Malinda Seneviratne Antony Blinken is concerned, poor man. The US Secretary of State, following talk of the current Niger leadership considering obtaining military support from the Wagner Group, told the BBC that ‘every single place that this Wagner Group has gone, death, destruction and exploitation have followed.’ Hold on to that. What is referred to […]

Malinda Seneviratne Tragedy of any kind can yield tears. Tragedy of any kind can also yield resolve. There are other harvests too. Apportioning of blame, absolving responsibility, anger, revenge-intent and collapse of one kind or another for example. It’s seldom just one thing. And so, in this country where there has been so much death, […]

Malinda Seneviratne Human beings are curious. Their curiosity prompts them to explore the unknown, venture into unmapped territory and test their own capacities to endure. They climb, they sail and they dive to depths never reached before. Exploration itself is a challenge. Explorers encounter the unknown which could take the form of species and peoples […]

Malinda Seneviratne At around 11.30 pm, Sri Lanka time, on Monday the 19th of June, a submersible vessel, the Titan, at the other end of the world, set off with five persons on board and a 96-hour oxygen supply to explore the wreck of the ill-fated British passenger liner, the Titanic, which sank in the […]

Malinda Seneviratne The first time I encountered the word ‘ruffled’ was in the main hall of my school. The walls were lined with adorned with photographs of distinguished alumni and under each set there was an inspirational quote. This was one: ’The wise are not ruffled by praise or blame.’  It was much later that […]

Malinda Seneviratne There are words that seem to be very popular among politicians and political groups when it comes to naming a new part or coalition. ‘Jathika’ or ‘National’ would top the list. We have the Eksath JATHIKA Pakshaya (United NATIONAL Party). Whenever this party led coalitions, ‘pakshaya’ was replaced with ‘peramuna’ or ‘front,’ but […]

Malinda Seneviratne The late Lanil Kalubowila once offered some interesting reflections on language and politics. The last time I met him, along with our mutual friend Kanishka Goonewardena, he informed us that he had restricted reading to the perusal of encyclopaedias. They were, he observed, to the point. No frills, no editorialising, no propaganda, he […]

Malinda Seneviratne I don’t know when the terms viyali kalaapaya (dry zone) and theth kalaapaya (wet zone) were first used in relation to this island. I don’t know when the term mosam sulang (monsoon winds) was first used. Knowledge doesn’t follow naming. People obviously knew the difference between wet and dry. They could tell which parts of the country got more […]

Malinda Seneviratne Jayanath Bodahandi (Bodhi), the eldest in his family, would have been just out of school when his father, an illustrator at an advertising agency, passed away. Bodhi could draw and the kind people at the agency offered him a job. There was a problem. Bodhi lived in Balapitiya and the salary would hardly […]

Malinda Seneviratne A friend joked recently that there was a time when friends and relatives would ask ‘aren’t you thinking about being married?’ but now they ask ‘haven’t you thought about migrating?’  Clearly times have changed from relatively bearable to hard and worse. Understandable too. If things are unbearable, there are two options. One, do […]

Malinda Seneviratne Over the last 24 years, Easter Sunday has been celebrated on various days, from the 23rd of March to the 5th of May. It is then a movable holiday or, if one wants to be overly technical about it, a movable holy-day given that the word derives from the Old English hāligdæg (hālig […]

Malinda Seneviratne A few weeks ago, the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) posted a ‘wanted’ advertisement for a Financial Consultant ‘to provide guidance on investment decisions, cash management and dy-to-day organisational expenses. The expanded responsibilities include, ‘forecasting costs and revenues, conducting risk analysis for financial plans, evaluating capital expansion options and to provide guidance and recommendations […]

MALINDA SENEVIRATN​E 

If the head of any organisation is a crook, it amounts to a licence for theft down the line, all the way to the bottom. If there’s a crook at any level of an organisation, it implies that the head of that institution is either a crook or is incompetent.  Organization, here, could […]

Malinda Seneviratne Post Independence Sri Lanka. That’s a period of 75 years. Long enough for a decent mix of the good, the bad and the ugly. And the downright scandalous. Now in this long period of time, we’ve had representative democracy. More or less. And we’ve had periods when that what and what it means […]

Malinda Seneviratne ‘ලේ හැලුනේ නෑ, සුද්දා තරහ වුනෙත් නෑ; යන්න ගියෙත් නෑ, නොගිහින් හිටියෙත් නෑ.’  ඒ නන්දා මාලිනී අසූව දශකයේ අග භාගයේ එළිදැක්වූ ‘පවන’ ප්‍රසංගයේ ජනප්‍රිය ගීතයක මතකයේ රැඳුනු වචන කිහිපයක්. මේ ‘නිදසස් බයිලාවට’ සුනිල් ආරියරත්න මෙහෙමත් දෙයක් එකතු කරලා තිබුනා: ‘නෑ බැට කෑවේ නේරු පාටෙල් වාගේ, නෑ දිවි දුන්නේ මහත්මා ගාන්ධි වාගේ.’ නිදහසේ කතාව […]

Malinda Seneviratne #gotagohome අරගලය නොහොත් ගෝටව ගෙදර යැවීමේ ව්‍යාපෘතිය නොහොත් ආදරයේ අරගලය අනන්‍ය වූ ඇතැම් පුද්ගලයින්, සංවිධාන සහ බලවේග මුල සිටම ව්‍යවස්ථා සංශෝධන අවශ්‍ය යැයි තර්ක කළෝය. ආර්ථික අර්බුදය කෙසේ වෙතත් දේශපාලන අර්බුද වලට දිගු කාලීන විසඳුම එය යැයි ප්‍රකාශ කරන ලදී. 1978 ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ අවුල් දකින්නත් විසඳුම් යෝජනා කරන්නත්, විසඳන්න ඉදිරිපත් වෙන්නත් අර්බුද අවශ්‍ය නොමැති […]

Malinda Seneviratne අසූව දශකයේ ඉංග්‍රීසි රොක් සංගීත ක්ෂේත්‍රය වර්ණවත් කල එක් සංගීත කණ්ඩායමකි ‘ඊගල්ස්’.  ‘හොටෙල් කැලිෆෝනියා’, ‘ඩෙස්පරාඩෝ’, ‘ටේක් ඉට් ඊසි’, ‘ටේක් ඉට් ටු ද ලිමිට්’ වැනි ගීත හරහා ප්‍රසිද්ධියක් ලැබූ මේ කණ්ඩායම එම දශකය තුල ග්‍රැමී සම්මාන 6ක් සහ ඇමරිකානු සංගීත සම්මාන 6ක් දිනා ගත්තේය.  ඉහත සඳහන් ගීත වලට වඩා අඩුවෙන් ජනප්‍රියත්වයක් ලැබු එකකි ‘සෑඩ් […]

Malinda Seneviratne ඒ වන විට ‘භීෂණය’ ජනගත වෙලා තිබුණේ නෑ. ඒත් පෙරනිමිති පහළ වෙමින් තිබුණා. ඒ භීෂණයේ මුල් අවධිය කියල කියන්න පුළුවන්. මතක හැටියට 1988 වසරේ සැප්තැම්බර් මාසයේ. පාසැල් ශිෂ්‍ය ශිෂ්‍යාවන් සහභාගී වුණ උද්ඝෝෂණයකට පොලිසියෙන් වෙඩි තියල නුගවෙල මාධ්‍ය මහා විද්‍යාලයේ අවුරුදු 15ක සිසුවෙක් මැරුණා. ඒ පිළිබඳව විරෝධය ප්‍රකාශ කරන්න පේරාදෙණිය සරසවියේ ශිෂ්‍යයින් මහනුවර පිකට් […]

Malinda Seneviratne ‘Crisis & Struggle’ is the title of an art exhibition that was recently held at the Lionel Wendt Art Gallery. Sujith Rathnayake, the artist, calls it a visual art attack. Nice line. It is presented by, so the poster claims, ‘Art Gallery of the Galle Face Protest Site.’ Sujith Rathnayake’s stature as an […]

Malinda Seneviratne There are some uncomfortable truths about the 13th Amendment, devolution of power and of course provincial councils. Let’s begin with the here-and-now. Provincial Council elections haven’t been held in years. It is more than 10 years since the Eastern Provincial Council elections were held and more than nine since they were held for […]

Malinda Seneviratne Towards the end of the last millennium with some  countries worrying about glitches associated with Y2K or the year 2000, a magazine, maybe ‘Time’ or ‘Newsweek,’ asked world renowned people a simple question along the following lines: ‘what would make the world a better place in the next millennium?’  Maybe it was ‘next […]

Malinda Seneviratne When the then US Ambassador to Sri Lanka and the Maldives, Teresita Currie Schaffer, insisted in the early 1990s that Sri Lanka’s food security lies in the wheat fields of North America, it was obviously a part of a general anti-rice rant with a view to propping the American wheat farmer. This is […]

Malinda Seneviratne [‘The Morning Inspection’ is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is a new series. Scroll down for previous articles]   Sometime in the year 2003, a bumper harvest saw rice prices plummeting in Sri Lanka severely affecting the […]

Malinda Seneviratne Landmark days, like the 1st of January and, more importantly for us in Sri Lanka, the Aluth Avurudda in the month of Bak (that’s April), are about renewal, discarding of hang-ups and errors, and a fresh page.  We are now done with 2015.  The year 2016 is ours to inhabit, revel in and decorate.  It is ours […]

Malinda Seneviratne We are a few hours away from the year 2013.  The world has not ended and the signs are it will not.  Strangely, the end of the world sometime in late December was the most looked forward to event of the entire year, beating by a fair margin the Olympics, the US Presidential Election and […]

Malinda Seneviratne President Ranil Wickremesinghe has called all parties to get together and solve what he calls the ‘ethnic-problem’ that has remained ‘unresolved’ for decades. Meanwhile, parties that claim to represent ‘Tamil interests’ have put forward a set of demands: a) stop ‘land grabs in the Northern and Eastern Provinces by armed forces the state […]

Malinda Seneviratne Sometime in May 2022, when it was announced that plans were underfoot to hold the delayed parliamentary elections, there was a hue and cry, mostly from the then Opposition. Key leaders of the Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB) argued that elections would worsen the Covid-19 situation. Nothing of the kind happened of course, but […]

Malinda Seneviratne The early versions of Udayasiri Wickramaratne’s celebrated theatrical piece ‘Suddek Oba Amathai (A white man addresses you) contained a short soliloquy, ‘Baya Vunu Minisek Oba Amathai (A scared man addresses you).’ The man was essentially scared of two things: a) that he would speak the truth even when he wanted to deceive, and b) that […]

Malinda Seneviratne Contour makes the bends bends make for pause feet stop and go and heart to footprint returns Roads are either slow or fast depending on road conditions, weather, traffic, the condition of the particular vehicle and the urgency or lack thereof of the person at the wheel. The same road can be fast […]

Malinda Seneviratne Such diversity! Such passion! Such innovation and creativity! Such courage and heroism! Such were and still are the encomiums floating around in mainstream and new media about the Aragalaya. Yes, there was diversity, passion, creativity, innovation and courage. These however do not necessarily constitute good, healthy, wholesome etc. For example, the LTTE, Al […]