April 26th, 2015. A terrible thing happened. An earthquake, measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, struck just near Kathmandu. Thousands were buried under clouds of dust and rubble as their homes collapsed around them. It was followed by aftershocks, one of which hit at 07 AM, measured 6.7 on the scale and shook buildings in New Delhi. As of the time of writing, over 2,500 ...
The siege of Aleppo reads like a scene from The Lord of the Rings. Aleppo, the largest city in Syria has, since 2012, been a battle point between the rebels (the Free Syrian Army plus the Army of Conquest, as well as Al-Queda’s Syrian arm). Some 31,000 people are estimated to have died. The government forces (and Russia) have been airstriking ...
The train’s an interesting way of getting around. When you’re stuck in a box with a bunch of other people with no way of getting out, interesting things start to happen. Okay, not that interesting. Definitely nowhere near the standards of, say, Japanese trains on porn sites (wouldn’t that be fun). Rather, I was standing next to […]
Mahinda Percy Rajapakse is out. Pallewatte Gamaralalage Maithripala Yapa Sirisena is in. These are the facts. While waiting for this to happen, I’ve chewed through three bags of Jumbo Peanuts, approximately three dozen grain bars and drunk enough tea to fill up a reservoir. This is also fact. But seriously. History has just been written, if not re-written, and I’m ...
I, like most people, can’t multi-task for shit. I had a boss who could multi-task to the level where most of us thought he was insane, or had severe ADHD, or both. His work day, as far as I could see, was a furious flutter of phone calls and scribbled notes. Occasionally someone would drop by at his summons and ...
Someone wanted me to write about Colombo, so I did. I discovered this post many weeks later, when both that someone and I had forgotten this ever happened. Anyway, here goes. Colombo, the commercial capital of Sri Lanka, is a pretty small city. In fact, seen from above, it’s not so much a city as […]
I recently came across a fantastic post on Dave and Deb Corbeil’s blog (the Planet D). The couple, who are professional adventurers and travel bloggers, put together a stunning record of their year in photos. It was so well done that I decided to forgo Zuckerberg’s attempt at chronicling my year and decided to do my own. My photography’s nowhere near ...
(No, I’m not talking about the newspaper). If it’s one thing Sri Lankans seem to excel at, it’s a strangely bipolar type of xenophobia. On one hand, when a cousin or aunt comes down from Dubai with a handful of cheap sweets as a bribe, we proudly tell all and sundry that they “rata indhang aawa (came from abroad).” ...
Every newspaper in the country seems to have visited the ICIJ website and published the names of the 65 Sri Lankans named in the Panama Papers. Being on this list or being associated to it, however, does not make anyone a criminal. Yes, four Avante-Garder are there, but Emma Watson is also on that list; so are two Hirdramani’s. I don’t ...
‘But look,’ said Ponder, ‘the graveyards are full of people who rushed in bravely but unwisely.’ ‘Ook.’ ‘What did he say?’ said the Bursar. ‘I think he said, “Sooner or later the graveyards are full of everybody“.’ Terry Pratchett, husband, father, knight and writer, died today. He was 66 and had been battling Alzheimer’s disease for quite some time. He passed ...
So I shaved my head recently. Now in ordinary circles, a bald pate would be met with polite respect. A nod to the noggin, as it were. Baldness, I’m told, naturally brings forth the philosopher in one. Unfortunately, my friends don’t seem to have gotten the hang of philosophy – their thought processes seem to run along the lines of ...
I just watched a live news broadcast on Sirasa TV. In it, members of the SLFP, by authority and (apparently) majority, proudly announced that President Maithripala Sirisena was the Chairman of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, replacing ex-President Mahinda Rajapakse. Now here’s the interesting part. Maithripala Sirisena, the former General Secretary of the SLFP, ran for the President largely under the auspices of ...
As the elections approach, shit gets real. Here’s some of it: Severed dogs’ heads are delivered to the houses of Brito Fernando and Prasanga Fernando, two of the activists behind the “Change with Reform” campaign. Former diplomat Dr Dayan Jayatilleke chats with a man with a fake accent, revealing his ideas of a perfect state: Russia (a country that once recorded a ...
There’s a great deal to be said for packing up your bags, putting the old smartphone into airplane mode, and heading for the mountains. That’s easier said than done, and I’m fortunate in the fact that I have one place I can always retreat to – Halwinna, a little village up on the mountains somewhere in the Sabaragamuwa province. My ...
The second day began with Sigiriya. We grabbed a hasty breakfast, set off in the morning from Chaaya Village, packed into the TBC Asia tour buses, and headed for the Lion Rock. If you’re Sri Lankan, and you’re reading this, you’ll already know what Sigirya is, so you can safely skip the next para. If […]
Honorable Speaker, as the 20th Minister of Finance of Sri Lanka, it is my privilege to present the 71st Budget for 2017. First I’m going to put the rest of the Parliament to sleep by singing the praises of Yahapalanaya and Ranil W. Now, if you can all forget our track record of failed budgets, let’s begin. We spend around ...
Ea spoke to Enlil saying “It was you, the Sage of the Gods. How could you bring about a flood without consideration?” – the epic of Gilgamesh I have a longstanding argument with a friend. The root cause of this is my attitude towards modern religion: I see religion as a delusion, and he, needless to say, is perfectly happy ...
homosexual (hɒmə(ʊ)ˈsɛkʃʊəl,ˌhəʊmə(ʊ)ˈsɛkʃʊəl) So recently the government shut down yet another attempt to decriminalize homosexuality in Sri Lanka. To wit, the bill proposed that people should not be discriminated upon based on their gender, and the old farts panicked. We got the usual excuse that this is a Buddhist country, and this was culturally inappropriate. This is, unfortunately, rational, if ...
Some time ago (well, technically July, 2014), CNBC published an article on Antoine Dominic – a Sri Lankan tech CEO turned luxury car dealer – and his $4 million Lamborghini Veneno. As the article says, Lamborghini didn’t just built this car for anybody – they hand-picked three buyers; Dominic, an investor from Florida, another client from the […]
It is the 30th of December, 1:30 AM. I’m sure that someone famous will have died by the time the auto-publisher sends this post live. Good people die every year, but it seems this year really has it out for the artists and the creators. Among the golden throng I would really like to mention Richard Adams, who wrote Watership ...
