Telling It Like It Is …. is a compilation of a few of the journalistic writings of Anne Abayasekara.
She was born Annette Aurelia Ameresekere in April 1925. In the field of journalism, she was a Sri Lankan pioneer, entering what was a male dominated profession in the early 1940s. At Lake House, before reaching 22 years of age, she was appointed Editress of the Women’s Pages in the Ceylon Daily News and Sunday Observer, being the only female in the Editorial Department.
Filed under charitable outreach, citizen journalism, cultural transmission, education, female empowerment, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, language policies, life stories, literary achievements, patriotism, performance, politIcal discourse, press freedom & censorship, reconciliation, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, tolerance, unusual people, welfare & philanthophy, women in ethnic conflcits, world events & processes
MEVAN PIERIS has recently turned his mind to artwork with paintbrush, while yet sustaining his commitment to the academic disciplines in which he has devoted his endeavours during the past few decades by reproducing and/or renovating portraitures of eminent scientists; while also creating paintings of his own — both portraits and scenarios.
This is a photograph of the restored painting of Professor Juan Pedige Charles Chandrasena who joined the University College in 1923 and was Professor of Chemistry in 1932 and retired or died soon afterwards. This Portrait is unsigned and the guess is that it is the work of David Paynter. The painting was in a very bad state with certain areas of the canvas having deteriorated and sprinkled all over with wall paint through neglect. The frame was also damaged and here and there the paint had begun to peel off.
Filed under Australian culture, cricket for amity, education, Eelam, ethnicity, heritage, landscape wondrous, life stories, patriotism, performance, photography, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, teaching profession, travelogue, Uncategorized, unusual people, world events & processes
Jehan Perera, in The Island, 3 August 2021, with this title “Restoring reconciliation process cannot be piecemeal”
The government is making a resolute effort to turn Sri Lanka around and put it in the direction of rapid economic development. The systematic manner in which it has been conducting the Covid vaccinations has earned recognition by WHO as well as the international community. The value of the military in getting things done on a large scale with minimum of delay has been manifested in the partnership that they have struck with the health authorities. The memory is fading of how some of the government leaders dabbled in alchemy and the spirit world to find an antidote to the COVID virus, despite being vested with the responsibility to strengthen the health of the country’s people. There is also increased space being given to civil society to engage in protests, such as the protracted teachers’ strike and the agitation against the expanding mandate of the Kotelawala Defence University.
Filed under accountability, centre-periphery relations, citizen journalism, communal relations, democratic measures, devolution, economic processes, governance, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, landscape wondrous, life stories, LTTE, nationalism, patriotism, performance, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, power politics, power sharing, Rajapaksa regime, reconciliation, rehabilitation, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, Tamil migration, tamil refugees, the imaginary and the real, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, war reportage, welfare & philanthophy, world events & processes
Courtesy of communications from Avril Thurgood, Helen Fernando & Moninna Guanwardena ….. stressing the Revd Malcolm Ranjith’s Pragmatic Benevolence in These Hours of Covid-Threat
SEE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJOJ8F7bxDI
The Bridge On The River Kwai location: the military hospital: Mount Lavinia Hotel, Hotel Road, Colombo, Sri Lanka | Photograph: Mount Lavinia HotelTHIS ITEM was sent to me by Wilfred Perera … whom I know not but … HERE we see the marvellous WORK of cameraman Michel Denis-Hunt
Geoff Wijesinghe, in Faz, 2 March 2002 where the title is “George Siegertsz: Once again to those days” …. kindly sent to Thuppahi by Clare Marie White from out of the blue skies.
George Siegertsz, who passed away in London last week at the age of 82, was one of the last of a generation of post-World War Two musicians. George was a regular at Lion House at the Bambalapitiya Junction. He was one of the motley group of young men who visited the popular eatery, which served more as a “cup tea punt” (a cup of tea and a fag) club where these youth chatted for long hours of this, that and the other.
Although the group comprised many toughs who walked around like pocket editions of Humphrey Bogart, George Raft and Spencer Tracy, the tough guys at the time of the silver screen, George Siergertsz was more interested in chatting and in music. He was the country’s number one whistler, a fine art and often his friends at Lion House, would gather round a table and listen to him whistling the popular tunes at the time.
Erin De Selfa
The Richmond Sixty Club & Others
Richmond 60 Club Wishes Walter J. May Happy Birthday, 8th January 2021
A Sixty Club Publication 
MESSAGE OF THE 6O CLUB PRESIDENT
As the President of the Richmond 60 Club, I am happy to write a few words for the special supplement issued to coincide with the 92nd birthday of Walter J. May on 08th January 2021.
Michael Roberts
ONE: The Theme Tune and George Siegertsz
The mainline tale about the production process in Ceylon in the composition of the outstanding film The Bridge on the River Kwai – a film based on an actual wartime commando operation involving the destruction of a bridge being built with POW labour by the Japanese war machine in Thailand – can be read at https://thuppahis.com/2021/08/02/kitulgala-and-the-classic-movie-bridge-on-the-river-kwai/
Filed under art & allure bewitching, British colonialism, centre-periphery relations, heritage, historical interpretation, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, meditations, performance, photography, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes, World War II and Ceylon
thuppahi
