ආදර වස්තු

I have been to stage dama's at Prof. Ediriweera Sarathchandra open air theater at University of Peradeniya only for only a very small number of dramas. Despite the "wala" being all that prestigious and everything I find the 2 hour buffering period (have to stay there from 5-7 until the drama starts) and the 30 min non-skip-able advertisement period too much for a 90 min drama.

But this week was special because the drama had Thumindu Dodanthenna in it! (and the drama was staged on 14th February).

Notable lines :-)

"ඔයා ඇතුලේ හිටපු රැඩිකල් කෙල්ලට නම් මම තාම ආදරෙයි. ඒත් ඒ දවස් වලත් ඔයා ඇතුලේ හිටපු සාමාන්‍යය ගැහැණිය මතු වෙද්දී නම්, මම කියන්නේ නෑ එපා උනා කියලම. ඒත්..."

I have a lot of friends who claim to be /seem to be /are out of the box thinkers -- The misfits, radicals, revolutionists, poets, writers and all sorts of cool ones. And this is the story of most of them!

Most of these people are in love with the idea of being in love with a special person or having an "unusual" relationship. But when it comes to the actual person they are with, they ignore the not-so-interesting parts. They fail to notice how the radical girl (or boy, or the relationship) is intertwined with the usual/average parts -- and how they should accept both parts equally; if they are to ever make it work. Best case, they consider the relationship with the not-so-interesting personality as the "price" they pay for the interesting bits. Sad! Isn't it?

My stance on SL Local Authority Elections 2018

SL Local Authority Elections 2018
Given that there is no party which,
0. Has not compromised their long term principles for the sake of short term benefits (benefits including ones for their party and the country).
1. Is not maintaining it's vote base on racism and religious differences.
2. Accepts the need for a secular constitution.
3. Wants to drift the country to a centralized economy (at least as a long term goal)
6. Believes in gradual administrative changes to attain that state instead of armed struggles.
4. Will take steps against corruption for real (including bringing out the past cases and taking steps to avoid future cases).
5. Will take steps against the government agency violence for real (including bringing out the past cases and taking steps to avoid future cases).

NSSP was all fine. They never compromised their principles on economy or society. I personally believe in with their right to question the SL military conduct as well. Given that SL "peace keeping forces" have never come clean out of brutally suppressing the uprisings in the past(1971,89) it is anyone's right to question them in a future case. But NSSP is making way too much weird accusations as to what happened in international stages without actual facts and seems to be overselling minority matters.
In a recent interview Dr.Bahu is saying "we should let go of this central bank corruption since the present government is taking good steps support minorities in the country." which is a way too much of a COMPROMISE for a party with a history of staying true to their values.
Therefore, I will no longer accept them as a suitable party to vote for. (even if I did, it is not like they are competing on every place)
I would most probably stay home instead of going to vote. (I know it is bad,selfish or whatever. But I have severe issues when it comes to compromising)
Foe everyone, do not vote for racist parties. We don't need them to create civil unrest once again so their vote bases would consolidate in long term.
For those who are not as sticking to ideals and those who believes these election as all about practical solutions for practical problems in local authorities for the next 4 years or so, obviously JVP!

After all this time ♥

I find it interesting to visit cemeteries for the sake of architectural beauty of tombstones and the poetic beauty of their engravings. The best place in Kandy for both these metrics is the Mahaiyawa Cemetery which is filled with tombstones of different cultures, eras, sizes, material etc. But this post is not about the Mahaiyawa Cemetery but a lesser known one.

Kandy war cemetery is located in "Deveni Rajasinghe Mawatha" which most of you will not know by its name so let me drop a pin.  This is the burial ground for British military personnel who died mainly in World War 2 (These are not only british but Sri Lankans, Indians, Canadians, East Africans etc) and one person who dies in World War 1. The following (links-02) are the links for information about the cemetery (the objective of this article is not to educate you about the cemeteries whereabouts.)


I first visited this place 11th of March 2016. Bellow are a few photographs from the visit. As you will see this graveyard has a uniform style for tombstones and a well planned architecture for the whole place. (as expected out of military maintenance.)

And this was the tombstone of D.H.Groves who died at the age of 27 in 1942.

And there was a wooden cross places near the tombstone, which read:

In loving memory of Dennis.

Still missing you after all this time.

~ Your sister Stella.

If Dennis was 27 years old in 1942 he would have been 101 years old by 2016. Assuming an age gap of not more than 10 years, Stella would have been 91 years by the time she visited this grave to place the cross.

A 91 year old British woman fying over 8000km s to Sri Lanka to visit her brother's grave even after 74 years and claiming to "still miss him after all this time" is worth blogging about  :-)

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Note: I am aware of other rational explanations such as

1. Their whole family lives in SL since colonial era. This even explains how he died in action in SL.

2. Since this cemetery is maintained by Commonwealth Graves Commission she could have just handed over the cross to their office in UK.

Still, let us go with my version.

link-01: Pin
https://goo.gl/maps/6f51ZaUhHqr

links-02
https://www.cwgc.org/find-a-cemetery/cemetery/2009501/KANDY%20WAR%20CEMETERY
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kandy_War_Cemetery
http://www.lankalibrary.com/geo/warcemeteries.htm

link-03: Dennis Groves

https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2111845/groves,-dennis-harry/

Scorpion

Taking note of two lines from adjacent episodes of a TV series I started watching recently.

Scorpion - season 02 - episode 19:
"It was not terrorism, was capitalism"

Scorpion -  season 02 - episode 20:
"There is nothing more stunning than seeing perfection with a little imperfection"

Judgmental me

I am not saying I am judgmental,
But most of the time when someone forward those text messages with "rate me as a person on a scale of 1 to 10",
I have a ready made score for their personality calculated up to two decimal places and tips on how they can improve!

Qualitative and quantitative subjects

During a general elective lecture (which we computer engineering students are forced to take because the admin believes that it will make us well rounded people by some magic!)

Lecturer: "There are two types of subjects in the world. The quantitative subjects like pure mathematics, applied mathematics, chemistry -- the stuff you normally do. They have all these models, equations and universal standards to make decisions. On the other hand there are quantitative subjects which has a lot to do with the personal skills of the person. There are no models or equations to decide which piece of art is the best. It is just depending on personal judgement. You should understand that how you do good in a quantitative subject and a qualitative subject is very different"

Someone whispers "and then deep learning happened!"


PS 1: I don't agree with someone calling pure mathematics quantitative
PS 2: Yes, I do believe we humans are just intelligent machines, and therefore AI algorithms will do as good as we do in qualitative subjects in future.
PS 3: The story is slightly altered to make it interesting.

Law

Ironic things you hear in the law lecture :-)

"Racism was and is accepted in certain countries as a law. It is pathetic, it is bad, it is wrong. This is the DARK side of the law. The law itself is BLACK!"