Category Archives: life stories

Filed under authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, counter-insurgency, education, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, insurrections, landscape wondrous, life stories, LTTE, military strategy, nationalism, performance, power politics, prabhakaran, Rajapaksa regime, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, suicide bombing, Tamil civilians, Tamil Tiger fighters, terrorism, unusual people, war reportage, world events & processes

February 17, 2023 · 1:43 pm

Hot & Sultry Sri Lankan Women

One Outsider named Ebis Mark’s Selections in 2022: …. https://thuppahis.com/2022/06/01/skin-colour-in-sri-lanka-the-prevalence-of-pitch-black/

Filed under art & allure bewitching, life stories, photography, slanted reportage, sri lankan society

February 16, 2023 · 8:18 pm

Vale: Anthony Anghie of Royal College and Many Turbulent Events

Gamini Seneviratne, in The Island, 4 October 2022, where the title is simple: “Anthony Anghie”

When our lot entered Royal College over 70 years ago, Tony was yet there at a distant remove as Head Prefect and, at closer quarters, muddied, on the rugger field. He was also visible commanding the cadet battalions. His brothers, Trevor the place-kicker and Maurice the wizard scorer over the line eclipsed him at rugger but in and around the school he was instantly placed as its leader. Trevor took to medicine and migrated to Oz via Diyatalawa; I last met Maurice in Perth, Oz: he was on the water wagon. Their father was an iconic character too, making the Hostel a place that provided such comfort as schoolboys had a right to expect.

Filed under accountability, centre-periphery relations, ethnicity, governance, historical interpretation, island economy, landscape wondrous, legal issues, life stories, patriotism, politIcal discourse, power politics, Royal College, security, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, world events & processes

February 16, 2023 · 7:14 pm

Saviour Heli-Service: Vital Air Force Link during Eelam Wars

An Item in http://www.airforcemonthly.com, April 2011, retrieved by a Military Aviation enthusiast friend of Michael Roberts ….

Filed under accountability, heritage, landscape wondrous, life stories, military expenditure, military strategy, performance, photography, security, sri lankan society, unusual people, world events & processes

February 15, 2023 · 11:21 pm

Sri Lanka Today as “Paradise” in Pieces …. Deeply Decimated

Capt. Elmo Jayawardena, in The Island, early February 2023, where the title runs thus: “75 Years – What have they done? It is a paradise misplaced”

Our island was called Lanka in pre-King Vijaya times. Valmiki’s immortal Ramayanaya had King Ravana ruling the land from the city of Lankapura. That was almost four thousand years ago. The Arab traders termed it Jaziratul-Yaqut, island of rubies. Some called it Serendib, some Ceilan, from which the Portuguese picked Ceilao and the European mapmakers coined Ceylon. Many were the names from the many that came. Bar none, everyone agreed and noted in their chronicles that this Island was indeed the complete Paradise.

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Filed under accountability, centre-periphery relations, cultural transmission, debt restructuring, demography, disparagement, economic processes, governance, historical interpretation, human rights, island economy, landscape wondrous, legal issues, life stories, meditations, patriotism, politIcal discourse, power politics, rehabilitation, self-reflexivity, social justice, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, unusual people, welfare & philanthophy, working class conditions

February 13, 2023 · 3:48 pm

Jaffna on the Boil in the Late 1970s & My Experiences There

Sarath Amunugama, on “Visit to Jaffna and the Evolving Tamil Political Scene” …. https://island.lk/visit-to-jaffna-and-the-evolving-tamil-political-scene/ ….. Being an Excerpt from volume two of His Autobiography

While tensions were rising between the two communities in 1978 I suggested to my Minister Wijetunga that we should visit the Jaffna peninsula for an inspection tour since Kokavil had a radio transmitter and the Japanese planners were proposing the erection of a TV transmitter also in the same location.

Filed under accountability, anti-racism, centre-periphery relations, economic processes, education policy, ethnicity, governance, historical interpretation, island economy, life stories, nationalism, patriotism, politIcal discourse, power politics, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, world events & processes

February 13, 2023 · 3:32 pm

Australia’s Policy towards Sri Lankan Refugee Migrants after the Civil War

Judith Betts & Claire Higgins: “The Sri Lankan Civil War and Australia’s Migration Policy Response: A Historical Case Study with Contemporary Implications” …. an article pubd on 16th May 2017 …. see https://doi.org/10.1002/app5.181 **

Abstract: Sri Lanka’s civil war lasted almost 26 years and cost tens of thousands of lives. Since the end of the war in 2009, several thousand asylum seekers from Sri Lanka have sought protection in Australia, but both Labor and Liberal/National Coalition governments have taken a restrictive approach to their arrival and have expressed support for the Sri Lankan government. This article explores Australia’s response to the protection needs of Sri Lankans during an earlier era, at the outbreak of the war in 1983, when a Labor government processed Tamils ‘in-country’ under Australia’s Special Humanitarian Program.

Filed under accountability, Australian culture, australian media, authoritarian regimes, charitable outreach, demography, discrimination, disparagement, economic processes, Eelam, ethnicity, foreign policy, governance, historical interpretation, human rights, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, landscape wondrous, legal issues, life stories, LTTE, patriotism, politIcal discourse, power politics, refugees, rehabilitation, Tamil civilians, Tamil migration, tamil refugees, the imaginary and the real, tolerance, transport and communications, travelogue, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, war reportage, welfare & philanthophy, women in ethnic conflcits, working class conditions, world events & processes

February 13, 2023 · 1:01 am

The Minutiae of Historical Endeavour: Searching for Details of the Interaction between Virginia and Leonard Woolf

A = Temma Berg’s Initial Query via Email, early December 2022

I write in response to your blog about Leonard Woolf. I am working on Leonard and Virginia and exploring how much they might owe to one another. I have read her novels, diaries, letters, and short stories and his autobiographies and novels and many articles (including yours) and have become fascinated with how much husband and wife influenced one another.

I write to you to ask if you have ever wondered where Virginia’s emphasis on 500 pounds a year came from? I have been trying to find out how much Leonard might have earned while in Ceylon and have been unable to come up with any figures. Do you have any idea how much he might have earned per year?

Temma Berg

Filed under accountability, art & allure bewitching, authoritarian regimes, British colonialism, centre-periphery relations, cultural transmission, economic processes, ethnicity, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, literary achievements, modernity & modernization, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, transport and communications, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes

February 10, 2023 · 11:53 pm

Remembering the Unseen Hands Supporting One of My Books

Michael Roberts in the DEDICATION presented on the first page of the book Tamil Person and State: Essays, Colombo, Vijitha Yapa Publications, 2014, … ISBN 978-955- 665-230-7

The essays that make up this anthology would not have been possible without the assistance of numerous individuals who provided me with information during face-to-face conversations, Skype and telephone chats or through responses by email. This will be only too evident if readers take note of my citations and footnotes. For this reason, it is entirely appropriate that I dedicate this work to all those who have assisted me in my researches over the last few years. Not all of them will agree with my thrusts. Indeed, there are a few of them in Colombo, such as Ananda Chittambalam, who have disputed some of my arguments, while yet encouraging me in my researches and publication programmes.

Ana Chittambalam: ex-Royal College, raconteur, promoter of causes and a staunch ally and dangerous foe

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Filed under accountability, asylum-seekers, atrocities, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, demography, economic processes, Eelam, ethnicity, fundamentalism, governance, historical interpretation, human rights, Indian Ocean politics, insurrections, language policies, law of armed conflict, legal issues, life stories, LTTE, martyrdom, military strategy, nationalism, patriotism, performance, photography, politIcal discourse, power politics, prabhakaran, refugees, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, Tamil migration, Tamil Tiger fighters, terrorism, transport and communications, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, war reportage, world events & processes, zealotry

February 10, 2023 · 12:37 am

Old World Charm: The New Oriental Hotel in The Fort of Galle

Joe Simpson, in https://www.worldgenweb.org/lkawgw/noh.html … with highlighting added by Thuppahi and pictorial embellishments from Joe on request or from his past articles plus other cameramen

“Preserving the spirit of a forgotten world” –– anecdotal glimpses of the New Oriental Hotel, Galle Fort, by Joe Simpson. otesaga@shaw.ca

Not long ago while reading a Canadian newspaper article about the restoration of Penang’s Eastern & Oriental Hotel, founded in 1885 by the Sarkie brothers, the same Armenian-born Malay Peninsula hoteliers who built Singapore’s legendary Raffles Hotel, I felt stirred to begin delving into the history of an even more venerable South Asian hostelry of my past acquaintance – Sri Lanka’s New Oriental Hotel.