Thursday, September 25, 2025

The idea is mine, but the image is yours (by Google's Nano Banana & chatGPT).


Trump’s tariffs, tax cuts & deregulation: higher costs, bigger deficits, and gains for the rich—while ordinary Americans pay the price.

Sunday, September 21, 2025

My recollections on Thamil Drama in Colombo! - K.S.Sivakumaran -


This is one of the letters written to me by the late art and literary critic K. S. Sivakumaran. In it, he briefly mentions Tamil, Sinhala, and English plays staged in Colombo, the people who were involved in theatre, and his own contributions. In that sense, it carries great importance. September 15 is the remembrance day of K. S. Sivakumaran. In connection with that, I am sharing this letter. 
 

Wed, May 13, 2020 at 12:17 p.m.

My recollections on Thamil Drama in Colombo!  

In the 1960s and 1970s, I was a keen drama critic. Having seen the Colombo North cine-dramas and Rajaratnam's Colombo South comedies. I wrote a column called “Manathirai” in Thamil in the Thinakaran Vaara Manjari. I criticized all the slapstick presentations that went by the name Thamil Drama. This was because I read many books in English about Drama and Theatre and understood that what we witnessed were recreating Indian Thamil film sequences and using colloquial Yaalpaaana speech comedies. In 1953 or 1954, the TKS Brothers visited Colombo and staged a professional drama presentation. There was a semblance of theatricality in their presentation. I also witnessed one or two plays of the doyen of Lankan Thamil Drama-Sornalingam.

It must be 1961 or 1962, I saw a play called Mathamarram written by the late A N Kanthasamy, a writer and a Marxist thinker. When I saw that I was baffled. It was a different cup of tea for me. It was like a Shavian play. It was provoking and feast for thinking. I wrote a review of it in Tribune, now defunct.

Saturday, September 20, 2025

About the thoughts of my two favorite astrophysicists…”


*digital art by Ramanitharan Kandiah 

Thought-provoking reflections of astro physicist Brian Greene on reality and time…

This reflection of astrophysicists  Brian Greene on time inspires a deeper exploration. In our universe, in our existence, the events that occur moment by moment are arranged in sequence, and through that sequence of moments we experience what we call time.

But if other extraterrestrial civilizations did not perceive time the way we do—if their existence was experienced differently—then just as time appears to us as a dimension, perhaps for them there might be another dimension through which they perceive reality. What an extraordinary thought! These are the kinds of reflections that appear in his writings, and they deeply fascinate me. It is such ideas that have made him one of my most admired physicists.

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The ‘Wormhole’ that connects universes

The ‘Wormhole’ that connects universes

Another of my favorite physicists is Michio Kaku. His writings on astrophysics also broaden our thinking. In this video, Michio Kaku explains with clarity and simplicity the idea of a wormhole, which emerges from Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. The hypothesis suggests that a wormhole is a pathway that establishes a connection between two different universes.

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Michio Kaku is another one of my favorite astrophysicists.His writings on astrophysics also broaden our thinking. In this video, Michio Kaku clearly and simply explains his views on the “wormhole,” as predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Einstein’s hypothesis describes a wormhole as a shortcut pathway that either connects two different universes or links distant points within the same universe.



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Tuesday, September 16, 2025

Unfinished Night, with Unfinished Love, Tormenting Human Hearts!

-  Poet Kannathasan -

 "In an unfinished night, I wither…
You speak of an unending story…
A soul unites in secret, unseen by kin…
A taste of something new arises…

Though you stand far away—
if only your eyes come alone…
Those eyes that arrive, they bring a gift…
A gift that gives a bliss untold…"
  — Poet Kannadasan

In such simple expressions, Kannadasan excelled at revealing the profound emotions of human love, steeped in experience.

The phrase Unfinished Night is a striking poetic  image. In Tamil, the word “mūṟṟāt(a)” (unfinished/unripe) carries two senses:

  • Something that has not reached its end.

  • Something unripe, like an unripe fruit.

The night stretches on endlessly, lying incomplete, like a fruit that has yet to ripen. In this night, his feelings of love have neither resolution nor end. How beautifully Kannadasan, through the phrase unfinished night”, reveals his tormented heart—his love that remains both unripe and incomplete. His unripe, unresolved feelings of love gnaw at him, just like the endless night.

Monday, September 8, 2025

Ottawa Scenes – The Longest-Serving Canadian Prime Minister




William Lyon Mackenzie King (1874–1950) served as Prime Minister of Canada for a long period, 21 years in total (1921–1926, 1926–1930, 1935–1948). He was the one who introduced old-age pensions (Old Age Security) and unemployment insurance. The statue here is of him. This statue of his is located outdoors, near the Canadian Senate building in Ottawa. 

Ottawa Scenes – A Jazz Pianist on the Street!


I spent this past weekend in Canada’s capital, Ottawa. While wandering around the Parliament area, this eye-catching statue drew my attention. At the intersection of Albert Street and Elgin Street, right outside the National Arts Centre, stood the elegant statue of none other than one of the world’s most renowned pianists—not only famous in Canada but across the globe—Oscar Peterson (1925–2007), the son of Caribbean immigrant parents who had settled in Montreal.

He is regarded as one of the greatest Canadian jazz pianists, celebrated for his extraordinary speed and precision at the piano.

The bronze sculpture was created by Canadian sculptor Ruth Abernethy. The design captures the feeling that Oscar Peterson is actually sitting there at the corner playing the piano, and one can even enjoy listening to his music while standing near the statue.

It was truly an unforgettable and deeply memorable experience—etched in my mind as a lasting impression.

Novel: AN IMMIGRANT By V.N.Giritharan ; Translation By Latha Ramakrishnan; Proofread & Edited By Thamayanthi Giritharan

I have already written a novella , AMERICA , in Tamil, based on a Srilankan Tamil refugee’s life at the detention camp in New York. The jour...