Category Archives: nature’s wonders

May 18, 2024 · 12:32 am

Galle Cricket Grounds as Best in This Our World

Michael Roberts

It appears that the Test cricket grounds at Galle has been voted to be the BEST of the Test-featuring grounds in the world. THAT is quite a mark—considering the picturesque setting of some other grounds. Since this was the municipal arena where St. Aloysius College pursued all its sports activities every evening in the 1940s and 50s; and an arena which featured hockey and soccer matches besides cricket …. and even the occasional hackery or elephant race on special occasions, these heights are quite a TRANSFORMATION.

SO, let me spice and flavour this moment with a pictorial history: when it was not a sports arena; …. when its pavilion was as confined as unremarkable; … when Nihal Fernando, cameraman extraordinary snapped a cricket match in the 1980s; … and thence to the tumultuous present day scenarios – with a horrifying pause after the tsunami shattered the grounds and neighbouring bus-stand.

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Filed under accountability, architects & architecture, heritage, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, nature's wonders, photography, Sri Lankan cricket, sri lankan society, travelogue, world events & processes

April 18, 2024 · 8:12 pm

Accidental Cameraman: My Best Shots

 Michael Roberts as a Cameraman …. seeing to emulate that genius the late Nihal Fernando

A Shoreline Fish-hunter south of Wattala at twilight where a small inland canal meets the sea …. the photo was shot in a snap decision from the prow of a padda boat about to land our touring-party on the beach …..

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Filed under art & allure bewitching, cultural transmission, landscape wondrous, life stories, nature's wonders, performance, photography, travelogue

February 5, 2024 · 1:09 am

Wild Animals & Luxury at Yala National Park in Sri Lanka

Jeremy Bourke: “The new Sri Lankan resort where wildlife roam free,” in The Weekend Australian Travel + Luxury Magazine, 3/4 February 2024 …….

Buffalos in pools, elephants on footpaths and an escort needed when you leave your pavilion – the fenceless Hilton Yala is quite the experience.

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Filed under art & allure bewitching, elephant tales, island economy, landscape wondrous, leopards in the wild, life stories, modernity & modernization, nature's wonders, photography, sri lankan society, travelogue, world events & processes

January 31, 2024 · 1:14 am

African Wiild Life in John de Silva’s Lens

John De Silva  is an Old Aloysian like the Editor Thuppahi.  He resides now in Melbourne and is a key member of the small crew sustaining the Old Aloysian Magazine.

 

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Filed under landscape wondrous, life stories, nature's wonders, photography, tourism, travelogue, wild life

January 8, 2024 · 10:03 am

Impervious Power

Item circulated by Keith Bennett of Australia ….. An Eagle impervious to the Power of Manifold Bees ….. And …. Able to Guzzle Honey in A Raid

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December 31, 2023 · 11:25 am

The TSUNAMI Hit on Sri Lanka, 26 December 2004 on Video & Camera

The Video is courtesy of Felix Sirimanne and apart from its awesome pictorial display indicates that 35,322 lives were lost. All of us will be aware of friends or acquaintances whose sojourn on earth was rudely obliterated on that day….

For my part I deploy this recollection of a sad moment to doff my cap to Sujeeva Kamalasuriya, a young man who represented Sri Lanka in its Under 19 tour of Australia in the 1980s and then migrated to Adelaide where he was part of out Lankan cricketing circle. He was holdiaying at Unawatuna near Galle …. as it happens one of my favourite spots for snorkelling from years past to the present — when the tsunami hit and swallowed his life.

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Filed under landscape wondrous, life stories, meditations, nature's wonders, security, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, tourism, trauma, travelogue, world events & processes

December 24, 2023 · 6:02 pm

Galgiriya Mountain and Its Unique Monastic Ruins

Prageeth Sampath Karunathilaka, in Daily Mirror, 20 December 2023, where the title reads thus: “Longest mountain in Sri Lanka: How Saliya-Asokamala shaped the history of Galgiriya Mountain” ….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Galgiriya mountain seen from afar

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Filed under ancient civilisations, architects & architecture, art & allure bewitching, Buddhism, cultural transmission, heritage, historical interpretation, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, nature's wonders, pilgrimages, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes

October 9, 2023 · 10:34 am

Savour Nicholas Andriani’s Creative World

 SOME POSTS from NICHOLAS ANDRIANI

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Filed under art & allure bewitching, centre-periphery relations, China and Chinese influences, heritage, landscape wondrous, life stories, nature's wonders, performance, self-reflexivity, unusual people

September 27, 2023 · 9:03 pm

How Anthropologists Think: Configurations of the Exotic

  Bruce Kapferer, … being the Huxley Lecture: British Museum, 16 December 2011, subsequently published in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 9, 8–86 ..in 2013 … [with the numerals in the publication date references subject to distortion in this version–distortions that will be corrected eventually]

Anthropology has often been criticized for its exoticism and orientalism. They are the paradoxes of a discipline focused on the comparative study of difference and diversity and are at the centre of the discussion here in the larger context of the importance of anthropology in the humanities and social sciences. The emphasis is on the role of the exotic as vital to anthropology’s study of difference and to its overall coherence and significance for the understanding of humanity as a whole.

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Filed under Aboriginality, ancient civilisations, British imperialism, centre-periphery relations, cultural transmission, economic processes, education, ethnicity, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian traditions, landscape wondrous, life stories, literary achievements, modernity & modernization, nature's wonders, performance, politIcal discourse, population, racism, racist thinking, religiosity, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, teaching profession, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, travelogue, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, violence of language, world affairs, world events & processes, zealotry

September 14, 2023 · 7:25 pm

A ‘Miracle’ with Jesus Christ in Rio 

A Jesus Christ ‘Miracle’ in Rio   …..  A Genius in Cameracraft generates a SHOT that is an Achievement Indelible

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Filed under architects & architecture, art & allure bewitching, cultural transmission, heritage, landscape wondrous, life stories, nature's wonders, performance, photography, religiosity, the imaginary and the real, world events & processes