Archive for the ‘Fiction / Creative Writing’

Sri Lankan Minister continues farce

9 July 2010, Colombo, Sri Lanka: The leader of the National Fiefdom Front (NFF) Mrs Wimala Weerahansa continued her farce unto death in front of the Unverified Notions (UN) office near Bulls Road in Colombo yesterday – only God knows why. Large crowds were seen gathering at the scene and shouting insults at a Chinese man in a show of moral support of the Cabinet Minister. Mr. Saman Gonagama – a protester at the scene speaking exclusively to Banyan News Reporters said that he fully supported the minister in this brave, courageous, patriotic, wise, really productive and useful endeavour. “We really hope she farce unto death” he added. Some political observers in Colombo speculate that Mrs Weerahansa is waiting in line to advise the UN panel appointed by Secretary General Kim Ba Noon to advise him on what he can and cannot do. Sources close to the farcical Engineering Services Minister claim however that she was protesting the screening of “Three…

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The Taxi Driver’s Story: In the Name of a Father

Shopping List

My name is Polgahawela Aarachchige Junius Soloman Hickmana Thanthiriya Bandarawela, and I am a taxi driver in Colombo — you can call me Hick, for short. I am about to tell you my encounters with a Sri Lankan Tamil fellow, Sivapuranam Thevaram.  This man hired my taxi three times in the last couple of years, twice for airport drops and once on a weekend trip to Dambulla. Thevaram is someone best described as a “Kalu Sudda” [Black, White man] – black skin, but carries a Thatcherland passport. Often he thinks and behaves like these foreign fellows, with his priorities in stuff like individual liberty, journalistic freedom and human rights, worrying about these just the same way I do about the cost of rice, petrol and milk powder for my children. There are many of my countrymen like Thevaram. They get themselves free education here, do not work here or pay taxes and emigrate to richer countries. A peculiar recurrent thinking…

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The Wedding: An imagined portrait of an unusual day

He was a filmstar, they said. But she had never much cared for films. She had heard of schoolgirls hoarding dog-eared posters; giggling over provocative poses; singing the songs the stars sang; dancing the dances the stars danced; wishing for the same clothes and hair styles. She had heard stories of the glitz and glamour of that faraway world. But they meant nothing to her. Her school days hadn’t lasted long. She hadn’t the time to grow up, watching films and singing songs. Time was snatched from her and replaced by a gun in her hands. A gun could stop time, she was told. And it had. She knows it has been years since she’d pulled a trigger for the first time, but she can’t tell how many. She can’t measure time by days or weeks or months anymore. None of that makes sense. She can’t measure them by bullets either – there have been too many fired at her…

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We Regret To Inform You That Your Condolences Cannot Be Accepted At This Time

We regret to inform you that your condolences cannot be accepted at this time. At present, both our pain and our hope defy that word, which has been offered and denied us, which we need and do not need, and which in any case we cannot accept, because they (your condolences) will not reach from what has happened to what will come. We find the word condolences stunning in its insufficiency for past and future. We evacuated our homes in the light; we vanished from our homes in the dark; we walked away from our families, toward the weapons, and wished that we could turn around. Our bodies entered the earth in places we cannot now identify, and so we are everywhere, blown to dust. By both dying in and surviving this place, we will live here long after your condolences become a ghost in your throat. We joined others’ battles, willingly and unwillingly; we walked forward on paths not…

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Interview with Ameena Hussein

Ameena Hussein is one of Sri Lanka’s best known English authors. She is also one half of the Perera Hussein Publishing House, that since 2003 has published some of the best new English writing in the country. The Moon in the Water, Ameena’s first novel, was long-listed for the first Man Asian Literary Award in 2009. Zillij, a collection of short stories I reviewed four years ago, won the State Literary Prize in 2003. Our discussion touched on Ameena’s tryst with cancer and how this influenced her writing and outlook on life. We also talked about English literature in general, and the quality of contemporary English fiction in Sri Lanka. Ameena also talked about identity, gender and violence – both in and through her fiction and their manifestations in the real world. We spoke at some length on the politics of representation and the contested space for women in Islam, harking back to two articles on Groundviews published last year in…

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…for The Missing

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A solitary lamp perched on a desk top lights a room. A man scribbles feverishly on paper, hunched over the light as if he’s jealously guarding what little he has. His desk is cluttered with cartoons and drawings – some of a President, others of two small children. He holds down his paper with one hand and writes with the other, so violently that other loose papers and articles shuffle with his movements. He is breathing hard, as if he’s run to his desk from sleep, taken by wild inspiration. He has forgotten to switch on the fan, and the heat of that December night hangs in the air, thickening like spoiling milk. Small explosions of sweat begin to burst from the pores of his forehead, drip darkly onto his fast-moving hand, and trickle onto the paper, blotting the ink. This frustrates him but he doesn’t stop to soak up the liquid, just writes on, faster. His wife lies in…

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Open letter to the President of Sri Lanka

January 28, 2010 Dear Mr. President, Congratulations on your land slide victory which, like most Colombo elites, I was stunned by. Your spokesperson Dr R Wijesinghe quite rightly described us as shallow and lacking foresight and the common touch unlike the rural polity who rightly judged your true capability and potential based purely on your good governance and not by manipulation through crafty and cut throat state propaganda. We eagerly look forward to another six or maybe eight? years of glorious Mahinda Chinthanaya. We have full confidence in your wise and just governance which you have so clearly displayed during the past four years. Yes, you narrowly missed a foul coup plotted by your adversary which would have destroyed you and your entire family as well as your extended family and even certain key public officials who have proved their worth as eminent and honest advisors to your rule.  Even post election, the truth needs to be shown on national…

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Banyan News astrologer analyses planetary event on 26 January 2010

zodiac

21st January 2010, Colombo, Sri Lanka: The occult of warrior Mars and royal Jupiter on 26th January will dominate the planetary motions in our heads, guts, backsides and wallets for the next six years. The official Banyan News astrologer Mr Ahasrahas analyses the implications of the above cosmic event to determine the extent to which we will get screwed in the next phase of this rather predictably catastrophic cosmoastropoliticosociomasochistical cycle. The cosmic collision on the 26th will have a profound effect on Aquarius and Cancer over the next six years. You survived the bloodshed and misery brought about by the Sun God who moved out of your fifth house last May and you may even have side-stepped a few landmines and escaped 81mm mortars in your time, thanks to your lucky stars. But the planets will continue to bring ‘mung-eta’ donated by Malaysia, ‘kadala-parippu’ donated by Canada and flour from the World Food Program for you to make vegetarian ‘kottu-roti’ until your villages are…

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The Fonseka Effect?

Cartoon by Dharshana Karunathilake

Cartoon by Dharshana Karunathilake, published in Irida Lakbima, 3 Jan 2010. Translation: General Fonseka (on left): “I promise to give you….” President Rajapaksa, interrupting: “Whatever he promises, I promise to give you all those!” ~ “Civilization is an interlude between ice ages,” said the noted historian Will Durant. We might adapt that to characterise the current presidential election in Sri Lanka as a brief period of liberty and relief in between long spells state oppression, neglect and impunity. What else can we make of the government’s new found keenness to simultaneously ease up on a number of fronts where it has been completely unrelenting and uncompromising until now? Just consider these few illustrative examples. The militarization of the North remained firmly in place for seven months after the civil war ended in May 2009. Now, the same government is scrambling to dismantle the High Security Zones, resettle the displaced people, and remove restrictions on the A9 road. Yesterday’s suspects have…

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Urgent National Security Overhaul in Sri Lanka

10 January 2010, Colombo, Sri Lanka – The government in an emergency press briefing today, announced that it will take steps to overhaul the national security strategy of the island. The government defence spokesman, Minister Kokila Bathalahitawanna admitted that a post-war review of the defence plan had exposed glaring gaps in the national security strategy that needed urgent attention. Military Spokesman Brigadier Rajarathna T Pakshadeemana detailing the changes, said that the first step would involve a radical change in the uniforms of all armed forces personnel. “We found that current military uniforms do not provide adequate protection or camouflage in areas where solders are most often deployed” he pointed out. “The role of the military in the post war context has changed dramatically, from jungle warfare against ruthless terrorists to a primarily urban environment” the military spokesman observed, adding that “they have now been issued with new camouflage kits that are better suited to this new environment”. He refused to…

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Visualising Sarath Fonseka’s key campaign issues and manifesto

Sarath Fonseka Manifesto

Groundviews was the first website in Sri Lanka to visualise key statements by a Presidential candidate in the public domain. Visualising key speeches and submissions of Sarath Fonseka was republished in traditional print media and circulated widely over email because we seem to have hit a chord with many voters looking for an easy way to get to the core of what the two leading candidates were saying. Key issues as noted on Sarath Fonseka’s website We now use the same technology to visualise the content featured in the issues tab / section of Sarath Fonseka’s official presidential campaign website. This is the raw text taken from Sarath Fonseka’s manifesto (English version), which at the time of writing is yet to be featured on his website but is available here. A larger version of this visualisation can be viewed online here. Much like the content on his website, the key word here is ensure. There is a significant emphasis on Sri Lanka…

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Guidance on Star Gazing: Government to set up Advisory Council for Astrologers?

Colombo, Sri Lanka - A special Advisory Council for Astrologers is to be established in the lead up to presidential elections to ensure “consistency” in astrological forecasts, claims a source from the Ministry of Indigenous Sciences speaking exclusively to Banyan News Reporters. The Ministry is expected to put forward a cabinet paper in the first week of January proposing the Advisory Council, which will play a supervisory role over all astrologers registered with the Ministry. “This is aimed at improving astrological predictions and to prevent citizens from being abused and misled by untrustworthy astrologers” claimed a source from the Ministry of Indigenous Sciences. “Some unpatriotic astrologers do not give predictions based on their astrological calculations and just say what they think will please their clients. This is unscientific, unscrupulous and a violation of established cosmological principles” added the source. The Advisory Council is expected to consist of seven leading astrologers who will oversee the readings of other astrologers. The Council will…

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Rajapakse: Now the most popular surname in Sri Lanka?

Colombo, Sri Lanka - Banyan News Reporters (BNR) learns from the Registrar of Names that a record number of people in Sri Lanka are requesting a change in their surnames. Over the last few months, the Registrar of Names notes that most of the applicants have requested to change their surname to Rajapakse, or to add it on as an additional surname. “This is unprecedented. Never in my thirty years at the department have we had so many applicants” confirmed Mr Satish Rajapakse, Director of the Applications Unit of the Registrar of Names. He noted that since the end of war, the number of applications increased exponentially. Mr. Rajapakse refused to discuss with BNR any details regarding the profile of the applicants. However, BNR learned through a highly-placed source at the Ministry of Defence, which is also monitoring this situation that the majority of these applicants are young male graduates. The source opined that these individuals may think a Rajapakse surname…

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Barbed Wire

Barbed, by Valimar A little boy stares through barbed wire, wondering which direction his home is. He reaches out to rest his fingers between the rusted knots of wire but his watchful mother calls out to him to be careful. At the same time, a soldier patrolling nearby walks briskly up to him and pushes him back. “Listen to your mother” the soldier tells him not unkindly in shaky Tamil. The boy looks up along yards of camouflage material and searches the soldier’s face. “I want to go home” he says miserably. “I don’t like it here” The soldier’s expression softens. He looks around awkwardly to see if anyone is watching and then quickly bends towards the boy. “I want to go home too” he says softly and pats the boy’s cheek. He straightens and clears his throat. “Go and play” he orders gruffly and strides away, the dark skin of his neck and hands glinting like his gun against…

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About Groundviews

Located at the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Groundviews is a citizen journalism website that uses a range of genres and media to highlight critical perspectives on governance, reconciliation, human rights, the arts and literature, democracy and other issues. The site has won two international awards, including the prestigious Manthan Award South Asia in 2009. The grand jury's evaluation of the site noted, "What no media dares to report, Groundviews publicly exposes. It's a new age media for a new Sri Lanka... Free media at it's very best!"

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