It all started from him abruptly announcing that he was considering moving back to Sri Lanka – a recurrent thought he entertains, much reinforced in recent times. That autumn afternoon of our drinking session, Thevaram had had a big row with his wife, Manimekalai.
On a visit to USA some years ago, as his taxi drove out of JFK airport, the driver made the usual friendly inquiry: “Where are you coming from?” “Sri Lanka,” Thevaram had said, with nationalistic arrogance. “At the other end of the scale, what goes up is sure to come down,” he said, paraphrasing the Third Law which was also formulated in these parts of BridgeTown. “Men are like corner seats in the Yarl Devi,” he had said, “Good ones are already taken.” That drove his arrogance to stratosphere, for by then he had reached the 3-2-1 stage in his life: three kids, two bank loans and one wife. “Are you available?” she had gently inquired on behalf of her friend. Thevaram gave me two points to calibrate such arrogance, enough to draw a graph and work out the rest by interpolation.Īt his high point of arrogance, he was approached by a lady with a matrimonial proposal. (Yes, on a previous occasion we did manage to invite our neighbour to meddle, but that didn’t go according to plan, did it?) You heard that the rest of the world has nothing better to do than to send in their armies to help carve out part of the island into a separate country, or to come to the rescue of some from the beaches of a sort of Dunkerque when they walked with their hands held high and heads bowed low. Some of our leaders tell us that the rest of the world has nothing better to do than to gang up against our tiny island, threatening to drown us via their NGO agents. We contemplated philosophy - of arrogance as a trait that drives politics. One autumn afternoon in BridgeTown, UK, Thevaram and I met at a local pub – a famous pub from where the structure of DNA was solved. The therapeutic power in these masterpieces mitigates any setback you might have - of feeling less of a Sri Lankan than you actually are.
Bookmark these pages: (a) “My Own Obituary” by Lasantha Wickrematunge (b) “The Captain’s Speech” by Kumar Sangakkara and (c) “…they are all calling and asking who is Lionel, and where he went” line in the Pusswedilla satire, and visit them daily. Worry no further! The Sri Lankan Tamil fellow, Sivapuranam Thevaram, of whom I have told you much in these pages, has a cure for such depression.
Say your daily rituals include reading, ,, etc., and getting depressed by the barrage of unfortunate happenings back home: amendments to the constitution, deaths in police custody, legislation rushed through, beating up of the student union leader and murder of the politician.
You took a lot from there, particularly in the form of free education, but never gave anything back. கந்த புராணம், Kandha PurANam - Sri Kachiayappa SivAchAriyAr - The Story of Murugan Kandhan Kumaran Muruga.Īssume, like me, you are one of those expatriate Sri Lankans, living far away from home, often feeling the remorse of a guilty thief.
It is also called Mahalingagiri, Menugiri/Merugiri, Kailasagiri, Indiragiri, Sarvalogagiri, Suriyagiri, Brahmagiri, Siddhagiri, Yamagiri/Yemagiri, Sivagiri. The name also carries another meaning where the hills surrounding the place are in the shape of a Chathuram (Tamil for square) so the name Sathuragiri. Short Definition Munivar Rishi Yogi Siddhar Guru - Shiva Shangar. Please see The contents from Tamil Devotional Speech.