Reflections on the unp-slfp curse IV [with Sudat Pasqual]
The Nation' started a series on what could be called the curse(s) of the slfp and unp. Sudat Pasqual reflects on the slfp and the need to put it out of our misery and I pen the notes on the unp....
View ArticleOn the blindness of those who will not see
‘Talk is cheap’ is an ancient expression with multiple versions in multiple literatures. ‘Put your money where your mouth is,’ is an oft-seen line in the USA. The descriptive katen bathala hitavanawa...
View ArticleCombine the energies, dear rebel
This is the fifty first (and last) in a series of articles on rebels and rebellion written for the FREE section of 'The Nation'. Scroll to the end for other articles in this series. 'FREE' is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Un-cluttering is an art
This is the fiftieth and final piece of a series for the JEANS section of 'The Nation'. The series is for children. Adults, consider yourselves warned...you might re-discover a child within you!...
View ArticleMrs B.H.P.R. Weerasuriya turned me into a student
This is the third in a series on my teachers that I started writing for 'The Nation'. Due to the (temporary) closure of that newspaper, this was not published. Scroll down for other articles in the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Student politics, anomalies and responsibilities
This was first published five years ago in the ‘Daily News’ on October 26, 2010. Coincidentally, it was published exactly one year after a related article was published in the same newspaper: 'Will...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Will pro-JVP students ever learn?
This was first published in the ‘Daily News’ on October 26, 2009. A related article was published, coincidentally, exactly a year later, i.e on October 27, 2010 titled 'Student politics, anomalies and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Dear Rebel, ittle things do matter
Pic from a great blog: www.srilanka.for81days.comThis was meant to be the fifty second and final submission of a series titled 'Notes for a Rebel' for the FREE Section of 'The Nation'. Publication of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
‘I don’t have anything to wear!
This would have been the fifty first piece of a series for the JEANS section of 'The Nation'. The paper was shut down after this section went to print. Temporarily, they say. The series is for...
View ArticleIncontinencies
My good friend Dimuth Gunawardena chides me now and then when I use what he believes my late mother would have considered ‘bad language’. My mother, apparently, would express embarrassment to her...
View ArticleSusantha Karunaratne’s animisa lochana poojawa
More than two millennia ago, an exceptional human being and according to some one endowed with the greatest mind ever, Siddhartha Gauthama, the Enlightened One, stood for a week in front of the tree...
View ArticleAn invitation to ‘Ethics’
Dr. A.C. Visvalingam, President, Citizens’ Movement for Good Governance (CIMOGG), commenting on the horrific murder in broad daylight of Balavarnam Sivakumar, (reportedly a mentally challenged...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Meditation on Gamini Haththotuwegama
Gamini Haththotuwegama is no more. The man, known to some as GK, to others as ‘Gamini’, ‘Hatha’, ‘Haththa’ or simply as ‘Sir’, hailed as the Father of Street Theatre in Sri Lanka, will take his final...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Break chain, make necklace
Cover page of a collection of essays on Gamini Haththotuwegama, edited by Kanchuka DharmasiriDecember 1987 was a time when the University of Peradeniya was, contrary to the stone-etched hope of Ivor...
View ArticleDeath is a teacher
In the vast canon that is the Buddha’s teachings there is frequent reference to the sathara brahma viharana or the four sublime modes of living: meththa(loving-kindness), karuna (compassion), muditha...
View ArticleA story of two doctors
The year was 1992. Faculty of Medicine, University of Peradeniya. A senior lecturer was speaking to the new batch of students as part of their orientation programme. I was at the back of the hall...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A thank-you note to the Ravaya
The Sinhala weekly, ‘Ravaya’, celebrated its 24thbirthday this week. It was the successor to a magazine by the same name, founded and edited by Victor Ivan, a colourful, evergreen and enduring...
View ArticleBeauty is the number 14 and it lasts for 72 hours
It must have been in 1987 or 1988. The place was the sports school down Independence Avenue. The Chess Federation used to organize tournaments there. Those who finished their games early would move...
View ArticleClik here to view.
On behalf of all my mother's sons and daughters…
My mother with her eldest son, ArjunaThis was written on what would have been my mother's 74th birthday and was first published on the 18th of November, 2010 in the 'Daily News'. Today, as I write, it...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What the 64 Squares taught me
It is a few minutes before 10 am on Sunday the 14thof November, 2010. I am sitting in a small room on the third floor of a building a few hundred meters from the Miriswatte Junction on the...
View Article