Author: subhamw
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Bombay
Within minutes, you know you’re in a big city – the real thing, I mean. No pale imitation, no wannabe, no fading erstwhile glory. A real, live, breathing, thumping, bumping big city. The kind of big city – they exist all around the world – that takes your breath away, the kind we all want…
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International Day of the Girl Child: We Will Not Forget You, Malala
On the 9th of October, just two days ago, Malala Yousafzai, 14 years old, was shot in the head by the Taliban in Pakistan. Even when she was as young as 11 years old, she was an outspoken critic of the Taliban, with brave, smart and articulate views expressed clearly in a diary she wrote for…
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A Quarter-Century
To know you is a thing that makes my life what it is – the reason I am special, lucky, the reason I am myself. To have become who I am today with you, because of you, is among the things that I know for certain are true and real. To have passed through the phases…
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The ‘Arab’ World vs. The West: Where Are the ‘Peaceful’?
Following the wave of violent protests that swept through the Middle-East and much of the ‘Muslim’ world earlier this month, where many lives were lost and irreparable damage was done, Newsweek’s cover-story was about ‘Muslim Rage’, a term so broad, crude and rude that it caused even more rage. However, you can be sure that…
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The FUTA Struggle for Education and More
Sri Lanka’s education system, particularly the higher-education system, our great socialist dream, is perhaps one of the very few things we got right – at least to some extent. It remains a fact of pride for us that any student in Sri Lanka who qualifies for University entrance can attend university and receive higher-education of a…
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Living Alone
Who pins the fall of a sari, To the back of your sari blouse, Or zips up your dress, when the zipper is at the back? Cleaning up is a two-person job; Who spots that line of ants going into the cereal box when you’ve missed it? Who shuts the fridge door that you’ve accidentally…
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Expanse
An ocean between what we know, What we want to believe and what we need to have inside us, To go on. Vast. And I am here, now But if I stop telling myself that – even just for a second, Then I am overcome, Overcome. I am here, now. All that has changed, and…
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The Anti-Islam Film/The Jayalalitha Cartoon: The Freedom of Expression Dilemma
Two major incidents lately – one in the international news, and one in Sri Lankan/Indian news – have flagged the age-old debate about Freedom of Expression, Capital F, Capital E. The first is the explosion of violence, taking place in several parts of the Muslim world, targeted mostly at embassies of countries in the West,…
Subha M Wijesiriwardena 