Pri's blog

see this video from Vikalpa also just to confirm that it's all flattened - kovil and laundry - here's a photo from last week

Interesting presentation by Kunda Dixit today at ICES, jointly hosted with CEPA. Of course, the Nepali conflict was very different to the Sri Lankan one: the duration was 10 years, it was primarily a class war, not an ethnic one, and most important, at the end of the war there were no winners and losers.   Hence the possibility of formation of government that included the rebels, and even the integration of the Maoist rebels into the Nepali army. Dixit talked about taking the photo exhibition to the conflict areas as well as showing it in Kathmandu.  The main message seems to be that the Nepali reaction to the conflict has been 'never again', that the people involved in the conflict have moved on in their personal lives despite the ever present spectre of the violence and its impacts, and that at some level the exhibition has been an opportunity for catharsis. That, at the level of the individual, and especially the ordinary women, men and children involved in the con...

I cycled this morning, on my usual route around the Beira and passed the washing lines of the dhoby community in Polwatte.  The last time I did so was just before Vesak.. and they were erecting a pandol in front of the washing lines. But this morning the scene was very different.  The whole place had been razed to the ground.  Bits of the kovil are still left standing, but they have been asked to move as well. Spoke with a few of the community that was hanging around.  They have been given space on the other side of the Beira, behind the Singer Company.  They are carrying out their occupation, but they are not happy.  But the priest  in the kovil didn't think that it was a suitable place to site a temple.  He was walking desolately among the ruins of his kovil . The people I talked to told me that the space was being used for a car park and a helipad for Temple Trees.   There is a Bo Tree in the corner.  An ...

I am not sure how many people who read this blog were at the HSBC Costume Pageant held in the Museum courtyard on the 17 th of May, held in conjunction with the opening of the HSBC sponsored textile and pottery galleries.  I got a ticket through a friend in the organising committee, and went there with another friend, a Premier customer. We had some high expectations, and together with several others who were sitting around us, and who we met on our way out, we were sorely disappointed.    Unfortunately, not everyone was.  The organisers and the producer, a well known Sri Lankan choreographer, got many accolades, and personal congratulations.  I have been told that the government thought the pageant excellent and wanted to show it at the coming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, that several TV stations had wanted to air the video of the event.  I was also told that the organisers and the choreographer had sat with heavies in the archaeo...

Check out the article Tehani Ariyaratne and I compiled for the LMD

“The real enemy is the man who tries to mould the human spirit so that it will not dare to spread its wings.” In the context of the research to policy discussions that seem to dominate the 'knowledge sector' these days, the article whose title I have borrowed for the title of this blog, published in 1939 in Harpers' magazine seems particularly appropriate. In it American educator, Abraham Flexner explores the dangerous tendency to forego pure curiosity in favour of pragmatism. You have to sign up to Harpers to read the original. But try this link for more information.