Features

Rediscovering Martin Wickramasinghe

Published

1 year ago

2025/06/8

By Uditha Devapriya

The Martin Wickramasinghe Collection at the National Library in Colombo contains over 5,000 books. Most of them are worn out and dusty, though well preserved. Some are recent additions. The oldest among the collection date to the early 1910s. Straddling different periods, genres, and subjects, they remain a useful guide to the man who owned them, read them, and wrote on the topics they covered.

Arguably the most interesting point about them are the annotations. Wickramasinghe was a voracious reader, “omnivorous” as he called himself, and he spent much of his income on books. He was indiscriminate yet critical in what he read. This comes out quite well in the annotations. Some of the older books have notes every few pages. The more recent ones hardly have them at all. This shows that Wickramasinghe was learning about these subjects for the first time through these texts, and that he was reading as much as he could about them. As he read, he remembered. As he remembered, he annotated.

Most of these annotations are marginal comments. Some point to other sources. Many are critical, hardly any laudatory. On the side of one page in the 1934 edition of Caroline Rhys Davids’s Outline of Buddhism, to give one example, he argues the author seems “ignorant of modern anthropology.”

In his copy of Maurice Baring’s An Outline of Russian Literature, published in 1914, he critiques the author’s characterisation of Leo Tolstoy: responding to Baring’s comment that “Tolstoy wrote about himself from the beginning of his career to the end”, Wickramasinghe writes, “This observation is wrong”, adding that “it is… altruism which impels Tolstoy to confess all the wrongs he has committed.”

Between Baring’s book and Rhys Davids’s, there is a space of 20 years. During this period Wickramasinghe had matured and evolved. Beginning his life in Colombo as a bookkeeper to a shop owner, he went on to write articles to the Dinamina. In 1914 Wickramasinghe wrote his first novel, Leela. His preface to the first edition makes it clear how much of an influence the books he was reading had upon him. In no ambivalent terms, he notes the futility of drawing lines between Western and Eastern philosophy, science, between ways of looking at the world. The story itself unremittingly critiques tradition and order.

Such attitudes could only have been fostered through the books he was devouring. As he himself recounts in Upan Da Sita, he started reading rationalist and Western texts almost as soon as he shifted to Colombo in 1906.

Wickramasinghe’s granddaughter Ishani remembers his library all too well. “As a teenager I read D. H. Lawrence, Tolstoy, the Russians, from his collection,” she says. “For him, reading was a window to the world.” She recalls he was insistent that his children and grandchildren read English and that they did not limit themselves to Sinhala literature. “He regarded Sinhala literature highly,” she notes. “And he had a complicated relationship with Western culture. He critiqued it, yes, but he also recognised its value.”

The leading litterateur of his day, Wickramasinghe was one of the leading Sri Lankan, South Asian, and Asian cultural figures of his time. As Sarath Amunugama reminded me not long ago, he was a contemporary of not only Piyadasa Sirisena and W. A. Silva, but also Ananda Coomaraswamy and Cumaratunga Munidasa. Yet despite having passed away almost 50 years ago, Wickramasinghe’s life, work, and thought have yet to be studied fully by scholars. Last week marked his 135th birth anniversary.

In her study of Geoffrey Bawa, the historian Shanti Jayewardene notes that we have still not understood the intellectual modernists of South Asia. She includes in this pantheon not just Coomaraswamy and Cumaratunga Munidasa, but also George Keyt, Lionel Wendt, Chitrasena, Lester James Peries, Ediriweera Sarachchandra, and Ian Goonetilleke. Writing of Coomaraswamy, she notes that they all remain “poorly understood.”

Jayewardene also includes Martin Wickramasinghe. She refers to Anupama Mohan’s point that he “projected on to the rural, the possibility of recovering a subjectivity unsullied by colonial inequities.” Mohan’s book, Utopia and the Village in South Asia, dissects his writings on Sinhala rural culture and his supposed idealisation of it.

Whether Wickramasinghe’s framing of the culture he came from was as romantic as Mohan makes it out is debatable. Yet those writings, influenced as they were by the books he read at an early period, represent a rupture in the intellectual trajectory of colonial Sri Lanka. This is why it is difficult to place Wickramasinghe in the same league as Keyt, Wendt, and the 43 Group. The latter had to study the culture they were born to. Wickramasinghe, on the other hand, was a product of that culture. He did not have to study it to write on it.

Wickramasingha

The biggest challenge for scholars of Wickramasinghe, and of cultural modernism in 20th century Sri Lanka, is a lack of familiarity with his source texts, particularly those written in Sinhala. While Keyt, Wendt, and Peries have been studied exhaustively and examined from various perspectives, Wickramasinghe remains limited to a Sinhala speaking audience and a Sri Lankan scholarship.

This is a regrettable omission, given the many contributions he made, not merely to “Sinhala” culture but also to our understanding of that culture and the ways of life, and of seeing, which underpinned it. His novels, in particular those he wrote after 1944, have enjoyed a much greater reputation because they became prescribed texts at schools and universities even during his lifetime. As the political researcher Harindra Dassanayake puts it, “When you ask the question, ‘How did you first come across Wickramasinghe?’, you always get the same response: Madol Doowa.”

Perhaps such a reading is reductive. Seminal though his fiction was, it must be remembered that Wickramasinghe wrote 13 novels and some short stories, in addition to a few plays and two books of poetry. Though he forayed into journalism some years after his first novel was published, he made use of the space he got to write as much as he could on anything and everything he had read until then. This was a formative time in Sri Lanka’s modern history, when radical politics had reared its head and calls were made for self-government, when universal suffrage was about to be granted and the colonial order was rupturing from within. Wickramasinghe’s intervention at this point, massive as it is, can be gleaned from the articles he was writing, and getting published, in the press.

In this regard, he made two seminal contributions. He began writing articles in the Dinamina in 1916 and almost immediately wrote on science, evolution, philosophy, and anthropology. In Upan Da Sita Wickramasinghe recounts attending debates, reading periodicals, and subscribing to foreign magazines, all of which helped transmit Western radical ideas to a deeply colonised society. In writing on these topics, in a mode and form accessible to a Sinhala speaking audience, he went beyond other cultural figures who lacked such contact with mass audiences.

These articles, authored under the penname Hethuvadiya or “Rationalist”, gained enough attention, and controversy, to convince D. R. Wijewardene to hire him at Dinamina in 1920. 12 years later, he was promoted as Editor.

Not long afterwards he also began writing in English. In English he wrote mostly on Sinhala culture, Buddhism, and other aspects of Sri Lankan society and history. This intervention has yet to be appreciated in full. Before Wickramasinghe very few Sri Lankans or Ceylonese wrote so much on Sri Lankan culture and history. As Senake Bandaranayake has reminded us of Ananda Coomaraswamy, such intellectuals, drawn as they were from the very colonial societies they critiqued, projected a view of the country which tended to be anachronistic and romanticised.

Wickramasinghe went beyond these frameworks and, as Amunugama observes, explored the underpinnings of Sinhala society. In this he did not have to discover or rediscover his society, as Keyt did through literature and poetry and Wendt through photography. By the time he came of age, he had immersed himself in Sinhala and Buddhist literature well enough to write on them for foreign audiences.

Taken together, these contributions make up two sides of the same coin. He was an outsider looking in and an insider looking out. As Nalaka Gunawardena puts it, he was also the public intellectual of his time, “a powerful shaper of public discourse” who made it clear, perhaps for the first time in Sri Lanka, that “one cannot become a public intellectual without reaching the public.” It goes without saying that such a contribution would not have been possible without the many books he read – indiscriminately, yet critically – and the familiarity he was able to acquire with both local and Western texts. These interventions also required much humility, a quality Wickramasinghe never lacked in his writings.

Underlined in his copy of Anatole France’s On Life and Letters: Second Series, published in 1922 and perhaps bought during that time, is an aphorism that could not have better summed his way of looking at the world:

“One seems to be almost attractive as soon as one is absolutely true.”

In being true to himself, Wickramasinghe carved his own path, his own destiny. Nalaka Gunawardena puts it well: “Rarely has he been surpassed in this country, in his time or since.” It is this that has yet to become the subject of a definitive study.

Uditha Devapriya is a researcher and author who can be reached at udakdev1@gmail.com. The author of four books, he is currently working on a study of Wickramasinghe, an official publication by the Martin Wickramasinghe Trust.

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Features

‘Death at the Sign of the Rook’

Published

4 mins ago

2026/10/12

Thilina Walpola

Tales of Mystery and Suspense – 23

By Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha

As I have noted with regard to the adventures of John Rebus, I am indebted to Dinali Fernando and her husband Steve for whole hosts of thrillers. The latter strongly recommended Kate Atkinson when I borrowed four books. I wondered about this, for I had not been too impressed with her debut novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, which was amongst the entries I had to judge for the Eurasian section of the Commonwealth Writing Prize. Two decades later, I had forgotten what it had been about.

But I am glad Steve persuaded me to read her. Kate Atkinson is distinctively British, and Death at the Sign of the Rook is set in a country house and the surrounding village, and seems a modern descendant of the laidback Agatha Christies I so much enjoy.

There are, however, many differences in that we have a policeman who can go rogue, like Rebus, with again a female sidekick who has a mind of her own, again like Rebus. But Jackson Brodie has retired and set up as a private investigator, while Reggie, a young lady, is still in the police.

There is a lesbian couple living in the converted dairy of the manor house, as has occurred in Agatha Christie too, in A Murder is Announced. But they are peripheral to the story, unlike Ben, the brother of one of them who left the army after losing a leg in Afghanistan. When he turns up at the Manor House to shelter from a snowstorm, along with its chatelaine, Lady Milton, he is asked to answer the door as various characters turn up, including Jackson and Reggie, who then starts fantasising about him.

The others who turn up are two couples, one from America, who have paid for a murder weekend at the hotel. The family is impoverished, and has sold lots of pictures to survive, but most recently a Turner had been stolen, almost certainly by Lady Milton’s housekeeper Sophie, who vanished one night along with the picture. Reggie had been involved in that investigation, but there had been no trace of either picture or young lady.

Jackson Brodie suspects a connection between that theft and the one he has been called in to investigate, which has not been reported to the police. The picture hung opposite the bed of an old woman whose carer vanished after she died, along with it. Her children, adopted twins, have asked Jackson to investigate and also try to trace the carer, though he suspects something strange in that they did not go to the police.

Kate Atkinson

Brodie, in studying the stolen art, is also struck by the disappearance of a Rembrandt from a house in Scotland, along with a member of the cleaning staff. He thinks the three women might be the same one.

But Brodie’s assumption that the three women who vanished when valuable pictures did were identical would not have helped except that Beatrice, as she was also called, kept turning up, including to the funeral home where the old lady’s body was kept. And then that picture turned up, in the village church, and was found by the local vicar, Simon Cate, whose life story is also a prominent feature of the novel. He was an aspiring actor but then smitten by faith, and became a priest, but in time he lost his faith. His wife left him after the death of their son, and he is now in this backwater, where he feels he is of no use to anyone. But he has a great feel for living beings, and his most successful service has been one in which he blessed pets. And he was deeply concerned about the bees that Ben looks after for his sister and her wife.

He too staggers into the manor house in the midst of the storm, in which everyone concerned loses their way comprehensively. But amongst those Ben lets in is a man in a tracksuit with cuts and bruises, who then vanishes after he has been led to a bedroom, when Ben went in search of brandy. We soon work out that it is the escaped murderer about whom Reggie has been alerted.

Simon also turns up, through the back door, carrying the picture and also a gun, for he has found the dead body of one of his parishioners when he went to her house in search of his mobile phone. She had been shot and he had picked up the gun he found there. But he could not tell the police, for though he called he had lost his voice, and for the last few days had communicated only through writing.

This chaotic mix of characters at the manor house is further complicated by the group of players putting on the murder mystery play though some members have either cried off or died before reaching the venue. So, there is much doubling up and confusion over who is an actor and who is not.

The grand now largely empty rooms of the manor house, and its various odd passages and multiple doors, make it a splendid set for the lunacy that runs on and on. Reggie finds herself in a pantry Atkinsonwith a dead body, though this turns out to be the nanny who fell down the stairs and was put there by Lady Milton’s younger son. And there is high drama on the roof when the murderer nearly kills Ben, but he is saved by Reggie, and when he tries to kill Brody with an axe, he is shot by Beatrice, who has been the maid who served at the dinner before the murder mystery play, and explains to Brody how she has managed all her thefts.

And then in the melee, she vanishes on a motorbike, along with the daughter of the old lady’s adopted daughter, the only person who seemed to grieve at the funeral, and to whom the old lady had left her house in a codicil to her will, which her children have not known about. She leaves the picture to the carer, but it is brought to Simon Cate as he lies in hospital, recovering from a heart attack which adds confusion to the play.

Wonderfully convoluted, but all very clear, despite the headlong pace of the book and its shifts from one scene to another, from one character to another (or rather combinations of them) and from one-time span to another. A writer and a detective well worth looking out for. e more books by her on Dinali’s shelves.

Features

Safety, security and teamwork in aviation

Published

5 mins ago

2026/10/12

Thilina Walpola

Indian Captain Smit Machchhar injured in the cockpit attack

by Capt. (Ret.).G.A. Fernando, MBA

There are three essential components to a commercial airline operation: safety, security and teamwork.

Aviation and teamwork at the ‘sharp’ end of a commercial aircraft, i.e. the flight deck, is unique. Unlike many other teams, it may be quite literally the first and the last time a particular combination of small teams of two, three, or four individual airmen (or women) will fly together. Sometimes even in the same airline that employs them.

Therefore, to make conditions safe and practical, while understanding and trusting tech other, they have to rely on a series of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), and ‘Normal’ and ‘Emergency’ checklists for every conceivable situation. That is, to be able to do the right things, and do things right. In fact, there is a saying in aviation to the effect that ‘if you make a mistake in aviation, be original and make a new one’.

To ensure that safety standards are constantly maintained, airline pilots’ proficiency is tested every six months, in simulators, under the supervision of examiners from the civil aviation regulator. In Sri Lanka that organisaton is the Civil Aviation Authority-Sri Lanka (CAASL). Three simulator checks are conducted every 12 months in keeping with the tenet that ‘practice makes perfect’. A pithy adage not confined to the world of aviation warns that ‘prior preparation prevents piss-poor performance’.

The simulator exercises include rejected takeoffs, including in cross-wind situations, landings, engine fires and/or engine failures from a variety of causes, cabin pressurisation failure, precision and non-precision approaches, and landings in bad visibility – amongst other conditions that could be expected in actual flight.

In addition, a flight in a real airplane, on a regular passenger service under the supervision of an examiner from the airline, is undertaken to ensure that the company’s standard practices and procedures are carried out and maintained as prescribed in the airline’s manuals. These publications are in turn approved by the national regulator.

Crash axe

Finally, flight crew members must take a written test annually, on emergency equipment locations and procedures, with 90% as the pass mark.

Since the mid-1980s it has been mandatory for airline pilots to undertake a Crew Resource Management (CRM) programme once every two years. This training essentially emphasises what to do and what not to do to, in a specific emergency situation, or even during normal operations, to make the team cohesive and effective. During the course, the CRM facilitators discuss recent incidents and accidents that have occurred. Results of those events are recorded and could be retrieved, when necessary, by the official aviation bodies.

Not unexpectedly, it is demanding on a pilot to fulfill these requirements on a regular basis throughout his/her career, along with presenting for a bi-annual medical examination, all with the objective of retaining one’s licence to operate an aircraft. It may not be understood, therefore, by persons outside the aviation industry, or even some working in other aspects of an airline organisation, that it is often the passion for flight that keeps many pilots doing what they do to earn a living.

Security

Another important factor is the challenge of maintaining security in all aspects of airline operations, not least in the cockpit. The challenges are many, with new ones surfacing almost every day. It is therefore essential to be always prepared for the activities and ‘methods’ of perpetrators seeking to wreak evil on an aircraft and its occupants. As it is impossible for any airline or national security organisation to cover all aspects, systematic management of risks to effect a safe outcome becomes imperative.

Flydubai Incident

In the recent Flydubai incident of 30 September, 2026, a first officer (co-pilot) attacked the captain of the flight with a crash axe to accomplish his sinister motives, into which investigations are continuing. For the time being, it prompts the questions: should the crash axe be easily accessible to the flight crew? Or even be there at all? I believe it is a case of assessing the greater risk.

With regard to that event, and the circumstances that led to it, other deterrents could have been applied more thoroughly. For example, more thorough screening of pilots’ and other crewpersons’ backgrounds, with emphasis on their mental health, ideological affiliations and previous employment history. Separately, during a time of conflict in the Middle East, should Flydubai have even been operating between Dubai and Tel Aviv? Notwithstanding that cost-cutting and profit maximisation are key aims of any business, an airline’s apparent failure to conduct adequate psychological profiling of flight crew members, while continuing to operate ‘profitable’ routes, regardless of potential danger, can only be regarded and condemned as greed and disregard for human lives.

( Captain. Fernando, RCyAF, SLAF, Air Ceylon, Air Lanka, Singapore Airlines (SIA), SriLankan Airlines, Former Chief Pilot, Air Lanka Boeing 737, Former Deputy Chief Pilot, Lockheed L 1011, Former Crew Resource Management (CRM) Facilitator, SIA, Former Deputy Director (Air Operations) CAASL, Former President, Aircraft Owners and Operators Association Sri Lanka (AOAOASL), President, The Colombo Flying Club, Representative for Aviation, Organisation of Professional Associations (OPA), Hony, and Member Sri Lanka Society of Transport and Logistics.)

Features

Intake 16: 45 years of duty and honour

Published

5 mins ago

2026/10/12

Thilina Walpola

Intake 16: On 16th October, 1981

By Nilakshan Perera

commemorate 45 years since 26 young men embarked on a journey that would become an enduring chapter in the history of the Sri Lanka Army.

For me, the story has a particularly personal beginning. Sometime in early October, 1981, a good friend of mine, with whom I had been in the same cadet platoon, from 1978, and who was the Sergeant of the 1980 platoon, which became Island champions, needed a college blazer for his Army final interview. I borrowed one from a friend in Panadura and carried it for him. He then boarded the same bus from Katubedda, and I accompanied him for his interview. A few days later, he shared the wonderful news that he had been selected for Officer Cadet Intake 16 and would report to Diyatalawa on 16 October, 1981.

What followed became history. He emerged as the best officer Cadet, winning the coveted Sword of Honour and becoming a Cadet Under Officer. Decades later, he became the 22nd Commander of the Sri Lanka Army, establishing several remarkable milestones. He was the first Special Forces officer to command the Army, a first Para trooper, the first graduate of the United States Army Command and General Staff College to become Army Commander, and the first Cadet Under Officer and Sword of Honour recipient to rise to that position.

His journey was not without adversity. Following the 2010 Presidential Election, he was asked to leave the Army. Amid the uncertainty and threats surrounding him, I was one of the first to visit him at his residence. In 2015, he was reinstated and subsequently served as Military Secretary, Commander Security Forces – Jaffna, and Chief of Staff before assuming command of the Army on 4 July, 2017. The rest is history.

On 16 October, 1981, at Army Headquarters, a bus waited to take 26 young school leavers to Diyatalawa. Among them were Mahesh Senanayake (Ananda), Janaka Walgama (Nalanda), Udaya Perera (De Mazenod), Srimal Kasthuriarachchi (St Anthony’s, Katugastota), Edward Thanjaratnam (St John’s College, Jaffna), Prasanna Wickremesooriya (Nalanda), Jagath Alwis and Pradeep Jayasuriya (Ananda), Sooriya Senanayake (D. S. Senanayake), TRA Aliba (Lumbini), P Raveendran (Hindu College, Jaffna), JN Pushparaj (St Michael’s, Batticaloa), MRC de Silva (St Benedict’s, Kotahena), Uraj de Silva (Prince of Wales), Nirmal Coswatte (Dharmaraja), TM Mahindaratne (Vidyartha), Amal Karuasekera ( Nalanda) and Bimal Dias ( Royal)

The intake also included five servicemen who had already excelled in the Other Ranks, including two Olympic athletes, an Army Decathlon champion, a Sri Lanka volleyball star and a graduate. They were A Premachandra, KTN Perera, SM Piyatilake, KAS Siriwardena, HK Chandrasena.Late that night, on their arrival at the Military Academy, they were traditionally welcome by Seniors of Intake 15, (intermediates) near “PANDAMA”. Then came the reality of cadet life, running on the double, relentless discipline and demanding training. Intake 14, as the super seniors, and cadets of Short Service Course 3 were also there to ensure that the newcomers quickly understood the traditions and rigour of SLMA.

They were trained under dedicated instructors, including Course Commanders of initial months, Capt. Lucky Rajasinghe (retired as Col) and Capt. Wasantha Pamunuwa (retired as Col) Course Sergeant TH Thajudeen, PTI Bombardier Senerath Bandara, and Chief Instructor Late Maj. Janaka Perera (retired as Maj Gen), Major Devinda Kalupahana (retired as Maj Gen) and Maj. Lalith Gunaratne (retired as Col)

Their training tested every aspect of an aspiring officer. Exercise “God King” took them to sacred and historic sites such as Kataragama, Kirivehera and Sithulpawwa, connecting military training with the heritage of their motherland. Exercise “Frozen Trout” tested them for 10 days in the cold, mist and rain of Ambewela and Pattipola, covering conventional warfare and battle procedures. Remarkably, Intake 16 underwent this exercise three times. Exercise “Wana Bambara” took them deep into the jungles around Wellawaya for Counter-Revolutionary Warfare training, while exercise “Scorpion” tested their ability to conduct Internal Security and counter-insurgency operations around Walimada. Intake 16 also became the first Officer Cadet Intake at the Sri Lanka Military Academy to undergo the Basic Commando Course before the passing out.

After 22 months of rigorous training, the moment of truth arrived on 23 June, 1983. Of the original 26 cadets, 19 were commissioned as Second Lieutenants. It was the largest passing-out parade of its time, with around 1,000 Army recruits passed out alongside them. The parade was commanded by Major Nanda Mallawarachchi (retired as Maj Gen), while the Officer Cadet contingent was commanded by Cadet Under Officer Mahesh Senanayake, who had won the Sword of Honour for the highest marks in the Order of Merit. He also received the Current Affairs prize, while Cadet Sergeant Janaka Walgama received the Tactics prize. The Chief Guest was the Commander of the Army, Major General TI Weeratunge.

The 19 newly commissioned officers were then posted to their respective regiments and began their national duty with integrity, passion and courage. During the brutal conflict in the North and East, two of their brothers made the supreme sacrifice. Lieutenant Colonel Sooriya Senanayake, of SLLI, was killed in action at Kadduvan, Jaffna, on 30 May, 1992. Lieutenant Colonel TRA Aliba, of VIR, was killed in action, at Mullaitivu, on 18 July, 1996, while commanding the 6th Battalion, Vijayabahu Infantry Regiment, during a major LTTE assault. The intake paid tribute to the memory of Captain KAS Siriwardena, Captain MRC de Silva and Major Uraj de Silva, who passed away due to health complications and unfortune accident, respectively. Their memory remains an inseparable part of the Intake 16 story, and they are remembered with the deepest gratitude.

Only five members went on to complete nearly 35 years of military service and reach retirement at senior rank, General Mahesh Senanayake, Major General Janaka Walgama, Major General Udaya Perera, Major General Jagath Alwis and Major General Nirmal Coswatte. Others took premature retirement and pursued different paths, but the bond forged at Diyatalawa never diminished.

Forty-five years later, the memories remain vivid, the parade square, the mist of Diyatalawa, the hardships, the laughter, the friendships, the sacrifices and the pride of wearing the uniform. They entered Diyatalawa as young men and emerged as officers. Some became generals, one became Commander of the Army, some made the ultimate sacrifice, and others continued to serve the Nation in different ways. But above rank, appointment and circumstance, they remain what they became at Diyatalawa, brothers of Intake 16.

As they mark 45 years since that historic 16 October, 1981, we salute every member of Intake 16, remember with gratitude those who are no longer with us, and honour a generation that served the Nation with pride, courage and dedication.

Forty-five years of service.
Forty-five years of sacrifice.
Forty-five years of brotherhood.

Happy 45th Anniversary,
Intake 16!

16 October, 1981 – 16 October, 2026

Proudly served. Honourably remembered.