Author: subhamw
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Published in Tehelka
Tehelka is one of India’s leading independent English language news magazines. It’s an award-winning publication now well-known for its top-quality reportage of politics and news in South Asia and for its daring ventures in investigative reporting. I have been an ardent admirer and reader for many years, and now I’ve been published in it for…
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Drawing the Battle Lines
Published originally on Groundviews and subsequently on Firstpost. The growing anti-Muslim sentiment in Sri Lanka is pushing us to respond in numerous ways: we are talking, flustered, hopeless and helpless, shouting in outrage (when no one will listen), holding our knees to chests, trying to pull ourselves inside, into some sense of comfort and safety,…
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Buddhist Monks on Rampage in Sri Lanka
There is video evidence of a recent attack in Colombo, Sri Lanka where a Buddhist monk leads a mob in attacking a Muslim-owned establishment. Hear that crowd cheer. This is the beautiful tropical island paradise we want to promote to tourists and spend our days waxing lyrical about? This is the suddenly booming economy we’re…
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Remembering in Jaffna
The only thing apart from a small makeshift shrine in this room is a cot; a good, old-fashioned baby’s cot made from sturdy wood. The cot is stuffed with photographs; mostly black and white photographs, presumably old photographs, in their frames. The cot is almost overflowing with these photographs, artefacts from the life and history…
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You Still Don’t Really Get It, Do You? (My Women’s Day Post)
I watched an episode of Oprah Winfrey once about dolphin conservation; she said saving dolphins was important because dolphins had been known to rescue humans. It made me so angry, and was another brick in the wall of my long drawn-out hatred of the woman. I couldn’t understand how she didn’t see how blatantly wrong and…
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One Billion Rising in Sri Lanka
We are rising to end violence against women on Valentine’s Day, 2013. Rising because we can; we must. Because we as a society are responsible for what happens to our women. Because it’s important for our sons to know what we know, that they learn what we have learned. Because on this day of ‘love’,…
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We Will Never Know Her Name
Yesterday morning the young 23 year old woman who was raped and beaten in Delhi on December 16th, succumbed to her injuries, giving up the harrowing fight for her life in Singapore – far from her home, and removed, I presume, from many of her loved ones. While she was removed from her home, the…
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The Felling of a Tree
Originally published on Groundviews. When I heard that the large, beautiful trees that pave Reid Avenue in Colombo were being felled, my heart broke. I was so stirred inside – and it was hard to explain to anyone else why this particular incident had moved me so much. When I came to Bangalore, my first thought…
Subha M Wijesiriwardena 