Don’t let Nish de Gruiter’s suit trick you into believing he’s a conservative guy. The truth is in the details: the tapering pants folded up neatly to reveal an ankle, his bare feet shod in loafers. The blue and white checkered jacket with its fine print doesn’t have any lining or padding at the shoulders … Continue reading
Anjali Joseph was in Jaffna yesterday and tomorrow she’ll be in Kandy. For a few hours in the middle, we find ourselves at the Dutch Hospital in Colombo where Anjali confesses that she’s feeling a little disoriented – but it’s more than just the travelling. “I think for an Indian it’s very disorienting to be … Continue reading
When Radhika Hettiarachchi asked Sri Lankan mothers from North and East for their stories, she knew what she would hear would go beyond them; that their stories would stretch to encompass their children and their husbands, their mothers and fathers, their homes, their work and even their communities. “When you ask a woman about her … Continue reading
By the time Sean Borodale stepped into the middle of a swarm of ‘fizzing thousands’ he had already been stung thrice. Now, though ‘netted in trawls of strumming bee,’ his discarded gloves leaving his arms unprotected, Sean felt in no danger. In fact, the bees barely seemed to know he was there – after months … Continue reading
“What is your dream?” Startled and amused, Donald Byrd looked at the little Bangladeshi boy, an answer already on the tip of his tongue. Now in his sixties, the artistic director of The Spectrum dance Theatre had already led his own company for more than 20 years, establishing himself in the process among the ranks … Continue reading
Kaveri Lalchand’s official bio notes that she is an ‘actor-dancer-cook’ but a more comprehensive description might read ‘actor-dancer-cook-designer-publisher-entrepreneur’ and if you were looking for more nouns to describe her they wouldn’t be hard to find. Traveller is one – she was in Mumbai when she did this email interview with the Sunday Times but is … Continue reading
At the Sri Lanka Institute of Nanotechnology (SLINTEC), today is someone’s birthday – the riot of pink and yellow post-it notes decorating Prof. K.M Nalin de Silva’s door single him out. For the Science Team Leader it’s a fine day to meditate on the world of his ancestors and to imagine the one his children will … Continue reading
Incongruously, Jenny Welwert Gil likes her tuna leather smelling ever so subtly of coconut. She massages coconut butter into it to turn it a darker hue and make it fragrant. She then uses the leather to create wallets and bags, jackets and shoes for her label ‘Khogy’. Her material challenges your expectations: “Tuna leather is … Continue reading
On Layn Baan St in Galle Fort, two exquisitely melancholy sea monsters are separated by a rusty gate. Stricken by grief, one wears a tower for a hat, the other towers above the lighthouse, rising above the fort with a ship bleeding oil cradled in its thin, long arms. The black ooze around their waists … Continue reading
In 2007, the confluence of the Writers’ Guild of America strike and new fatherhood made Sanjit De Silva consider giving up acting. In a piece printed in the Actors Centre Journal in 2009, Sanjit agonised about what he owed his young son and whether he would be able to provide for him. “It seemed like … Continue reading
Smriti Daniel 