Major Dushyantha Yapa Who “Sees Through” Things

Dushyantha with Wife and the Kid

When I first met Major Dushyantha Yapa, an amazingly courageous totally blind soldier it was somewhere in 2007 at Ranaviru Sewana, Ragama. Some friends of mine from Australia and the USA had arranged some donations to Ranaviru Sevana and I was introduced to Dushyantha at one of the visits I made to Ranaviru Sevana.

Dushyantha was in army uniform and he had dark sunglasses covering his eyes. What attracted me most was his broad smile. I don’t know how someone in his circumstances can smile like that. He is totally blind as a result of his final battle with the LTTE at Mankulam in 1998.

Being blind has not affected his spirits. He is always positive minded and treat everyone with a warm smile and makes any newly introduced person very comfortable within a few minutes. He has got that proverbial never-say-die attitude and takes things easily.

He has been in the Sri Lanka Army since 1995 and has taken part in many a battle from “Edibala” to liberate Vaunia – Mannar Road, to the last phase of “Jaya Sikuruy” operation. He was injured before two days of the winding up of the operation Jaya Sikuruy.

Dushyantha’s dad is a retired army captain mother is a retired graduate teacher. One of his brothers died of cancer in 2004. His younger brother works in a shipping company.

At the Wedding

Dushyantha married Darshani in 2009 and now has one kid. His love story is an extremely interesting one. Read it with his own writing at http://dushyapa.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/how-i-met-my-wife-and-got-married/

Dushyantha was an active athlete before he was injured and the blindness did not become a big barrier for his sports as he took up blind archery and kept winning tournaments. He once went to England for a blind archery tournament. Dushyantha possesses the national and army records on 100m, 200m and long jump events under totally blind category. He has also taken part in 2 Asian para games one in Malaysia in 2006 and next one in China in 2010. Read more about his sporting talents at http://dushyapa.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/dushyantha-the-fastest-blind-runner-in-sri-lanka-part-1-2/

Major Dushyantha is best known within the army ranks for his computer skills. He has contributed a lot to Ranaviru Sewana with his computer expertise. He is adept in computer programs that are made for the blind. Computers and the Internet have helped him to immensely minimize his disability and be in touch with current developments in and around the world. (Read his post about how the blind use computers at http://dushyapa.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/how-do-blind-people-use-computers/)

Dushyantha now works at Abhimansala, Anuradhapura as a Special Education Officer.

Dushyantha recently became a blogger after I kept encouraging him to do so as I thought his blog would be an inspiration to others. His English is exceptional and the post he wrote about the battle he was injured in is a good example to see his English skills. He has more or less the same vocabulary the war correspondent Iqbal Athas has in the above mentioned post. (Read the post about how he was injured in his own writing at http://dushyapa.wordpress.com/2013/01/29/my-final-battle-as-an-infantry-officer-and-last-memories-of-the-sighted-life/.)

Visit his blog at http://dushyapa.wordpress.com/

Sri Siddhartha Gautama – A Complete Disaster of a Movie

It was widely published that the makers of the movie Sri Siddhartha Gautama spent a colossal sum of money on the epic film but I am confused as to what areas in the film the money was spent. Film looks like a low budget miscarriage of a movie rather than an epic movie. I regret the decision I took to watch the movie though I expected this type of a disappointment after seeing the list of names of the movie cast in the papers.

First, the movie was directed on a very weak script. Though it is mentioned at the beginning of the film that the script was approved by a large number of learned Buddhist dignitaries including monks, the script has many a flaw distorting the accepted story of the Prince Siddhartha on one hand and by creating a mess of a story without a natural flow on the other hand. I am not sure who to be blamed for this, either the script writer or the so called high class advisers.

There is no flow in the story which has a lot of abrupt incidents that are not connected well, similar to Professor Sunil Ariyarathna’s Kristhu Charithaya. Now that our filmmakers have made mockeries of both the Christ’s story and that of the Prince Siddhartha, they are left with only few other religious leaders’ life stories to mess up with.

Makeup and clothes don’t look attractive and I am curious if the clothes for the movie were bought at Pettah cloth sellers to cut the budget. The clothes don’t look suitable for a royal family at all.

So is the music of the movie. The background music is disastrous and there is not a single song in the movie that became a hit showing how poor the music composer was. Same can be said about the amateurish dance items of the film. I didn’t see the beauties that were in the history books in the royal dancing troupes. They were ordinary women with very poor dancing skills.

I don’t see the director taking any advantage by bringing second part of the movie up to the Prince’s renunciation of worldly pleasures and leaving the palace forward and then coming back to the birth of the prince.

Camera angles are so hopeless that they cut off heads of the main characters in many scenes. The same can be said about the weak lighting of the movie. The whole movie was filmed in darkness. Even the day scenes were not bright enough.

I don’t see a reason why the producers drafted in Indian cast for the film as there are enough local actors to make this disaster without the help of the Indian actors. Indians don’t add any value to the movie. The Indian actor who casts Siddhartha looks very lethargic, passive and dull and I wonder what happened to the handsome Prince Siddhartha who was supposed to be majestic, yet humble. It is a shame that Yashodhara had to be imported from India as if we can’t find someone prettier with better acting skills. Bringing in Ranjan Ramanayake has not damaged the film as much as I expected it to be. He doesn’t age throughout the film as in his real life. Prince Nanda, casted by Roshan Ranawana is in yet another childish performance as he has done throughout his career. Other Sri Lankan cast like Jeevan Kumaratunga, Wilson Gunarathne, Edwin Ariyadasa, Buddhdasa Vithanachchi, etc. hasn’t done any justice to the movie or the director hasn’t been able to get what is needed from them. Devadaththa, casted by an Indian actor is the only decent performance in the movie. It would have been better if he casted Siddhartha’s role as he has the right body built of a strong prince.

In most of the scenes where Indian actors perform, the dialogues are heard as if dubbed for a stupid Indian teledrama to Sinhala. The voices are so unnatural and they are breaking words in sentences in wrong places.

The makeup artists have failed to depict a natural pregnant Queen Maya. They have made her belly look like a football. Even at the scene of the childbirth the sal tree doesn’t have a single flower. In the story we had learnt that seven lotus flowers were bloomed in the first seven steps of the prince but this is not so in the film. One can see this scene done superbly in the Hollywood movie Little Buddha where Keanu Reevesplays Siddhartha. The director could have taken some good help from this movie.

The death of Kanthaka, the horse is very unnatural. The director hasn’t been able to do even simple things like these. Rather than taking the camera to the story, the director harps on too much discussion within the palace walls making the movie boring.

Fight scenes are so ridiculous at the so called showing off of the talents of the prince so much so that I feel like they are the scenes of a Blackadder movie.  

Not showing Prince Rahula while he was the main focus of the scene is another big flaw. Nobody sees any reasons of doing that.

There is no excitement or climax at any stage of the film. This is one of the most boring films I have ever watched.

My friend Wasantha Samarakkody who helped me by giving his feedback on the movie says that he could make a better film than the director of Siddhartha.

Since I cannot be as harsh as Sri Siddhartha Gautama – A Mockery of Buddhism, I tried my best to keep a polite language while writing my review though I was even angrier than The Angry Cinephile who wrote this wonderful review.

My Blog and I

I started my blog somewhere in 2007. By now there are over 77,000 hits for it. That is not a big number of hits for an active blog. That is not a bad number either. I don’t get that many comments though. But I do get a considerable number of telephone calls. I have put my contact details in the Contact Me page hence the telephone calls.

I get the most number of telephone calls for the post I wrote about VIP Radio. The problem here is that the callers think I am the one who runs the radio station. I don’t think most of these callers actually read the post I wrote. They just browse for the radio’s website and through the search results they come to my blog post and without reading it, they call me to request songs, complain about weak radio signals, etc. It takes a while to convince them I am just a writer and I have no relationship with the station.

Some call me after reading my post on M. D. Gunasena’s Sinhala translations of famous English classics inquiring where they can buy the books. I am kind of happy at least they are keen on reading though they don’t read my post properly.

After reading my post on the Sinhala translation of Homer’s Iliad in Sevilla magazine with the drawings, a painter from the USA wanted me to find the entire series and email him the drawings of the Greeks and Trojans. I did it happily as I too am in love with those paintings.

A Sri Lankan in Australia, after reading my post on Robin of Sherwood, wanted my help to get a complete series of videos.

My post on supporting Sri Lankan cricket team was published in a magazine published by Sri Lankans in Australia.

I think I get a big number of hits for the simple book reviews I wrote after reading various books and Shakespeare dramas. It is surprising that my blog gets enlisted in their search results because there are hundreds of links in search engines to other more academic links for those books.

Some kids call me and ask if they can play computer games with Singer SINX-243AT laptop after reading my post on Singer SINX-243AT laptop. I feel sorry for the kids as I have to disappoint by answering in the negative as I am not a big game fan and don’t try that many games with my laptop.

After my post on selling my Bajaj Pulsar 200 bike through ikman.lk sometime back, people started calling me and asking if I can sell the bike to them. I can’t tell them today I regret selling it as the new Pulsar 150 I bought after selling the Pulsar 200 doesn’t give me the same pleasure as the latter.

The best part of the joke is when some people call me and order thosai after reading my post on Sri Vihar Restaurant.

Yarl IT Hub

During my last visit to Jaffna, on the invitation of Ms Gowri Ananthan, one of the founder members of Yarl IT Hub of Jaffna, I had the pleasure of attending the Yarl IT Hub’s January 2013 meeting with my friend Wasantha Wijewardhana. The event was held on Saturday, January 26, 2013 at IIS (Institute of Informatics Studies) City Campus.

Gowri is trying to make a prototype under the name of Himalaya Creations, so that there would be a proof of success and it could give courage for others to come back and form an industry in Jaffna, Gowri believes.

She further says that the Silicon Valley / an Industry will not form by itself, and someone should work on it. As per the vision states, Yarl IT Hub is formed to make Jaffna the next Silicon Valley.

There were around 50 youth at the meeting, mostly from ICT institutes in Jaffna. The organization’s vision is “To make Jaffna the next Silicon Valley.”  There is nothing wrong in dreaming big.

This is the agenda of the meeting.

1. Introduction to mobile computing

Presenter: Bala

Team Lead

2. Student answers to 4 questions with respect to future of mobile computing – Gowthami from IIS

3. Introduction to Android Programming

Presenter: Vanjikumaran

Senior Software Engineer

4. Augmented Reality

Presenter: Vimal

Senior Software Engineer

Demo: Sujeewan (Demonstrated his final year under graduate project)

5. Arimaa team update – on the progress of the implementation of their concept)

Presenter: Jayakrishnan Rajagopalasarma (Leader of the team which won Yarl Geek   Challenge – Season 1)

6. Yarl IT Hub Update

Presenter: Sarveswaran

Lecturer

We listened to the first 4 presentations and out of them only the first two sessions were in English. I wished the rest of the programs also would be in English. But if the youth are more comfortable with Tamil, presenting in Tamil can be justified. I found the participants’ English was good enough though.

The presenters were very energetic and knew their subject areas well and the attendees also were very enthusiastic and actively participated in the sessions.

Their blog is quite resourceful and you can download past presentation slides and articles as well. I think they should also upload the presentations of the January event also as quickly as possible.

It is high time that Refresh Colombo people invited members of Yarl IT Hub for their presentations and vise versa. We can achieve a lot together.

Please find the photo album of the meet up at https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=oa.423090191104567&type=1. In case you cannot access it, please join the group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/264218806991707/ so that you can access it.

The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho

I read inside two days. (Apparently the author also has written the entire book inside two days.) It is a short but inspirational novel written by Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho. It was first published in 1988 and originally written in Portuguese. As of September 2012 it has been translated into 56 languages and sold 30 million copies worldwide.

The book is about a young Andalusian shepherd called Santiago who tries to go after the treasure shown to him in a recurring dream. He first dreams of marrying a merchant’s daughter and in his trip to pyramids in Egypt, he meets an Arabian beauty and he immediately falls in love with her. She also returns her love. Santiago continues his journey to the pyramids and meets with many a danger on the way and even at the pyramids. Since he holds onto his dream till the last moment and he finally gets the desired treasure and returns to his love.

More than the literature value, the book is admired by positive thinking promoters as an inspirational story to go for one’s destiny without waiting for it to happen. The book says how “omens” help one reach the ultimate goal. 

Trip to Velanai, Jaffna

Last Friday (25^th of January, 2013) I went to Jaffna with Nirrosion. Er.. it’s not a spelling mistake, that’s how he writes his name. We started from Ja-Ela at around 10 pm in his car and I don’t remember anything beyond Nochchiyagama till I reached Nallur in Jaffna as I fell fast asleep. It was around 6 am when we reached Jaffna. Nirrosion’s wife and daughter, a three-year-old also joined the trip as her first reading of alphabet ceremony had been arranged at Krishna’s house in Jaffna.

After reaching Krishna’s house in Jaffna I had a cup of tea. I was introduced to Wasantha, another friend of Nirrosion’s from Rathnapura. We had a chat and I retired to bed to have some more sleep.

I woke up and had Pittu Kottu, a novelty for me, for breakfast. I met a young man called Thuwaragan who runs a small video creation company called Himalaya Creations  He took Wasantha and me to his house and we were shown the short documentaries and TV commercials a they had created. Those are fairly impressive for a young team like his. We also met the CEO of the company a young lady called Gowri, the elder sister of Thuwaragan, who had come from Singapore for a short visit. She also is originally from Jaffna and works in Singapore now. She invited us to take part in Yarl IT Hub meeting held at IIS (Institute of Informatics Studies) that day. I had read about Yarl IT Hub from Indi http://indi.ca/2012/02/jaffna-as-an-it-hub/ and I didn’t think I would be able to attend a meeting of theirs.

We were invited to see a videoing of a dance item for an advertisement by the same video company I mentioned earlier and we went to St. John’s College, Jaffna in the evening. The boys I met there could converse with good English but they said the same standard cannot be expected elsewhere as only few city schools produce good English results.

Boys’ Dance

Completed video of the song.

We came back home and I started reading Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist novel given by Wasantha. It is an inspiring story.

The next day we had lunch with a couple from Jaffna at Krishna’s house. It was a mix of a Jaffna and Down South curries and they were tasty.

In the evening we went to Velanai in the island of Kayts, around 10-15 kms away from Jaffna peninsula. The road was not so bad. We first went to the small beach and spent some time there and then went to a village in Velanai. Only a part of the village has electricity and there is a primary school and a community hall to start the project. We also met the Thalaivar (leader) of the village and he is keen to start the project in his village.

It is a small fishing village and Nirrosion and Wasantha plan to start an ICT and English education project in here. My mission was to do a simple feasibility study and help them write a project proposal in this regard to be handed over to funding agencies.

My New Year Resolution

My New Year resolution for this year was to start morning walks from January 1^st. I am happy that I could wake up by 5.45 am without an alarm clock and could start my morning walk at 6.00 am. Of course I had to read the New Year greeting SMSes in the phone and New Year greetings on Facebook first. I do not have the habit of returning the greetings. I am too lazy to type on phone keyboard and even with the computer I cannot form a good greeting. So, I keep them unanswered.

Back to morning exercises. I was used to evening walks while I was in Anuradhapura and continued some morning walks to the bus stop from residence after coming to Homagama last May up to June but totally stopped them after coming to Ja-Ela in July. The reason was that I had to play with my son till midnight and when I go to bed I was so tired and could wake up next day only to get ready to go to the job.

But, after meeting Dr. Nimal Perera, a friend of mine from the USA at his residence last night, he thoroughly advised me to start some morning exercises. I immediately decided to start walking from today and I am glad that I could do it.

I walked for almost an hour. This was after six months. My legs didn’t resist as I had the habit last year. Only thing is I am yet to buy a good pair of shoes for walks.

Walking in Ja- Ela is not as exciting as walking in Anuradhapura where I could see the scenic beauty. Here what I see are endless vehicles and collected garbage on the roadside. I wish the roads in other parts of the country become as clean as those of Parliament area.

 

Robin Hood, Robin of Sherwood

So, Rupavahini is doing it again. They are telecasting ‘Robin of Sherwood’ once again. I can’t remember how many times I have watched it. Still it looks so fresh and can watch like a brand new tele serial. Rupavahini’s Sinhala subtitled version is outstanding as it has been done under the guidance of late veteran Titus Totawatta. The way he has adopted from the original version to suit to the Sinhala audience is amazingly admirable.

Michael Praed is extremly handsome as Robin Hood and Lady Marian (played by Judi Trott) also is very attractive and charming. Not to mention the rest of the merry men, Will Scarlet, Little John, Friar Tuck, Much, the Saracen Nasir and the godlike Herne the Hunter. Robin’s adversaries, the Sheriff of Nottingham and Guy of Gisbourne as well as the Sheriff’s brother Abbot Hugo also are casted professionally.

Music of Robin of Sherwood is a masterpiece.  The heavy drum sounds and vocals are synchronizing together to make the stories real. Breathtaking swordfights, fierce archers and horse riders add life to the storyline. One prominent feature is that a number of episodes are based on superstitious beliefs and cults which was apparent in medieval England.

Robin of Sherwood comes in three series. While Miacael Praed stars in first two series Jason Connery plays Robin’s incarnation in the third series. But everyone prefers Praed over Connery.

Series and Story

1.1       Robin Hood and the Sorcerer (Part 1)

1.2       Robin Hood and the Sorcerer (Part 2)

1.3       The Witch of Elsdon

1.4       Seven Poor Knights From Acre

1.5       Alan A Dale

1.6       The King’s Fool

2.1       The Prophecy

2.2       The Children of Israel

2.3       Lord of the Trees

2.4       The Enchantment

2.5       The Swords of Wayland (Part 1)

2.6       The Swords of Wayland (Part 2)

2.7       The Greatest Enemy

3.1       Herne’s Son (Part 1)

3.2       Herne’s Son (Part 2)

3.3       The Power of Albion

3.4       The Inheritance

3.5       The Cross of St. Ciricus

3.6       The Sheriff of Nottingham

3.7       Cromm Cruac

3.8       The Betrayal

3.9       Adam Bell

3.10     The Pretender

3.11     Rutterkin

3.12     The Time of the Wolf (Part 1)

3.13     The Time of the Wolf (Part 2)

It is shocking to hear that the series was abandoned after the third volume as the producers couldn’t continue with it due to financial problems. It is difficult to believe that no one could chip in to invest in such a popular production.

Read more of Robin Hood movies here. http://fandangogroovers.wordpress.com/2009/12/21/robin-hood/

My New Laptop, Singer SINX-243AT

Singer SINX-243AT model

I have been using laptops since 2002. During all these years I have been given laptops as gifts or received them from my workplaces. But as my last job assignment was over a few weeks ago, I had to buy a laptop myself. I went to several stores and checked the prices. At last I decided to buy a Singer laptop. You would be surprised of my decision as Singer is not the best of brands for laptops or any electronic item for that matter but I stuck with them simply because they offered me an easy payment scheme. I was not known to any other sellers and they wanted salary sheets, guarantors, etc. which I could not provide since I was without a job and was waiting for my next. So, Singer was my savior and I bought a Singer SINX-243AT model laptop. Its cash price was 44,999 LKR but with the interest it cost me around 56,000 LKR. I don’t repent as it came as a blessing since I could only afford 15,000 LKR as the down payment.

It has the following features.

• Intel Celeron ULV 847 Dual Core Processor

• 2GB DDR3 RAM

• 320GB Hard Disk

• 14″ Display

• DVD Writer

• Wifi / Bluetooth

• 1.3MP Camera

• Intel® NM10 Express Chipset

• Intel® Graphics Video Controller

• High Definition Audio Interface

• 2 x Built-In Speakers

• Built-In Microphone

• Built In Touch Pad with Multi-Gesture And Scrolling Function

• External Monitor Port (VGA)

• RJ-45 LAN Jack

• 3 x USB 2.0 Ports

• Multi-In-1 Card Reader

• Microphone-In Jack

• Headphone-Out Jack

• No OS (Purchase Genuine Windows 7 Starter Edition Or Home Premium Or Professional)

• Carrying Bag

The laptop didn’t come with an operating system and I had to pay an extra 750 LKR to get a Windows Ultimate pirated copy installed. It works fine and it allows me to download all the Windows updates as well. They also installed Microsoft Office 2007 for me. I installed Avira free antivirus.

Performance of the machine is fine. It gave me a problem with its DVD tray within the first week but it was resolved by itself and is in fine working order now. I mainly do web browsing and writing with MS word and do some work with Adobe Photoshop. So far everything is fine with it. Few advised me against buying a Singer laptop but I don’t regret the decision I made.

The laptop is switched on more than 12 hours a day and my four year old son, Abhi uses it more than I do. He watches all the kids’ movies I downloaded through BitTorrent and the nursery rhymes I downloaded from YouTube. He loves the laptop and waits eagerly till 10 pm till I come back after doing my English tuition classes.

How easy is it to use Dialog easy cash?

Dialog eZ Cash Poster

I registered with Dialog easy cash the first time I heard of it. But I did not use it till the last month as there was no necessity. Now that I have used it once I think I should share the experience with you.

My niece sent me 1,500 LKR to my mobile to be given to her mother (my eldest sister) for an emergency. As it was already past 7 pm and most of the eZ cash shops were closed, I waited till next day to get the money through eZ cash and instead gave my sister money which I had with me.

Few days later I went to collect the money which came through eZ cash. I went to a phone shop which had the eZ cash logo in it and tried to get the money. But I found that my PIN was not matching with the PIN which was in the Dialog system. This surprised me as I put a PIN that I cannot forget. Then I asked the boy in the shop if I can get a new PIN by calling Dialog hotline. He answered in the negative and advised me to go to a Dialog Arcade and get a new PIN. So, I had to come back home as there was no Arcade close by.

But later I found that this was totally wrong information and I could easily get a new PIN by simply calling Dialog hotline. Having taken a new PIN I went to another shop with eZ cash logo and the boy there told me that I cannot take money and only send money since he doesn’t have money in the drawer. This was disappointing. I went to 4 other shops and all of them repeated the answer given by the first shop. Luckily, I was walking. Imagine the hardship if someone had to park a vehicle and walk into all 5 shops and get the negative answer!

I went to the 6th shop, the one I had the PIN problem in, and he told me that I could get money without a problem. I got 1,000 LKR and he deducted 20 rupees. That was not a big amount considering the relative ease compared to a bank that would ask for paperwork and confirming identity unless one has access to an ATM. There was no paperwork at any stage of the transaction from the registration. This was a big relief.

I think Dialog has to work on some scheme to solve the problem of eZ cash phone shops not having sufficient money with some kind of practical solution lest it would reduce the customers’ faith in the scheme.

There are a lot of plus sides with eZ cash such as sending and receiving money, buying stuff, paying Dialog bills and utility bills, etc. This works even during holidays.

Dialog eZ cash has to evolve further to bring the maximum benefits to the customer. Initiation is attractive and innovative. Hope this will branch out to more areas in transactions.