Category Archives: sri lankan society

Hard Yards in Medical Learning at Colombo University in the 1960s

Dr Nihal D Amerasekera, in The Island, 6 July 2025, …where the title reads  “Going through Colombo Medical School” ... with highlighting emphasis imposed y ThE Editor, Thuppahi

Some real-life experiences:  I am looking at the events of the 20th century with 21st century spectacles. Hence there are no hard feelings or anger except a fervent hope the situation has changed for the better.

My first introduction to the Medical Faculty was on registration day. It started with virtual ‘road blocks’ by seniors to round up the freshers. This was the beginning of the rag to usher in the new recruits and introduce them to a new brand of nastiness, a tradition that has prevailed since the very beginning of the institution.

Photo here  This infamous ritual has become more outrageous with time. This kind of harassment went on for a further fortnight after we joined. What an introduction to a supposed sanctuary of like-minded scholars!! I look back at this behaviour — a set of practices was accepted by many of the staff in the Faculty andeven encouraged by some of them.

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Filed under accountability, authoritarian regimes, Colombo and Its Spaces, cultural transmission, disparagement, education, education policy, heritage, historical interpretation, life stories, performance, power politics, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, teaching profession, trauma, unusual people

Biographical Paths to Lankan History via ‘Hits’ on TPS

A MEMO From Michael Roberts as Editor, Thuppahi,  July 2025

The Word Press system keeps me informed about the HITs on TPS items everyday and also assembles figures for each week. Reviewing these details provides one with a glimpse of internet viewers and their interests. As an exercise with this objective I provide figures of HITS on items carrying biographical tales.

HEREWITh, then, are the figures of such hits — HITS on bio-tales – during the past week.

 

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Amidst the LTTE’s Many Killings THAT of Dr. Rajani Thiranagama

Rajan Hoole …. being chap 3 in PALMYRAH FALLEN …. the chapter that details the killing of Rajani Thiranagama in September 1989 …. just one among a long list of the LTTE atrocities in their pursuit of powr via a Tamil state.

Chapter 3:  Some Crucial Pieces of the Jigsaw

 To everything there is a season…A time to be born and a time to die…A time to weep and a time to laugh: a time to mourn and a time to dance…I know that whatsoever God doeth it shall be forever: nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it.– The Book of Ecclesiastes.


 

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Territorial Claims: First Settlers & Their Primacy

Michael Roberts, presenting an article published in 2005 as a pamphlet by the ICES, Colombo with this title “The First Settlers and Their Claim to Ownership of Terrain/State. A Comparative Excursion” … an essay originally presented in Abdul Rahman Embong, Rethinking Ethnicity and Nation Building: Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Fiji in Comparative Perspective, Panbrit UKM, Bangi, Malaysia, (c. 2003) which was then reprinted as a booklet by ICES, Colombo in 2005 – see ISBN 955-580-099-5 I.

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Hill-Country Cosmopolis – A Review Of Obeyesekere’s Booklet

Richard Simon … reviewing The Many Faces of the Kandyan Kingdom by Gananath Obeyesekere

 In this slender but fact-filled volume, the author presents an alternative and, to my mind, more truthful view of the Kingdom of Kandy in its heyday than the perspective afforded by modern Lankan historians and scholars. The latter must, of course, hew closely to Sinhalese-Buddhist ‘nationalist’ orthodoxy if they hope to obtain academic publication or preferment in our country. The effect of this censorious regime on national life has been stifling, not only in the study of history but in every intellectual and cultural field from fine art to marine archaeology. Music, perhaps, has suffered most grievously of all.

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Angelo Mathews: Epitome of A Fighting Spirit in Cricket, 2015

Dominic Machado in his blog-site Murali End

On the morning of September 1, 2015, I was frantically trying to connect to the Wifi at Charles de Gaulle Airport. When I had boarded the flight the previous night, Sri Lanka were in a precarious position in the third and final test of a series against India. Sitting at 67/3 in a chase of 386 on a fifth day SSC pitch, any result other than a loss would have been a most unexpected triumph.

I fully expected to open the phone that morning and see Sri Lanka all out for 150 before lunch. But to my surprise, Sri Lanka had not capitulated. They were 183/5, with Kusal Perera (43) and Angelo Mathews (74) at the crease. For the next hour, I was glued to my screen, watching the runs tick over as tea approached, with Angelo getting to his seventh test century. I boarded the train with the hope that Angelo and Kusal might power Sri Lanka to a most unlikely victory.

India seal Test series win in Sri Lanka despite Angelo Mathews century |  India cricket team | The Guardian
Angelo celebrates his 100 against India in 2015

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The Bambalapitiya Mile in Colombo in the 1950s

Arlen van der Wall

In the city of Colombo in the 1940s and 1950s the Bambalapitiya strip between Lion House and Saraswathi Lodge was Colombo’s walk of fame. You did not have to be rich or famous to enter the mythologies that accompanied the virtual sidewalk stars.

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Ancient Painters: Sri Lanka’s Artistic Heritage

Courtesy of THE NATIONAL TRUST

Dr. Janani Seneviratne and Mr. Tuvins Amarasingha presented an illustrated lecture on the Artistic heritage and painting techniques of ancient Painters”

The Monthly Lecture Series No: 170 of the National Trust Thursday 29th May 2025 at 6.00 pm at the Auditorium of the College of Surgeons of Sri Lanka, No. 6, Independence Avenue, Colombo 7.

For those who join online: see  https://youtube.com/live/)

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A Jaffna Island Team Triumphs in Colombo ….

Admiral Ravindra C Wijegunaratne, in The Island,  13 June 2025, where the title runs thus: They came, they won, they returned to Jaffna isles”

This is about the children of Kytes Island J/Thambaddy Government Tamil Mixed Vidyalayam and J/Delft Maha Vidyalayam in the northernmost inhabited island of Sri Lanka. They travelled to Colombo and won in the China-Sri Lanka Friendship Cup Dragon Boat Regatta Junior (Under 18) section held in the Diyawannawa lake last week.

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Remembering Rajani Thiranagama and Her Message

Jihan Hameed in FACEBOOK, June 2025 …. with highlighting added by The editor, Thuppahi

We Must Never Forget Women Like Rajani Thiranagama.

The cost of national betrayal is written in the blood of the brave.

In a nation drowning under political terrorism and foreign subversion, few stood with the moral courage to resist from within. Dr. Rajani Thiranagama was one of them. Her life, and brutal death reveal the ruthless nature of the very forces that have kept Sri Lanka divided for decades.

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