Michael Roberts
In step with David Sansoni’s email questioning Victor Melder has categorically challenged my speculative suggestion that NOVA PERIS may possibly have had a grandparent who was a Sri Lankan pearler/trader/seaman in the north-western reaches of Australia .
VICTOR: “No, Nova Peris is not of Sri Lankan heritage; she is a prominent Indigenous Australian from the Gija, Yawuru, and Muran/Iw
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Dr Asoka Bandarage, inThe Island, 5 September 2025 where the title reads: “Lanka: The beautiful, besieged island” ++ with highlights and “A NOTE to ASOKA” being The Editor’s Interventions
“Israelis are coming to Sri Lanka, and they’ve done what they do best — taking over the place. They’ve occupied it and made it feel like Tel Aviv. They host parties advertised as ‘no locals allowed.’ The Israelis have come to Arugam Bay, throwing raves and refusing to let Sri Lankan people attend.”
Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage, a major tourist attraction
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Francis P Welangoda, presenting an article entitled “Ceylon Then / Sri Lanka Now!”
HISTORY OF TRINCOMALEE.: Trincomalee had derived its name from the anglicized version of the old Tamil word,‘ Thiru- kona-malai ‘ meaning ‘Lord of the Sacred Hill’. it is apparent that over the ages Trincomalee had been closely associated with the historic Kovil of Koneswaram built around 1,580 BC.
During the Portuguese era in Sri Lanka, which saw them gain influence on the eastern coast by the late 16th century, the Portuguese estsblished Fort Fedrick in 1624, using the stone from the demolished Koneshwaram temple. The city was later occupied by other European powers, but the fort remained a crucial strategic point, changing hands between the Danish, Dutch, French, and finally the British by 1795.
Here’s what makes Sri Lankan beaches absolutely unique – and why timing is everything. The seasonal secret,
West/South Coast (Nov-Apr): Unawatuna, Mirissa, Bentota East Coast (May-Sep): Arugam Bay, Pasikuda, Nilaveli …………. tip: Most tourists get this wrong and end up with monsoon rains
Finally, the world is uniting against the Cabal and the control
I’ve covered a lot of rallies in my time, but I’ve never seen anything like what unfolded in London on September 13. An enormous number of people flooded the streets for Tommy Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom rally. The atmosphere was electric. It wasn’t just another protest; it felt like a cultural revolution in motion.
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News Item in The Island, 15 September 2025… with this title “DIMO Installs Sri Lanka’s first ICC-compliant LED floodlights for stadiums”
Advanced features include zoned lighting control for partial stadium use … [with activation here in TPS made possible by KK de Silva, of St Aloysius College cricket in the mid-late 1950s and the SL Admin-Service]
Reinforcing its leadership in sports infrastructure development, DIMO has successfully completed the installation of Sri Lanka’s first and second LED floodlighting systems at two of the country’s most iconic cricket stadiums. The first installation was completed at the Rangiri Dambulla International Cricket Stadium (RDICS) in 2023, followed by the second at the R. Premadasa International Cricket Stadium (RPICS) in Colombo in 2025.
This milestone builds on DIMO’s historic achievement in the 1980s, when it made global headlines by installing Sri Lanka’s first and the world’s second floodlighting system at RPICS, cementing its legacy as a pioneer in sports lighting technology.
Bunchy Rahuman, whose preferred title is “Galle Fort, New York City and the Cartesian Legacy” ** … with the highlights being impositions by the Editor, who also had the privilege of being a resident within the Fort for twenty or so years from 1938-1960
ESSAY TWO
Do I exceed myself? Cartesian? The Big Apple? – surely not! But I insist, I am here, not to tweak the truth. In Essay One, I said, the street I lived [most of] my Galle, Fort life in was Lighthouse Street. Discerning readers [for a moment I thought to add if any – but my life insurance policy has lapsed!] would note that I said Lighthouse Street formed a ‘Y’ axis line for the [Galle] Fort. Now even math allergic types, have heard of X axis and Y axis as [perpendicular] lines that cross at right angles and sit in the middle of paper sheets populated by tiny squares arranged 10 x 10, within larger squares, all sitting above, below and at each other’s sides in sheets known as graph paper.
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Dr Asoka Bandarage, in The Island, 5 September 2025 where the title reeads, “Sri Lanka: The beautiful, besieged island”
“Israelis are coming to Sri Lanka, and they’ve done what they do best — taking over the place. They’ve occupied it and made it feel like Tel Aviv. They host parties advertised as ‘no locals allowed.’ The Israelis have come to Arugam Bay, throwing raves and refusing to let Sri Lankan people attend.”
In July 2025, the influential global travel website Big 7 named Sri Lanka the “most beautiful island in the world,” stating that the “teardrop-shaped island off the southern coast of India has it all—golden beaches, terraced tea plantations, timeworn temples, colonial towns, misty mountains, and wildlife safaris … elephants and leopards.”
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Michael Roberts
An EMAIL Exchange with Vinod Moonesinghe recently prompted me to search for relevant literature and I came across this text from my hand in People Inbetween (1989, Sarasavi Publications, page 111).
“In brief, in the 1900s and 1910s the literati who engaged themselves in English drama developed no synthesizing link with the Sinhala theatre which was flourishing at the same time in and around the Tower Hall in Maradana, Colombo. The latter, as we know, had some awareness of the Western theatrical traditions [81]. Our speculative point is that the fertilizing influence, such as it was, moved in one direction only. 
Pathiraja
Sarathchandra
Ludo
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thuppahi
