Publis dishes out a recipe of health
The veteran chef at Mount Lavinia Hotel discusses his research into local food and cooking methods that could guide Sri Lankans onto a path sans NCDs He was the guest and she was the chef. She walked in with a plate covered with “something” for cooking and when he asked what it was, she threw [...]
Sri Lanka’s Ravanahatha is the world’s first violin
Sir Christopher Ondaatje investigates the origins of the violin and discovers it all started in Sri Lanka The violin as we know it today was developed in Italy in the late fifteenth century, but in fact it can trace its true origins back to many centuries to an ancient bowed fiddle, the Ravanahatha, which had originated [...]
Letters to the Editor
Who benefits from privatisation? In the Sunday Times of May 19, Charitha de Silva opines that privatising state-owned enterprises (SOEs) will cure the country’s ills, particular those of the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) and Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB). He also takes several bashes at Marxism and the Left (a debate on this will have to [...]
Appreciations
She was always there for us, like a family member Ruki Kodagoda June 3 marks the third month since Ruki Kodagoda passed away. It still seems difficult to accept that someone as vital, as active and energetic as Ruki is no more but accept we must, and this is an attempt to capture the person [...]
From Siam to Lanka: Continuing a hallowed Buddhist ritual
Thai Prime Minister and Royal family member grace the 260th Upasampada ceremony This year, the Upasampada (Higher Ordination) of the samanera (student monks) is being held from May 24 with the Vesak Poya until Poson Poya which falls on June 23. Of the five Upasampada ceremonies two were held on May 24 and 31, and [...]
Rambo the elephant swims for his snacks
I first set eyes on Rambo in the early 1990’s, when I started visiting the UdaWalawe National Park. He was a young male elephant with a very calm demeanour. He had a unique identifiable feature – his right ear was torn in several places towards the edge. He must have been around 20-25 years at [...]
Weligama Podda tours his native South as a global citizen
“There’s no place like home” is the last line of the 1822 song “Home Sweet Home” written by John Howard Payne. From music, the phrase passed onto drama and books as well. The phrase inspired me to create my 2012 book Village Life in the Forties (Bloomington, IN: iUniverse), a collection of autobiographical sketches highlighting my [...]
Luxurious space on east coast
The calm blue sea offers a sleepy greeting as a few waves nonchalantly lap the shore. The sun is out, the palm trees sway in the background and a yacht sails its merry way before us. What may seem like a page out of the perfect tourist brochure is the beautiful bay of Passikudah. Famed [...]
Peace as far as the eye can see
I was wrong. Last week, lulled by the tranquillity of Vesak, I waxed eloquent (like a growing gibbous moon, you may say) on the serenity of religion in our land. In the cool moment between sunset and moonrise, I wrote that our country is home to people of a spectrum of faiths, philosophies, and ways [...]
A night just for the ladies
It was a time devoted exclusively to the ladies, a time for them to indulge in some of their favourite pastimes with their favourite people. Not surprisingly, the Ladies’ VIP Night at the Cinnamon Lakeside Hotel was a sellout with more than 400 ladies gathered on that Saturday evening enjoying not just the lakeside ambience [...]
Brewing a perfect blend for 50 years
The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf on Maitland Crescent never seems empty. On their journey of serving the best to their customers with the dictum, “One Touch, One Perfect Cup” the American chain of coffee cafes, an international franchise network, celebrated its 50th anniversary worldwide, also launching a multitude of promotions and events for local [...]
Building on happiness
The first female architect to deliver the annual Geoffrey Bawa Memorial Lecture Kate Otten discusses her ground-breaking work in post-apartheid South Africa Over the course of 23 years in architecture, Kate Otten has come to believe firmly in the need for “happy” buildings. The one she’s staying in right now seems to qualify this. It’s [...]
Nalini’s colourful canvas of life
Being born to an affluent, aristocratic family in Kandy some 80 years ago, there was nothing strange in Nalini Senanayake’s father decreeing that his only daughter, after finishing school, should paint, write poetry and play the piano. The least he may have anticipated was that the apple of his eye for whom he designed an [...]
Buried with Royal honours and forgotten
Whatever happened to King Sri Wickrama’s mother? And now a clue from Australia Re-reading Andrew Scott’s piece on the “Capture and exile of the last king of Kandy” in the Island of February 4, 2013, I was struck by a small but important fact. He quotes D’Oyly on the capture of the king thus: [...]
Correction: Coca–Emerging gardens of evil
The article on the coca plant ‘Coca– Emerging gardens of evil’ published on Page 8 of the Sunday Times Plus on May 26 was written by Dr. Magdon Jayasuriya, Senior Consultant, EML Consultants (Pvt) Ltd, Colombo and former Director, Plant Genetic Resources Centre, Department of Agriculture, Peradeniya. Our apologies to Dr. Jayasuriya for having inadvertently [...]
Life in Badulla on the wings of World War II
Happiest schooldays, secondhand clothes, night mail train rides to Colombo and playing ‘murder’ in the basement of her father’s official residence—memories of halcyon days spent upcountry It was 1942; the excitement of the aborted Japanese attack in April was just over. Ceylon had dipped her fingers in the tides of war, but remained unscathed. There was [...]
Endless and diverse personalities jump out of the page
Book facts: The Moonmalle Inheritance by Rajiva Wijesinha. Reviewed by Anthea Senaratne This highly personalised account of the author’s adventures first as a child and then as an adult, is filled with details of experiences and encounters with his family members and friends. It is almost like falling down the rabbit hole like Alice did and [...]
The Adventures of Ricky Deen to strains of Beethoven
The Chamber Music Society of Colombo along with the Goethe Institute and Concerts Norway will present ‘Chamber Music Plus’ V on June 9 at 7 p.m. at the Goethe-Institute Hall. This time the CMSC will perform Beethoven’s Piano Trio op. 11 and Robert Schumann’s Piano Trio op. 88. This music will be the inspiration for [...]
The kernel of truth in deeply-entrenched cultural myths
Book facts: “New Vistas on the Early History of Sri Lanka ” – Wijaya Dissanayake (Vijitha Yapa). Reviewed by Tissa Devendra Professor [of Psychiatry] Wijaya Dissanayake now joins distinguished medical doctors Nath Yogasundram and Anton Sebastian who who have produced scholarly works on our country’s history [also published by Vijitha Yapa]. His “New Vistas”, written in [...]
Somewhere: Looking back on an evolving village
This week, we sit down with the award winning author and translator Vijita Fernando to talk about her new novella ‘Somewhere’. Though slender, the book is a meticulous study of village life as seen through the eyes of our narrator, a young girl growing up in 1930s Sri Lanka. In the decades that follow a [...]
People and events
Urgent Kidney transplant for a Grade 7 student Yakkgaha Runage Dahami Dulanjali, a Grade 7 student of Upananda College in Manawila, Galle is seriously ill as both her kidneys are failing. Doctors have recommended an urgent kidney transplant which will cost around Rs. 1 million. Her parents are not able to raise this money and [...]
SAARC developing South Asian cinema
South Asian cinema reaches out to billions of cinema-goers each year. In the past few decades, Asian film industries from South Korea to Bollywood have reached new heights and entered the global industry. However, faced with the difficulty of finding institutional support, other Asian countries such as Bhutan, Nepal, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Pakistan or Bangladesh [...]
Off the beaten track
Students of the Hegoda School of Photography participate in an exhibition without competition A fortnight ago an Exhibition of Photography was held at the Lionel Wendt Gallery by the students of the Hegoda School of Photography. There were some 160 pictures by about 60 students. An unusual feature of this exhibition was the absence of [...]
