An aerial shot taken from a helicopter shows debris of houses destroyed by the tsunami waves in Galle, Sri Lanka, on December 27, 2004.
Courtesy of http://edition.cnn.com/2014/12/24/world/asia/remembering-sri-lanka-tsunami/
Out of Tragedy, Fortune for Sri Lankan Seenigama Village via FOG and Worldwide Waves of Compassion
Shihar Aneez, 24 December 2014, at http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/24/us-tsunami-anniversary-srilanka-idUSKBN0K219J20141224
As towering waves came crashing into the southern coast of Sri Lanka on Dec. 26, 2004, Kushil Gunasekera gathered up his children and they ran for their lives to a nearby temple, the highest point they could find. Returning later to his village in Seenigama district, he found a heart-breaking scene of death and devastation: one in four had been killed by the Boxing Day tsunami that swept across the Indian Ocean.
A decade on, Seenigama has risen from the ashes and is now a model of prosperity, thanks in large part to the efforts of Gunasekera who led a relief drive from the ruins of his ancestral home and later gave up his lucrative sugar business to devote himself to a charity he had founded in 1999. Continue reading
Sangakkara deployed in Political Canard from Anti-Rajapaksa Circles
Michael Roberts
One of the most repulsive dimensions of Sri Lankan society is its propensity to manufacture lies and half-truths demeaning individuals and families. This type of malicious story-telling occurred in administrative and bureaucratic circles from early British times, being encouraged by the institutionalisation of the petition. While petitions could be formal signed documents, unsigned canards and slanders were often deployed by individuals seeking jobs with the target being potential competitors. Such practices must surely have been fostered by the propensity of decision-makers to take note of such machinations — so much so that kusu-kusufying became an item of Ceylonese English. Continue reading
Harrowing Memories! Profound Gestures! Harrow, Tsunami, Galle, Cricket and Vidyaloka College … Two Tales
I= Peter Foster: “Harrovian cricketers return to tsunami scene,” in The Telegraph, 24 December 2014.
A group of Old Harrovian cricketers has marked a symbolic moment on Sri Lanka’s slow road to recovery three years after the island was hit by the Boxing Day tsunami. Charlie Pelham, now 20, was with a team from Harrow School warming up for a match at the cricket ground in the fishing town of Galle when the wave swept in, lifting up their team bus and depositing it on the outfield.
Julian Ayer’s widow, Harriet, and her son, Spencer Crawley, at the ground in Galle
The boys and their coaches took refuge on the balcony of the ground’s pavilion and watched in horror as the bus-stand behind was engulfed by a 30ft surge of seawater, killing several thousand people. Continue reading
Tsunami !! A Survival Celebration at Wijaya in Southern Lanka for the Hill Family from Adelaide
Meredith Booth in The Australian, 22 December 2014,
the Hill family today in Adelaide-Pic News Corp
ADELAIDE survivors Emily Sharp and Michael Hill will mark the tsunami’s anniversary in the same Sri Lankan beach guesthouse, owned by the same couple, from which they miraculously swam on Boxing Day 2004. They’ll be sharing the “humbling experience” of their survival and put a landscape to the story for their sons Finnley, 9, and Orlando, 5.
Ms Sharp was six months pregnant with Finn when she and her partner managed eventually to escape to hills behind the village of Wijaya, south of Galle. “We were running through the courtyard while the bar was being ripped and chairs and tables were flying everywhere. Our first instinct was just to run upstairs,’’ she said at the time. Continue reading
Primordialist Strands in Contemporary Sinhalese Nationalism: Urumaya as Ur
Michael Roberts* This article was composed in 2001 and appeared in the Marga booklet series on A History of the Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka. It is reproduced here without changes, but has also been embellished with hyperlinks to pertinent items on web — some of which may have been presented more recently. Pictures have also been inserted. As of November 2016 emphases have been introduced via highlighting in blue or dark blue;while paragraph separation has been increased.
I
In recent years* I have been working on the subject of Sinhala consciousness over the last four centuries. In the present context of a hot war between forces that represent the Lankan Tamils and those seen to represent the Sinhala majority in particular [in 2000-01], this interest necessarily forces one to take a stance on the contemporary situation. Broadly speaking, my political position is liberal humanist and favours a devolutionary scheme that recognises the Sri Lanka Tamils as a “nationality” and involves a sharing of power, whether at the centre or through federal units or a mixture of the two. This places me alongside articulate elements in Sri Lanka, including several friends at the Colombo branch of the International Centre for Ethnic Studies, the Social Scientists’ Association, the Marga Research Institute and the universities, who advocate this line of politics. Continue reading
Channel News Asia reviews Sri Lankan Presidential Election
Hop, Step and Jump with click to http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/video/unexpected-competition/1522508.html …. 10 December 2014
An attempt to stay on in office that hasn’t gone quite to plan. Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa called for snap elections, asking voters to give him an unprecedented third term. But he’s now facing a stronger than expected competition. Has the president made a miscalculation?
ANSWER as ADDENDUM; … not if his astrologer and horoscope’s guidance was on the button. OR if the deities at Thirupathi have any say in Lanka?
Tina Faulk’s “The Island of Singing Fish: a colonial childhood in Ceylon”
Ceylon is a magical island which has enchanted adventurers, writers and soldiers for thousands of years. It has, over six centuries, been ruled by three Great European Powers, Portuguese, Dutch and British. The legacy of these remain, in the language, culture, architecture and –most of all- the islanders themselves. The Island of Singing Fish is the story of a Sri Lankan family that began over five hundred years ago when Roelof Dircksz, a young Dutch trader working for the East India Company (the VOC) came ashore and married into a spice trader family in Galle Fort …. It’s the story of a family, a community and an island, written with love, nostalgia and the yearning for an island we all once called home…. Continue reading
Filed under australian media, British colonialism, communal relations, cultural transmission, female empowerment, heritage, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, literary achievements, Portuguese in Indian Ocean, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, unusual people, world affairs
Introducing Ranjit Ratnaike’s SARADASI
In a narrow valley, desolate and beautiful, surrounded by mountains heavy with snow, the Astral Lords chant softly, guiding the small spacecraft to tell its three passengers about The Prophecy. The leaders of the weary cosmic armies of good and evil have agreed each would field a small team to decide the fate of the Nereima Galaxy. The evil Prince Vira suggested virtue as the only weapon the divine astral Lord Gaima’s team would need for victory. Lord Gaima accepts members of the treacherous Saradasi race as his team, believing he can transflux enough virtue into them during their many cycles of rebirth before the battle. The Prophecy is fulfilled and the battle for the Nereima Galaxy begins. Shanaz, the beautiful young High Chancellor of the Saradasi Empire, leads Lord Gaima’s team into a parallel universe to begin the battle. Continue reading
Filed under cultural transmission, heritage, landscape wondrous, life stories, travelogue
