Features

An ex-GA’s wife recalls life in Lanka’s northern capital in the 1970s

Published

6 years ago

2020/08/23

by Ranji Amarasekera

When my husband Wimal said he had been offered the post of Government Agent of Jaffna and asked me whether to accept it, I was unsure as to what decision we should take. That was way back in 1970. Our elder son was two and a half years old.

Most of the previous Government Agents lived there alone while their families lived in Colombo or elsewhere. I never believed in being separated from my family and had always enjoyed life in the outstations. I have never regretted my decision.

From the time we stepped down from the plane, we were welcomed with open arms. The pottus and the garlands were in abundance. Throughout our five years in Jaffna, we never felt that we were away from home.

When I saw the Residency though, I got a little panicky wondering how we were going to maintain it. The Residency, apart from its own bakery, the underground tunnels, the place where the personal staff of the GA were mustered in the morning and paid in the evening, in the past had 27 acres of garden space called the Old Park. This place had its own history. Percival Ackland Dyke who had been the Government Agent of Jaffna for more than 36 years had bought the place with his own money and bequeathed it to his successors on an irrevocable deed of gift through Queen Victoria.

The Old Park had some of the rarest trees. Apart from the giant Mahogany, Nedun, Ironwood, the inevitable Mango and the Tamarind, both of which brought some revenue annually for the upkeep of the garden, there were the Baobab and a tree from South America which had lovely blue flowers throughout the year, growing just outside our bedroom window. This tree was supposed to be the only one of its kind in Sri Lanka.

The prisoners who were serving terms of simple imprisonment were brought twice a month to the Old Park. They cleaned up the under brush and cleared the garden of fallen leaves. These men apparently liked this outing for I heard them laugh and joke while at work. We often provided them with tea and something to eat in the morning and also supplemented the lunch which they brought with them.

The Kachcheri was just opposite the Residency and Wimal walked to work. I too got involved with his work and whenever I could, accompanied him on his visits to the field. I particularly liked to visit the youth schemes in remote areas. One such scheme which I liked was the Mirisuvil girls’ scheme. The girls did chilli cultivation as their main occupation and with the money they earned they bought sewing machines and made children’s clothing etc.

This was also a favourite place where I took wives of diplomats and other visiting foreign delegates. They were quite impressed with the work the girls were doing.

Wimal also started a large number of small-scale industries, eg. workshops to repair water pumps which is a must for the Jaffna farmer and also a large number of projects based on the produce of the palmyrah tree which serves the people of Jaffna as much as the coconut tree serves the people of the south.

The making of jaggery, bottling of palmyrah toddy, and making of baskets and other handicrafts were some of these projects. He set up about 70 jaggery-making centres which were a boon to the people and particularly to the youth at the time.

The Buddhist priest, the Hindu priest, the Bishop and the Muslim priest were all alike to us. Every week I visited the Nallur Kandasamy kovil and Nagadeepa Buddhist shrine. During the period I was in Jaffna I would have visited Nagadeepa more than 30 times. It was a must for all relatives and friends who visited Jaffna and I had to accompany them most of the time.

Our younger son was born in the Jaffna hospital. He was a premature baby. The nurses very obligingly accommodated me in their rest room. There were no incubators and my son, along with 30 other premature babies, was kept in a special sterilized room on a tray of straw with a solitary electric bulb hanging overhead for warmth. Many people came to see me, some whom I had not seen before. They brought gifts like gingelly oil, baby clothes, soap and even eggs. Subsequently my husband made representations to the authorities and obtained an incubator for the use of the hospital. Our son, 27 years later, worked in the Jaffna Hospital as a post-intern. He says that he met a few who knew his father and remembered him as an officer who was loved and respected by all.

Our elder son attended the Montessori class conducted by the sisters of the Jaffna Holy Family Convent. The sisters were quite fond of him. He learned to speak quite fluently in Tamil. In fact he spoke even better than Wimal who engaged a retired school master to teach him Tamil in his spare time.

We made quite a lot of friends, too. Muhandiram Rasiah who represented practically all social service organizations, Mr. Ponnambalam, Mr. Joseph, the Additional GA Mr. Murugesupillai and Anton and Mangalam St. George, that dear couple who ran an open house for all their friends, were some of them.

Brigadiers Sustace Rodrigo and Tissa Weeratunga, Ananda Silva who then was the Commanding Officer at Karainagar, Mitra Ariyasinghe who then was SP, all of whom Wimal met in his official capacity became our friends. During weekends or holidays when Wimal was free, we gathered a few friends and went to Thondamanaru or the Casuarina beach or visited the shifting sand dunes at Manalkadu off Point Pedro.

I had the occasion to visit almost all the islands too. Iranativu, Analativu, Eluvativu and Delft. We visited the then disputed island of Kachchativu several times during the festival. It was a veritable marketplace where Sri Lankan and Indian traders came and bartered goods. Wimal told me how he located an old Dutch map in the Kachcheri showing that this island formed part of Jaffna which he sent to the authorities in Colombo.

We also visited the Chundikulam sanctuary situated north-east of Elephant Pass where we watched the beautiful flamingos and the Russian ducks as they were called which used to migrate in thousands during the season. On the way we used to pluck the big dark purple and luscious madan, a kind of berry that grew in abundance.

But all good times have to come to an end. The time came when we had to think of our children’s education and Wimal got a transfer to Colombo as GA. I will never forget the farewells given to us. For over a month we were invited for farewell dinners and lunches and when we could not find time anymore, for breakfast too. Wimal was honoured with garlands of onions, chillies, and grapes especially at the agricultural and youth schemes.

At the farewell given to us by the citizens of Jaffna, hundreds from all walks of life were present. We were taken in procession to the St. Patrick’s College grounds where the farewell function was held. The most heart-warming was the presence on the stage of the Chief Incumbent of the Sri Naga Vihara, the Hindu High Priest, the Bishop of Jaffna and the Muslim High Priest to bid farewell to a Government Agent whom they loved and respected and who lived and worked with them for about five years.

Girls and boys sang farewell songs in Sinhala, Tamil and English. Farewell speeches were many, everyone wanting to say something on this occasion. That day I cried when I heard what they had to say and realized how grateful they were. I was sad and happy too. Sad because we were leaving these dear people and happy because I felt that there still were people who are grateful and who appreciated what Wimal did.

May this article be a tribute to the people of Jaffna whom we loved so much.

http://www.sundaytimes.lk/081116/Plus/sundaytimesplus_16.html

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Features

Proactive peacemaking becomes a paramount need

Published

19 hours ago

2026/06/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

Wasting wars: Some war-displaced people in Lebanon. BBC

It may be some time before the full impact of food inflation is felt in the West. Until such time the world would continue to keep itself in suspense over whether the Trump administration is in earnest when it seeks to convey the impression that it is backing a negotiated solution in West Asia.

As is usually the case, consumer stress would be one of the final determinants of political change. To the degree to which the average US consumer somehow ‘muddles through’ and puts the food on the table, to the same extent would the Republican sections of the US public in particular be tolerant of the Trump administration’s inconsistent handling of the West Asian war and the main issues stemming from it. That is, there would be no grave popular disaffection and a demand for political change in the short term.

However, the indications are that the Trump administration’s support base is suffering some erosion in the wake of the current economic crisis. While reports indicate that Democratic sections are firming-up their opposition to the political centre, Republican support for Trump is also showing signs of waning, we are given to understand.

The above developments are probably why Trump is on record as having given Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a ‘dressing down’ recently on his seeming intransigence on the question of giving negotiations a chance in West Asia. The show of displeasure could be really aimed by Trump at containing the impatience of the American public.

However, the current ground situation in the Middle East, particularly the uncontained bloodshed, is likely to impress on the thinking sections of the world that more than temporary political change is needed in West Asia and the US.

A well thought out political solution that addresses all the contentious issues at the heart of the Middle East conflict is what enlightened opinion would demand, and very rightly. Right now, the ‘peace efforts’ initiated by the Trump administration give the impression of being piecemeal solutions at best.

There have been, of course, numerous initiatives in the past aimed at bringing permanent peace to the Middle East. These failed mainly because they did not address in full the root causes of the conflict.

At bottom the Middle East conflict is mainly about race and religious hate bred by socio-economic and material inequalities. For instance, if the Palestinian people were not displaced and deprived of land occupied by them at the time of the founding of the Israeli state, ethnic enmities would not have grown to the current unmanageable proportions.

When addressing the above questions, though, it must be remembered that the Israelis too were a displaced people who were entitled to land and a state of their own in the Middle East. Basically, out of these seemingly irreconcilable and conflicting demands have grown the Middle East imbroglio.

Middle East peace is considerably about reconciling these demands and arriving at a solution that would ensure the creation of two states that would opt for peaceful co-existence thereafter.

As long as the US does not see the need for a non-partisan solution that addresses the needs of both ethnicities and religions and goes all-out, as it were, to have it implemented, the Middle East would continue to bleed.

However, staunching the blood flow through the creation of two states would be only half the job done, though a very important part of it. More pernicious, pervasive and difficult to remedy are the inter-ethnic and inter-religious hatreds that have been unleashed over the decades.

However, if substantial, long-lasting peace is to be fostered in the region the latter ‘demons’ would need to be exorcised from the hearts and minds of the communities concerned. No doubt an uphill task but one that must be undertaken by those who wish the region well.

The UN would need to put its ‘best foot forward’ in such undertakings but it is time that it dawned on the international community and other caring quarters that Middle East peace, and all other such uphill challenges, require proactive peacemaking on the part of all civilized sections for their effective management. That is, public involvement in peacemaking too is a must.

Since hatreds are harboured in the human consciousness the enmities embedded in the latter need to be managed and defused judiciously alongside other undertakings in a peace process. In the case of West Asia, such enmities could be even spread globe-wide besides being multi-dimensional. For instance, it ought to be thought-provoking that Iran is insistent on a peace initiative that would also include Lebanon.

Besides security considerations it is also ethnic and religious affiliations that account for Iran making this demand. For instance, the Shias are a numerically important religious community in Lebanon and they provide a significant number of Hizbollah fighters, who are in a vital sense carrying out a ‘proxy war’ for Iran. It also needs to be factored in that Iran is a Shia-majority country.

Thus trans-border religious affiliations could add to the complexities and enormity of ethno-religious conflicts. However, the task of managing centuries-long enmities needs to be launched and prodded on with by peacemakers since a downing of arms alone would not guarantee substantive peace.

It is not realized sufficiently that the process of ending hatreds begins with mutual apologies by antagonists to a conflict for the harm inflicted on each other. This would be anathema in some ears but there is no getting away from the requirement. It is the vital first step to permanent peace anywhere.

In fact there could be no reconciliation worth speaking of without such mutual apologies. It is a point worth re-iterating in these times when even the government of Sri Lanka is voicing the need for national reconciliation. Well, without the words, ‘I am sorry’, there could be no permanent end to enmities – they would do well to remember.

The above requirements may not go down very well with governments, but they resonate in the hearts and minds of most people, since they are inheritors of religious traditions of some kind.

This is a principal reason why peacemaking works well when publics too are involved in them. The effectiveness of such campaigns increases several fold when they have a Mahatma Gandhi or a Jawaharlal Nehru at their helm. A strong proactive involvement by the public in peace could lead to the emergence of such leaders at some point in these campaigns.

Features

Dialog Brings Sri Lanka’s Largest Digital Vesak Experience to Matara

Published

19 hours ago

2026/06/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

From left to right: Hon. Saroja Savithri Paulraj, Hon. Sunil Handunnetti, and Lasantha Theverapperuma experience the Dialog 5G Ultra-powered VR tours.

Official Digital Partner of the 2026 ‘Dakshina Prabha’ National Vesak Zone

Dialog Axiata PLC, Sri Lanka’s #1 connectivity provider, collaborated with the Ministry of Buddha Sasana, Religious and Cultural Affairs to bring one of Sri Lanka’s largest and most technologically advanced Vesak experiences to the ‘Dakshina Prabha’ National Vesak Zone. The three-day celebration, in Matara attracted more than hundred thousand visitors, who engaged with a series of innovative digital activities powered by Dialog 5G Ultra, including Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Virtual Reality (VR) experiences, digital pandols and a Data Dansala. The opening ceremony was attended by Hon. Sunil Handunnetti, Minister of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development and Hon. Saroja Savithri Paulraj, Minister of Women and Child Affairs, along with distinguished guests and Dialog’s senior management.

One of the key attractions at the venue was the Dialog 5G Ultra-powered Virtual Reality (VR) experience, which attracted more than 35,000 participants. The activation enabled devotees to virtually visit and pay homage to sacred Buddhist sites, including the Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi in India and the Atamasthana in Anuradhapura, directly from the Vesak zone in Matara.

Visitors receive complimentary mobile data through Dialog’s QR-powered Data Dansala.

Dialog also conducted an AI Digital Vesak Greeting Card Competition from 21 May to 01 June 2026, attracting numerous entries from across the country. The shortlisted designs were showcased across 20 large LED screens throughout the venue and across Matara City, and were also made available for download via mobile devices. Further, through the use of AI, traditional Jathaka Katha were reimagined in a digital format, demonstrating how technology can be used to preserve and enhance cultural and religious heritage. Together, these initiatives blended traditional Vesak celebrations with emerging technologies, offering visitors a unique and immersive way to engage with Vesak traditions.

Extending the spirit of Vesak through connectivity, Dialog conducted a special Data Dansala powered by its QR Reload platform, enabling visitors to receive complimentary mobile data by scanning QR codes placed across the venue. In addition to the Matara National Vesak Zone, similar Data Dansala activations were also conducted at the Gangaramaya and Bauddhaloka Vesak zones in Colombo.Visitors also had the opportunity to create personalised Vesak-themed digital photos through an AI Photo Booth, generating AI-enhanced portraits using their own photographs and adding a contemporary digital element to the Vesak celebrations.

Visitors watch AI-generated Jathaka Katha

Commenting on the initiative, Hon. Sunil Handunnetti, Minister of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development, said, “The 2026 Dakshina Prabha Vesak Festival marked the first time AI-powered digital innovations were incorporated into a National Vesak Festival in Sri Lanka. Presenting Buddhist stories and teachings through technology created a new and engaging way for visitors to connect with these traditions. We thank Dialog for supporting this initiative and for working closely with us to bring our vision to life. Their contribution played an important role in making this first-of-its-kind event a reality.”

Lasantha Theverapperuma, Group Chief Marketing Officer of Dialog Axiata PLC said, “We thank the Government of Sri Lanka for the opportunity to support the 2026 Dakshina Prabha National Vesak Festival and for embracing technology as part of this year’s celebrations. As the Official Digital Partner, we were privileged to contribute through our Dialog 5G Ultra and AI capabilities, creating new ways for visitors to engage with Vesak traditions while preserving their cultural significance for future generations.”

Beyond supporting the National Vesak Zone in Matara, Dialog also enhanced the Gangaramaya and Bauddhaloka Vesak zones through a range of digital activations during the Vesak season. The company additionally continued its sustainability initiatives, including the Thirasara Aloka Poojawa, which illuminated rural places of worship through solar-powered lighting solutions.

Features

Beauty, elegance and talent…for women

Published

19 hours ago

2026/06/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

Universal Woman is an international pageant focused on “beauty, elegance, and talent” for women, positioning itself as a platform to shape global ambassadors. The 2026 edition will be held in Cambodia, and Sri Lanka will be there, as well.

According to reports coming my way, contestants, at the international event, will work with industry trailblazers, under international standards.

Sri Lankan supermodel, runway and pageant trainer Chulpadmendra Kumarapathirana, is the National Director for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026.

With over two decades in the industry, Chula was crowned Miss Sri Lanka 2006, and has since shaped the next generation of titleholders through her Colombo-based Chulpadmendra Catwalk Studio, widely regarded as one of the country’s leading modelling academies.

The team behind Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026

A former host of Derana Miss Sri Lanka for Miss World 2008 and a judge for Miss Universe Sri Lanka 2025, Chula now serves as National Director for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026, leading the franchise’s search for Sri Lanka’s delegate to the international final in Cambodia.

Applications for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026 are being taken, via WhatsApp: 077 659 4994, says Chula.

The judging panel for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026 includes Senaka De Silva, Pageant Aesthetic Advisor & Chairperson of the Judging Panel, Angela Seneviratne, Caroline Jurie, Rozelle Plunkett, and Suraj Mapa.

Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026 officially began its journey with a first round of auditions, held in Colombo, marking the start of an exciting new chapter in Sri Lanka’s pageant industry.

Launching the first round of auditions

The platform aims to empower women while selecting an intelligent, confident, and inspiring representative to compete at the Universal Woman International Pageant 2026 in Cambodia, this September.

Universal Woman Sri Lanka now moves forward with the vision of creating one of the country’s most prestigious and empowering pageants while preparing to crown a queen who will proudly represent Sri Lanka on the international stage.