Art, architecture: ‘Useless if you don’t know how to laugh’
Open the faded periwinkle blue and lemon yellow doors to No 60/8, Shanthi Lane, Battaramulla, and you enter a realm where art is omnipresent. Art claims every minute space on the walls including the bathrooms and storerooms and the whole place is just crawling with objets d’art – from Laki Senanayake’s owls to Italian antiques, [...]
All the world was a stage for him
Public writings soon after a death, are by people urged from within themselves to say, to all who want to know, why someone will live on fondly and respected, in the consciousness and feelings of those concerned. An enigmatic thought, sometimes, is the hope that the departed will also know, for both science and religion [...]
Letters to the Editor
Plight of senior citizens in Kotte waiting under the blazing sun for the vaccine It is past 12 noon on a blazing hot Saturday in the country’s administrative capital Sri Jayawardenepura, Kotte. Hundreds of people are awaiting the COVID-19 vaccine in a queue running for miles round the MOH premises. Most of them are over [...]
Appreciations
To a long journey of friendship from schoolboy days Dr. Nimalsiri Mendis Nimalsiri had been ill for over a decade. His illness was one that had stealthily crept up on him during the years that he was compassionately and conscientiously working as a doctor, a much loved family physician in Panadura. Slowly and inexorably it [...]
No place for sexism!
UNFPA Representative in Sri Lanka, Ritsu Nacken, urges attitudinal change to create an environment for women to take on leadership roles Human Rights Watch recently awarded Japan ‘a Gold Medal for Sexism’ after the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee President Yoshiro Mori complained that “women talk too much” in response to a query on increasing gender [...]
Vital to give platform to unsung community workers
“On the ground, women are some of the most active in engaging with their communities in creating conversation and safe spaces,” writer, researcher and activist Amalini De Sayrah says, pointing out how vital it is to make the extra effort to bring those women representatives of various communities around the country, that have seen the [...]
Kala Pola goes online
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Colombo’s most anticipated open air art fair, Kala Pola, is going ahead, not in its familiar space of the shady sidewalks of Greenpath (Ananda Coomaraswamy Mawatha) but online. The annual art fair that provides a much needed canvas for both new and established artists went online for the first time in [...]
COVID-19 shows up glaring need for disruptive innovation in our education sector
Over 4.2 million children in Sri Lanka have had their education disrupted for nearly two years first due to the Easter tragedy and now the COVID-19 pandemic. Schools have limped back to a semblance of normalcy but in some provinces, there is still a total lockdown. The pandemic has exposed multiple challenges within the education [...]
Should I be questioned? A surgeon’s dilemma
I can remember facing my first viva when I was a medical student in 1998 – I was sweating, trembling and did not realize the time passing. I was trembling due to the fear of questions and fear of the examiner. It’s ironical that the questions that were asked at my first viva “What is [...]
Siva worship in Sri Lanka
According to one Hindu epic, on Sivarathiri day, the main Hindu God Lord Siva, performed his sacred dance of creation, preservation and destruction. On this sacred day, Hindus all over the world take part in numerous religious activities throughout the night at Sivan temples. Siva worship in Sri Lanka is deep rooted and interwoven in [...]