The Saadhu Blog
Independence Of Religion
Feb 22, 2015 • 5 min read
66 years after we received independence from colonial rule, it is unfortunate that we have to ponder if we do really have the independence and the freedom to believe in and practice our own faith and religion, in Sri Lanka.
Non-human Humans
Feb 1, 2015 • 5 min read
"The Animal Rights Action Network (ARAN) said it is delighted with last week's ruling by an Argentinian court which granted the intelligent apes the status of "non-human persons", rather than a thing or object." (Independent. Ireland. 28-12-2014)
Janus Face
Jan 19, 2015 • 5 min read
Tonight we are saying goodbye to 2014 and welcoming a new year as 2015. We look back on the year gone past, and look forward to the coming year. We can only look in one direction at a time. It is the two-faced god Janus Bifrons, who could look in both directions, and the coming month was named Ianuarius, from which we got January.
Let There Be Lighght
Dec 18, 2014 • 6 min read
lighght. Seven letters which made poetic history. Seven letters typed out on a sheet of paper by Aram Saroyan. “The difference between “lighght” and another type of poem with more words is that it doesn’t have a reading process,” says Saroyan, who lives in Los Angeles and teaches writing at the University of Southern California. 'Lighght' first appeared in The Chicago Review and later was featured in 'The American Literary Anthology', where it ran for seven pages, with one letter on each page. When the poem received $ 750 from the National Endowment for the Arts, there had been a huge uproar about wasting government funds, and there had been a letter from a taxpayer "We can't afford to lower taxes but we can pay some beatnik weirdo $ 500 to write one word..and not even spell it right." (Saroyan received $ 500 out of the 750 from the publisher).
Technology Overload
Dec 10, 2014 • 6 min read
Internet Addiction Disorder - IAD, was the diagnosis when a man had to be treated for the addiction to Google Glass, wearing it 18 hours a day. He would remove it only to sleep and wash. Google Glass could be the nearest thing to using our mind to see the world beyond our normal vision. This person, and may be others, may not be able to distinguish between his own dreams, and what he saw on the glass. This first ever case of addiction to Google Glass had been reported in September 2013, at the US Navy Substance Abuse and Recovery Programme. But the term Internet Addiction Disorder had been coined in 1995 by Dr. Ivan Goldberg as a hoax, by applying criteria from gambling addiction on to the internet. A study in 2011 with university students in several countries had shown that "most students were unable to voluntarily avoid their tech gadgets for one full day".
Godavari Harathi
Dec 4, 2014 • 6 min read
"The hydrologic cycle describes the pilgrimage of water as water molecules make their way from the Earth's surface to the atmosphere, and back again." NASA has called it a 'pilgrimage'. I had the good fortune to make a pilgrimage myself, to attend a pilgrimage by the people on the bank of river Godavari, at Rajahmundry, in Andhra Pradesh. 'Godavari Harathi Utsav' (homage to Godavari) was a puja utsav attended by pilgrims from all over Andhra and Telanagana, to honour the pilgrimage made by the goddess Godavari.
Curating Culture
Nov 4, 2014 • 6 min read
"All human beings are curators, caring for and conserving our culture and our cultural heritage" explained Dr. Sanjay Garg, Deputy Director SAARC Cultural Center, during the SAARC International Conference on Development of Museums in South Asia, with the theme, 'Curating Culture for Present and Future', held from October 23rd to 25th at the National Museum, Colombo. Dr. Garg made this comment when the issue was raised that the curators and museum management should think outside the box and consider that the whole world is a museum of invaluable cultural heritage. He went on further to add that it is the responsibility of all mankind to protect and conserve all objects of cultural and heritage value on earth.
The Unnovel
Oct 29, 2014 • 5 min read
Paul Lucian published his first unnovel (sometimes written un-novel) in 2003, titled, 'NineteenEightyFive'. It is the story of O'Bryan working as the Chief Inspector of the Thought Police under the Ministry of Truth. He had developed it based on George Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty Four'. He was planning to write two more unnovels, NineteenEightySix and NineteenEightySeven, but I have not been able to find the books or confirm if they had been published.