Small Aircraft What a pilot? From Sevilla Sinhala Magazine 1963 This picture (drawing) shows how a pilot of a small aircraft asks for directions from a fishing boat.
The Da Vinci Code It didn’t take much time for me to finish reading Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. Though I had seen the movie sometime back, I didn’t remember the story that well. But from the moment I started reading the novel, I didn’t feel like keeping it aside even for a meal. It was that interesting. This ...
Planetarium, Colombo, Sri Lanka My son, 5-year-old Abhilash showed an eager interest in space related things for some time. When he asked about general things like and the sun and the moon I explained him how they work and he wanted to know more. One day when I told him that the sun is burning and giving us light and ...
The English Teacher I read R. K. Narayan’s “The English Teacher” for my AL English. From the first page onwards it was a journey through humor, sorrow and inner peace. The English Teacher (1945) is the third and final part in the series, preceded by Swami and Friends (1935) and The Bachelor of Arts (1937). The story is woven around ...
Seeing Ceylon Richard Leslie Brohier was born on the 5th of October in 1892. He became a surveyor. He traveled through the jungles of Sri Lanka and brought information about the hidden and abandoned ancient reservoirs in his book “Seeing Ceylon.” He is the one who found Hummanaya (Blow Hole) in Dikwella and included it in his books on travel. ...
The World of Nagaraj The World of Nagaraj (1990) is a classic piece of literature by R. K. Narayan. As usual, it is based in the fictional town of Malgudi. Nagaraj, a resident of Kabeer Street in Malgudi, is a contented man who lives on his father’s fortune in his family’s large house with his wife, Sita and the mother. ...
A dance item by Saliyamala students I was invited by the Principal of Saliyamala School, Mahawilachchiya to attend the 50th Anniversary Celebration of the school last week. I accepted the invitation and attended the event on July 06, 2012. Saliyamala School was the first school I taught English at. I went there in January 1997. I gained a lot of ...
Animal Farm George Orwell’s Animal Farm is a short, yet very meaningful novel on the communist rule of Joseph Stalin of Soviet Russia. The novel is set in pre-World War II era. Orwell compares the Soviet Union to an animal farm. The book talks about the corruption, greed, ignorance, power struggle and wickedness of communist rule. Napoleon, a pig ...
While I had the Dialog satellite TV connection I enjoyed NDTV channel a lot as it covered both Indian and regional issues. The newsreaders were professionals and NDTV was the “CNN of India” with its wider coverage of issues and valuable documentaries. It was better than CNN’s joint venture with IBN Live. But with the satellite TV being disconnected with ...
Ranil Wickremesinghe Photo Credits http://www.chatter.lk: Nanda Wanninayaka Ranil Wickremesinghe was never my hero. He wasn’t anybody’s hero for that matter I guess, especially those of his own party, the United National Party (UNP.) Politics was never his field of expertise or his field of interest. I have read somewhere when his uncle, the late president Mr. J. R. Jayewardene (JRJ) ...
VIP Radio With my new Samsung Duos phone, I can listen to FM radio. I think there are 30 odd FM channels now. But it is very difficult to find one that is not a nuisance to the ear. While checking various channels, one day I unintentionally tuned to a Sinhala FM station and found it to be cool. The ...
Punyakante Wijenaike is one of Sri Lanka’s best-known English writers. The Waiting Earth is one her novels which was prescribed for Advanced Level English Literature for some time. I too read it for AL. It was written in a very simple style. The story is set in a rural village and what is described in initial pages is all ...
Dayasiri Jayasekara What was rumored for a long time finally happened a short while ago. UNP parliamentarian, comparatively young and popular Dayasiri Jayasekara comes back home, the SLFP. It is said that he was originally an SLFPier and had a rift with Chandrika Kumarathunga due to not appointing him an organizer of a certain seat in Kurunegala. Dayasiri must have ...
It was the year 1997 or 1998. We used to play tennis ball cricket in the evenings at the playground in Bogas Handiya, Mahawilachchiya. During our elder brothers’ days boys had cleared an abandoned plot of land and formed a sports club called Deepthi Sports Club. Sports club had once organized to show movies on a makeshift cinema hall to ...
Mahawilachchiya is a rural village 45 kilometers away from Anuradhapura town. It is situated in the boundary of the Wilpattu National Park. You would be surprised to hear that the children of this distant village excel in computers and English with the little resources they have with their educational institute, the Horizon Lanka. Horizon Lanka Foundation www.horizonlanka.org has been serving ...
Leaders Book Cover World-renowned leadership guru Warren Bennis and his co-author Burt Nanus talk about four key principals every manager should know: Attention Through Vision, Meaning Through Communication, Trust Through Positioning and The Deployment of Self in the book Leaders: Strategies for Taking Charge. In corporate America downsizing and restructuring is done in most organizations but lack of communication and ...
Melissa Schmitt and I at Gnanikkulama, Anuradhapura at the beginning of the tour to Dambana Melissa Schmitt, a girl from France and I were on course on rusty old Bajaj Boxer motorcycle to Anuradhapura by the evening today. It was around 6.00 pm but it was pitch-dark due to rainy weather. All vehicles were moving with lights on. We were ...
It has been almost two weeks since I arrived in Colombo for work. I have a fair bit of experiences in the public transportation in Colombo and thought of sharing some of them with you. Some of the tips I give would help you. I travel between Upali Newspaper Limited halt in Homagama and Public Library halt in Colombo by ...
Swami and Friends I read “Swami and Friends” after watching the TV serial by the same name. Rupavahini dubbed it in Sinhala under the supervision of veteran media personality Titus Thotawatte. We enjoyed it as schoolboys and the adults too enjoyed it equally. Swami and Friends is the first of a trilogy of novels written by R. K. Narayan, a ...
