Remains of the Day: 9.5.22
On this day, one year ago, I was alone in my studio working intensely on some paintings totally unaware of the chaos emerging and gathering momentum in my city, where government supporters…
Longing and Belonging
Gnanamuttu Kusumawathi: Leader of the Panama Pattuwa Land Struggle
Gnanamuttu Kusumawathi, known as Kusuma akka, passed away five years ago. We remember her rebellious spirit and strength with admiration and gratitude. Kusuma akka was a leader in the Panama Pattuwa (Pattuwa…
Jungle and the Sea: A Tale of Courage, Hope and Survival
Following the runaway success of his first play, Counting and Cracking, writer and director S. Shakthidharan has produced a new play called Jungle and the Sea, which has received enthusiastic reviews since…
Counting and Cracking: A Journey of Learning, Healing and Understanding
It debuted to rave reviews in Australia in early 2019 and met with the same response in Edinburgh and Birmingham. Despite recounting very personal and Sri Lankan experiences, S. Shakthidaran’s Counting and Cracking…
A Call for a Change in Culture
“They will never change” is a phrase that many Tamils overseas often hear from back home. A simple phrase articulated partly in sadness, partly in gloating. It’s difficult to condemn how various…
A Love Letter to My Sri Lanka
How does one begin a love letter? I’m sorry, it’s been a while since I have written one. Sri Lanka my dearest, my love, my strength, You are in my heart. You…
Identities deemed Irrelevant: Land Issues in the Kuchchaveli Divisional Area
Censuses of the Trincomalee District taken through the various years will point out a slight numerical majority and minority in its various communities. Yet it is worth noting that no one ethnicity…
Atrocities of the Civil War Through the Eyes of Artists
A common theme running through this year’s Colomboscope, entitled Language is Migrant, is the enduring consequences of Sri Lanka’s civil war as seen through the eyes of several young artists based in…
Layla Gonaduwa: Exploring Memory, Home and Migration Through Art
For three months Layla Gonaduwa, a self taught, interdisciplinary artist, travelled around Sri Lanka to explore the concept of memory, home and migration. She explored symbiotic and discordant relationships between within communities…
Exploring Tamil-Muslim Relations in The Single Tumbler
Sunday Times In October 1990, The LTTE ordered some 75,000 Muslims in the Jaffna peninsula to leave their homes within 48 hours; they were allowed to take Rs. 300 and some clothes….
This Country is Mine
Image Courtesy of A poem reflecting on the meaning of independence day. This country isn’t yours to offer, Upon the conditions set by you. You can deny me the right to be…
Senthooran: Black July Through the Eyes of a Survivor
It has been 37 years since the anti-Tamil pogrom of July 1983, a riot that set the country ablaze and sparked a 30-year long and bloody war. But even after nearly four…
Black July: The Unspoken and the Unspeakable
July. Referred to as Black July to mark the pogrom against Tamils in 1983 carried out by Sinhala mobs. Pogrom is a Russian word meaning ‘to wreak havoc, to demolish violently’, that…
Digana: Two years later
5th of March 2018 marked the beginning of a series of violent mob attacks against the Muslims in the central parts of the country, perpetrated by the ethno-nationalist Sinhala Buddhists. A personal…
The View from Madinah
Around the debris of triumphantly post-war Sri Lanka, new research is churned out, state grant money proffered and secured, and security expert careers built around jihadi headlines, veil puns, and paradoxically hyper(de)racinated definitions…
