Memories of my father

Late October last year, I was woken up early in the morning by my mother in a state of panic. I had returned to Sri Lanka a few days before to pursue my doctoral fieldwork. Responding to my mother’s cries, I found my father unconscious on the floor. The significant brain trauma and internal haemorrhaging …

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Finis

Almost exactly five years after starting this column, I will end it before it is ended. The non-publication of the column a week into the new Presidency was a reminder that the space enjoyed by writers to critique political power from January 2015, is now under threat. One must be empathetic with publishers and Editors. …

Hidden campaigns

I can’t see Basil Rajapaksa. Social media doesn’t record his actions, feature accounts by or content on him. He isn’t the subject of memes. He doesn’t appear in any of the ego-centric, selfie laden photo albums or posts of the larger more social media savvy family. On Facebook, he was featured just a handful of …

Priorities

It’s the conversation you never have about the location of files and status of finances. The passwords to accounts. The method to the madness that is otherwise an indecipherable filing system, where everything is stored, but nothing can be found. It’s the conversation you don’t know how to start, and to begin having is an …

Murals as masks

If a key political actor or set of allied actors wanted to secure more power, all the while appearing not to be interested in it, how could one go about it? Lessons of 2018 suggest that unconstitutional means don’t secure public support, or at the very least, risk generating swathes of support for political opponents …

New questions

What is the line in the sand? How is it drawn and by whom? What happens if I cross it? Is the line this week the same as it will be next week? What are the words I can and cannot use? What are the triggers and metaphors that pass muster, and if they do …

6 days

Author's note: On the invitation of the Editor, I've written to the Sunday Island newspaper every week since late 2015. Not a single column since then was rejected or even significantly edited, until this one. As I noted on Twitter, the Editor citing "orders from above" said that my column would not be published. This …

A new connection

The affable and unflappable customer service representative I’ve known for years. On this day she looked particularly hassled dealing with a woman who insisted she had a phone line that wasn’t in SLT’s system. Eavesdropping on conversations in government offices reveals as much about the state of country, community and context as it does about …

The last election, and the next

The room was paid for, in cash, by someone else.  The hotel was chosen because of its location close to the HQ of the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence in 2014. Well before election day on January 8th, full access to key websites was given to trusted individuals outside Sri Lanka, to post updates from …

The missus versus manifesto

An unexpectedly tumultuous week at home left me little time to engage with the dynamics of the presidential campaign. This, in turn, brought newfound appreciation for how hard it must be for candidates to capture and retain the attention of those who aren’t, like myself, plugged into propaganda. The sheer volume of content produced – …