She runs down the cobblestone street, hand reaching blindly forward, the other clutching the copious tulle of her gown. Blackened tears streak her face, joining freckle-dots as they flow towards the corner of her reddened lips. Daisies and yellow dahlias line the streets, her hand grazing the stone wall and she runs. That is how you picture her when she ...
A friend of mine in the US mentioned that Trump standing for elections and being extremist is some tactical political manoeuvre for very different aims (than getting DT elected). Whatever the motive is, it is truly terrifying to see the US using the same shameful tactics used in Sri Lankan politics where majority prejudices are toyed with for political gain. ...
It’s 1965 and Nancy Prasad is to be deported. So Charlie Perkins hides her, holds her hostage, demands the government pay the ransom of her safety It’s 2016 and Baby Asha’s turn has come. So 200 people hide her, hold her hostage, demand the government pay the ransom of her safety The girl-child sits, as strangers pass above her, debating the course of her life.
Firstly, ‘past’ is a misnomer, no? The tactical use of Britain and not the ‘U.K.’ hides the fact that the empire still continues in Northern Ireland. Interestingly enough, to align with this historiography, there are no exhibits of any aspects of empire in Ireland in the exhibit. So does the exhibit do what it claims to? To ‘Face’ Britain’s colonial ...
Growing up in Australia, I had no idea what an Aboriginal person looked like. There was a boy in one of the parallel classes who was brown, but not with facial features similar to mine, and I remember thinking as a child, ‘is that an Aborigine’? Many years later, while on exchange in France, I introduced myself as an Australian ...
My parents are well into their sixties and make do with technology by asking my brother (a total techie) and myself (more technologically inept than my parents) to help them set up Wi-Fi, show them pictures on Facebook, and so on. While my 84-year-old great-uncle marvels at his Uber application and the paradigm shift in economy that such apps are ...
When I was doing my undergraduate degree, I got a name for myself in some circles of friends as the one involved in community action, the one who ‘cares about the world’ or ‘karma collector’, to reproduce some interesting terms used by friends and acquaintances. In most of my current circles of friends I’m hardly the most involved or most ...
My birthday is tomorrow and as I await the torrent of Facebook wishes, I’d like to attempt something: asking you to ‘gift me forward’. I have money to buy myself things I need and whimsically desire. It touches me most when I see other people getting involved in making the world a better place. You don’t have to care about ...
Justice for Talawakelle rape survivor after 14 years, comments on the justice for sexual abuse victims and Sri Lankan justice system in general. Source: Solidarity Actions and Struggles for Justice in Sri Lanka
I miss home sometimes. But home means you your laughter and warmth a decade of memories places marked by echoes of us If I went home though I wouldn’t find any of you there Just echoes of a bygone age where young girls could hold home in their arms.
“Have you noticed that girls with curly hair have big personalities?” my friend asked me. I know very few girls of brazen locks: which ones are lively? Are any of them not? No, came the answer not a single one timid Each as unruly in hair as in spirit Hang on, that’s not right – Most Sri Lankans are curlies ...
Your milk-tea hand holds mine, gingerbiscuit brown, your mood fixed by my touch. Dry lips peeling skin off the milk tea once brewed deep as your eyes. You push the tea towards me and I offer you love cake. We don’t take sugar in our tea.
Hoppers are my favourite type of everyday Sri Lankan food. Cultural appropriation is my least favourite everyday form of neo-colonialism. So imagine my reaction when I read this article about some British girl minting it making hoppers in one of the poshest food market spots in the heart of London. My disbelief turned to outrage as I read the article. ...
It finally happened. After years of refusing to sit on the toilet seat of public restrooms, my squatting finally went amiss, and I did it: I peed on myself. As I sit in the very café that this incident happened, tapping away this narrative on my keyboard, I sit with my right leg pressed tight against the cloth chair, hoping ...
As a Sri Lankan woman, I am doubly obliged to like kids. I feel like South Asians give white women a tacit waiver, accepting that many of them ‘choose’ not to have children but of course ‘regret it when their maternal instinct kicks in’ or ‘when they’re 40 and alone and miserable and their husband hates them because they are ...
