MARYANNE KOODA Along a narrow trail that wound a short distance from the Puttalam /Anuradhapura road, lay the quiet village we were searching for.  We reach Sirambiandiya after a four hour trip by bus from Colombo.  We are unsure of what type of reception we will get, as the research we had done on them, told of a people who were fed up ...

Dear friends, I am the most rubbish blogger or website writer or whoever.  My motherhood and otherhood life is too busy and demanding to consistently write and respond on the digital media. I hardly have time to read. But this is different. At times like this, you are once again reminded of who you are and what hardship is borne ...

The streets of Colombo have seen worse sights. But if we look around and say “oh please, you see the Colombo elite here and facebookers who have turned up and got harrassed by the Police... I am disappointed. I need more Buddhists, more middle class people and I don’t like to see people who worked in NGOs, nor lived overseas ...

The deadline for applications  is now extended to February 15,  2014 and 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 ...

POPPY DAY? We didn’t have horses who died in battle. We didn’t have bagpipes. Poppies don’t really mean much to us in Sri Lanka. But the poppy campaign meant a great deal to the old war veterans when they came to Grants Advertising and asked for a creative poppy campaign, free of charge. Tikiri de Zoysa wrote an amazing ...

GAYA FERNANDO Thomians young and Thomians old Thomians staunch and true Rally round the College Flag The Blue, the Black and Blue… I think I may have been around 4 years old when I first heard those strange words Alma Mater… I thought it was Almamater … “To your Almamatersing… ” that was the phrase… and some of you will ...

Note: I call these posts SAHM 800 cos Stay At Home Mum is what am doing right now till the next phase, as a mum we seem to be eternally ‘singing’ and 800 is the bloody number i most frequently dial. I dialled it last night to let the Supermarket hotline know that I have been delivered in addition ...

TULIE MUTTULINGAM “If the stacking of the bookshelves are anything to go by, we have a lot of under-confident people in Colombo city, searching for a better way / better meaning in their lives. Nothing wrong with that of course. As a devourer of several self-help books in the past I know where they are coming from.” Tulie Gaya’s Intro: ...

MEG’S SOAPBOX Whose Side is the Law On? To my right a man is hauled off by the police. He tries to resist but it’s futile as four policemen load him into a police jeep and drive off. I’m snapping away as the  jeep speeds off into the distance, when a voice behind me asks, ‘what just happened?’ I explain ...

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 ...

STORY FRIDAY This is a time when emotions are stirred by an extremist group claiming to defend Buddhism namely the Bodu Bala Sena and others defend em saying the Temples were the guiding light to a society Sri Lankan long ago. It’s time we reminded ourselves that this is 2013. Eight years ago a  biblical-type disaster wrecked Sri Lanka in ...

This is a copy of a Chapbook stamped by the Jaffna Library. This is where you can take a look at what’s in it. Gaya: What is a chapbook? Imaad: A chapbook is a publication that consists of less than 40 pages. They used to be sold by peddlers known as chapmen in the Early Modern period in England. The ...

BY DAVID BLACKER For those saying that Victory Day should be retained, and who use VE Day as an example, and also cite the reasoning that we need a day to remember the men who fell in the cause of national unity, let me point out a few things: VE Day is a celebration of one set of nations defeating another; ...

“Blessed are the weird people–poets, misfits, writers, mystics…painters & troubadours–for they teach us to see the world through different eyes.” Jacob Nordby Gaya’s Intro: Maryanne is a rare person and her story is unique. She is young, a Nigerian graduate, hands-on mother of two lively sons and lives in Sri Lanka like an ordinary Sri Lankan person, not like an ...

GAYA FERNANDO Today was such a special day when I was a child. Weeks ahead, the front room of my neighbours,’ the Wijesuriyas’ home, would be gradually filled with Vesak stuff. No last-minute rush or mess was allowed, for Uncle (as we used to call him) did things at a ritualistic pace repeating the activity in precisely the same way down ...

The deadline for applications  is January 31, 2014 and 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 ...

IMAGE OF THE WEEK Keep it Clean and Cycle On | Son of the Morning Light.: Conservation art on Leyn Baan Streer in the Galle Fort, shot with a Canon EOS 600D and EF-S 18-200mm lens at 18mm, 1/8, f/3.5, and ISO 100. The above mural is by Simon Blackfoot and  one of a series with Rah Akaishi. Read more ...

GAYA FERNANDO Dear friends, diasporans, countrymen, Don’t lend your ears or your tongues to anyone these days, or who knows what will happen?  That’s the general feeling today five years on from the end of war between the GoSL and the LTTE. Is this justified? When there is an arrest of a human rights activist, there is an immediate outcry ...

GAYA FERNANDO iSrilankan one year on…! from iSrilankan on Vimeo I remember hitting the ‘publish’ button on monday night May 26th last year with a sense of unreality and feeling a surge of adrenalin as the likes flooded in from people with whom I had had many conversations in the months before.  I never really publicised the website I think ...

Diaspora and the perks of marginal identities All beginnings are not easy and it took some time for me to succumb to the persistent charms (and nudging) of Gaya and get down to writing. I live in an Asian metropolis for a good part of the year, am Ceylonese by birth and Sri Lankan by citizenship – at least ...