Rajiva Wijesinha

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October 17, 2021 in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

In the term that followed too I hardly left Oxford, except for what were now increasingly frequent trips to London for the opera. Several were with Roger Kirinich, who was finishing that year which he thought a good reason to get to lots of opera, and I much enjoyed going with him, because he was totally detached from other aspects of Oxford life and by now I needed time off from all that. I had finished as JCR President early in the term, but I was still involved in the Union though by then I did feel that ‘Union politicking is the most tiring thing on earth … and I now end up fast asleep for one whole day a week’.

In the Easter vacation I spent a few days with Roger at his home in Wolverhampton from which we went to the opera in Birmingham. I went at that time, early April, when the Sadler’s Wells Opera was on tour. Though I did not record what we saw, Roger tells me there were four productions and we went to two if not three of them, with ‘The Coronation of Poppea’ amongst them I think for I have no recollection of having seen Monteverdi performed anywhere else.

Then that summer I stayed for a week with Nick Brenton, the best friend of my first year. In his second year he had the room next to the dining hall so it was always crowded, and he was wonderful about providing coffee for the many first years I befriended. He had a cynical approach to my politics, as to everything, but despite this he had a bottle of champagne ready when I won the JCR Presidency.

His father was in the navy and they had a lovely house on Hayling Island where I had a long weekend in the summer. His parents were away but he produced excellent meals, and we drank a great deal, and talked incessantly. There was also much to read and I recall staying up almost all night to finish a Simon Raven, and he even persuaded me to play clock golf at the little course nearby. A couple of weeks later I drove down with him and Richard to France, to be dropped off near the Chalet while they went on to Italy.

I loved the place, and was to see it once more for in the Michaelmas vacation, after Christmas in Oxford I went the next day to London and was driven down the next day to Hayling Island for the Brentons’ Christmas party. As I wrote home, they ‘served moose–milk, consisting of brandy, cream and Tia Maria. Vary hazily during the 4 hours that followed I met millions of people who’d been in Ceylon, including someone called Russel Knights who expanded on the pleasures of Renee Wickremasinghe’s company. I’m not quite sure how we got through lunch, and I have vague memories of the Dictionary game and when the senior Brentons returned  they’d had another party we played bridge from which the Captain had to be removed to bed, because he kept discovering the infallible defence of losing a card’.

The pictures are of Roget and me, on a long ago trip to the opera and last month walking round the parks; then a tile of the house on Hayling Island followed by a celebration of finals at the Radcliffe Quad with Nick Brenton at the back.

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October 15, 2021 in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

After I returned to Oxford from that 1973 summer break, I have no record of travel away from Oxford in the Michaelmas term, except that at the very end I went for a lunch party to Evenlode given by an older man from Merton, Joseph Egerton, who like me did no better at the Union than get onto Standing Committee, which I achieved at the end of this Michaelmas Term.

His parents lived in a lovely village in Gloucestershire called Evenlode, and when he heard I was going to stay on at Univ in the vacation he suggested I come there for a few days. I refused but then I fell very ill when back in College and took up his suggestion when he repeated it, so I could convalesce. That illness I should note also helped me get better acquainted with Robert Scoble, one of the friends with whom I spent much time over the next two years.

He was an Australian, who had wanted to meet me because he had gathered I too was devoted to literature about Oxford, and between us we had founded the Vile Bodies, the most celebrated in those days of Oxford Dining Societies. Our first dinner had been in the Michaelmas Term, and then he too visited me when I was ill, which was most welcome in the days when most students had gone away and the city was empty. I still recall his visits to Helen’s Court, the enclave with central heating to which those left in the vacation were sent when the water was turned off elsewhere.

But in between those days in Helen’s Court I went to Evenlode, for a very pleasant stay. And on Christmas day, after lunch there, Joseph drove me into Oxford so I could go to the Cawkwells for Christmas dinner. Boxing Day was with Leslie and his parents, with the pantomime as in the previous year, and then I had a few days in London. I stayed with the Gooneratnes since one of my fellow Classicists, Reggie Oliver, had asked me for a New Year’s Eve party at his house in Avenue Road, a few doors down from theirs. I went to the theatre while in London, for several plays and an opera, ‘Orpheus in the Underworld’, and I also saw a London Club for the first time. This was the Liberal Club, which I was to know well in later years, and I went with a school friend of mine from Sri Lanka. I believe this was Harin Dias whose mother was English, and who had now come over himself for university in England.

In the first week of January I also went for a weekend to Michael in Berkhamsted. I knew his parents too for it was with them I had been to the Dordogne in France. But I saw just one I think of the school friends who had been with us, for they and Michael now moved in different worlds, and that summer holiday had been in a sense his farewell to them.

The pictures are of Michael and me in the Dordogne and of Robert and me a decade later in Sri Lanka.

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October 14, 2021 in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

A lazy holiday on Cape Cod

When Edith wrote for the book for my father, she mentioned areas which I had forgotten, with regard to my stay with the Stokeys in 1973, perhaps understandably so – ‘Rajiva was a memorable guest. He gave us a useful lesson on how to define and reach a goal. I had decided that, as a long-term guest, he should take on a household responsibility, and so I asked him to mow the lawn. He did so cheerfully a bit too cheerfully (I should have been suspicious). When he had finished mowing, I went out to admire his work. I discovered ‘holidays’ patches of neglected spots so numerous that the simplest way to fix the problem was to start from scratch and mow the lawn again. Rajiva proudly informed us that this had indeed been his plan: ‘If you do something badly enough, no one will ask you to do it again!’Who could help but be charmed? Another idea of his, in the culinary area, was more helpful: when serving ice cream with jimmies (that’s chocolate sparks for the non-Yankees), one should provide a layer of jimmies beneath the ice cream as well as on top. Thanks to Rajiva, we still do it that way.’ But I did remember some of the food, the luscious BLT sandwiches we often had, where I developed a taste for mayonnaise rather than butter with bread, and the wonderful roasts.

There was a theatre in Falmouth which put on operettas in the summer, generally Gilbert and Sullivan which Lucy adored. So did I, making it a point to go every year to the annual performance of the Oxford Gilbert and Sullivan Society, even in the midst of my BPhil exams. At Cape Cod we would go every week, for wonderful entertainment, of which I can even remember bits of the Pirates of Penzance and Ruddigore.

Towards the end of the stay I was asked by my father’s old friend Christobel Weerasinghe to spend a couple of days with her son Rohan in New York. I think she was very keen that he marry my sister, and this ambition developed when Anila went to America for her doctorate. But neither was keen though they became good friends, and in the end Chrissy had to make do with an American daughter in law, whom she came to adore.

But, as I put it in a letter home, Rohan took me to Greenwich Village Chinatown and the Statue of Liberty and was very nice, and I saw the Metropolitan Museum and another and generally imbibed New York to decide 2 days was quite enough.’ I was even worse about Boston, to which Edith drove me one day when she had to go in for work. I had been expecting buildings like Oxford and Edith, realizing I was not impressed on the road down told me we would soon see something more charming. But when I asked when we would get there, she said we had already arrived.

The picture is of Roger Stokey and me in the fifties.

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October 13, 2021 in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

America in the summer of 1973

After Lamedra I was abroad for most of the summer, in America with the Stokeys and then the Chalet, followed by Italy and a week with Michael and his parents in the Dordogne. The rest is covered elsewhere, but I thought I should include here the visit to America, for three weeks after Lamledra. I was able to do this because of a standing invitation from the Stokeys who had been great friends of my parents when we were in Canada between 1958 and 1960. Though my father was doing his Master’s at McGill, he had been invited to the seminar Henry Kissinger ran at Harvard and there he had met the Stokeys. They invited us to spend Christmas with them in 1958, and the children of both families, being around the same age, got on extremely well.

I had vague memories of going down from Montreal by bus, and having Dairy Queen ice-cream on the way. But when Edith Stokey wrote about the friendship many years later, for the book I produced for my father’s 90^th birthday, she recalls us arriving there by train. But I think my memory of a rambling farmhouse is accurate, as is the memory of the house on Cape Cod where we spent a week when we returned in the summer to spend six weeks with the Stokeys while my father worked on his thesis in Montreal. Edith had picked us up that time from Montreal, so that was doubtless when the ice cream was consumed.

In my first summer I had planned to go to Yugoslavia so I told the Stokeys that I would come the next year. But then I was asked to the College Chalet for the middle of August, and I thought it did not make sense to spend money on a ticket for just a few weeks. But after I had made this decision, in early June, the Stokeys sent me $300 which was quite enough in those days for a cheap ticket. It was on Loftleider, the Icelandic Airline, and I had to go to Luxembourg to get the plane, but all worked out smoothly and I had a wonderful three weeks with them.

This was entirely at Cape Cod, where they had built a lovely little house by the sea. By then the eldest daughter Betsy and the boy Roger did not live at home, but the second girl Ming, who was a slow learner and hence did not go to university, and the youngest Lucy my special friend who was a bit younger so still at school, were there along with Roger and Edith. He would go in every day to Boston to the law firm where he worked but Edith, who was now very senior at the Kennedy School of government, was there almost every day, though she continued with her academic work while also keeping the house going and producing great meals.

I played a lot of cards with the two girls, Cheat and Hearts, and with Roger if he was not too tired. Sometimes Lucy and I would persuade her parents to play bridge with us, and Edith would on occasion play Mah-jong. Lots of time was spent in the sea, and I would read both outside in the sun, and inside, managing to keep up my quota for Oxford. I think it was the Aeneid at this stage.

The pictures are of Edith Stokey and the girls, and of a production of the Pirates.

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October 12, 2021 in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The group of first years who came to Cornwall in 1973 included Michael Soole, the principal protégé I had been promoting in the Union. He had overtaken me in the elections that summer, because the then President changed the election system to ensure he got elected, and had no qualms about the fact that, whereas I would definitely have been elected on the old system, this meant I lost out. Much as I had loved Michael, I never got over the feeling that he knew about the plan, not least because on the night of the election I heard him saying how bad he felt about my losing out.

There were a couple of others keen on the Union, all of whom were Leslie’s pupils, one doing PPE like Michael and a historian. There were also the two History scholars of that year, including a second Richard who was more David’s choice. So was a chemist whose father David knew as editor of the Sunday Times.

We had to share rooms this time, and the younger Richard was put into the room I had had the previous year. He was not part of the Union circle and tended to be solitary, though he was perfectly sociable with all the others. David however felt he needed care and attention, having lost his parents when he was a boy, and was glad that he and I got on very well. I think I am the only person of his vintage who kept in touch with him, though we both became great friends of two of the freshmen of 1974, our last year as undergraduates. Richard’s was was the usual three year course, but classics which I was reading took four years so it was just as well I had good friends in the year below mine, and indeed in the next two years too.

The letters my father preserved of those I wrote home have no reference to this reading party, except a brief mention in my last letter after term ended that it was planned for the following Saturday. We had a wonderful time, the weather being remarkably sunny, so that we spent much time on the beach and in the sea. I have lots of pictures of that trip, including of Michael being buried in the sand to vast merriment. There were several expeditions to the Llawnroc, though sadly the delightful boys who had looked after us the previous year were gone, replaced by a very dour lady.

David’s cooking was even more extravagant than before and our games after dinner more riotous, including Murder, when I remember Michael with his usual politeness asking me whether I would mind being dead. I don’t recollect any excursions, which would have been difficult with such a crowd, but we were all entirely happy at Lamledra, and even Richard was generally very jolly though he did more work than the rest of us, and often withdrew to the Library to read when the rest of us were making a large noise in the sitting room.

I rather jumped the gun when I showed Michael being buried in the sand in Cornwall, so here he is instead on the preceding May morning when we threw balloons on the crowds below from the top of the Radcliffe Tower. The next picture is of Richard after a Gaudy a decade or so back, when we lunched at the Rose Revived.

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October 11, 2021 in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The summer term was intense, but relieved by regular trips to London for the opera, notably once with David Burgess when the police stopped us as we were speeding back very late – David unlike Leslie preferred to dine after the performance, which was possible since he had a car. A few days earlier had been with Leslie so we got back early, a pity since my neighbor in Staircase XI, Jeremy Stone, and I had lent our rooms for a party which did not finish till the early hours.

Immediately term ended I went, to recover from the excesses of term, for a weekend at Bexhill in Sussex to stay with someone who had no connection at all to Oxford. This was Miss Lyon, who had been a hospital matron and known my uncle when he was a curate in Poplar. She looked after me wonderfully, even giving me breakfast in bed the day after I got there, perhaps thinking that I looked exhausted. But I went back to Oxford then for further celebrations, as the first years I had adopted finished their exams.

And then I was back at Lamledra for the next reading party Leslie and David organized during the summer vacation. This was meant, as ours had been, for freshmen, but Richard and I, who had been great friends with them in the preceding year, made it clear we assumed we would be asked, and I think they did not have the heart to disappoint us. And they also asked my Jeremy who had not been able though asked to join us the previous year. My being there certainly made sense, for I got on very well with a great many of the second years whom I had befriended from the start, remembering how I had been lonely and would have welcomed being shown the ropes.

There were those who said I only did this so I would be elected JCR President. Richard, who had become a great friend, did not think this but in fact he favoured my opponent in the election, on the grounds that I was too friendly with the Dean and Domestic Bursar and would be a pushover. He hads accordingly stood for the post of Treasurer on the ticket of the captain of the Rugby Club, whom everyone expected would win. But, having tried to persuade Richard to change his mind, I had the bright idea of asking the Treasurer of the Football Club to stand as Treasurer on my ticket.

He was immensely popular, and got an immense majority, and with his support and that of the freshmen I too won handsomely. As a postscript the chap elected Secretary, who was the only person not on my ticket to win, later resigned and Richard was elected to the post – and told me that he was deeply impressed with the way I dealt with the Master when an issue came up at which I had to present our point of view to the Senior Common Room. That was in the Michaelmas Term of my third year, and the efforts I made with the freshmen then made it clear that I had no ulterior motive except simply liking them and thinking I should do what I could to help them settle down.

The pictures are of David on our first trip to Lamledra, of one of the freshmen, Michael Soole, in the second year, and then the two Richards of that trip from the first and second years respectively. But these are from when they were here to see me on my present trip to Oxford, the first with John of our first year on the left.

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October 10, 2021 in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

I had two more outings early in the New Year. Once was with Tony to Twickenham on Saturday the 6^th to see England play the All Blacks, before which he insisted I buy a heavy coat, which cost hardly anything at the Army Surplus Store and proved invaluable over the next few years. Two days later I went to London with Leslie and visited the Gooneratnes while he saw his publishers, and then we had lunch at the Tea Centre and saw a film before getting back for dinner at the Eastgate Hotel near the College, somewhere he and I, or Tony and I, would have dinner at often in the years that followed.

In the term that followed I was elected President of the Junior Common Room, the most important position I feel still to which I have won election, and continued with a vivid social life despite the demands of Classical Moderations. I recall being upset however that Leslie told me if I were serious I should wait in College till the results were announced, which meant I had to miss the ballet at Covent Garden to which he had arranged a party.

I have no further record of outings to London that term though I think I was taken as a sort of congratulations. The only outing I do recall from the term was the Gooneratnes to a Buddhist Centre set up in the former house of the Earl of Abingdon.

But then, before term ended, I had to head down to Wallington for Clara’s husband Hector died. He had a heart attack but I could not go down immediately because I was in the midst of mods, and by the time I could he was dead. She was just in her early forties, with all three children still in their teens. And she was to face further tragedies over the next five years, for three years later her daughter Manoji died of an aneurism while at Manchester University where she was studying medicine, and the elder boy followed three years after that. But Clara coped and her youngest Amal did well, and continues to express gratitude for the fact that I was with them to help in the aftermath of all these events.

I was at Wallington for nearly two weeks, during which I wrote that I could ‘think of nothing more desirable than curling up for the Vac in Oxford with innumerable novels’ when I got back there, though I felt I should try to get away. I did, to London because my father was over, but I was in fact quite happy in College, having a couple of Sri Lankan friends to stay and going to the opera in Oxford, once with Tony I believe, and on the next day finding myself next to the Junior Dean Glenn Black who then had me over for dinner. But as I wrote I found marvelous even the time when I was ‘practically alone in College except for the barman in the Beer Cellar’.

The pictures are of Tony Firth, in the warmth of summer, and of Clara and Amal in the garden in Lakmahal in the eighties.

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October 9, 2021 in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

This post, like the one with which I ended my account of 1984, has nothing to do with the Council. Like that, this records a death, though this is of a dog. But he was immensely dear to me, and indeed my father once remarked, when I was carrying him as a puppy, that this was a love affair between a person and a dog.

Niki was devoted to me, and I fear I did not look after him well enough. He was an upstairs dog but that was not good for his legs, and then much about him failed. But despite this he would rush and then crawl to greet me when I came home.

The first picture is of Niki, taken when he could not walk. The sight of his paws still moves me to tears. Then there is Tiko, first with Cynthy Mellaarachchy and then with me in the sixties.

Niki

My diary for the following week records twice that I took my dog Niki to the vet. He was the great grandson of Tiko whom I had got from Cynthy Mellarachchy in the mid-sixties, but I had had to leave him when I went to Oxford. But he was still there in 1975 when I came back between degrees, and slept again in my room, though by then he had also attached himself to my father. But I knew when I left in 1975 that I would not see him again, and I still recall after I had got into the car to go to the airport getting down again to embrace him for the last time.

He had had progeny and one of them had been given to my sister-in-law though he had been left for my parents to look after when she joined Sanjiva in England in 1978. He was called Puppy and lived with us for the rest of his life. But he too had progeny and soon after I got back I got one of them, Niki, whose arrival in my life I registered on January 29^th 1980.

He was a Japanese Spitz, and smaller than Tiko had been, so I could carry him, which led my father to once comment on this love affair between me and my dog. He did adore me, notwithstanding my frequent travels out of Colombo, and would rush to the balcony when I was entering the gate. But then he lost the use of his legs, I believe because I did not take him often enough to the garden and the cement floor weakened them.

So he then had to crawl, but he would still do so, to the balcony when I was coming in and then back to the top of the stairs when I entered the house. And sometimes he would precipitate himself down the stairs in his haste to be with me.

His life was not easy, for then he also developed bladder problems and could not pee until it all came out in a flood. So he had to be squeezed out every morning on the balcony, a task which luckily my cousin Theja would do, helped by Radha who had come to us during the 1983 riots.

Theja had done this while I was away in England in the summer of 1985 but she had got married at the end of the year and Radha was gone now to Australia. But it seemed now that my going to join the ship later in the year would not be a problem, for it was clear Niki was unlikely to survive. In fact he died on February 17^th, sleeping in my room to the last though I feel now that I should have made more of an effort to be there during that last month.

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October 8, 2021 in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

This post is about the last days of 1985, a year in which I came fully into my own at the Council, with work in a vast range of art forms, literature and drama and dance and music and art, presenting fewer programmes from London than in the previous year but more than making up for this with our own initiatives.

And I record here too the greater use I began to make of the film library in London. We moved into a regular presentation of feature films from there, but I began to think now of festivals based on their special collections, and also borrowing documentaries around which to construct a programme. The one I remember best is the one I describe here, which was very useful for teacher trainees.

The pictures are of Keith Davies when he ran the Council in Colombo, and then Peter Greenaway with two of his more famous films, though these I think came out later and Keith put the collection together at the end of the eighties.

I could not find anything about the Directors Cut of Macbeth I much enjoyed, though the title has been used again and again. But the picture here is of an older version, the 1948 classic with Orson Welles.

Ballet and Macbeth

After just one more rehearsal the next Monday we presented ‘Bloody Poetry’ on Tuesday. In between another dinner at John’s and a play with Yolande, I have noted ‘Russian Ballet’, and on the day after too. What this was I cannot recall, perhaps checking up on what was to tour Sri Lanka soon afterwards, for the following Tuesday I have recorded ‘Ballet Review’ perhaps indicating an account for the paper of what we were to see.

After the Christmas festivities, rendered slightly awkward since this was the first time I met the 5^th Lane cousins after the publication of Acts of Faith (which my uncle Esmond had thought reflected badly on him, but then he died before we could talk about the book), I went on the 26^th with Anila and Romesh on a trip she had arranged for her Oxford friend Vicky who was visiting with her husband Bill. We lunched at the Sigiriya Village and spent that night at the Polonnaruwa Resthouse, where I shared a room with Anila and Romesh. The next night was at Alu, and all that is described in my book about Ena.

We were back in Colombo on the 1^st and Vicky and Bill left on the 2^nd, which was the date of the Leningrad Ballet performance. I wrote my review straight away and also reviewed the performance for the SLBC two days later, which I think got Nick a lot of brownie points at his embassy.

That Saturday we had a Macbeth programme at the Council Hall for I had found in the Council’s film library in London a wonderful analysis of the play called ‘A Director’s Cut’ which I borrowed for a few months, to tour also to Training Colleges which were studying the text. I got on well with the head of films in London, Keith Davies, who came out to Sri Lanka as Director in the middle of the last decade, and arranged for the launch of some of my books at the Council as his predecessor had done. I think he appreciated the fact that we made good use of his library, and the festivals of films he put together, for instance of the films of Peter Greenaway which were not known here previously. With regard to the Macbeth film, which suggested different interpretations of the play, I would screen it with an introduction and then facilitate a discussion.

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October 7, 2021 in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

I resume my record of work at the British Council after I came back from a long stay in England in the summer of 1985. But this first post about that period has hardly anything about work, though it describes additional involvements that I think sprang from my work, including being cultivated by the charming Russian Cultural Attache. But I enjoyed introducing him to elements of Sri Lankan culture too, and I think he found my own limited knowledge of this enough for some understanding of the field.

Then I record two breaks, with the family and also on my own to Kurunagala, which I knew would soon be lost to me.

The pictures are of the Chitrasena dance troupe and of Chitrasena himself, and then of Shanthi and Alfreda and Chanaka.

Resuming work

I got back to Colombo on October 26^th, to find myself much courted in unexpected quarters. The new hotels that were springing up were touting for custom, so I was much hosted, later regretting that I had tried to be modest in what I accepted. And I found the Russian cultural attache, a delightful youngster called Nick Essipenko, began to cultivate me on a regular basis, with his wife producing splendidly Russian meals. The main purpose was to get me to help with publicity for the Leningrad ballet which was due early in the New Year, but I think he also welcomed being able to talk about Russian Literature and, being from the Ukraine, was impressed that I had been to Kiev. And I enjoyed introducing him to the little I knew of Sri Lankan culture, taking him for instance to see Chitrasena’s ‘Dance of Shiva’.

On November 10^th I had another day at the Palm Village in Uswettikaiyawa, but with whom is not recorded. And that Saturday I went to the European Ball which I think Shanthi Wilson had helped to organize, though as usual I did not dance, and spent much time talking to Richard, who was however dragged onto the floor often.

The following weekend, after whist at the house of the Gilberts on the Friday, I went to Yala for four nights, but I cannot recall now with whom it was. Apart from Ena we may have been accompanied this time by Romesh Dias Bandaranaike, who was avidly courting Anila, and to whose house we had all been asked for dinner at the beginning of November. And that week I heard that Chanaka had been awarded a doctorate for the Master’s thesis he had produced, which his supervisor had thought deserved to be upgraded.

The following Friday, December 6^th, I went to Kurunagala for the weekend, to do nothing but write. Back in Colombo I began rehearsals for a programme of ‘Bloody Poetry’. That was on the Monday, and the intensity of social life at this time can be seen from the programme for the rest of the week, a party at the High Commissioner’s, dinner with Nick, the reception of my old school friend Shantha Hallock, a dinner at John Keleher’s, the University Drama Festival at the Wendt with Nigel, and then drinks at Alfreda de Silva’s on the Sunday evening.

Rate this:Share this:ShareTwitterRedditEmailFacebookPrintLike this:Like Loading... Rajiva WijesinhaCategories 20th Century Classics A Presidency Under Threat 2014 Anatomy of an Election Book Review Comments Constitutional Reform Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats Creative Writing and Criticism Disaster Dysfunction and Breakdown: Threats to National Sovereignty Education ENDGAME Enemies of the Presidents Promise English Economics and Management Good Governance In Parliament Interactions with the West International Affairs International Presentations International Relations and Security Interviews LEARNING ENGLISH Lessons Learnt Reconcilliation Commission 2010 Liberal Party Sri Lanka March of Folly Memory , Understanding and Education Networks of Informers News Political Commentary Political Machinations Political Principles Post-Colonial Practices Post-Conflict Challenges Principles for a new Constitution Reconciliation: Looking Forward Reflections on recent changes in the Middle East and North Africa Reform Agenda Rights Responsibilities and Constitutional Reform Sri Lanka Rights Watch Strengthening institutions and organizational capacity The Care of Children The Fonseka Papers The Great War Crime Games The Road Not Taken The Road to Reconciliation The Role of Parliament in Promoting Good Governance The Structure of Government Uncategorized Pages AboutBlog IndexBOOKSImage GalleryLEARNING ENGLISHReviews and Comments Book Review, Island 21 March 2010 The Best of British Bluff By RajivaWijesinha Daily News Editorial 26 May 2010 – ON UNIVERSITYEDUCATION Daily News Sri Lanka 4 August 2010 CORI Report Outdated and No Basis forGuidelinesSCOPP Getting Better July2009 We Support Ourselves Recent Posts Student Travels in England57 Student Travels in England56 Student Travels in England55 Student Travels in England54 Student Travels in England53 Archives October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 December 2018 November 2018 August 2018 June 2018 May 2018 January 2018 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 Rajiva Wijesinha Blog

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