Mashallah, we have at least one literary festival this year. The Ceylon Lit Fest kicks-off today. In the evening; toxic drama from Mind Adventures, a Bawa Trust talk on architects, spooks, and silk in Thailand, and an invisible women book club. Recover from the overstimulation with some monkey business: Monkey Shoulder grooves at King of the Mambo.
Tour Moratuwa, Lanka’s nobody-to-somebody capital, with the history collective on Saturday. Also a panel on Muslim expulsion from the North and Asvajit at Dot’s. All else surrenders to Valentine’s hallmark-industrial complex. It hit a tad close to home, so we’re outsourcing the job to Happening Colombo’s list of events.
On Monday, Bombay photography as bhakthi at Radicle and poets traversing worlds at Lakmahal. Tuesday brings the soon to depart Ways of Knowing.
Often forgetting despite being an island, the sea makes a splash this week. Tuesday: The Kadirgamar Institute hosts the last living Lankan delegate to the UN Law of the Sea Conference. Also Pathfinder’s Indian Ocean security conference.
And on Wednesday, Sanjeewa Liyanage at Paradise Road.
Friday brings language as self portrait at Barefoot. This week you’ve partied with Asvajit, next week learn something from Indrajit (Coomaraswamy). Also coming up, Hashan Cooray at Saskia’s, Rob R’s Tam beats at Sanctuarii, and a screening of The Death Poets Society.
Neighbours still dance in Barefoot’s gallery, and painters paint in silence at Radicle.
Pop fever: Sanathanan’s essay on 90’s Lankan pop-art doesn’t have too much theory – you won’t have to reach for the panadol.
While our EEZ claims don’t even muddle along, itty bitty Maldives is making a play in the Chagos Islands (side-plot: two of our tuna boats are involved).
Dileni Gunawardene has a detailed report on female labour force participation for the ADB.
Read-out of the Government’s call with bondholders: it’s still mostly fiscal, growth seems an afterthought. Our economic stabilization also gets good marks in the ADB’s report card.
On independence, Rohan Pethiyagoda doesn’t mince words: “people are running away from this country to live elsewhere. It’s because the country sucks. We’ve got to stop it from being that.” D.B.S Jeyaraj’s annual on Upali Wijewardene.
Is Lanka a misplaced part of Indonesia, asks Ronit Ricci in his survey of Malay-Lankan history.
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