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If no one is to be left behind…
My first experience with a ‘sports meet’ was in 1970 when my older brother, then in the first grade was readied for a fancy dress parade by our mother, her sister and the sister’s boyfriend. There...
View ArticleFaraz Shauketaly’s ‘revelations’
Faraz Shauketaly suffered gunshot injuries and was rushed to hospital a little over a week ago. Faraz, who holds dual citizenship, in Sri Lanka and Britain, is a freelance journalist. He is also a...
View ArticleAspirants to the Supreme Court should be grilled
Problems between the Executive and Judiciary, interestingly, have all been related to judges whose appointments have been colored by political preferences. It is not that they were unsuited, but...
View ArticleThe Indian Resolution and Sri Lankan Resolve
Countries don’t love other countries, they love themselves. No country can find fault with another for pursuing its (that country’s) ‘national interest’. Botswana, then, must do what’s good for...
View ArticleThe parameters of contentment
It is hard to find someone who is happy. Happy-around-the-clock, that is. Such happiness would be called ‘bliss’ and that’s pretty rare. The richest men and women in this world have in a single...
View ArticleTime to face the music in Geneva!
A few weeks ago, the word from Delhi on US-sponsored resolution on Sri Lanka the UNHRC Sessions in Geneva was ‘yes’. Let us translate: ‘Yes, we will vote ‘yes’ on the resolution’. No surprises there...
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Rohantha Pieris’ lesson on ‘knowledge’
Big Matches are places to meet old friends. Sometimes though one is introduced to total strangers. On Friday, at the Royal Thomian I spotted Royal’s rugger captain of 1978, Rohantha Peiris. He was...
View ArticleSri Lanka is not India
[and let’s pray that it stays this way]Sri Lanka is not India and India is not Sri Lanka. That’s easy to say, easy to conclude and indeed one might even say ‘that’s stating the obvious’. Two...
View ArticleWe are nothing if we are not all
Api venuwen api(all of us for all of us) was a defining slogan as the entire nation stood with the President, the Government and the security forces in the last years of the struggle to rid the country...
View ArticlePope Francis: of Assisi, Buenos Aires or Washington
Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina appears to be a different from others who came before him. To the Papacy, that is. He is the first Pope from Latin America. He is the first to take the name...
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Spare a thought for Manmohan Singh
India has a question for Sri Lanka: How will India's vote in the UNHRC impact Indo-Lanka relations? It’s a complicated question and one which prompts multiple answers. Officially, the Government still...
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Green snows and white grass
Years after I left Ithaca, a small town in Upstate New York, best known for being the address of Cornell University but made up of lots more than students, professors, libraries and labs, I...
View ArticleA nation on the edge
The nation is on edge. There is a sense of foreboding. There are fears of a July 1983 repeat. Indeed there are even those who are eagerly waiting for such an eventuality. And there is no shortage...
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The Muslim in me
One of the greatest lessons that Buddhism has taught me is that the idea or concept of ‘self’ is untenable. Paṭikkūlamanasikāra or "reflections on repulsiveness", where body parts are contemplated in...
View ArticleLet’s call the Tamil Nadu bluff
Poor Manmohan Singh. It looks like nothing he does (or does not do) wins him applause from Tamil Nadu. Whether or not the Indian Prime Minister is concerned about the growing Chinese footprint in...
View ArticleHow to solve a ‘problem’ like ‘Uthayan’
The ‘Uthayan’ newspaper was attacked a few days ago. It was not the first time. Not the second. Not the third. It was the thirty sixth time that ‘Uthayan’ was attacked. That it still stands, still...
View ArticleThe LLRC and devolution
The politics of skipping the caveats When the Government proposed setting up a Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), there were howls of protests from the likes of Jehan Perera and...
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The King of Raigam
There are landmark moments in the life of every human being. Turning points, some might say, where the road less traveled was opted for or when charted path was abandoned. Destiny, some might say....
View ArticleThe ‘Vigil’ that I saw
‘Buddhist Questioning Bodu Bala Sena’Those who participated or wanted to participate in the candle-light vigil organized by a set of people calling themselves ‘Buddhists Questioning Bodu Bala Sena’,...
View ArticleA vasa-visa-less Avurudda
It is customary to wish each other a happy and prosperous new year, typically, in Sinhala, ‘an Aluth Avurudda overflowering in kiri and peni’. Overflowing abundance is a perennially valid wish,...
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