AHAMED NISHADH

Hello again to everyone and anyone. Its been exactly 1000 days since I last posted on this blog. That was the 31st of December 2019. Its not that I stopped writing. I've been sharing my thoughts through lengthy posts on Facebook where the reach is more I guess.  Recently, I received a notification through email about this blog so I decided to check out and see what have I done here in the years gone by.  The title of this blog says "a place to read my mind". Similarly, it was nice to read my mind from many many moons ago. It did also bring a smile here and there reading some of the things that I have written.  What has changed now? So many things I guess. The last time I posted, I said I am getting married in a few days. So, now, I am married to this wonderful lady who is probably keeping me in check. Her name is Muiza. Met her sometime back. I guess things clicked. Asked her the question. Both homes were happy about it. And it happened.  COVID happened. Lockdowns, quaran

With a few hours to go for the end of 2019, here's some reflection on the last 360+ days of the year. 2019 has been an year of reflection, change, positivity and eye opener. Early this year started on a very not so steady platform. Personally and professionally. As the days and weeks went by, things didnt get better. Two families I grew up with over the last 6 years, I decided to let go from my life. TEDxColombo and ICTA. One for personal reasons and one for professional reasons. Things didnt seem great at all. And then came the horrible Easter attacks. Friends became enemies. Yet I made so many new good hearted friends. While many were fighting using the keyboard, I decided to put the keyboard to good use. With the help of many like minded and kind hearted people, we helped a lot of people in need. And continue to do so. I say we coz Im not doing this alone at all. Cheers to all the good, kind hearted people who have volunteered their time and money for the various initiative

Hello to everyone, While the country is still trying to figure out what is happening in the political ecosystem of the country, we the people just continue with our day to day life. And so as to continue doing that in 2019, we need to know when the Sri Lankan holidays are. So, as always, ive created the ICS file with all the Sri Lankan Holidays as Gazetted by the Ministry of Home Affairs (Gazette can be found at  http://www.moha.gov.lk/web/images/latest_document/special_notices/Holidays_for_the_Year-2019/2077-32_E.pdf ) You can download the file from  http://bit.ly/2EaNavq The file can be imported into nearly any calendar application that supports ICS files.. I've used it on Google Calendar and Microsoft Office Outlook. If you dont know how to import, ask your best friend (ok, I mean Google). Seasons greetings to you all. Adios!

Let me start off by wishing everyone a Happy New Year!! So, thanks to some interesting events in the last several weeks, I decided to start on a new personal project.. Its a book.. I know its difficult to write a book.. Im not a writer like Dan Brown or like my friend Yudhanjaya.. But, its an effort Im going to put some personal time in.. And its not going to be fiction either. Its going to be a very true story. I've not even had time to finish the 11 blog posts i've started writing in 2017.. How am I going to finish this book.. Well, its going to be a long long long term project. I haven't set a deadline as it involves a lot of content that has been generated and that will be generated.. One may ask what this book is on. Let me assure you that you will have an interesting read once its out. Also, its not about Sri Lanka being a curse.. its about a curse that haunting Sri Lanka. And here's a promise to myself.. Im going to write at least one blog post every m

We are at the end of yet another year. To make it things easier for people, I've created the ICS file with all the Sri Lankan holidays as announced by the Ministry of Home Affairs through Extraordinary Gazette No. 2024/55 published on the 24th of June 2017. ( http://www.moha.gov.lk/web/images/holiday_calendar/holiday_calendar_2018_e.pdf ) PLEASE NOTE THAT THE HOLIDAYS LISTED BY GOOGLE ON THEIR HOLIDAY CALENDAR FOR 2018 IS WRONG! So dont put your trust on this! Looks like they have missed some Poya days as this year we have 13 poya days as there are two months with 2 poya days each (its a double blue moon this year) You can download the calendar from  https://goo.gl/3AXhVB Here's some interesting stats about the holidays next year.. 18 of the 26 holidays listed are falling on weekdays. But be sure to check how many of them are mercantile since your organization may be giving you only mercantile holidays. January and March will have 2 poya days each on the 1st and 3

I've been working with TEDxColombo and the team putting together the show for 5 years now, but 2017 was a little bit different for me (may be for a few others too). I was at one point thinking to myself if I should leave as I had so many other things to be concentrating on among many other reasons.. I was not giving my 100% to the team as I had used to in the previous 4 years. Mind you, I left the hospital 3 days after having surgery for appendicitis and was in 2016 controlling the backstage 6 days after my surgery. As usual, one morning I turned up for rehearsals and I heard for the first time Aritha​ doing his first cut of the talk. After the talk, we had a really long conversation about many things related to his talk and other stuff. I've been working with different types of people throughout my life in different projects. I've talked to so many people. My ability to speak and understand Sinhala and Tamil has helped me understand the stories from both sides of