King Sasanka – Sri Lankan Writer & Retired Aviation Professional.

We met a Greek family on our recent flight to the USA and had a long chat on the 10+ hour flight from Athens to the USA. I knew by looking at them they were in their retirement. I asked them what they were doing during their working life. The answer really surprised me. The gentleman had been working as a bartender all his life and his wife was a homemaker. They were going to the US to see their son and grandchildren, whom they had not seen for awhile due to travel restrictions imposed to combat the spread of the virus. And when they wanted to know where we were coming from, I was happy to say that we were from Sri Lanka, but unfortunately, they had never heard of a country called Sri Lanka before. Bringing the tea into the conversation would stir their memory of the famous Ceylon Tea brand name, too, was met with the same response. This made me think of two important things. The first one was, "Can a bartender from Sri Lanka afford to pay for airfare to visit someon...

For whatever reason, religious conversion is a personal choice and others should not interfere or meddle with the decision taken.  The issue here and in some other poorer parts of the world is that religions have a political voice and some are fearful of losing numbers.  If religion and politics were played on different fields without influencing or interfering with each other's affairs, this "losing numbers" mentality would disappear.  Till then, clashes will be created by a few to stay in power and encourage by others to enjoy benefits of the disharmony. කුමන හේතුවක් නිසා හෝ ආගමික පරිවර්තනය පුද්ගලික තේරීමක් වන අතර ගත් තීරණයට අන් අය මැදිහත් වීම හෝ මැදිහත් වීම නොකළ යුතුය.  මෙහි ප්‍රශ්නය සහ ලෝකයේ තවත් සමහර ප්‍රදේශවල ප්‍රශ්නය වන්නේ ආගම්වලට දේශපාලන හඬක් තිබෙන අතර සමහරු සංඛ්‍යාව අහිමි වේ යැයි බියෙන් සිටීමයි.  එකිනෙකාගේ කටයුතුවලට බලපෑම් නොකර, මැදිහත් නොවී ආගම හා දේශපාලනය විවිධ ක්ෂේත්‍රවල ක්‍රීඩා කළහොත් මේ "අහිමි ගණන්" මානසිකත්වය නැති වී යනු ඇත.  එතෙක් බලයේ සිටීම...