Who brought the elephant into the room and who will remove it?

Elephants are majestic creatures.  They are also beasts of burden.  They give stature to pageants.  Those who have tusks are especially valuable to the point that they are hunted, killed and divested of their prized ‘possessions’.   They also enhance status of owners.  Elephants are sought then for a variety of reasons.  There are therefore laws about acquisition.  Whether these are adequate is a moot point. ...

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Memories of 'Mihira' and days when life was so much sweeter

The cover page of the maiden copy of 'Mihiri' Some years ago someone made a suggestion: ‘write about your first love’.  That’s a hard one.  It’s not because writing about love or lovers is difficult.  It’s the ‘first’ part that’s difficult to figure out.  I concluded around that time that the ‘last love’ is also the first.  But I responded to the request. I wrote about my favorite Montessori teacher.  But there’s...

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Resurrect the General Practitioner!

If you have a persistent headache you might rub some medicinal oil on your head or take a Paracetamol tablet.  If you have aches and pains, there’s peyava, there’s koththamalli with some venivelgeta or Siddhalepa.  Even a cat medicates itself, chewing on kuppameniya when feeling out of sorts.  A little boy trips and bruises his knee and his friends will administer first aid for example in the form of grating a kurumbettiya on...

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Rearranging prejudices

William James once said that a great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices.  That’s a quote sent by my quote-provider, the late Errol Alphonso.  I think James was being ungracious.  The thinking comes first, the rearranging later.  Once you’ve decided to rearrange prejudices, the only thinking required pertains to modality.  Such people might want you to believe they are in a thinking process; the truth though is that they’ve finished with thinking.   The past...

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The White House is a torture chamber!

A torture chamber called ‘The White House’ No, don’t get us wrong, no one is getting ‘rendered’ in the White House, no fingernails are being pulled out, no ‘water treatment’, no truncheons in the anus and such.  But someone does get tortured there all the time.  Right now it’s a man called Barack Obama.  He tortures himself (self-flagellation, we believe it is called).  The man doesn’t know what to say, can’t defend himself...

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A kiss awaits you on page 223

People have up-days and down-days.  There are good times and bad times. Right places and wrong times, wrong times to be at the right place.  The world is made of mismatches, one might argue.  Anomalies.  Chasms that prohibit bridging, bridges that help your go from nowhere to nowhere. Saviours who are forced to wear devil-dress and of course the satanic that comes decked as messiah.  Liberators who deny freedom and tyrannies that build the solid foundation from which movements seeking freedoms of greater magnitude can...

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Triumphalism gets unpacked

Celebrating the end of war, end of terrorist threats, being wary and mourning unnecessary deaths is 'WRONG' For a couple of days in May 2009 much of Sri Lanka was adorned with flags. The streets were full of flag-waving, firecracker-lighting people. In many places, following customs of celebration, there were people dishing out milk-rice or kiribath.  Free.  It was all about celebrating the end of thirty years living under the threat...

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