Penance on road, Sri Maurpthy Pathirikaali Temple, 2009
This book is both a display and a reflective exercise on the power of imagery, whether from camera or painting or etching. Images can be as captivating as seductive as misleading. They can serve as raw data that provides glimpses of facets of life lost to the modern generations. They must, of course, be deployed by social scientists with attention to context and in association with other forms of data.
This collection was initially spawned as one part of the collection that was incorporated within Ismeth Raheem’s Images of British Ceylon; but lay dormant. The photgraphs have now has been extensively expanded and revised in ways that engage events in Sri Lanka and abroad in recent years. Readers will therefore have their contemporary experiences as an aid when they critically interpret the more modern photographs in this collection.
My explorative essay within these covers is incomplete. It does not explore the manner in which both government agencies, media outlets and LTTE arms manipulated the placement of photographs [sometimes undated] to drive home some of their arguments. Fabrications and half-truths are an integral aspect of agit-prop activity in heightened conflicts. This is a netherworld, underworld, dirty world. Even moral crusaders resort to such selections or choose to see only what they wish to see.
5 = A raffish British hunting party
POTENCY, POWER & PEOPLE IN GROUPS, Colombo, Marga Institute, 2011
ISBN 978-955-582-129-2 … containing 78 pictorial ilustrations and 100 pages otf text supported by Endnotes..
1= “Native types” as a collage ……. 2 = A Moorman ….
3 = A native woman depicted by artist Hippolyte Sylvaf
61 = International cricket, upcountry, 1892
64= Calverley House Verandah
43 = A Govenment Agent and his kachcheri staff
12= NM Perera addressing a crowd during 1953 hartal
31 = LTTE leaders on platform at Sudumalai, 4 August 1987
74 = SriLankan supporters target Darrell Hair, Lahore, 16 March 1996
75 = Tamil activists target Sri Lanka, Manuka Oval,12 February 2008
76 = Tamil activists target Ajantha Mendis and Lanka, Toronto,October 2008
*** ***
LIST OF PLATES
- “Native types” as a collage
2a. A cocky Moorman [identified as a “A Moorman Tamby”]
2b. A “Madras Merchant”
- Hippolyte Silvaf’s paintings of colourful dress styles
- Hunting trophies
- A raffish British hunting party [Palinda 300 check]
- Governor Gordon with Kandyan chiefs [Palinda 75]
- Kotahena disturbance, 1883
- August members of the Orient Club, circa 1907 [Wright ]
- Colombo Municipal Councillors, c. 1907 [Wright ]
- Temperance agitation: mass gathering
- Bracegirdle affair: Bracegirdle with LSSP leaders at Horana
- Hartal in 1953: NM Perera announces decision to have an island wide hartal in protest against the budget proposals, Galle Face Green
- Bandaranaike & masses for Sinhala Only, 1956
- Fasting for Sinhala Only: FR Jayasuriya, 24 May 1956
- Mettananda addresses Sinhala crowd at Galle Face Green, 1956
- Colombo fort & moat in the 1860s – eastern face
- Jaffna fort & moat [134]
- Galle Fort, 1890s
- Galle Fort rooftop scene, 1890s
- The western seaside of Galle Fort [A 126]
- Galle Fort entrance today
- Jetavanarāmaya in 19th century ruin
- “Festival day crowds” [Palinda 66]
- Äsēla Day Perahära
- Hindu festival, Eastern Province
- Kappalodiya Pillaiyar Festival, VVT
- Ammān water-cutting festival, Trincomalee, 2004
- Rolling on road during chariot festival of the Sri Mayurapathy Paththirakaali Temple, 26 July 2009
- JVP rally at Colombo Town Hall, 1977
- LTTE rally at Sudumalai Ammān Temple hears Velupillai Pirāpaharan speak, 4 August 1987
- LTTE ‘directorate’ at Sudumalai platform, 4 August 1987 [Ivan 374]
- Colvin R. de Silva stirs the crowd
- “A group of Ceylon coffee planters, 1868”
34a. A British Planter and estate workers
34b: Coffee plucker [Palinda 295]
- Workers drying coffee [Palinda 434?]
- “Native coopers” [Palinda O=04]
- Harbour workers [Palinda 310]
- Graphite sorting yards [Wright 616]
- Tea plantation labourers [Palinda 360]
- Tea estate workers [Palinda 433]
- Houseboats, Ratnapura [Palinda T=156]
- Lewella ferry [Palinda 360]
- A Government Agent and his kachchery officials
- A classroom and its teacher [Palinda 460]
- Teachers at the Ceylon Government Technical College
- A body of Christian priests ?? [Palinda 139]
- A soldiering reserve of Ceylonese Volunteers
- His Majesty’s subjects: outdoor reception for a VIP
- Elephant carrying religious icon of tribute [Palinda 316]
- A body of Buddhist monks [Palinda 132]
- A cremation of a bhikkhu [Wright 291]
- Muslim men preparing for worship [Palinda 380]
- Hindu devotees [Palinda 134]
- Boer POWs assembled for worship
- “Kandyan children”
- A body of leading graphite entrepreneurs
- The Jayewardene legal luminaries
- Colombo Racecourse, Galle Face Green
- Darrawella races, 1890
- International cricket, up country, 1892
- Planting fraternity watch cricket [Palinda 442]
- Colombo Lawn Tennis Club [Palinda 450]
- Middle class life style [Wright 750]
- Calverley House verandah
- Bandaranaikes of Horagolla
66a. Don Spater Senanayake and family
66b. Senanayakes and friends relax at Botale family home
- Warusahännädigē de Soysas of Moratuwa
- Temple wall mural: Panadura Debate of 1873 commemorated
69a. Chelvanayakam and others at satyagrāha, Galle Face Green
69b. Chelva addresses crowd, n. d.
70. SLFP and Leftist leaders enjoy symbolic burning of copies of the DC Bill, 1967
- Local crowd watch Aussie cricketers play in Colombo, 1938
- Sri Lankan cricket team at prayer before World Cup, 1996
- Sri Lankan supporters at Lahore in 1996 target Darrel Hair
74a, b. Sports nationalism: Sri Lankan supporters at World Cup in West Indies, 2007
- Tamil protest group, Manuka Oval, Canberra, 12 February 2008
- Tamil demonstrators target Ajantha Mendis, Toronto, October 2008
- Tamil demo & symbolic battle, October 2008
- Tamil demonstration in London as LTTE slides to defeat, 2009
And here is a photograph that should have been there …. BUT is NOT.
Mariamma, that legendary groundswoman at the Oval seen here in 1948
