Gus Mathews of England and Lanka
Thank you all for your condolences. Rajeewa was a good friend. When I last saw him in January, he was rather subdued and not his usual ebullient self. It didn’t strike me that he was depressed, but one never knows what lurks behind the mantle of normality.
Rajeewa & Sanjeewa Jayaweera on tour in Vietnam in 2019
Benjamin Law, in The Age, 13 June 2020, with this title “Tea mogul Merrill J. Fernando: ‘I owe everything to Australian consumers’.”
Each week, Benjamin Law asks public figures to discuss the subjects we’re told to keep private by getting them to roll a die. The numbers they land on are the topics they’re given. This week he talks to Merrill J. Fernando. After high school, this businessman was one of the first local people in the then British colony of Ceylon to train as a tea-taster in London. At age 58, he launched his own brand of tea, Dilmah, in Australia. He is now 90.
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Gurminder K. Bhambra, in New York Times, 12 June 2020, with this title “A statue was toppled. Can we talk about the British Empire? “
The statue of the slave trader Edward Colston falling into the water on Sunday after protesters in Bristol, England, pulled it down.Credit…Keir Gravil, via Reuters
BRIGHTON, England — Tens of thousands of people protested in British cities in solidarity with those rising up against police brutality against black Americans in the past week. They highlighted similar injustices in Britain. Protesters in the city of Bristol drew connections between a white police officer’s killing of George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis, and the histories of colonialism and the slave trade. On Sunday, they toppled the statue of Edward Colston, a 17th-century slave trader, trampled over it and rolled it into Bristol Harbor.
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Ananda Wijesuriya, in Island, 12 June 2020, carrying this title “An administrator of skill, competence and understanding”
I had the occasion to read a full middle page article published in the Sunday Observer, I think in the late 60s, about the transport of a high-powered antenna brought to enhance the broadcasting capacity of SLBC. I was fascinated by the attention to details, explaining how the antenna, shipped as fabricated, transported from Colombo harbour all the way to Pidurutalagala mountain. I cannot remember whether the author was a journalist but it did identify who was the brains behind the meticulous planning, the then Chairman of newly incorporated SLBC – Neville Jayaweera. Later I again read about his exploits, with the change of the Government in 1970. He was removed from SLBC and being a CCS officer was posted to Anuradhapura, where during the 1971 JVP insurgency he rallied the police and a depleted army post and held the town against the attacks by the JVP.
Professor Rajiva Wijesinha, in Island, 16 June 2020 where the title is “Lord Naseby’s Paradise”
It is a great joy to come across someone who loves this country passionately. In the case of Lord Naseby the joy is enhanced by the practical aspects of his devotion, his unceasing efforts to promote Sri Lanka’s interests and to combat what he sees as unremitting and vicious hostility to Sri Lanka on the part of successive governments.
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Aiyyoh reaches a peak …. as “AIYOH”
“Aiyyo! Aiyyo!“ What is happening in the English-speaking World! Budu Ammoh!
RRW in The Island, 15 June 2020 where the title runs “One with elegance in thought and letters”
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restored, and sorrows end. —- Shakespeare/Sonnet 30
Of course, Rajiv Jayaweera was not my friend. I never saw him in person, nor heard him; but I had once seen his picture in a web publication. However, I saw him well enough through his writings as a fellow contributor to The Island, and experienced a latent relationship with him as a person whose intellectual grasp of our country’s burning issues, and whose concerns and attitudes relating to them generally matched mine; I felt as if I had known him closely as a friend for some time. I was impressed by the meticulous attention he paid to his language in expressing his ideas precisely (a characteristic in truth tellers).
Lasanda Kurukulasuriya, in Island, 11 June 2020, with this title “Covid19 in Sri Lanka: From lockdown to ‘new normal’.”
Sri Lanka’s handling of the Covid19 outbreak has, comparatively speaking, produced commendable results. Tracing the trajectory of the response, it may be seen that early moves to prepare for what lay ahead served well to mitigate the outcome. A Task Force drawing on expertise of all relevant sectors was appointed by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on January 27th, the day the first Covid19 case was reported – that of a Chinese woman tourist.
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John Cleese got it right thirty years back: Virtue is built on the targeted “Other”
Dr. Kumar Gunawardane. in Island, 13 June 2020, where the title runs “Neruda and his daughter”
“It’s night time ,
I’m alone and sad,
Thinking in the light of a flickering candle,
about joy and pain,
about tired old age,
and handsome arrogant youth”
Pablo Neruda
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thuppahi
