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Seven years old for 87 years!
The last light streamed through the window. Soft light deflected off walls, filtered through leaves – the kind of light that has a way of silencing day-end’s inevitable cacophony. It entered a small...
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The Vote-Budget
Pic www.therepublicsquare.comThe JVP’s Sunil Handunnetti captured the Opposition’s sentiments with regard to Budget 2015 best. He said ‘අද අය වැය දිනය නෙමෙයි...වඩා හොඳයි මේකට අල්ලස් දිනය කියල කිව්වා...
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The lament of a Diaspora Tamil
Back to enforced participation in protests?I am a Diaspora Tamil. That’s what I am called. Misnamed. Technically I am an expatriate Sri Lankan Tamil, but the word ‘diaspora’ reminds people of the...
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We shall not be re-named!
Everyone takes note. Some keep notes. Some in diaries and journals. Some in their minds and hears. Some of these are shared via email or on Facebook or blog; some are not. Among these people are...
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The phenomenon that is Mahinda
It is four years since the 18th Amendment to the Constitution came into effect. It was dismissed at the time and occasionally since then as a subversion of the democratic spirit and further...
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Cards get reflected in eyes
This is the fourth in a series of articles on rebels and rebellion written for the FREE section of 'The Nation'. 'FREE' is dedicated to youth and youthfulness. Emotion can take various forms. One can...
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You can compose your own music
Nights are quiet times. The city shuts down bit by bit and at one point you also shut down. Then you get silence. For most of the day and even sometimes late into the night, however, we are...
View ArticleOn mansions and masters, institutions and adornments
There are times when I lament my abysmal acquaintance with Greek and Roman literature and of course the political and historical tracts it contains and indeed which makes much of it. I see a quote...
View ArticleThe unbearable lightlessness of brieflessness
A friend of mine (let’s call her Brenda) lives, breathes, consumes and is consumed by advertising. I remember, years ago, she returned after the official launching of the scandal-tainted ‘Water’s...
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Orphaned tragedies
How many deaths does it for something to be called a ‘tragedy’? What is more tragic, a long drawn out war that takes more than a 100,000 lives, an insurrection that takes 60,000, a tsunami that kills...
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The 'Sajith-Factor' in the Presidential Race
If it is about who will be the principal presidential candidate of the Opposition then it boils down to who wins Ranil Wickremesinghe’s endorsement, in the event that he chooses not to contest of...
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On death and preferred funerals
A 'grave' as good as any, if I am lucky. [Pic courtesy www.yamu.lk]‘I plagiarized shamelessly,’ a friend confessed. He had copied something from an article I had written, ‘On heart-unbuckling’. I...
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You name it, the Kolombians own it!
Pic Courtesy www.tour.lkEveryone takes note. Some keep notes. Some in diaries and journals. Some in their minds and hears. Some of these are shared via email or on Facebook or blog; some are not....
View ArticleThe death-wish of a constitution
Constitutions are made, talked about, cursed and amended. They never speak although they frame much of what happens in a country. In a parallel universe constitutions would talk. They would, as the...
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It’s all about timing
This is the sixth in a series of articles on rebels and rebellion written for the FREE section of 'The Nation'. 'FREE' is dedicated to youth and youthfulness. A thirteen year old girl in the USA had...
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So what do you want to do with the rain?
A Sri Lankan once wrote to a friend living a small town called Ithaca in the State of New York. It was winter. It was a particularly harsh winter. Lots of snow. Ice on the sidewalks. People...
View ArticleReturning to 'The One in Ten' of 2006
Eight years ago, during my first stint at 'The Nation,' when among other things I wrote the weekly Editorial, I wrote about the British band, UB40 or rather drew from their lyrics to comment on things...
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A better-late-than-never foreword
Twenty nine years ago almost to the day, Prof Ashley Halpe, then Head, Department of English, University of Peradeniya, addressed about 400 first year students of the Arts Faculty. This was at...
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Mr Zeid’s integrity gripe
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein is upset with the Government of Sri Lanka. He said, ‘The Government has refused point blank to cooperate with the investigation (into...
View ArticleBecoming ‘a country that was’
‘There was a country’ is Chinua Achabe’s personal history of Biafra. It is a personal story of a collective history, of a violent past that rolled into a political present. It is a memoir....
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