Richard
Image courtesy of Daily News Remembering Richard De Zoysa (03/18/1958 – 02/18/1990) Animals continue to crack in Sri Lanka, Richard. Lions don’t exist in the natural state, nor tigers roam through the…
Poetry
This Country is Mine
Image Courtesy of Pinterest 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…
Inauguration
Photo courtesy of KLCC I put on a shirt today with red and blue stripes bordering a sea of white, and wrapping my legs a pair of blue jeans, my hair black…
Prisoners Are Human Beings
Photo courtesy of Daily News When we aren’t able to give you more room, than you had inside your mother’s womb, When we ask you to excrete, in a plastic bag,…
Trusting Decrees, Sri Lankan Style
Image courtesy AFP/Times of India They were arrested for drinking at public places, driving on roads, keeping restaurants open, for unruly behaviour after drinking and selling merchandise during the curfew the…
Unsettled Account
I am not surprised by the new leadership’s decision to ban the playing of the anthem in Tamil at Independence Day celebrations. Key members of this government ran the show when the…
Rehabilitation
The outgoing president of my former country just pardoned Jude Jayamaha, murderer of the young Yvonne Jonsson, who had dual Sri Lankan and Swedish nationality, bludgeoned to death in an apartment at…
Free Elephants
Featured image by Saengduean Lek Chailert Where elephants go to die were departments of Spanish literature in remote Plains and Midwestern colleges. according to Jose Donoso. For me, these pictures of an…
Cathedral, Jaffna
Photo courtesy Wikipedia I am praying in a pew at Saint Mary’s Cathedral. The building has suffered burning, cyclones, the Eelam war’s bombs. Four hundred years ago Portuguese built the first…
Man Versus Elephant
Photo by Amila Tennakoon I hear compensation due for an attack by a wild elephant will increase to rupees 500,000 from the current 200 K in Sri Lanka. Henceforth, if you…
Hello Mr Soldier
Featured image courtesy DNAIndia On the wooden bench, deep in the land of the warriors, Your Jaipur prosthetic leg takes on a new posture; A docile pet, sitting snugly next to you,…
My Uchipattam
[Editor’s note: The following is a spoken word piece on identity and language. The author’s grandmother was born in Jaffna, and briefly lived in Colombo but decided that Jaffna was her home….
Habeas Corpus
Featured image courtesy Amalini de Sayrah We returned to the place Where we were buried in a hurry “Let’s look for our bodies,” we said We searched the edge of the lagoon,…
Bury them right now
Featured image courtesy the Wall Street Journal The modern political discourse on conflict resolution becomes a banality when it invariably tends to get stuck with a buzz word or phrase. Then, the…