In Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey, the monstrous cyclopes, seductive sirens, and treacherous seas are transformed into physical manifestations of the human psyche. Beneath the grand spectacle lies an intimate, psychological exploration of survival,…
Maybe power does not always change people. Perhaps, instead, it reveals the compromises they were always willing to make. Anyway, power has a way of changing political vocabulary for sure. I recently read a BBC…
Immediately after finishing the novel 'Siyama'—which is based on the brutal sexual violence inflicted upon womanhood by fundamentalist religious extremism—I heard the tragic story of Khalija. She was a 22-year-old woman in Afghanistan who, according…
Is an unregistered private organisation acting as Sri Lanka’s de facto foreign ministry? Questions mount over Pathfinder Foundation’s legal status, funding, and influence. In the corridors of Colombo’s diplomatic elite, an audacious experiment is playing…
Memories of Jaffna days. (I translated this using ChatGPT. Please let me know if there are any unnecessary parts or anything that needs to be corrected. I’d appreciate your feedback. Thank you!) After the COVID…
Sri Lanka is not a fully secular state. The Constitution of 1978 (as amended) contains a deliberate tension: Article 9 gives Buddhism the "foremost place" and imposes a duty on the state to "protect and…
Buddhism is not traditionally viewed as an institution because it lacks a centralized governing authority, dogma, or a supreme creator deity. Instead, it functions as a practical philosophy and a set of experiential guidelines. Practitioners…
The recent arrest of a high-ranking chief prelate for the alleged sexual abuse of a minor inside one of Sri Lanka’s most sacred shrines has sent shockwaves through the nation. Predictably, the crisis has reignited…