Apoi! Aiyyo! Aliyo! Working and Holidaying among Elephants in Lanka

Courtesy of The Sunday Times

For Erin McClory and her family, elephants were the company they sought on their first family holiday in 15 years. “My mom volunteered with monkeys in South Africa last year, and decided she wanted to do a similar trip,” the young Canadian volunteer from Toronto told the Mirror Magazine. The group of four picked to volunteer with the LEO (Life, Equality and Opportunity) foundation and spend time at an elephant conservation programme offered by the foundation in Pinnawalla.

 ALIYO WORK 33A volunter bathes an elephant–Pix by Amila Gamage Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, life stories, performance, sri lankan society, travelogue, unusual people

An Amateur’s Unusual and Usual Pictures

PICs by Michael Roberts Fort Jaiselmer Fort Jaiselmer from a medieval urban dwelling in 2003

LAKE Pichola at Udaipur Lake Pichola at Udaipur in 2003 Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under life stories, travelogue, world affairs

Peacocks in full flight near Mattala

PEACOCK IN FLIGHT P-COCK FLT P-COCK FLT-22 PCOKC FLT Courtesy of LALIN Fernando

Leave a comment

Filed under life stories, patriotism, pulling the leg, sri lankan society, taking the piss, truth as casualty of war, wikileaks, world affairs

BBS and Burma – Given Parallels, Any Links? A BBC Account

Jonathan Head, BBC, 4 April 2013 : “What is behind Burma’s wave of religious violence?”

burma anti m violence 11 “After Muslim neighbourhoods were levelled, only scavengers could be seen at the site of the destruction”

Last month more than 40 people died in violence between Buddhists and Muslims in the central Burmese town of Meiktila. The BBC’s South East Asia correspondent Jonathan Head looks at the causes of the violence. At first sight it appears that Meiktila has been hit by a natural disaster. Entire neighbourhoods have been levelled, homes of brick and cement smashed to rubble. Then you notice holes pounded into the walls that are still standing, clearly made by human hands. It was anger, not nature, that wreaked this destruction. The families and shop-owners that occupied these buildings have disappeared. The only people are the scavengers, salvaging anything of value left in the ruins. A Muslim community that dates back many generations has been wiped out. Continue reading

1 Comment

Filed under accountability, communal relations, cultural transmission, discrimination, disparagement, economic processes, ethnicity, fundamentalism, historical interpretation, politIcal discourse, racist thinking, world affairs

Life-threats as Possible Prospect for Sri Lankan Cricketers at IPL

Michael Roberts

PART ONE: A gnawing fear resides today in my guts. I fear that one or more of the Sri Lanka cricketers at the IPL matches in India will end up maimed or dead. This is an imminent and distinct possibility – a slim one I admit, but not wholly fanciful.  I earnestly wish I am wrong; but I think that either a lone ranger or a clique of Tamil zealots is quite capable of carrying out such an attack in Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Delhi or Calcutta. Security precautions can go only so far. Individual cricketers are highly vulnerable. Continue reading

4 Comments

Filed under atrocities, ethnicity, Indian Ocean politics, life stories, LTTE, martyrdom, nationalism, patriotism, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, power politics, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, truth as casualty of war, violence of language, zealotry

A Bawdy Tale … Fifty Shades of Grey

Anonymous of course … and directed at gents of a certain age … and all readers who are  mentally constipated

FIFTY SHADES OF GREY – (a husbands point of view)

The missus bought a Paperback,
down Shepton Mallet way,

I had a look inside her bag;

   …  T’was “fifty shades of grey”

  Well I just left her to it,

    And at ten I went to bed.

     An hour later she appeared;

    The sight filled me with dread…

          In her left she held a rope;

          And in her right a whip!

          She threw them down upon the floor,

          And then began to strip..

          Well fifty years or so ago;

          I might have had a peek;

          But Mabel hasn’t weathered well;

          She’s eighty four next week!!

          Watching Mabel bump and grind;

          Could not have been much grimmer.

          And things then went from bad to worse;

          She toppled off her Zimmer!

          She struggled back upon her feet;

          A couple minutes later;

          She put her teeth back in and said

          I am a dominater !!

          Now if you knew our Mabel,

          You’d see just why I spluttered,

          I’d spent two months in traction

          For the last complaint I’d uttered.

          She stood there nude and naked

          Bent forward just a bit

          I went to hold her, sensual like

          and stood on her left t*t!

          Mabel screamed, her teeth shot out;

          My god what had I done!?

          She moaned and groaned then shouted out:

          “Step on the other one”!!

          Well readers, I can’t tell no more;

          About what occurred that day.

          Suffice to say my jet black hair,

          Turned fifty shades of grey.

1 Comment

Filed under cultural transmission, female empowerment, pulling the leg, unusual people, world affairs

The Politics of the Sri Lankan Tamil Cause in Tamil Nadu: A critical view from across the waters

Anonymous in http://kafila.org/2013/04/01/of-imagined-solidarities-and-real-fears-the-politics-of-the-sri-lankan-tamil-cause-in-tamil-nadu-a-critical-view-from-across-the-waters-by-anonymous/

When elephants fight it is the grass that suffers, so goes an old Kenyan proverb. In the maelstrom of political hysteria unleashed by Jayalalitha and Karunanidhi ostensibly in aid of Sri Lankan Tamils, democracy, truth and solidarity have been the biggest casualties. Over the past few months, Tamil Nadu has witnessed attacks on Sri Lankan Buddhist monks and Christian pilgrims, and the government sanctioned blockade of Sri Lankan schoolchildren and sportspersons.

The latest salvo from Chennai regarding Sri Lanka is the Tamil Nadu assembly resolution calling upon India to press for a United Nations Security Council mandated referendum amongst Tamils living in Sri Lanka as well as Tamils of Sri Lankan origin in other countries on the question of carving out an independent Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka. This is in addition to demands to declare Sri Lanka a ‘hostile state’, impose some form of sanctions etc.

However, is this the ‘solidarity’ and ‘support’ Tamils in Sri Lanka, in whose name all this is being done, really want and will gain from? On doing so, in Sri Lanka at least, one would find many different and perhaps even some conflicting answers. For example, the fishing community in Sri Lanka’s north and west, around Jaffna and Mannar will tell you just the kind of solidarity they would really appreciate—stop those large Indian trawlers from regularly raiding the Palk Bay deep in Sri Lanka damaging the area’s marine ecology and the livelihoods of Sri Lankan Tamil fishing communities. Yes, the Sri Lankan Navy has attacked Indian fisherfolk on many occasions but along the Jaffna and Mannar coasts there is actually a perception that the Sri Lankan Navy is not policing the maritime boundary strongly enough. Continue reading

4 Comments

Filed under communal relations, cultural transmission, Indian Ocean politics, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, world events & processes

Twenty Väddas and Thuppahies deported to Sri Lanka from Australia?

Michael Roberts

AUSSIES CHECK A-S Hon Brendan O'ConnorAt a press conference today in Perth the Immigration Minister, Brendan O’Connor, announced that 20 (twenty) “Sri Lankans” had been placed on a plane and deported back to Sri Lanka. This despatch meant that a total of 963 “Sri Lankans” had been sent back to Sri Lanka since August 2012, for the most part “involuntarily.” This  would, said O’Connor, send a clear message to would-be asylum seekers and people smugglers. It would save people from “dangerous journeys.”

None of the media personnel asked O’Connor for an ethnic breakdown of the 20 or 963 deportees or questioned the premise of inevitably dangerous voyages. So much for acumen and background nous. For my part speaking as a Thuppahi [mongrel], I wondered if all TWENTY were either Väddas orThuppahi. That would please me no end. Sri Lanka needs more thuppahi in order to reduce the scourge of Sinhala extremism and Tamil extremism. The pukka Burghers left long ago so that problem no longer exists as a major force. Continue reading

2 Comments

Filed under asylum-seekers, australian media, life stories, patriotism, people smugglers, politIcal discourse, pulling the leg, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, taking the piss, tolerance, unusual people, world events & processes

Virulent Shameless People! Cry OUR Beloved Country!

David Blacker … courtesy of http://blacklightarrow.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/our-moment-of-destiny/ where the title is “Our Moment of Destiny”

gnanasara--621x414- DAVID B's Gnanasara Thera of BBS in full flow

I think every generation faces its own particular challenges; but the greatest and most defining ones are those of morality and courage. That moment, if missed, condemns that generation — and often many that follow — to a world far more unpleasant and evil than we would wish it to be. For many in the free world of the late 1930s, that moment came with the invasion of Poland and the bombing of Pearl Harbour. It was a moment when my grandfather’s generation had to decide if they would simply stand on the sidelines or go out and fight someone else’s cause. Fortunately for them, the choice was easy; their respective governments took the right fork, and millions of young men — my grandfather included — went out into the deserts, the jungles, and across the seas to ensure that tyranny and racism would not shape our world. For 1960s America, the moment of destiny was in fact a place — Vietnam — and a moral choice. America made its decision, albeit a little late for millions of Vietnamese. Continue reading

4 Comments

Filed under cultural transmission, ethnicity, fundamentalism, historical interpretation, life stories, nationalism, politIcal discourse, Rajapaksa regime, religious nationalism, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society

Poles Apart! Yet so Alike!

DSC_0088  Pongu Thamil oath of loyalty to Thamililam [EELAM] at Trincomalee in ceasefire period circa 2006   BBS OATH Budu Bala Sena c0mmitment of faith today

Are these people peas of the same pod yet at opposite poles and part of the processes that have been thus tearing Sri Lanka apart by aiding in the reproduction of each other! Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under ethnicity, fundamentalism, politIcal discourse, racist thinking, Rajapaksa regime, religious nationalism, riots and pogroms, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, tolerance, truth as casualty of war, world events & processes