The fuel queues have returned and you may be tempted to just stay at home. Over our dead bodies. We’ll try to be constructive too - curating this week’s happenings by location as much as time.
Today, right after work, study Madison Avenue’s evil spells - advertising - at Lakmahal’s thought-y book club on Naomi Klein’s No Logo. After, stroll over to the Gallery Café for Silence, open until mid-April. No need to flirt with drunkles (noun: drunk + uncle) for drinks, Kiku’s girls night has free-ish cocktails.
No crisis on the kids front - events abound. On Saturday, a children’s drama festival at the Towerhall, or a kids art exhibition in Wattala. An audience for your shower ballads? Join the poetry festival at Lakmahal.
Since you won’t be driving anyway, join the sketch walk on Sunday, hosted at the Bawa Space –– along with an exhibition and workshops. We’re always looking for cartoonists. If you get good, let us know. Also walk over to a mini-market a few steps away.
If you think our reporting on the war sucks as much as the war itself, turn to this online talk by Shiran Illanperuma and Zahra Imtiaz on the storm coming our way.
Every week we try to challenge Oscar Wilde’s “the truth is rarely pure and never simple.” This weekend, watch that dictum in action, with a screening of The Importance of Being Earnest. Or if you prefer the American tradition, A Streetcar Named Desire (yes, Marlon Brando’s ravishing wifebeater features). Not to be outdone, Sri Lankan theatre brings to you the Kamatha festival next weekend –– tickets out now.
Later this week, a talk for youth on biodiversity. And the newly minted millionaires tell us the inside story of how WealthOS hit the jackpot.
A screening of a documentary about Tamil refugees in India, at ICES. Considering Tamil Nadu growth rates, they may well soon be gloating. An hour later, not so far away, the chamber music society offers baroque and romantic rarities. Quizzes for both those plagued with march madness, and those plagued with music madness.
What to read
Sri Lanka’s tourism isn’t going to the moon, Mazin Hussain has a theory on why: Maldivian costs, Phuket prices.
“Ragging is not a trivial campus indiscretion” reads a landmark Supreme Court judgement. In a serious step towards making our universities safer, it convicts a ragger for culpable homicide. Iyoma Priyadarshana meanwhile finds that as hard as the government may try to grow STEM education, students must want it too.
Our piece on Tilvin unpacked the JVP’s party-to-government transition. Andrea Novellis tackles their successful rebel-to-party strategy, and credits it to “ideological compartmentalization and strategic oscillation.” He should know, he’s from Hobsbawm’s bandit country.
Turns out JR was worse than even we thought. The Wire uncovers his relations with Israel’s Mossad. He requested a million dollars from them to support his election campaign, but what’s perhaps even more pathetic is he didn’t manage to get it.
Sarala Emmanuel on, among other things, non-normative kinship.
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