Whisper words of wisdom this evening, at Lakmahal’s non-fic book club, on Arundhati Roy’s Mother Mary Comes to Me.
AI is laying-off Colombo’s techies. ’Fully automated luxury communism’ presumably isn’t the pick-up line to use at this tech mixer. Don’t speak tech? Cheers is also hosting a language exchange social at the same time.
The Indian Tobacco Company (ITC) hosts a series of talks – a retrospective on artist Jayantha Premachandra – that spills into Saturday. Presumably they’ll replace the obligatory art-event stemware with cigarettes. Saturday brings another book club reminding us that everyone has a price. The question is what currency? Ponnaiyah Peter walks through his art at Barefoot: placid from a distance, with every step you take its horrors become more apparent. Everystory screens The Breadwinner at the Fearless Space.
Sunday rings in a flea market in Wella, yet another book club (this time Chimamanda’s Purple Hibiscus) amidst a second-hand book sale at, surprise surprise, Lakmahal. OpenHouse Colombo spotlights Indudunu Kariyawasam’s studio (and gets him to speak on Thursday). Better than looking at buildings, build muscle, go rock climbing.
On Wednesday, Alliance Française screens a film on Martin Wickremesinghe's French connection, feat Uditha Devapriya of course, whose dedication to his muse knows no limit.
Thursday brings out the Chardonnay aunties, who slosh their vino and then slash their paintbrush at the Curado.
What to read
The literary gazette’s second issue drops today, while the Gratien longlist is out.
A Durham university don “delves into the cultural beliefs and practices surrounding poison” to unpack Gota’s fertilizer ban. While the International Crisis Group assesses Sri Lanka’s bumpy political reset since.
Prasad Kariyawasam navigates the shoals surrounding the Indian Ocean Zone of Peace. In short: he thinks it's an anachronism and we should focus on freedom of navigation and UNCLOS instead.
The ADB wants to unlock Sri Lanka’s trade with India. The keys have been in the lock for decades, but who will turn it?
Ambika Satukananthan warns that anti-money laundering regulation could be throwing out the baby with the bathwater, and stifling dissent in the process. More documents on the Israeli Interests Section which operated at the US Embassy in Colombo in the 1980s have been released. The UN’s interviews of Ditwah victims.
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