Category Archives: sri lankan society

November 7, 2021 · 1:00 pm

Paliganeema: Cycles of Revenge…. Kill … Retaliate … Kill in the 1980s

Sanjeewa Karunaratne, whose chosen title = ” Stories from Civil War– Young Girl’s Wish” …. see http://www.sanjeewakarunaratne.com/index.php/blogs/hungry-counsel/stories-from-sri-lanka-s-civil-war-young-girl-s-wish

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pix from Stephen Champion’s pictorial book inserrted here to highlight the ‘fiesta’ of kill and counter-kill

I call him Jayantha to protect his identity. Calm and collected, he was a good friend at high school. His parents were middle-class schoolteachers. During high school, some of the friends visited Jayantha’s home; and they were talking weeks about how pretty his elder sister was. Not surprisingly, she was to become the beauty queen of this small town. Inspector Dammika was in charge of the police station in this town. Through my good friend Mike, I met this soft-speaking police officer and happened to spend a night at his bungalow. He was Mike’s brother-in-law. At the time, I did not know that he got charged with her murder. A few years later, Dammika and his father-in-law were assassinated. A couple of year later Mike got killed.

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November 6, 2021 · 7:12 pm

Sri Lankan Army’s Alms as Arms across the Ethnic Divide

Retd Brigadier Hiran Halangode** has told me about a schoolmate from Ananda College, one Kumar Weerasuriya, who has donated over 15 houses with funds from friends and labour from the Army in Jaffna. He indicates that Weerasuriya is “a true son of Sri Lanka who gives back to all Sri Lankans with all his mite. You may be able to share his story in Australia and globally.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Halangode has also sent the three images presented here of houses donated by 3 different individuals to the homeless in Jaffna. Their stories can be extracted from this website, which is the Jaffna Security Forces website on Civil Affairs. [www.cimicjaffna.lk Continue reading →

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November 6, 2021 · 11:12 am

A Tale of Resistance: The Story of the Arrival of the Portuguese in Sri Lanka

Michael Roberts, reproducing here an article that appeared initially in 1989 with the same title in Ethnos, 55: 1-2:69-82. … and also in Swedish in Lanka. Tidskrift om Lankesisk Kultur (Uppsala), No. 2, March 1989. I regret that the presentation here has not been able to incoroporate diacritica for indigenous words. Standing now in 2025, I have added highlighted colouring in red or purple in order to emphasize points.

ABSTRACT: This essay decodes a sixteenth century folktale which records the Sinhalese reaction to the arrival of the first Portuguese. Where the historiography has interpreted this tale as benign wonderment in the face of exotica, a piecemeal deconstruction of the allegorical clues in the ‘story is utilised to reveal how the Sinhalese linked the Portuguese with demons and with Vasavarti Maraya; the arch enemy of the Buddha. In this fashion the Portuguese and the Christian sacrament of communion were represented as dangerous, disordering forces. The piecemeal reinterpretation of this short text, however, must be overlaid by a holistic perspective and the realisation that its rendering in oral form enabled its purveyors to lace the story with a satirical flavour: so that the Portuguese and Catholicism are, like demons, rendered both disordering and comic, dangerous and inferior – thus ultimately controllable. In contending in this manner that the folktale is an act of nationalist opposition, the article is designed as an attack on the positivist empiricism which pervades the island’s historiography and shuts out imaginative reconstructions which are worked out by penetrating the subjective world of the ancient texts.

 

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November 4, 2021 · 6:56 pm

A Supposed Wonder Drug gets Rubbished

A Recent Email Drum-beat touted a supposed wonder drug in the treament of cancer! ….. But the Essay meets Its Match in Two Caustic Comments from Two Sri Lankan Doctor Friends

ONE:  Dr Colin Fernando in Adelaide,  4 November 2012

This is certainly not a brilliant new discovery. The use of cyanide from Apricot  Kernel and from Manioc as a treatment for cancer has been touted since the 1950’s at least. It was patented as “Laetrile” and has been carefully studied and rejected by respected researchers.

 Kiributh with lunumiris — as tasty as non-curative! Continue reading →

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November 1, 2021 · 12:27 pm

The Development of Transportation in Ceylon, 1800-1947

L. A. Wickremeratne aka Ananda Wickremeratne**

The history of transportation in Ceylon forms an interesting backdrop to the economic developments of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the beginning of the nineteenth century however, military exigencies rather than economic considerations were the determining factors in the construction of roads by the colonial government. Understandably, much attention was centered on the recently acquired Kandyan territories over which the British were determined to strengthen their hold.

The Satinwood Bridge at Peradeniya (a description questioned by /Gerald Peiris)

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October 31, 2021 · 7:59 pm

The Faculty of Science, University of Ceylon in the 1960s

Presented by HSM Pieris

The photograph shows a section of the notable and distinguished academics of the Faculty of Science, University of Ceylon.

Seated (L to R) – Prof. (Mrs.) WPD Pereira, Prof. KD Arulpragasam, Prof. PPGL Siriwardane, Prof. S. Cruz, Prof. AW Mailwaganam, Mr. SJ Walpita, Prof. BA Abeyawickrama, Prof. V. Appapillai, Prof. MS Thambiah, Prof. P. Kanagasabapathy, Prof. GP Wannigama, Prof. PW Vithanage.

Standing (L to R) 1st Row – Prof. S. Balasubramaniam, Prof. MD Dassanayake, Prof. V. Tharmaratnam, Prof. GA Dissanayake, Prof. PCB Fernando, Prof. PW Epasinghe, Prof. C. Dahanayake, Prof. SG Canagaratna, Prof. RGA Rodrigo, Prof. JKP Ariyaratne, Prof. MLT Kannangara, Prof. HH Costa, Prof. AH Sathananthan.

2nd Row (L to R) – Prof. MR Kulatilake, Prof. HNC Fonseka, Prof. PD Gunatilake, Prof. HW Dias, Prof. VK Samaranayake, Prof. M. Selvaratnam, Prof. RS Ramakishna, Prof. WWD Modder, Prof. RN de Fonseka, Prof. I. Balasooriya, Prof. KOIF Jayaweera, Prof. OW Jayaratne.

Photograph Credit: Family photograph collection fromthe  late Prof. B.A. Abeywickrama

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October 31, 2021 · 1:23 pm

Amazing! Gnanasara Thera’s Appointment as Point Man for Reconciliation!

 Rajan Philips, in Sunday Island, 31 October 2021, where the title reads “One Country, One Law. What is it? Why now?”

The gazette announcement that Ven. Galagodaaththe Gnanasara Thera will be heading a new Presidential Task Force to study “the implementation of the concept, One country; One law, and prepare a draft Act for the said purpose,” was more befuddling than it was shocking or infuriating. “It defies comprehension,” said The Island editorial on Thursday. Many also found the announcement somewhat hilarious while mindful of its ominous implications. The hilarity stems from this government’s seemingly unlimited capacity to be ridiculously irrational in political tactics, even as it is utterly incompetent on matters of policy. Comprehending the government’s actions is not the problem. Fathoming how far the consequences of those actions will go and how damaging they will be to the public good is the challenge.

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October 29, 2021 · 8:02 pm

Vale Dr. Siran Deraniyagala: Assiduous Archaelogist & A Savant Servant for Lanka

Chryshane Mendis

It is no easy task to pen down few words on the life history of a colossus like Dr. Siran Deraniyagala, but nevertheless I will try. Life has its ways, its own twists and turns at times one would not expect; such was the shocking yet inevitable demise of Dr. Deraniyagala. The mystery of life will take us on many paths, and in the case of Dr. Deraniyagala, it took him to explore the mystery of life itself! While digging the earth to unravel humanity’s origins, perhaps he too realized where his journey would end, in the earth; and it eventually did come to pass on the 5th of October 2021. The Man who studied the past, of the lifeways of past peoples, now himself joined them; Siran Upendra Deraniyagala is now a person of the past! But what of his legacy? Will he be only a person of the past or will he be remembered in the present? Unlike the mystery of life, this is an easy question with a simple answer. Yes. Siran Deraniyagala will live on! Decades later even after fading from living memory, his name will be remembered even centuries on. Such is his legacy. Therefore let us briefly marvel at the amazing life of of Dr. Siran Deraniyagala.

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October 29, 2021 · 5:37 pm

An Exemplary Teacher at Ussangoda: Philanthopy topped with Genius

Siri Ipalawatte of Canberra writing in The Island, 23 October 2021, where the title reads “An amazing Sri Lankan  – ‘the power of one’ 

From Tidbinbilla to rain forests, red wines to thelijja, cappaccino to kurumba, five-stars to homestay…. Just when I thought I had touched every nook and cranny of Sri Lanka, it sprung yet another surprise. An old Uni friend suggested ‘why not visit the unusual and weird landscape called Ussangoda—the place in Hindu Mythology where King Ravana landed his air machine, dandu-monara? And off came another nugget! He said a batchmate of ours lived in a century-old house in a village called Kiula — an exotic name from the fact that the water in the area is kiul as it gets mixed with an underground seashell bed and salt water —very close to Ussangoda. This chance encounter led to a number of texts and mobile calls, and a few days later, a memorable sleepover in his house located between the 217 and 218t kilometre-post on the A2 highway between the sleepy towns of Hungama and Ambalantota in the southern Sri Lanka.

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October 28, 2021 · 9:04 am

A Connoisseur’s Guide to the Birds of Sri Lanka

Gehan de Silva Wijeyratne, in Ozlanka, https://www.ozlanka.com/2021/10/10/a-naturalists-guide-to-the-birds-of-sri-lanka/,…… where the title is  “A Naturalist’s Guide to the Birds of Sri Lanka”

British company John Beaufoy Publishing has published a significantly revised third edition of A Naturalist’s Guide to the Birds of Sri Lanka. Previous editions of this pocket guide have served as a first book on birdwatching in Sri Lanka to many visitors and local residents. The third edition has been extensively revised to reflect current taxonomic thinking influenced by advances in molecular phylogenetics. The arrangement of birds to reflect their evolutionary relationship to each other is the science of taxonomy or systematics, which has been in a state of flux for centuries as taxonomists attempt to construct the evolutionary relationship between birds. The new arrangement of families will hold many surprises. For example, consider the familiar Sri Lanka Woodshrike, an endemic bird that is easily seen in popular dry lowland sites such as Yala. Many local birders will be surprised to find that it is now included in the family Vangidae, which comprises birds known as Vangas better known from Madagascar. The exact placement of some bird species still remains unresolved despite significant advances in genome sequencing.

 

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