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Minette de Silva: An Ornament of Her Age, I-by Michael Roberts Source:Thuppahis Jane Russell … presenting A Memoir as one Step in a series and deploying the spelling of “Minette” which Minette favoured (not Minnette) The whine of Minette’s white Renault as it climbed the steep curves of the driveway to St George’s [in Kandy] could be heard long before the car arrived under the arched porch. The car headlights would be switched off and I’d catch a few words in Sinhala being exchanged between Minette and Punchi Rala, a tall, fair old man, whose thin grey hair was tied in a tiny knot behind his head, a dirty sarong half falling from his slack stomach. Punchi Rala was a semi-alcoholic (kassipu being his favoured beverage) who slept on a donkey bed in the recess of the porch. Under his bed he kept a pike that had surely been purloined from the ...

Feb 14, 2024 Posted by In Articles, Michael Roberts Tagged , , ,
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Some Sources on the Ceylon National Congress, 1919-50-by Michael Roberts Source:Thuppahis Ponnambalam Arunachalam EW Perera CWW Kannangara 1. Ariyaratne, R. A. 1977. “Communal Conflict and the Formation of the Ceylon National Congress”. The Ceylon Journal of Historical and Social Studies, 1977 Vol. VII No. 1 , pp. 57-82. http://dlib.pdn.ac.lk/handle/1/3639 (PDF available) ……. An  extensive 26-page paper providing a detailed overview on Ceylon National Association, CNC, and places it within the context of territorial and communal division. Also talks about the CAN and CNC as “open” reform societies, and outlines how they consisted of a cross-section of westernized elites. Excerpt: A rift with the Government having thus already been created, and without a European go-between the reform leaders convened the first session of the Ceylon National Congress on 11 December 1919. Its principal architect, Arunachalam, was elected the first President. Recalling his uphill task, he wrote in 1923 “Only those who have been in ...

Jun 4, 2023 Posted by In Articles, Michael Roberts Tagged , ,
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An untold history of Sri Lanka’s Independence-By Uditha Devapriya Source:Island In Sri Lank, as in every other colonial outpost, resistance to foreign domination predated Western intervention by well more than two centuries. Surviving numerous onslaughts of South Indian conquest, the Anuradhapura kingdom gave way to the Polonnaruwa kingdom in the 11th century AD. The latter’s demise 200 years later led to a shift from the country’s north to the north-west, and from there to the south-west. It was in the south-west that the Sinhalese first confronted European colonialism, a confrontation that pushed the Kotte and the Sitava kingdoms to the last bastion of Sinhalese rule, Kandy. The shift to Kandy coincided with the commencement of Portuguese rule in the island. Both Portuguese and Dutch officials emphasised, and sharpened, the line between the Maritime Provinces and the kanda uda rata. The Sitavaka rulers, in particular Rajasinghe I, had fought both Portuguese suzerainty ...

Feb 6, 2022 Posted by In Articles Tagged , , ,
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Ivor Jennings and Peradeniya University in Two Excursions Source:Thuppahis ONE:  ‘Varman’ = “Jennings and the Old Galaha Road” In 1952 we lived on Old Galaha Road.  That was the last year we lived there.  The government of the day compulsorily acquired our house and the land for the campus of the new University of Ceylon at Peradeniya.  Much against our wishes, we were on orders to quit our home.  The order to vacate, after the property was compulsorily acquired by the government, came from the Vice Chancellor’s office, the new owner of what was our beloved property. Sir William Ivor Jennings was the first Vice Chancellor of the University of Ceylon.  He lived in his official residence right in the middle of the campus.  Although the VC was the signatory, or on whose behalf the vacate order was signed, Jennings had nothing to do with such matters.  All he dreamed of was ...

Jan 5, 2022 Posted by In Articles Tagged , , , , , ,
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SUPUN JAYASINGHE’S RITES OF PASSAGE-By Uditha Devapriya Source:Island Situated at Stanley Wijesundera Mawatha, the Planetarium continues to captivate and fascinate, yet unless you strain your eyes, you can easily miss it. It’s one of those places you go to, through a prior appointment, and emerge from wishing you could go back in again. I must have been in Grade Five when I visited it on a class trip in 2004. Supun Jayasinghe was in Grade Five, too, when he went there with the rest of his class seven years later. The only exception, apart from the year of the visit, was where he came from: a 100 miles away, in Dambulla. It was the first time he had been to the city. Intriguing and exhilarating as such a trip may have been, he had other things in his head. A few months later, he wouldbe sitting the Grade Five Scholarship ...

Apr 13, 2021 Posted by In Articles Tagged ,
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