Coping with a Squirrel Menace
The Presbyterian Church called a meeting to decide what to do about their squirrel infestation. After much prayer and consideration, they concluded that the squirrels were predestined to be there, and they should not interfere with God’s divine will.
Filed under accountability, art & allure bewitching, authoritarian regimes, cultural transmission, disparagement, heritage, Kandyan kingdom, law of armed conflict, life stories, meditations, performance, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, tolerance
Posters being pasted in Colombo and suburbs yesterday to mark the 15 years since the murder of Lasantha Wickrematunge which falls today.
Today marks 15 years since the brutal murder of iconic journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge with none brought to justice. To mark the occasion Lasantha’s kids Avinash, Ahimsa and Aadesh issued the following statement which will be read out today at Lasantha’s graveside memorial at the General Cemetery Kanatte.
Gamini Seneviratne, in a set of profound reflections entitled “Ian Goonatileke, A Memory” and presented previously …. but now subject to a change of title and highlights imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi
Browsing through various writings that had to do with Ian, I came upon the following paragraphs that seem to merit a fresh airing in the light of the literary awards recently made under the Gratiaen Trust. Regardless of his spell of scepticism (as mentioned below) that made him turn away from his commitment to advancing his friend Michael Ondaatje’s hopes and intent in funding that Trust it came to establish another award in Ian’s name, one for translation.
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Mick Moore of Susssex University ** … with highlighting imposed within this essay by The Editor, Thuppahi
Richmond Castle is a large and elegant villa beautifully located in a wooded estate on a hill above the Kalu Ganga not far from Kalutara town. It was built at enormous expense between 1900 and 1910, by Padikara Mudali Nanayakkara Rajawasala Appuhamilage Don Arthur de Silva Wijesinghe Siriwardena, aka Arthur Silva, Mudaliyar. Were it located in the UK, it would be a major tourist attraction. It is however little visited or even known. One reason is that it has languished – and crumbled – for decades in the hands of the Public Trustee, who has neither the resources nor the incentive to promote or even maintain it. Arthur Silva left the property to the care of the Public Trustee in the expectation that a Trust would be established to manage it and the small boys orphanage attached. That has never happened.
Filed under architects & architecture, British colonialism, centre-periphery relations, commoditification, cultural transmission, economic processes, education, ethnicity, growth pole, heritage, historical interpretation, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, performance, plantations, politIcal discourse, sri lankan society, unusual people, world events & processes
Michael Roberts
St. Peters College in Adelaide is an elite boys public school that has produced several Prime Ministers of South Australia and schooled many prominent figures in Australian life. The school’s cricket team chose to tour Ceylon in the month of January 1928 and played matches against Royal College, S. Thomas’ College and Trinity; and also against a team of planters at the grounds in Darrawella in the hill country.
Michael Roberts and Arthur Saniotis, … reproducing the editorial introduction to a collection of essays devoted to the topic identified in the title pesented within Social Analysis, Volume 50, Issue 1, Spring 2006, 7–24 © Berghahn Journals ... with highlighting emphasis imposed in this version by Michael Roberts
Facing death with equanimity and with a honed, trained body is an expression of sheer power.[1] When a group of like-minded individuals confronts an opposi- tional force with equal mental and bodily capacities, whether on a sports field or in a warring conflict, the result is power compounded. Each article in this special section ‘confronts’ such powers. Together they explore several regionally specific projects in Asia in which dying for a cause is seen as a virtue.
There are several parts of Asia where social practices and cultural traditions have consciously nourished bodily empowerment. In these select yet dynamic traditions, mind and body are conceived as a unity. Attentiveness to cosmic powers is an integral aspect of disciplined ascetic practices that seek to har- ness bodily energy in maximal ways. These practices confront death. They are directed toward transcending the fear of death—and death itself. When they are inserted into a moment of violent conflict involving interpersonal combat, they encourage a steely, terrifying fearlessness as well as deadly striking power.
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Ismeth Raheem, in the Sunday Times, 24 December 2023, where the title reads “A Christmas sketch among the many 19th century social events captured by J.L.K. Van Dort” . … An Item conveyed to me by David Sansoni of Sydney and now sibject to my=highlighting emphasis (Editor, Thuppahi)
J.L.K. Van Dort who flourished in the latter half of the 19th century in Sri Lanka could well be described as the ‘Hogarth of Ceylon’. He was undoubtedly the best-known painter and illustrator working in the country at the time. From 1850 up till to his death in 1896, he recorded almost every social event of importance with his deft quick sketches, including religious festivals like Christmas.
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Asiff Hussein, in Elanka, 23 December 2023, …. with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi
Filed under art & allure bewitching, Colombo and Its Spaces, cultural transmission, demography, economic processes, education, ethnicity, female empowerment, heritage, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, modernity & modernization, patriotism, performance, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, tolerance
Michael Roberts …. presenting a talk which he delivered at the National Trust in Colombo in June 2018 following a brief to the effect that he should present motifs from the book People Inbetween. The Burghers and the Middle Class in the Transformations within Sri Lanka, 1790-1960s, (Ratmalana, Sarvodaya Book Publishing Services, 1989) and more specifically its first chapter viz. “Pejorative Phrases: The Anti-colonial Response and Sinhala Perceptions of the Self through Images of the Burghers.”
Many think People Inbetween is a history of the Burghers. Not so. It is multi-faceted. It describes (a) the rise of the middle class in British times, an influential force within which the Burghers were a critical element and a vanguard in the questioning of British rule; (b) the initial strands in the development of Ceylonese nationalism and (c) the development of Colombo into a metropolitan hub that became the island’s hegemonic centre.
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