gateway to illumination in West Virginia
My friend Senaka Seneviratne, whenever he calls me, addresses me as ‘Captain Seneviratne.’ I have duly appointed him to a higher rank, Admiral Seneviratne. We’ve known each other for more than 40 years...
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Do you have a friend in Pennsylvania (or anywhere?)
When I first came to the United States of America more than 30 years ago, I was naturally curious about things that were very different from what I was used to in Sri Lanka. The ‘American accent,’ I...
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On 'true' national anthems
Way back in the late eighties, a group of students silenced politically on account of holding views that were at odds with those of the ‘Action Committee’ of the University of Peradeniya, ventured into...
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Let's help Jagana Krishnakumar rebuild our ancestral home
Tragedy of any kind can yield tears. Tragedy of any kind can also yield resolve. There are other harvests too. Apportioning of blame, absolving responsibility, anger, revenge-intent and collapse of one...
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Arwa Turra, heart-stitcher
I can’t remember whether Prabath Sahabandu, currently the Editor of ‘The Island’ but then a first or second year undergraduate at the University of Peradeniya, said it somewhere near the Kandy Clock...
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Ivan Art: Ivanthi Fernando's effort to align meaning
Ivanthi Fernando is a poem. So said her late husband Ravindra Devenigoda, long before I actually met her. I first met ‘Deveni’ when he was a second-year undergraduate at the University of Peradeniya...
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Niger 'crisis': Blinken is blinking, Nuland is midwifing
Antony Blinken is concerned, poor man. The US Secretary of State, following talk of the current Niger leadership considering obtaining military support from the Wagner Group, told the BBC that ‘every...
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