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BE KIND!

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Be Kind was the watchword of the successful handling of the Covid-19 onslaught on Aotearoa – NZ and the lockdown that contributed in no small measure to that success. The people of this society had to be reminded to be kind as they are (particularly the Pakeha or white people) largely disconnected from their families and live self-centred and even selfish lives. They don’t really stay in touch with their “Whanau” or extended family as in the Maori word for it. Thinking out this in a Sri Lankan context brought back first-hand experiences of what I had seen and done in the Pearl, in the past.

I know of people who took their workmates from the Tamil community home in their personal vehicles (the bosses’ were not willing to risk the company vehicles!) through rampaging mobs, during that terrible day in July 1983. Others visited refugee camps a few days later and took their Tamil friends home to their houses and sheltered them. Of course, so many people simply took affected people in during the riots and when the mobs were looting their houses. During the 1989 JVP uprising, a person I know risked life limb and his precious 4wd vehicle to transport food and salaries to a national park that would have ceased to exist if that trip had not happened. All those of you who enjoy (what is left of) Yala National park, take heed! Some of those people have passed on and others departed the land, they have no “Desha” titles to show for what they did and if they could see some holders of these state awards, I am sure they would reject them, should they have even been offered!
Lending spare vehicles to friends in need during family bereavements and other difficult circumstances. “Lending” money with absolutely no intention of ever getting it back to friends in need even though the lender was not that rich either but simply because the friend’s need was greater, was all “par for the course” in those days. One tended to anticipate a friend’s need and offer help before it was actually asked for and thereby spare his friend the embarrassment of having to ask. I wonder if that happens now. Think about it esteemed reader, have you ever done such a thing? If you have, kudos to you, if you haven’t why not? Surely there have been friends who needed help. Surely those extra cars parked in your garages and gathering dust can help someone to get to a course and develop some new skills or take someone’s child or parent to the hospital. Or earn some redundant worker a living by serving as an Uber cab.

I have benefited from holidays in five-star resorts, trips abroad and memorable experiences (with air tickets thrown in) by friends and relations who wanted to help me through difficult times or had the generosity to invite me to join them for family celebrations. They have got nothing in return, this I admit with embarrassment!! I am eternally grateful and above all I thank them for opening my mind to a way of thinking that encompassed helping others in need.
One point I wish to make is, all the people I know who have done these things, are from the BOOMER generation, born in the 1950s and ’60s. Not from the younger generations who seem to think that they have the right to rule the country now. This is one of the reasons why I think they are not fit to rule. They have not made personal sacrifices and gone out of their way to help people in need. I’m sure some of them have but I have yet to meet one! They haven’t been KIND from a position of being in want for themselves. Certainly, some sons of millionaires may have done some philanthropy, but has it been spontaneous, has it been before they were asked or told to do it? If so “good on them” and it would be nice to hear of it. Just think of it if you ever read this piece and have done such things, simply thinking of it gives you a warm glow all over, doesn’t it? That is the true reward of kindness!
One of the reasons why I left my beloved Pearl, was that I got sick of listening to “businessmen” at cocktail parties boasting on how they exploit their workers and get them to work horrendous hours for less and less money! This type of conversation together with the latest racket and plan to break the law had taken over from the “intelligent” conversation and friendly banter that I had grown up with within the houses of my parent’s and their friends. I am glad to say that those standards have been reintroduced into our lives in Aotearoa and “talking shop” (which incidentally means talking business and not talking nonsense as it is now construed to mean in SL) is banned. In fact, I know parents who have had to stop their children who try to put business deals through during gathering of their friends! I guess most of you younger generation would wonder what was wrong with that….I rest my case.
Even in Aotearoa- NZ, I know of Sri Lankans who make up food parcels, cooked at home, and walk the cold, dreary, and not too safe streets of the inner city, in winter, to distribute them to homeless people who are sheltering in doorways and abandoned buildings. These people are not rich by any means, but they feel for their fellow beings, and they do what they can to help. These are not habits and behaviour’s learned in NZ, these are brought from our own land and inculcated in us by our culture and heritage. Are we still doing those things in the land that was once the Pearl of the Indian Ocean? I know we are at least some of us but shouldn’t more of us teach ourselves to be kind.
The answer to the terrible woes we face in the Pearl has no solutions except within ourselves. We need to be KIND to those around us and to ourselves. We need to empower the people around us and teach them to think for themselves and to grow themselves and our beloved motherland. Grow beyond petty party politics and out of the clutches of corrupt politicians. Learn to choose leaders from KIND, educated, and cultured people, who we can look up to for guidance. People who have proper motives and long-term objectives for the betterment of the country. Can you think of five current politicians who can fit this bill?
If so, I would like to hear those names, because I am sorry, but I cannot!



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Features

A case for the non-essential

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A street drama performance at the Sri Jayewardenepura University. (Image courtesy SJU)

by Ruth Surenthiraraj

Recent events surrounding the ABBA tribute concert held in Colombo brought to light certain long-standing questions particularly to do with the arts and the idea of leisure. While I will not pretend that I can capture the spectrum of responses that were offered on the fact that some NPP politicians had attended the concert, I am intrigued by what I thought was a dominant critique. The politicians were viewed as being hypocrites because they came in on a promise of focusing on the most immediate needs of the people and were then seen at a concert, something non-essential to the jobs they were elected to do.

This vein of critique is not really a new one to the arts, particularly to the performing and fine arts. Often, artists find themselves having to defend their creations because they are viewed as being non-essential. Indeed, anything that is remotely related to entertainment or leisure is often seen as being unnecessary and, therefore, easily dispensable. This is true regardless of whether you are studying or working. In fact, entertainment, leisure, or the space to create is often perceived as being directly and positively correlated to being able to afford either the time or the resources to enjoy it.

In this sense, we seem to have ample historical evidence. Certain forms of either entertainment or leisure have been specifically linked to having access to a certain lifestyle. You are more likely to be able to enjoy painting or sport or music if you are more well-to-do or you are born into a certain class. And if we have stories of artists or sportspeople from lower income families, it is more often than not because they have struggled against the grain and perhaps even caught a lucky break.

The problem with this view, however, is that it often leads to a faulty conclusion: we assume that leisure or alternative interests are only feasible when one has money to dispose of comfortably – or if you come from a certain class or can claim a particular social status. If you extended this argument to its rational conclusion, we are really suggesting that the poor or the working classes need not enjoy something that is not directly linked to the fulfilment of their basic needs. We often assume that if you are struggling to make it from day to day, then you can dispense with the idea that leisure or entertainment is necessary This assumption is a dangerous one because it ascribes more value to the life of the rich or the ‘well-born’ and feeds into the lie that leisure is not a vital part of enjoying life as a human being with dignity.

This acknowledgement becomes even more important when we think of students today. While they are often encouraged to get involved in extracurricular activities because it will flesh out their CVs and get them through the door into better employment opportunities, the discussion does not often go beyond this point. I am not saying that extracurricular or leisure activities cannot make you a better employee. But does this mean that our entire lives are defined by the employment we have or hope to have? Does it also mean that we should cut out all ‘non-essential’ activities that do not directly benefit our careers? And what happens when we give students the impression that if anything does not directly benefit their future employability, then they should be spending less time and effort on it?

I am myself guilty of this utilitarian approach. In one of my classes recently, I discovered that a fair number of students had not seemed to have done very much extracurricular work in school. I expressed my shock and horror and proceeded to tell them to try at least a few other activities in university. I then found myself having to justify why I would ask them to do such a thing and found myself blithely going on about how it will teach them skills of teamwork and handling difficult tasks or complex personalities. But when I thought back to that experience much later, I realized that I too had been guilty of reducing the inner or alternative lives of my students into something that was or was not capable of adding to their employability.

When we treat employability as the only measurement by which we decide if an activity is valuable or not, we are inadvertently telling our students that other measurements, like enjoyment or beauty or satisfaction, are invalid ways of deciding if something can be important to us. Students should not be made to feel guilty about spending their time on activities that are not directly seen as gainful. Instead, they should be encouraged to see that a fully embraced life requires multiple ways of measuring experiences that we encounter. In fact, an individual who can coherently hold together these varying ways of valuing the world will be more easily able to embrace realities that are complex.

But let’s get down to the brass tacks of why we should be encouraging students to do more activities that they enjoy instead of hyper-focusing everything they do on employability.

When did we last do something we truly loved without thinking twice about whether it would be helpful to our careers? But this joy of indulging in something that brings you satisfaction is exactly what we might be taking away from our students. By increasingly pressurizing them to keep performing within a hypercompetitive world, we seem to be sapping the last of their individuality and sense of self. If they are not routinely taught that they can enjoy themselves outside of their study or work, we will be facilitating the advent of a generation that eventually lacks the capacity to enjoy life itself. In fact, it is even more difficult to remind our students that they are allowed to not excel at something in life. The greatest pitfall of the employability perspective on extracurricular activities is that students now feel that if they do something other than studies, they must do it perfectly or perform at the highest level in order to justify their continuing of that activity. Practice does make perfect – but have we ever considered also telling them that it’s ok to not be the best in everything they undertake? In fact, I think we must consciously begin to encourage students to do something they love even if they are bad at it, rather than hail students who might be average at something they are indifferent to.

My point is that being indifferent (basically incapable of intense emotion) towards an activity is the worst way a learner could approach something – because this indifference strips you of any need to envision a better outcome or want something that is different. And I would argue that we need to actively encourage the ‘loves’ of our students – regardless of their success – if we are to combat this crippling and far more insidious indifference to life itself. A student who is capable of love towards an extracurricular or leisure activity can be enticed to love the curiosity of learning: a student who is indifferent may offer us no inroad to entice them at all.

I also strongly believe that encouraging students to have lives that encompass spheres other than their education or potential employment will help them navigate the reality of loss and failure with more composure and resilience. We often end up mistaking the fact that interest in something should automatically lead to easy success at it.. Often, though, we are deeply unaware or consciously blinding ourselves to the reality of failure or defeat. While failure can have very far-reaching consequences in education or employment, should we not have an alternative way in which our students might be able to prepare themselves for failure as a normal part of life itself? Continuing to do something I am bad at simply because I love to keep trying is a wonderful way in which I can think of how to navigate disappointment and failure as normal experiences.

To me, the discourses surrounding the ABBA event served as a reminder of how easily we seem to dismiss the vital nature of extracurricular or leisure activities. These ‘non-essentials’ often help us discover what truly brings us joy outside of our work or study. And it is good to be occasionally reminded that we need not feel guilty about creating the time or the space for enjoying other aspects of our lives.

(Ruth is a teacher of English as a second language at a state university)

Kuppi is a politics and pedagogy happening on the margins of the lecture hall that parodies, subverts, and simultaneously reaffirms social hierarchies.

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Features

Different scene for Manilal

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Manilal’s son-in-law Toby, with grandson Matteo, and his four children – Tashiya, Riccardo, Zak and Viola

Manilal Perera is well-know, both here and abroad, as a singer of repute, and a classy entertainer, as well, and he has been doing this scene for 40-plus years.

He has no plans to retire, he says, and will go on entertaining as long as he has the strength to get up on stage and do his thing. And, I’m sure this is good news for music lovers.

The singer’s foursome at daughterTashiya’s house, in Germany, after the wedding

The ‘different scene,’ Manilal referred to, is his personal life and he quite proudly said that he has probably created history…as a Sri Lankan!

The record he has set, according to the singer, is that he has four kids, from three marriages: Two from his Italian wife (Viola, 22, and Riccardo, 19), one from his British wife (Zack, 26), and one from his German wife (Tashiya, 29).

In fact, Manilal travelled to Germany for Tashiya’s wedding, which was on 3rd October, 2024, and he had for company all of his kids, at the weddig.

He was there solely as the father of the bride and didn’t take the mic to exercise his vocal cords in order to entertain the guests. However, there was a German band in attendance, he said.

Manilal Perera: Christmas Eve at Grand Kandyan Hotel, in Kandy

Unfortunately, none of his kids have decided to follow in the footsteps of their singing dad.

Manilal’s overseas trip took him to Italy, as well, and now he is back home…relaxing, he says.

Music-wise, he mentioned that he has some gigs coming up.

Christmas Eve (24th) he will be seen in action at the Grand Kandyan Hotel, in Kandy.

“I’m also in talks with a five-star venue, in Colombo, regarding doing some regular dates, probably with a three-piece setup.”

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Features

Holiday experience with ‘Christmas Forever’

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Julian and Jason - JJ Twins: Innovative Christmas album

Yes, the holiday season is here, so get ready to groove into the festive activities, especially with the JJ Twins’ innovative Christmas album, ‘Christmas Forever.’

The album contains six original R&B-infused tracks that blend Soulful harmonies, Funky beats, Heartfelt lyrics, and a Fresh Holiday Sound.

According to the JJ Twins, ‘Christmas Forever’ is not your typical holiday album. It’s a vibrant, contemporary take on the season, infused with the Twins’ signature style, they say.

The tracks are ‘Christmas Forever’, ‘All I Want Is You This Christmas’, ‘Fell In Love On Christmas Eve’, ‘Home For Christmas’, ‘Joy To The World’ and ‘You & I’.

The twins also mentioned that by purchasing a CD it would help them invest in their future music projects.

To purchase your copy in Sri Lanka, you need to contact Estella on WhatsApp or call +94776369442, and if you are in Australia, contact Soke on +61 457 002 002 or email: inquiry@magneticpromotions.com.au or visit magneticpromotions.com.au for more details.

“We greatly appreciate you buying a copy as a Memorabilia and supporting us in our journey, say the Twins.

They also mentioned that uplifting anthems, sultry slow jams and festive fusion tracks are available on Magnetic Records and on all major streaming platforms – Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Google Play.

Readers could follow the JJ Twins on: YouTube: @jjtwins; Instagram: jjtwinsofficial; TikTok: jjtwinsmusic; Facebook: jjtwinssingers, and BandsInTown: jjtwins.

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