A death that speaks of our larger incarceration*
[This was written in 2006. There's a warning embedded here. Have things changed over the last eight years? I think not. The lesson is therefore still relevant]In a perfect world there would be no...
View ArticleA country is a toy but that’s alright*
My five year old daughter, like any five-year old I suppose, frequently amazes me with random observations and I am never sure if she understands fully how philosophical she is. A few days ago she made...
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On winning the Gratiaen Prize
Now available at Surasa (Maradana),Sarasavi and Vijitha YapaIt is customary for the winner of the Grataen Prize for Creative Writing to deliver an acceptance speech. Accordingly, on Saturday May 24,...
View ArticlePlaying the ‘Modi Card’
It’s seasonal. Devolutionists have their ‘on’ days and ‘off’ days. There was a time way back in the early 1990s when Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu was scared to use the word ‘federal’. He called it ‘The...
View ArticleWhat do we do with 'the Tamil in the room'?
Writing on the occasion of launching ‘The end of war in Sri Lanka, five years on’ by www.groundviews.com, Sanjana Hattotuwa refers to a review of the collection of essays by Channa Wickremesekera,...
View ArticleAn Indian Parliamentarian is despondent*
I should be celebrating my party’s unprecedented electoral victory. I am not saying I was disappointed, don’t get me wrong. I am thrilled that the BJP took the Congress Party to the cleaners. I am...
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A story of a girl, a photograph and a photographer
Long years ago I was associated with an organization called ‘The National Movement Against Terrorism’ (NMAT). This was at a time when those who called for a military offensive to rid the country of the...
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A part-composed song
Who does not look back at schooldays without a smile? Few, I would venture. Schooldays, if we look back in sober reflection, wasn’t all about bright sunny days, fun and camaraderie. Most school...
View ArticleListening to mystical reeds*
Many years ago, a friend told me about Al Hallaj, the Sufi mystic who was stoned to death because the Islam Orthodoxy found him guilty of heresy. My friend told me that according to legend, he was...
View ArticleIt’s a ‘buddy’ kind of life*
Society has for a long time trapped itself in dichotomies. We have the rich and the poor; the strong and the weak; the big and the small; the enlightened and non-enlightened; god and the devil. It is a...
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The 0.001% chance of something happening
Yes, we went to 'Thanamalwila' and had a lot of 'curd'There’s an anecdote I’ve heard tell of Ajith Fernando, who along with a dozen others, ‘went around the pearl’ not too long ago. This had happened...
View ArticleDoing the ‘done thing’
Sachithra Senanayake was booed each time he came up to bowl, each time he touched the ball. This is after he ‘Mankaded’ Jos Buttler. A lot has been said and written about the incident. There has...
View Article"PB" of Alutwela, Haldummulla: Farmer, king and shaman
Nestled below the Haputale hills, cradled by the rocky outcrops characteristic of the Uva-Wellassa, is a farm where the trees and the vegetable plots are tinged with a green uncharacteristic for a...
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The greening of the blue-n-gold
There was a time, way back in the early 70s when Sri Lanka, then Ceylon, had a Milk Board that provided fresh milk and yoghurt far superior in quality and taste to anything that wealthy milk companies...
View ArticleOn the 'Suddha' resident within us*
It was Alvis in Wonderland who got me going about white-ness, or the 'acting the suddha' thing and of course the whole black-and-white business of condescension and viceroy-posturing on the part of...
View ArticleMore cuts on the 'sudda within'*
My article, 'On the "sudda" resident within us'generated a lot of comments. Among them was one from a retired senior Police Officer (of a different generation and most definitely a different calibre),...
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If there's 'Mankaading' then there's 'Buttlering'
'Buttlering' gives a batsman an edge of a couple of yards while a bowler who errs by a fraction of an inch is no-balled.These days batsmen who get out don’t always walk back to the pavilion. No, I am...
View ArticleLament of the UNP constitution
I’ve always thought he was bright. He was and is his uncle’s nephew. I saw him first as a cub and I saw the fox he would eventually grow up to become. There are situations that are bigger than the...
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The heartbeat of our country has a name
[This is a love note unlike any other I've ever written. For Rukshan Abeywansha I would happily give all the words I have and remain silent forever, if it would mean that he walks again. If you want...
View Article‘Aluthgama’ needs to be arrested forthwith
The Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) holds a rally following an ‘incident’. A second, more violent incident follows. That’s an easy line to draw, i.e. from BBS to violence. It holds. The language, the whipping...
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