KK De Silva Archives

Roman Szechowycz: A Discerning Eye for Past & Present in the Gal Oya’s History-by Michael Roberts Source:Thuppahis This is a presentation of an article entitled “The “Rock River” Story” by Roman W. Szechowycz in the Loris Magazine, Vol. 8 No. 6 December, 1960. Page 348. Its presentation here has been made feasible by my Aloysian pal KK De Silva. I have underlined aspects of this account with highlights. Let me stress here that Roman Szechowycz’s searching eye and mind leaves me amazed. This essay links the landscape to its medieval and ancient history and dwells on the history of Sinhalese civilization in revealing manner. ROMAN’s ARTICLE : The “Rock River” Story The Gal Oya river is full of interesting historical associations and if the river could talk, the story told by her would be worthy of record. In recent times the name of Gal Oya has become the symbol of the new Lanka, a symbol ...

Introducing an Essay on an Ethnic Confrontation at a Cricket Match in 1981-by Michael Roberts Source:Thuppahis This ‘encounter’ took place in 1981 and involved a Burgher Sri Lankan barracker earning the combined ‘resistance’ of an Aussie cricketer and Sinhala bystander (Sinha). As an observer of this set of exchanges, I moved beyond a clarification of the historical understandings embedded in Sinha’s success in ‘defeating’ the aggressive Burgher to address the relationship and differences between ‘typical’ anthropological studies and ‘typical’ historical work. The essay was published in Comparative Studies in Society and History in 1985. The pdf version has been converted into Word File by my Aloysian schoolmate KK De Silva, a cricketer and soccer goalkeeper in his school-heyday. Because it is a pdf, I have not been able to assemble the Footnotes as “End Notes.” ...