What is the defining feature of the Sinhalese? This is not an easy question to answer. One could even frame it in other ways, replacing ‘Sinhalese’ with ‘Helas’ or even the ‘Yakshas’. There could be many answers to the question but this would be one of them: ‘inclusion’. The history of this island can be written in terms of invasions. ...
He pushed himself to the limit and thereby served his team and country to the best he could.Kumar Sangakkara is playing his last Test. He has picked the ongoing Second Test against India as his farewell game. He’s within striking distance of a few batting records but as the man himself has pointed out if it has come down to ...
In June 1981 I threw a game. That’s in chess. This was long before match-fixing and spot-fixing entered sports vocabulary. In chess circles it was called ‘cooking’, i.e. predetermining the outcome of a game. It happened between players, one helping the other to qualify to play at a higher level, secure a ‘board prize’ (in the event of a team ...
There can’t be any Sri Lankan in Dhaka without a smile. There can’t be any Sri Lankan anywhere in the world following the World T-20 final who is not smiling at this moment, just a few minutes after Sri Lanka defeated India to win ICC silverware after 18 long years. The entire team had broad grins. The officials too. And ...
The last light streamed through the window. Soft light deflected off walls, filtered through leaves – the kind of light that has a way of silencing day-end’s inevitable cacophony. It entered a small room in the way truth enters our hearts – without announcement or fanfare, naked as innocence and in utmost silence. We don’t ask questions, we don’t demand ...
This refers to Dayan Jayatilleka’s response (Anti-BBS Vigil: A critique of the critique) to something I wrote on the subject of a candle light vigil organized by a group that named the event ‘Buddhists Question Bodu Bala Sena’. I called my comment ‘The “Vigil” I saw’. Colombo Telegraph re-posted with what I consider to be a mischievous re-titling, “The BBS ...
Sportsman. Fighter. Thinker. Peace-Maker. Commander.[Pics from Army archives, the Commander's albums and by Sandra Mack] Mahinda Kumara Dalupotha while relating a story about cattle, milk and how multinationals destroyed our dairy industry, mentioned something about Kurunegala. I asked him if he went to Maliyadeva College. When he answered in the affirmative, I told him that I had interview an old ...
Ranil Wickremesinghe cannot be blamed for being a ‘party man’. He can’t be blamed for being a politician. He can’t be blamed for being like other politicians. Indeed there’s nothing easier than being a politician if legitimacy and stature is obtained by nothing more than pointing to tribesmen and tribeswomen. So Ranil Wickremesinghe cannot be blamed for acting in the ...
The news/views website, Colombo Telegraph is blocked for users from Sri Lanka. This is not the first occasion this has happened. Colombo Telegraph is not the first website that has been blocked either. Tamilnet, which was the voice of the LTTE was blocked years ago. Other sites which like people to think that gossip, wish and other mischievous missives ...
The priceless Madeleine Albright sobers upI helped write a report. On Sri Lanka. I lied. I regurgitated unsubstantiated claims which were based on numbers tossed around by terrorists and their apologists. I then did the moral strut that those who take up office in the US State Department are tutored in prior to induction. I blamed the international community, ‘for ...
Ranil Wickremesinghe is a politician. Yes, not a statesman. A politician, let us reiterate. The next election and not the next generation is what fascinates him. Like other politicians from other parties of course, leaders included. Yes, like Mahinda Rajapaksa and Maithripala Sirisena. Ranil Wickremesinghe is a lawyer. He is not just a politician but a seasoned one. So when ...
Veteran trade union leader and General Secretary of Ceylon Mercantile, Industrial and General Workers Union Bala Tampoe passed away in Colombo at the age of 92 today. I interviewed 'Comrade Bala' for the Sunday Island 13 years ago. That interview (published on April 8, 2001) is reproduced here by way of tribute to a colorful and evergreen red, so to ...
Five years ago, a few days after Mahinda Rajapaksa was re-elected President, the following article was published in the 'Daily News' (February 5, 2010). It refers to another article on the same lines published in the 'Daily Mirror' in December 2005, a few weeks after he was first elected President, 'In search of the kurahan saatakaya'. Today, a few weeks ...
Siblings fight, especially when they are young with an age difference of a little over two years. We won’t go into the psychology of all that. My two daughters, if pushed and under certain circumstances, will admit they love each other. Most times however they are not pushed and the right circumstances are rare or rather go unnoticed. Two years ...
A giant did not fall on the 18th of July, 2005. A giant went his way, left stage as gracefully as he always had, left a signature as formidable in its absence as in its presence. That was Chitrasena; Deshamanya Chitrasena, the honorific probably not one which he would care much for today if he were a live considering the ...
On Sunday, the Secretary of the Judicial Services Commission, Manjula Tillakaratne, was attacked by thugs. The same day, prominent activist of the Frontline Socialist Party (a breakaway faction of the JVP), Dimuthu Attygalle, had furnace oil thrown at her in Jaffna, where she and others of the Free Women’s Organization were to attend events organized for World Children’s Day in ...
Once there was a man in a country called Kekirilanthaya. He was very rich. He owned or controlled more than a hundred companies. This man, Hasith Kokawala, had a good reputation. ‘Good’ when it comes to making money and being ruthless. He had friends in high places. ‘High places’ obviously meaning politicians with clout. He didn’t like people standing between ...
Color blind or color-less? The Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) is suffering from an identity crisis. The signs are all over the place. The SLFP has more Members of Parliament than any other party and yet finds itself in the Opposition. The man who secured the support of a majority of voters is the leader of the SLFP and yet ...
This is not THE resolution. Let’s keep that in mind. It is not even a ‘draft’. It is a leaked draft, at best. But in these days of leaks and gushes when the key political issue that bothers the world is, in a word, Ukraine, but ‘Geneva’ thinks Sri Lanka is bigger than Ukraine, Russia, the USA and the EU ...
