Features

Campus life at Peradeniya and some memorable teachers

Published

2 weeks ago

2026/09/13

(Excerpted from In Pursuit of Governance, autobiography of MDD Pieris)

I settled down after a while to both academic work and sports. At this time, those doing a general degree were not regarded as a lesser breed whose academic progress could be entrusted to the more junior and inexperienced lecturers and tutors. We should be grateful to the university for being responsible, diligent and concerned about our work and our standards. We were therefore taught by the best.

In Sinhala, the Professor Dr. D.E. Hettiaratchi took one of our courses. Dr. Sarachchandra lectured on modern Sinhala and drama for two whole years. Excellent teachers such as the brilliant linguist Dr. Sugathapala de Silva lectured on grammar and linguistics, whilst other very able teachers such as Mr. Peter Silva, Dr. Ranmandala, Dr. P.E.E. Fernando and Dr. M.B. Ariyapala took other courses. These were amongst the best in the Sinhala department, and all of them taught us.

It was the same in regard to the other subjects. In English, the able, experienced and precise Mr. Doric de Souza lectured to us for two whole years on certain aspects and periods of Poetry and Drama; Dr. Smale Adams, on attachment from Cambridge University taught Shakespeare, and later the brilliant and iconoclastic Dr. Craig on attachment from Edinburgh university took some courses.

The Professor, Dr. Passe, taught us part of the course in poetry and prose for two years, whilst we were taught for shorter periods, by teachers of the calibre of Dr. Yasmin Dias Bandaranaike, Dr. Gananath Obeysekera, Dr. Kamal De Abrew and Dr. Ashley Halpe. They were all able and good teachers in different ways. They naturally possessed different styles. But I found Doric de Souza to be the ablest of the lot. He would walk in with the bell, effortlessly lecture for 55 minutes, walking up and down, without once looking at a note or at the clock, and in the final five minutes rapidly summarize his entire lecture stopping with the bell.

His internal clock was perfect. His was a mellifluous flow of precision and relevance. He and Dr. Upali Amerasinghe, who taught us Shakespeare in the first year were the two best teachers of English literature who had taught me. The third was my teacher of English at St. Joseph’s College Mr. M.I. Kuruvilla who had a master’s degree in the subject. This is not to say that the others were bad. Sometimes it was not a lack of knowledge. It had more to do with selection and delivery.

To give an example, Professor Passe was very thorough, too thorough in fact, and he had a style of speaking without much modulation of tone. It was not easy to listen to him for one hour. The best comment on his style was made by a friend of mine at Marrs Hall. Professor Passe was about to commence lectures to us on D.H. Lawrence. My friend had been lectured to by him the previous year. I asked my friend, “‘how did Passe handle Lawrence?” His reply was instantaneous. “Passe speaks of sex in a monotone.”

This was most amusing. As we found out later, he was certainly not wrong. But it would be wrong to leave an impression that we didn’t learn from him and the others. We did. Nevertheless certain people just stood out and there was no denying their ability, even their brilliance.

The picture was the same when it came to History. For Ceylon History we had the conscientious and painstaking Dr. Lakshman Perera and the able Dr. Karl Gunewardene. For European history we had the brilliant Dr. Arasaratnam, who was the only teacher I had met, who had the ability to give us a clear understanding of the complicated strands of “The Eastern Question.” For British history, we had that institution, Dr. Labrooy, lecturing to us. These teachers were supplemented by other able academics. Father Pinto was talked about. But I was never in his class.

Some of us were also fortunate in those who presided over our tutorial classes. In my case and in my subject areas, I was very fortunate in having as my tutors, persons of the calibre of Dr. Sarachchandra; Dr. Sugathapala de Silva; Dr. Upali Amerasinghe; Mr. Doric de Souza; Dr. Arasaratnam, and others.

Tutorial classes

In the tutorial classes, we came into more intimate contact with first rate minds and our intellectual skills became sharper as a result. Intellectual rigour was insisted upon and any loose or shoddy work received short shrift. I remember with Doric de Souza, the best I could get for a tutorial was a B-. On numerous occasions I had received B- – or C++! With Dr. Upali Amerasinghe I had got upto B, once a B+ and with Dr. Arasaratnam, much to my gratification some Bs and B+s. In Sinhala, I was around the B level, sometimes dropping to C+.

In fact Mr. de Souza, was to give me an early intimation of the kind of standards expected in a university. During my very first week in the first year in the university, I found myself in his English tutorial class. It was in fact the first tutorial class I had to attend in English. Mr. de Souza distributed, a cyclostyled poem by Robert Frost. We had to do a critique of the poem. It appeared quite simple to me. After all, I had won the open English prize in school. I therefore dashed off an analysis and finished in about half an hour.

After a little while, Mr. de Souza observing that I had finished, said that I could hand over my paper and go. The next week when we met in the tutorial class, he gave us a prose passage this time for a critical review, and said that he would go to the back of the class and call us one by one to discuss the previous week’s assignment. When it came to my turn, what I saw was a mass of blue penciling on my paper. Mr. de Souza began his comments.

“Mr. Pieris,” he said. “Look at your first sentence. That is your first fallacy. Now, look at the second sentence. That is your second fallacy.” I was desperately looking at my paper, and spotted an area towards the bottom with no blue pencil marks. I asked, “what about that part?” “Frankly,” said Mr. de Souza, “The rest of your paper was not worth considering!”

Such was my introduction and fortunately early introduction to the rigours and standards expected in a university. During our time, the university of Ceylon did make every attempt to maintain high standards in the teaching, learning, as well as the examination process. Our final examination papers often went to reputed universities abroad, under a dual system of marking, for marking by external examiners.

It was common knowledge at the time that the external examiners were more liberal in their marking than the internal examiners, and what the candidate received was an average of the two sets of marking. Therefore, for example three years later when I received a good B for my English at the final examination, I had the satisfaction that my answer papers were moderated by Cambridge University in England.

The intellectual climate

The point of note in all this is that during our time students following General degree courses were taught both in the lecture room and the tutorial classes by the best there were. In every subject the Professor himself took a course or more than one course. We were never regarded or treated as second class. All these were supplemented by the intellectual climate prevailing on the campus. On several evenings, almost weekly, there were public lectures by distinguished academics, intellectuals, leading political personalities and others.

One was enthralled by the erudition, scholarship and the gargantuan memory of a Dr. Paranavitane, who would quote without a note from Pali, Sanskrit, Sinhalese, Prakrit, Tibetan, Tamil, and passages from inscriptions, books, manuscripts and heaven knows what else. No wonder that the arrogant Indian Professor of Indian history Professor Ray who had written a multi volume “Dynastic History of India,” and who regarded most other academics in the History department with an attitude of disdain, openly manifested the greatest reverence for Dr. Paranavitane.

Dr. Paranavitane was of slight, almost fragile build, and by now was old and walked with a pronounced limp. He was also a simple man with an impish sense of humour. One day he was carrying his massive two volume work on “Sigiri Graffiti” in his hands and limping towards the staircase to the large lecture hall known as “Room B,” when a sympathetic student volunteered to carry the tomes for him. “Thank you. If I wrote it, I can also carry it” was the reply accompanied by a mischievous smile.

Then there was Dr. H.A. de S. Gunasekera, Professor of Economics who attracted a much bigger crowd in the very large “Room A,” than his regular students. Some of us who had a little time on our hands used to occasionally sit at the back and listen to his clear enunciation of economic principles and economic theory. Political heavy weights of the calibre of Dr. N.M. Perera; Dr. Colvin R. de Silva; Mr. Bernard Soysa; Mr. Pieter Kaneuman; Mr. Tissa Wijeratne and others visited the campus for evening public lectures. These always drew a full house, sometimes with hardly standing room.

The fact that campus politics at the time was polarized between the Trotskyites and the Communists led to great drama at these lectures, which were often accompanied with shouting, booing, and heckling. Thus, when Tissa Wijeratne of the Communist Party began his lecture to a packed “Room A” with the deliberately provocative words “Trotskyites of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your brains,” the proceedings had to be halted for the next 10 minutes, before order was restored.

It was invigorating stuff and great fun. The important thing was unlike now we were not in an age of fisticuffs or any form of violent physical attack. That was not in the culture. But you hooted to your heart’s, if not your throat’s content. The English politely call this jeering. But we are more down to earth and see no need to use euphemisms.

Almost on every Saturday evening there was a film show organized for the Academic Staff and the students on campus. You paid a modest sum for a ticket. At these screenings we saw many of the film classics which were not available on the commercial screen, films such as “Citizen Kane”; Battleship Potemkin”; Dr. Caligari’s Cabinet”; “The Blue Angel”; “Les Miserables”; “The Grapes of Wrath”; and others. This led to serious discussion of the film as an art among the students, and some reading about the film. We became increasingly familiar with concepts and techniques such as symbolism, montage, the relevance and importance of background music, sometimes of total silence and so on.

In the halls of residence too there were lively debates and much wit and humour. The students were young, bright and irreverent. A poor American Professor on a Fulbright teaching programme was referred to as “half bright,” because according to his student critics he did not match up to many of our own academics. Halls too periodically invited various personalities to dinner at high table followed by a lecture. Life in Marrs hall like no doubt in the other halls of residence was great fun. We had one who sang “Oh! what a beautiful morning,” loudly on his way, to the bathroom at 11 in the night and others who sang “Moonlight and roses” at noon making romantic gestures at a burning sun. There were those who under the considerable spirituous influence of arrack suddenly turned spiritual and proclaimed loudly to the world, “I have the highest regard for the Buddha.” How he reconciled Buddhism’s fifth precept against the taking of intoxicants with his sudden regard for the Buddha was another matter.

Then there was one of our Muslim friends imbibing copious quantities of arrack who in answer to a question about drinking and Islam, vehemently challenged such impertinence with the peremptory direction “show me one place in the Koran where it is said not to drink arrack!” Others re-interpreted Christian theology. One of them was very disappointed with Lazarus. He bitterly complained that what Jesus said to Lazarus was, “Lazarus, come forth,” but that “The bloody fool came fifth.”

A speaker who innocently remarked that “He had nothing concrete to stand on,” was reminded by several voices that he had the temerity to make such a remark whilst standing on a solid concrete floor! Then, there were interesting speeches made at what was called the “Going down dinner.” This was a special high table farewell dinner to those who had passed their examinations and were leaving the university.

The Warden of the hall and Sub Wardens attended and outside visitors such as friends from the men’s and women’s halls were permitted on this occasion. During my time, the best “going down” dinner speech was made by a student, a graduate of Veterinary Science, who was also a good athlete and a fine sprinter. He had failed various examinations and spent some considerable time in the university. He was jovial and quite popular and much against his wishes finally persuaded to speak by public clamour.

He got up, and speaking slowly and clearly said, “Ladies and gentlemen, before I got into the university, I was told by many, how difficult it was to get in. But having got in, I found it exceedingly difficult to get out. Now, as specially the ladies in the audience will appreciate, after a heavy meal it is very difficult to stand and deliver. I shall therefore sit down.” This was spur of the moment, and brilliant. It brought the house down. In its context, this is still one of the best after dinner speeches I had listened to.

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Features

Beyond traditional jobs: Why Sri Lanka needs to facilitate the gig economy

Published

2 days ago

2026/09/25

Thilina Walpola

Image courtesy Oxford University

by Kapila Chinthaka Premarathne
Head of the Department of Agricultural Systems and a Senior Lecturer in Agricultural Economics at the Faculty of Agriculture,
Rajarata University of Sri Lanka

Beyond the Graduate Unemployment Number

Sri Lanka’s economic recovery has improved macroeconomic stability, but youth unemployment remains a significant labour-market concern. Around 43% of Sri Lankan youth aged 15–24 with postsecondary education are unemployed, the highest among the Asian economies compared in the IMF analysis, compared with about 36% in Bangladesh and 13.2% in Thailand. This reflects a problem of skills mismatches and the difficulty of connecting higher education with changing labour-market demand. The concern goes beyond unemployment itself. Sri Lanka has invested heavily in educating its younger population, yet the conventional labour market is not creating enough opportunities to convert these qualifications into income. Many young people possess degrees, technical knowledge and growing digital familiarity, but remain outside formal employment because suitable jobs may not exist in the right place, at the right time or under conditions compatible with their circumstances. This makes it necessary to think beyond traditional employment models and explore new ways of connecting Sri Lanka’s educated youth with economic opportunities.

This is where Sri Lanka needs to reconsider how it understands employment

Employment has traditionally been viewed through the employer–employee relationship, with qualifications leading to a formal job and regular salary. While this model remains important, digital platforms are creating new ways to generate income, allowing individuals to work for multiple clients across geographical boundaries without permanent employment. Sri Lanka therefore needs to look beyond simply creating conventional jobs and consider whether it is building the conditions for its educated population to participate in the growing global market for digital services.

The Opportunity of the Gig Economy

The gig economy extends far beyond ride-hailing and delivery services. Digital platforms increasingly connect skilled individuals with opportunities in software development, design, accounting, data analysis, digital marketing, translation, online education, research and consultancy. This is particularly relevant to Sri Lanka, where a highly educated population faces a relatively limited domestic market for specialised skills. Digital platforms can overcome geographical constraints by connecting Sri Lankan workers directly with international clients.

As highlighted in my previous LSE South Asia article on women and the gig economy, such work should not replace formal employment but can create additional income opportunities when supported by appropriate skills, digital infrastructure, training and institutional support. A skilled person in Anuradhapura, Jaffna, Batticaloa or Monaragala could potentially serve clients in London, Melbourne or Dubai without first relocating to Colombo. This makes the gig economy relevant not only to employment but also to Sri Lanka’s emerging digital services-export strategy.

A Digitally Familiar Generation

Sri Lanka’s younger generation is growing up with smartphones, social media, online learning, digital applications and digital financial services, giving them a level of digital familiarity that previous generations did not have. However, digital familiarity does not automatically translate into digital employability. The challenge is to transform everyday digital use into productive skills such as data analysis, artificial intelligence, software development, digital marketing, financial analysis and online professional services.

Sri Lanka therefore needs to move young people from being consumers of digital services to producers of digital value. Universities, vocational institutions and training providers can play an important role in converting existing digital familiarity into marketable skills that connect young people with both domestic and international opportunities. This is increasingly important as technological change and AI reshape labour markets and intensify the need for skills that match emerging forms of work.

The Gender Dimension

The gig economy may be particularly relevant to women, who often face barriers to conventional employment arising from childcare, eldercare, mobility, social expectations and rigid working arrangements. For mothers and women living outside major urban centres, fixed working hours and daily commuting can make formal employment difficult even when suitable jobs exist.

Digital gig work can provide greater flexibility, allowing women to undertake professional assignments from home or their communities and potentially serve international clients without relocating. As discussed in my earlier LSE South Asia article, this opportunity is most meaningful when supported by digital infrastructure, skills training, virtual work hubs, mentorship and appropriate institutional support. However, flexibility should expand women’s economic choices rather than simply add paid work to existing unpaid household responsibilities.

Pressure on Labour-Market Opportunity

The value of a job cannot be judged by salary alone, as commuting, working hours and household responsibilities can significantly affect its real economic value. Flexible digital work can potentially reduce some of these costs by allowing people to work from home or nearby digital hubs and participate in employment on a part-time or project basis. While gig work cannot solve all household pressures, a more flexible organisation of work can create additional employment opportunities while helping households manage their limited time and resources more effectively.

A Possible Third Option Between Unemployment and Migration

Sri Lanka’s migration and brain-drain concerns highlight the need to explore employment opportunities beyond the domestic labour market. While overseas migration will remain an important individual and economic choice, digital work can provide another pathway by allowing skilled Sri Lankans to serve international clients without physically leaving the country. Software developers, designers, analysts, researchers, translators and consultants can potentially earn from global markets while remaining in Sri Lanka. Digital gig work cannot eliminate migration or reverse brain drain, but it can create an additional option between domestic unemployment and physical migration—working for the world while remaining in Sri Lanka.

Recognising and Making Digital Work Reputable

A major institutional gap is that conventional systems are designed around salaried employment, while a freelancer may earn from multiple clients without a single employer or salary certificate. This can make legitimate digital workers difficult to recognise when they seek loans, leasing, insurance or business finance. Sri Lanka could address this through a voluntary digital-worker or independent-professional registration mechanism, providing a recognised economic identity based on qualifications, verified skills, platform activity and documented income, without creating unnecessary bureaucracy.

Such recognition should also make digital income bankable. Banks could assess verified platform earnings, bank transactions, contracts, invoices, tax records, savings and repayment history alongside conventional employment documents. A standardised digital income statement could further help workers demonstrate their financial capacity. The key shift is from asking “Who is your employer?” to asking “Can your income be verified and is it sufficiently stable?”. This would allow successful digital workers to build financial credibility and use their earnings to access credit, acquire assets and develop their own businesses.

Digital Payments Are Part of the Labour Market

Access to reliable international payment systems is essential if Sri Lankans are to participate effectively in the global digital economy. Recent developments in PayPal’s local banking arrangements, including its partnerships with Sampath Bank and Commercial Bank, indicate progress in this direction. However, the broader priority should be a regulated and efficient digital-payment ecosystem that allows workers to receive international earnings, transfer them to Sri Lankan bank accounts, document their income and meet relevant financial and tax requirements with minimal friction. International payment infrastructure is therefore not simply a technology issue; it is an essential component of Sri Lanka’s emerging services-export economy.

Building Infrastructure Outside Colombo

Digital familiarity alone is insufficient without reliable internet, electricity, computers, software and suitable working environments, particularly in rural and underserved areas. To ensure that the gig economy supports regional development rather than becoming another Colombo-centred opportunity, Sri Lanka could establish regional digital-work hubs through universities, vocational institutions, libraries and public-private partnerships. These hubs could provide connectivity, equipment, training, mentoring and assistance with platform registration and international payments. If graduates must migrate to Colombo simply to access such infrastructure, the geographical advantage of digital work is significantly reduced.

From Freelancer to Entrepreneur

Gig work should not be viewed as an end in itself. A person may begin with small online assignments, develop regular clients and professional credibility, and eventually establish a small digital enterprise. This creates a potential pathway from graduate to freelancer, professional service provider and entrepreneur, allowing individuals to create markets around their own skills rather than waiting for conventional vacancies. Universities can support this transition by teaching students not only subject knowledge but also portfolio development, market identification, client communication, digital platforms and contract management. A degree demonstrates educational attainment, while a professional portfolio demonstrates what a graduate can offer to the market.

Facilitation Must Be Matched by Protection

Promoting the gig economy without appropriate safeguards could simply transfer employment risks from institutions to individuals. Digital workers may face uncertain incomes, weak bargaining power and limited social protection. Sri Lanka should therefore facilitate digital work while also ensuring opportunities for independent workers to build savings, access insurance and participate in portable social-protection mechanisms. Flexibility should create greater economic choice without compromising long-term financial security, particularly for women.

A regional Example from India: Think Globally and act Locally

India provides a useful regional example of how the gig economy can be approached as a policy issue rather than simply as informal or temporary work. NITI Aayog has estimated the size and future employment potential of India’s gig and platform economy and has developed recommendations covering employment generation, skills, financial inclusion and social protection. More importantly, India has begun creating institutional mechanisms around these workers. Its e-Shram portal provides a national database of unorganised workers, including gig and platform workers, creating a recognised identity through which workers can potentially access employment, skills development and social-security services. India has also explored platform-led skills development through skill certificates, skill passports and on-the-job training, while NITI Aayog has proposed cash-flow-based lending models that could allow platform workers to demonstrate creditworthiness through their earnings rather than conventional employment or collateral.

Social protection has also entered the policy framework. India’s Code on Social Security, 2020 formally recognises gig and platform workers and provides a basis for schemes covering areas such as accident insurance, health, maternity, disability and old-age protection. India is still developing and refining these arrangements, and Sri Lanka need not replicate the Indian model.

However, the experience demonstrates an important policy lesson: the gig economy can be supported through a system that identifies workers, develops their skills, makes their income more visible to financial institutions and extends appropriate social protection. Sri Lanka could develop its own simpler framework suited to its smaller economy, beginning with recognising digital workers and building the institutional conditions that allow their skills and earnings to become part of the formal economy.

Rethinking Employment and the Next Opportunity

The 43 percent figure for educated young Sri Lankans should encourage a wider discussion about the changing nature of work. Sri Lanka will continue to need conventional employment through firms, industries, farms, professional organisations and public institutions, but the changing labour market also requires new opportunities to connect educated Sri Lankans with global digital markets. The gig economy can provide an additional pathway to increase female labour-force participation, reduce the pressure for migration and brain drain, and connect Sri Lankan skills with markets beyond geographical boundaries.

This does not require a complicated bureaucracy. It requires recognising legitimate digital workers, facilitating access to international platforms and payment systems, allowing verified digital income to support credit assessment, developing portable social protection, and strengthening digital infrastructure and skills beyond major urban centres. Better data on digital workers would also help policymakers develop evidence-based interventions.

The future of work is therefore not only about creating more jobs, but about creating more ways for Sri Lankans to work, earn and build livelihoods while continuing to live and contribute in Sri Lanka. The gig economy should be recognised as part of an emerging digital labour market and services-export economy, where workers can build professional identities, earn internationally, access finance and eventually develop their own enterprises.

Features

Are religions getting redundant in the modern world?

Published

2 days ago

2026/09/25

Thilina Walpola

by Dr Upul Wijayawardhana

We are living in an era of astonishingly rapid scientific advancement. From the time Apple launched the ‘iPhone’ in January 2007, the first targeting the mass market, smartphones have taken over the world, making them indispensable. According to the latest statistics, there are around 8.1 billion mobile phones with 7.4 billion active smartphones, for the world population of 8.25 billion. Except for a tiny minority of the very poor, most people have at least one smartphone.

We are now entering the era of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and smart robots. Recently, a ‘Chinese’ robot ran 100 metres faster than Usain Bolt! Though Alan Turing proposed the idea of ‘Thinking Machines’ way back in 1950, the real AI boom commenced with the release of the generative AI chatbot, ChatGPT, by OpenAI in November 2020. Number of technology firms in the US as well as in China have joined the race, China catching up very fast, quite unexpectedly. There is a frenzy at the moment, raising expectations, as the imminent floating of these companies is likely to value the two leaders, OpenAI and Anthropic, trillion dollars each!

However, trouble is brewing in the AI field. On top of the concerns raised by environmentalists regarding the huge power drain by AI centres, there are recent reports of some AI models hacking independently into other systems, without human input. Worse still, a senior researcher at Anthropic, who has previously worked for OpenAI as well, resigned in early September on ethical grounds stating that the way the two companies are fast-tracking AI poses an existential threat to humanity. Surprisingly, instead of a rebuttal the head of Anthropic supported his view, soon joined by three more heads of leading AI developers. Whilst they agreed on slowing progress, President Trump has claimed that slowing is totally unnecessary as long as a super intelligent President like himself is at the helm! There does not seem to be an end to Trump’s grandiosity! He was joined by Tony Blair. In contrast, King Charles held a summit with representatives of all AI developers to find a way AI could be developed without a threat to humanity. That is how wise leaders act!

Less sophisticated AI tools are already in widespread use and installed in computers, laptops and smartphones. Some of us are using these automatically. However, the more advanced AI tools like ChatGPT can change even reality. For instance, AI can generate videos hardly distinguishable from real ones. What you enjoy watching on YouTube may be just the creations of AI! Some people use AI to write articles; only a few of them admit that they do so. Very soon we may be reading stories AI creates and listening to music, courtesy of AI. Technology seems to be fast becoming the new religion? Or, will the existential threat move us more towards religion?

Religion, perhaps, is as old as humanity itself; various belief systems evolving and disappearing coupled with the fortunes of the associated civilizations. Just like AI, religion is also a creation of the human mind which our ancestors did to explain many phenomena which appeared, at that time, to be supernatural. Starting with Animism, perceiving the divine in the natural world around, humans went on to Polytheism, believing in many gods like in Hinduism, culminating in the concept of Monotheism.

World’s oldest religion, Hinduism, still in wide practice, is devoid of a founder or a single text. The earliest scriptures, Rigveda, is considered to be around 3,500 years old but archaeologists have discovered symbols of importance to Hinduism as far back as 7,000 BCE. Though it is considered to be Polytheistic, it can be argued that it was the precursor of Monotheism, the concept of a creator God, as Brahma was the creator in the triad, Trimurti, Vishnu being the preserver and Shiva being the destroyer. It seems to be a sensible balancing act; create, destroy and repair with improvements.

It is pretty obvious that as science expands, the importance of religion contracts but it is hardly likely religions would be totally redundant. We have no choice as to which family we are born to and that invariably determines what your religion would be, if any. Religion is the first brainwashing a child encounters and most remain in the same faith, often trying to defend even the indefensible, but some change through conviction or conversion due to one of many reasons. Further, religious rituals have social values and religious practices often come to one’s solace at times of distress. Therefore, many will continue with the religion they were born to but with declining enthusiasm, at times. However, some religions seem to be facing problems like falling attendances in places of worship. With education and tech savviness expanding, one would expect the youth to be less enthusiastic about religion but the converse is true in some religions, some youth becoming very militant unfortunately.

While most religions make you subservient to a supernatural power, the Buddha was wise and bold enough to remove those shackles. He proclaimed that one’s destiny is in one’s own hands. However, many Buddhists appear to attach greater significance to rituals than to practising the Dhamma.

Buddhism as a religion may become less relevant as the frontiers of science expands but the Buddha Dhamma, especially Abhidhamma and Vipassana, would receive increasing recognition, the Buddha remaining an authority on consciousness and the mind.

Scientific progress should be for the betterment of society but AI developers are taking huge risks, taking massive loans threatening the world economy, for one aim: profit! Some do not seem to care even if their actions pose an existential threat to humanity.

Perhaps, if the Four Sublime Attitudes (Sathara Brahma Vihara) expounded by the Buddha; loving kindness (Metta), compassion (Karuna), empathetic joy (Muditha) and equanimity (Upekkha) are adopted as universal values, the world would become a safer place to live in, with or without AI.

Features

‘The Bullet that Missed’

Published

2 days ago

2026/09/25

Thilina Walpola

Tales of Mystery and Suspense 21

by Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha

Another book that is part of a series, today—one that is fun without the brooding concentration on criminality in different forms that marks the Rebus novels. This one about the Thursday Murder Club, is a romp as its two predecessors were interspersed with deaths and what might be deaths.

The Bullet that Missed

begins with a meeting with the presenter of ‘South East Tonight’, a programme about the area, in which Coopers Chase is situated. The meeting is held because the club has decided to look into the murder of the producer’s assistant, Bethany Waites, whose car was found at the bottom of a cliff ten years ago. There was blood in it, but the body was never found.

Or, rather, the book begins with an account of Bethany Waites deciding, on the night she vanished, to meet someone in connection with a case of massive fraud that she had been investigating, after sending the producer, Mike Waghorn, a message that she had found new evidence though he had no idea what it was. The night she died, she sent him another message: “I don’t say this often enough, but thank you.”

CCTV cameras showed her leaving her place, but then the vehicle vanished, before being sighted near the cliff, with two people in it. Investigation of the fraud had led to the imprisonment of a woman, Heather Garbutt, though it proved impossible to pin anything on Jack Mason, the mastermind for whom she had worked.

The Club conducts investigations on several fronts, including through Connie Johnson, the drug dealer they had helped imprison in the earlier book. The psychiatrist Ibrahim, the most respectable member of the Club, interviews her in an attempt to get her to find out more from Heather, who is in the same prison as she. They also investigate the CCTV record of the night Bethany vanished, and deduce that she went to an apartment block and exited from its other side, and that is why she was not seen leaving the town. But some time had elapsed between her being seen in the town and then on the cliff.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth has been kidnapped, along with her husband, and taken to a house in Staffordshire, where she is told by a man called the Viking that she must kill a former KGB agent now in London, who has a profitable career in money laundering. The Viking tells her he will inform Viktor that she was responsible for stealing the diamonds, the story of which is told in the previous Murder Club Mystery, and Viktor will then kill her.

Elizabeth, who has an affair with Viktor, knows he will not kill her, but when the Viking says he will also send Viktor a picture of Joyce, she decides she must act, and goes to see Viktor, and fires when she gets him in the bathroom. But, of course, she fired into the ceiling, and Viktor is then taken to Coopers Chase, to stay with Joyce until they have dealt with the Viking. And Viktor then enjoys the camaraderie of the retirement home so much that he wonders whether he too should settle there.

Elizabeth does trace the Viking, or rather her husband does, for he has noticed rare books on the shelves in his library, and an antiquarian book dealer friend managed to find out who bought them. But before they could confront him, he comes to Coopers Chase, for he has seen the bullet hole in the bathroom of Viktor’s flat and realized he was fooled.

But he cannot bring himself to kill Joyce straight away, and she knocks him out with a drug in a cup of tea. When he meets Viktor, they both decide to fall in with the plans of the Club.

Before this, Heather has been found dead in her cell, with a note saying that ‘they’ were going to kill her, and only Connie could help. Before that she had admitted that she was frightened to name the man behind the fraud. Jack Mason said the same, after Ron had won his confidence. The Club had deduced by then that the body was buried in the garden of Heather’s house which Jack had bought, after she had been jailed, and digging reveals a gun and money, but no body. Jack tells them that the mastermind had said that Bethany was buried with a bullet with his DNA on it.

The Club is now working with the Chief Constable of Kent, Andrew Everton, who writes thrillers himself, but in the form of e-books. He is in search of a publisher, and delighted when Mike Waghorn puts him on his programme, as is Donna, who is substituted at the last minute for Chris.

The Club finds out whom Bethany visited in the apartment block—Mike’s assistant Pauline, who tells them later what she and Bethany had been doing. But this is after the man behind the fraud has been unmasked up in the house in Staffordshire, where he was trying to hire the Viking and Viktor to find the money that he had stashed away, using accounts that he could no longer trace. He has also confessed to murdering Bethany, hoping this will persuade the two money launderers to help him, but it turns out that he did not do this. Nor did he kill Heather, the incriminating note having been placed in her room by Connie, who decided that Heather’s suicide should be treated as murder so that the person who had been blackmailing her should be found out.

It was Jack Mason’s murder that was brought home to the crook. It turns out that Bethany, her appearance altered by Pauline, has vanished, to a new life in Dubai, where she has taken control of the missing millions. She has gone there because the threat, she received through the bullet she was looking at in the preamble, was to Mike and she wanted him out of danger.

Yet another whimsical conclusion to a whimsical book with enough loose ends left hanging for another sequel.