Category Archives: performance

October 3, 2021 · 1:06 pm

Soaring Thoughts at Ratmalana Airport

Roger Thiedeman

This article is adapted from the original published in the Sri Lanka Sunday Times on November 23, 1997 (http://www.sundaytimes.lk/971123/plus10.html) under the title [listed at the end of this presentation]. The title initially submitted, ‘Reminiscing at Ratmalana’, was changed at the whim of an anonymous Sunday Times sub-editor.

In August this year I stood outside the Ratmalana airbase and watched a Sri Lanka Air Force Antonov An-32B take off. As the transport aircraft soared aloft in a climbing turn towards the north, my memories and imagination also took flight.

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under heritage, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, performance, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, transport and communications, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes

October 1, 2021 · 7:06 pm

Evanjelin Elchmanar, a Sri Lankan Lass, becomes “Miss International UK”

Upali Obeyesekere

Evanjelin Elchmanar from Birmingham, U.K., has won the crown of “Miss International U.K. 2021/ 2022” defeating, more than 50 other British girls. She will compete in the “Miss World International” to be held in Japan in October 2021. According to reports, she is a lovely girl with a sweet, engaging personality, and is a strong contender to win that competition too.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, life stories, performance, sri lankan society, Tamil migration, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes

October 1, 2021 · 4:35 pm

Yohani De Silva sails into the World Stage as Singer

ISLAND Feature Article, 28 October 2021, with this title “Mega Scene for Lanka’s Singing Sensation Yohani “

UPDATE: Yohani, we are told, has been signed by an Indian company, Wingman Talent Management, and will be managed by Sonu Lakhwani, who has also had Jacqueline Fernandez under his wings.

Undoubtedly, Yohani de Silva is Sri Lanka’s singing sensation, global ambassadress and whatever more tags that she may add to her singing career, in the near future. I can’t think of a single present day local artiste who has achieved the kind of glory, and fame, that has come Yohani’s way, through her music or, let’s say, singing.

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under art & allure bewitching, cultural transmission, economic processes, ethnicity, female empowerment, heritage, landscape wondrous, life stories, performance, sri lankan society, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes

September 17, 2021 · 3:33 pm

Pointers from Singapore towards the Appraisal of the Hambantota Port Scheme

Fair Dinkum

When Sir Stamford Raffles arrived in Singapore in 1819, the British set about creating the Port of Singapore. In time, with much hard work, the port became successful. In the 1960s, the Singapore government set about further expansions of its ports along the south of the island, with five additional gateways operating by the 1990s. It is now one of the biggest and busiest collection of ports in the world. Having visited these ports over the years, the scale of operations is extraordinary. The success of Singapore Ports was built up over time. It didn’t come easily or immediately. The same with the Piraeus Port in Greece, although it became successful and profitable quickly.

Hambantota — a Pix and a Sketch

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, China and Chinese influences, commoditification, economic processes, export issues, governance, growth pole, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, life stories, modernity & modernization, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, transport and communications, world events & processes

September 17, 2021 · 1:18 pm

A Versatile Beauty, Yvonne Gulamhusein nee Toussaint

Information sent by Harry De Sayrah, September 2021 …. supplemented by Notes from David Sansoni and Others

El Patio Yveony, Bambalapitiya: The beautiful home and mansion, “El Patio Yveony”, owned and lived in by Onally Gulamhussein and his celebrity wife Yvonne Toussaint starts off the next block of land adjoining Station Road. Onally, nicknamed “Jutehessian” and his wife the socialite Yvonne Gulamhussian, nee Toussaint, was refereed to as Mrs. Ooh La Jute Hessian.

Yvonne weds Onally: Extracted from HI Magazine Online – http://www.hi.lk

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under art & allure bewitching, British colonialism, centre-periphery relations, commoditification, cultural transmission, economic processes, ethnicity, heritage, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, modernity & modernization, performance, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes

September 16, 2021 · 1:31 am

Cricket & Cricketers Negotiating the Pandemic 2020-21

Osman Samiuddin & Grish Ts & Shiva Jayaraman, in The Cricket Monthly, 26 March 2021, where the title reads: “”Who played how much”

It began with the news that England’s players would not be shaking hands in Sri Lanka. It escalated so rapidly that 12 days later, soon after the Quetta Gladiators thumped the Karachi Kings, all cricket around the world ground to a halt. For 114 days there was no elite-level cricket (but thank you nonetheless, Vanuatu and the Vincy T10 league). Though it now feels as if the calendar never stopped, March 15, 2021 marked a year from the day of that last PSL game, a year unlike most of us have witnessed.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, cricket for amity, economic processes, governance, landscape wondrous, life stories, performance, transport and communications, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes

September 13, 2021 · 2:43 pm

Yvonne Between Richard Nixon and Sir John

This striking photo was proably snapped before Sir John Kotelawela led the UNP to Debacle in the 1956 General Elections. [on 23 November 1953 — as kindly pointed out by Sachi Sri Kantha…. see below]

Lord Soulbury is seated on the extreme left –so this snap has been taken before he left Ceylon. It would be useful if other “personalities’ could be identified. The lady looking pensive in her pensive middle postion betwen Kohn Kotelawela and Richard Nixon is Yvonne Gulam Hussein nee Tousaint — a prominent socialite in Colombo.

Continue reading →

3 Comments

Filed under art & allure bewitching, commoditification, economic processes, ethnicity, heritage, landscape wondrous, life stories, performance, self-reflexivity, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, tolerance, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes

September 13, 2021 · 1:06 am

Radio Ceylon: King of the Airwaves in the Mid-Twentieth Century

Gaston de Rosayro, in Daily News, 13 February 2017 where the title reads “When Radio Ceylon was King of the airwaves!”

World Radio Day was first celebrated in 2012, following its declaration by the UNESCO General Conference. It was subsequently adopted as an International Day by the organisation. The theme for the 2017 edition of the event is ‘Radio is You!’, a call for greater participation of audiences and communities in the policy and planning of radio broadcasting.