Posts Categorized: Sri Kantha

So, what’s the price for a Ceylon Tamil politician? If you are a keen student of politics in independent Sri Lanka, the answer is a Cabinet portfolio. For the sake of Cabinet positions, two independent Tamils namely Chellapah Suntharalingam (1895-1985) and Cathiravelu Sittampalam (1898-1964) pawned Eelam rights.

That Prabhakaran committed suicide cannot be provable, but is certainly believable, considering the above-listed five strikes against the probability that he was killed by an army sniper. If the Sri Lankan army offers sustainable evidences to negate the five strikes that I list above, then I will buy their version of Prabhakaran’s death.

The malady faced by the Hindu was aptly diagnosed by S. Sivanayagam, while he was residing in Chennai. He wrote in 1988, “The tragedy of the Hindu is the tragedy of newspaper editors who allow themselves to be sucked into the decision-making processes of their governments!” [Tamil Times, London, Oct. 1988].

On September 9, Lakbima (a Sinhala daily newspaper in Colombo) carried a cartoon by HasanthaWijenayake. It featured a plump Jayalalitha Jayaram, the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, in an aggressive posture against Sri Lanka. While her right index finger was pointing at Sri Lanka, her left hand holding the lower end of saree to her… Read more »

The shock that an LTTE landmine had decapitated the Sinhalese military leadership of the Northern Province, who had bragged only a week before to the India Today magazine (July 31, 1992) that they were about to humiliate LTTE, was too much to absorb by the Sinhala media and politicians. There was an orgy of breast beating, finger pointing and blame shifting. For popular consumption, these military heroes had died either due to carelessness (as Chandraprema opined recently) or due to internal back-stabbing by President Premadasa who was envious of the popularity of Major General Denzil Kobbekaduwa. Sinhalese military analysts and public found it difficult to gulp that they lost their heroes to the LTTE’s adept reconnaissance tactics.

by R.K. Narayan; published May 24, 2004 Front Note by Sachi Sri Kantha: Anantha Vikatan, the popular weekly published from Chennai, has been a household name among Tamils for decades. In one plane, it can be tagged as the equivalent of New Yorker for Tamils. In its English translation, Anantha Vikatan reads as ‘Happy Humorist’. One cartoon which appeared in… Read more »

by Sachi Sri Kantha; published May 19, 2004 Sonia Gandhi’s Slap to the Roof-top Barkers As one could expect from India and Sri Lanka, quite a few hacks jumped the gun on what Sonia Gandhi would do, after the Congress Party led by her gained an electoral advantage in forming a new government. They began to… Read more »

by Sachi Sri Kantha; published May 16, 2004 Miffed with the LTTE’s Military Muscle; a provocative point of view Has anyone wondered why the Washington Poo Bahs who dictate American diplomacy are miffed with the LTTE’s military muscle? Time and again, Eelam Tamils are served with statements from the American political decision-makers that the LTTE should… Read more »

by Sachi Sri Kantha; published May 12, 2004 Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Investigation: MDMA and the ‘Merry Go Round Politics’ of the Post-Supreme Court Phase Has anyone bothered to keep a score on the long-running theatrical farce involving the Multi Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA) and the ‘Merry Go Round’ politics and progress of the post-Supreme Court phase… Read more »

by Sachi Sri Kantha; published May 10, 2004 Remembering Malgudi’s Creator, R.K.Narayan Front Note May 13th marks the third death anniversary of literary giant R.K.Narayan. Herewith, I provide a revised and extended version of my tribute to him, which originally appeared in the now defunct Tamil Nation website in May 2001, following his death. A Trend… Read more »

by Fr. Costanzo Beschi; published May 5, 2004 The Stories of Guru Paramarta: Fourth Story of throwing a fish hook to catch the horse by Fr.Costanzo Beschi [aka, Veera MaMuni] Front Note by Sachi Sri Kantha The fourth story in the Guru Paramarta series describes the folly of disciple Dunce, who ventured to catch a horse… Read more »

by Sachi Sri Kantha; published April 27, 2004 The Stories of Guru Paramarta: Third Story of the Journey made on hired Ox by Fr.Costanzo Beschi [aka, Veera MaMuni] Front Note by Sachi Sri Kantha The third story of Guru Paramarta is less sparkling in comparison to the first two stories. This is because, Guru’s five good-for-nothing… Read more »

by Sachi Sri Kantha; published April 26, 2004 Re-visiting R.K.Narayan’s sketch of ‘The Indian Theatre’ I’m an avid fan of R.K.Narayan. It is a pleasure to read the portrayals of the Indian society (both past and present) by him, which are filled with humor and subtle satire pricking the pompous Poo Bahs. In view of the… Read more »

by Sachi Sri Kantha; published April 19, 2004 On the Colombo run of routed Karuna There is a Tamil proverb which refers to the petty-mindedness of temple priests; ‘Even if the God grants divine munificence, the priest wouldn’t give his blessings’ [Kadavul varam koduthaalum Poosari idam kodaan.]. While two Sinhalese and one Muslim analyst openly stated… Read more »

by Sachi Sri Kantha; published April 17, 2004 Nothing but another Pirabhakaran Knockout It’s a good feeling to enter the ring with thousands of people booing you. Especially when you know you can deliver what you predict. -Muhammad Ali [in his autobiography, The Greatest: My Own Story, 1975] Every sport has its own hair-raising magical moments. A… Read more »

by Sachi Sri Kantha; published April 13, 2004 Much to the dismay of his local and international handlers [stinking skunks, media-bite specialists and prattling wordsmiths included], Col.Karuna’s war chariot collapsed abysmally. These agents had derived much schadenfreude [a German word, which doesn’t have an appropriate equivalent in English; i.e.,malicious joy in the misfortune of others] pleasure during the… Read more »

by Fr. Costanzo Beschi; published April 9, 2004 The Stories of Guru Paramarta: Second Story of the Purchase of the Horse’s Egg by Fr.Costanzo Beschi [aka, Veera MaMuni] Front Note by Sachi Sri Kantha Now that Sri Lanka’s President Chandrika Kumaratunga has anointed a new prime minister, Mahinda Rajapakse, for her government, foregoing the opportunity of… Read more »

by Fr. Costanzo Beschi; published April 7, 2004 The Stories of Guru Paramarta: First Story of the Passage over the River by Fr.Costanzo Beschi Front Note by Sachi Sri Kantha Costanzo Giuseppe Beschi (1680-c.1746) was a Jesuit missionary, born in Castigione, Italy, who landed in Goa, India, at the beginning of the 18th century and spent… Read more »

by Sachi Sri Kantha; published April 6, 2004 Sour Grapes Sangaree: The Psyche of a Lone, Fence-sitting Fox First to a brief news item which appeared on the first day of March. “Mar 01, Colombo: Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) leader V. Anandasangaree has rejected the TNA’s claim that the LTTE is the sole representative of… Read more »