Features

Early marriage, starting a govt. job and enjoying the country with friends

Published

3 years ago

2023/06/4

Excerpted from Memories that linger: My journey through the world of disability by Padmani Mendis

After marriage, there were two matters that Nalin felt we should attend to as soon as possible. One was that I should get a driving license. I knew he thought that this was to his advantage because then he would not need to drive me around. This, his motive, was not an issue. I loved driving and still do. I have decided that I will continue to drive until my reflexes tell me I should not.

I had actually been driving from the time I was hardly a teenager. At our home in Kalubowila there were always at least three or four cars parked in the garden at any one time – owned by my mother, by Uncle Lyn, by my brothers, by guests and of course Uncle Geoff’s blue Plymouth. These had to be moved in and out of two garages; or moved to and fro to let another be taken out of the gate and so on. Now here those three brothers of mine (older than I but younger than my other brothers) – the very same who would not teach me to ride a bike – taught me to drive a car. Sheer exploitation this was, and I fell for it; enjoying the task of moving the cars here and there, using a cushion to enable me to see over the steering wheel and at the same time to reach the pedals.

So now, nearly 20 years later, getting a driving license was as easy as pie. A few formal lessons from Mr. Stephenson, a very efficient teacher, was all I needed. He arranged a test for me. I recall the Inspector took me down Horton Place for a short distance, asked me to reverse the car into a side road, and that was it. I had my driving license. Nalin was happy that he did not need to be my chauffeur when he did not want to be. He did not know that from my perspective, the license enabled me to go where I wanted to, when I wanted to. It was advantageous to both of us.

The second matter he had in mind was to enable me to get the work I wanted as a physiotherapist with employment in government service. My previous experience four years ago taught us that this would be no easy task. We had to “know” someone. That “someone” we had. It was another one of my mother’s numerous cousins who was the very well-known and charming Prof. C.C. de Silva. Uncle Chummy as we knew him, was one of the best paediatricians this country has known. Nalin and I paid him a visit with Nali Akka.

“Oh,” he said, “you are Pansy Akka’s baby. You know she had so many dolls. When we played together I wanted to play with her dolls and she would not let me.” I thought to myself. I can understand why – she would have thought, why should a boy want to play with dolls?” When I asked him for the help I needed, he said that would be easy. He spoke with the responsible Deputy Director in the Department of Health and I had my letter of appointment in no time.

Coming to live next door to my in-laws

My father-in-law’s name was Garret and my mother-in-law’s was Bella. This is how everybody knew her. I think very few knew that her name was Muriel. I learned later that my father and my father-in-law had been born in the same year, 1893. He was well-known as the historian Dr. G.C. Mendis. His interest in the subject earned for him a special grant in the late 1920s to further his studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London. He gained his doctorate in 1931 for a thesis called, “A Historical Criticism of the Mahavamsa”.

Later, in 1957, the same institution conferred on him the degree “Doctor of Literature (D. Litt)”. He taught at the Universities of Colombo and Peradeniya until he retired in 1952. This was before Nalin entered university in 1953. Nalin studied history at the University of Peradeniya. And can still talk on the subject with authority. It could be in his blood.

When he retired, Nalin’s father built a residence for the family at 17, Swarna Road. This he would gift to Nalin when he passed on. Attached to the house itself he built two apartments for his daughters Sita and Deepthi also to be gifted later. When we married, Nalin and I came to live in one of these apartments, 17/1. I was now calling them Daddy and Mummy as Nalin did. The wedding gifts we were given by family and friends helped us furnish our new home.

Daddy and Mummy and Nalin’s sisters between them gifted us an exquisite dining table with six chairs. In Burma Teak and made by Apothecaries, the best furniture maker of the time. We added to that a matching tea trolley. It was – may be still is – the custom that a wife would bring with her the bedroom furniture, and my siblings had seen to that. We still use all these pieces every day, polished regularly and still looking as good as new.

Mummy carried out another custom which was that the mother-in-law should furnish the newly acquired daughter’s kitchen. And from that gift too, I still have in use many utensils. Most of the essential utility electric items like kettles, toasters, irons and crockery and cutlery came from family and friends. Some gifted cash and this was handy for us to fill the gaps. One Sunday we drove up to Weweldeniya and purchased four cane chairs, comfortable for guests. They cost thirty rupees each.

Learning from my mother-in-law

I could not have hoped for better neighbours to help me start being a wife. Mummy was an expert cook and was always ready to teach me a new dish. Particularly those she knew her son enjoyed. Came the era of no imports, of economising, and of shortages in the 1970s and she taught me innovative cookery. And how to make substitutes for desserts and cakes – cherries using papaw, candied peel with jambola and so on. Her love cake and Christmas cake were delicious. From her I learned to make black pork curry, parippu rice and fish mustard curry. But more than that I learned the secrets of home-made bacon, ham, corned beef and salt beef.

And she helped me entertain. With the size of my family joined with his, the menu was often lamprais. Mummy had an original Dutch recipe for it from her friend Kathleen Peglott. There was a man living down on the canal bank who would be an unending source of banana leaves. We cooked the dishes over a period of some days so only the rice and the packing had to be done on the last day – and of course the baking. We had dozens to make for one meal –50 or 60 lamprais would easily be consumed during a single lunch. Many guests had to have two each. My nephew Rohan had three for his lunch.

And now, Nalin and I share one. And that too is too much. We still often entertain with lamprais. But whatever the number we require, we order these from a professional caterer. To make them at home is too labour intensive. That is my excuse.

Being a government employee

After getting our new home organised, I was anxious to start work in Ceylon once again. I had been assigned to work at what was called the “Department of Physical Medicine, Special” located in the upstairs of the Orthopaedic Clinic on Regent Street. The “Special” I believed referred to the orthopaedic service it was designed to provide. The physician in charge was Dr. L.P.D. Gunawardene, Ceylon’s second physician in physical medicine. The first was Dr. Frank Perera and he already had the DPM “General” which served the whole of the General Hospital.

The administration of physiotherapy in the DPM Special was in the charge of “MAA” Fernando, one of the gentlest men I have met. I worked with him in his room and he sent to me all those male patients who needed physio for one arm or both. If the same male patient needed physio for one or two legs he was sent to a colleague in the same room.

Females were treated in another room, while yet another room at the end of the corridor was where patients with stroke and such conditions were treated. This was staffed by a physical training instructor and a walking training instructor to accept referrals. To assist them they had one or two junior physios. This was a very busy department. Very often Dr. LPD as he was called, would summon a physio to his room and hand over to that physio a “special” patient. This would be someone known to him or who was sent by someone known to him or by another eminent person.

Nalin and I were both now government employees. As such, our salaries were very low, even in relation to the relatively low cost of living at the time. Nalin had a monthly salary of Rs. 800, but after the car loan and other deductions, he brought home a little over 600 rupees every month. On Nalin’s pay day he came home and handed me his whole salary. From which I would ensure that his purse had always a small sum of money – at least 10 rupees – every day for any expense he may incur.

I started at the bottom of the physio pay scale with 252 rupees per month. But we were surprisingly comfortable. The money I brought home every month covered the cost of maintaining our vehicle. We had no problems buying our food and other provisions at the beginning of the month, for cinema and other entertainment and for a little travel now and then.

But there were months however when cash was tight. If we wished to go the cinema at the end of a month for example and were unsure of our financial position, we poured out on our bed all the cash we had between us and sometimes counted even the coins to ensure we could afford the cost of the tickets. In spite of our fears, as I recall, we always had the few rupees we required. I think it was Rs 3.50 each for the best seats.

We were well satisfied with what we had and with our lives.

Living in our changing country

It was while I was working at the DPM Special that Ceylon gave the world its first woman prime minister. With her Government, we had a new Constitution in 1972. With this, Ceylon became Sri Lanka; then plantations were nationalised; ownership of land was limited to fifty acres per adult family member; ownership of houses was limited to one for each family member and one extra; many landowners and house owners suffered a mental breakdown at having to accept the extent of their losses; the economy became a closed one and collapsed; foreign exchange could not be exported; citizens were asked to tighten their belts; citizens could not eat rice on three days of the week; and we grew sweet potato and manioc and corn on every inch of land available in our garden to have these to replace the starch and nutrients that rice provided as our staple food.

But the country survived; in spite of all the strictures, its people survived the hardships. We had an election in 1977. The country used the vote to say no to socialism of that kind and elected a government that would open the economy and give the people their democratic freedoms – for most of the time as it turned out.

The value of friends and friendships in the early years

On our marriage it turned out that more of Nalin’s friends than mine became “our” friends. I had drifted somewhat from my school friends during my sojourn in the UK. This would change later and the bonds we formed at school did withstand the test of time. I am back to where we were with my friends. Meanwhile Nalin had an extensive social network as a bachelor and it seemed as it were, that I moved into his social network. Having spent so many years abroad as a student, I had no real social network at home in Colombo at the time of our marriage.

Quite quickly his friends were mine. Another difference – we observed that whereas many young couples spent their time together as friends in each other’s homes and moving around Colombo, our friendships took us travelling out of Colombo. This had much to do with the shared common interest in travel within our country that kind of sealed our friendships and may be made them what they were.

Most of our early holidays we spent with our friends Mervyn and Therese (Perera). We had much in common. We did not have children and lived on the low salaries of government officers. Little cash to spare but lived life to the full. We made use of the three annual railway warrants or passes allowed to such as us who worked in government and travelled by train to places that would be difficult to reach by car. We stayed, usually a week at a time, in circuit bungalows available to government officers at a low price.

Pattipola, the highest point on the railway was one. Ohiya not far below was another. Nuwara Eliya was yet another and so on. Not having the use of a vehicle was not a loss as we explored what we could of surrounding towns and areas by train. We spent many hours morning and evening, walking. Mervyn and Nalin had much in common, both taking a keen interest in horse racing. They had much to talk about. Mervyn used racing parlance in his conversations. He called me a “stayer” because I could outdo them in the length of the walk and kept a steady pace, always at the front, leading the group.

Another holiday was to spend time with Nada and Indra. Nada was at the Jaffna railway station to greet us off the overnight express. He worked in the Petroleum Corporation and had booked us to stay at the guest house run by the Cement Corporation. In his Austin A40 he showed us all the sights that had to be seen on the peninsula. My most memorable is the Keerimalai Springs used for bathing by hundreds of people wishing to avail of its mineral benefits. In the evening, his charming wife Indra would welcome us to have a meal with them in their home – could it please be local Jaffna food was our request.

Many years later we spent time with Stanley and Hermi (Unamboowe), travelling always in their Nissan SUV. Stanley loved to drive. Hermi sat by his side and was his navigator. Together we enjoyed holidaying in the south on more than one occasion, to Hambantota and from there to Bundala for bird watching. North-east to Giritale many times too staying at the Giritale Hotel run by Carsons where Stanley was a former Chairman, and exploring the surrounding countryside. More often we just relaxed in the hotel, sitting on the wide-open verandah and watching the many varieties of birds that came to the Giritale Lake. Stanley could identify almost all the birds that visited there.

Sometimes with them and at times with other friends we enjoyed the wild life parks of Yala, Wilpattu, Wasgamuwa and Uda Walawe. Together we had the joy of watching elephant, leopard, deer of many varieties, an occasional sloth bear and beautiful birds-a-plenty.

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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.