Features

Jungles, ruins and shipwrecks

Published

5 years ago

2022/03/20

by Somasiri Devendra

Jungles fascinate me. It was a fascination that had been kindled by my father, as well as John Still, both of whom were archaeologists and writers. But, somehow, I never became one who trod the forest ways regularly. The jungle spoke to me in a different idiom – to my heart rather than my head.

Father, a teacher before turning archaeologist, became our teacher in English literature. Our text was John Still’s The jungle tide and, from the beginning, both the teacher and the author held the class spellbound. The slow progress made through the opening chapter describing a rain forest only served to stamp more deeply in my mind the world that was the jungle.

Years later I read Leonard Woolf’s haunting description of the dry zone jungle in Village In The Jungle. I always think of these two kinds of jungle – rain forest described by Still and secondary scrub by Woolf – in their words.

Trips with an archaeologist

Not long after he interpreted Still to us, father joined the Archaeological Survey of Ceylon, as it was then. He loved the work and found every excuse to go on circuit, leaving his desk. Each time he came back, he was brimful of experiences and what we learnt from him round the dining table was more than anything a university could teach.

His interests were eclectic and the tale would flit effortlessly from treasure hunters at a ruined dagoba, to a dung beetle at work, the cult of Aiyanar, a bungalow-keeper’s encounter with a wild elephant, the migrant birds, the gaemi-kavi of village pilgrims seeking male progeny from Kalu Devatha Bandara (the guardian-deity of the Sri Maha Bodhiya), and the man who manufactured sarvagna dhathu.

Being then in the class preparing for an examination, I could go with him only occasionally, but even that was wonderful. Striking inland from Puttalam, on the way to Anuradhapura, the road was, in season, bordered by weera trees in bearing and we would stop to break down the most reachable branches and strip off all the berries. He would nonchalantly remark that this was elephant country and they, too relished these berries.

Passing through the Kurunegala route, we never went past the Aiyanar jungle shrine, a mere tree, without plucking off a twig and offering it to this mysterious deity. The tree-shrine, thankfully, is still there.

Ambitious development schemes were afoot and father went to inspect work at Gal Oya, where bulldozers were turning back the jungle tide. The impact of these behemoths must have made a strong impression on him: I still have his photographs of trees being pulled down. Perhaps, it was this that prompted him to induct us into our fast disappearing cultural and environmental heritage.

Veddha songs

He took us to see the Veddahs, who were old men in the late 1940s. They sang us their songs swaying to a rhythm of their own. It was hardly music to our ears but, definitely, a far cry from what is touted as Veddah music today. Among father’s favourite verses were a gaemi kaviya in praise of Sorabora Wewa (which Seligman attributed to the Veddahs, though this is unlikely).

The verses begin with –

Paalu rata-i Vanni-ye etha-nin oha ta

Golu gene panithi veli-hinniyo aenga ta

Seru avith dive-kelinaa sonde ruwa ta

Yaa-lu thopith giyado horabora weva ta?

“It’s waste land in the Vanni from here onwards, Screaming, the she-bear will pounce on you

And the seruwas sport in the water, pleasing the eye And you, friend, have you, too, been to Sorabora lake?”

and end thus:-

Horabora waevey weva degodey vananrata rey

Kapaa gal kaanu egodata eliya ke ley

Nelaa mal pahan veherata eganthe rey

Horabora wewa n

udutu aes motada pin ke ley?

“Deep in the forest on either bank

Sluices cut in the rock tap the water.

You offer flowers and light lamps at the shrine on the other bank

But of what use is merit to you, you eyes that have not seen Sorabora lake?”

Rantembe

Another jungle trek in Veddah country was from Aluthnuwara, through the jungle to Rantembe. All this must be under water now with the construction of the Rantembe resovoir, but it was thick jungle then and we had to go in single file. If the nade gura or leader found a rock on the path he warned galak (stone), and the one behind him repeated the warning. which went drawn the single file till it reached the last man, our driver, who duly repeated it to whoever was behind him, hoping nobody was!

The rapids of Rantembe were worth every aching muscle to see. The sheer power, the roar of the Mahaveli forced into a narrow gorge was reward enough. You cannot see any of this now: so our induction to the vanishing loveliness of Lanka was something worthwhile.

“Elephant” at Tantirimalai

Another day, we were following a footpath to Tantirimale, a temple in the jungle which was famous for its unfinished reclining Buddha statue, pre-historic drawings in a cave and an ancient bo tree growing out of a crack in a slab of rock.

We were about to climb up an incline, which was really the bund of an abandoned tank, when we suddenly saw a man on a bicycle atop the bund. He was wearing sunglasses in the jungle gloom. Seeing us, he let out a yell, dropped his bike and took to the trees! When we had rescued him still trembling, he had an explanation to offer: “I thought your jeep was an elephant”. Therein lay the moral: do not wear sunglasses in the jungle!

Farewell circuit

The year I graduated from Peradeniya and started work as a teacher at Kegalle father gave me HCP Bell’s Kegalle report to make me get my historical bearings. He also decided that he would retire from the Department – though not archaeology. He set about planning a long circuit, a final good-bye to all his beloved sites, as well as to follow up reports of some new finds. This time, I went with him.

Again, I remember the barely cleared monastic site of Arankele with its long, long sakinan-maluwa (pathway for meditation). On the way we stopped at a living forest hermitage, Ruwangirikanda, where we saw many a hermit and understood what moved a man to seek the solitude of the forest. Near Arankele was Gala-pica-gala (rock-upon-a-rock) where I learnt the principles of wind erosion. And so we went from one jungle ruin to another.

Off Polonnaruwa, we went towards Dimbulagala, which was dubbed Gunner’s Quoin by sailors at sea who used to take their bearings from it. On the way we trekked to a group of boulders entirely surrounded by forest, but not yet excavated. This was Pulligoda Gal-ge (gal-ge = cave). On one of its sides was a beautiful fresco of a group of celestial beings. I was told that these were either the earliest or the only examples – I forget which – of the use of the halo on beings other than the Buddha.

Walking back to where we had parked the car, we came upon a site called Kos-gaha Ulpotha. It was a jungle spring of beautifully clear water.

At Dimbulagala, a man seeking a place for meditation had come to live in a cave. His mission was to destroy the paintings. He would comb the forest for buffalo dung and, in the nights dissolve it in water into a paint-like consistency and using a broomstick as a brush, paint over all the ancient paintings. By the time his act became known, it was impossible to remove the offending layer without destroying the paintings under it. The chemists were yet working on the problem. We saw the damage, but what could one do?

A lucky escape

I had another adventure in those parts. It was twenty years or so later, when I was working in Trincomalee. Kantalai was fully colonized by then. One day, friends visiting my brother, then the Government Agent, offered me a ride to Colombo. Gallantly, they gave me the front seat of the absolutely new car. We had passed Kantalai tank and the light was beginning to fade. There was a wide curve in the road and Joe, who was driving, asked me to switch off the tape-recorder so that he could switch on the lights.

I did not know how to do it, so he leaned over and did it. At that moment, an elephant thundered out of the jungle, where people were clearing a chena, and ran across the road. Joe promptly stood on the brakes but, before he could bring the car to a dead halt, another elephant, only about six6 to seven feet in height, ran in front of us. We hit him broadside, between the front and hind legs.

Caught in mid stride, he fell over; legs rolling up under the impact. Joe did a quick gear change and we took off like a rocket, swerving round the prone animal, just as the rest of the herd ran out of the jungle behind us. We kept going at top speed for about ten minutes, before getting out to assess the damage The radiator grill had caved in but, luckily the headlight and radiator itself were unharmed and we could go on. We reported the incident at the Habarana Police Station and carried on.

Flood relief

In 1958, we had torrential rains and floods in the country, including the least expected areas in the dry zone As was usual in such instances, all and sundry began collecting contributions for the flood victims and we teachers at Ananda College, too collected a sizeable stock. We were advised not to hand over the money but to adopt one of the affected villages and rehabilitate it. Our village was Hiriwadunna, some miles before reaching Habaran from Colombo. Apart from looking after the immediate needs of the villagers, we teachers in the upper forms used the village as a field laboratory, taking groups of student on various surveys that brought to life history, geography, botany, and the way of life in a village. What an experience it turned out to be! Probing old men’s memories turned out to be a great learning adventure.

Something the villagers said would have made eminent sense today. They were able to trace the water that came to their tank from its source: “When a tank overflowed, that water came to another tank, and when that too overflowed, it went to a third” and so on, tracing the route traversed by the water in their own tank from the beginning to the very end.

Decades later, when the cascade system was understood by our irrigation engineers, I related this concept to some of them and they admitted that they had never tapped the villagers’ reservoir of oral history.

When I asked the old folk whether there were ruins in the jungle around them, they undertook to show them to me. So I trekked with them to a thickly forested spot not far away, and came upon the remains of a small monastery. There were columns and slabs pushed aside by the living trees as they grew, and yet untouched by the archaeologist. I could not find any inscription to copy, but came upon a stone cistern, made of four slabs of stone, about waist high. Three of these were still upright, forming three sides of a square, and the fourth was lying flat on the ground. It showed two grooves chiseled for the other slabs to fit in snugly. This fit was good enough to last many centuries. I wonder how many ruins, like this one, are hidden in the forest.

Pooneryn

In the 1960s when I was in the Navy, we were called upon to open a new camp in an area totally unknown to us, but which is familiar to many now. There was an operation on to combat illicit immigration from India to Sri Lanka.

The Navy went to reinforce the Army and the sector allocated to us was Pooneryn, off Vavuniya. It was a forested, sparsely populated area just beyond an old Dutch Fort. The base camp, which was a collection of aluminium sheds, was set up in a clearing. We had a string of small outposts along the seashore to watch for incoming boats. Small groups of men would patrol those lovely, lonely beaches. There was only the main road, but none leading to the outposts until jeeps crashed through the undergrowth making tracks that later became roads.

So little was happening there and game was plentiful, that everyone became a hunter or fisherman. Driving through the open villu, we often came upon jackals, who were not in the least perturbed by us, peacocks and elephants. I remember seeing my first Ceylon magpie. The open stretch near base camp was like a slate on which was freshly written every night the tracks of all kinds of animals which had wandered there.

The outposts had to be visited day and night. During the day, we found it easier to drive along the beach from one point to another. There was no sign of anybody else or animals, but there was plenty of bird life. The most intriguing animals were fish, which swam in the very foam of the waves. As we roared and skidded along the beach, we could see before us fish after fish diving back to the deeper waters as they sensed our approach.

At night we kept to the roads. Driving through patches of arching forest alternating with open villu, one could predict which of the two he was passing through with his eyes shut. The skin was the sensory organ, for one felt warm while traversing forests and cold in the villu. It was exhilarating to go from warmth to coldness, from bright moonlight to “tunnels of green gloom”. As always, it is the sights, sounds, smells and other physical phenomena that spell “jungle” to me.

Elephants were plentiful. We had unknowingly built one post under a large tree the elephants used to scratch their backs on. The entire tree would start shaking in the night and the human inhabitants would seek refuge on the beach! One night I remember driving back along an abandoned tank bund, which was blocked by branches torn down by elephants. There was no way of reversing, so we had to get down and clear the way. Steaming piles of elephant droppings were around us and we could hear the culprits pulling more branches. But they were not worried by our presence and both animal and man went their separate ways peacefully. Pooneryn was a wonderful place then.

Mansions of the sea

The year was 1930. The scene was Dodanduwa, the last home of the traditional three-masted sailing ships of the Sinhalese, the yathra dhoni or maha-oruwa. The occasion was the launching of a ship. Two friends, one an entrepreneur and the other a seaman, had joined forces to build and launch this vessel that, though no one knew it at the time, was fated to be the last of her breed.

Kariyavasam Patuvata Vithanage Don Siyadoris de Silva, land owner, and Punchi Sinno Marakkalaehe, mariner, hoped that their freighter, by now named Amugoda Oruva, would do brisk business with South India and the Maldives. To mark her maiden voyage to Male, verses were composed, among which was:-

Gaman yanna naekatin oruva baa geney

Saman deyiyanta puda panduru baenda geney

Viman sagarey kanu mul soya geney

Apit yamuva haema deviyanta vaenda geney

“Auspiciously have we launched our vessel

And made our offerings to the god of Adam’s Peak

Let us now worship all the gods and go In search of the mansions of the sea.”

No god, alas, heard their pious prayers and the proud ship foundered on the reefs of Male, leaving those left behind in Dodanduwa to sing her dirges:

Metaenin oruva baa laa gati varaayata

Diyamba porn sata divve tharangataya

Kopamana ruval aedalaa divvat sondata

Amugoda oruva tava naeta aave gamata

“From here was the vessel taken to the port

And many a league did she race along under sail,

But however many sails were hoisted, and however fair she sailed

Amugoda Oruva never made home again.”

Sixty years or so later I was in Galle, organizing an international group of maritime archaeologists who were training a clutch of our young archaeology undergraduates and, at the same time, compiling a data base of shipwrecks in Galle Bay. Among the group was Tom Vosmer, an Australian boat ethnographer, with whom I discussed the Amugoda Oruwa and the large 100-year old model of a yathra dhoni at Kumarakanda Pirivena, Dodanduwa, that I had been privileged to photo record.

Tom was enthusiastic, for this was the last of a type of large outrigger-equipped sailing ships which could be traced back to the time of Borobudur. Days were spent in examining the model, and measuring, photographing and making detailed drawings of structural details. Built by the young son of a ship-owner, around 1890, it had been awarded a gold medal by the Governor. Tom considered that its accuracy, both in scale and detail, made it a fairly reliable source for (????????)

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Features

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

Published

2 days ago

2026/09/25

Thilina Walpola

Image courtesy Oxford University

by Kapila Chinthaka Premarathne
Head of the Department of Agricultural Systems and a Senior Lecturer in Agricultural Economics at the Faculty of Agriculture,
Rajarata University of Sri Lanka

Beyond the Graduate Unemployment Number

Sri Lanka’s economic recovery has improved macroeconomic stability, but youth unemployment remains a significant labour-market concern. Around 43% of Sri Lankan youth aged 15–24 with postsecondary education are unemployed, the highest among the Asian economies compared in the IMF analysis, compared with about 36% in Bangladesh and 13.2% in Thailand. This reflects a problem of skills mismatches and the difficulty of connecting higher education with changing labour-market demand. The concern goes beyond unemployment itself. Sri Lanka has invested heavily in educating its younger population, yet the conventional labour market is not creating enough opportunities to convert these qualifications into income. Many young people possess degrees, technical knowledge and growing digital familiarity, but remain outside formal employment because suitable jobs may not exist in the right place, at the right time or under conditions compatible with their circumstances. This makes it necessary to think beyond traditional employment models and explore new ways of connecting Sri Lanka’s educated youth with economic opportunities.

This is where Sri Lanka needs to reconsider how it understands employment

Employment has traditionally been viewed through the employer–employee relationship, with qualifications leading to a formal job and regular salary. While this model remains important, digital platforms are creating new ways to generate income, allowing individuals to work for multiple clients across geographical boundaries without permanent employment. Sri Lanka therefore needs to look beyond simply creating conventional jobs and consider whether it is building the conditions for its educated population to participate in the growing global market for digital services.

The Opportunity of the Gig Economy

The gig economy extends far beyond ride-hailing and delivery services. Digital platforms increasingly connect skilled individuals with opportunities in software development, design, accounting, data analysis, digital marketing, translation, online education, research and consultancy. This is particularly relevant to Sri Lanka, where a highly educated population faces a relatively limited domestic market for specialised skills. Digital platforms can overcome geographical constraints by connecting Sri Lankan workers directly with international clients.

As highlighted in my previous LSE South Asia article on women and the gig economy, such work should not replace formal employment but can create additional income opportunities when supported by appropriate skills, digital infrastructure, training and institutional support. A skilled person in Anuradhapura, Jaffna, Batticaloa or Monaragala could potentially serve clients in London, Melbourne or Dubai without first relocating to Colombo. This makes the gig economy relevant not only to employment but also to Sri Lanka’s emerging digital services-export strategy.

A Digitally Familiar Generation

Sri Lanka’s younger generation is growing up with smartphones, social media, online learning, digital applications and digital financial services, giving them a level of digital familiarity that previous generations did not have. However, digital familiarity does not automatically translate into digital employability. The challenge is to transform everyday digital use into productive skills such as data analysis, artificial intelligence, software development, digital marketing, financial analysis and online professional services.

Sri Lanka therefore needs to move young people from being consumers of digital services to producers of digital value. Universities, vocational institutions and training providers can play an important role in converting existing digital familiarity into marketable skills that connect young people with both domestic and international opportunities. This is increasingly important as technological change and AI reshape labour markets and intensify the need for skills that match emerging forms of work.

The Gender Dimension

The gig economy may be particularly relevant to women, who often face barriers to conventional employment arising from childcare, eldercare, mobility, social expectations and rigid working arrangements. For mothers and women living outside major urban centres, fixed working hours and daily commuting can make formal employment difficult even when suitable jobs exist.

Digital gig work can provide greater flexibility, allowing women to undertake professional assignments from home or their communities and potentially serve international clients without relocating. As discussed in my earlier LSE South Asia article, this opportunity is most meaningful when supported by digital infrastructure, skills training, virtual work hubs, mentorship and appropriate institutional support. However, flexibility should expand women’s economic choices rather than simply add paid work to existing unpaid household responsibilities.

Pressure on Labour-Market Opportunity

The value of a job cannot be judged by salary alone, as commuting, working hours and household responsibilities can significantly affect its real economic value. Flexible digital work can potentially reduce some of these costs by allowing people to work from home or nearby digital hubs and participate in employment on a part-time or project basis. While gig work cannot solve all household pressures, a more flexible organisation of work can create additional employment opportunities while helping households manage their limited time and resources more effectively.

A Possible Third Option Between Unemployment and Migration

Sri Lanka’s migration and brain-drain concerns highlight the need to explore employment opportunities beyond the domestic labour market. While overseas migration will remain an important individual and economic choice, digital work can provide another pathway by allowing skilled Sri Lankans to serve international clients without physically leaving the country. Software developers, designers, analysts, researchers, translators and consultants can potentially earn from global markets while remaining in Sri Lanka. Digital gig work cannot eliminate migration or reverse brain drain, but it can create an additional option between domestic unemployment and physical migration—working for the world while remaining in Sri Lanka.

Recognising and Making Digital Work Reputable

A major institutional gap is that conventional systems are designed around salaried employment, while a freelancer may earn from multiple clients without a single employer or salary certificate. This can make legitimate digital workers difficult to recognise when they seek loans, leasing, insurance or business finance. Sri Lanka could address this through a voluntary digital-worker or independent-professional registration mechanism, providing a recognised economic identity based on qualifications, verified skills, platform activity and documented income, without creating unnecessary bureaucracy.

Such recognition should also make digital income bankable. Banks could assess verified platform earnings, bank transactions, contracts, invoices, tax records, savings and repayment history alongside conventional employment documents. A standardised digital income statement could further help workers demonstrate their financial capacity. The key shift is from asking “Who is your employer?” to asking “Can your income be verified and is it sufficiently stable?”. This would allow successful digital workers to build financial credibility and use their earnings to access credit, acquire assets and develop their own businesses.

Digital Payments Are Part of the Labour Market

Access to reliable international payment systems is essential if Sri Lankans are to participate effectively in the global digital economy. Recent developments in PayPal’s local banking arrangements, including its partnerships with Sampath Bank and Commercial Bank, indicate progress in this direction. However, the broader priority should be a regulated and efficient digital-payment ecosystem that allows workers to receive international earnings, transfer them to Sri Lankan bank accounts, document their income and meet relevant financial and tax requirements with minimal friction. International payment infrastructure is therefore not simply a technology issue; it is an essential component of Sri Lanka’s emerging services-export economy.

Building Infrastructure Outside Colombo

Digital familiarity alone is insufficient without reliable internet, electricity, computers, software and suitable working environments, particularly in rural and underserved areas. To ensure that the gig economy supports regional development rather than becoming another Colombo-centred opportunity, Sri Lanka could establish regional digital-work hubs through universities, vocational institutions, libraries and public-private partnerships. These hubs could provide connectivity, equipment, training, mentoring and assistance with platform registration and international payments. If graduates must migrate to Colombo simply to access such infrastructure, the geographical advantage of digital work is significantly reduced.

From Freelancer to Entrepreneur

Gig work should not be viewed as an end in itself. A person may begin with small online assignments, develop regular clients and professional credibility, and eventually establish a small digital enterprise. This creates a potential pathway from graduate to freelancer, professional service provider and entrepreneur, allowing individuals to create markets around their own skills rather than waiting for conventional vacancies. Universities can support this transition by teaching students not only subject knowledge but also portfolio development, market identification, client communication, digital platforms and contract management. A degree demonstrates educational attainment, while a professional portfolio demonstrates what a graduate can offer to the market.

Facilitation Must Be Matched by Protection

Promoting the gig economy without appropriate safeguards could simply transfer employment risks from institutions to individuals. Digital workers may face uncertain incomes, weak bargaining power and limited social protection. Sri Lanka should therefore facilitate digital work while also ensuring opportunities for independent workers to build savings, access insurance and participate in portable social-protection mechanisms. Flexibility should create greater economic choice without compromising long-term financial security, particularly for women.

A regional Example from India: Think Globally and act Locally

India provides a useful regional example of how the gig economy can be approached as a policy issue rather than simply as informal or temporary work. NITI Aayog has estimated the size and future employment potential of India’s gig and platform economy and has developed recommendations covering employment generation, skills, financial inclusion and social protection. More importantly, India has begun creating institutional mechanisms around these workers. Its e-Shram portal provides a national database of unorganised workers, including gig and platform workers, creating a recognised identity through which workers can potentially access employment, skills development and social-security services. India has also explored platform-led skills development through skill certificates, skill passports and on-the-job training, while NITI Aayog has proposed cash-flow-based lending models that could allow platform workers to demonstrate creditworthiness through their earnings rather than conventional employment or collateral.

Social protection has also entered the policy framework. India’s Code on Social Security, 2020 formally recognises gig and platform workers and provides a basis for schemes covering areas such as accident insurance, health, maternity, disability and old-age protection. India is still developing and refining these arrangements, and Sri Lanka need not replicate the Indian model.

However, the experience demonstrates an important policy lesson: the gig economy can be supported through a system that identifies workers, develops their skills, makes their income more visible to financial institutions and extends appropriate social protection. Sri Lanka could develop its own simpler framework suited to its smaller economy, beginning with recognising digital workers and building the institutional conditions that allow their skills and earnings to become part of the formal economy.

Rethinking Employment and the Next Opportunity

The 43 percent figure for educated young Sri Lankans should encourage a wider discussion about the changing nature of work. Sri Lanka will continue to need conventional employment through firms, industries, farms, professional organisations and public institutions, but the changing labour market also requires new opportunities to connect educated Sri Lankans with global digital markets. The gig economy can provide an additional pathway to increase female labour-force participation, reduce the pressure for migration and brain drain, and connect Sri Lankan skills with markets beyond geographical boundaries.

This does not require a complicated bureaucracy. It requires recognising legitimate digital workers, facilitating access to international platforms and payment systems, allowing verified digital income to support credit assessment, developing portable social protection, and strengthening digital infrastructure and skills beyond major urban centres. Better data on digital workers would also help policymakers develop evidence-based interventions.

The future of work is therefore not only about creating more jobs, but about creating more ways for Sri Lankans to work, earn and build livelihoods while continuing to live and contribute in Sri Lanka. The gig economy should be recognised as part of an emerging digital labour market and services-export economy, where workers can build professional identities, earn internationally, access finance and eventually develop their own enterprises.

Features

Are religions getting redundant in the modern world?

Published

2 days ago

2026/09/25

Thilina Walpola

by Dr Upul Wijayawardhana

We are living in an era of astonishingly rapid scientific advancement. From the time Apple launched the ‘iPhone’ in January 2007, the first targeting the mass market, smartphones have taken over the world, making them indispensable. According to the latest statistics, there are around 8.1 billion mobile phones with 7.4 billion active smartphones, for the world population of 8.25 billion. Except for a tiny minority of the very poor, most people have at least one smartphone.

We are now entering the era of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and smart robots. Recently, a ‘Chinese’ robot ran 100 metres faster than Usain Bolt! Though Alan Turing proposed the idea of ‘Thinking Machines’ way back in 1950, the real AI boom commenced with the release of the generative AI chatbot, ChatGPT, by OpenAI in November 2020. Number of technology firms in the US as well as in China have joined the race, China catching up very fast, quite unexpectedly. There is a frenzy at the moment, raising expectations, as the imminent floating of these companies is likely to value the two leaders, OpenAI and Anthropic, trillion dollars each!

However, trouble is brewing in the AI field. On top of the concerns raised by environmentalists regarding the huge power drain by AI centres, there are recent reports of some AI models hacking independently into other systems, without human input. Worse still, a senior researcher at Anthropic, who has previously worked for OpenAI as well, resigned in early September on ethical grounds stating that the way the two companies are fast-tracking AI poses an existential threat to humanity. Surprisingly, instead of a rebuttal the head of Anthropic supported his view, soon joined by three more heads of leading AI developers. Whilst they agreed on slowing progress, President Trump has claimed that slowing is totally unnecessary as long as a super intelligent President like himself is at the helm! There does not seem to be an end to Trump’s grandiosity! He was joined by Tony Blair. In contrast, King Charles held a summit with representatives of all AI developers to find a way AI could be developed without a threat to humanity. That is how wise leaders act!

Less sophisticated AI tools are already in widespread use and installed in computers, laptops and smartphones. Some of us are using these automatically. However, the more advanced AI tools like ChatGPT can change even reality. For instance, AI can generate videos hardly distinguishable from real ones. What you enjoy watching on YouTube may be just the creations of AI! Some people use AI to write articles; only a few of them admit that they do so. Very soon we may be reading stories AI creates and listening to music, courtesy of AI. Technology seems to be fast becoming the new religion? Or, will the existential threat move us more towards religion?

Religion, perhaps, is as old as humanity itself; various belief systems evolving and disappearing coupled with the fortunes of the associated civilizations. Just like AI, religion is also a creation of the human mind which our ancestors did to explain many phenomena which appeared, at that time, to be supernatural. Starting with Animism, perceiving the divine in the natural world around, humans went on to Polytheism, believing in many gods like in Hinduism, culminating in the concept of Monotheism.

World’s oldest religion, Hinduism, still in wide practice, is devoid of a founder or a single text. The earliest scriptures, Rigveda, is considered to be around 3,500 years old but archaeologists have discovered symbols of importance to Hinduism as far back as 7,000 BCE. Though it is considered to be Polytheistic, it can be argued that it was the precursor of Monotheism, the concept of a creator God, as Brahma was the creator in the triad, Trimurti, Vishnu being the preserver and Shiva being the destroyer. It seems to be a sensible balancing act; create, destroy and repair with improvements.

It is pretty obvious that as science expands, the importance of religion contracts but it is hardly likely religions would be totally redundant. We have no choice as to which family we are born to and that invariably determines what your religion would be, if any. Religion is the first brainwashing a child encounters and most remain in the same faith, often trying to defend even the indefensible, but some change through conviction or conversion due to one of many reasons. Further, religious rituals have social values and religious practices often come to one’s solace at times of distress. Therefore, many will continue with the religion they were born to but with declining enthusiasm, at times. However, some religions seem to be facing problems like falling attendances in places of worship. With education and tech savviness expanding, one would expect the youth to be less enthusiastic about religion but the converse is true in some religions, some youth becoming very militant unfortunately.

While most religions make you subservient to a supernatural power, the Buddha was wise and bold enough to remove those shackles. He proclaimed that one’s destiny is in one’s own hands. However, many Buddhists appear to attach greater significance to rituals than to practising the Dhamma.

Buddhism as a religion may become less relevant as the frontiers of science expands but the Buddha Dhamma, especially Abhidhamma and Vipassana, would receive increasing recognition, the Buddha remaining an authority on consciousness and the mind.

Scientific progress should be for the betterment of society but AI developers are taking huge risks, taking massive loans threatening the world economy, for one aim: profit! Some do not seem to care even if their actions pose an existential threat to humanity.

Perhaps, if the Four Sublime Attitudes (Sathara Brahma Vihara) expounded by the Buddha; loving kindness (Metta), compassion (Karuna), empathetic joy (Muditha) and equanimity (Upekkha) are adopted as universal values, the world would become a safer place to live in, with or without AI.

Features

‘The Bullet that Missed’

Published

2 days ago

2026/09/25

Thilina Walpola

Tales of Mystery and Suspense 21

by Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha

Another book that is part of a series, today—one that is fun without the brooding concentration on criminality in different forms that marks the Rebus novels. This one about the Thursday Murder Club, is a romp as its two predecessors were interspersed with deaths and what might be deaths.

The Bullet that Missed

begins with a meeting with the presenter of ‘South East Tonight’, a programme about the area, in which Coopers Chase is situated. The meeting is held because the club has decided to look into the murder of the producer’s assistant, Bethany Waites, whose car was found at the bottom of a cliff ten years ago. There was blood in it, but the body was never found.

Or, rather, the book begins with an account of Bethany Waites deciding, on the night she vanished, to meet someone in connection with a case of massive fraud that she had been investigating, after sending the producer, Mike Waghorn, a message that she had found new evidence though he had no idea what it was. The night she died, she sent him another message: “I don’t say this often enough, but thank you.”

CCTV cameras showed her leaving her place, but then the vehicle vanished, before being sighted near the cliff, with two people in it. Investigation of the fraud had led to the imprisonment of a woman, Heather Garbutt, though it proved impossible to pin anything on Jack Mason, the mastermind for whom she had worked.

The Club conducts investigations on several fronts, including through Connie Johnson, the drug dealer they had helped imprison in the earlier book. The psychiatrist Ibrahim, the most respectable member of the Club, interviews her in an attempt to get her to find out more from Heather, who is in the same prison as she. They also investigate the CCTV record of the night Bethany vanished, and deduce that she went to an apartment block and exited from its other side, and that is why she was not seen leaving the town. But some time had elapsed between her being seen in the town and then on the cliff.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth has been kidnapped, along with her husband, and taken to a house in Staffordshire, where she is told by a man called the Viking that she must kill a former KGB agent now in London, who has a profitable career in money laundering. The Viking tells her he will inform Viktor that she was responsible for stealing the diamonds, the story of which is told in the previous Murder Club Mystery, and Viktor will then kill her.

Elizabeth, who has an affair with Viktor, knows he will not kill her, but when the Viking says he will also send Viktor a picture of Joyce, she decides she must act, and goes to see Viktor, and fires when she gets him in the bathroom. But, of course, she fired into the ceiling, and Viktor is then taken to Coopers Chase, to stay with Joyce until they have dealt with the Viking. And Viktor then enjoys the camaraderie of the retirement home so much that he wonders whether he too should settle there.

Elizabeth does trace the Viking, or rather her husband does, for he has noticed rare books on the shelves in his library, and an antiquarian book dealer friend managed to find out who bought them. But before they could confront him, he comes to Coopers Chase, for he has seen the bullet hole in the bathroom of Viktor’s flat and realized he was fooled.

But he cannot bring himself to kill Joyce straight away, and she knocks him out with a drug in a cup of tea. When he meets Viktor, they both decide to fall in with the plans of the Club.

Before this, Heather has been found dead in her cell, with a note saying that ‘they’ were going to kill her, and only Connie could help. Before that she had admitted that she was frightened to name the man behind the fraud. Jack Mason said the same, after Ron had won his confidence. The Club had deduced by then that the body was buried in the garden of Heather’s house which Jack had bought, after she had been jailed, and digging reveals a gun and money, but no body. Jack tells them that the mastermind had said that Bethany was buried with a bullet with his DNA on it.

The Club is now working with the Chief Constable of Kent, Andrew Everton, who writes thrillers himself, but in the form of e-books. He is in search of a publisher, and delighted when Mike Waghorn puts him on his programme, as is Donna, who is substituted at the last minute for Chris.

The Club finds out whom Bethany visited in the apartment block—Mike’s assistant Pauline, who tells them later what she and Bethany had been doing. But this is after the man behind the fraud has been unmasked up in the house in Staffordshire, where he was trying to hire the Viking and Viktor to find the money that he had stashed away, using accounts that he could no longer trace. He has also confessed to murdering Bethany, hoping this will persuade the two money launderers to help him, but it turns out that he did not do this. Nor did he kill Heather, the incriminating note having been placed in her room by Connie, who decided that Heather’s suicide should be treated as murder so that the person who had been blackmailing her should be found out.

It was Jack Mason’s murder that was brought home to the crook. It turns out that Bethany, her appearance altered by Pauline, has vanished, to a new life in Dubai, where she has taken control of the missing millions. She has gone there because the threat, she received through the bullet she was looking at in the preamble, was to Mike and she wanted him out of danger.

Yet another whimsical conclusion to a whimsical book with enough loose ends left hanging for another sequel.