Look out the plane window at the right moment and the sight of the Himalayas lining the distant horizon will take your breath away. Wreathed in clouds, peaks capped in snow and sunshine, they stand implacable against the elements. Landing in Kathmandu, you’re almost disappointed to find your view curtailed by Shivapuri, Phulchowki, Nagarjun and … Continue reading
Bowing before Saraswati for a few minutes at the start of every school term, Hindu schoolchildren in India pray for her blessing on their books and their efforts. Lankan writer Yasmine Gooneratne asks much the same of the goddess, though in her case, she is actually writing the books themselves. “There was a point in my … Continue reading
When Julia Child was dubbed ‘Our Lady of the Ladle’ in a Time Magazine cover story in 1966, she was already well on her way to becoming a towering figure (both literally and figuratively) in American public life. A one-woman cultural revolution, Julia penned well over a dozen cookbooks (starting with the now iconic ‘Mastering … Continue reading
It opens with a funeral. Hundreds of thousands of mourners dressed in black swirl around a solitary casket. Their voices raised in grief seem to fill skies, cloaking all of Buenos Aires in sorrow. They are heard loudest in the villas miserias and louder still in the elegant homes of the Argentinian elite. They cry … Continue reading
There are three naked children in the picture, but only one of them is malnourished. There’s nothing obvious to give it away – the boys look fairly healthy, the first even boasts a little paunch. When Nkosinathi Mbuya, senior nutrition specialist at the Human Development Unit of The World Bank, reveals that despite his round … Continue reading
Namita Gokhale chooses to give her speech sitting down but makes up for it by delivering an engaging and interesting talk. Considering there is a strike on, the small auditorium in the Colombo University building is surprisingly full. There are perhaps 40 people in the audience – about the number, Namita estimates, that attended some … Continue reading
Farah Zahir knows that for a parent, not knowing can sometimes be the heaviest of burdens. Still, she is often the last place they go looking for answers when their child isn’t developing normally. A post-doctoral fellow working at the Friedman lab and the British Columbia’s Genome Sciences Centre in Vancouver, Canada, Farah studies the … Continue reading
Where do Dr. David Young’s loyalties lie? Without missing a beat, the Sri Lankan cricket team’s honorary surgeon says, “always with individual athletes.” Dr. Young is a familiar face here – he’s been travelling to the island, sometimes several times a year, for 17 years now. An orthopaedic surgeon, his patients have included the likes … Continue reading
The crumbling remains of two forts (one Dutch, one British), an old barn once used to store arecanuts and some rare silver tokens bearing the legend Fanam are all that remain to tell the tale. They are all connected to Ruwanwella – one of the key points along the ancient road that once stretched all … Continue reading
The Indian government wanted its disabled citizens to vote. Faced with mounting social pressure, leading parties were debating disability issues in their stump speeches, vying for votes. Here was a departure from business as usual – the Disability Act, passed in 1995, guaranteed equal opportunities to disabled people but little had come of it. Tom … Continue reading
Smriti Daniel 