Mud Ghecko

ok , if the photo is spooky, wait till you read the story...its in WOW of Daily Mirror this week. and what I havnt mentioned there is that this is a true story. This story revolves around an average house in Modera which is one of three houses belonging to siblings now long dead and gone. In the left of the row of houses there had lived a ravishingly beautiful but somewhat vain Sinhala woman named Sriyankanthi, who unfortunately had a personality totally in contrast to her name and angelic appearance. Neither more nor less vicious than the average Ceylonese woman she appears by all accounts to have been obsessed with the usual shallow local pastimes of comparing peoples wealth, status ,castes , race and judgmental gossiping, and back biting. Her son was one of the most good looking young colts in the whole area at the time and the apple of her proud maternal eye, although his personality turned out different and he selected for his wife a woman of less social standing and little wealth...

OCTOBER 16th 2004 Al Juhara writes… …unfortunately for you, gentle readers, quite compulsively. Be it dairies, letters, emails or heck, even the odd “To Do” list, I find an entire waffle of literary produce emerges when I lay pen to paper. Or finger to keyboard. I remember when I was eleven and the subject at school was “My Ambition” I waxed eloquent about wanting to be a writer. How I filled a three-page essay with that basic decision is currently a mystery to me, but it must have worked as I know I consistently got marks like 99 for English. What being a writer actually entailed I had not bothered about and still do not and the dream continued as you can see from a page out of my 2004 dairy. 7am Have decided I must write a book to surpass “God of Small Things,” ”Harry Potter,” and “Lord of the Rings,” combined, which will shoot me to Instant Fame and Riches, so that I can buy a house, but have not decided what exactly to write, or if its actually easier to instead dictate into borro...

IF ONLY someone had broken the silence- by Kamla Bhasin (illustrated by Bindia Thapar) 50/- available at Social Scientists Bookshop, Col 5 or online at http://shtriishakti.org/booksonsale.html As adults we know that pedophiles lurk everywhere, in buses, schools, family gatherings...you name it, we are paranoid; but like the little girl in the book says “ why didn’t the people who loved me warn me about people like this?” IF ONLY someone had broken the silence is a poignant little booklet, ably illustrated with adorable caricatures, on one of the most sensitive subjects in Asian society today- sexual violence against children. Sensitive, professionally written books for children , on sexuality are generally limited to very expensive imports from USA and UK and available in upscale outlets mostly unaffordable by the average middle income family anyway. So I must say I have been searching for this sort of a book for ages, and its disappointing that there doesn’t seem to be any like thi...