Dancesport time again

This championship is organised annually by the Ceylon Amateur Dancesport Association (CADA), the controlling body appointed by the Ministry of Sports for Amateur Dancesport in Sri Lanka. 

This year, international judges Damon Sugden and Rebecca Walker, the Asian Pacific and Australian champions and Daele Fraser of Australia will adjudicate at the National Championships. 

Damon Sugden and Rebecca Walker will also give the audience an exciting 10 dance exhibition in Modern Ballroom and Latin American dancing. 

This year's Championship is sponsored by Sri Lankan Airlines, Carlsberg, (Lion Brewery Ceylon Ltd.), Standard Chartered - Bank and Hilton Colombo, the Host Hotel. 

Tickets will be available at the Hilton Colombo and are priced from Rs. 750/- to Rs. 1,500/-which includes refreshments and cocktails. 

This year, over 50 contestants are expected to vie for titles. The compere will be Arun Dias Bandaranayake.

A Taste of Sinhala

Upon my mother 

By Prof.J.B.Disanayaka 

A Sinhalese will express his surprise or will swear by saying 'mage amma palla' or ' ammapalla' (Upon my mother)' or simply "ammapa".

Why do the Sinhalese choose 'amma' (mother) when they want to swear? Why don't they think of another member of the family, like 'ta:tta' (father ) or 'si:ya' (grand father?)

It is because, in the view of the Sinhalese, the mother is the most important member of one's family and in swearing it is the custom to refer to the most important person or thing, to give credit to what one says. 

The word 'ammapa' is used at the beginning of a phrase or sentence to make the listener believe that what he is about to say is the truth and nothing but the truth. 

'ammapa, mama a:ye bonne nae:' 

(Upon my mother, I'll not drink again) 

The Sinhalese will also use the word ' ammapa?' with a rising intonation to say that he cannot simply believe what he just heard. 

'ammapa? mantri tuma: paga: ganne nae:?' (Don't tell me! the MP doesn't take bribes?) 

Inspired by imagination he creates a world of beauty

when I was given Neil's short stories, which won for him the Gratiaen Prize for 1999, I had misgivings.

Being a writer myself, I know that inspired writing springs from the writer himself-the writer's power to observe, feel and then transform an experience, a person, or a situation by the inward gift of creativity he carries within him.

No amount of analysis or criticism could change that. It had to be inborn. 

I was glad to find that Neil was a natural writer. He has that inborn gift of being able to penetrate beyond the surface, reach within people he had encountered in his life, to touch the core and re-create a picture or a beautiful story out of his imagination..

Almost all good writing springs from life itself and in Neil's writings are the roots of his environment.

Now about Neil Fernandopulle himself. What makes him the writer he is today?

I believe I met him first through the Young Writers' Association. At the moment, however, he is at that wonderful age of 30 when he is neither "too young to know" nor "too old to forget". He is, otherwise, at his creative best. He had his education at Wesley College, Colombo in the Sinhala medium. Then he entered the BioScience stream.

In the Faculty of Science in the University of Colombo he completed his BSc, with a special degree in Botany. In the process of achieving this degree, he got the chance to travel within Sri Lanka, deep into forest reserves, getting personally involved in the diversity of nature in this country. Some of his stories are based on this background. 

He next got involved in a National Science Foundation funded project, which introduced the DNA typing, or DNA finger printing technology to Sri Lanka. 

Neil is the type of man who gets to fingerprint suicide bombers! He also received a post graduate degree in this process.

He got his exposure to English Literature, however, by sitting for an external degree from the University of Peradeniya using English as his major in combination with Sociology and Western Classics as subsidiary subjects.

Neil says writing is his chosen outlet of expression. Writing gives him pleasure and total satisfaction. He also admits that sometimes he writes to have a break, or escape Science. 

In his writings Neil has achieved a natural way of revealing his thoughts, feelings and emotions. I like the frankness, the honesty with which he handles controversial subjects, also the delicacy with which he deals with them. He is a humane writer, sensitive, deep and understanding. This does not mean that his writing is completely without flaws. But the flaws are small, scattered here and there, and can easily be rectified by Neil himself. The writer is often his own best critic, especially if he re-reads his work after a lapse of time.

'Afterglow' which in my opinion could have also had the second name of 'After- math' is a story built round Nimal, a wounded soldier now returned to his village as he is unable to fight any more. A landmine exploded and his leg was amputated. The amputated leg is a greater symbol of heroism than the medals, which had been pinned on him. In his village, and often beyond it, his fame spread as the young soldier who gave his leg in defence of his country. 

But despite the afterglow of glory he is a lonely man, a sad man. A man whose girlfriend was compelled to marry another.You couldn't expect a girl to marry a cripple, a man who couldn't be a husband to her in every sense. And so he had made his second sacrifice in silence. There was nothing left for him to do in life, now that he was a war hero. What was the job he could hold? He had only his memories left.

Here he was alone in the darkness. The hills loom above like distant ghosts. And he, so small in the immensity of the land, so little, so useless. 

'An injured water bug struggling to the surface, raising ripples in the vastness of the water's placid face. He stood up. Using his crutches he stood straight the way they had taught him to. He wanted to scream, to explode like the landmine, so that they would hear him. The evening wind blew in gusts over his face as he looked at the vestige of daylight and the first stars. Where were they? His boyhood friends, his boyhood dreams? Today he was a hero. A lone hero. A hero who could not ask for more. Who could not complain of his inner pain. It was time to go home. The stars told him that. But he knew he would return to the bund again, tomorrow. Again and again because there was nothing left for him to do. No one there for him.' 

The next one is about a MIs-begotten.

"Ariyapala's old house had been known for many generations as the Guru- gedere. The plaster on the wall had cracked in places resembling the many wrinkles on the old man's face".

Ariyapala was a teacher who had ridden to and from school on a Raliegh bicycle and sat on a high-backed chair.

At the time of the story the village is preparing for an election. Old Iskole Mahattaya, who is Ariyapala, finds himself in a whirlpool of slogans, posters, banners and loudspeakers that blast his ear. More than anything he is also caught up in a whirlpool of pre-election violence in which the contestants - his old pupils are involved. He kept asking: "Are these the same boys he had so painstakingly taught the values of life along with Geography, Maths and History?"

'He had taught them in the classroom that in their blood runs the blood of great and humane kings, great poets and great teachers of the Dhamma. Somewhere after Independence and the present, something had gone wrong. Was there nothing he could do now to stem the flood of violence and bloodletting, which made up an election?

No, he could only rest his weary chin on his folded arms and close his eyes. Then the beetle's drone became dim and lost - its pointed edge. Ariyapala took his mind back to the past. Somewhere over the Millennia, something had gone wrong'. 

I would like to conclude by adding that Neil belongs to a group of writers where we meet once a month to talk on writing. I wish this group more power to their writing.

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