Category Archives: travelogue

Amitav Ghosh: Straddling the Mediterranean & Indian Worlds

Dr. Shalva Weil, in https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/in-an-ancient-land-trade-and-synagogues-in-south-india/

The Calcutta-born novelist Amitav Ghosh tells the tale, in his novel In an Ancient Land, of a medieval traveler by the name of Abraham Ben Yiju who conducted an import/export business from Cairo through Aden to India. Ben Yiju was a member of the Synagogue of Ben Ezra, or the”Synagogue of the Palestinians”, as it used to be known while it was still standing, in Cairo, at the end of the nineteenth century. It was in that synagogue that congregation members used to accumulate and store their papers and manuscripts. The last In an Ancient Land Revisited Trade and Synagogues in South India document that is known to have been deposited in this Genizah was a get, a divorce settlement, authorized in Bombay (today Mumbai).

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Special Vistas For Tourists in Sri Lanka Today

Lee Tulloch, in Sydney Morning Herald, 9 June 2023, where the title reads = “Why you should visit this undersold, teardrop-shaped island right now”

If there’s a country that could do with a lot of love right now, it’s Sri Lanka. Over the past three decades, the island nation has been ravaged by conflict and disaster, beginning with the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which claimed 30,000 lives, and the 26-year-long civil war, which ended in 2009.

It had just re-emerged as a popular tourist destination when, on Easter Sunday 2019, an Islamic group, in retaliation for the Christchurch attacks thousands of kilometres away, bombed three churches and three luxury hotels in Colombo, unnerving the tourists who had returned in record numbers.

Sri Lanka’s famous Nine Arch Bridge.
Sri Lanka’s famous Nine Arch Bridge.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES

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Huituto Children Survival Skills in the Amazonian Jungle

Victoria Bisset and Ana Vanessa Herrero, in Stuff, 11 June 2023, where the title reads  “Four children were rescued after 40 days in the jungle. How did they survive?”

Four children have survived 40 days in the Amazon jungle in Colombia after their plane crashed last month, killing all three adults on board, including their mother.

 

 

 

 

The wreckage of the Cessna C206 that crashed in the jungle of Solano in the Caqueta state of Colombia

The children, aged 13, 9, 4 and 1, were rescued Friday (local time) after rescuers spent weeks searching for them in remote areas of the jungle, which is home to jaguars, ocelots and venomous snakes.

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The Galle Fort: Skyrocketing Property Today

DG Sugathapala, in Daily Mirror, 9 June 2023 “Value of a perch in Galle Fort increased to Rs. 22mn”

More than one hundred buildings, located within the Galle Fort, have been purchased by foreigners, increasing the value of one perch to Rs 22 million, the Galle Heritage Foundation said. With this development, the population within the fort, which used to be around three thousand, has decreased to around 1000.

 

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Shinwari Rosh for Sri Lankan Cricketers

Item in Daily Mirror, 7 June 2023 .… 

The Afghanistan cricket team that visited the island for a one-day cricket tournament in Sri Lanka took steps to prepare a special meal at the hotel where they were staying. Afghan superstars Rashid Khan and Yamin Ahmadzai had prepared this dish.

A video recorded by the Afghanistan cricket team was published on the Afghanistan Cricket Board’s official Youtube channel as well. The meal was called “Shinwari Rosh or Mutton Rosh,” which is a famous dish in Pakistan.

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DH De Silva: A Cricketing Aficianado … who survived an Assassin’s Bullet

Michael Roberts, … This item was initially presented in my other [now dormant] website CRICKETIQUE in May 2014 as a form of requiem. Buddy Reid’s recent ‘memorial’ to DH prompts me to present this account again. It also provides fuller information on the assassination strike on Hema in Kandy which induced his family to flee from beloved Sri Lanka … albeit without any awareness that a bullet stub remained embedded within his body. This tale also indicates that Hema had been a significant influence in the flowering of Sangakkara’s cricketing skills. Continue reading

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‘Artificial Engineered’ Music in Memory of Professor Fred Bartholomeusz of Peradeniya University

Geethasiri Karunatillake, … from Adelaide, Australia

 

I have always been passionate about music, but I never had the opportunity to study music or the ability to sing. That’s why when I learned about the capabilities of Chat-GPT, I knew I had to give it a try.

Undoubtedly, Batho was the most popular professor at the Engineering Faculty at Peradeniya University in the 1950s to 60s. I vividly recall how he could captivate us with his lectures, simplifying even the most intricate concepts and recapitulating in the end.

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The Richmond vs Mahinda Teams of 1955 in A Classic Gathering

Courtesy of Nandasiri Jasentuliyane,** who was known to us then as N. De Silva 

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Estelle Fernando nee Roberts: Vale in Sadness & Fellowship

Michael Roberts

Estelle Barbara Roberts was born as the second child from the second bed of Thomas Webb Roberts (1881-1978) on the 2nd May 1929. She was brought up within the Fort of Galle and received her education at Southlands, Sacred Heart Convent and Richmond Colleges; but was then swept off her feet by an earnest young government servant, Charles Hubert Fernando, who played tennis at the Galle Gymkhana Club (where TW was a kind of institution and a regular).

 

Estelle standing on left at Sacred Heart Convent

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Love Across All Language Barriers

An Item from Wikipedia sent by David Sansoni of Sydney

Historia de un Amor” (Spanish for “the story of a love”) is a song about a man’s old love written by Panamanian songwriter Carlos Eleta Almarán. It was written after the death of his brother’s wife. It is also part of the soundtrack of a 1956 Mexican film of the same name starring Libertad Lamarque. The song tells of a man’s suffering after his love has disappeared. It holds the world record as the most popular song to be translated and sung across the world in various languages by various singers from the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa.

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