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What Kind of Country is That?
Picture the stereotype: masses starve and are pushed further and further down into the depths of despair and impoverishment as gun-toting politicians take all they can and their bouncer-like thugs drive around in jeeps with tinted windows threatening/assaulting/assassinating anyone that dares to stand up to them. The economy plunges into an abyss of darkness, and…
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Remembering Bids and Bombs
I was in London when they won the bid for the 2012 Olympic Games. I remember it vividly – well, it’s hard to forget Brits losing their cool and jumping into fountains fully-clothed. The delight was infectious. I have not often seen that city express its mood quite so robustly – quite so overtly. People…
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Scrutinizing The Dark Knight Rises, and an Ode to Nolan
The Dark Knight Rises finally opened on the 20 July 2012, surrounded by much hype and expectation – it is the final installment of Christopher Nolan’s epic Batman trilogy. Does Nolan succeed in bringing to close the story of Gotham just as brilliantly as he began it, just as brilliantly as he so carefully tread the…
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July 1983
On the 23rd of July 1983, irrational, hot-blooded, brutal and violent mobs that were made up of Sinhalese civilians – uncles, fathers, brothers, shop-keepers, businessmen, tailors, drivers, teachers, who knows – sought out and attacked Tamil civilians, killing them, injuring them, looting their property and burning their homes. The riots, which began in Colombo, in…
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On How to Cut a Mango
So, now, I roam my abode alone at night, And in the mornings I am still alone I pick up the knife to cut myself a Mango and realise that I’ve never done this before Is that right? I ask myself careful not to lie and careful not to insult Yes – gosh More or…
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small-poem
Life moves very quickly here the days happen faster than I had imagined they would I’m already in a new home – a new bed with an internet connection, at that I watched The Dark Knight Rises on the very night of its International Premier And finally felt like I now live in a big,…
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Faceless in a New City
Now the disorientation sets in – where am I? – who am I? – I ask, waking suddenly in the middle of the night, in a bed that has not yet entirely begun to feel like my own. Ha, you don’t know it yet, you don’t know who I am – that I am loved…
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Mangosteens in Bangalore
Yes, it’s a terrible cliche that we tropical folk love our exotic fruit. I found Mangosteens in Bangalore. Phew.