Category Archives: tolerance

September 5, 2025 · 4:01 pm

Vale: Bishop Kenneth Fernando

From Wikipedia …………… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Fernando

Kenneth Michael James Fernando (25 July 1932–3 September 2025) was a Sri Lankan Anglican clergyman who was Bishop of Colombo.[1][2][3]

 Born in Moratuwa and educated at Prince of Wales’ College, Moratuwa and Royal College, Colombo and at the University of Oxford, he served as the Secretary of the Diocese before he was elected as the Bishop of Colombo. He served as the Vicar of Maharagama Anglican Church prior to his ordination. Fernando died on 3 September 2025, at the age of 93.[4][5]

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August 24, 2025 · 11:26 am

 Yasodhara Kumaratunga: “A Butterfly’s Wise Words”

YASODHARA’s Handwritten Inscription on the Cover Page of the  pamphlet in my hands …. courtesy of the copy held by my  late departed sister, Estelle Fernando 

To ….My dearest Aunty Estelle,

Thank you for starting me off on my long trek” through the world of learning.

With Love

Yasodhara XX

EDITORIAL NOTE: The collection of  short poems in this  loose-leaf pamphlet is NOT presented below in either chronological order or paginated  order [since  the  pamphlet is NOT numbered].

A Butterfly’s

Wise Words

&

Other Poems.

                                         Yasodhara Kumaratunga

                                                with Cover Design by Yasodhara Kumaratunga

 

To my beloved thaththi with love

in the hope that the blood which

flowed so vainly from your beautiful

face would mingle with the earth

of my land, to give forth

the blossoms of Peace & Brotherhood

for which you fought so passionately.

And to my ammi for

all that you have been to me

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August 7, 2025 · 8:00 pm

A Tennis Love Match Beyond Imagination

A Web Item sent by one Ramsay and one Eric

They met on the courts, forged in fire and fame. Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf were more than tennis royalty — they were survivors of pressure-packed childhoods, two athletes who’d once been treated more like machines than children. So when they became parents, something shifted. Not just in their lives, but in their hearts. There was a quiet vow between them — a promise not to repeat the past, not to push, not to mold. They wouldn’t raise champions. They’d raise *children.*

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July 30, 2025 · 1:26 pm

From Kamburupitiya … Malkanthi’s Multi-Faceted Journey

Fazli Sameer in Those Fuzzy Days, July 2025 … presented in fazli@substack.com with a slightly different title and the sub-title: “A trek through days of milk, honey, and roses”

In the small southern village of Kamburupitiya, nestled amidst the mist-covered hills of the southern coastal city of Matara, a determined teenage girl named Malkanthi prepared for a journey that would alter the course of her life. At sixteen, she was the pride of her village school, a bright, kind-hearted girl who had earned a scholarship to pursue her higher studies in Colombo.

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July 15, 2025 · 10:05 pm

In Maureen Hingert’s Memory via Paul Robeson

Charles Schokman

It was in the early fifties at the age of twenty-one I used to ride my bicycle from Dematagoda all the way to Bambalapitiya to visit friends living down Lorensz Rd. It was quite a distance but worth the ride.

Vale Maureen Hingert – mrober137@gmail.com – Gmail

Down that street lived Maureen Hingert and whenever she saw me pass her home, she never failed to greet me with a smile or say hello.

She, though a mere stranger, was happy to make her acquaintance with me. This kind gesture of hers and endearing ways left a lasting mark in my life.

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July 8, 2025 · 8:01 pm

THE GUARDIAN in UK seeks reader-support

“From Minute Hands can an Ongoig  ‘Edifice’ be built”– Thupphiyaaa

AN APPEAL ON EMAIL from THE GUARDIAN

 

 

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June 22, 2025 · 7:02 am

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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March 9, 2025 · 2:59 pm

Teenager Rambles in the Galle Arena, 1950s

Michael Roberts

‘Arriving’ in this world in 1938, I was lucky to reside within the Fort of Galle as the youngest in a large family.  My father TW Roberts was a retired Ceylon Civil Servant and a respected member of the upper-class circles in town – with his membership of the Galle Gymkhana Club as one mark of this position. This status notwithstanding, we lived in rented houses –first in Pedlar Street and then in Middle Street.

 Galle fort & port in British times … & an Aerial View more recently

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February 25, 2025 · 11:57 pm

Vale: In Appreciation of Dr. Sisira Jayasuriya, A Committed Scholar

Sarath Rajapatirana  & Premachandra Athukorala, whose appraisal is entitled “In Memoriam:   Sisira Jayasuriya, 1946-2025″

The distinguished economist Professor Sisira Kumara Jayasuriya, Sri Lanka-born and a scholar who spent much of his professional life in Australia, passed away on 18 February 2025, after a prolonged battle with cancer.  Sisira was a remarkable man: a highly respected economist whose intellectual contributions ranged far and wide; an influential public intellectual; a wonderful teacher, mentor, and institution-builder; and a deeply loved friend to many people across cultures and all over the world. Continue reading →

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February 10, 2025 · 6:26 pm

Dr Hilali Noordeen’s Lessons From Life

Thuppahi introduces the Amazon.com FLIER for the book by Dr. Hilali Noodeen entitled Letters to a Young Doctor, 2021 whitefox …

https://www.amazon.com.au/Letters-Young-Doctor-Exploring-Surviving-ebook/dp/B08VWVTVLB

 

Letters to a Young Doctor: Exploring and Surviving a Career in Medicine,  …….. by Dr Hilali Noordeen, 2021, Kindle Edition

4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars    8 ratings

Part manual and part manifesto, Letters to a Young Doctor is a timely and passionate book to help future medical students and young doctors navigate and survive medical education and practice, presenting an unvarnished depiction of the profession as it is today and the challenges it faces.
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