AHAMED NISHADH

A movie 70 years in the making they say. Many tried. Many failed. But Mani succeeded. After a few attempts at least.  I'll start by saying, no, I have NOT read the book. But I've heard numerous people talk about it. Describe parts of it. Praise the creativity of the author. And listened to about 20 mins of a 1.5 hr summarised version of the books.  #PonniyinsSelvan The Movie is Mani Ratnam's version of Kalki's book. Don't expect a word to word representation of the book. That being said, the movie is MASSIVE! Casting is perfect. The list is too long to describe one by one. But everyone is on their A game. From the smallest character to the largest. Karthi plays his role well. Aish, Trisha, Vikram just take over the moment. That meeting scene of the two female leads is beautifully shot making the viewers try to decide who is going to win the contest. Ravi Varman's camera work is stunning capturing the beauty of the Chola Kingdom and the other locations as well as...

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, q...

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 ...

After the incident at #Meethotamulla recently, I see so many who are posting articles about Waste Management and how its effectively done in other countries in the world and the big question in the end being WHY CANT SRI LANKA DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS? "Waste is not waste but a resource that has value" said Chinthaka Abeysekara at TEDxColombo 2016. He showed us how countries around the world have successfully monetized waste and recycled it to produce alternate sources of energy and much more. So, again, why haven't we been able to do it yet? Well, the answer is simple. it is us. Yes, us, the people of this country! We the people of this country are stupid enough to elect the same corrupt irresponsible greedy pigs into power all the time at every election and they in-turn want bribes, commissions, favors from those who want to make these waste management plants which then discourages the private sector and the investors and today, we have over 10 innocent lives inc...

Its nearly the end of 2016 and as usual I was trying to find the Sri Lankan Holidays calendar for 2017 to add to my work and personal calendars. But unfortunately, I couldnt find one. So, I decided to make one on my own. Thankfully, some good guy out there ( I really cant remember his name) made this calendar for a few years which I've been using so I just copied the old events to a new calendar and changed their dates according to the dates published on the holidays list by the Ministry of Public Administration and Home Affairs ( http://www.pubad.gov.lk/web/index.php?option=com_latestdocument&documenttype=8&lang=en ) So, here you go. Download the ICS file from the link below and just import it into your calendars add the holidays. The calendar is set to Sri Lanka as location and GMT 5:30+ as the time zone. Download the file from  https://goo.gl/7E40Q2   Feel free to share it with others too. All credit to the original guy who made this. 

Its been a long time since i last blogged. So thought ill write something about a matter that I've been thinking about so much over the last few months. The Politics of Colombo Youth Activism. Well it may be a list of words that could look not right when put together, but hey.. its my blog, my thoughts so the title will be anything that i want it to be. So what is this Colombo Youth Activism and whats this politics im talking about you may ask. So here's the deal. Many people who know me know that over the last several years, ive been involved in some kind of youth related activities, volunteering, organizing a hell of a lot of events etc. At first, it was fun, refreshing and gave me a good feeling about what i was doing. But, over the years, ive noticed that things are changing. HOW? Well, to start off with, youth clubs have become like political parties in Sri Lanka now. Except without the part where they together form a government. ;) Every Tom, Dick and Harry (or rat...

The world goes mad when 200 girls are kidnapped. When women are raped. When USA is attacked. When UK is attacked. When a plane vanishes from earth. When journalists are jailed. But when #Gaza is attacked, no one cares about it, its not a human rights violations, its not a war crime to hit hospitals, ambulances, disability support centers, houses and kill women and children mercilessly while playing on the streets, sleeping after staying up for hours. Where are all the Human Right protectors?? Where are all the petitioners?? Where are all the human right organizations? Why is everyone silent when it comes to #Gaza?? Is it because you dont get enough $$$ to talk against these issues? Is it because your afraid your big posh offices in US and UK will be shut down if you talk against it? When girls being kidnapped, women being raped, journalists being jailed are considered crimes worth of international attention, how come killing humans, bombing houses, destroying communities, target...

Sitting on a hospital bed, going thru my twitter feed, i find out that today is some kinda remembrance day for the US Army and the hashtag #wewillnotforget was being used for this... Browsing thru the hashtag tweets, i find more negative tweets from people around the world on how they will never forget what the US army has done for their lives by destroying their families, killing their children, siblings, parents, friends etc instead of not forgetting their service to the nation of the so called US of A.. Taking a step back, i was just wondering is this all right. How is killing innocent civilians, children, women etc in the name of national security and world peace going to help protect your country? Isnt it only going to help create more enemies who want to take revenge on you and your countrymen? Then your child takes revenge then their child takes revenge.. Tit for tat n it goes on eh? Leader of the free world they call him.. But what is this so called free world? Are we living...

When was the last time you went to a party/event and had a great time without having to pose with your friends for 10 different photographers?? When was the last time you went to a concert and was able to enjoy the show without your view being blocked by around 25 photographers?? Its obvious that Sri Lanka has gone through a "DSLR" boom and all the rich kids who used to own a decent digital camera now run around with a big ass camera of which they dont event know how to use 90% of the controls. And then there is the photography craze. Any event you go, there's at least 5 photographers from 5 different "online media" taking your pictures and publishing them god knows where. Seriously, WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO PRIVACY? Any event you go to now a days, you have photographers. Photographers trying to beat the other photographer in getting that special shot that would get people to come to "their" facebook page and click "like" on it. ...

Hello and welcome to my blog. Its been several  months since I posted something although I gotta say ive got several drafts on my blog which are half baked and some which I dont ever intend to publish. So its been an eventful 2013. Many news friends came into my life.. Some went out.. did certain things that I would never regret in my life.. learned a lot of important lessons and to top it off, ended with V Awards 2013. Ive almost completed by higher education but thanks to some jerks and also part of my inability to study and understand maths fast enough, I was unfortunate not to graduate last year. So gotta wait another one more year. Met some great guys in my life. Started working for ReadMe (www.readme.lk) and did a cameo appearance at a certain software company. As always, volunteering was a big part of my life over the year. Was part of the Twinning Schools Programme Grand Finale in Badulla.. Months of preparations (which i was not directly part of most of the time...

2012.. probably the best year in my life i would say.. so many things have happened.. so many people have come and gone in my life.. so many new experiences.. the loss of a very dear person in my life from this world and so the list continues.. its pretty long... and im pretty sure its the same for the world out there too.. from jumps from the space to tragedies and of course Gangnam Style... its pretty eventful too... well i havnt blogged as much as the last year in this year.. mainly probably coz i was too busy.. sooo many things in my life to take care of.. so many events.. gosh.. started off the year with cousins and relatives like in the past few years.. and then the next few days went on to become very dramatic in my life.. a certain event that only very close frnds of mine wud knw of.. and then took a shap 90 o turn thanks to some awesome friends in my life and to some new friends that i found through volunteering and what not..  some of the most interesting/remem...

its been a looooooooong time.. a very very long time since ive put an update on whats been happening with me and my beautiful steady unstable awesome super duper life.. :) to be precise nearly 8-9 months i guess.. and trust me, there's a preeeeeeeeeeeeeety lot thats happened over the last few months... life's been good i wud say.. kinda treated me well and with a bit of fairness compared to other times.. I may have taken one or two bad decisions over the time, but i know i certainly did take one particular decision that i know i will regret for quite a long time.. :) but then past is past.. time to more on i say..  V awards, exams, assignments, festivals, parties, tours, first family trip abroad, colombo+20, cricturf, connect, youth day, cgye, new friends, new experiences, new responsibilities, revelations, and omg.. the list just keeps going on.. Im sure everyone probably knows what V Awards is by now.. if not, just find the post i did about v awards somewhere in...

CHECKOUT ALL OTHER GREETING CARDS IVE DESIGNED @ https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.224139077065.142896.551097065&type=3

Over the years, we have been looking at pictures of foreign countries and foreign places and wondered how beautiful they are and why our own country is not like that. But with the years passing by and some very large scale development projects being carried out in Sri Lanka and with the Colombo Beautification project underway, things seem to have started to change.. many of those living in Colombo may have seen this change taking place. The area around Gangarama, Bauddhaloka Mawatha, Independence Square and the surroundings, Galle Road from Bambalapitiya junctions to Kolpetty are some of the prime examples of these development and beautification project(s). Recently, i received an email with a set of pictures of Colombo and i couldnt not resist sharing these pictures. Our Colombo beautified even more through the skillful eyes of the wonderful photographers who captured these photographs. Im sharing these pictures here for all to see. Copyrights for all these pictures belong to th...