Posts Categorized: Sri Kantha

Before this year ends its lap, I have to complete this anniversary posting. Year 2012 marks the 120th birth anniversary and 65th death anniversary of Swami Vipulananda (1892-1947). In his relatively short lifespan of 55 years, Swami Vipulananda (hereafter Swami, in short) accomplished more for Tamil studies than ordinary mortals could perform a fraction even… Read more »

As I have borrowed the main title for this anniversary exercise, from the ever popular Casablanca (1942) movie song‘As Time Goes By’, I opted to transcribe some recorded relevant facts that had appeared in international press on the ethnic cleansing atrocities of Sri Lankan army on Tamils, for the year 1985…
Excluded in these books (for convenience or due to lack of access to the available records) were the ethnic cleansing events that were perpetrated in the Tamil homeland of Sri Lanka by the Sri Lankan army and its abettors(the Home guards) armed and trained by the government…
Among these, Simon Winchester’s recording of the destruction of Tiriyai village in Trincomalee district was a powerful piece.

While on her early morning routine jaunt of street cleaning, this Colombo crow picked up the following memo, casually dumped into a garbage can near the office of Presidential sibling and Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. This secret memo had the 10 top reasons for hiring Tamil women scribbled in pen on it…

In his second term, will President Obama elevate himself to the rank of an admirable statesman? Can Eelam Tamils expect something better than his previous performance?

By design or accident, Weiss has conveniently ignored the contributions of CIA to the Sri Lankan civil war in his book of 342 pages. This is more exasperating, as he was “the United Nations spokesperson in Sri Lanka”! Phew! He cannot claim ignorance.

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, October 1988, p.12]

My verdict: Those who read the editorials presented in the Appendix can recognize that Kasturi posed as a wiseacre and his wishy-washy writing style was verbose, pretentious, repetitive, unimaginative and unrealistic to the aspirations of Eelam Tamils. Last but not the least, his written stuff was boring to read!

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 Sachi Sri Kantha, September 20, 2005 This September 11, the editor of the Sangam website directed an appreciative Tamil reader’s query to me.  The query posed by reader Elango was on the dilemma faced by the current Election Chief Dayananda Dissanayake on scheduling the next Presidential election in the island and the plight of… Read more »

by Sachi Sri Kantha, September 12, 2005 1992 Hit List in Chennai The India Today magazine of April 15, 1992 (pp.28-31) carried a three page “Special Report” authored by Anirudhya Mitra, from Madras [now Chennai].  On page 28, with a boxed caption, “The Hit List,” four photographs of prominent Tamil Nadu individuals were placed; (1) J. Jayalalitha, the chief… Read more »

By Sachi Sri Kantha, September 3, 2005 It does not take even ten seconds, for Tamil music fans, to identify the characteristic voices of star performers like M.S. Subbulakshmi, Madurai Mani Iyer, Chidambaram Jayaraman and Sirkali Govindarajan.  The tonal markers of sweetness, swing and lilt of each such musician’s voice are too distinct, unless one… Read more »

by Sachi Sri Kantha, September 3, 2005 The other day I received an e-mail from one appreciative Tamil reader of my essays and commentaries.  Here is a relevant excerpt: “…Almost every international writer or human rights worker (such as a doctor) supporting the Tamils of Sri Lanka is placed on a travel restriction list by… Read more »

by Sachi Sri Kantha, August 16, 2005 Many readers will consider this article in somewhat bad taste because it does not speak well of someone who has passed on.  The editor is of the opinion that one must look at a life honestly and acknowledge the good and the bad.  The feelings expressed in this… Read more »

For Candid Thoughts on ‘Black July 1983’  Front Note by Sachi Sri Kantha, August 13, 2005 The horrendous events of July 1983 which scarred the bodies, minds and properties of Eelam Tamils deserve to be remembered annually.  I feel, however, that it is better to re-read what one of the erudite Sinhalese journalists or our… Read more »

On ‘Tides of War’ Much of the problem with Gourevitch’s article in ‘The New Yorker’ became clear yesterday when he hosted a discussion of Sri Lanka with Dayan Jayatilleke as his guest on [US] National Public Radio. http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/episodes/08112005  Jayatilleke had come off well in Gourevitch’s article and Grourevitch had used the Jayatilleke-coined epithet ‘Sun God’ to… Read more »