The Island Abstains
The decision by the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka to abstain from the General Assembly vote calling for an end to violence in Syria, and stepping down of its president, cannot…
Poetry
Killer Representative
I am assembling the scene, a local hood and his gang come to a Christmas Eve gathering at a beach hotel, want to dance with foreign women, see a bloke from town…
Measuring (After Nandikadal)
An embarrassment, to forget over short eats, ignore the bundle on his back, that sloshed set of poetry he cannot avoid carrying, an appendix, reptilian brain, fascination with naming elements of the…
A Fisherman Testifies
I learned from Sri Lanka to go overboard, to flounder in the deep ocean while Navy sailors beat me with sticks, and cut my nets, and round me up as the country’s…
Prescient
When Lasantha wrote the editorial that predicted his imminent assassination he suggested the civil war would turn steadily uglier, then move inwards, as a lizard searching for its tail, insidious in the…
Cheran
He is writing history, where he lives, when he travels, to Denmark, Singapore, Tamil Nadu, Toronto. Edward Said wrote about Palestinians, Rudramoorthy Cheran, Tamils. News that my friend has suffered a mild…
Climate-Induced
Plantain leaves, steaming yellow rice, katta sambol, seer fish, passion fruit, the island’s culinary pleasures I think of first, batting then for a day, stopping for lunch and tea, but this strain…
For those who have missed out and want to know humanity
Belated, but worth it. I read through this collection of Sinhala poems by a Sinhala “creative activist” friend, who moves the reader across the large canvass of responsible humanity, very solemnly holding…
The ‘coolest’ publisher of English books in Sri Lanka: In conversation with Sam Perera
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…
Overseeing the Farm
Planning a visit home is not easy for a Tamil returning to Jaffna. First, he needs to fly into the international airport at Katunayake and pass through customs like any traveler. He…
umbrella over bird
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…
The Destroyed Temple
The house at the end of the road, the giant multiple-walled house at the end of the road without a telephone, or internet, without a satellite dish, without rubbish—the residents burned what…
A Plea from a Muslim woman in a Western Country
Now that the men in black Have descended the machines Silently, Like nocturnal birds of prey And stalked and slain the beast That taunted them For a long, miserable decade, Now that…
The Right to Respond
: The numbers do not add up. Census says 430,000 people resided in the Vanni mid-2008. A year later, 290,000 are shepherded by the Army into “welfare centers” where one hundred men,…
Cricket, Lima
In the mist that blows over the field at Lima Cricket near the Pacific, moist, cool air lets the wicket breathe and the crack of bat on ball sing like a memory…