Walk Down the Memory Lane

Walk Down the Memory Lane 

Ampitiya, Thalatuoya, Mylapitiya to Marassana

One day we decided not to go to school at all. We were ill prepared. We ended up in Mylapitiya.         

It was 20 kilo meters from our base. We had few cents and bought few buns and decided to walk back home, this time on the main road and never took a side turn. We reached Katawala-Lewla and we were tired. We jumped into hearse with  a dead body and got down near our houses.

Ampitiya, Peradeniya to Murutalwa

This episode was much earlier. 

My mother used to believe in astrologers. 

She decided to go to a place in Muruthalawa. My bribe was only 30 cents, enough to cover the bus fare. This went on for long time and  I decided to walk home. I waked from Murutalawa to Peradeniya,  8 kilo meters distance. 

Got into a bus from Peradenoiya to Kandy and from Kandy to Ampitiya and reached home safely. 

I had something to eat and climbed the Avocado tree waited for my mother to come home looking for me. She did come and did not find me at home. I saw her going from house to house and after about half an hour I climbed down with a nasty smile. 

She was in tears.

I told her, I am going to tell father, if you do not promise me that you never go to an astrologer, again.  

I also asked did the astrologer tell you what happened to  your kid. 

I was about 8 years old, then. She never did go to any afterwards and lived up to ripe old age of  91 years without any major illness.

Ampitiya to Wakara-Watta or Dunumadalawa

This is the most beautiful stretch. Our most regular route. There are lot of Nelli trees and other fruits including mangoes. It is in the forest reserve of Kandy and where Kandy Water Reservoir is located. We climb the Ampitiya hill and come down on one side of the Hantana hill and end up at Rajapihilla where the ladies of King of Kandy bathed.

I was taken there to bath as preschool kid.      

The water was pretty cold which I did not enjoy. I wait till my mother finishes washing the cloths. The monkeys come and steal the cloths if I do not keep watch.

One cannot walk freely to these locations, now. The land is divided into smaller pieces and lot of houses build and gates all over both private as public.

We were lucky. 

Did not have a camera to record them. I did not tell you about the Dharmaraja hill, which is absolutely stunning. Colonel Olcott was mesmerized. 

I did a long walk on that stretch just before I left for Australia.

Mental Age, Physical Age and Credibility Gap

 04-10-2010
Mental Age, Physical Age and Credibility Gap

Children are different and their development physically and mentally are different and the variability can be immense.

The academic tests done are not assessed according to the age or sex even retrospectively. 

The test is done on a single day the age difference of the population is 12 months.

A child who is one year younger is tested with a child who is one year older.

Sex difference value is at least 2 years favoring girls

The mental age variability may be as high as 5 years.

This vary even for the mother language which is is almost automatically acquired.

Girls acquire language quicker than boys.

This is the function of the dominant but automatic side of the brain.

For example to swallow food or water one needs not have to teach even a dog.

This is not so for the second language which is the function of the creative side of the brain.

There is a time to introduce a second language.

Otherwise it becomes a translation of word by word process and that is not the way to learn a second language.

The style of the language is never acquired.

I could not master French at the age of 55.

This is what has happened to good old English.

Every country imitate  its native (Stepmother Version of English) version.

English is an international and universal language.

One need not be puritan but should not vandalize it.

The effect of the trainer or teacher is not taken in my analysis.

Parental and social effects are also dominantly operating.

Girls lag behind mathematics till their advanced level age and the leveling off occurs automatically.

By then some boys are 2 to 5 years ahead.

This why boys are clever in computer techniques.

That does not mean boys are smarter but is just the pattern.

Learning acquiring knowledge and skills is a pattern based not rote based memory.

One should employ the tradition of Buddhist monks.

The monks fearing distortion handed down the teachings by rote memory and the writing down was done years later.

By that time distortions have already taken place.

Simply there are two editions. We are still arguing about the sectors but very few practice the essence, the universal compassion.

This country has become the opposite.

Hate is propagated and encouraged in the name of fragile law of existence.

This is somewhat seen with computer competency, too but nobody has done a long term study (wider availability of computer skills is only less than a decade and one cannot see the pattern of learning in such a short time).

10 or 15 year period is such a short time in academic functions and their assessment.

So test designed on a static moment of time is bound to be not a true assessment of the child’s dynamic potential.

Children are dynamic.

A test based on static nature has no validity.

With or without a test some improve some go down and some drop out.
what I am against is the labeling or appointment as a leader in academic skills (party politics does not apply here).

Learning is a continuous process up to one’s death.

The 5th year Scholarship has all the inherent defects which convicts 90% of some creative innocent children into thinking that they are not worth the mettle and is a national crime.

I had very few wishes and scrapping this test was one of my first priority if am given the mantle of education reforms.

One of the other wishes has gone by the wayside and into thin air which I stated 6 years ago and I wish not repeat it here.

Such an amount of mounting stupidity in the system and at higher echelon having an intellectual discussion is almost impossible.

When dons are talking of virginity and their availability or non-availability for competence in academic activities is hilarious.

What little I know people who are engaged in healthy sex activities (men in particular) are forward in their academic activities. Less being said about this is better except for proposing to appoint a Professor of Virginity for all academic institution including all national schools is ripe in this Banana Republic. The criteria of eligibility except for having a Big Bunch, I cannot elaborate for my own sanity but I wish to sit at the Interview Board of Selections since, I can still distinguish big from a small one.

This test which has variability of factor 12x2x5 x X-factor is over 250 folds.

This is like saying there are 250 colours and which is superior.

Children are all colourful in their own ways and every colour is beautiful for their parents.

The problem is when you make them only black and white.

That is what this test does.

It is infuriating.

Where are those American trained psychologists who are selling education piece by piece?

It should be scrapped as soon as possible and I do not think even our grandchildren will not be spared to this ignominious (putting all others who fail to ignoramus) adventure by our education system, if things remain as it is without a revision 90% of our children are doomed.

There is another point I am totally against, the area basis selection of students to the Universities.

This is a violation of fundamental right of each student who sit a competitive examination.

If the government cannot rectify the difference and disparity in education and in the school system, they should pay some compensation for those students who are between the area basis marks and and above and not getting selected due to no fault of their capabilities but due to wrong government policy.

Let that be a healthy sum so that the particular student is able to go abroad and continue his/her education which he/she deserves.

Why only rich people send their children abroad?

University entry should be on first come first basis.

It should not be based on political decisions of proportionate representation.

It is wrong.

Why at least one student not contesting the education department on fundamental rights issue is amazing.

I wish a lawyer should represent this case without a fee from this student.

If I am a lawyer I would have done that by now.

As a doctor I see only the psychological effects.

Offering Flowers to Buddha and the Walking Dream

Offering Flowers to Buddha and the  Walking Dream
This was very short dream. The question was, why I do not walk like I used do that when I was in Ceylon having come to Australia. To remedy this situation I walked from Kandy to Peradeniya in one go in my sleep. I cannot remember the details but I got really tired by the time I reached Gatambe Temple.         

I went to the temple and picked a particular flower from the shrine.
The flower is marigold.
The idea was for me to use the seeds to plant them in our garden. Great Great Grandma of my children loved these flowers for her offering on daily basis. Lately, I was more interested in a different flower. I think it is either common daisy or primrose.     I do not know the name of this flower.
Coming to the dream, I really got tired in my sleep walking from Kandy to Peradeniya and I could not get up from the bed. Then the alarm ran and I was woken up by my wife. She said we need drop the rubbish to the bin and I said NO, I am really tired,        in my dozy stage. Without much a do, we went and dropped the stuff and I completely recovered from my dozy feeling. I found myself much energized.       
I was told in my sleep you ought to do some exercise and doing blog pieces on the computer is not a healthy pastime.
We used to live in a government rented house by the side of the Maligawa or the Temple of the Tooth.      I used go there and offer flowers to the shrine on daily basis. The flowers are arranged on a square shaped cardboard base. Once flowers are placed on the shrine the cardboard piece is put to a bin. It is reused. There is no problem with that but I do not know what happens to the flowers offered. My gut feeling is the flowers are reused by the flower vendors, over and over again,    with the connivance of the seva karayas (those who have specific duties to the temple). They have a method to keep them looking fresh. I do not know how they do that. The same flower is offered several times and one has to pay a nominal sum for each offering.
It is somewhat of a racket.   
When, I realized this as an adult, I stop buying flowers. If the flowers were picked up by myself in our garden and arranged, it is not an issue.
What matters, is to reflect on the issue of temporary nature of everything the flowers, our life and other mundane things. One even, loses the attachment to the flower offered.
It is a taboo for one to take flowers from the shrine and offer them again. I have never done that in all my life.
So the dream is bizarre by all accounts.
Besides, I never go to the Gatambe Temple for any offerings having lived under the shade of Maligawa most of my life.
This account is about my walking habits from childhood. I thing for record, I would revisit some of those episodes.

Our Rivers

 Friday, June 20, 2025
Our Rivers

Some years ago I remember walking around the campus and finding all the bridges were badly maintained including the Railway Bridge in Peradinya and Panideniya.
I decided to write up something on river basin management.
 

If I remember correct I send a draft to a English National Daily but they never bother to publish it or publish a similar article highlighting how Kandy as a district was neglected by politicians for the last 35 years or so.
 

The politicians past and present once they assume duties come to Kandy as a routine pilgrimage in a motorcade (now in helicopters) over these dilapidated bridges and do sweet nothing afterward. 

 

This cycle goes on ritualistically since they never get out of their cars or from their air conditioned rooms except for choreographed editions of their meeting of the electorate.
So I decided to publish them in the open, that means in the web.
Three years after that a shoddy job was done at Peradeniya Motor Bridge (nothing probably for Railway Bridge) and still the Peradeniya town is under threat due to earth slips. 

Most of these damages were initialed by heavy construction undertaken to construct telecommunication towers and some name boards in the hill above the Peradeniya town.
If one walks along the river side of botanical gardens cracks were visible on the road for decades but nobody took notice of all these symptoms and signs and the negligence by successive governments went on unabated. They provide lip service come elections and after that they move to Colombo and never come to Kandy even on December holidays.

Kandy had been a neglected city after the British left for good.

I have stated these observations based on my limited sphere of activity and everybody who is somebody should observe what is neglected in his or her sphere of activity and record and report them for the local government to act upon them.
But I cannot remember anybody acceding to my requests and comments.
However, I did not go into details of landslide since my understanding about is limited but my experience of it from childhood is enough to say the least.
 

I have seen part of the massive Ampitiya Uduwela landslide more than 50 years ago when many people left that village for elsewhere in fear.

Now in Kandy no place is safe.

In addition, during the Mahaveli Development the land reserves were divided among some of the kith and kin in public service and politics for a pittance and that also had encroached upon the river basin.

The management of the river basin was left to mother nature.
In addition heavy equipment used and detonation used over the past 30 years have even compromised heavy tension wire installations. They even remove the wires and reinforcement used to anchor the pillars. Enough damage is done one day high tension wires might even fall on our head nobody would give a damn.
 

Roughly a year ago Kandy train could not go past beyond Panideniya for three days due to stretch of the track above collapsing on to the drain. This part is still not fully serviced and the trains do go pass that point to Kandy daily.

I have decided to stop going by this train since one is not sure whether one would return safely home the same evening.

It is time we forget about Mega Projects and divert our attention at least to refurbish the existing infrastructure before they fall apart completely. This is how the public service is managed and it is getting worse by the season. There are so many ministries and there is no coordination to say the least.
The events that are unfolding in Kandy and around are due to lack of foresight and negligence by the authorities holding high posts.
This cycle will repeat ad lib!

Bart Sibert and Moon Landing

The moon hoax guy

NASA guy from childhood.

Positive lie people believe and last longer.

Nobody dare to challenge.

Bill Kaesing prediction 2 in 10,000 chance accomplishing the feat.

After more than 59 years we cannot go beyond 1000 miles from earth.

Van Allen Radian belt is real killer of moon landing on first attempt.

Americans are very good at getting caught lying.

Now Israelites are doing the same thing about Iranians surely developing nuclear 

arms to bomb Iran.

These guys are good at taking oath on the Bible at any moment their version is compromised.

Would you believe Americans or the Bible or neither?

 

Bart Sibert made his comments as as a Photographer.
 
I am going to make my comments as a Doctor in Medicine.
I have a piece here where I have stated why I should not wear a space suit.
 
Things I failed to mention in that piece is stated here.
 
Me on the MOON
 
We are one gravity beings.
It took millions of years for us to evolve.
In spite of that we cannot live in the Himalaya with Oxygen deficient thin air.
Equally we cannot live undersea due to weight of the water taking a tall and also due to lack of oxygen. Nitrogen under pressure enter our blood and if we ascent fast Nitrogen bubbles come fast and clog our blood vessels and instant death.
These are described well in old Medical Physiology books.
 
Similarly we cannot live in low gravity moon.
Moon is supposed to be one sixth of the Earth Gravity.
Without a space suit we die of anoxia and moon does not have Oxygen with the same pressure as hours.
The space ship has to be light weight. If it is of heavy metal, it would sink on the surface of the moon, like we sink in muddy soil. Assuming it has dust on top with soft soil.
If we pressure the landing vehicle to one gravity, it will have have tough metal covering to withstand the pressure. It would bust like a balloon if the metal is thin and light weight. Additionally it make the vehicle heavy and would sink in the moon soil both due to weight and to landing momentum.
Apart from our physiological limitation we have to overcome all the physical limitations.
The wonder is Americans overcame all these in the first attempt itself.
This should to interpreted with why Russians did not bother to land on the moon.
Perhaps they did not want to sacrifice their top astronauts.
That is my conclusion.
 
For some unknown reason Joe Rogan tried to defend these American lies.
Perhaps he does not want to lose his ardent spectator base.
That is the very reason I do not watch Joe Rogan.
I have no problem with American's Romantic relationship with the moon.
We Buddhist have religious relationship with the Full Moon Day. We Buddhist in the past observed religious ceremonies. Buddha is supposed to be born on a Wesak (May) Poya day.

Any person or organization who propagate lies is under my radar.

As a Buddhist Lie I consider as a the biggest crime of this Modern World.

All World Media are owned by five big corporations and if the journalists as professionals do not follow rules laid down on them they are unceremoniously removed.

Tucker Carlson is a case in point but he survived.

According to Bill Kazing statistical odds, in 1966 going to the moon was 1 to 10.000.

Many reasons cited.
1. Van Allen Belt.
2. No records old technology.
3. Could not repeat it for another 56 years.
4. Expert People in the command center could not say the Apollo images were real or fake.
5. No independent Media to witness the historical event.
6. Only 3 persons had access to the photos.
7.  There were about 20 murders to shut the mouth of de-bunkers.
 
Any country who lies to its own people would not hesitate to lie to others.
 
Kelly Smith says instrument sensors have  to be Radiation Free through the Van Allen Radiation belt.
They may have sent experimental animals through this belt. The end result would have been dry charcoal on return. No biological cells left to study carcinogenesis.
It should be true of the astronauts, even with a thick space suits.
I am a retired pathologist who taught effects of radiation to medical students.

Let us just leave the medical facts for academic guys.

Americans were good at lying and C.I.A. was their instrument for both lying and bullying.

Also killing Americans and Non Americans who did not tore the line.
 
Gus Gruesome was one such unfortunate guy.
 
The common method is handsome bribes and perks.
 
Best evidence of faking is in the audio footage.

It takes 2 second for voice from moon to the earth and 2 seconds for a reply back.
4 seconds in total.

During the Recording Session, there is a guy in the background who says TALK after 4 seconds to make Neil Armstrong realize that time is up for him to talk.
 
Faking photos is another point.
 
The American flag fluttering on the moon with no atmosphere is classic photo error.
 

Besides the rocket was not powerful enough to carry such a distance.

Getting all these things right, "First Time Round" and "Always Right" is the biggest American Achievement.
Quality Guru Deming has known to have said only Japanese followed his instructions.
That is also after Hiroshima Bomb.

Russian, Deep Fake Detection Program of AI can distinguish fake from real photos. 

That is the bottom line.

We are living in a Faked News World for over 55 years.

Truth will be on the future tense never at present tense.
That is my coinage.

Google's Neural Network says moon landing is faked.

I hope President Donald Trump would have a smooth inauguration ceremony.
President Putin last year was under snow during Victory Parade. I think people consider snow as a blessing at least at Christmas Day.

 Posted on February 9, 2011

Spacesuit and its Occupant

Bart Sibert made his comments as as a Photographer.

 

I am going to make my comments as a Doctor in Medicine.

 

I have a piece here where I have stated why I should not wear a space suit.

 

Things I failed to mention in that piece is stated here.

  

Brain is gravity bound and need oxygen and high pressure suits on the moon.
In zero gravity C.S.F fluid flows in opposite direction and effects sleep diurnal rhythm and critical decision making capacity.

 

Me on the MOON

We are one gravity beings.

It took millions of years for us to evolve.

In spite of that we cannot live in the Himalaya with Oxygen deficient thin air.

Equally we cannot live undersea due to weight of the water taking a tall and also due to lack of oxygen. Nitrogen under pressure enter our blood and if we ascent fast Nitrogen bubbles come fast and clog our blood vessels and instant death.

These are described well in old Medical Physiology books.

 

Similarly we cannot live in low gravity moon.

Moon is supposed to be one sixth of the Earth Gravity.

Without a space suit we die of anoxia and moon does not have Oxygen with the same pressure as hours.

The space ship has to be light weight. If it is of heavy metal, it would sink on the surface of the moon, like we sink in muddy soil. Assuming it has dust on top with soft soil.

If we pressure the landing vehicle to one gravity, it will have have tough metal covering to withstand the pressure. It would bust like a balloon if the metal is thin and light weight. Additionally it make the vehicle heavy and would sink in the moon soil both due to weight and to landing momentum.

Apart from our physiological limitation we have to overcome all the physical limitations.

The wonder is Americans overcame all these in the first attempt itself.

This should to interpreted with why Russians did not bother to land on the moon.

Perhaps they did not want to sacrifice their top astronauts.

That is my conclusion.

 

Mind this is an introduction for anybody who is running short of an idea to write about in WordPress blogging site.

This is an idea I hit upon by reading a blog writing of a experienced civil pilot not a fighter pilot.

Have you ever thought of the 50 things that the spacesuit occupant in space won’t share with his body soul?

You probably have not but I was one who was very much interested in this in my school days and in early days as medical student.

I cannot remember what I wrote then but this is an attempt to revise some of those physiological constraints not in particular order or in any order of merits.

Suffice is to say I get a sickly feeling when I think of space (occupied especially by alien elements).

Imagine yourself trapped in a escalator without illumination (light) and the computer circuit controlling the up and down movements gone haywire and it is going up and down in an erratic fashion.

That is a the feeling I get moment I put on a spacesuit for travel.

That is one thing you must consider when paying for, an enormous amount for a single trip in space.

Is is worth the experience and the money?

Probably not but having said that I have tremendously high regard for those guys who trained for years end on to go to space. 

They are a dedicated lot and give them the due respect they deserve if you happen to meet anyone of them.

They were the human guinea pigs in space.

I often wonder how many times they felt sick and vertiginous even in their sleep.

Probably many many times and uncountable and that is the feeling I get if I am invited to wear a spacesuit and come hither for a go.

I will list the feeling inside my head with little imagination and some understanding of my own physiology if not of another being.

1. I hate the space constraint. 

This is the feeling one gets if one has to stay in a tiny hotel room in Singapore overnight due to some delay, cancellation or transit. I have had that feeling once or twice traveling by cheap air flights (a budget air line or Mihin -Hemin- Lanka. When you fly on a good wide-body aircraft it is reasonably OK.

2. I hate heights. Imagine you are in a hotel overnight on the 21st floor room due to flight cancellation. You are well away from a fire exit and there is a blackout and fire drill. 

You don’t have a pen torch. 

If you are on floor one, you can think of jumping out and breaking your legs but not on 21st Floor. 

That is why rooms are cheap as you go up. 

Please pay a good some and ask for a room down below. It is better even if you go to Colombo taking a pen torch with you with these high rising development projects. 

Born to this earth with feet firmly grounded and ample space to breath pristine air (not now even in Kandy) as an embodiment, getting into a spacesuit is the luxury I do not want to avail myself not even in my incarnation.

3. Now about the daily routines I enjoy. Sleep to begin with. I think I can manage sleep upside down on space inside a spacesuit since there is nothing else I can do there except dreaming coming home. 

I can do this since I have learned how to sleep standing on an express bus plying from Kandy to Colombo on a Monday morning. I believe all Sri-Lankans are good at this. Only if you do not have money in your back pocket. There are plenty of pickpockets in this country including politicians who pick our vote without our knowledge. 

They are called pick-votters or even better pick-potters (stuffing the ballot boxes).
These two are new words, I have coined for the Oxford Dictionary with local elections due now).

4. What about food. I won't enjoy the high calorie, high protein dehydrated      food-fads of space travelers especially they are floating about and not placed on a plate with a well laid out nice table. 

My worry is not the quality of food but how am I to partake them in a more sociable way. 

Not empty them to my mouth from paper carton after paper carton.

5. Coming to spirits (if they are allowed like a commercial flight) and drinks. When I suck (not drink them) a little, I want them to stay a while in the mouth and esophagus and stomach and not go flushing down like a vacuum cleaner on full throttle to the colon, in one go..

6. After meal I want to brush my teeth as my good dental friends tell me with a tooth brush floating in air and the toothpaste all over the face with me trying to reach as far as it goes to the third molar.

7. That also I can manage but how about a quick spend a penny in the loo with my prostrate pushing hard on the correct track inside but the squirt getting between my spacesuit and the underwear. 

That is my major worry since I will never master my physiology how ever much I train on earth and mid air.

8. Then the master job of course I have decided one last one here and never in the shuttle till I come home and take some constipating medicare one a week before the departure. I do not want my smelly secrets floating in air and taking pictures of me in flight.

No thank you.

9. Last but not least I fear the algae and the fungi I have been accustomed on earth and living with me with mutual understanding all along my life for years taking advantage of the flight and growing all over me. 

In nails, wind pipe, mouth and all of my privates.

10. Last of all I love scratching my skin, just for fun and any other accessible point from my crown to the rump. 

With these fungi floating around and waiting for a breach, I won’t be able enjoy that luxury.

11. As for the rubbish I collect on flight no problem. We are trained to drop at any advantage point in the town and the Municipalities never clean them. I just open the window and drop it down when we are centering round Sri-Lanka with a note stating “coming from space shuttle in orbit no valuables dropped but destined for Sri-Lankans”.

This is why when President Obama invited me for a flight in space, I refused and gave over 100 volunteers from our parliament elected and wanting to get elected. He of course refused nay for parliamentarians after the Health bill was bailed out out.