Let it keep, the moment when Katherine Boo found herself lying on the floor with a punctured lung and three broken ribs in a spreading pool of Diet Dr. Pepper. Rewind, see her tripping over the unabridged dictionary, her body breaking as it met the floor. Keep rewinding, back over a decade to the beginnings … Continue reading
Naresh Fernandes arrives for his session at Cinnamon Colomboscope covered in sweat. It’s a hot day but Fernandes has been on a brisk walk around Slave Island. He is fascinated with the parallels he sees between this city and his own – the frenetic development, the deepening class divide,and the contradictions inherent in democracies that … Continue reading
The tragic suicide of a friend when he was 13 years old inspired Arun Ravi to develop Mevoked. He remembers his friend’s parents wishing they had only known of the despair their son was feeling. Decades in the making, Arun’s new app is an answer to them. When you install it – a basic version … Continue reading
For Delon Weerasinghe, going grocery shopping is not unlike setting out on a treasure hunt. Many of the ingredients he keeps in his small pantry aren’t easily available and an adventurous spirit is a prerequisite for cooking with them. What comes out of his kitchen is, as a result, rather unusual – like the lotus … Continue reading
In Kannan Arunasalam’s ‘I Am’ series every one of the narrators is given a title, a designation if you will. Retired school principal S. Thoradeniya is dubbed ‘The Reader,’ Bala Tampoe is ‘The Union Leader,’ Helga de Silva is ‘The Warrior Queen,’ The Venerable Walatara Sobhita Nayaka Thera is ‘The Chief Monk.’ If one were … Continue reading
His pen might as well have been a scalpel. With a few well chosen words, D.B. Dhanapala could slice past pretence and posturing to lay his subject bare before you. He chose to write about prominent Sri Lankans who had been scholars, journalists, healers,artists and diplomats, but politicians were perhaps his favourite fodder of all. … Continue reading
By the time Benazir Bhutto met her death at the hands of a suicide bomber in 2007, she and her niece Fatima hadn’t spoken in over a decade. Still, people loved to compare them. From the length of their noses to their western educations and even on to their shared love for sugared chestnuts and … Continue reading
Tarun Tejpal is the journalistic equivalent of a rock star. The ponytailed, charismatic Editor-in-Chief of the news magazine Tehelka, Tarun is today counted among the subcontinent’s intellectual elite and is one of India’s best known journalists. Since 2000, Tehelka has set the bar for investigative journalism with stories that have shaken the foundations of governments, … Continue reading
Smriti Daniel 