Sri Lanka - Comfortably Numb

Photo Feature: The Buddha, Hereabouts

Of calm composure, soothing serenity and peaceful placidity: The Enlightened One in our subcontinent…and a bit farther north! All photos by Sheila Kumar and subject to copyright. The Holy Feet in Dambulla, Sri Lanka. Related Links: Travel: Sanchi, Madhya Pradesh Photo Feature: China Chronicles Travel: The Lantau Buddha Travel: Dambulla Caves, Sri Lanka Travel:…

Book review: The Story of a Brief Marriage by Anuk Arudpragasam

The Story of a Brief Marriage by Anuk Arudpragasam, Fourth Estate/HarperCollins Books. 2017 release. So, this is a story you read at one sitting, with something small and hard lodged at the back of your throat, and be warned, that something never dissolves; not while you are reading the book, not for a while after…

Photo Feature: Picture Postcards

All photos by Sheila Kumar and subject to copyright. The Alexandra Book Café in Budapest is one of the most ornate coffee shops I`ve been to. All that Baroque gilded moldings, the glittering chandeliers, the striking…

Book review: Perhaps Tomorrow by Pooranam Elayathamby with Richard Anderson

This stark tale, told absolutely without the slightest frill to embellish it, is basically a tale of triumph, of navigating one`s way through all the odds stacked in one`s path and coming through, banner held aloft. The `one` here is the co-narrator Pooranam Elayathamby alias Sandy. Born into a poor Sri Lankan Tamil household, any…

Book review: Upon a Sleepless Isle by Andrew Fidel Fernando

Sweet and hot sambol As I ate a vegetable-stuffed roti sitting on the rock, an East Asian couple spotted me and became transfixed, in the way safari-goers might upon seeing rare wildlife. At first they viewed and photographed me from a safe distance, wary, perhaps, of sending me scurrying into the bushes. They then inched…

Travel: Dambulla Caves, Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka`s Dambulla Cave Temple stuns the viewer into an awed silence. Of late, I have broken a long-time habit, that of reading up on a place before I visit it. Because, when you go someplace you know little or nothing about, the visual pleasure of what you come across is underlaid with…

Photo Feature: Sylvan Sri Lanka

All photos by Sheila Kumar and subject to copyright. The sea at Negombo On the road to Sigiriya At the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage The magnificent ruins of Pollonoruwa The Buddha`s feet in one the caves at Dambulla The pathway that leads to the…

Travel: Zen Sites in Sri Lanka

Walking the path to Zen Where I take a trip to three well-preserved heritage sites in Sri Lanka and learns some lessons for life along the way Ritigala, deep inside very dense forests (`Strict Nature Reserve,` announces a signboard), ringedby the high and dense Ritigala mountain range, is not the most…

Book review: The Amazing Racist by Chhimi Tenduf-La

This is more a brief take than review. The Amazing Racist by Chhimi Tenduf-La Eddie Trusted, your average English teacher (ha! that gives you pause, right?) wants to marry the girl of his dreams, the voluptuous, flirtatious, manipulative Menaka. Eddie happens to be in Colombo and Menaka just happens to be the daughter of tough,…

Book review: Elephant Complex by John Gimlette

Elephant Complex by John Gimlette (Quercus Publishing). This book came out just a few months ago, in the winter of 2015, so I`m not too behind time with the review. However, even if I were, I`d still be writing about it because the book is such a rewarding read. This is travel writing that delves…