It’s been an amazing digital romp keeping this blog going the last six years or so. Through the thick and thin days, I’ve appreciated your feedback comments. Taking stock today I now have 225 posts, 734 comments and over 135,000 hits, So this is to say a Big Thank you to all who have supported and encouraged me to write. ...

Today is Binara Pura Pasalosvaka Poya day the 2557th year, since the passing away of Sakyamuni Siddhartha Gauthama Buddha. It was on a full moon day like today that Lord Buddha consented to admit women in to the Buddhist Order on the fourth appeal made by his stepmother Maha Prajapati Gotami. A damaged and fading frescoe of Lord Buddha and ...

In my hand is a pale blue aerogramme with a coloured photo of a beach scene at the back. The year 1977, the address  on it is 2, Solok Glugor Penang, Malaysia, the sender B. Kirtisinghe , 306, Hikkaduwa, with a scrawled arrow from the word Hikkaduw on the sender’s address pointing to the beach photo. Inside my mother had ...

Reblogged from Art Blart: Exhibition dates: 14th June - 15th September 2013 OMG, OMG, OMG a bumper posting of car porn! Some of these are just ravishing (my favourite is the Hispano-Suiza H6B Dubonnet “Xenia” Coupe, 1938) and the elegant, eloquent photography (including some wonderfully framed detail shots), highlights the sensuousness of these objects of desire. Also, notice the almost negligible rear ...

I had been dragging my feet for months, and the voice inside me was rising to a crescendo about the jobs around the house that needed to be done.  On “Me Time” life is serendipitous and often its pretty easy to ignore this inner scratchy voice. But the grass on the lawn was getting longer and visuals of more slithering ...

Misty watercolor memories Of the way we were Scattered pictures Of the smiles we left behind Smiles we gave to one another For the way we were Memories May be beautiful and yet What’s too painful to remember We simply choose to forget So it is the laughter We will remember Whenever we remember The way we were So it ...

At 24 years Drik has grown up handsomely and I can well imagine the excitement, preparation going on at Drik now. So, here’s wishing the very best of times in the years ahead and some photo memories of the happy and unforgettable couple of years I spent among great friends at Drik. It’s a quicky A- Z romp through Drik ...

Reblogged from scottishmomus: This sadness knows no end it seems. Drenched in it, Soaked into seams. Drowning world From unreal dreams. Ears so closed To others’ screams For justice, Equality, An open ear.   We cry alone Who cry for fear Of closed-in world, No listening ear.   But we will shout, We will be heard, We are not ...

Eleven years ago, on the 31 August, death came silently taking away my father. More than a decade later, I still feel the events of that day with a stark loneliness that is hard to describe. Photograph©Chulie de Silva That morning at Siriniwasa, Hikkaduwa there were no need for words. I sat holding his thin hands, stroking his head. I ...

I was certainly Click happy in Kathmandu Nepal. Cool, cool mornings, beautiful light and such colour — dazzling at times, soft and gentle at other times The peacock in Gokarna. Photograph© Chulie de Silva Not sure what the ritual was here — was it to redeem a vow? Photograph© Chulie de Silva Nepal Muscian. Photograph© Chulie de Silva Flower sellers. ...

Reblogged from Art Blart: Exhibition dates: 28th May - 1st September 2013 Fascinating practice! Identity, memory, gender, representation, the body, the subject, felt, text, images, video, gesture, reenactment, concept and performance, all woven together seamlessly like a good wig made of human hair... Marcus Many thankx to Jeu de Paume for allowing me to publish the photographs in the ...

Chasing light in the morning. …Photograph© Chulie de Silva This is my delight, thus to wait and watch at the wayside where shadow chases light and the rain comes in the wake of the summer. Messengers, with tidings from unknown skies, greet me and speed along the road. My heart is glad within, and the breath of the passing breeze ...

Then there was the soft rain in the morning – falling gently, the morning drink for the parched grass after the blistering sun of yesterday. The planter’s chair  left on the back verandah is wet. Why should I be surprised?– It’s after all the monsoon and I love rain washed mornings. Beyond the fallen browned coconut leaves, beyond the sun ...

“If only we could set sail in ships whose cargo is memory….and thereby go out on recollection seas where all reality drifts and fades before great gentle beasts scaled by infinite possibility,” says my blog reader, one time visitor to Lanka and friend Dale Hammond. Words so apt – for the sailing I’ll go. … Manel Kirtisinghe with cousin Seetha ...

Children play with a ball at sunset at Hikkaduwa. Photograph© Chulie de Silva Mother, the folk who live up in the clouds call out to me- “We play from the time we wake till the day ends. We play with the golden dawn, we play with the silver moon.” I ask, “But how am I to get up to you ...

A couple of my friends have asked me what’s an Oxford Bath after I mentioned it in my blog Benny’s Point. Very simply it is what these boys are doing in Dhaka — bathing in the nude. Boys in Dhaka having Oxford baths in a city lake. Photograph© Chulie de Silva I had heard this term when I was a ...

Mudaliyar Andris Perera Abhaya Karunaratne Dissanayake of Dissanayake Walauwa, Nalluruwa, Panadura, Sri Lanka. Circa 1880s.Copyright Chulie de Silva. I would make faces at him when no one was looking, quite sure he couldn’t come down to punish me, although I felt his piercing eyes follow my every escapade. He was Mudaliyar Andris Perera Abhaya Karunaratne Dissanayake, my scowling grumpy looking ...

Benny’s Surf Point, Hikkaduwa. Photograph© Chulie de Silva Lounging on a “hansi putuwa” (planter’s chair) on the back verandah, watching a pair of blue kingfishers streak in and out among the coconut trees, sipping my morning tea, I am amazed at how relaxed I am. Gone with the wind are cravings to check mail or FB. There are  no deadlines ...

The sea is a dull green. The beach strewn with jetsam and flotsam — broken coral pieces, empty bottles, rubbish, green and white dried seaweeds. A little girl skips along the shore, followed by a man carrying a pensive sad looking toddler that he is trying to feed from a plastic milk bottle. I stop to talk to him and ...

by Indran Amirthanayagam The poem reblogged from Groundviews Neem (Margosa) tree at the University of Jaffna Campus. Photo © Chulie de Silva Come soon. The sepalika are growing wild and high. You must see them before you die, before I die. Come soon. The book is finished. The war is done. Yes, I know, I know, boys appear still in ...