Features

Two admirable Women of Nerve

Published

4 years ago

2021/12/19

Leelananda de Silva lent me the copy of Nerve he had been gift-posted by one of the book’s authors with the inscription ‘To Leelananda and Rukmal: two people who have known me from the time I was a child! For your love and support – Thank you!’ signed Indira, dated Sept 2021.

Martha Piper and Indira Samarasekera authored this book titled Nerve – lessons on leadership from two women who went first published by ECW Press, Toronto, in 2021. It carries a Foreword of three pages by The Right Hon Kim Campbell, 19^th Prime Minister of Canada. (Avril Phaedra Douglas ‘Kim’ Campbell QC, was PM from June to November 1993, and is politician, diplomat, lawyer and writer, only woman PM of Canada so far). 297 pages of text are followed by fairly extensive Notes and Index. It is a truly wonderful book containing loads of advice to women of all ages – mainly career women. They differentiate between men’s and women’s attitudes in going far and forward in careers; present general opinions on various issues while quoting from what has been said and written about such issues. Much autobiographical details of both Piper and Indira delightfully personalize the book and ensure avid reading. Style of writing too contributes to this plus factor of the book.

Martha C Piper, Canadian academic and administrator, was 11^th President and Vice Chancellor of the University of British Columbia from 1997 to 2006 and innovatively guided the university to be one of the best. She was the first woman President of UBC.

Indira Samarasekera was on the Faculty of the university and was nominated by Martha to the post of Vice President /Research. She considers Martha to be one of her chief mentors. From UBC she moved to the University of Alberta as 12^th President and Vice Chancellor in 2005. In 2015 she left her post but has served on several prestigious committees and boards.

The book – Introduction

The Introduction, written by both authors we presume, starts with the sentence “Women are notoriously ambivalent when it comes to leadership. They often ask us ‘Should I seek or accept this leadership opportunity or should I forego it?’” The authors then proceed to clarify what they have to say. “. …for women there is a recurring thread connecting these three phases of leadership: nerve – developing your nerve to lead, drawing upon your nerve when leading and finding the nerve to reinvent yourself when you no longer are leading. Nerve is the personal attribute that we believe is not only required to lead but also is often missing in women… Nerve to be true to yourself, nerve to take a path less traveled; nerve to go first, nerve to act decisively, nerve to redefine yourself.” Toward the end of the Intro they write: “We propose that nerve not only needs to be acknowledged but also actively cultivated by woman leaders. Without nerve, women worry about being liked and keeping everyone happy. Without nerve, women are prone to avoiding the tough decisions and to forgoing their principles in the face of adversity.”

The final paragraph clearly sums up their intention and aim in collaborating on authorship. “This book is a reflection on leadership, how it differs for women and men and what it takes for women to excel as leaders. It is also part memoir… It is our hope that by sharing our experiences as women leaders who went first, we will encourage the next generation of women to find the nerve to step up and lead with confidence, strength and conviction.”

Format

Martha and Indira have adopted a unique style of arrangement of the text. It is in three parts under the titles; Developing the nerve to lead; Leading with nerve and Life after leading: the nerve to redefine yourself. Each of these is sub-sectioned to chapters; Part 1 having 5, Part 2 and 3, 6 chapters each; all sequentially numbered 1 to 16. In each chapter you get a general section: opinion of both etc. Then each tells the relevant section of her life under subtitles Piper, Samarasekera. This scheme is often repeated in each chapter. Finally is a Lessons Learned section, which carries guidance, directly and indirectly.

Content matter is excellent and completely relevant to the stated aim of the authors – to help women to develop sufficient nerve to progress and reach heights not only in their careers but in life and living too. The most outstanding fact is that they don’t make taking career risks and going forward easy or simple. They deal with risks and throughout the book compare men and women in their attitudes, ease of upward mobility (no ease but difficult all the way for women). They instruct too but certainly not as prideful women who succeeded through brains, experience and qualifications, and having plenty of nerve of course, but as two women with attendant frailties, admittedly far less in them than in most women.

To me, now past going up the hierarchical ladder of career success and all that, the autobiographical sections were most eagerly read and appreciated. They reveal trials and tribulations met and crossed; obstacles over-reached and worries overcome; never mentioning their superior natural attributes. Career development and raising and caring for families and support of husbands go hand in hand. However, they do admit to serendipity shedding winning surprises. Martha Piper had and is in a very happy marriage with two children. Indira had marital problems through insidious incompatibility though on the surface her husband and she – brainy, academically qualified persons – seemed ideally suited to each other. She truthfully tells us how she made a trip to Sri Lanka to consult her parents and grandmother when contemplating divorce; the father advised giving preference to personal and career advancement; her grandma hinted an unhappy marriage was not worth continuing. But not by even one sentence does Indira blame her husband or belittle him. Fortunately their divorce was amicable and they continue to maintain strong family ties as parents with their two children and their families.

The authors make clear distinction between issues, terms and of course men and women in careers and life. For example in Part I the terms ‘mentor’ and ‘sponsor’ are clearly explained and demarcated.

Each chapter is prefaced with a quotation. I personally love quotations. Those in the book are culled from various sources ranging from William Shakespeare, Eleanor Roosevelt, Henrik Ibsen, Marilyn Monroe, Steve Jobs, Bill Clinton and several others.

Style of writing

The manner in which they write is excellent and thus makes for eager, absorbed reading. It is conversational, never pedantic or ‘written from above’. Though vocabulary of both is extensive, the use of the correct word or term does not deter a near beginner-of-understanding- English, to read with full understanding. Many instances of using standard expressions (I avoid the word clichés) enrich the language. Examples abound: “The feminine revolution was in full swing”; “I was over the moon.”

In their Lessons Learnt sections in each chapter they advice but with not even a trace of preaching or indicating they had no issues to struggle against. They don’t really write from a distance but speak one to one, like older and more experienced sisters speaking to younger ones.

Both authors make much of the term serendipity, particularly Indira whose entire future career materialized from a chance meeting with a friend of a friend of her father’s. The most used word in the book is ‘nerve’. Not very far behind is ‘serendipity’.

The Sri Lankan author

You can read plenty on Indira Samarasekera in Internet. I will briefly sketch her bio. Born in Colombo on April 11, 1952, to ENT specialist father – Dr A C Arulpragasam, she was the first of four siblings. Her great-grandfather is Dr S C Paul, first Ceylonese surgeon practicing in Ceylon. The family moved to London when her father went over for further qualifications. She was three years old and loved school there. In 1958, on return to Ceylon they were confronted with racial turmoil and shifted to Jaffna. She schooled at Chundukuli briefly and then went to Vembadi Girls’ School; in 1973 moved to Ladies’ College, Colombo.

She excelled in math and physics and entered the Engineering Faculty, University of Moratuwa and graduated brilliantly. Winning a Fulbright Scholarship she moved to Davies, University of California, now married at 23 to co-doctorate student “Sam” Samarasekera. She met a friend of a friend of her father’s who invited the couple to Canada assuring Sam employment. This meeting they almost missed saying they were too busy to go out for lunch. She studied metallurgy, and did ground breaking research in steel. I need not say she reached the pinnacle of academia; it’s obvious from the little I have written. She is a grandmother now, ‘reinvented’ with nerve.

The two authors selected to quote Kamala Harris in their concluding chapter: “While I may be the first woman in this office, I won’t be the last.” Their example and advice is to those others and all women. Nerve is a must read, particularly by our career conscious girls and women, not only because it is most interesting and instructional but because one of the authors – a brilliantly successful woman – is one of our own.

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Features

The challenge of keeping value-based politics alive

Published

4 mins ago

2026/05/28

Sahan Weerasooriya

Anti-migrant protests in Durban, South Africa. BBC

The current outbreak of anti-immigrant protests in Durban, South Africa is bound to have taken many a subscriber to value-based politics or political idealism quite by surprise. After all, this is evidence that despite the historic accomplishments of nation-builders of the stature of the late President Nelson Mandela it cannot be taken for granted that identity politics, including racism in its worst forms, is no more in South Africa.

At the time of this writing details are scarce on the substantive root causes of the protests but it could very well be that economic grievances, particularly on the part of the majority community in South Africa, are contributing considerably to the disaffection. Shrinking employment and material prospects are likely to figure majorly among the factors igniting the unrest.

Fortunately, the local authorities in Durban are losing no time in calling for peaceful co-existence among the relevant communities and are pointing to the vital importance of stepping-up national integration processes. Apparently, immigrants in sizable numbers from neighbouring countries are present in Durban. However, international TV footage of the protests quoted some local authorities as saying that the majority of the immigrants in some centres that housed them were not illegal migrants and had the documents that entitle them to be in Durban.

In the Durban protests the world has fresh proof of the socially divisive consequences of the gathering globe-wide economic disaffection, touched off particularly by the continuing crisis in West Asia. Going ahead, the world would need to brace for increasing identity-based unrest of the kind it is just witnessing in South Africa.

Considering that the material lot of ordinary people everywhere could only aggravate progressively, with the US and Iran showing no signs of negotiating an end to their confrontation any time soon, it will be left to the more democratic and progressive sections of the world community to initiate positive measures collectively to bring a measure of relief to the discontented.

The swiftness with which such relief will be provided would depend crucially on the importance those sections taking up these undertakings attach to value-based politics as opposed to Realpolitik of power politics.

Going by these yardsticks, Italy could be considered to be moving in the right direction. Recently Italy came to the fore in initiating the collective named, ‘Rome Coalition for Food Security and Access to Fertilizer’, which has as one of its aims the swift provision of fertilizer to economically weak African countries.

In a recent statement Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Antonio Tajani, said that a principal aim of the project was to ensure that the farmers of Africa gained easy access to fertilizer, considering that food security is a growing concern among some of Africa’s economically vulnerable countries.

The statement went on to mention that some 30 countries hailing from the Mediterranean region, the Middle East, the Balkans as well as the FAO had been invited to join the coalition. The venture is far-seeing in that food security is main among the reasons for social discontent which in turn could degenerate into endemic political turmoil and bloodshed. Separatist violence and geographical fragmentation of countries wouldn’t be too far behind these developments, as Africa itself has often proved.

It is hoped that more G7 countries would take the cue from Italy and do what they could to ease the hardships of economically distressed countries, particularly of the global South. In these efforts they would need to break rank with the US, which is today brutally indifferent to the consequences of its policy of making ‘America First’, come what may.

Going by current developments, the Trump administration seems to be blithely oblivious to the wider, deleterious effects of its policy course in West Asia. Besides rendering Iran militarily and otherwise impotent nothing else seems to matter to Washington, as regards West Asia. This is policy short-sightedness of an extreme kind. After all, right now West Asia could be said to be sitting on the proverbial powder keg.

On the other hand, Iran is not giving the world the impression that it is doing anything constructive to get out of the policy straitjacket that it wove for itself decades ago. Rather than enter into a policy of ‘live and let live’ in relation to Israel in particular and initiate a process of reconciliation with the latter, it has chosen to operate within policy parameters that continue to damn Israel. This has put Israel always on the ‘defensive’ so to speak and prevented the opening up of space for meaningful dialogue.

That said, Israel is obliged to explore the possibilities of entering into a negotiatory process with the Arab-Islamic world that could lead to a de-escalation of tensions and bloodshed. It cannot continue to look at its neighbours through lenses that distort them as archetypal enemies who should be ‘wiped off completely from the face of the earth.’

In other words, the need is urgent for Realpolitik to give way to value-based politicks. Italy is beginning to prove that the latter approach could be pursued with some success. May be the EU and the UK could throw their weight behind these initiatives as well and establish that international politics could be refashioned on the basis of humane, civilized norms. The UN would need to be fully supportive of these moves and prove an organizational nucleus of the operations that follow.

In fact the time is ripe for people of conscience to collectively stand up on the side of peace and say ‘No’ to war and violence. Organizations such as the ICRC, the WHO and Medicines Sans Frontiers have already taken up this call. Referring to the widespread destruction of health facilities and their dehumanizing results these organizations have said, among other things, that ‘This is not a failure of the law. It is a failure of political will.’

True, ‘failure of political will’ among those powers that matter accounts for the runaway, uncontrollable nature of war and destruction in contemporary times, but more fundamentally it is a failure of the human conscience. It could very well be that the phenomenal levels to which violence and war have been unleashed today have had the effect of deadening consciences. This is a matter for urgent study and wide discussion.

Features

Vesak celebrations … with Cuteefly

Published

6 mins ago

2026/05/28

Sahan Weerasooriya

Perfect for celebrations, gifts, and meaningful occasions // Gift pack

I would describe Indunil Kaushalya Dissanayaka as innovative and creative, and she operates under the name of Cuteefly.

Indunil always comes up with something novel to celebrate special occasions, and she does it with candles … and that’s her profession.

She was in the spotlight when she created a happening scene, with candles, for Christmas, Sinhala and Tamil New Year, and Valentine’s Day.

As lanterns light up Sri Lanka for Vesak, the Colombo-based candle maker is quietly turning wax and wick into little pieces of the festival.

Candles reflecting Vesak themes

Her candles reflect Vesak themes – light, peace, remembrance, giving, etc., to enable you to fill your Vesak celebration with devotion and beauty.

Among her Vesak creations is a lotus-shaped soy candle, scented with sandalwood, lavender, etc., meant to burn during this Vesak Poya Day.

Indunil Kaushalya Dissanayaka: Customers
praise her for her creativity

These handcrafted Vesak candles are perfect for offering at the temple, she says.

What makes her creations so novel is that they come in different shapes, scents, themes, and all are handmade.

What’s more, her customers have heaped praise on her for her creativity.

According to Indunil, her creations are perfect as a thoughtful gift … to bring beauty, unity, and light into every moment.

Says Indunil: “Our beautifully handcrafted Unity candles are designed with premium detail and love, making them perfect for celebrations, gifts, and meaningful occasions.”

Cuteefly, says Indunil, is available online.

Readers could contact Indunil on 0778506066 for more details.

He Facebook Page is: Cuteefly.

Handmade with love

Features

Dark Spots …

Published

7 mins ago

2026/05/28

Sahan Weerasooriya

Yes, dark spots do crop up on the skin, especially with sun exposure and, of course, as the skin ages.

However, these tips should be of immense benefit to those who are faced with dark spots.

* Lemon and Honey Glow Mask:

You will need 01 teaspoon lemon juice and 01 teaspoon honey.

Mix the lemon juice and honey well and then apply this mixture, only on the dark spots.

Leave for 10–15 minutes and then rinse with cool water.

Benefits:

Lemon helps brighten pigmentation.

Honey moisturises and heals skin.

Gives a natural glow.

* Aloe Vera Gel Treatment:

All you need is fresh aloe vera gel.

Apply the gel apply on dark spots, before going to bed.

Leave overnight and wash in the morning.

Benefits:

Reduces acne marks and pigmentation.

Soothes irritated skin.

Helps skin repair naturally.

* Turmeric and Yoghurt Paste:

You will need 01 teaspoon yoghurt and a pinch of turmeric

Mix the yoghurt and turmeric into a smooth paste and apply on affected areas.

Leave for 15 minutes and then wash gently with lukewarm water.

Benefits:

Turmeric brightens skin naturally.

Yoghurt removes dead skin cells.

Helps fade dark spots gradually.

Use these packs 02-03 times a week as results are generally seen over time.

You can also try this out: Mix a ripe papaya into a smooth paste and apply to the face, or directly on to the dark spots. Leave for 15-20 minutes and then wash with lukewarm water.