Book Review 4: The Color Purple

The Color Purple is an epistolary novel written in the Southern American dialect. The story has constructed around a fourteen year old young black girl, the main character, Celie. The first series of letters are written to God by Celie, probably because she was completely alone, helpless and no body was there to understand her sorrow and protect the little girl. How many Celies live among us?

The poor young girl was continuously abused and raped by her step father. "He never had a kine word to say to me, Just say you gonna do what your mammy wouldn't". Celie was pregnant with her second child when her mother died cursing her. The miserable girl had no happiness except the time she spent with her loving sister Nettie. 

The 20 year old Celie was passed to Mr___, just another man, an anonymous being. He accepted her as his wife only because of the dowry of a cow and to abuse her as a slave... never treated her passionately.

Celie always loved and admired women, specially the strong females; her sister Nettie, then she meets Mr___'s mistress Shug, the only person who made Celie feels special, the only relief decorated Celie's lonely world. Nettie had to run away to save herself from Mr___ and he never revealed the letters from Nettie to Celie.

Then the turning point in the story, Shug decides to protect Celie! Their intimate relationship grows fast and Mr___ gradually moves away from these women's lives. The compassion between two souls encourage Celie to stand on her feet, empower to save herself. Nettie returns with the Celie's disappeared offspring. 

A great literary masterpiece, no wonder Alice Walker won the Pulitzer prize and the National Book award. I've read the book and watched the movie several years ago. Whoopi Goldberg's and Oprah Winfrey's acting skills are mesmerizing. 

The Color Purple novel is too good to ignore, here I'm reading again....

Books Review 3: Magam Soliya, Loveena, Adaraneeya Victoria and Thrimana Kiyaweemak

I hardly find time to read books these days but some how managed to read these three books written by Mohan Raj Madawala. These four books are written in Sinhala. The language, writing style, storyline are quite unexpected, bold and beyond the accepted norms.

I began reading from 'Adaraneeya Victoria', then 'Loveena' and 'Magam soliya' before reading the critic reviews book, 'Thrimana kiyaweemak'. My reading order is not same as the publishing order, the three books are not a series or related to each other. However, the first publication was 'Magam soliya', then 'Loveena' and the latest is 'Adaraneeya Victoria'. The critic reviews book has been composed by another three contributors with the extracted comments from the Facebook. 

These three books contain three different flavors and story lines. The similarities between each other are; Every book based on an historical event but still a fiction (I think to make the story sound more realistic and develop the reader's curiosity he has used this trick), The most influencing characters are women (seduction evangelists), comprises erotic literature.

Even though I read these three books recently, the books were published in 2012, 2013 and 2014. Honestly , I discouraged myself to invest on these books after listening to other readers' suggestions and comments. If you have children, specially the immature teenagers.. I strongly recommend you to hide these books. The content may confuse someone at the door of adolescence. So that, until they reach the stage of identifying the difference between Black and White, please hide the books. To enjoy and understand these type of stories, an individual needs to have a developed , controlled mind and  wit!

Out of the three books, 'Adaraneeya Victoria' is the most successful compilation. 'Loveena' is better than 'Magam soliya' but 'Magam soliya' is a kind of a mental twirl and screw up your sanity if you don't pause a little to breath!

Fading Youth...

Mixed Feelings!... I was younger last night. Only biologically or maybe not at all, I don't feel like a 30 something year old, one of the biggest technical errors with me (according to the smart people around, enjoying judging me)

I bought sarees and long skirts instead the usual 'cheeky and chic' options this week. I can feel something huge changing me right now, to look and behave more feminine, to be that silent, twinkling diva! Am I getting old?

I've been processing many questions inside my little head during the last couple of days. Mostly work related. I'll talk about (Later) how hard and easy can it be for an IT professional to revive the dead (in my case purposely killed) career life, specially when you are 'female' :).

This time my B'day was kind of less exciting, calm, disappointing and unexpected one. But that doesn't mean I'm unhappy, thanks to the finger few adorable, great people in my life, doing their best to maintain a genuine relationship with me... <3 So, dedicating this post for them. Thank you for loving me, thank you for always being there for me! Without all of you I'd have transformed into a 'tombstone'.

To all the misfits like me...


“Here’s to the crazy ones.
The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They’re not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,
disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They invent. They imagine.
They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire.
They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world,
are the ones who do…”
― Rob Siltanen



HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

Queen

Transition from one book to another... 2.08 a.m. and my plan is to finish another book before getting a nap :) How many of you have watched the movie Queen, yes it's quite old but still my favorite. If you haven't watched the movie, better try because this's really good!

I purchased the DVD twice, because the first DVD still going around (It's all right girls, please pass it around, I need every woman to watch this movie) and I never feel tired watching the movie, listening to the songs repeatedly.

The story is about a simple Indian girl called Ranie (In Hindi Ranie means Queen) coming from a very conservative background, how she handle things while going through an emotional breakdown. Instead teaching women to commit suicide thinking it's the end of the world, this movie teaches to fight back, stay strong, discovering and value of loving yourself.

I like Ranie, she's my kind of girl, a Phoenix! I wasn't a big fan of Kangana Ranaut before watching this movie. She acted very well in the movie 'Fashion', I hated the role she played :). After Queen, Kangana is my favorite. More than the beauty I see the talent in her eyes <3

The hands behind the blog...

The people who knows me knows that I love to read, talk, eat, experiment and travel. The idea of sharing my knowledge and experiences was there from the beginning but I was hesitant. So last week I decided to be more brave and started working on my brain child.
There're places that I've already visited but I am not planning to write about the past experiences. Instead, I may visit those places again and relate the past experiences with the fresh article whenever necessary.
I am not a professional writer but writing was and is one of my favorite ways to spend my time. So, if you find any error in my writing or quality of the content, I am always ready to listen and correct.
This blog has no commercial intention or will not be using as a marketing tool.
If anyone has any plan of using this blog and it's content for any commercial purpose, by extracting the original content to sell, promote any brand/ product/ service, to publish in another media, etc... I strongly advice you to refrain from doing that and please contact me if you need to re-use the content of this blog.
As I said before, the original concept of this blog to share my travel experiences, book reviews with like minded people. I appreciate if viewers share their suggestions/ comments but I do not entertain the telemarketers, viewers who will post inappropriate content.
If your posts are violating our ethics, remember your post will be immediately deleted and will take necessary actions to inform the authorities.
I invite all of you to read "Thilini", this is who I am, what I am and what I made of. Let's share our stories, experiences and information :) Happy reading! Enjoy "Thilini", my gift for you.

Book Review 2: 'Senkottan'

I've finished reading this book few weeks back and have to say, one of the best novels I've read. This's the story of Victor Soorathissa, a profound businessman born to a poor family in the Sabaragamuwa province. They were not only poor, heavily suffered and badly neglected, because of the caste system dominated the country those days. The biological father of Victor aka 'Kuda baba henaya' was a Govigama caste person born to a respectable family and the biological mother who raised him alone was from Dhobi caste. Dhobi/ Hena/ Rajaka/ Rada was accepted as a lower caste and all of us know how good we are, South Asians looking down, denouncing others :).

The author, Mahinda Prasad Masimbula has created a masterpiece around this and the language, writing style are very impressive.

The price of this book is only Rs.300/=. I recommend this book to any reader above 16 years. If you're a parent, first read the book and then decide the correct time to allow your child to read the book, because you're the only person who knows about your kid's emotional intelligence level :).

Question - What is Senkottan? 

I need to thank the person who raised this question in a Facebook group, "Poth Kiyawana Ayata". 

You can google "Marking Nut Tree" to find more about this fruit, it looks same as a cashew nut. Marking Nuts (Senkottan) is actually a herb, botanical name is Semecarpus anacardium. As the fruit is bitter, I don't think you can enjoy eating it. However, the seeds, mature fruits, gum and oil of this tree are used for many different purposes. I learnt this herb is using for Leprosy and Elephantiasis.

For the curious minds, have a look at this wiki page to learn more about the 'Senkottan' tree.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semecarpus_anacardium

In here I've extracted few of my favorite paragraphs and the cover page of the book:

Book Review 1: Biography of Rev.Fr. Mercelline Jayakody, "Malpale Upan Pansale Piyatuma"

Until my camera comes alive once the battery is charged, to upload the Logos Hope pictures I thought of sharing few book reviews. Let me start with the Biography of Rev.Fr. Mercelline Jayakody, "Malpale Upan Pansale Piyatuma". The book is written in Sinhala by a Buddhist monk, Dr. Ittepana Dhammalankara Thero. I'm not sure any English translation is available of this book, if possible and if I've time in the future, will try to translate the whole book with the author's permission.

Rev.Fr. Mercelline Jayakody - I'm very happy as I met father Mercelline once, during my school days when I was about 10 years, but it was just a brief meeting limited to exchange greetings. Not as a born Buddhist, as a primary kid I didn't know how to continue the conversation or what to say next. The most important thing I noticed was the kindness in those eyes, in his face.

We see many nuns, monks, priests representing different religions, but we rarely see them in the correct way they need to look like because most of them own a face of a businessman or a woman than someone very religious and spiritual. I hope you'll agree with me.

The book is only about LKR.200/= but the content is involved with a lot more valuable research work and effort to capture father Mercelline's life story.

Rev.Fr. Mercelline Jayakody wrote not only many books, also many famous songs (you will find lyrics of few in the last few pages of the book), he was a beautiful mind, a gifted soul, a visionary and a good priest.

I have no idea, why he was never appreciated and acknowledged properly for his tremendous service?

The cover of the book and few of my favorite pages from the book: