Tick-Tock-Tick ….. Tip-Toe Into 2025
Category Archives: travelogue
A Balancing Walk For the Year 2025
Tick-Tock-Tick ….. Tip-Toe Into 2025
Filed under accountability, life stories, performance, travelogue, unusual people
Cricket: Sri Lanka Brace the Air in New Zealand
Rex Clementine, in The Island, 27 December 2024,where the title reads “Pathirana set to sling his way into Kiwi hearts”
Traveling to New Zealand feels like a journey to the ends of the earth. First, there’s the four-hour flight to Singapore, and from there, another ten hours to Auckland or Christchurch. But once you land, the long haul feels worth its weight in gold – New Zealand is an absolute gem, especially during Christmas.
The moment you step out of the airport and take that first breath, the air hits you like a tonic – fresh, crisp, and rejuvenating. The landscape is a symphony of green, and the people are as warm and welcoming as an open hearth on a chilly day. For a nation spanning over 260,000 square kilometers but housing just five million people, it’s nothing short of extraordinary what they’ve achieved on the global stage, especially with their beloved All Blacks.
The Tsunami Twenty Years After
Padraig O’Leary writing from the vicinity of Colombo now
Twenty Years after the Tsunami
Did the children and I come to you when the waves came?
Were the kids there with you when death came?
In eternity, do you want to be mine again?
Will you come back at least in my dreams?
Those words were written by a grieving husband on the side of a rusting railway carriage at Peraliya in southern Sri Lanka.
On 26 December 2004, 36,000 to 50,000 people (the numbers of dead vary depending on the source) died in Sri Lanka in the St Stephen’s Day tsunami. Between 1,700 and 2,500 passengers on the holiday train, Queen of the Sea, perished as the wave engulfed it at Peraliya, between Colombo and Galle. Rescuers recovered only 824 bodies, as many were swept out to sea or were taken away by relatives without informing the authorities. The village itself also suffered heavy losses: hundreds of inhabitants died and out of 420 houses, the great wave spared only ten.
In Memory of Sarath Ilangantileke
Upali Obeyesekere, … with highlights imposed by Michael Roberts, a rugger-colleague from Peradeniya-Uni days
It is with profound sadness we learn that Dr. Sarath Illangantileke had passed away recently. Born in Kurunegala to Dr. Eric & Autley Illangantileke, Sarath had his entire education at Trinity College Kandy. He represented his alma mater with distinction in a star-studded Rugby team in 1963 that included the celebrated stand-off Mohan Sahayam, scrum-half MTM Zarook (another Kurunegala product), Trinity forwards in Sam Canagasabai, Manik de Silva, George Carson, Gavin Rodie, Sarath Illangantileke, supported by Nicko Perera, David Ondaatjie, and H.J. Fernando. Piyasena brothers Gamini and Ananda to wingers Rodney Geddes or Justin Labrooy, and super coach Percy Madugalle.
Beyond Imagination – Chandra Schaffter’s Life of Service
Ravi RUDRA has composed an extensive web-item describing Chandra Schaffter’s services to Sri Lanka, S. Thomas College, cricket, hockey, the Tamil Union CC’, insurance services in the island and humakind in general. The account includes photographs and is so extensive that it is best presented in segments. THIS is the first instalment. As this segment includes heaps of photographs, it will take me time to insert all of them…. so the present version is incomplete .…. Editor, TPS
Compilation by Ravi RUDRA …. with this title ‘The Phenomenal Journey of Mr. CHANDRA SCHAFFTER 94* Story of Vision, Resilience, Disappointments and Success” …. 1 December 2024
Mr. Chandra Thomas Adolphus Schaffter (born 3 April 1930) ‘The Father of Sri Lanka Insurance & Much, Much More’
“If you cannot do something for those who work for you, but you seek to get the best out of them and not worry about them, then, I don’t think life is worth living. What I am today, I owe it first to God and then to my School”– Chandra Schaffter
Legendary Thomian (Jan 1937–March 1950)
“I was very fortunate to attend S. Thomas’ College because I had a good education and a good foundation. I lost my mother when I was only 3 and my father when I was 11, so I never had real parental guidance in that sense.But my school masters, especially in my early years, and some of my relatives were very helpful in making me find my way around.
S. Thomas’ was a great place to be in, as you learnt a lot of good values which you don’t see in the outside world. This up-bringing has stood me and many Thomians in good stead.”– Chandra Schaffter
Filed under accountability, art & allure bewitching, centre-periphery relations, charitable outreach, Colombo and Its Spaces, commoditification, communal relations, cricket for amity, cricket selections, cultural transmission, economic processes, education, ethnicity, heritage, historical interpretation, island economy, life stories, modernity & modernization, patriotism, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, religiosity, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, social justice, Sri Lankan cricket, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, teaching profession, tolerance, travelogue, unusual people, welfare & philanthophy, world events & processes
Sri Lanka’s Tea Plantation Industry As Featured in Thuppahi aka TPS
A PARTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
https://thuppahis.com/2017/02/18/james-taylor-and-the-ceylon-tea-industry/
https://thuppahis.com//2017/02/21/the-tea-business-in-ceylon-and-the-life-and-times-of-tony-peries/
https://thuppahis.com/2017/07/18/ceylon-tea-and-its-surrounds-richard-simons-tour-de-force/
Filed under art & allure bewitching, British colonialism, centre-periphery relations, commoditification, communal relations, economic processes, ethnicity, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, island economy, land policies, landscape wondrous, life stories, migrant experiences, modernity & modernization, plantations, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, Tamil migration, transport and communications, travelogue, working class conditions, world events & processes
The Murrays: Among the Pioneer Planters in British Ceylon
TPS presents here an item which bore the original title “The Scotts, The Murrays And The Polkes – Scions Of Pioneer Planters’ In Ceylon” (2020)
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Encylopaedia of Ceylon – Ceylon Tea Industry Souvenir 196
Filed under British colonialism, centre-periphery relations, commoditification, cultural transmission, economic processes, ethnicity, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, patriotism, photography & its history, plantations, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, travelogue, world events & processes
James Taylor Memorabilia: A Historical ‘Nugget’
Michael Roberts
Those with some knowledge of island Lanka’s history over the last two centuries know that one of the most significant figures in its history was the Scottish plantation manager James Taylor (1835-92) because he was the entrepreneur who pioneered the cultivation of tea in the hill-country during the mid-19th century when coffee was the reigning plantation crop. This initial work bore full fruit –literally and figuratively–when the coffee leaf disease decimated the coffee plantation industry in the 1870s and 80s.
Buddhika Dassanayake in Lanka has now added a ‘gold nugget‘ in the world of historical memorabilia: by securing a scrap of a letter by James Taylor recommending one of his working class aides—a kangany (in effect ‘sergeants’ within the plantation coolie labour force).
Filed under British colonialism, centre-periphery relations, commoditification, communal relations, economic processes, ethnicity, heritage, landscape wondrous, life stories, plantations, self-reflexivity, Sri Lankan scoiety, tolerance, travelogue, unusual people, working class conditions, world events & processes
SriLankan Airlines Boosts Its Melbourne Links: Hodi Heleyi Aakaasey Heleyiyaa
A News Item ….. Free-to-Air so to speak
