Seven Amused Bloggers

Pre colonial food culture in Sri Lanka was a harmonious blend of culinary and medicinal practices that were tied to human wellbeing. The production and the consumption of food were tied to class, cast, religion and rituals. Caste distinction in pre-colonial Sri Lanka was established based on how our ancestors contributed to the production of  food. Further, pre colonial Sri Lankan food culture was rich and had a strong connection with nature. Going back to the pre-colonial era of the country, the diet of its people mainly consisted of, grains, cereal, vegetables, roots, seeds, freshwater fish and bush meat. Rice was the largely consumed, staple food in ancient Sri Lanka. Ancient Sri Lanka had an agrarian economy which shaped its cultural values, rituals and customs. Rice cultivation dates far back to the period of King Pandukabhaya who is believed to have built the first wewa , a large water reservoir used to irrigate paddy fields. However, it was during the reign of King Parakkran...

  Do you believe in stories? Did you believe in stories when you were young? This book named Life of Pi (2001) written by Yann Martel made me want to believe in stories again. Margaret Atwood’s comment on the book cover itself “A terrific book” made me stop for a moment as I flipped through the pages curiously to find out what the book was about.    It is a story of a young boy named Piscine Molitor Patel, first introduced to his classmates as Pissing Patel and later known as Pi Patel (π = the Greek letter Pi) after his desperate effort to change his first name from Pissing to Pi which in his ears sounds less-awkward. His father owns a zoo and the boy’s sole motive in life is to love God. Even though he is born to a Hindu family in India, after several encounters with a Catholic priest and an Islamic baker in the town, he becomes a Christian who goes to church on Sundays and a Muslim who prays at the mosque on Fridays and a devoted Hindu on a regular basis. As a ...

Limestone statue of Hatshepsut as Pharaoh The Nile flows even today through the plains of Africa as she did thousands of years ago through the valley of the kings where a great woman once challenged the patrilineal throne. She is known as the first great woman in history of whom we are informed, a great Pharaoh who ruled Egypt during a time of great prosperity whose legacy could not be erased despite the attempts taken by one of her successors to eradicate her from history. Hatshepsut, meaning "the foremost of the noble women", was born into the 18th  Dynasty of ancient Egypt’s new kingdom. She was the daughter of the great Thutmose the first and his primary wife Ahmose. Being of legitimate birth, had she not been a woman, she would have been next in line to the throne. However, after her father's death, young Hatshepsut was married to Thutmose the second, her half brother, in order to legitimate the throne and preserve the purity of the royal blood line. Thutmose the s...

  The group of girls in their white uniforms and purple blazers, standing on the sidelines of AstroTurf greeted me with an unexpected, bittersweet punch to the gut— it was a photograph from my school days. It opened a flood gate of memories that drowned me in nostalgia; it  has had me longing for the good old days ever since I saw it.               I vividly remember everything that happened on the day this photograph was taken.  To begin with, it was taken at the LC (Ladies’ College) BC (Bishop’s College) Hockey Encounter. Now, this might sound like a regular event to you, but make no mistake! Think of it like SLUG, big match season, Bradby or Hayman-- it is an intrinsic part of the subculture within the two schools and is one of the most anticipated events on their respective calendars. The responsibility of organizing and hosting the event is generally alternated between the two schools.   On this particular year, that respons...

                       Bulking up, shredding and women may seem like three words thrown together begging for the odd one to be kicked out for good. Guess which? Women, of course! Progress is truly progress only if it is universal, which is hardly ever the case. Feminism since its conception has empowered women and shifted ideologies, and will continue to do so. However, the direct influences of feminism or any gender equality movement, notion or ideology aimed at empowering women or liberating the genders, are perhaps visible only in few of the world’s societies. Others are still on the shores of understanding what women’s freedom and autonomy truly are, and some others still quite far from boarding the ships of the turbulent sea of gender equality in its truest sense, which perhaps, will always be defeated by the need to define and specify its meanings, as has quite often been the aim of many an intellectual and political un...