Features

Catholics, Black Magic, and Community

Published

3 months ago

2026/06/28

My mother was from Paiyagala, a coastal fishing village 30 miles from Colombo and five miles from Kalutara. The old Colombo-Galle Road runs through the village, linking it with Kalutara, Beruwela, and beyond.Paiyagala is known for its beaches, seine net fishing, coconut toddy tapping, and seasonal jaadi (cured fish). The villagers are staunch Catholics who also believe in black magic, voodoo, and sorcery in their day-to-day life. They think an evil eye, evil tongue, and evil mind can harm others. My mother remembered how an Irish priest tried to convince his parishioners that it was a sin to believe in non-Catholic rituals. Yet he condoned such practices in the parish because parishioners considered them part of their local culture.

They believed black magic, voodoo, and sorcery could bring quick and palpable results without revealing the initiation of such actions. Sudden death in a family,

grave illness of a child, loss of employment, or a spouse eloping with a lover were attributed to black magic and sorcery. Vedaralas (local physicians) were supposed to determine whether an illness resulted from black magic, sorcery, or an imbalance in body elements, and thereafter recommend an appropriate treatment.

My maternal grandfather was a carpenter. He was a robust, tall, handsome man with long hair and fair complexion and had a bit of a hunch. He wore a white sarong and a white cotton jacket for formal events such as Sunday mass or a wedding. He wore a coloured sarong, a cloth belt, and an undershirt at his carpentry shed. He worked at a tea estate far away from Paiyagala and visited his home once a month. He spoke English and was interested in reading English newspapers.

He died suddenly when he was 32 years old. One day, he walked along the railway track from Paiyagala to Beruwala to visit his uncle, who was a businessman. His uncle was a rich man and was known in the Beruwala bazaar as ‘pawun mudalali’ (a merchant with lots of sterling pounds). He had once, allegedly in an argument with a fellow businessman, boasted that he had enough sterling pounds to cover his large compound from one end to the other.

My grandfather had lunch at his uncle’s place and left for Paiyagala. A few hours later a fisherman found his body under a railway bridge, which was about two miles from his home. His relatives concluded that a demon hit him from behind after following him from his uncle’s house. The smell of pork curry he had eaten for lunch attracted the demon, it was said.

The Umbe (short, unprotected railway bridge) where his body was found was reputed to be a demon-haunted ground. Rrelatives and others had seen a large black mark on his neck, which they suspected to be the palm imprint of the demon who attacked him. The froth foaming from his mouth confirmed that he had seen a demon, it was said. Demons are fond of human flesh and blood, but in my grandfather’s case, allegedly the demon could not drink blood from his body because someone had seen the dead body and approached it before this happened.

Church festival at Diyalagoda

At the funeral, the Italian parish priest, in his eulogy, said that he, too, identified several clues that confirmed that a demon had killed my grandfather. One was the blackened neck and the other was the froth. He talked at length at the funeral about how evil spirits and demons harm the innocent, especially young people. He warned those alive to be more religious to fend off evil spirits. Fifty years later, Nihal, my elder brother, was the parish priest at Paiyagala. He inquired from several older people about our grandfather’s death. The majority said that a demon killed him. But a few told Nihal that our grandfather had committed suicide. He had large debts that he could not repay with his meagre income. He was also unhappy about his young wife, being harassed by a young neighbour. At that time, she was pregnant with their second child.

According to Nihal’s sources, a young man wanted to possess my grandmother, and for this, he killed my grandfather by resorting to black magic. He had allegedly buried a powerful charm in front of my grandfather’s house. Anyone who walked over it would have the misfortune of becoming depressed and committing suicide. My grandfather did not know about the charm buried in his garden and, unfortunately, walked over it, becoming its victim according to that story.

First, he gave up working. He drank toddy, which he got free from tappers in the mornings and in the late afternoons. On the day he died, he visited his uncle in Beruwela to beg for a loan to pay his debtors. He was unsuccessful. A plausible explanation of his sudden death is that he was overwhelmed by his misfortunes and depression and committed suicide by swallowing poison.

My maternal grandmother was known to be a bright and beautiful student at school. She attended the Paiyagala Sinhala Catholic School. Adjacent to the school was the Roman Catholic Convent. The nuns liked her and encouraged her to become a nun. She was a prominent member of the church choir. She enjoyed visiting nearby churches with nuns to sing hymns at novenas. She had a bubbly, carefree personalitywho used to bathe in the canal behind the house with her schoolgirl friends. Before reaching her 17th birthday, she married my grandfather after a brief love affair. She was 18 when my mother was born, and 20 when Uncle Anthony was born.

My grandmother had two uncles. One ran a tea shop and a bakery. The tea shop was a popular hangout for railway and bus commuters as it was located at the junction where the Galle Road and Railway Station Road met. Many railway commuters had tea there in the morning before going to work. In the evening, customers had ginger tea with hot buns and roast paan. Some spent time gossiping there until the shop closed at 7 p.m.

The other uncle was a businessman who had lost his wealth because he was unable to recover debts from fellow businessmen. He owned several carts, which he rented to transport graphite from mines to Colombo. I met him when I was about eight years old, during a visit with my mother to Paiyagala. At that time, according to my mother, he was in his late 80s. He lived with my grandmother in her small house.

His long white beard, white sarong, white undershirt, and silver chain around his stomach impressed me. I thought he was a giant. I spent time with him, and he was happy to tell me stories about the First World War and the influenza epidemic in the 1920s. He remembered African soldiers who guarded the aerodrome at Katukurunda during the war. He called them ‘Capiri’ – Kaffirs – (black men). He also remembered an army barrack near Paiyagala. He had heard the rumour that capiris delighted in eating human flesh.

A British poster of the time showed a Capiri with a padlock on his mouth which was read by locals as a proof that the soldiers ate human flesh and therefore the army used padlocks to control them. The real message the poster conveyed was that the British did not want careless talk and rumours that might help enemies to gather intelligence.

At night, I could hear my great-granduncle coughing and moving up and down his room. He had a large flask of hot water and he made his own tea after a long bout of coughing. I slept in the next room and did not feel safe even though I slept next to my mother. I was scared to go to him as I thought he was dying. A heavy curtain partitioned his room into two. On one side, he had his bed and on a small table beside it, he kept his medicine, the flask, and his shaving gear.

I once peeped into the other side of the curtain where I saw an open coffin in an upright position. It was a beautifully varnished with silver handles and a satin-lined interior with frills and trimmings. I was both amazed and scared because it reminded me of death. An image of a dead body flashed in my mind, and I was afraid to leave the great-granduncle’s room. I shouted, “Seeya, Seeya” (grandfather, grandfather). My grandfather came in, carried me to his bed, and comforted me.

Later, Nihal, my elder brother, told me that at night, Seeya had the habit of sending his soul to the coffin to sleep. His coughing was a signal to the soul to return to his body. My mother heard the discussion and scolded Nihal for such talk.

Seeya had bought the coffin to remind himself that death was not far away. Also, he did not want to be a burden on his family after his death. He explained to me that his relatives should just take his dead body in the coffin to the cemetery and bury him. His nephew, Uncle Eusabius, thought keeping a coffin in the room was an insult to the family. When my great granduncle died, Uncle Eusabius destroyed the coffin and bought a new one to bury his uncle.

Soon after the funeral of her husband, my grandmother went mad. She tried to escape from her young neighbour, Clement, who demanded sexual favours from her. She escaped from him by staying with her aunt in Kalutara for several months with her two toddlers. The young neighbour resorted to black magic and aggression to win her over. He followed her wherever she went.

He waited at the canal behind the houses to watch my grandmother bathing and changing clothes.

The young man was the son of a wealthy family in Paiyagala. People treated him as a scholar, a photographer, and a good singer. He helped villagers interpret English-language official documents and, with them, visited government offices in Kalutara to resolve issues such as land transfers and bank transactions. He knew a group of lawyers in Kalutara whom he engaged without fees in villagers’ court cases.

I met Clement once at his residence in Paiyagala. Then Clement was an old man in his late sixties, and I was in my early twenties. He had long grey hair and walked with some difficulty. He had a pipe in his right hand and an aluminium walking stick in the other and a large black scar on his forehead. He wore a pair of baggy blue trousers and a large, light blue, checked short-sleeved shirt. I remember he wore a necklace with large black beads under his shirt.

Clement lived in a large house that needed major repairs. A portion of the front concrete hood had already caved in, and several floor tiles were missing from the verandah. There were two big, dirty and ugly chairs in the foyer; they had lost their box springs a long time ago. I sat on one of them, and my bottom hit the floor.

Clement had wanted to become an engineer, but his father wanted him to read Western classics. He dropped out of the University College in his second year. As a son of a well-to-do family, he thought he could live off his parents’ property. His habit was to roam Paiyagala and nearby villages with his camera, collecting folk stories and photographing nature, women, and social events.

There were a few mango and jackfruit trees in the large, poorly managed garden. Two lemon trees in front of the verandah were wilted. Clement had experimented with a coffee plantation but abandoned it due to an insect infestation. There were many framed old photographs on the walls, which he patiently explained to me in his British accent. He said that his ancestors worked for the Dutch as clerks. When the Dutch left, the British hired them as accountants. He boasted that his great-grandparents bought a large piece of land in the village. He claimed my grandmother’s house was on his land.

Clement and I chatted for more than an hour. He was interested in
discussing the Dutch and British rule in the Kalutara District. He explained how the Dutch and later the British collected revenue from villagers through various taxes and levies. He interrupted our discussion and went inside the house. A little later, he returned with a rolled bundle of papers. He said the papers contain information about his ancestral property and ask me to read them if I was interested. I flipped through them and handed them back to Clement.

Clement claimed that he had studied voodoo practices and black magic under an influential Buddhist monk in the area as his part-time student. His vocation was to help those who wanted to harm others without resorting to physical violence. He told me that he was an atheist but believed in an afterlife and the power of black magic. When I asked him about my grandfather, grandmother, and mother, he went pale, kept silent, and ended the conversation abruptly.

After a few minutes, he said, “Rumours kill more people than black magic.” He said he had enemies who were jealous of him and his family. They had spread rumours to harass him and destroy his good name. He advised me not to believe what people wanted me to believe. He offered me a cup of tea from a tall flask. The tea was cold and unappetizing and I did not drink it.

I asked him, “Why did you help some people to harm others?” “There are evil people, and they should be exposed and punished without resorting to physical violence”, he responded.

“Who appointed you to harm such people?” I inquired. “I love people. Therefore, I harm those who harm them. I want to avoid violence and impulsive behaviour among people.” “Have you ever harmed a woman or a child?” I asked. He said, “Never.”

He was getting angry and impatient. He looked around as if some spirit had possessed him. Eyes half-closed, he rubbed his palms against each other. He tried to smile, but he could not. I thought he might attack me as he got closer to me. We shook hands, and I left him promising to visit him again. He smiled.

My mother was unhappy because I had talked to Clement. She said that he would not hesitate to harm me with his black magic as he was a sick man. She was happy I did not drink his tea: he could have added a charm to the cup to harm me. She began crying and told me how he had harassed my grandmother by begging and then demanding sex from her. When he failed, he focused his evil eye on my mother, who was then a teenager.

Once, he accosted her on her way to the canal. He showed her an old photograph of my grandmother with her long black hair, bathing in the canal. He claimed that he took the photo. When my mother discouraged his advances and threatened to shout, he laughed. He showed the picture again and told my mother that my grandmother was much prettier than my mother. He told her that he could block her from marrying a man or having children by casting a powerful charm on her. My mother could not sleep for months as Clement’s threat haunted her.

My mother had gone through much suffering first as a child and then as a young woman because of Clement. As a child, she remembered various indigenous doctors coming home to treat her mother. Her family tried its best to hide her mental illness, saying she was mourning her husband’s death. My mother firmly believed that Clement’s black magic killed her father. As a young woman, my mother lived in fear that Clement would physically harm her. He sometimes appeared with his camera when she was at the canal washing her clothes and bathing.

I consoled my mother and promised never to talk to Clement again. She kept crying and said that she did not want her sons to visit Paiyagala because of the evil man who lived nearby. I hugged her and waited as various images flashed through my mind. I thought about her agony in living in such an environment without her father, with a sick mother, and a very young brother. Her mother had no income and depended on Eusabius’s uncle for her and her children’s subsistence and physical protection.

by Jayantha Perera

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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.