It is so easy to turn everything into a matter of faith. Take a man. Any man will do. Make him a symbol of faith. Pay no attention to the man underneath the robes - be he good, bad, sick, twisted or downright evil: once he is a symbol of faith, his actions are justified. In time, people even forget what the faith stands for. All that matters is the living symbol.
“The fighting’s started in Jaffna again,” said the woman at the shop. I knew the incident she was speaking of: a hartal, a protest of sorts; police tear-gassing the crowd; a hundred and thirty people arrested; a lot of top brass in Jaffna being transferred away. The woman went on to discuss the Jaffna problem at length with her customer. ...
We Sri Lankans have a complex relationship with Sri Lanka. Like all humans, we hate certain things. The dust. The public transport. The electricity bill. The mid-year heat and the politicians with their promises and that random uncle who always gets drunk at the wedding. But we love our country. If the US takes a go at us, we curse Obama and ...
Remember that dude we voted in because he was going to abolish the Executive Presidency? HE LIED. In reforms discussed today, the Cabinet and the President apparently decided against acting on promises. Instead, they’re “pruning” the Executive Presidency. The pruning, done according to the 19th Amendment, is (roughly) as follows: a) A President shall serve no more than two terms in office ...
On the 31st of March, a cordon of Sri Lankan Police – in full riot gear, truncheons and shields at the ready – stood on one corner of the Kollupitiya junction. One of them carried a gun that rained tear gas cartridges on the road ahead. In front of them was a short stretch of Galle Road, empty save for ...
It’s a little over 50 days into Yahapalanaya. Steps have been taken forward, sideways and backwards; more on that later. What fascinates me right now is the Carlton House Mafia, the Rajapaksa clan, who’re now on the receiving end of what they dished out in a decade of power. The dogs of the media are yapping at their former masters. It’s ...
“And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. So […]
It’s 6.24. I’m sitting in a chair, flicking between news sites, trying not to fall asleep.The news anchors, devoid of violent deaths to report, are trying valiantly to spin out the election results for as long as possible. Outside, the sun is sinking, throwing the last of its lights on a surprisingly empty Duplication Road. It’s over. The UNP:UPFA scoreboard – ...
Indi Samarajiva recently wrote a post where he summed up the Sri Lankan Parliament: 225 MP’s, 90 of them in the Cabinet and holding some kind of portfolio – a bloated mess like no other. Needless to say, he titled the post “The New Cabinet. WTF.” I’m going to save the #mekadhaYahapalanaya rant for later. Instead, I tried thinking of this in perspective and ...
Yesterday, I was invited to go on a (guided) tour of the much-discussed Colombo Port City. I, along with a small crowd of twitterati, were taken to look at what’s already built, ask questions, take photos and cross-examine the management of CHEC Port City Colombo Private Limited, the people doing the actual construction. When I told my friends that I’d be ...
“A steady stream of articles are appearing in the local English medium, attacking demonizing and condemning the Sinhala people and more specifically the Sinhala-Buddhists as extremists, intolerable, genocidal and violent. It is seen by a perusal of these that the writers of these fall into three broad categories. One is the traditionally anti-Sinhala and anti-Buddhist […]
This is the Twitter universe of the elections. Every star is a tweep; every line is a tweet, retweet or a mention. Beautiful, isn’t it? This is a visual representation of a week’s worth of Twitter conversations from #GenElecSL and #SLGE15, the two most popular hashtags related to the 2015 General Election. I’ve set about mapping influencers on social media – ...
You may have heard the story of Ahmed Mohamed, the 14-year old student who was arrested after bringing a home-made clock to school. While we were distracted by Ahmed and the Bomb, we missed the story of four guys from Green Cabin suspected of raping an autistic 23-year old. Let’s leave the US to its Islamophobia for a moment and ...
“I’m not Sinhala! I’m a Jaffna Tamil from my mother’s side. Yeah, I was born in Colombo, but, you know.” “My people are Portugeuse! My great-grandfather was Portugeuse. They’re my people.” “Schoolboy? Nonsense, man, I’m a Royalist.” “Hah! Them Royalists. Ponces. Isipathana! Green blood!” “We don’t talk to them. They’re Museities.” “Are you a Kandy Buddhist? Because you say “Appachchi” ...
TBCAsia’s done and dusted, and I’ve finally gotten back to work. For those who haven’t heard of it, Travel Bloggers’ Conference Asia was an event put together by Cinnamon Hotels and the might of John Keels; it brought together some of the world’s most popular travel bloggers – into a single conference room. But perhaps […]
I’ve had a fantastic time reading all that’s being written about Daham Sirisena. The Big D, as I now think of him, is a fantastic creature. I mean, who wouldn’t want a walking, talking, Facebook-ing PR nightmare for a son, am I right? Let’s assume for a moment that Maithripala Sirisena actually reads this blog (hah! Fat chance). Mr Sirisena, here’s a ...
“Far too many of my friends seem to be getting hitched,” says Your Unmarried Friend. “I know the feeling,” you say. “Everyone in my batch is already gone by now.” Together, the two of you contemplate how long you have before the stern and vaguely cow-like gaze of Society starts looking at you and asking “When are YOU getting married, eh?” ...
Have you seen Muhinda Rajupaksa? No? Here. Muhinda is a parody – a parody of recently rejected President, Mahinda Rajapaksa. I don’t know who runs it; I don’t have any idea why they’re doing it. What I do know is that it’s damn funny. I’ve seen insane amounts of meme’d mud-slinging on all sides, but Muhinda is special. Special. Because some smart ...
I was at Cinnamon’s Colomboscope the other week. To be honest, I liked it. Well, some of it. Most of it was a bunch of expats explaining Sri Lanka to foreigners. Generally, this includes well-meaning but meandering discussions on class conflict and a lot of thought on where Colombo is headed. This is ironic, because the people actually listening to this were definitely ...
Sri Lanka cried out for the arrest of UNP Parliamentarian Palitha Thewarapperuma, a man apparently competing for former Minister Mervyn Silva’s records for public humiliation (note to self: I think there’s a bondage fetish there somewhere). A lo and behold, Thewarapperuma was arrested. Whether he will stay arrested or be miraculously restored is still up for grabs, but my money’s ...
