Colombo, SRI LANKA — On October 4 this year, a 39-year-old woman from the Brandix garment factory in Minuwangoda tested positive for COVID-19. By October 13, Brandix, which makes garments for global brands such as Victoria’s Secret, Gap and Marks & Spencer, was at the heart of an expanding cluster of over 1,500 cases. Garment workers were … Continue reading
Standing at just 4’11, Thilini Gunasekera is used to being dismissed. It happened when she wanted to join the Air Force and study aeronautical engineering – she didn’t meet the height requirement. It happened again when she stepped into a classroom full of men to study how to become an automobile mechanic – except this … Continue reading
The heavy, metal apparatus standing in R. Lorrence’s garage seems out of place. Its design is simple enough – a pneumatic pump helps pack a mix of explosive chemicals into a slender plastic tube, exerting pressure that a human hand couldn’t hope to match. But it is the only machine in this little cottage firework … Continue reading
Let me begin with this apartment, where a grocery store and six people are all crammed into 400 square feet in the Methsara Uyana high-rise. The people fit themselves around the groceries, which occupy all of the living room and most of the kitchen. Sleeping arrangements are flexible, and visitors and wet laundry must both … Continue reading
Jan Ramesh De Saram uses his phone as a torch, casting a small circle of light at his feet as he walks down the corridor. The passage ends in darkness, where bats squeak and flap their wings. A row of abandoned rooms are occupied only by an upturned chair or two, lonely rejects from the … Continue reading
It was 2008 going on 2009 when Sharad Amalean turned to his elder brother Mahesh Amalean and said, “This is going to unravel completely.” It wasn’t news to Mahesh, who as Chairman of MAS Holdings had watched as the company reeled under the economic downturn. As orders dropped, they had had to lay off people … Continue reading
In Asgi Akbarally’s family, a car is never just a car. Sitting in his office off Darley Road, Asgi tells us each car has a story. A collector and connoisseur, he is behind a beautiful new coffee table book titled ‘Classic and Vintage Automobiles of Ceylon’. He and his sons Hussain and Shiraz together selected … Continue reading
The view from the summit of Ama Dablam is said to be incomparable – a 360 degree vista edged all around by the cloud wreathed peaks of the Himalayas. Defining the edges of the horizon are the giants, Mt. Everest and Lhotse and there too is Nuptse and Pumori, the mountain known as ‘Everest’s daughter.’ … Continue reading
It’s 8 am, and Jay has already been up for three hours. In his one man studio in the Lite.Fm offices on fifth lane, he’s hard at work. The morning newspapers lie scattered around and Jay is flipping through them looking for something interesting to talk about. (He’s already spotted a piece on Sachin Tendulkar … Continue reading
Kades of every description line the streets of Colombo. Many are family businesses, passed down from one generation to the next, and populated with loyal customers who wander in several times a day for breakfast, lunch and dinner, with the odd tea break in the middle.They offer affordable, simple, hearty fare and no-nonsense service; and … Continue reading
Smriti Daniel 