I took a slow road in another lifetime, in another century and a different continent. When I started, there were things I knew or thought I did. I carried with me notions of roads. I kept notes. I knew that roads, however long or short, can be made as slow as I wished. I had no reason to regret having ...
A few months ago I wrote about Colleen Kinder’s Letters to a Stranger: essays to the ones who haunt us. This is how I described the book: ‘Letter to a stranger is a book of fissures where contributors peered into these strangers and through them enter regions of their own selves long neglected.’ I added, borrowing from the foreword written ...
Clockwise from top left: Udayasiri Wickramaratne, Vajira Mahakanumulla, Chaaminda Rathnasuriya, Irvin Weerackody, Harith Gunawardena, Kapila Kumara Kalinga and Athula KaldemullaAlmost twenty years ago, some of the copywriters working at Phoenix O&M thought it would be good to share their poetry with each other and anyone else interested. There was an empty space on a wall close to the entrance of ...
Kapila Bandaranayake wowed teachers and fellow students while at Royal CollegeMost students have favourite teachers. Some teachers are liked by many, but it is hard to think of anyone who was loved by as many as Mrs Shanthi Herat was during the time she taught Pure Mathematics at Royal College. Almost everyone in the maths stream has a story about ...
IDF affirms 'rules of engagement' by killing over 18,000 unarmed Palestinian civiliansMore than 20 years ago, Mutaamba Maasha, then an undergraduate at Cornell University, contributed a column titled ’10 things that made me say wtf’ for the monthly publication ‘The Cobbler.’ If memory serves me right, it was the phrase and not its acronymic form that was used. It was ...
Anthony Courseault (Snr)Grapes make me think of Eduardo Galeano’s Book of Embraces which is full of thought provoking reflections on everyday things. This:'On his deathbed, a man of the vineyards spoke into Marcela’s ear. Before dying, he revealed his secret: “The grape,” he whispered, “is made of wine.” Marcela Perez-Silva told me this, and I thought: If the grape is ...
More than twenty years ago, around 15 students, all senior scouts, spent almost a week at the Naval Dockyard. The logbook entry, written by President’s Scout Kanishka Goonewardena, the designated scribe, replete with photographs (most of them unfortunately faded) and two very interesting letters makes very interesting reading. The scouts were divided into two patrols, Belgrano and Sheffield, the names ...
In The Book of Embraces Eduardo Galeano wrote, ‘I can't sleep. There is a woman stuck between my eyelids. I would tell her to get out if I could. But there is a woman stuck in my throat.’Reading it, I smiled. And cried. I’ve known of people afflicted with that immemorial condition. It robs sleep. It silences. I don’t know ...
Herculaneum, buried under volcanic ash and pumice in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 1973, was discovered in 1709. Pompeii, the better known Vesuvius city was discovered 39 years later and identified only in 1763. In 1750, well diggers discovered an impressive Roman villa in Herculaneum. Subsequent tunnelling operations revealed the villa’s layout and treasures, among them a library and ...
A single kite way above the tree-line seemingly adrift against rain-threatening clouds is a sight to behold. If there is lightning and thunder promising a torrential downpour it is even more spectacular. You could watch from a distance, perhaps from a window or some other place where you know perfectly well that you are safe, that lighting will not ...
Words have meanings. Names have meanings too. Words and names have values. Words have definitions. Not always is there agreement on what they mean. String words together and you get sentences. Sentences are read. They can be read in multiple ways. Some definitions and interpretations are privileged. They are valued more. Indeed they are taken to be the most ...
Where is Refaat Al Areer, do you know? It’s quite alright to say ‘no,’ for no one is holding a gun at your head demanding that you answer ‘yes,’ only to insist, again at gunpoint, that you show the way to where he is. You may not know and neither do I. You may know, however, where he was and ...
Aimé Césaire I first came across the Francophone Martinician poet, author and politician Aimé Césaire (1913 to 2008) while reading Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth. Since then I’ve always looked for his books whenever visiting bookstores, especially in the USA. ‘Return to my native land’ is new to me, although it was written 84 years ago, in 1939.What is ...
Kusal Janith Perera was right-handed. Is right-handed could also be correct. I have not read anything that indicates he is ambidextrous. And yet, he bats left-handed. Most cricket fans would know why. Kusal was determined to emulate his cricketing hero, Sanath Jayasuriya, one of the most explosive left-hand batters of his time. So he decided he would bat left-handed. He ...
I am fascinated by seats of any kind including parapet walls and steps on which you can sit and watch the world age and regenerate. It’s the same with roads, especially byroads, un-tarred and uneven including tank-bunds. They make me think of absences, people who have been there, have walked, conversed, reminisced, planned, were distraught or elated. They make me ...
What are the essential ‘carry-ons’ when it comes to traveling? Many answers to that question. ‘Nothing,’ is one. ‘The bare minimum’ is another. It could be responded to with demand for a qualifier: depends on where you are going, for what and how long. A legitimate response. Let’s narrow it down. It’s a holiday, let’s say. Even then we need ...
[pic by Ruwan Balasooriya]My sweetest childhood memories are of Kurunegala. ‘Kurunegala’ was not the capital of Wayamba for me. It was not a bustling township, not for me. Kurunegala, to me, was the home of my maternal grandparents. It was where we spent all our school holidays. It is a place of magical memories. Among them, one which is indelibly ...
The 30th of November, 2014 was a Sunday I wish never came. The 29th of November, Saturday, was a long day but not atypical as those who work for Sunday newspaper know. Sunday was therefore a day to sleep late into the morning. Slow recharge of batteries. It was not to be.Around 5.45 am I received a call. There was ...
Somewhere, on a day like today or maybe even a morning, afternoon or night that is decked in very different colours, someone must have coined a name for that threshold, neither-here-nor-there moment, that unmanned checkpoint that separates light and darkness.Perhaps this very person or, who knows, someone else wondered if that was entirely true. Someone may have thought, ‘it’s not ...
About fifteen years ago, when I was a visiting lecturer at the Mass Communication Department, Kelaniya University, I gave the students a simple exercise. They were required to write down all the advertisements from the main gate to the classroom. Not many did it and even those who made an effort missed much more than they noticed. Several years before ...
