Siva is an artist, survivor, citizen and a human most extraordinary. His work is a testimony to how the human mind with artistic expression can transcend the violence of war, the other myriad constraints and negotiations that await the unsuspecting human and the navigation of pain and moving beyond. Do share this post, and drop in at the theertha ...
SANDYA SALGADO: Batticaloa District, in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka is an ethnically diverse city with a population of approximately 490,000. The three decade old civil war wreaked havoc in this beautiful coastal town where the majority of the people are Tamil (74.5%) with a smaller Muslim (23.5%) and a Sinhala (1.3%) community living amidst some amount of ...
Hello there! I am Gaya, and if you have never set yourself a countdown challenge, well, neither have I. Yet this year I find myself doing just that! As the world cranks back to its normal momentum, I shall complete my doctoral thesis on post-colonial conflict and governance. Yes, this is what I term a 3D year for me ...
Elton John and Kikidee are singing ‘don’t go breaking my heart’ on BBC Radio Two. I remember sun-filled Saturday mornings with Bevil Palihawadana (bless him) and kikidee’s dungarees and shiny bob – another world protected from the war, protected from political shit and reality, in an old homestead nestling by the coast. It’s my close friend’s bday today. Her desk ...
Rasika Jayakody This poem was first published in June 2012. A comment by a reader urged me to post it again. I read it this morning… Today you asked too many questions, on ailment of love and unguent, on lingering and moving away, on promises, broken and to be made. for which I did not have many answers. I forgot, ...
සුභ අලුත් අවුරුද්දක් වේවා! இனிய புத்தாண்டு வாழ்த்துக்கள்! The government has announced when to take a bath for the old year and some of our friends are taking a much-deserved break from the heat and stress in Mirissa with the dolphins and up in Jaffna at the Keerimalai Tank—called Keeramale Ponds on FB incidentally. Walking for a cancer hospital on a Trail south ...
I still hear Siva’s strong voice as he concluded our conversation a little while ago with the words ‘give my regards to your family.’ Bitterly ironic, given what Siva has left to call his own. STRANDED: Listen to a conversation on the forthcoming exhibition Première at 2.30 pm on 28th March at the Art Gallery, University of Fine Arts, Jaffna. Exhibition dates: 28th March-1st April ...
BY GAYA FERNANDO Stories find you and not the other way around sometimes—Siva Kaja’s story just burst on me without warning. It was not a by-the-book introduction. He sent me a photo of his exhibition STRANDED on FB and I asked him to send me a write-up that I could share with my friends in Sri Lanka. ‘Call me and ...
Image of the Week BY ARUMUGANESAN PONNUDURAI AP as I call him or Nesan to his friends is from Thirunelvely East, Jaffna in Sri Lanka and lives in London. I love his photos and on this holiday in Sri Lanka he clicked some amazing photos of the flora, fauna and else. Proud to feature the Snakes of the Snake Charmer at Galle Fort as Image of the Week.
Gaya’s intro: When I read this op-ed, A Sri Lankan lesson in Free Speech by Kenan Malik today in the New York Times, I remember the struggle, for human liberty and freedom of speech. it was not battled not on the lines of digital and global hashtag campaigns of today thriving on global ‘likes’, but the one in which Richard de ...
Living as a migrant for the first time in Zürich, Tanuja Thurairajah found herself thinking about the narratives that people were exposed to in their daily life. “When I came here I met other Tamils, but somehow I felt that they reached out to a different narrative and I reached out to a different narrative…” “It’s difficult to really ...
KASUNI THEWARAPPERUMA A little remembrance on this day for Nandakka. For some, she might have been a servant, but to us she was family. That’s why we called her Nanda-akka (Nanda-big sister). She carried my dad when he was a baby and she looked after us. Cooked like a demon and was a friend to our late aunty who never ...
GAYA FERNANDO Some people get into development work without a clue as to what it’s all about. They joined up to a corps of people who wanna make the world a better place. That’s fine. Then there are professionals who slog away at commercial jobs and half-way take a break, unwind in the mountains or beaches of Sri Lanka and ...
The deadline for applications is February 29, 2016. This year as well, I repeat the special call-out for a Masters in Development Practice due to its uniqueness: An opportunity for those who do not hold a Bachelor’s degree to offer their valuable experience in development work as a requirement to qualify in a program designed to deliver, creating an environment in ...
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high Where knowledge is free Where the world has not been broken up into fragments By narrow domestic walls Where words come out from the depth of truth Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way Into ...
Maskeliya, Sri Lanka. Image Credits: Deepthi Peiris, So we got our land back from the British and before that the Dutch and Portuguese. It’s one hell of a land with mind-blowing pics of each strand of sea n foam, pasture and plain, paddyfield and rubber estate, desertlike palm to the south and Palmyrah to the North, sunrise on white ...
The BBC reported this today on a school reopening in Beghazi and I was reminded of what the Jaffna teacher said … “I hope my country can find a way forward. By opening the school, we’re trying to establish some kind of normality here. Despite this war, despite all the destruction, we are still keeping on. We need to live. ...
A comment on De-Mining Sri Lanka: A Job for Widows and Survivors Read Smriti Daniel’s article on Al-Jazeera published on 12 January 2016. Enter a world you didn’t know existed, but one which Vimaleswaran Gunamala, Ananda Chandrasiri, Damian O Brien of the HALO trust —and even His Excellency the British High Commissioner James Dauris, who previously in Columbia knew de-mining ...
