Kumar Sangakkara’s House in Galle Fort: The Game-Changer
Juliet Coombe, on “Kumar Sangakkara, Professional Cricketer, Part-Time Philosopher” and The Game-Changer. at 76 Leyn Baan Street, Galle Fort …. in her illustrated book, Around the Galle Fort in 80 lives, (2017) …ISBN 978-955-0000-005
“I am Tamil, Sinhalese, Muslim and Burgher. I am a Buddhist, a Hindu, a follower of Islam and Christianity. I am today, and always, proudly Sri Lankan.” … Kumar Sangakkara deeply moved everyone at the MCC Spirit of Cricket Cowdrey Lecture at Lord’s Cricket Ground, London in July of 2011, in his speech in which he explored the nature of Sri Lanka. It is this rich mix of religions and nationalities that attracted Kumar to Galle Fort, which has been a part of his life for almost as long as cricket has, a place that captured his father just as powerfully as it has entranced him. It was his father who, he says, “told me one day, if you’re ever thinking of buying property, the Fort is one place you should look at. He had a great appreciation for the Fort and the life of the Fort and the old families living in the Fort and ever since that day it’s stayed with me.”
Filed under accountability, art & allure bewitching, British colonialism, commoditification, cricket for amity, cultural transmission, democratic measures, economic processes, education, female empowerment, heritage, historical interpretation, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, meditations, modernity & modernization, patriotism, politIcal discourse, reconciliation, rehabilitation, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, tolerance, transport and communications, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes
Exquisite Camera Timing in the Sports Arena
Pow! Wham! How! … COURTESY OF http://www.thebrofessional.net/perfectly-timed-sports-photos/
Anguish!! Reading Mike
Image from http://sangam.org/sachis-files-chapter-4-2/ by Sachi Sri Kantha, 16 October 2015,
When the essay “Anguish as Empowerment …A Path to Retribution” was presented on the 22nd March 2017, I received several private email comments from good friends. My recent little essay on Ëxtremist Cricket Fans” has led me to look over this set of remarks and a tirade of sorts directed at me by an embittered Tamil nationalist named Kathiravan espousing the cause of Eelam in February 2011 in the Blog Comments within Colombo Telegraph (and rehashed by me in Thuppahi = see ……………………….……………. https://thuppahis.com/2012/02/27/an-angry-tamil-kathiravan-confronts-roberts/).
The unsolicited readings are too valuable to lie in the cupboards and I am waxing bold by presenting them to the world without the permission of my friends within the present reflections on EXTREMISM. Continue reading
Filed under accountability, atrocities, authoritarian regimes, Buddhism, communal relations, cultural transmission, democratic measures, devolution, discrimination, disparagement, economic processes, ethnicity, fundamentalism, governance, historical interpretation, Islamic fundamentalism, landscape wondrous, language policies, life stories, modernity & modernization, Muslims in Lanka, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, power politics, reconciliation, religiosity, religious nationalism, riots and pogroms, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, trauma, truth as casualty of war, vengeance, violence of language, war crimes, women in ethnic conflcits, world events & processes
Reconciliation in Tune, Beat, Song and Movement
See and absorb https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QgCu7JDnqwg
Kanda Surinduni Sinhala Tamil Mix || Rajiv & The Clan @ BMICH Live Concert
Published on Sep 11, 2015
Filed under communal relations, cultural transmission, democratic measures, education, female empowerment, governance, Indian traditions, landscape wondrous, patriotism, performance, power politics, reconciliation, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, tolerance, unusual people
Extremist Cricket Fans: Where Anguish spawns Violence
Michael Roberts
The recent outbursts of abuse and riotous act on the cricket grounds at Pallekele and Rangiri when our cricketers were defeated after some poor cricket are significant in the wider scheme of local culture and ethics. Such reactions reveal the reverberations that can be generated by a small body of extremists. It is ironic that some of these very same extremists, some among these abusive fans, would have been among those who indulged in effusive cheering an adulation of the cricket team when they triumphed.
The India vs Sri Lanka ODI in Pallekele was marred by crowd trouble as Sri Lankan fans threw bottles on the outfield, which stopped play for 30 minutes.(AP)… NOTE: in 1996 a Eden Gardens Calcutta Indian fans reacted in similar fashion when they were losing –to Sri Lanka as it hapens
Filed under accountability, cricket for amity, cultural transmission, landscape wondrous, life stories, meditations, patriotism, politIcal discourse, power politics, riots and pogroms, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, trauma, unusual people, vengeance, world events & processes, zealotry
Australia has No Place in Asia — In Cricket!
Andrew Faulkner, in The Australian, 29 August 2017, where the heading reads ”
Black clouds are billowing over Australian cricket but the Test team would prefer clouds of a more literal kind to intervene at Dhaka’s Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium. With Bangladesh 1-45, and leading by 88 runs, the monsoon looms as the most likely saviour in the first Test after the Australian batsmen played true to form by not playing very well in Asia. Actually, no one bats as badly in Asia as the ugly Australians. Even Zimbabweans — who haven’t won a Test since 2013 — bat better in Asia than Australians.
Mehidy Hasan Miraz roars after pinning David Warner lbw Getty Images
As the tourists succumbed for 217 all out yesterday, with Ashton Agar making an unconquered 41 to show up the batsmen, Fox Sports posted numbers that told a chilling story. Australia are ranked last among the Test playing nations for scoring runs in Asia. Certainly no one would describe the Fox stats as a beautiful set of numbers. At 26.69 per innings, Australian batsmen average the lowest in Asia across the past 10 years. Continue reading
Filed under accountability, australian media, centre-periphery relations, charitable outreach, cricket for amity, cultural transmission, democratic measures, disaster relief team, discrimination, disparagement, education, martyrdom, meditations, patriotism, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, power sharing, self-reflexivity, taking the piss, the imaginary and the real, trauma, travelogue, truth as casualty of war, war reportage, zealotry
Reviewing “Ports of the Ancient Indian Ocean”
Richard Fynes, reviewing Marie-Françoise Boussac, Jean- Françoise Salles & Jean-Baptiste (eds.) Ports of the Ancient Indian Ocean, Delhi: Primus Books. 2016. ISBN 97893840820792 …………… in IIAS Newsletter, Summer 2017
This edited volume delivers much more than is suggested by its title, since it includes discussions of emporia as far inland as Delhi, the time-scale covered by its articles extends from the 20th century BC to the 18th century AD, and since not only the Indian Ocean, but also the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea are discussed by the various authors. Given the wide range and disparate nature of the twenty-four papers in the volume, how should one orient oneself among them? Best to begin with Elizabeth Lambourn’s ‘Describing a Lost Camel’ – Clues for a West Asian Mercantile Networks in South Asian Maritime Trade (Tenth-Twelfth Centuries AD). The volume taken as a whole forms a contribution to the genre of world history and Lambourn provides a clear-eyed assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of that genre. Although Lambourn’s paper is primarily concerned with the two hundred years from the tenth- to the twelfth centuries AD, her masterly analysis of the sources and criticism of the various methodologies in which they are employed provide the reader with a prism with which to view the remaining papers in the volume. Lambourn begins her account with a review of the relevant archaeological and documentary evidence. It is salutary to learn just how insecure is the dating of many South Asian ceramic types and consequently of the archaeological sites whose dating has been largely derived from ceramic evidence. Lambourn notes the problems posed by pluridisciplinary character of the sources and their simultaneous use. Her paper focuses on the port of Sanjan, in the domain of the western Indian dynasty of the Rastrakuta, where, for the tenth century there is rare conjunction of evidence from archaeology, Arabic geographical writings and Indian epigraphy. Her discussion is rich both in evidence and insight, and she gives due acknowledgment to the work of Ranabir Chakravarti, whose work has led scholars to reformulate the questions they ask of the sources. Lambourn’s findings lead her to speculate on the nature of world history and the relationship between micro- and macro history, as she expresses dissatisfaction that she is “left with an eclectic collection of small insights and few satisfactory larger narratives.” Such honest appraisals of the conclusions of one’s research invite further questions and are thus a stimulant to further research. Continue reading
Filed under centre-periphery relations, cultural transmission, ethnicity, growth pole, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, Indian religions, Indian traditions, landscape wondrous, Middle Eastern Politics, population, Portuguese in Indian Ocean, transport and communications, unusual people, world events & processes
A Classic British Farce on Stage via Indu Dharmasena
Item in Sunday Times Online = http://www.sundaytimes.lk/article/1021966/indu-dharmasenas-take-on-a-ray-cooney-classic-it-runs-in-the-family
Director Indu Dharmasena returns with another Ray Cooney comedy. This time it’s ‘It Runs in the Family’, a classic British farce, a laughter-filled cocktail of mistaken identities, fabricated deaths and even a few cross-dressing antics.
Probing Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe’s Background and Attainments
Darshanie Ratnawalli, courtesy of the Sunday Island, 27 August 2017, where the title runs “Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe –The man Vs the hero”
“Salagama? Certainly not”, Sumangala Thera of the Sugatha-Dakshinaramaya temple in Skelton Road refutes my speculation about Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe’s caste as authoritatively as only a Buddhist monk hailing from Kanumuldeniya, just two kilometres from Rajapakshe’s original village of Horewala in Walasmulla, and somebody who went to school with him, can. As political issues hotted up and Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe became flavour of the month, the first public reference to Rajapakshe’s caste was made on 13 August by Badulla District MP Dilan Perera, couched as an admonition not to rely on the caste-ridden as well as chauvinistic Joint Opposition which, whichever Rajapaksa it welcomes, will not accept a Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe.
