The world is their school
It’s a school day. Two boys, however, are not at desks restricted to a classroom, but roaming the mist-shrouded, rainforest-wreathed difficult terrain of the Knuckles Mountain Range with their father. Seated in their home in Hendala, Wattala, on Wednesday, I am interviewing the mother, keeping a wary eye on a chameleon, in its green glory, [...]
COVID-19: Just a blip – or a major turning point?
Looking back on the fact that we in this country have now spent over half the year 2020 living with the COVID-19 virus, I have been contemplating just how this tiny micro-organism is changing the way we human beings have been living and getting about our activities of daily living. What will society look like [...]
Man of many faces
“There are 7 Billion people on Earth and every face is different,” says portrait artist Brindley Jayatunga and in the little pocket book that he maintains, he has since the 1970s faithfully sketched over 18,000 of these faces in pencil, paint and pastels. The current Vice President of the Ceylon Society of Arts and recipient [...]
Letters to the Editor
The dangers of allowing dual citizens to become members of parliament The proposed 20th Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka includes a clause that “Dual Citizens” will be permitted to be sworn in as Members of our Parliament. In my opinion this is a very short sighted and ill-conceived proposal. The doors will be [...]
Appreciations
He was a visionary multitasker Prof. Ananda Samarasekera The only child born to Ariyasena Samarasekera, a senior clerical servant and Priya Punchihetti, a schoolteacher and head mistress of Pimbura, Agalawatta in 1953, he was named Ananda by his father after his school – Ananda College. Little Ananda obtained his primary education in Kalutara and secondary [...]
Strokes that speak volumes
It was a maverick start for maverick art: Sujith Rathnayake grew up toddling amidst giant film cutouts, Vesak ‘pandals’ and wedding poruwas. Against the arid landscape of Hambantota, his father produced the kitsch commercial art so dear to the 1970s. Sujith later went on to study art at the University of Kelaniya, and became a [...]
The one that got away – Jonathan and Ryan Wijayaratne
Born and raised between Sri Lanka, Australia, and the UK, the Wijayaratne brothers grew up surrounded by photography, thanks to their father’s ownership of Jonathans Studio (est. 1924) on Havelock Rd. Ryan started shooting at the age of 13, began a Fine Arts course in Sydney, and then swapped it for an acting scholarship in [...]
Siblings to dish out grandma’s Jaffna specials
This year, Ramada Colombo’s annual Jaffna Food Festival has extra spice- with heirloom recipes from inner courtyard kitchens and the whiff of homemade thuna-paha. For its 18th edition, ‘Yaal Virindu’ hosts an authentic pair born and bred in the sunny peninsula- Danu Innasithamby and sister Thushara. The peppy media man and his demure sister from [...]
‘Friendly fire’ from mother-daughter duo
Among the growing wave of local online businesses, Nishanthi Kalapuge and her daughter Dulanga burn bright in the Sri Lankan candle market with their eco-friendly brand iti. Nishanthi, a working mother and Dulanga, a lawyer in the making launched their wood wick scented candle collection on Instagram and Facebook in March this year It all [...]