It was 33 years ago, but Chandraguptha Thenuwara still remembers the group of men stopping the bus and clambering on. They had a seemingly bizarre demand, going from passenger to passenger, insisting that he or she say the Sinhalese words for pen and bucket – pǣna, bāldiya. Tamil tongues twisted different around these syllables, making … Continue reading
Asha de Vos knew what to expect before the big announcement. “The hardest part was keeping it secret,” she tells The Sunday Times. The only Sri Lankan so far to have a Ph.D. in marine-mammal-related research, de Vos was named an Emerging Explorer by the National Geographic Society in May this year. Subsequently featured … Continue reading
The ethnic riots of 1983 were not the first in Sri Lanka. Nor were they the last. But Black July was indisputably a seismic event in this country’s history. Its echoes are everywhere, but some of my most meaningful encounters with it have been through the island’s literature. From the warmth and innocence of Funny … Continue reading
It’s been three years since anyone has made it to the summit of the world’s tallest mountain. But in May a young Sri Lankan woman climbed 8,848m up to stand on the roof of the world. Just 300m from the summit, her climbing partner was told he was running out of oxygen and would have … Continue reading
The sastra karaya could see a ghost standing behind Shehan Karunatilaka’s shoulder. He said the spirit was a woman, someone Karunatilaka had known and who was now his guardian. Now, in his airy living room in Colombo, Karunatilaka admits he didn’t sense anything himself, and that he was a little bit disappointed with the experience. … Continue reading
Seran Sivananthamoorthy is only 25 years old which is why his knowledge of the Jaffna Public Library is limited to memory and anecdote. The library with some 95,000 volumes including the only original copy of the Yalpana Vaipavamalai or the History of the Kingdom of Jaffna was set alight by a mob in 1981 as … Continue reading
Colombo, Sri Lanka – Ariyaseeli Gunaweera, known as Ari to all, is a supervising public health midwife in Sri Lanka. She is, as a result, a person of some importance. Ajith Kumarasiri certainly thinks so – when Ari sends him on an errand, he hurries to get it done, returning with a large 10cc syringe … Continue reading
Shahidul Alam has long been gripped by the life of a woman he has never met. It’s been two decades since Kalpana Chakma was abducted, but Shahidul refuses to forget her. Standing at the threshold of his latest exhibition,Kalpana’s Warriors, the Bangladeshi photographer pauses for a moment. In the room beyond is the third in … Continue reading
Muhamalai, Sri Lanka – Not so long ago Shanmukam Thankamuththu had 25 goats; now she has only five. The other 20 have been sold, each animal bringing in 9,000 rupees, or around $60, depending on its size. “I sold one and used the money to build this wall. I sold another to dig the well,” … Continue reading
What would Kesari do? As Amitav Ghosh stood arguing with a taxi driver, a character from his book popped into his head. For Ghosh, who in 2015 brought his enormously ambitious Ibis Trilogy to completion with the release of Flood of Fire, this is what it means to live with the people he writes into … Continue reading
Smriti Daniel 