Three Appreciations For Premila’s Essay on Alagu Subramaniam

Personnel from Different Ethnic Backgrounds have  expressed Firm Accolades for Premila Thurairatnam’s Essay  on Alagu Subramanium, ….Michael Roberts in  Adelaide, November  2025

1. Lakshman Gunasekara

   March 7, 2022 at 4:48 pm Edit

   Very nice piece! In my bohemian Leftie youth in the 1970s-80s, I was part of a westernised urban middle class Leftist circle in Colombo with Regi Siriwardena as our principal Guru along with Charlie Abeysekara with the younger people including Sunila A, Sunil B, Ranjith Perera and several others and, given our isolation from the rest of the westernised petit-bourgeoisie due to both our Leftism and defiantly wayward lifestyle (Feminist, multi-gender etc), we liked to think of ourselves as being a Lankan ‘Bloomsbury Group. It was this group that first proposed a Marxist-Feminist agenda in a short paper circulated in Sinhala and English titled ‘Patriarchy & Capitalism’ which did cause a small stir in Left intelligentsia circles at the time It was(a time when ‘Feminism’ per se was quite exotic, although women’s rights issues were a little more acceptable. So we got further estranged and had to compromise and work hard to win back credibility with our larger sector of Leftists in general. Virginia Woolf was indeed an icon. Possibly Regi and Charlie knew of Alagu but I cannot recall any mention. Kumari J[ayawardena] may recall better (she was a kind of Left grand dame for us).

   Reply
2. thuppahi

   November 4, 2025 at 9:48 am Edit

   An EMAIL NOTE from Bernard Van Cuylenburg in Melbourne addressed to Victor Melder, November 2025:
   “Dear Victor,
   The reason for my late acknowledgement – and sincere Thanks – for this inspiring and nurturing email is because I had to peruse it slowly in earnest, to enjoy the incidents and circumstances portrayed about the late Alagu Subramaniam. What a star – what a gentleman ! I have been a bit slow recently because on certain days I receive many emails requiring my attention and this cannot be done in a hurry.

   If ever an article merited the phrase “Food for thought ” this one deserves the highest accolades. Michael, thank you for always coming up with the literary Crown Jewels.

   Warm regards
   Bernard