ONE: ‘Varman’ = “Jennings and the Old Galaha Road”
In 1952 we lived on Old Galaha Road. That was the last year we lived there. The government of the day compulsorily acquired our house and the land for the campus of the new University of Ceylon at Peradeniya. Much against our wishes, we were on orders to quit our home. The order to vacate, after the property was compulsorily acquired by the government, came from the Vice Chancellor’s office, the new owner of what was our beloved property.
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DBS Jeyaraj, in Daily FT, 13 May 2020, where the title is “Tale of a Tiger: Facets of LTTE Chief Prabhakaran’s life” ++
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran was killed 11 years ago in combat with the armed forces of Sri Lanka on 19 May 2009. The longest war in South Asia came to an end after the military debacle of the LTTE on the shores of Nandikadal Lagoon in the Mullaitivu District of northern Sri Lanka.
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THIS QUESTION was raised three months ago in February or so ….
Michael Roberts, being an abridged version of an old article presented in the Library of Social Science run by Richard Koenigsberg and others.
Addressing the practices of remembrance in Australia, Richard Koenigsberg has noted the irony that a battlefield defeat at Gallipoli in World War One, 1915, served a people as an emblem of nationhood: the “Australian nation, came into being on the foundations provided by the slaughter of its young men.”
There is more irony. The commemoration of Australian courage, sacrifice and manliness at Gallipoli (and subsequently on the Somme) was threaded by tropes of youthful innocence that drew on classical Hellenic motifs. While the monuments and epitaphs that were crafted in Australia to mark this event were manifestly Greek in form. The gendered masculine metaphor, in turn, was often embodied in the seminal image of a full-bodied blonde young man. “Archie Hamilton” in Peter Weir’s classic film Gallipoli was/is one such trope (and he died of course).
“Archie”
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Michael Roberts
Tears rolled down my eyes in profound sorrow and joy as the news media on TV and computer-script dwelt on the VE commemorations in Britain — Yesterday and Today 8th and 9th May 2020. Perhaps that may surprise some readers. So …… let me clarify.
Yes, I was only seven years old or thereabouts then in 1945. Yes, I was resident in the Fort area within the town of Galle in the island of Ceylon …. not in Britain or Europe. So, how is that event so meaningful …. and so profound in my thinking-mould. Continue reading
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The King and Queen of Britain with Winston Churchill in between and Princess Elizabeth nd Princess Margaret on the flanks
Churchill waves to the crowds below
Malinda Seneviratne, in Daily News, 8 May 2020, where the title is “The Story of an aththamma and an aththa” ….
Dane Street. Somerville. Cambrige. Massachusetts. The United States of America. It was in the Spring of 1991. There were several Sri Lankans living in that apartment. None of us were very good at cooking. It was trial and error, but sometimes things turned out well, more by accident than design. When this happened, we called all our Sri Lankan friends for dinner. On this occasion, however, it was a planned dinner and the invitees had to chance it.
Fauci with Trump
As the Covid Pandemic has spread its tentacles across the world, it has spawned conspiracy theorists of all kinds – not just that powerful idiot in Washington. One line of gloom and doom targets that very regime and depicts an all-powerful set of wheeler-dealers who negate the apocalyptic picture of worldwide disaster that they perceive around the corner. That is, their ‘brilliant work’ is immediately squashed and banished by these masterminds and manipulators in Washington and its many arms.
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thuppahi
