gathering at a beach hotel, want to dance
with foreign women, see a bloke from town

trotting high with a blonde, but when
they ask for a spin, are spurned, although

they are hot shots in the area, their chief
an elected representative; they have guns

and knives in their pockets, or placed
discreetly on their reserved table, and

they tear a woman from her boyfriend,
cutting her up and him, then shooting.

Government in a tither, keeping press
at bay, we cannot have these stories

displayed in the West where similar
incidents take place in the most respected

capitals, says another representative,
and the perpetrators have been booked,

are under investigation, although the head
of the local governing council has been known

to kill in the past but nobody is sure who can,
or will, introduce historical evidence.

• Aiyo!
• The Art of Forgetting by Lisa Kois – Director’s Introduction and Previews
• my teacher talks of a sri lankan english-poem ii
• Web censorship in Sri Lanka: Documenting a growing trend
• Disappearances of Persons in Sri Lanka

on his back, that sloshed
set of poetry he cannot avoid

carrying, an appendix,
reptilian brain, fascination

with naming elements
of the crime, breadth

of carpet strafing
of civilians in tents

on banks of the lagoon,
while tails for the ball

are rented
and we sit down

to quail and goose,
although elements

of the meal have
no political meaning.

They are foods for festive
or special occasions: here

fundraising, so ordinary
citizens can travel

to see the miscreant
dictatorship, dressed

in civvies, mixed in
with the crowd,

not in a killing field,
drawn up in advance,

but the larger and
harder-to-manage

masses of the post-war
streets, and report

what they find
before the police visit.

• Ayelasah
• Beauty
• Does cricket have a citizenship?
• Sri Lanka’s Flood Response: In Dimbulagala, people protest and plead
• Do candidates need armed security to ask for people’s votes?

while Navy sailors beat
me with sticks, and cut
my nets, and round me up

as the country’s diplomats
meet my Indian representatives
with elaborate denials

of mistreatment
on the high and most
domestic seas.

I want to feed
my wife and children,
return to Tamil Nadu

with my catch. I have
not been re-schooled
as a farmer

or an errand boy.
Will the United Nations
take up my case?

The International
Criminal Court?
My Chief Minister

protests and protests
but the Center is deaf
and keeps speaking

with the devil.
How can we calm
his temperature,

cool the beast,
teach the tyrant
that he cannot stifle

Tamils beyond
the nautical limits
of the Sri Lankan island?

• Is Sri Lanka in danger of being held accountable by the International Criminal Court?
• Much ado about nothing: Is Sri Lanka in danger of being held accountable by the International Criminal Court?
• Not signing the Rome Statute is not enough! (A response to Ranil Wickremasinghe and Mangala Samaraweera)
• An inconvenient history: A reply to Victory Ivan’s viewpoints on criminal defamation
• Petrol Pricing

as a lizard searching for its tail, insidious in the way
each institution begins to lose its independence,
the machinery of the ruling family greasing every

Tom, Dick and Banda—forgive my allusion to white
rulers of a more genteel if not innocent nursery school—
this forsaken Ceylonese child has turned monstrous now

in the eyes of Whitehall and Ottawa’s Parliament Hill,
betters going wild about pressures in Canberra to present
a bold brief on behalf of human rights and investigation

of war crimes as Commonwealth heads prepare to meet,
while on the island rival thugs, from within the all-powerful
ruling group, battle over drug routes and a parliamentary seat.

• Overseeing the Farm
• Slow Creep — the World Tamil Movement and Tharisanam TV
• Please leave us alone; a voice from Muslim community
• Bully Boys and Bully Girls
• Unshed Tears

News that my friend has suffered a mild heart attack
does not surprise me. His muscle has been strained
for more than thirty years. From the Saturday Review

where he reported the first days of rebellion in Jaffna
to more recent sociological study and dramatic writing,
the man, as scientist and poet, has let emotions hang

on strings strummed to a tabla’s beat. Wordsmiths
for Tamilians are as good as our instruments
and words are always enhanced by music. I recall

when we met in 1987 at the International Centre
for Ethnic Studies on Kynsey Terrace in Colombo,
where I moved as a kid when the house was home

and not yet a center dedicated to resolving differences,
the wounds of the1983 “Riots” were still very fresh,
and enthusiasm for resolution of long-standing

grievances strong, and nobody thought
we would allow democracy to fall into tyranny.
Neelan had not yet crossed the hairs of a Tiger,

nor even Premadasa, but the Indian Army were
landing in Jaffna, and resistance came soon after
that brief spring during which Cheran and I smoked

a cheroot and spoke poetry tinged with sadness
still for the murders of Black July and later,
on another visit, the suicide of Sivaramani,

whom we translated before the light
of an oil lamp in a thosai kaddai and thought
that, now we live abroad, let us recognize

at least that our spirits will not present passports
and our children, whom we could not imagine
then, would wander about our new homes and one day

think that to be Tamil is to be well-prepared to write
the essay on expulsion from the garden, and to feed, dream
and compose that other promise too, called the right of return.

• In conversation with Vivimarie Vanderpoorten
• Ground realities in Jaffna and its environs: Two key perspectives
• A travesty of justice: The sentencing of J.S. Tissainayagam
• Rajani commemoration: An absence of actuality
• my teacher talks of a sri lankan english-poem ii

passion fruit, the island’s culinary
pleasures I think of first, batting

then for a day, stopping for lunch
and tea, but this strain of poetry

has been sidelined, a war
won and lost, rewriting of history,

yet the latter may not be
necessary, building of

monuments to the bullet
near the sea, or the various

stupas popping up by kovils,
or replacing them quietly.

The waters of the Bay
of Bengal are rising steadily.

• In conversation with Vivimarie Vanderpoorten
• No one to listen to our pleas
• A-Z of Sri Lankan English: I is for isn’t it?
• Negotiables
• Madness

This collection of poems, titled by her as “For Ears That Had Not Heard” (No-asu Kan Walata), by itself is a subtle, nuanced allegation against the Sinhala reader, for not being, if not sensitive enough, then observant of the tragedy that unfolded around us during the war. She thus picks up hardly noticed incidents and subtexts of life, from remote corners of the conflict, that yells for dignity and respect in a world of neglect and humiliation. She captures them in rhythmic patterns from within lines she has so structured, with mostly very simple and “folky” language.

In short, 2 years after the war, you have to read it, not alone, but in the company of humanity and read it loud, for the rest of this society to sit back and listen to the story of the “victims of war”.

But let me also warn you. She has over worked herself in creating pages, that some times make you tired. The layout in some instances are not “reader friendly”. But the prose and the poetry would edge you along to the end. Just check the ones below in translation, that was impromptu and rough. But certainly proof of her very creative style of taking the reader to where she believes, justice is being cried for.

The Exodus
Saw tiny tots,
Frail with thirst and hunger,
Drenched with dust and dirt,
Pleading for a haven,
From a scorching hot Sun.

Saw vast numbers,
Amidst raining fiery fire,
Burning with grief and hunger
Searching for affection
In seven rows, of barbed wire.

18 June, 2009

This one below, is just the opening stanza of a long poem. Its a very sensitive and a touching story of a small girl, her pregnant mother and her helpless father, brought to the reader as afterthought of the mother, who gives birth to another little infant daughter. She brings it out in perfect pathos that leaves the reader looking for answers, no “Commission Report” would provide.

Little one left us all in two days, all by herself
Wait my little ‘daughtie’,
Have the doors open,
Till I hurry back home,
Bringing you “palahaarang”.
Will bring you “kaachchang”
A gunny bag load….
Get on my shoulder,
Will run,
Till you feel tired.
I’ll be your “yaanei”
The whole day.
Would never tell you,
“Not now dear”
My little darling,
My love
……….

* palahaarang – sweets ;    kaachchang – cashew ;   yaanei – elephant

November, 2009

Well for those who now wish to know who she is, the book simply says, she is “Kumari”. For me she is Kumari Kumaragamage.

• Equal Treatment
• OBSERVATIONS: INDEPENDENCE
• Forgetting, Mullaitivu
• A night in war time …
• Find the parallels – Hitler’s rise in Germany and lessons for Sri Lanka

Sam Perera, along with Ameena Hussein (see interview here) began the Perera Hussein Publishing House, a niche publisher based in Sri Lanka known to publish some of the most compelling contemporary writing in English.

Sam, who thinks of all things, he is a farmer at the beginning of the programme opens up the conversation with reforestation. The link to the world of publishing lies in that fact that, as a private initiative, PH Publishing House plants at least one tree per book they publish in Puttalam. Noting that PH Publishing House was established to publish stories by Sri Lankans for Sri Lankans, Sam’s rather interesting take on what he does is that the local consumer / reader doesn’t necessarily want literature, but stories that are written well – of course judged by none other than Sam himself. When pressed on what he considers good or great literature, Sam points to Randy Boyagoda’s writing, and says that even though he is Canadian, he writes about Sri Lanka very well, which encouraged PH Publishing House to bid for and get the local publishing rights for his latest book, The Beggar’s Feast.

We also go into what to Sam is an authentic Sri Lankan voice, comparing the writing of Michael Ondaatje with Carl Muller and the challenges of publishing in English for what is a very small market in Sri Lanka. We also talk about access to international markets for a publisher based in Sri Lanka and how exchange control regulations and other systemic problems bedevil growth and expansion. Later on in our conversation, Sam flags just how small the English reading market is by noting that on average, one would be lucky to sell 250 copies of an English book. He also notes that post-war, discretionary spending on books hasn’t really improved.

Sam often calls PH Publishing House ‘cool’ and I ask him to define what this means, and how this has helped him bring out books that in his own words command instant name and brand recognition. We talk about the challenges of publishing in Sinhala and Tamil, and how these markets, in interesting ways, differ quite significantly from the English language market. As a publisher, I go on to ask Sam what kinds of books and issues he would not published, and also what kind of writing he would like to see more of, which also takes Sam to describe in more detail the kind of writer he likes to work with as well.

We talk about the shift to ebooks (Kindle based for example) and Sam’s take on this is pegged to the rising price and scarcity of real estate, which will he thinks over time drive the public to digital books which require no physical storage space over actual printed books, which unsurprisingly he says he is partial to given their tactile feel, smell and presence.

I ask Sam how PH Publishing House goes about selecting a manuscript for publication – whether both Sam and Ameena read the same manuscript and then come to a decision, plus what they do if they disagree on the merits of a manuscript. Sam also has some revealing insights into the standard of English in schools, and differences between government and private schools. We end with Sam answering a challenging question posed to him on what, if anything he can do to improve English reading, and reading of literature in general, in Sri Lanka post-war, where we arguably have more space for quiet reflection.

• Interview with Ameena Hussein
• In conversation with Neluka Silva, Professor in English, University of Colombo
• Shyam Selvadurai: Literature, identity, politics and the Galle Literary Festival
• Long Form journalism: An invitation to contribute
• English language is the need of the hour

He may be asked to step into
a back room, to answer why
he carries the Economist
in hand luggage, or stickers
from the World Wildlife campaign

to save the tiger, given that
such animals have not been spotted
on the island in thousands of years,
if indeed they ever sauntered through
the wild grass or paddy fields.

He may be grilled about
family members in Wellawatte,
and what career he pursues
in the Scarborough, Ontario refuge
where wild and liberal creatures found

a home before conservatives took
over in Ottawa; he may be whisked
through secondary, and into a waiting
vehicle for a fast ride to the upstairs room
at CID headquarters where he will meet

his guide, his helper, who will say,
come friend, the campaign is lost,
give me a few names of laggards,
dreamers still in the foreign networks.
We must root out the germ.

Human beings have almost
eradicated polio, why not this
virulent, regional strain called
Eelam? Unfortunate, the cricketer
who failed a dope test,

and the others charged
with fixing matches, and
the Tamil policemen, who trained
in the hot sun for weeks to march
in the Victory parade for Eelam War IV,

told they cannot, on orders
of the President’s security detail.
What the hell, machan,
in paradise only Man is vile, said
the preacher who visited the island

in ancient times. Now we are renewed,
climate savvy, the A-9 Highway
is open to tourists beyond
Elephant Pass, but not yet, without
permission, to returning Tamils,

Hambantota boasts a deep water
port, and all our teenagers will
receive mandatory training
in military arts, which should help
them run animal farms in the far North.

• The Jaffna priest and the policeman who turned IGP
• Public Servant or Public Sahib?
• A-Z of Sri Lankan English: E is for Eelamist
• Speaking lies to power: Sri Lanka’s PM and the LTTE in India
• Forcible resettlements in East

for prageeth eknaligoda

we didn’t know we
stopped: the
undoing doing
its disappearing
the man himself
—disappearing
gone. what
to do? muttering him
through corners, hyde
park; lincoln
immemorial; where we
said speakers should
stand; silver shadow
moves for
coins in times
squared, because we
cannot hold the
hands of clocks.
which hand tips
land’s hat
into sea?—shriek
your bids; speak freely
in kingdoms
measured carefully
suns shining. no rain
they say: still, insist
on umbrella over bird,
though feathers fall
fallow, shedding wings
widowed, shorn
but not shamed.

under wings, through
windows, hold the hands of
clocks—himself
to draw
himself to draw
himself—(
disappearing)
, and
once more, upon an
anthem now:
light us from the inside
out, on the face of the galle
clock green with
time: the salt marching
up from the sea,
our wounds filling
with it.

• Belonging
• Breaking news: Flooding and unrest again at Menik Farm?
• Prawns and privations: Sugeeth’s life in Slave Island
• Notes of a Citizen Journalist
• I am one of 80,000*

at the end of the road without
a telephone, or internet,

without a satellite dish,
without rubbish—the residents

burned what they consumed—
certainly smoke can be traced,

and the courier’s story leaked
out of somebody else’s mouth

held incommunicado
in an East-European dungeon,

on leased land in the island
of Cuba, but that is another story,

the war found its target, today,
in helicopter to hand combat,

four aircraft once again, this time
choppers, and special forces—

not from Afghan camps
into Florida flight schools–but

Navy Seals, and the target
legitimate, not three thousand

ordinary civilians living
their American lives

until robbed by death,
rules for the rest of us

alive modified, and now
another death, tying

of the circle, a full spin
around the planet, what

Peru’s president said
was John Paul’s first miracle,

coincidence, his beatification
and death in combat

of Osama Bin Laden,
a bullet in the temple

of Evil, no longer
a Mastermind.

• Robberies Increase In Jaffna
• Chikenguniya Spreads In Jaffna
• The Big Stink in Sri Lanka
• Love Displaced
• The Publicity Baby

• Hijab whereforth dost thou commeth?
• The West’s bogus concern for human rights
• The Jaffna priest and the policeman who turned IGP
• Blood wanted, urgent!
• Lashkar-e-Taiba in Sri Lanka?

Govt: I understand
Tamil Net will jump to spread
the pernicious bleeding
heart report from those pesky
fellows at Channel 4,
so we must follow
our Leader and enact
his plan to send teams
to like-minded, non-aligned
countries to show how
governments can eliminate

terror, following our way
or the highway, of no return,
but we won’t use that crude
phrase. We believe we are
among friends here
in the poem without a need
to camouflage. Yet, we must
practice to win the diplomatic
battle now in the third and
fourth worlds where we
are very much at home.

• To The Courts, In Remorse
• Send us content for publication
• Joshua Roman in Sri Lanka
• Use Of SMS By Govt For Vital Information Dissemination
• Tsunami and asbestos

breathe and the crack of bat
on ball sing like a memory
of toffee I recall, outside

the tuck shop, the day
Josephians played St. Peter’s
in the wet air off Beira Lake

and all the boys, let off early
from class, rang the ropes
with cheers: St Joseph’s

victory, St. Peter’s parippu;
now forty years later,
accused still of immaturity,

I have dressed in whites,
a sun hat, am padded
up and ready to go out

again into the middle
to knock four fours
and a couple of sixers

in half a dozen balls,
to save the side
from infamy.

• AFLAME – Remembering Black July, 1983
• Beauty
• The victory that never came: Photos from Colombo during Cricket World Cup Final
• Theeban’s murder: An epitaph in Sinhala
• The opposition needs common sense, not a common candidate

You grabbed my hand hard and we ran like the wind
Under the shelling rain.
Do you remember, Selvam?
Praying, praying for life, for life with our kids?
They ran with us but so many others flickered and fell
Running non-stop, praying for life, till the rain of shells ended.
For a moment we had thought we saw Freedom
But it was a mirage.

Jasmine flowers wilted, Selvam, with your failing breath.
The white flag you were waving
Fell over your head like a shroud.

I’m looking through barbed wire
Down the road of memory.
Please come soon, Selvam,
I want to die together.

*Sri Lankan Government statistics say that are 80,000 war widows in the North and East of the country, the ex-war zones.

Written by Ajantha Roshani
Translated by Prasanna Ratnayake

• The Beauty of Barbed Wire: Sri Lanka’s cutting edge exhibition
• Forgetting, Mullaitivu
• Love Displaced
• Tears
• Sri Lanka’s IDP camp Manik Farm is what it is (but what is that?)

by minors, we can understand as a necessary
if unpleasant right of a neighbor who cannot

sleep or is bothered by willful disregard
for children. But to say, do not come to literary

feasting at Galle because journalists are killed,
or kidnapped, or forced to go abroad to save

their lives, this I read is an attack on the country,
which allows murder, rape and kidnapping

to bypass judicial review, and will not accept
responsibility for those who drive around

without license plates on its roads, or unfortunate
trapping of human beings on a killing spit of land

between lagoon and sea, which allows a minister
to chain a constituent to a tree, denies visas to left

and sundry, detaining a pesky lawyer from
Tamil Nadu at a checkpoint near former Tiger

dominions, meanwhile English elite, including me
on one occasion, have enjoyed, and will, liberty

at the party in Galle sponsored by Tourism Board
and interested businesses, hotels principally.

• election 2010
• Concerned Tamils, but what about the rest?
• Satellite View
• The future of tourism in Sri Lanka: A conversation with Renton de Alwis
• Focus on Badulla: Landslides

To the chimp, I give bananas,
From the Southie I learn to make Dosas,
With the Sinhala chap, I have picked a fight!

How strange! I say,
It cannot then be,
the genes of my Tamil DNA.

Modern Biology readily explains,
function not just in them genes it claims,
but from the way of their control:
Turned ON and OFF
when, why and where in space
and for how long.
Not the genetics of what came from past,
but the epi-genetics of regulation,
the Here and Now of their manipulation.

Oh, Historian! Do come to my rescue.
Why hast thou not seen an epi- too?

• Potato Farmer’s Anthropology Research: Part 1
• Sinhala and Tamil translations of UN Panel’s report on accountability
• The Story of the Hypocrite in a Tamil Man
• Doing It in a Foreign Language
• Interview with Ameena Hussein

Now our New Year has no moon.

The streetlamps of La Chappelle bend down to the darkness
but still spread their light.
I shoot them out, one by one.

An unknown Tamil comes along.
I say Hello and ask him for a match.
Then I see that his eyes are seeking a life.
I am asking for a light and he is asking for a life?

Yes, we are the generation
That lit our cigarettes
On the pyres of burning bodies.

Was there a dead person staggering along the street
Smoking a cigarette in your New Year dream?

He had a house
but no bed to sleep
He had a village
but no road to walk
He had a country
but no freedom to smile.

This is why our New Year has no moon.

When you gobble your milk rice
Do you smell the blood?
Does it taste yummy?

Written by Manjula Wediwardena, a Sinhalese poet, journalist and media activist currently living in exile in France. Translated by Prasanna Ratnayake.

• Jaffna People Back To Barter Business
• Queue For Pongal Rice
• Blood wanted, urgent!
• One of Us
• Shopping expedition in Little India: of Shalwars, samosas and Bollywood clones

My King! Here is your part:
Abolish anything and everything
INCOMPATIBLE
with our heritage and culture
with unwritten rules of our value system
with diktats of our many Gods.

My King! Ban them mini-skirts
for exposed knees are not only
INCOMPATIBLE
with our Ways and Norms, but
cause road accidents too.
Sigiriya damsels, hence My King,
don’t show their knees, you see.

My King! While you are at it
I suggest a list of things to ban; All
INCOMPATIBLE
with our Ways and Norms, and
cause my stomach to turn too.
political promises un-kept,
cash transfers in brown envelopes,
beating suspects on arrest,
locking up for weeks, months and years,
attaching bodies to tree,
decoupling souls to go free,
Ban ‘em all, My King!, ban ‘em all.

Gracious King! Here is my part:
I will sing our Anthem
the melody of which I adore
the lyrics I now have learnt by heart,
COMPATIBLE with my knowledge
of the beauty of our gorgeous Land,
Of knowledge and truth
of strength and faith,
Of the variety of nourishing grain, and
of fruit and veg too.

Noble King! I offer to sing aloud
Ananda’s original ONLY in Sinhala
once a year from the top of Sigiriya,
once a month at University Senate,
once a week before my game of chess and
once a day alone in my shower.

My King! Please make this deal with me
COMPATIBLE
with my Membership
of our country I hold so dear
which you do not wish to deny.

• Beauty
• Yellow Banana
• Impeachment of Public Officials
• HEY MAN!
• ‘Uncivilising’ Sri Lanka

whispering, pump themselves
with arrack and go courting

on the Green, but in these
holidays at year’s end

dedicated to forgetting
the war and all those gadflies

buried in graves, some families
mourn their heroes away

from the headlights’ glare
of vans without license plates

that remain in service waiting
to be summoned when necessary.

• Party
• A brief note on the attack on J.C. Weliamuna
• Negotiables
• A Day at the Cricket
• Mass Graves: Nothing new to Sri Lanka