This Item in courtesy of a Peradeniya Batch-mate Nissanka Warakaulle …………..
Category Archives: photography
What a Ho-HAH!@$!! …. The Olympic Torch reaches France
In Honour of a Dinky-Die War Correspondent, Muralidhar Reddy
Michael Roberts
Because my sister Estelle’s birthday fell in early May, I visited Sri Lanka from late April 2009 to circa July 2009 when the Sri Lankan armed forces were on the verge of overcoming the LTTE and its Eelam struggle. It so happened that the journalist representing the important Tamilnadu publishers of The Hindu and Frontline was none other than Muralidhar Reddy (in residence near Thurstan Rd). I had met Reddy once at Sanjay Srivastava’s home in Delhi (1995?) and he sought me out with requests for articles to be placed in Frontline.
This initiated a fruitful set of exchanges. It also brought me friendship with another Indian journalist, Kanchan Prasad — whose photographic skills have provided me with some invaluable war ‘tales’ in camera-mode: so that all the four photos of Murali-in-the war-zone are shots snapped by this intrepid lady …. a Lyse Doucet in Asian mould.
Filed under accountability, art & allure bewitching, atrocities, ethnicity, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, LTTE, military strategy, photography, politIcal discourse, power politics, press freedom, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, Tamil Tiger fighters, the imaginary and the real, trauma, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, war reportage, world events & processes
A Successful Quest: The “QUEST” as Wreck Located
Campbell MacDiarmid in Ottawa, in The Guardian, 12 June 2024… with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi
The vessel, which sank off the coast of Canada in 1962, was used by the explorer on his final voyage to the continent.
The wreck of the ship on which renowned Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton died has been found off the coast of Labrador, Canada, searchers have announced.
Locating the Quest – a schooner-rigged steamship which sank on a 1962 seal hunting voyage – represents a last link to the “heroic age of Antarctic exploration”, said search leader John Geiger. “Finding Quest is one of the final chapters in the extraordinary story of Sir Ernest Shackleton,” said Geiger, who heads the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.
Geiger was speaking from the bridge of Leeway Odyssey as the oceanographic research vessel returned to port in St John’s, Newfoundland, after locating the Quest in 400 metres of water 15 nautical miles from shore.
Commemorating D-DAY in Normandy, 2024
Item in The Economist, 30 May 2024 …. with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi
Bob Fagan was a 21-year-old private from Texas when he plunged from his assault craft into the cold sea off Utah Beach in Normandy, under the rattle of Nazi machinegun fire and air bombardment. “The water was red with blood,” he later recalled. “There were bodies floating all around us.” A fellow member of the 299th combat battalion landing on Omaha Beach had a simpler description: “Hell.”
A beach landing by the Royal Marines of 47 Commando and civilians at Asnelles before their annual ‘yomp’ to Port-en-Bessin, in Normandy, France, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings. Picture date: Thursday June 6, 2024. PA Photo. See PA story MEMORIAL DDay. Photo credit should read: Aaron Chown/PA Wire
Filed under accountability, cultural transmission, education, ethnicity, European history, heritage, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, martyrdom, meditations, military strategy, patriotism, performance, photography, pilgrimages, politIcal discourse, sea warfare, the imaginary and the real, trauma, world events & processes, World War II
Gross Ignorance displayed by USA’s Parliamentarians
Daya Gamage, whose chosen title runs thus: “US lawmakers ignorance of civilian casualties in Lanka’s war on terrorism”
Declaring that the government of Sri Lanka, while combating ‘Tamil Organizations’ which were fighting for a Tamil Homeland in the North-East, committed genocide against the Tamil people, a resolution was tabled in the US House of Representatives, on May 15, 2024, to coincide with the 15th anniversary of the conclusion of the LTTE’s terrorist war; it states, “Recognizing the hundreds of thousands of lives lost during Sri Lanka’s almost 30-year armed conflict, which ended 15 years ago on May 18, 2009, and ensuring nonrecurrence of past violence, including the Tamil Genocide, by supporting the right to self-determination of Eelam Tamil people and their call for an independence referendum for a lasting peaceful resolution”.
Filed under accountability, american imperialism, atrocities, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, demography, disparagement, doctoring evidence, Eelam, ethnicity, historical interpretation, legal issues, life stories, military strategy, patriotism, photography, politIcal discourse, power politics, prabhakaran, propaganda, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, suicide bombing, Tamil civilians, Tamil migration, tamil refugees, Tamil Tiger fighters, trauma, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, war crimes, war reportage, world events & processes, zealotry
Birds in Unison: Musical Visions
Courtesy of Ting cho khong & bieu khong …. conveyed by Keith Bennett of Melbourne
Filed under landscape wondrous, nature's wonders, performance, photography
Pictorial: The Force of the Wind in Sri Lanka
Nisal Baduge in the Daily Mirror, 24 May 2024, in Item entitled “Wild Dance of Nature”
Gusty winds sweep through Colombo, bringing both chaos and joy. Amidst the flurry of leaves and scattered debris, some find exhilaration in the tempest, their faces alight with delight as they embrace the wild dance of nature. Pix by Nisal Baduge
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.
Be Tamil Bibliography…….For Sri Lanka 2003/04
Michael Roberts
About the time that I retired from my teaching duties at the Anthropology Department at Adelaide University in 2003/04, the topic of “suicide terrorism” was attracting a lot of attention in academic circles through books and articles. As I dwelt on this topic within the alternative title of “Sacrificial Devotion,” I also had, perforce, to dwell on the grievances espoused by the Sri Lanka Tamils.
Through happenchance, today, I came across an old Word File entitled “Be Tamil Bibliography.” Its entries suggest that it was drafted circa 2003/04 – so the temporal sweep is restricted. It lists academic books and articles on the ethnic contretemps in Sri Lanka as well as the Tamil world of Sri Lanka and India. Thus, the authors marked include such personnel as Zvelebil, Schalk, Kenneth David and Hellmann-Rajanayagam as well as the local Tamils Chelliah Manogaran, Valentine Daniel, Sivathamby, Somasundaram and Sivaram …. to name a few.
Tamil demonstrators invade the pitch during a Cricket World Cup, Group B, match between Australia and Sri Lanka at the Oval, London, 11th June 1975. Australian opening batsman Alan Turner (foreground) turns his back on the protest while his teammate Rick McCosker looks on. Australia won the match by 52 runs..…Photo by Dennis Oulds/Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Filed under atrocities, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, counter-insurgency, cultural transmission, demography, discrimination, disparagement, doctoring evidence, ethnicity, fundamentalism, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, immolation, Indian Ocean politics, insurrections, landscape wondrous, language policies, law of armed conflict, LTTE, martyrdom, military strategy, nationalism, patriotism, photography, politIcal discourse, power politics, power sharing, prabhakaran, propaganda, racist thinking, religiosity, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, social justice, sri lankan society, suicide bombing, Tamil civilians, Tamil migration, tamil refugees, Tamil Tiger fighters, terrorism, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, world events & processes, zealotry
