Seven Amused Bloggers

The farthest that I can travel back into   my past to find the roots of where it all started is when I was in the first grade during the period I’d been abroad, when I’d been totally addicted to cartoons, being the only child then with nothing much to do.   I guess I’d always been drawn to cartoons because of how much I love to draw, read and write. The first shows I’d ever watched were DICE, Pluster World, Tsubasa Chronicles, Virtua Fighter, YuGiOh!, Martin Mystery, Totally Spies, Code-Lyoko, Galactic Football, Scobby-Doo, Tom and Jerry, and   Ben 10.   I remember being enthralled watching these and I believe I’m not ashamed   to say that I’d learnt a few things from these shows, and growing up, they were an influence on my worldview, self-perception, my sense of humour and attitudes. Only when I’d began using a computer and the Internet around third grade that I found out that some these were not cartoons, but anime. For most, the difference seems negligible...

  The Book Lovers Corner: Book Recommendation Week - Stepping into Paduma’s Tumultuous World. Tired? Bored? Or wait … is the stress getting to you? That is      understandable and relatable. 2020 was a trying year, as everything that we were used to was turned topsy-turvy in the blink of an eye. In 2021, we are somewhat accustomed to this new normal, and yet, there are frustrating times when we want to just snuggle in bed, pull the covers over our heads and shut the world away. It was a moment such as that, which compelled me to re-arrange my book rack and behold. I stumbled upon the mango-green book.  Of course I am biased but this novel was a large part of my childhood. Years ago, de Silva published one story per week on Paduma in the Funday Times , and I remember how I would wait for the day my mother would bring home the paper, because on that special day, it was the new Paduma story that became my bedtime story. Thankfully, de Silva compiled all the short s...

  The 21 st century is filled with a bunch of exhausted individuals. As college students, it’s a never ending battle for us. Our worries range from constantly being concerned about our grades and trying extremely hard to keep up with all the deadlines; to making sure we eat at least three healthy meals per day; and not to forget thinking and worrying about all the unforeseen horrors which might follow after we actually graduate and step out into the cold, unforgiving world. All these ambitions and expectations has left us a swirling mess of emotions and worries, leading most of us into an existential crisis on a daily basis. Hence, it’s safe to say that nihilism and absurdism are some concepts we millennials are a little too familiar with. These concepts come under the umbrella term of existentialism. Nihilism  is the belief that life has no inherent meaning. While absurdism is defined as a conflict between the individual and the universe where the individual attempts to find...

                             For many when they hear the word martial arts, the big bang goes off in their heads: Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, Tiger Shroff, Vidyut Jammwal, and why not, The Last Airbender and Kungfu Panda? Slice and dice it all up with a katana, or even the Masamune, add a few shuriken and nanchaku for garnish as well. Viola! you have the perfect martial arts soup. Or should I say kenda , to bring it home?                            Martial arts is everything and nothing; martial arts is all of everything yet never belonging to anything; it is an art invisible, ever present as the air; yet, fluid as the water, becoming   entirely an art unique as the mould it is poured in to; it is an art that is tangibly real, and grounded as the Earth you thread; it is that inwardly rising fire that blazes down those who deem you insignific...

  Island of a Thousand Mirrors   Scorched limbs, bloodied streets, bodies gutted by a million shards of metal and screams of death. These are the memories and experiences that are being forgotten and erased from the history of Sri Lanka; the violence of a nation hidden beneath a veil of grandeur and false security. As quoted at the beginning of the novel, Nayomi Munaweera sets out to explore how “the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting” in Island of a Thousand Mirrors. This is a novel that truly sends one on an emotional roller-coaster. Munaweera unearths the horrors of the past through the narratives of Yashodara Rajasinghe, a Sinhalese girl born and raised in Colombo and Saraswathi, a Tamil girl living in a border village fighting against the cruelties of war. The reader is taken through a story of great love affairs, betrayals, hope, deep trauma and violence. The way in which these characters are represented puts into question all...

Welcome to the weekly write-ups of the 7amused bloggers. This blog is run by the third year special students of the department of English, University of Kelaniya.