A friend sent me a link to this school for an ancient Sri Lankan martial art – Angampora. I’d heard of it but lost track. It looks like they have an established school in Nugegoda, and a decent website. It seems very interesting. The practice was banned under the British, but it survived. Today a few people preserve and teach it (to the worthy), swearing by the Lord Buddha and Ravana to use their power for good.

I have never watched the NBA, but I must say that watching this Jeremy Lin character is blowing my mind. His winning streak after walking on at the Knicks is still going on. He’s just amazing to watch. The pass at 0:18 is just so impossibly elegant, and the last shot of the game showed unbelievably poise, presence and balls. The shot at the end is just pure drama. He actually pauses, the crowd rises, and the action begins.

Growing up in America as an ‘Asian-American’ can suck. For one thing, there’s the term ‘Asian-America’, which groups more than half of the world population into one check-box. It groups China and India together, and forget about nuances like Sri Lanka. Anyways. Then there’s the sports. For a shorter, smaller person, popular sports like football and basketball are just out of reach. No matter how talented you are or how hard you work, a seven foot African can always come in and cane you. Except sometimes, however, when a little guy wins.

Despite winning the last few matches, word (on Daily Mirror SMS at least) is that TM Dilshan is resigning as captain of the Sri Lankan team. Following the resignation of captain Kumar Sangakkara and Vice Captain Mahela Jayawardena, this (to me) seems damn close to a strike by the cricket team. There has been terrible political interference and mismanagement, and worst of all, the politicians have blamed the cricketers.

Sri Lanka lost its bid for the Commonwealth Games. The Economist blogger Banyan is reporting that many people are glad. I guess I’m glad too. The last Commonwealth Games were a disaster in Delhi, and Hambantota is definitely not the place to have them.

I grew up with Joe Paterno, at least, on TV. Football is a passion in Columbus, Ohio, even for an immigrant Sri Lankan boy. I wanted to grow up and be Quarterback for the Ohio State Buckeyes, until Brett Hughes broke my collarbone in third grade and I realized that my indic frame could never compete. It’s really quite unfair. It’s physically impossible for the average brown person to play football or basketball.

Kumar Sangakkara is trying to raise around Rs. 3 million to buy bicycles for kids in the North. You can make a simple donation or donation per run he hits in the Pakistan tour (which I think is over now). He recently became the fastest to reach 9000 test runs so perhaps the simple donation is the best bet.

Halik has another interesting idea, why not bring the Commonwealth Games to Colombo? Sri Lanka has put in a bid for Hambantota, but building public transport there has a long term effect of pissing off elephants. In Colombo it could actually be used by people. Note that following the Delhi debacle, I don’t think the hosting the games is a very good idea at all, but having them in Colombo is a better one.

I was watching a cricket game at Smoothie Park. It started with a few kids just batting back and forth. Then younger kids started hovering around. First they were spectators, then they chased down errant balls, then they were fielders, and then they were allowed to bat. Some old men got tired of walking around and stepped in to catch and play. And like that, they had a game.

I’m sure Sanga has no shortage of enemies now. He gave a wide-ranging speech in England, of which different people have picked different parts. Since the speech was in English (since translated to Sinhala), mainstream audiences in Sinhala and Tamil are getting the interpretation largely second-hand. Perhaps preying on that information gap, the Island group’s Sinhala paper has been running stuff alleging that Kumar Sangakkara is pally with the Americans.