Captured and presented in todays Weekend Australian Magazine, 12 August 2023
… with Item by Ross Bilton entitled “Heart of the Nation”
Michael Roberts
PERADENIYA CAMPUS and UNIVERSITY is etched deeply into my soul: with diverse memories of places, events and personnel. Many of the friends I met within its spaces have, alas, passed away; but remain as alive as afresh in my mind.
I had been placed in Ramanathan Hall as a freshman in mid-year 1957 and shared a room with Ranjit Samaraweera. His conviviality aided my adjustments to the new ‘terrain’. So did my interest in sport. The skills in cricket, soccer and athletics that I had developed at St. Aloysius in Galle were now expanded to encompass rugger, while the indoor facilities at Peradeniya also encouraged my participation in basketball, table tennis and badminton on the odd occasion.
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KNO Dharmadasa, in Hanthana Night, produced by the Üniversity pf Peradeniya Alumni Associatio Western Australia Chapter, August 2023
Shirley De Alwis — photo kindly provided by Mevan Pieris ….. thereby correcting a prvious error which presented another gent with the same name in same age cohort
The word Mulacari in the Kandyan period of Sri Lankan history meant “the chief architect”. These would have been the great architects of yore like the one who designed the “Brazen Palace” (Lovamahapaya) during the Anuradhapura period. But we have no information about their titles or names. Shirley De Alwis (1898-1952) who was appointed the “University Architect” in 1946, was the man who designed the eight original Halls of Residence -Marrs, Jayatilaka, Arunachalam, Hilda Obeysekara, James Peiris, Marcus Fernando, Sangamitta and Ramanathan. He also designed the Senate Building — which was modelled on the Brazen Place, although on a modest scale. The Science and Arts Faculty buildings as well as the Geography Building are also creations of Shirley De Alwis.
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Sumangalika Dharmadasa, in the booklet HANTHANA NIGHT , produced by the University of Peradeniya Alumni Association Western Australia in 2023 … where her title reads “Campus Life of Yore: Through the Eyes of a Fresher””
6th October, 1965 is a land mark date in my memory, as it surely must be in the memory banks of all the Freshers who entered the hallowed portals of the university of Peradeniya all those years ago. The sense of freedom and independence I felt after the cloistered life in school hostels was truly exhilarating. For the first time in my life, I was free to do just as I wished! I did not know then that I was destined to remain in that wonderful place for over 50 years.
Gillian Cowlishaw, at John Menadue’s Public Policy Journal 15 August 2023 where her title is “Misreading Dark Emu”** …with highlighting emphasis imposed by Thuppahi
Criticisms of the book Dark Emu and its author, Bruce Pascoe, continue to appear, and to become more puzzling. It is as if the overwhelming popularity of Pascoe and his message have disturbed comfortable convictions about Australian history shared across a wide segment of Australian society.
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Michael Roberts
In presenting an article published in Comparative Studies in Society & History in Thuppahi,[1] I have introduced quite a few readers to the issue of the boundaries that have prevailed between the disciplines of History on the one hand and Anthropology and/or Sociology on the other. In its day the CSSH was a high-quality journal which straddled these boundaries and exercised a regime that demanded great skill from those seeking to cross its threshold and gain acceptance for an article within its pages. Kitsiri Malalgoda was one of those who had satisfied its Editors with his essay “Millennialism in relation to Buddhism” which appeared in CSSH, volume 12 in 1970.
Kapferer’s Study of Exorcism Rites in Sri Lanka … 
& paceman Hogg seeking to remove batsmen
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Prasad Kariyawasam: an article entitled “Remembering Jayantha Dhanapala (1938-2023)” …….. presented in a booklet entitled “Hanthana Night” produced by University of Peradeniya Western Australia Chapter, 2023, pp. 50-52.
“For those who had the good fortune of knowing and working with him, Ambassador Jayantha Dhanapla, was the quintessential diplomat, trustworthy colleague, all rounder par excellence and most importantly, a humanitarian to the core. His early life was shaped by two great educational institutions of international repute during his time – Trinity College Kandy and the University of Peradeniya.
Ambassador Dhanapala at the 40 nation Conference on Disarmament in Geneva in 1984 … with Prasad Kariyawasam standing behind him
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From the MIRROR
Surviving Kidnapping: When Stephanie Slater was kidnapped by killer Michael Sams back in 1992, he kept her captive in a lockable wheelie bin. But rather than murder her – as he had done with his previous victim Julie Dart – he demanded a ransom and let her go after it was paid. But why did Sams release her? In a fascinating new revelation about the case, it seems the Mirror’s own health expert Dr Miriam Stoppard played a key part. Stephanie had read Dr Miriam’s advice book on how girls can deal with dangerous situations including how to build a rapport if you find yourself in a vulnerable situation. Sams was later jailed for life for murdering Julie and abducting Stephanie. Dr Miriam says: “I have never expected anything I have written to have such a big effect on somebody’s life.”
Stephanie Slater
Michael Roberts
This ‘encounter’ took place in 1981 and involved a Burgher Sri Lankan barracker earning the combined ‘resistance’ of an Aussie cricketer and Sinhala bystander (Sinha). As an observer of this set of exchanges, I moved beyond a clarification of the historical understandings embedded in Sinha’s success in ‘defeating’ the aggressive Burgher to address the relationship and differences between ‘typical’ anthropological studies and ‘typical’ historical work.
The essay was published in Comparative Studies in Society and History in 1985. The pdf version has been converted into Word File by my Aloysian schoolmate KK De Silva, a cricketer and soccer goalkeeper in his school-heyday. Because it is a pdf, I have not been able to assemble the Footnotes as “End Notes.” Continue reading
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Courtesy of Ivan Amarasinghe whose email indicated that St Aloysius carried away the Cricket Trophy ….. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNQ9Lrs9aqc
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