As a soloist in the opera, Sean Panikkar has had to learn more than his fair share of foreign languages. Still, there’s never been one quite like High Valyrian. In the hugely popular Game of Thrones (GoT) series, Daenerys Targaryen’s handmaiden and trusted advisor describes it with reverence, saying “The gods could not devise a … Continue reading
On September 22, Sean Panikkar posted clue #1 on his Facebook page. It was a vector visualised as a graph and he followed it with a picture of a glass of orange juice (clue #2), a portrait of Dr. James Naismith who invented Basketball in 1891 (#3), a spade of coffee beans (#4), a painting … Continue reading
Each episode of the television show ‘America’s Got Talent’ draws anywhere between 10 and 12 million viewers in the United States alone. This is the largest audience Sean Panikkar, 31, has ever performed for and it makes for an unusual twist in an already very successful career. Having been voted through to the semi-final round … Continue reading
Hania Luthufi has many cousins. It was in their company that she had her first “voice training sessions” – learning how to recite the Quran in classes organised in the family home. “I shared my childhood with about 15 cousins,” she says, “all of us lived in the vicinity. Every day at 4, us grandkids … Continue reading
It’s a Thursday night at Qbaa, and there’s barely standing room. Usually, there’s no quieting the din, but when Umaria Sinhawansa takes the mike everyone stops to listen. She’s only 22 years old but the young singer claims the spotlight with complete assurance, her lovely voice running up and down the scale with an easy … 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
Like so many little girls, 10-year-old Shehara Liyanage was fascinated by her mother’s wardrobe. Shey longed to be properly grown up and inside that cupboard were all the props she needed to pretend she already was: outsize heels to totter around in, make-up to be inexpertly slathered on and beautiful sarees to wind around herself. “It … Continue reading
Smriti Daniel 