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.

94 FM – VIP Radio, a Station with a New Approach

VIP Radio Logo

With my new Samsung Duos phone, I can listen to FM radio. I think there are 30 odd FM channels now. But it is very difficult to find one that is not a nuisance to the ear. While checking various channels, one day I unintentionally tuned to a Sinhala FM station and found it to be cool. The announcers didn’t chatter. There were no advertisements except for Vendol advertisements which was not a nuisance at all. The songs were cool. They played original songs. Not the songs taken from remix albums or live musical shows. My favorite item was the one that they play a Hindi movie song and follow it by the Sinhala song sung to the same tune. This is repeated hourly.

Once I searched for more info about VIP Radio, I found that the station is owned by Vendol Lanka Co. Ltd. and its Chairman Dr. Lelwala G. Godakanda has thought of diversifying his business by venturing into media. The channel was said to have started on January 01, 2012 and I haven’t seen any advertisement about the station anywhere yet.

The channel’s sound quality is not that good but I hope they improve it with time. They broadcast from Colombo, Matale and Deniyaya via a single frequency (94 FM) covering the whole island. They are said to be using modern technology ie, both stereo and digital technology, to make the channel clearer to the listener.

The station plays good quality songs and it is not a pain in the ear like most of the common-stream radio stations today. My sister tunes into the station and keeps the radio on from midnight to next morning uninterrupted. This is soothing to the ear specially at those nights of insomnia.

At the moment the channel plays mainly songs and they will introduce various programs in future. They might have to run advertisements too to sustain the channel and I hope they do it in a creative way than the existing channels.

Website http://www.vipradiosl.com/ Under Construction

Postal Address
Vendol Lanka Co. (Pvt) Ltd. No 102, Kandy Road, Weweldeniya.