ඉංග්‍රීසි සාහිත්‍යය නම් ෆෙස්ටිවල්...එතකොට සිංහල සාහිත්‍යය?

ඊයෙ ගාලු ගියා.." Galle Literary Festival" එක බලන්න. ඒක ඉන්ටර්නැෂල් කියල ගහල නොතිබ්බට තිබුනු ඔක්කොම අයිතම වල සත්කාරකත්වය දරලා තිබ්බේ විදේශික පිරිස්. හිටපු ඔක්කොමල වගේ ඉංග්‍රීසි කතාකරන, කොලඹ කට්ටිය. ලොකු වාහන වලින් ඇවිත්, බැහල ගාලු කොටුව වටේ රවුමක් කැරකිලා ආයෙත් කොළඹ එන එක තමයි එහෙම ආපු ඔක්කොමල වගේ කලේ. මේක ලියන්න හිතුනේ ඒ උත්සවයේ ගුණ දොස් විවේචනය කරන්න නෙවෙයි. ගුණක් කියන්න තරම් හොඳකුත් දොසක් කියන්න තරම් වැරැද්දකුත් ඒකෙ තිබ්බෙ නැහැ ඇත්තටම.

හැබැයි එක දෙයක්, ඒ උත්සවය හැමෝටම ගිහින් බලල එන්න පුලුවන් දේකුත් නෙවේ. එක අයිතමයකට ඇතුල් වීමේ ගාස්තුව රුපියල් 900ක්! නොමිලේ ඇතුල් වීමේ අවස්ථාව තිබ්බෙ අයිතම එකක්, දෙකක් සඳහා විතරයි. සම්පූර්ණ දිනේටම වලංගු අවසර පත්‍රය රුපියල් 3000ක්. ඉතිං ඔච්චර ගානක් දීලා සාහිත්‍යය ගන්න පුලුවන්ද අපි වගේ පොඩි අයට.

සාහිත්‍යය විතරක් නෙවේයි පරිප්පු ඇටේ ඉඳන් ඔක්කොම දේවල් ගිනි ගනන් කාලෙ ඔය ගාස්තු ගැන පුදුම වෙන්න දේකුත් නැහැ මම හිතන්නේ. මම ඔය විස්තරේ එක්කෙනෙක් එක්ක කිව්වම එයා කියනවා ගල්කිස්ස හෝටලෙන් දවල්ට කාල එන්නත් ඔච්චර ගානක් යන්නෙ නැතිලු. කවුදෝ කිව්වලු සාහිත්‍යය ඉතින් කන්නද කියල! ඒ කියපු කතාවෙත් ඇත්තක් නැත්තෙමත් නෑ. ඒත් අපේ මිනිස්සුන්ගෙ සාහිත්‍ය රසඥ්‍යතාවය අන්තිමයි කියල කෑගහන අය ඒ වෙනුවෙන් මොකුත් නොකරන නිසාත්, රුපියල් 900කට වඩා අඩුවෙන් බාල වින්දනයක් ගන්න පුලුවන් ඕන තරම් ඉඩකඩ තියන නිසාත්, රසඥ්‍යතාවය අඩු අපේ තවත් රසඥ්‍යතාවය මොට්ට වෙන එක අහන්න දේකුත් නෙවේ.

මේ කතාවේ දෙපැත්තක් තියන බවත් ඇත්ත. සාහිත්‍යට වඩා වැදගත් කොච්චර දෙවල් තියෙනවද? එහෙම කියල අනිත් පැත්තට අපිම රිලැක්ස් වෙන්න කියල හොඳ සින්දුවක් අහනව, අපි මුහුන දීපු සංවේදී අත්දැකීමක් බ්ලොග් කරනවා. බලන්න, අපි හිතුවට සාහිත්‍යය කන්නද කියල අපි ආයෙ ආයෙත් එතෙන්ටම යන හැටි!

සිංහල භාෂාවට කරන්න පුලුවන් දේවල් පෙන්නපු දක්ෂයො එදත් හිටියා, අදත් ඉන්නවා, හෙටත් අනිවාර්යයෙන්ම ඉඳීවි. ඒත් එහෙම අයට ඉස්සරහට එන්න තියන ඉඩකඩ ගැන නම් කියලා වැඩක් නැහැ. ඒ නිසානේ අපේ රටට විදේශිකයො ඇවිත් එයාලගෙ සාහිත්‍යය ගැන අපිට කියල දෙන්නෙ අපෙන් සල්ලිත් අරන්!

සිංහල විතරක් නෙවේ අපේ රටේ අනිත් ප්‍රධාන භාෂාව වන දමිළ භාෂාවත් හොඳ වියත් භාෂාවක්. ඒකට තියන තැන ගැන කියන්න මට හරියටම දැනීමක් නැහැ. මොකද මගෙන් ඇහුවොත් දන්න දමිළ භාෂාවෙන් සාහිත්‍යකරණයේ යෙදෙන කෙනෙක්ග්ගෙ නමක් කියන්න කියලා, ඒකට මට උත්තරයක් නැති නිසා!

(අ )මනාපය.

ඔන්න ඉතින් අපිත් ගිහින් ඊයෙ කතිර ගහල ආවලු. ආපු ගමන් කල පලවෙනිම රාජකාරිය ඇඟිල්ලෙ ගාපු පාට සායම් මැකෙන්න දෙහි ලෙල්ලක් අතුල්ලන එක! වැඩේ නම් හරි ගියා හැබැයි තියන ප්රශ්නෙ ඡන්දයක් කියල එක එක්කෙනා කන් පිරෙන්න ගහපු කයිවාරු ටිකයි කාලා දාපු පැය ගානයි මකාගන්න දෙහි ලෙලි කීයක් ඕන වේද කියන එකයි.

මේක සිරි ලංකාවෙ හයවෙනි ජනාධිපතිවරණයෙයි කියන්නෙ! මේක ලියන ටිකේදිත් රේඩියෝ එකෙන් ප්රතිපල කියනව! හෙට වගේ වෙද්දි දිනපු කෙනා රජගෙදරට යයි. පැරදුනු කෙනා අකුලගෙන යයි. අපි ඔයාල සුපුරුදු පරිදි වැඩ රාජකාරි වලට යයි. ඊටපස්සෙ පෙරලුනු පිට හොදයි කියල දෙන දේ කාල වෙන දේ බලන් ඉන්න තමයි වෙන්නේ.

හැමදාම වගේ වෙන්නෙ ඡන්දෙ දිනල මාසයක් යනකොට "අනේ මේකට දුන්නට වඩ හොඳයි නිකං උන්න නම්" කියල අපි අපිටම දොස් කියාගන්න එක නෙ. ඒත් ඉතිං එක දවසකට රජ වෙන්න කවුද අකමැති. ඉතිං ඊයෙ 26 වෙනිද අපි තමයි රජවරු! අර කවුද කියන්න වගේ හෙට වෙනකොට බලු වේද කියල බලාගන්න නම් හෙට වෙනකම්ම ඉන්න වෙනව!

ප්රසිද්ධියෙ පොලිටික්ස් ගැන කතා නොකලට අපිට එකෙන් වහං වෙලා ඉන්න පුලුවන්ද කියන එකත් ප්රශ්නයක්. මාත් ඊයෙ අර කාඩ්බෝඩ් පෙට්ටිය අතරට ගිහින් පැන්සල අතට ගන්නකම් තීරනයක් නැතිව හිටියෙ. පස්සෙ ඔන්න ඕන එකක් කියල දීල දැම්ම. ඇනෑලිසිස් පැරෑලිසිස් කියල සංකල්පයකුත් තියනවනෙ. කවුරු ආවත් අපිට හොඳක් වෙනවනම් එච්චරයි. හැබයි වෙන්නෙ නැත්තෙත් ඒකමයි!

ඇත්තටම අද උදේ එක්කෙනෙක් චැට් එකෙන් සීතාම්බර සළු හොයද්දි දුකත් එක්ක හිනත් ගියා!

Pregnant

Criminy!!! Why can't I simply go to bed, shut my eyes & drift off to snoozle land without letting my wild fantasies get the best of me? Serious genetic flaw I am telling y'all... So here I am (again), rattling away on the keyboard, with a stinging right eye & a fried brain.

Today's topic : You can read, can't you?

You sit on a stiff chair, a boring desk, in a long demeaning hall. You are surrounded by four of your peers each at a distance of 2 or 3 feet maximum, surrounded by rustling of sheets, surrounded by long sighs, and the occasional sound of a pen hitting the floor. The clock ticks away & you know you are in a losing race. The heinous empty spaces in your writing sheet gapes at you. The recollections of all the wasted hours & incompetencies you are doomed to hang on to for the rest of your life scream into your conscience. And you are pregnant with convalescence.

It is wrong. But you did it anyway. What part of your brain that did not function properly at the time of your doing the wrongful act seems to be a good rhetoric question to ask. Now you are caught. You dread at the prospect of a zillion whys & hows & whens being fired at you most to which you will not have a rational answer. Many a prospecting black moments that will be spawned as a result of your mediocre processing skills flash before you. And you are pregnant with remorse.

The week seems to drag on forever. You wait patiently for "that" day. The day of long, secret pleasures. The moment you are transformed into this alien species who listens to no rhyme or reason. The patience is annoying. Yet, you know patience is duly rewarded & perhaps in many ways than one if you play your cards right. For some unknown reason, the longer the day seems to take to come, the faster it dies on you & adds itself to yesterday. And you are pregnant with covetousness.

You are given promises. You being the hopeful promisee believe that the promise would be honored. It turns out the promise comes at a cost you are not quite ready to pay as yet. You wait until the promisor sees some reason & lower the bargain. Your waiting yields nothing but futility. You question & throw alternatives at the promisor hoping the conditions would be waived. Seeing the rigidity, you back off and the promisor goes into oblivion. You are left stranded & wondering what the intentions of the promisor were. And you are pregnant with repulsion.

You see a frail figure lying on a stretcher. He is alive...still. You look at him & you see the struggle he has to put through just to suck in a breath of air. He twists & turns, apparently in discomfort caused by constantly running out of air. He wants to cough but his lungs are too weak to support the demand. His body dissolves so mercilessly under the wrinkling skin. He is sick. You have the same disease the man is suffering from. You see the state you will get to if you aggravate the disease. And you are pregnant with angst.

You have been saying "It is okay" "Nevermind" for a long time & for too many times. You know sometimes you do not mean it even if you said that it was okay & you did not mind it. But under certain controls you yourself have set you force yourself to say so & be a pretender. You are too stiff headed to lower your controls and admit the fact that you are not as strong as some of these antagonizing freaks believe you to be. Living in your own twisted game of charades you wonder if you are getting too strong or too numb. And you are pregnant with perturbation.

And you thought I would trail on digging into the human reproduction system didn't you? I laugh!!!

Pricks!

Startle not, with the seemingly obscene title my friends & fiends. This word for all I know is one of the most beautiful words in the English language yet cursed to be so brutally abused in more ways than one. This rapport, again a sudden gush of thoughts put to words is not in any way intended to slight a group of people, male or female. But should you happen to see yourself between these lines try not to chicken out. Read on. You might browse away from the page feeling like a new man/woman!

During the short course of my existence, I have been blessed to be surrounded by people of many a taste; sweet, sour, sensational, sullen, strange, sphinx-like. (Well yeah, I have a thing going on with the letter S, so sue me!) Variety my friends & fiends is a fascinating concept. Not only does it add color to our lives but also it make you & I all unique in our own ways. And so, from here-onwards unfolds the chronicle of pricks, written by a prick for pricks!

The slang for the word prick is so overrated, IMHO. For best effects, read on having removed the slang term out of your heads! Well, if you insist on licking on the slang term, be my guest for all I care! (LOL)

#1 - Best-Friend Prick
So it comes down to this. Supposedly one of the best childhood relationships many of us tend to cherish for the entirety of our lives, pops up as the #1 in the prick-list.
It starts like this. You know what I am up to. You know too much. Let us be "best friends", so that you will have your hands tied & mouth sealed. Be neutral, at whatever the cost for I know my deepest darkest secret is talking to you about me!
I for one have never believed in the best friend concept. Not basically because I believed myself to be the All mighty. All you need is a vent to let your frustrations out so that having done so you could be on your merry way! Takeaway point, be a friend to somebody, who knows how to be a friend to you in return. The best friend shindig is all bogus!

#2 -All-The-World-Is-A-Cheesecake Prick
There we have it, the one who sees all 7 colors of the rainbow all the time. Every person, event, & passing second is euphoria for them. People do only good. Nothing bad will ever happen. No cloudy skies, gloomy days, & no bastards around to stab you in the back. Welcome to Utopia!!

#3 -Your-Bar-Is-Too-High-For-Me Prick
The surreal inferiority complex. I happen to be a fan of this kind of heads. For some reason they never fail to make me feel like a super hero, with formidable powers. Instant stardom!! What more can you ask for? My advice, try not to talk them out of the pitiful state of mind. Like I said, it's surreal.

#4 -My-Bar-Is-Too-High-For-You Prick
If the bar is too high is probably because you are better off not trying to grab at it. Who needs to go through all the trouble of walking in high heels & stilts trying to reach too high a bar? Be at ease. That be your greatest strength my friends & fiends.

#5 -I-am-A-Grown-Up-In-A-Diaper Prick
Mother nature spins the clock of aging for a good reason. Try not to outsmart the woman. You are required to get old and act your age. How atrocious would it look if you happen to have a head going bald & need to change diapers every 30 minutes!?!? Prancing around like a wild kid will not attract you attention. It will however make others wonder what part of your genetic structure is faulty.

#6 -Imma-Do-You-Before-I-Go Prick
This I believe is best left to the readers to decipher. If only!!!

#7 -Crash Pad Prick
Not every prick is an eyesore. Hear, Hear!!!

#8 -Sealed-Lip-Busy-Head Prick
And the fascination of pricks continues, with the ever popular thoughtful ones. It never ceases to amaze me the tangled webs these pricks contribute in weaving. And once in a while the moment comes at which you are left feeling thankful that the prick is alive & upright.

#9 -Annual-Squeeze Prick
If you feel you belong to this group then I have nothing to say to you. You should feel downright sorry, ashamed & little. Why? Has it not occurred to you that surfacing only when you require something from somebody puts you way below in human ranking? People have to swallow an awful lot just to sound normal when you show your futile self. Try not surfacing at all for a change. That would do everybody a whole lot of good.

#10 -Now-You-See-Me-Now-You-Don't Prick
Lo & behold the great Houdini! Crowd Pleaser #1, so to speak!!! These souls have the knack of pulling out disappearing acts that are world class.:D The good thing however is that they never fail to keep you at the edge of your seats, although the fun is extremely short lived.

#11 -Be-The-Underdog Prick
Sometimes, there comes along the obnoxious creature & blabs out the most infuriating statements ever! The statements include, do not be an over-achiever, nobody wants an over-achiever, be average so that you will get noticed, do not do this, it will not work, don't do that you will be wasting time, bla bla bla...Well, dearies the space you lot occupy in this universe is just a waste!

#12 -The Weed Prick
Be not misled. This be not the "herb". The weed clan is always best kept in a distance. The lot is full of venom oozing out & feeding on any weak conscience that happen to cross their paths. BRRRR.... Fall not pray, or thou shalt be doomed for all eternity!

#13 -The-Easy-To-Please Prick
Oh, the cheery bundle, & by far the best of the lot. The most creative, weird thinkers. Good times once in company is guaranteed!

#14 - The Worthy Prick
If you did not happen to land yourself in any of the prior prick groups, this is where you probably belong. Congratulations...

"You Know, You Make Me Feel Like The Girl In This Conversation!"

So it comes in so many different forms yet never failing to draw a smile on my face.

The note starts with the famous Sachini Weerawardhana Assurance extended to the source of this utterance. I got your back pal! This is written with no hard feelings, no satire, no WTF intentions. Just the thought of scribbling something on a writing pad being executed merely out of the hilarious nature of the aforementioned statement made.

So the source happened to be a sweet, nice, man with a cheese ball like complexion. Beware of the harmless looking external aura people...The man,( as has proven so many times in the past) is known to be the most difficult to read! I for one have completely given up the studying the body language part & taken it to a neutral "go with the flow" approach. Sauciness aside, the cheese ball has been responsible for a few but noteworthy good times that he decided to get me involved as well for no apparent reason.

Thank you for the 31st night.

Having made the intros now I proceed to ponder as to what in my mode of conversing made him doubt his sexuality! This being a little piece of literature I am sure I am entitled for some exaggeration. I am not sure what the cheeseball actually meant with the remark & I am going to leave it up to the cheese ball to hang on to his own opinion here. The bottom line - .......................... :D

Comments with similar theme have been directed at me so many a times that I have lost count. Some funny, some obnoxious & some with alien like emotions attached with'em. I am not sure if it is a good thing though. Neither am I sure if it is something I should set about fixing. What do you call it anyway? Intimidation??? Er...that somehow seems too harsh a word!

Heck, if it is intimidation i should be feeling glad! I am this wild thing which in no way can be tamed unless I, myself command my systems to shut down. The self-sufficient nature sort of bugs most of them I reckon (as I have been told many times again) ! I however, do not see myself necessarily changing in the foreseeable future mostly due to the fact that I do not function to please the outside world. This is strictly a no comfort-pillow zone.

My theory of co-existence: If it does not feel like your court, do not play in it.

So my response to the comment goes on to describe how the cheese ball should be happy about feeling like a girl, because it was "oddly comforting". To which the cheese ball half heatedly agreed. I do not blame the poor critter for his confused state. It is a pretty big deal if you in your head begin to question your sexuality.

The curtain is drawn here with a note to the cheese ball, conversations with you are brain teasers!
You are the man!! (thumbs up)

Google Project 10^100

And so, the "Change The World" Project hosted by Google is having a flourish of ideas. Google 10^100 project marking the companies 10 year anniversary, is finally getting underway. All that is left to do is to shortlist what to do from that extremely long list of 150,000 project ideas & we are good to go! The objective of this project is to launch campaigns that could and will "change the world".

The project is said to be branching off to 16 different themes, ranging from effective methods of de-mining to introduction of more socially conscious tax policies. The project proposals will be vying for 10 million USD that will be awarded as grant to the winner.

The winner will be chosen based on a public voting. Voting ends 8 October.

How To Make a Customized Title Page Using LaTex

To do this you need two .tex files. Let us name the original document as report.tex & the title page you will be making as title.tex.

In my report.tex file I write the following code.

\documentclass[a4paper,11pt]{report}

\usepackage[pdftex]{graphicx}
\newcommand{\HRule}{\rule{\linewidth}{0.5mm}}
\usepackage{fancyheadings}

\pagestyle{headings}


\begin{document}
\input{./title.tex}

\end{document}


In my title.tex file I put the following code:


\begin{titlepage}

\begin{minipage}{1in}
\begin{tabular}{l}
\includegraphics[width=0.5\textwidth]{./uom}
\end{tabular}
\end{minipage}
\hfill
\begin{minipage}{1in}
\begin{tabular}{r}
\includegraphics[width=0.5\textwidth]{./cse}
\end{tabular}
\end{minipage}


\begin{center}
% Upper part of the page

\textmd{CS5999 Post Graduate Diploma Project Report}
\vfill
% Title
{ \huge \textbf{Exposing Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) Agents on The Web} }\\[0.4cm]
\begin{center}
\vfill
By\\
\vfill
\large\textbf{S. S. Weerawardhana}
\end{center}

\begin{center}
\textmd{MSc 2008 Registration No: 088274C}\\
\vfill
\large\textbf{Supervisor: Dr. Buddhinath Jayatilleke}
\vfill
May 2009\\
\end{center}

\vfill
\begin{center}
This proposal is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement of\\
Master of Science in Computer Science\\
in the\\
Department of Computer Science and Engineering\\
Faculty of Engineering\\
University of Moratuwa\\
\end{center}
\vfill


\end{center}

\end{titlepage}


Make sure you keep title.tex document and the report.tex document in the same location. The importance of this is because in report.tex you get the code line \input{./title.tex}. This means that when report.tex is compiled it should also look for title.tex in the same location & compile both the documents to produce the end result.

See the attachment provided with this post so that you can see what the outcome of this code looks like.