It’s been nearly 10 months since I stopped watching TV. May be turned it on once for a DVD. Perhaps twice to check some now forgotten “breaking news”. Otherwise the the demon box is unplugged. I hope it stays that way. Or at least I manage a year of this bliss. The sensation is the […]
Mission critical processes of large Sri Lankan organisations are often dependent on invisible people. Invisible to the planners, HR managers, executives and common sense. Yet they are essential for getting things done in the complicated chaos of daily Sri Lankan life. The seemingly unrelated support services of Undetected Mission Critical Personnel (UMCP) are often the […]
Mission critical processes of large Sri Lankan organisations are often dependent on invisible people. Invisible to the planners, HR managers, executives and common sense. Yet they are essential for getting things done in the complicated chaos of daily Sri Lankan life. The seemingly unrelated support services of Undetected Mission Critical Personnel (UMCP) are often the […]
Sri Lankan New Year traditions are about renewal and continuity. But I feel an undertow of something cracking that illusion. It hard to notice or realise initially. There are children of cousins gleefully tearing through the house. A happy shrieking gaggle of British, American, Australian and Sri Lankan accents. Elders too senile or physically delicate […]
The Sri Lankan New Year is a time of renewal. A good time to look your extended network and ensure its links are strong. In a feudal society like ours, formal laws and norms are merely barriers of entry. To survive, let alone thrive, we need the right network of relationships. Even lesser beings like […]
Cheers around the table lifts him to his feet. Years later I will remember the moments that followed. First for what happened. Later for what it symbolised about Sri Lankan history. About what that history did to a certain generation. To all of us. Time will blur some details. Yet the symbolism will gel into […]
I started this blog seven years ago today. It has only had one profound change on my life. A change I see as an unexpected gift. Perhaps it is a reward of developing a regular writing habit without really trying. The “gift” is the ability to enjoy reading my own writing. Which has turned reading […]
Few foresaw the overthrow of Sri Lanka’s seemingly omnipotent Rajapaksa government. Its popularity had won it a resounding victory in the last election without depending on traditional Sri Lankan election fraud. Such factors compounded the shock and disbelief over the events of “Red Thursday”. Never before has regime change in Sri Lanka been so unexpected, […]
This is one of those vanity posts using stats decked out in a wordpress.com generated layout. Not too bad I suppose for a blog that’s been doing a post a month for most of the year. Here’s an excerpt: The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about […]
The image at the end of this post is from a different reality. A time when I actually had chunks of time to sit back, reflect and sketch out blog posts. A sharp contrast to the now. Where sentences are born in random moments and mentally strung together in the show over months. Typically when […]
He was in your batch no? Poosa’s batch. On the under 18 team. Remember that away game in Kurunegala? The bugger didn’t put money for a hooker. Bugger saved you buggers from getting AIDS! (laughter) Tight bugger no? Bugger is a pansy machan. The head cop used the bugger after practices. That’s how the bugger […]
This post is the result of suddenly deciding to take the photo below. Its cover of of the only book by Philip K Dick I own which sums up the genre of alternative history fiction. Its a genre whose subject matter fascinates me and whose writing frequently disappoints. The disappointment stems from work that leave […]
“The guy would take out bunkers with one shot” we were told. From the rest of the recollections you could practically see him taking aim, rock steady in the hell of jungle firefights. When we meet him, the calmness is still there. A fit man, on the way towards his late twenties. He is confidently […]
The road is named after a corporal. It carves its rutted way through a landscape bursting with lush greens. Lakes of paddy fields on either side of the road. Punctuated by dark green islands thick with coconut and trees planted by great grand parents. At the foot of the horizon, another band of green, then […]
Kalusudda, an active, positive presence in the Sri Lankan blogosphere (2008-2009) has died in what appears to be a terrible mishap at sea. His wife has posted the sad news on his blog. He died saving the life of his brother. Unaware that he was a father to be. I read his wife’s post with […]
I find it impossible to “explain” anything Sri Lanka related to non Sri Lankans. Until recently, I never thought it was possible. My own failures and those of others I have seen were catastrophes of miscommunication. Thankfully I have found an exception. Before revealing it to you, its essential to appreciate the difficulties of “explaining” […]
I’m not a nostalgic type. There are no “good old days”. Just figments of our deluded sense of linear time mixed with fuzzy granules of pleasant memories. Some of these are the posts put out by bloggers who are now inactive or sporadic. Most of them were highly active during the “pioneering” days of Sri […]
I owe the survival of my reading life to audio books, magazine audio editions and text to speech technology. Without them, my reading would be limited to tweets, skimming over web sites or pawing through abandoned waiting room magazines. I use the term “audio books” to refer to all three categories. Being read to by […]
Social media fasting, is basically some form of abstinence from social media. For me it means avoiding interacting on twitter – which I’ve done for the past few days. The tweeple I follow are too informed and interesting to drop it completely. Another hurdle is the dangerously addictive 55 word Sri Lankan Stories project. The […]
The Sri Lanka stories blog is turning out to be a dangerously compulsive online project. The premise is simple. Write a 55-word story based on a word announced via a twitter account. I find this to be brutally hard. It also forces you to notice themes and ideas lurking in the dimly lit parts of [...]