Articles in Roar

Straight From The (Ceylonese) Street

Asiff Hussein 20 March 2017 Sri Lanka prides itself in its street food, and not surprisingly. It’s the most egalitarian grub in the world, bringing together plebeian, patrician, and whoever in-between, to savour something different from our everyday run-of-the-mill fare. Who, after all, isn’t fascinated by the solitary hawker who, …

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More Colpetty Places And Their Stories

Asiff Hussein 4 September 2017 We continue our survey of Old Colpetty with this sequel on More Colpetty Places and their Stories to take our readers on another trip down memory lane. The Colpetty of the roaring sixties and seventies was simply wonderful to be in. Life then was so …

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The Colpetty That Was

Asiff Hussein 11 July 2017 Colpetty, the small yet plush ward of downtown Colombo, still has a certain charm to it. It’s a mini town of sorts, with a cinema, shopping complex, municipal supermarket, ice cream parlour, a plethora of restaurants, some choice schools, finance houses, and a variety of …

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The Slave Island That We Have Forgotten

Asiff Hussein 28 January 2017 Ever wondered how Slave Island, one of downtown Colombo’s major hotspots today, got its name? It has neither slaves nor is an island as far as we can see. But then again, place-names rarely lie. They often reflect the reality that once was, capturing a …

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Ten Vedda Delicacies Hard To Come By Today

Asiff Hussein 20 April 2017 When we think of the Veddas, we often think of them as hunters, chasing after anything they can make a meal of. However, little do we realise that they had, and still have, something of a culinary tradition of their own, including some unique meaty …

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The White Man’s Words

Asiff Hussein 11 December 2016 There is this hilarious story of an American editor who wanted to come up with a novel way of wording the usual births, marriages, and deaths section of his up and doing newspaper. He finally got it. He called it Hatched, Matched and Dispatched! True …

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