Who goes there?
Midnight at Kanatte! As the brilliant half-moon glides behind a bank of clouds in the sky over Borella, we are walking deep into the ‘Land of the Dead’ where lie the mighty and the meek, the rich and the poor. Equal before that great leveller, Death, men, women and children, whatever race or religion — who [...]
Seeing the old city with new eyes
It’s 9 a.m. on a Friday and the Old Dutch Hospital is barely stirring. Standing at the entrance, the World Trade Centre towers at his back, Mark Forbes has his gaze firmly fixed on the past. It’s what he’s become increasingly well known for – this ability to peel back the skin of crowded, bustling [...]
20th Century AD back in the saddle again
Once a household name in Sri Lanka, known for their fine selection and presentation of good music, 20th Century AD led by Peter de Almeida, is now back in action as a five-piece band. The five-member 20th Century AD is still led by veteran Peter de Almeida. The latest addition to the lineup is Sonali Lindsay [...]
A chance to survive and thrive
It was a poignant moment as Sri Lanka’s first ever collared fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus) was released to the Sri Jayawardenapura Sanctuary last week. The fishing cat was fitted with a Lotek Wildcell SLG GPS-GSM collar that will track his movements and help scientists record and study the ecology and behaviour of these fishing cats [...]
Social justice: A sin that covers a store of evils?
What is Social Justice, that all her champions compliment her so highly? One idle evening, I asked myself this Important Question! In-between the past of a pleasantly spent day, the present of a pleasing hour, and the future of a prospect not too bleak. In the course of my daily doings, I had already encountered [...]
Musings on the Book Fair
One month ago, we started a community library in a small village in the North Western Province of Sri Lanka. The concept of the library was simple. I asked a shopkeeper for space in her shop to keep the books in and her daughter volunteered to act as librarian. The village carpenter made four shelves [...]
What a reservoir of talent!
Rarely does a school play in Colombo live up to the best professional standards known to local English language theatre. The Mohamed and Nadira Adamaly directed Sister Act 2 did exactly that on three sell-out nights last week (September 20 to 22) with over one hundred schoolgirls, many of them performing in public for the [...]
With newfound fans, he’s on a new adventure
On September 22, Sean Panikkar posted clue #1 on his Facebook page. It was a vector visualised as a graph and he followed it with a picture of a glass of orange juice (clue #2), a portrait of Dr. James Naismith who invented Basketball in 1891 (#3), a spade of coffee beans (#4), a painting [...]
Using Eiffel Tower to put a new spin on an old theme
The Eiffel Tower is in a playful mood in Kumar De Silva’s black and white photographs. It peeks over the head of a brooding statue and forms an unexpectedly sharp point to a frothy fountain; though we see only tantalizing glimpses of the sun streaming through giant struts or the pinnacle above the trees it [...]
Letters to the editor
Northern polls: Time to end communal politics The just concluded Provincial Council polls to the North will certainly end decades of mistrust among the two communities, provided the nationalist forces on both sides understand that the time has come to end communal politics. The Government made a wrong assessment in believing that economic development and [...]
Appreciations
My prayer for my alma mater is let there be another JBC era J. B. C. Rodrigo The 35th death anniversary of J. B. C. Rodrigo (M. A. Oxon) fell on September 3, this year. Born on June 6, 1899, JBC had his education at Royal College, Colombo, and Trinity College, Kandy. After he left [...]
A ‘crazy’ idea that’s taking our fashion places
Ajai Vir Singh is an Indian turned Sri Lankan. For proof you only have to look back to 2003, when he launched the Colombo Fashion Week. Ten years and many successfully launched designers later, you could say Ajai has played a big role in revitalising Sri Lanka’s once flagging fashion industry. Sri Lanka is his [...]
‘Animal Verses’: A wildlife blockbuster
Photographic books celebrating Sri Lanka’s wildlife wealth have been steadily accumulating since Nihal Fernando’s pioneering tome The Wild, The Free, the Beautiful (Studio Times, 1986). While almost every succeeding year has seen the publication of new contributions in this genre, a steady trend in content too, has become discernible in the quarter century during which [...]
Succinct accounts of a vast historical canvas
Professor W.I. Siriweera, the eminent historian who has contributed handsomely to the understanding of Sri Lanka’s history, has brought out this book of short descriptions of places of historical and cultural significance and brief accounts of noteworthy facets of economic and social history. They are brief, simple and easy to read. There are no pretensions [...]
Thank you Sonali for your priceless gift to us
“………. The Vastness of the agony of earth…..” (The “Light of Asia” – Sir Edwin Arnold) Long before Sonali Deraniyagala’s “WAVE” reached me, I had been keen to read it for it promised to be one of great human interest. The newspaper reviews I had read along with some adverse comments that had come my way [...]
Help eradicate rabies in Sri Lanka by 2020 | World Rabies Day was on September 28
Rabies is a deadly disease people get mainly from dogs and cats in Sri Lanka. Fortunately rabies can easily be prevented with vaccination both in people and animals. Rabies is 100 % preventable if treatment is sought on time. Unfortunately annually around 55,000 people die of rabies in the world; mainly in Asian and African countries. [...]
All Island Senior Citizens Scrabble Tournament
The annual All-Island Senior Citizens Scrabble Tournament, organised by the Sri Lanka Association of Senior Citizens, will take place on Sunday, October 27 at the Colombo Hilton. This event which will be held for the 13th consecutive year is open to Sri Lankans over the age of 50, who will vie for the Deshabandu Clara [...]
SLAAS lecture: ‘Exploring Planetary Atmospheres’
The Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science (SLAAS) will present a public lecture on ‘Exploring Planetary Atmospheres: Follow the Trace Constituents’ by Dr. Tilak Hewagama, a Scientist at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, University of Maryland College Park and NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD on October 1 from 4 p.m. – [...]
A musical tribute to Daniel O’Donnell and Mary Duff
DK Promotions, who gave you the Original Jetliners farewell concert and more recently, Indra Raj and Move It in concert presents “A musical tribute to Daniel O’Donnell and Mary Duff” on Saturday, October 5 at 7 p.m. at the Bishops College auditorium. The concert which will feature many of the duo’s hits has been specially [...]
13th annual SLHRF convention
The 13th Annual Convention of the Sri Lanka Human Rights Foundation(SLHRF) was held at the Booker Banquet Hall in Colombo on September 2 under the chairmanship of SLHRF President Mr.B.M.Murshideen. Japanese Ambassador in Sri Lanka Nobuhito Hobo was the Chief Guest and the Executive Director,Centre for Policy Alternatives, Dr. P. Saravanamuththu was the Guest Speaker. [...]
60s and 70s extravaganza with former Jetliner
Former Jetliner and well known singer from the ‘60s and 70s, Conrad de Silva will be performing live at the Musaeus College Auditorium on Thursday, October 3. Conrad will be backed by a band synonymous with that era, Sohan & The X’periments, and will be performing many of the songs that made him one of [...]
A living legend
Sixty-five years ago, during World War II, a B-29 bomber known as the “Enola Gay” dropped the first atomic bomb over the city of Hiroshima, Japan, killing hundreds of thousands of people. Among the survivors was a small tree, a Bonsai, which ended up in the United States as part of a national gift from [...]
