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Category Archives: life stories
Fashioning the Book “CROSSCURRENTS: Sri Lanka & Australia at Cricket”
Michael Roberts
This book, with its pot pourri of cricketing items and photographs, was published in 1998 by the Walla Walla Press in Sydney. It was enabled by (A) the cooperation of two authors who never met each other: one Michael Roberts …. a Sri Lankan Australian in Adelaide and one Alfred James, an Aussie in Sydney who had a unique collection of cricketing statistics on Australian tours abroad which provided the pertinent data on their whistle-stop matches in Colombo on the trips to Britain and back – rare data that.
Filed under accountability, art & allure bewitching, Australian culture, australian media, biotechnology, centre-periphery relations, cricket for amity, discrimination, disparagement, ethnicity, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, patriotism, performance, photography, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, Sri Lankan cricket, taking the piss, trauma, unusual people, world events & processes
AUSTRALIA DAY …. “Advance Austaralia Fare” Renderings
Filed under accountability, art & allure bewitching, Australian culture, australian media, communal relations, cultural transmission, education, ethnicity, heritage, landscape wondrous, life stories, patriotism, performance, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, world events & processes
St. Thomas’ College: A Wide-ranging History of the ‘School by the Sea’
David Sansoni, whose preferred title is “STC – an unauthorised history of Lanka’s greatest Public School”
Richard Simon’s ‘history of Lanka’s greatest public school’, is an epic poem!
Epic, in its reach; poetic, in its lyricism, this towering, magnificent opus is a pearl, of both history and literature. “STC” touches the soul and core, of historophile, linguaphile and bibliophile; Christian, Lankan and, above all, Thomian.
Filed under accountability, architects & architecture, British colonialism, Colombo and Its Spaces, cultural transmission, economic processes, education, ethnicity, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, island economy, landscape wondrous, language policies, life stories, literary achievements, modernity & modernization, patriotism, performance, politIcal discourse, S. Thomas College, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, teaching profession, unusual people, world affairs
Sri Lankan Tamils & Their English Names: How This Feature Came About
Vinod Moonesinghe, in RoarMedia, 13 January 2023, where the title runs thus: “How Sri Lankan Tamils Came To Have ‘English’ Names”
Many Sri Lankan Tamils have English or otherwise European names, and are often confused with Burghers or Eurasians. How this came to be constitutes a vital part of the evolution of modern Sri Lanka.
Filed under american imperialism, architects & architecture, art & allure bewitching, British imperialism, centre-periphery relations, cultural transmission, demography, economic processes, education, ethnicity, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, literary achievements, patriotism, politIcal discourse, religiosity, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes
Engaging CROSSCURRENTS: Young James Sansoni’s Selections from the Book on Sri Lanka and Australia at Cricket
Engaging CROSSCURRENTS: Young James Sansoni’s Selections from the book Crosscurrents: Sri Lanka and Australia at Cricket (1998, Sydney, Walla Walla Press)
James Clifton Tilden Sansoni of Sydney has dipped a selective hand into the pages of Crosscurrents — thereby rendering a service. It prompts me to tell the world about the contributions of Alfred James, an Australian whom I never met, and the supporting hands of both Richard Cashman of the Walla Walla Press in Sydney and Cathy Ashton of Mobitel in Colombo, without whom this book would never have seen daylight. THAT will be in separate tales in Thuppahi. Let Clifton’s input take centre-stage here.
Note that behind an enterprising young one, there is a grandpa: one David Sansoni of Colombo and Sydney.
From The Eyes of a 103-Year Old Sri Lankan: 75th Year of Independence!
DL Sirimanne from Kohuwela has reached his century and proceeded another three years beyond. From the vantage of age, he is quite scathing in his concluding summary …. in the Sunday Observer 22 January 2023 … where the title is “A bit of Ceylon History. Pass it on to you children”
Filed under accountability, British colonialism, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, democratic measures, demography, disparagement, economic processes, electoral structures, ethnicity, governance, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, language policies, life stories, meditations, patriotism, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, Rajapaksa regime, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, world events & processes
Manifold Talents: An Epitaph for Peter Colin-Thome
David Sansoni, in The Sunday Observer, 22 January 2023, where the title reads “Peter Colin-Thome: A Multi-faceted Personality”
Peter Colin-Thomé was a buddy of my cousin Dominic Sansoni and of a few of my friends and acquaintances. It was at Dominic’s home, on Anderson Road, Bambalapitiya, we first met, circa 1973.
Peter immediately made an impression. Tall, well-groomed and well-spoken – that sonorous Bass voice. His father, Percy, was a ‘name’ in Colombo circles, as was Peter’s mum, Moira.
Epitaph for Sumitra Peries: A Poet of the Sri Lankan Cinema World
Uditha Devapriya, in Item on 21 January 2023 entitled “Sumitra Peries Obituary: Poet of Sri Lankan Cinema”
Sumitra Epitaph Peries lived a life of travel and adventure before enrolling in film school in Brixton and going on to become one of the major, politically conscious figures in Sri Lankan cinema.
Filed under accountability, art & allure bewitching, cultural transmission, economic processes, education, female empowerment, heritage, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, patriotism, performance, photography, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, unusual people, world events & processes
Bracegirdle’s Anti-Slavery Struggle as Depicted by Robert Gunawardena
Translation by Vinod Moonesinghe from Robert Gunawardena’s “Memoirs of Bracegirdle” … 1.44 to
Robert Gunawardena
Mark Anthony Bracegirdle
“Bracegirdle’s anti-slavery struggle”
In April 1937, a remarkable incident took place which strengthened the anti-imperialist struggle and aroused the interest of the masses. That is, the Bracegirdle Incident which is spoken about by older people to this day.
Filed under accountability, British colonialism, centre-periphery relations, cultural transmission, democratic measures, disparagement, economic processes, ethnicity, governance, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, Left politics, legal issues, life stories, martyrdom, nationalism, performance, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, power politics, security, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, unusual people, working class conditions, world events & processes
