Features

Ekagei kaema (polyandry) – a way of life in the Kandyan highlands

Published

2 years ago

2024/08/11

by Jayantha Perera

Hingula is a small bazaar 60 miles from Colombo on the Colombo-Kandy Road. A narrow, tarred road starts from there, and a signboard says, ‘To Aluth Nuwara Devalayala.’ The logo of the Archaeological Department on the signboard indicates the devalaya (temple) is a state-protected archaeological site.

The temple is about two miles from the bazaar. The road winds through a breathtaking vista of green rice terraces cascading from low hills to narrow lowlands. The rice terraces, like thin carpets with precise lengths and widths, create a mesmerising sight. Large Mara (Samanea saman) trees and patches of tall teak trees provide shade to pedestrians. A rubber plantation and tiny homesteads with arecanut palms interspersed with clove gardens, fruit trees, and pepper vines displaying vibrant colours in sunlight. The winding road takes a right turn by a large open hut. It goes over the shoe bridge that spans a dry stream bed before arriving at the Devalgama Junction. There are several kiosks, and one of them is a tea boutique where old men read newspapers and chit-chat without any hurry to leave. My research assistant, the jeep driver, and I entered the kiosk and ordered tea with seen banis (a small round bun with melted sugar).

Our arrival at the village was met with a palpable sense of caution. This initial reaction is significant, reflecting the villagers’ wariness towards outsiders. Those at the kiosk, though initially reluctant to engage in conversation, studied our Mitsubishi Jeep with a mix of suspicion and curiosity. A man, perhaps the boldest among them, asked, “Policye mahathwaruda?” (Are you Police officers?) I reassured them that we were not and explained our plan to study the cooperative aspects of farming, particularly in rice farming and irrigation water management. However, they quickly dispersed, leaving the tea kiosk empty.

We visited the temple and worshipped the Dadimunda Deiyo (God). When we came out of the temple, Kapu Mahaththaya (the lay official of the temple) was waiting for us. He was a charming middle-aged man with a friendly smile. He had received a message from the Government Agent of Kegalle District that a team of researchers from Colombo was coming to Devalgama. He invited us for lunch at his aunt’s house. The house was an old waluwwa (mansion). Old paintings and photographs covered the walls of the large dining room. Two giant elephant tusks mounted on two mahogany blocks stood at the entrance.

I told Kapu Mahattaya we were looking for a hamlet to research the cooperative aspects of farming. He recommended Devith hamlet. I asked him to help us find a place to stay for a few months. He said residents might refuse to keep three young men in their homes. He advised us to remain where caste does not hamper our work.

Kapu Mahattaya informed us he owns a hut in a rice field. His wage workers seasonally stay there. The hut has a cement floor and a thatched roof. Two large windows open to the rice fields, bringing in sunlight and a cooling breeze. The two windows and the only door can be locked from inside. He showed us a shallow well just by the rice fields. There is a small toilet behind the house. He promised to find a woman to cook our meals.

We walked to the rice fields behind the house. The closest mountain formed a horseshoe with a small flat area in the middle for a pathaha (pond). A natural spring from a mountain watered it. Local legends say Dadimunda Deiyo caused a water spring to send water to the pond by striking the ground with his staff. We could see the mist gradually covering the hilltops and felt cold.

Kapu Mahattaya walked with us to meet an old woman. She agreed to cook our meals and told us to come to her hut for lunch and dinner. She wanted us to buy rice, vegetables, curry and chilli powder, salt, cooking oil, and coconuts from a nearby boutique. She told us we should have lunch before noon and dinner by 5.30 pm. We gave her Rs. 100 as an advance, which she happily accepted.

We unloaded our bags and sent the ARTI jeep back to Colombo. Kapu Mahattaya visited us in the evening. I told him we were happy to stay in the hut and thanked him for his generosity. When I asked him how to lock the hut from the outside, he promised to buy a padlock and a hasp from Hingula. He took us to the boutique behind the hut and introduced us to its owner and his wife. They offered us tea and hulang viscothu (air biscuits). We bought five pounds of rice, eggs, a packet of curry powder, salt, coconuts, vegetables, and a bottle of cooking oil from the boutique and delivered them to our cook. She cooked rice and a brinjal curry and prepared pol sambal for dinner.

We had kimbula banis (flat, hard buns) and sweetened plain tea for breakfast at the kadey. We then visited a randomly selected few houses, introduced ourselves, and explained why we stayed in the village. The villagers were cordial and particularly interested in our caste, marital status, and employment. This interest in our personal information is significant as it underscores the importance of social status and personal history in the community. An old man told us that there were two unresolved murder cases in the village. He wondered whether we were CID (police intelligence) officers who wanted to reopen the murder investigations.

Our interaction with villagers improved when Kanthi joined us as a field assistant. She was a Kapu Mahattaya’s relative. She was in her late thirties, divorced, and came from a pelanthiya (high social status group) in a nearby hamlet. She graduated from Peradeniya University with a degree in economics and worked as a research assistant in a development project. While in Kandy, she married a colleague against her parents’ advice. They ostracised her from the family for marrying an outsider. The marriage failed in two years, and she returned to her parents.

Kanthi introduced villagers to us, paying attention to their caste, class, and employment status. First, she introduced us to three feudal pelanthiya families who owned most of the village land. Kapu Mahattaya’s family was one of them. Then she introduced us to several goigama (cultivator caste) middle-class families. Some owned small pieces of land, and others were tenants. Kanthi took us to high-caste and goigama families before visiting achari (blacksmith) and vahumpura (potter) families. They were service castes who played an essential role in the temple’s festivals. Some of them cultivated temple land on lease and performed temple duties.

The villagers considered Kanthi to be a reliable person. They were happy to talk to us when she was with us. At our initial interviews, Kanthi answered the questions before the villagers answered them! She was a walking databank. Villagers checked their facts and numbers with her before answering our questions. They respected her because of her work to educate poor children and her readiness to help them regardless of their caste or class. After her father’s death, she became the de facto chief of her family. She managed rice and other crop cultivation on her ancestral lands.

Kanthi stayed with us for fieldwork from 9 am to 5.30 pm. She never visited us at our hut or invited us home. She preferred to discuss fieldwork arrangements at the tea boutique before the villagers. However, after two weeks, the villagers lost interest in our work and did not linger to listen to our discussions.

Kanthi taught us the structure of the village community and how economic, social, and political alliances overlap. She explained how pelantiyas go up and down in the social status ladder mainly because of debt, litigation, and gambling. I was interested in studying Kandyan marriage alliances such as diga (virilocal) and binna (matrilocal) and inheritance customs. However, she was reluctant to discuss issues with me because she did not want to reveal family tensions over inheritance in the context of her divorce.

One day, Kanthi brought a large cane basket of food. Her family had returned from a wedding and brought lots of food; she got a portion for us. While enjoying the food at the tea kiosk, she introduced us to a young man named Vijay. Vijay lived in Colombo, where he had a motorcycle business. Later, I asked Kanthi about him. She smiled and told me he visited his home only once a month. He was a married man, and his wife lived in the hamlet. Then she said Vijay and his brother, Ratne, shared one wife. It was a polyandrous marital arrangement known as ‘ekgei kanawa’ (eat and live together as one household). The three – Vijay, Ratne, and their wife, Kumari – maintained one household.

Kanthi was an excellent storyteller. One day she delved into the ekgei kaema institution in detail. Kumari was her friend and shared her secrets with her. As I was not a member of the village community, Kanthi did not mind telling me what she knew. Although Kumari was married to the two brothers, her favourite was Ratne, a farmer who lived in the village. Vijay wanted to keep Kumari from his elder brother, Ratne. He yielded to his parents’ pressure and agreed to share Kumari with Ratne in one household. The parents of Vijay and Ratne owned a large tract of ancestral land. They wanted to keep it from fragmenting through inheritance and succession. Their strategy was to get a ‘common’ wife for the two brothers and accept their ‘common’ children as heirs to the ancestral estate.

Vijay wanted to sell his property share to raise money and start a business in Kegalle. But his father opposed the proposal and told him to live with his brother and Kumari or leave the family. Vijay hesitated and then agreed to keep a joint household with his brother and Kumari. Kumari’s parents told her to marry Ratne and later insisted that she accept Vijay as her co-husband. She did not refuse because she knew her parents were keen to improve their social and economic status by having access to the large rice field jointly owned by Vijay and Ratne.

The two brothers informed Kumari in advance of their sleeping plans with her. Vijay and Ratne had no problem in this regard, as Vijay lived outside the village. Ratne and Kumari had lived a happy family life. Vijay’s monthly conjugal access to Kumari for a day or two did not disturb their peace at home. Soon, Vijay became a drunkard. When he returned home for a few days, he went out with his friends to Hingula and returned home after midnight. Ratne respected the ekgei kaema arrangement and always found an excuse to leave home when Vijay came home. Ratne was worried about Kumari, as, on several occasions, Vijay had assaulted her.

Kanthi explained the root cause of the new tension at Kumari’s house. Ratne wanted a child, but Vijay did not. Vijay feared that Ratne might impregnate Kumari as they were usually together. Ratne was willing to suspend his access to his wife for a month or more so that Vijay could impregnate Kumari, but on one condition—the next child had to be his. Kanthi said the proposal was risky and was against tradition. The children of a household that followed ekgei kaema rules were considered ‘common’ children of co-husbands, making them co-heirs to their parent’s property.

Knowing a child’s biological father might encourage the co-father to ill-treat the child. Also, if Vijay or Ratne were infertile, the proposed arrangement would not work. Such tensions would destroy the ekgei kana marriage, affecting the undivided property. Ratne was willing to treat Vijay’s child as his own if Ratne failed to beget an heir. Vijay was resentful of such arrangements and thought Kumari was behind such proposals. Kanthi worried that one day, the two brothers would resort to violence to resolve their relationship with Kumari, who had no voice in the proposals and negotiations.

Kanthi knew several other families that followed the ekgei kana arrangement. Tensions it could generate over children, spouses, and undivided property were usually kept as family secrets and never revealed to outsiders.

Devith hamlet is not an idyllic village community. It always has social tensions arising from caste, class, social status, and social arrangements such as ekgei kaema. People have developed tension management schemes as part of the village social organisation. The critical tension management lever is the rigid caste hierarchy and associated purity or impurity. Another is the belief that the mighty God, Dadimunda, controls the area and keeps an eye on the moral character of the local population. The temple murals depict the God as an elite Kandyan aristocrat. He punishes those who violate norms, customs, and rituals. The belief in fate also plays a crucial role in legitimising the caste hierarchy and managing tensions.

One is born into a low-caste family or lives a comfortable life as a feudal landlord because of past bad or good karma (action). The power of gossip and rumour is more potent than any of the above levers. Kanthi always cautioned me about gossip and rumours. She told me if I had visited her at her home, her neighbours and relatives would have suspected that she had found a lover or a man to marry her. They would have built a ‘reality’ on that assumption as part of the village narrative.

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Features

Beyond traditional jobs: Why Sri Lanka needs to facilitate the gig economy

Published

1 day 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

1 day 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

1 day 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.