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Text of my ‘When Worlds Collide’ column published in Ceylon Today Sunday newspaper on 1 April 2012

Few among us have personal memories of the Japanese air raid of Ceylon that happened on the Easter Sunday, 5 April 1942.

Yet the event’s 70th anniversary, falling this week, is a good occasion to reflect on how timely gathering and sharing of information can change the course of history. Although technology has advanced by leaps and bounds since, fundamental lessons can still be learnt.

The Colombo air raid took place exactly 119 days after the Pearl Harbour attack. In that time, the Japanese military had advanced westwards in the Indian Ocean with astonishing speed and success.

When Singapore fell in February 1942, it was widely believed that the next Japanese target was Ceylon. Once their battleships, aircraft carriers and submarines were based in Ceylon, their domination over the Indian Ocean would be…

Text of my ‘When Worlds Collide’ column published in Ceylon Today Sunday newspaper on 25 March 2012

This year’s Earth Hour will be observed worldwide on Saturday 31 March 2012. That evening, millions of businesses and households will voluntarily switch off some or most night lights from 8.30 to 9.30 pm local time.

Earth Hour is an annual event to raise awareness on saving energy and taking personal action to mitigate climate change. It started in Australia in early 2007, when the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper asked its readers to join a synchronised switching off of non-essential lights for one hour.

Five years on, Earth Hour has grown into a truly global event. In 2011, it took place in a record 5,251 cities and towns in 135 countries and territories, with an estimated reach of 1.8 billion people.

Earth Hour is largely symbolic – we can’t save enough electricity in…

Text of my ‘When Worlds Collide’ column published in Ceylon Today Sunday newspaper on 18 March 2012

I’m neither a historian nor chef, but have a healthy interest in both their subjects. I wish the two come together more often! I tried such a ‘fusion’ in words less than 100 days after Sri Lanka’s war ended.

The resulting essay, titled ‘Sri Lanka: Spice Island or Bland Nation?’ (published in Himal Southasian magazine in July 2009, and in compact form on Groundviews.org) highlighted challenges of the mind that we face as we rebuild our nation.

Today, just over a thousand days after the war’s end, my words still hold true. If anything, they are more pertinent now given the shrilly rhetoric we’ve heard in recent weeks. So here is another version of my original essay:

Located strategically in the Indian Ocean, Sri Lanka was a hub in the maritime silk…

Text of my ‘When Worlds Collide’ column published in Ceylon Today Sunday newspaper on 11 March 2012

I was both delighted and depressed watching the 84th Academy (Oscar) Awards ceremony, held in Hollywood on 26 February 2012.

I shared the jubilation of all Pakistanis over their first Oscar, won by young woman film maker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. She and American co-director Daniel Junge won it for the year’s best short documentary. Titled ‘Saving Face’, it is about Pakistani women surviving acid attacks, a dastardly crime that affects at least 100 women every year. Many more cases go unreported.

‘Saving Face’ features two survivors: their battle for justice and arduous journey of healing. It also follows plastic surgeon Dr Mohammad Jawad, who left his lucrative London practice to make multiple surgical mission trips to his home country and help the affected women.

Obaid-Chinoy made an impassioned acceptance speech, dedicating the…

Text of my ‘When Worlds Collide’ column published in Ceylon Today Sunday newspaper on 4 March 2012

HELP! I’m under siege – from creatures only a few centimetres long.

Every nesting season, my home and office – both in Colombo’s densely built suburb of Nugegoda – are invaded by squirrels. Lots of them. They are not looking for food or asking for donations. They are answering the most primeval call of Nature: to multiply.

Evidently, we now occupy what was their roaming and nesting grounds for centuries. So they reclaim it, precariously building nests inside our wardrobes, window grills and elsewhere.

We’ve tried various tricks to scare them away — including hanging old CDs and mirror pieces, and laying wire mesh. Yet the determined little fellows keep coming.

One particularly fearless one turns up just outside my window, looks at me straight in the eye – and keeps removing fibre…

Text of my ‘When Worlds Collide’ column published in Ceylon Today Sunday newspaper on 26 Feb 2012

The late — and great – innovator Ray Wijewardene was best known for building and flying ultra-light aircraft. But he was also interested in finding ways to improve the ordinary bicycle.

Ray exchanged ideas with people around the world who were trying to improve the two-wheeled design – first introduced two centuries ago – so that riders could travel faster with less effort. Always mixing functionality with good design, he wanted to enhance performance while ensuring comfort.

In his garage, he built some strange looking pedalling devices. One had the rider seated in a reclined position, as in a go-cart. It certainly reduced drudgery for the rider, but wasn’t well suited for our chaotic road conditions.

Once, when it was being tested on a busy Colombo road, the rider was almost run over…

Text of my ‘When Worlds Collide’ column published in Ceylon TodaySunday newspaper on 12 Feb 2012

Question: What was gifted to Sri Lanka’s Children of ’77 in 1979, was properly unpacked three years later, and over the next three decades became an integral part of the island nation’s modern lives?

Answer: Broadcast television.

Given my close association with the medium, overseas friends find it surprising that I grew up in a household, and a neighbourhood and whole country without TV.

Well, at least until I was 13. That was when Greater Colombo started experiencing re-runs of Sesame Street, Electric Company and other imported programmes from the US and Europe. Big Bird, Ernie, Bert and friends heralded a new word for us kids – and our elders – hitherto raised on a diet of newspapers and radio. Life would never be the same again.

It was when the…

Published in Ceylon Today newspaper, Sunday 5 February 2012

With or without our knowledge, worlds are colliding all around us, all the time. It happens in both physical and metaphorical realms.

The night sky might appear calm and serene to us, but the universe is a violent and constantly changing place. Astrophysicists are still unravelling the forces at work – they describe our Solar System as an ‘oasis of calm’ in comparison.

That’s relative, of course. Everything is always in motion – the Sun (our local star), planets, dwarf planets, asteroids, comets are all moving in their orbits, sometimes crossing paths of others. Luckily, space is big enough and empty enough to get by without crashing into each other.

Once in a while, however, near-misses or actual collisions are inevitable. Millions on Earth watched through telescopes a memorable recent event when Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 crashed into Jupiter in July 1994.