Sri Lankan Digital Masculinities:

Colonial Legacies, Militarised Power, Marginal Identities, and Postcolonial Digital Reconfigurations

ORCID: 0000-0003-3231-6248

Web of Science Researcher ID: I-7578-2016

Dr. Manoj Jinadasa (PhD in Digital Critical Media Studies, Newcastle University, UK)

Senior Lecturer and Head of the Department
Department of Mass Communication, University of Kelaniya

manojjina78@kln.ac.lk

Citations: Jinadasa, M. (2025).Sri Lankan Digital Masculinities: Colonial Legacies, Militarised Power, Marginal Identities, and Postcolonial Digital Reconfigurations. Blogger Manoj Jinadasa.https://manojjinadasa.blogspot.com/2025/12/sri-lankan-digital-masculinities.html

 

Introduction

Masculinity is neither biologically fixed nor culturally universal. It is a historically contingent, socially regulated, and relational configuration of practices through which power, desire, authority, and identity are organised. Masculinities emerge within specific political, economic, cultural, and technological conditions and are always plural, hierarchical, and contested. As Connell (1995) argues, masculinity is best understood as “a configuration of practice within a system of gender relations” (p. 81), rather than as an individual psychological trait.

In Sri Lanka, masculinities are shaped by layered histories of colonialism, nationalism, militarisation, caste and class stratification, and postcolonial modernity. In the contemporary moment, these historical forces intersect with global digital cultures, producing what this article conceptualises as Sri Lankan digital masculinities. These masculinities are performed, negotiated, and contested through social media, online visual cultures, dating platforms, digital activism, and networked publics.

Drawing on global masculinity theory, South Asian scholarship, and Sri Lankan feminist and cultural studies research—including Connell, Butler, Haywood, Osella and Osella, Chatterjee, Nandy, de Alwis, Jayawardena, and de Silva—this article analyses how hegemonic, militarised, marginal, queer, and hybrid masculinities are reconfigured in Sri Lankan digital spaces.

 

Colonial Masculinities and Postcolonial Inheritance

Sri Lankan masculinities were profoundly reshaped by Portuguese, Dutch, and British colonial rule. Colonial governance imposed Eurocentric ideals of male respectability, discipline, rationality, and sexual restraint, positioning Western masculinity as civilised and indigenous masculinities as backward, excessive, or morally suspect. Colonial education systems, legal codes, Christian moralities, and bureaucratic institutions functioned as powerful sites for producing compliant, disciplined male subjects.

Ashis Nandy (1983) theorises colonial masculinity as a psychological project that fractured indigenous male identities, producing a divided self—one aligned with Western rationality and authority, and the other relegated to the realm of shame and primitiveness (p. 11). This psychic split remains central to postcolonial masculinity in Sri Lanka, generating anxieties around vulnerability, sexuality, emotional expressiveness, and bodily autonomy.

Partha Chatterjee’s (1993) analysis of nationalist discourse further illuminates how postcolonial masculinities were reconstituted. Anti-colonial nationalism preserved a gendered separation between the “inner” moral–spiritual domain and the “outer” material–political domain. Masculinity became associated with discipline, sacrifice, and public authority, while non-normative gender expressions were marginalised in the name of cultural authenticity and national respectability. Sri Lankan post-independence masculinities thus inherited colonial hierarchies while rearticulating them through nationalist idioms.

 

South Asian Masculinities: Caste, Respectability, and Social Mobility

South Asian masculinity studies provide crucial insights into the relational and moral dimensions of masculinity. Filippo Osella and Caroline Osella’s (2006) ethnographic work demonstrates that masculinity in South Asia is deeply entangled with caste, class mobility, consumption, respectability, and family obligation. Masculinity is not simply about domination but about achieving moral recognition through proper conduct, economic aspiration, bodily presentation, and social mobility.

These dynamics resonate strongly in Sri Lanka, where masculinities are stratified by caste, ethnicity, rural–urban divides, education, and migration histories. Aspirational masculinities—shaped by overseas labour migration, urban professionalism, and global consumer culture—are increasingly performed in digital spaces through curated images, lifestyle narratives, and transnational aesthetics.

Digital platforms intensify what Osella and Osella describe as masculinity as a moral and relational project, enabling men to negotiate respectability, dignity, and recognition in a postcolonial economy marked by precarity and inequality.

 

Militarised Masculinities and Nationalist Power

Sri Lanka’s prolonged civil war and post-war political culture have produced deeply entrenched militarised masculinities. The figure of the soldier—disciplined, self-sacrificing, emotionally restrained, and loyal to the nation—has become a dominant masculine ideal. Connell (2000) identifies militarism as one of the most powerful institutional producers of hegemonic masculinity (pp. 215–218), a claim acutely relevant to Sri Lanka.

Sri Lankan feminist scholars such as Kumari Jayawardena (1986) and Malathi de Alwis (1998) demonstrate how nationalism regulates gendered bodies and emotions, privileging male sacrifice while marginalising women’s agency and alternative masculinities. Nelufer de Silva’s work further extends this analysis by foregrounding embodiment, affect, and mediated nationalism. De Silva (2014, 2018) shows how nationalist masculinity legitimises specific emotions—patriotism, stoicism, and controlled aggression—while rendering dissent, vulnerability, grief, or queer desire suspect.

Digital media both reinforce and destabilise militarised masculinity. Nationalist narratives circulate aggressively online, yet digital platforms also expose the psychological costs of militarisation, as young men articulate trauma, unemployment, anxiety, and emotional exhaustion—experiences historically silenced within nationalist masculine discourse.

 

Marginal and Subordinate Masculinities in Sri Lanka

Sri Lankan masculinities are internally hierarchical. Connell’s (1995) framework of hegemonic, subordinate, and marginal masculinities (pp. 76–80) remains analytically vital. Marginal masculinities include men from economically precarious backgrounds, ethnic minorities, rural communities, disabled men, and those unable to conform to dominant norms of productivity, heterosexuality, and nationalist loyalty.

Sri Lankan cultural studies scholarship documents how these masculinities are often excluded from public legitimacy, yet find alternative visibility in digital environments. Online spaces allow marginalised men to articulate emotional vulnerability, aesthetic creativity, and political critique, challenging colonial and militarised ideals of stoicism and authority.

However, Nelufer de Silva focuses on militarized masculinity, which carries important cautionary implications: digital visibility does not automatically dismantle power. Online platforms reproduce hierarchies through moral policing, cyber harassment, algorithmic visibility, and gendered surveillance, producing new regimes of exclusion even as they enable expression.

Digital Masculinity, Performance, and Affect

Judith Butler’s (1990) theory of gender performativity is particularly relevant in digital contexts, where masculinity is continuously enacted through images, captions, interactions, and algorithmic feedback. Masculinity becomes a curated and aestheticised performance—stylised through selfies, fitness culture, fashion, grooming, and emotional disclosure.

Rosalind Gill (2003) identifies the rise of emotionally expressive and grooming-conscious masculinities within contemporary media culture (p. 38), a trend increasingly visible among Sri Lankan youth. Hochschild’s (1994) concept of emotional labour helps explain how men learn to manage vulnerability, intimacy, and authenticity online (p. 24). These practices challenge colonial and militarised norms of emotional restraint while simultaneously generating new pressures of self-surveillance and affective discipline.

 

Digital Media and the Expansion of Masculine Practices

Digital and networked media have dramatically expanded how masculinities are performed and circulated. These platforms allow for creative self-presentation, affective expression, and identity experimentation that go far beyond traditional masculine codes of stoicism, emotional restraint, and heteronormative dominance. Butler’s notion that gender is “a stylised repetition of acts” resonates powerfully in digital contexts, where gestures, aesthetics, and behaviours are repeatedly performed across platforms, gradually shifting normative understandings of gender (Butler, 1990, p. 140).

Men now use digital spaces not only to affirm hegemonic ideals of manhood but also to explore vulnerability, romance, erotic desire, and aesthetic self-care—practices earlier sociological accounts often positioned outside masculine norms. These developments are clearly evident in Sri Lankan digital environments, where men engage in selfie culture, fitness aesthetics, grooming videos, and cultivated emotional disclosure.

 

Queer, Same-Sex, and LGBTIQ+ Masculinities

Digital media are especially significant for queer and same-sex-desiring men in Sri Lanka, where same-sexuality remains criminalised and socially stigmatised. Online platforms function as spaces of exploration, desire, safety, and community formation.

Sri Lankan queer scholarship and activism demonstrate how digital spaces enable coded performances, transnational queer affiliations, and hybrid masculinities that negotiate family obligation, religious morality, and global LGBTQ+ aesthetics. These masculinities are not Western imitations but locally situated, postcolonial formations shaped by risk, intimacy, and creative survival.

Connell’s (1995) argument that gay masculinities are structurally subordinated within hegemonic gender orders (p. 78) remains relevant; however, digital spaces provide partial ruptures in this hierarchy by enabling visibility, solidarity, and affective belonging.

 

Limits of Masculinity Theory

British social theorist Chris Haywood provides important insight into how masculinities are conceptualised and reconfigured in contemporary contexts, including media and education. Haywood’s work interrogates the conceptual limits of masculinity, challenging scholars to move beyond fixed categories and to recognise the multiplicity and fluidity of masculinities in everyday life (Haywood & Mac an Ghaill, 2013).

Haywood and Mac an Ghaill argue that masculinities are continuously renegotiated through social interactions, cultural representations, and institutional discourses rather than being passively reproduced (2013, Chapters 1–3). This perspective resonates strongly with Sri Lankan digital contexts, where men adapt and negotiate masculine identities through ongoing engagement with global digital culture.

 

Global Perspectives on Masculinity

Global masculinity studies—from the United States, Britain, Australia, Europe, and South Asia—collectively emphasise that masculinities are socially constructed, historically contingent, and power-laden. Michael Kimmel’s work foregrounds masculinity as a relational and political project shaped by inequality and cultural norms (Kimmel et al., 2005). British sociologists such as Máirtín Mac an Ghaill highlight the intersection of masculinity with education, class, and ethnicity, offering valuable frameworks for understanding Sri Lankan digital masculinities as intersectional formations.

South Asian scholarship further demonstrates how caste, labour, consumption, and postcolonial histories produce masculine identities distinct from Western models. Osella and Osella’s (2006) work reinforces the necessity of situating Sri Lankan digital masculinities within a regional and postcolonial analytical framework.

 

Digital Media as Emotional and Political Space

Digital platforms have become crucial arenas for emotional expression, political mobilisation, and identity advocacy. While traditional masculinities prized emotional restraint, digital spaces increasingly foster vulnerability, affective openness, and peer-based support networks. Hochschild’s (1994) notion of the “emotional culture of the self” helps explain how emotional expression has become a marker of authenticity in contemporary social life (p. 24).

Digital masculinities are also overtly political. Across South Asia, online platforms enable young men to engage in political critique, activism, and collective resistance against corruption, authoritarian governance, and social inequality. These practices reconfigure masculinity as politically agentive rather than passive.

 

Hybrid Configurations, Power, and Resistance

Contemporary Sri Lankan digital masculinities reflect hybrid configurations that incorporate emotional expressiveness, aesthetic experimentation, queer subjectivities, and political advocacy (Demetriou, 2001, p. 349). Digital spaces allow for experimentation and resistance, yet they also reproduce misogyny, homophobia, exclusionary nationalism, and class privilege.

Power, therefore, does not disappear in digital environments; it mutates, circulates, and reasserts itself in new forms through mediated practices and algorithmic cultures.

 

Conclusion

Sri Lankan digital masculinities are historically layered, socially stratified, and technologically mediated. Colonial legacies, nationalist militarisation, caste and class hierarchies, and global digital cultures intersect to produce masculinities that are multiple, unstable, and contested.

By integrating global masculinity theory with South Asian and Sri Lankan scholarship—particularly the contributions of Osella and Osella, Chatterjee, Nandy, Jayawardena, de Alwis, and Nelufer de Silva—this article demonstrates that digital media function as critical sites where masculinity is both reproduced and reimagined. Marginal, queer, and subordinate masculinities gain affective and representational space, even as structural inequalities persist.

Sri Lankan digital masculinities thus offer a powerful lens for understanding gender, power, and identity in a digitally saturated postcolonial society of the Global South.

 

 

References

Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. Routledge.
Chatterjee, P. (1993). The nation and its fragments: Colonial and postcolonial histories. Princeton University Press.
Connell, R. W. (1995). Masculinities. University of California Press.
Connell, R. W. (2000). The men and the boys. University of California Press.
Connell, R. W., Hearn, J., & Kimmel, M. (2005). Handbook of studies on men and masculinities. Sage.
de Alwis, M. (1998). Moral mothers and stalwart sons. Feminist Review, 58, 56–79.
de Silva, N. (2014). Embodiment, affect, and nationalism in Sri Lanka. Interventions, 16(2), 257–273.
de Silva, N. (2018). Gendered affects and mediated publics. Cultural Studies, 32(4), 567–585.
Demetriou, D. Z. (2001). Connell’s concept of hegemonic masculinity. Theory and Society, 30(3), 337–361.
Gill, R. (2003). Power and the production of subjects. Sociological Review, 51(1), 34–56.
Haywood, C., & Mac an Ghaill, M. (2013). Men and masculinities. Open University Press.
Hochschild, A. R. (1994). The commercialization of intimate life. University of California Press.
Jayawardena, K. (1986). Feminism and nationalism in the Third World. Zed Books.
Nandy, A. (1983). The intimate enemy. Oxford University Press.
Osella, F., & Osella, C. (2006). Men and masculinities in South India. Anthem Press.

 

මොකුත් නැති තැන ඉන්න !

හැමෝම අහනවා 

ඇයි ඔච්චර දිගට ලියන්නේ 

කවුද ඕව කියවන්නේ 

ෆේස්බුක් එකේ ....

ඔබට මොකක් හරි ප්‍රශ්නයක්ද 

ඔහොම ලියන්නේ ?

අවුලකින්ද ඉන්නේ ?

මොනවා හරි මානසික පිඩනයකින් නේද ඉන්නේ ඔබ ???

අපිට නම් එහෙම තමා පේන්නේ.

ඔව්.

ඉතින් ඒක හරි. හරියටම හරි ඔබගේ තක්සේරුව.

ලොකුම ලොකු මානසික පිඩනයකින් ඉන්නේ 

මොකක්ද ඒ ? 

කොහොමද මේ සියලු වැඩ වලින් මිදිලා නිදහසේ සතුටෙන් ඉන්නේ ?

ඉතින් ඒක දන්නා කෙනෙක් නේ ඔබ 

ඔව් දන්නා නිසා තමා 

මේකෙන් මිදෙන්නේ කොහොමද කියල 

හිතන්නේ ... 

ආ ඒක තමා මම කිව්වේ ඔබ ඉන්නේ ප්‍රශ්නෙකින් කියල ?

ඔබ මට තේරෙන විදිහට මානසික අවපීඩන  තත්ත්වයකින් පසුවෙන්නේ 

අපි යමුද වෛද්‍යවරයෙක් හමුවෙන්න පොඩි බෙහෙතක් ගමු. ඕක හරියයි.

හරියටම හරි ඔබ අල්ල ගත්තා මගේ ලෙඩේ.

හරි යමු 

ඊට කළින් මේ බෙහෙත හොදයි ද බලන්න කෝ පොඩ්ඩක් ඉස්සරලම ?

ඔබට කථාකරන්න කෙනෙක් නෑ මේ ලෝකේ හිත සහනගන්න ?

හැමෝම කතාකරන්නේ එක්කෝ ප්‍රශ්නයක් කියන්න 

එක්කෝ ප්‍රශ්න විසදන්න 

එක්කෝ ප්‍රශ්න ඇතිකරන්න 

ප්‍රශ්න නිවන කෙනෙක් 

ප්‍රශ්න වලට පිළිතුරු හොයන කෙනෙක් 

කෝ මේ ලෝකේ ...???

ගොඩක් වෙලාවට හිතෙනවා 

හිතේ තියෙන දුක කියන්නේ කාටද කියල -  නිවා ගන්න, පාළුව කාන්සිය මගහරවා ගන්න 

ටික වෙලාවක් හිතල බලනවා කාටද මේක කියන්න පුළුවන් කියල 

කවුද වටේ පිටේ ඉන්නේ කියල

කොහෙද ගැළපෙන කෙනෙක් ඉන්නේ කියල.

නිවිහැනහිල්ලේ අම්මා අප්පච්චි වගේ උපේක්ෂාවෙන් ඉන්න කෙනෙක් 

කොහෙද එහෙම කෙනෙක් ඉන්නේ ...

කෝ එහෙම කෙනෙක් නෑ නේ පේනමානෙකවත් 

හැමෝම වටේ ඉන්නේ, ප්‍රශ්න අරන් යන යන තැන, ගිනි තියන්න ඉන්න අය 

ප්‍රශ්න ප්‍රශ්න ප්‍රශ්න ගැටළු ගැටළු ගැටළු 

ඒවටමයි වටේ ඉන්න ඔක්කොම එකතුවෙන්නේ 

ගිනි නිවන්න කෙනෙක් කෝ 

අපේ අතරේ 

එහෙම අය මේ උගත්, දියුණු, සල්ලි, තාක්ෂණය, විද්‍යාව තියෙන සමාජේ පිළිගත් යයි කියන අය  අතරේ කොහෙද ඉන්නේ ?

ඉතින් ඒකට පිළිතුරත් ඔබ දන්නකෙනෙක් නේ...?

ඔබ එහෙමද මම ගැන හිතන්නේ ..?

ඒ පිළිතුර තමා මම හොයන්නේ මේ ...

ඉන්නවා එහෙම ගිනි නිවන අය 

තියෙනවා හිත නිවා ගන්න දේ 

කොහෙද ඉන්නේ ඒ අය . මොනවද ඒ ගිනි නිවන දේ  ...???

කොහෙවත් නෑ ... මොනවත් නෑ ...

ඒ කියන්නේ .. මොකක්ද ඔබ කියන්නේ මේ  ?

මොකුත් නෑ කරන්න හරි, කියන්න හරි, ආශ්‍රේ කරන්න හරි, දෙයක් නෑ 

එතකොට.....?

එහෙම තමා ඉන්නවනම් ඉන්න ඕනේ  ...

ඒ කියන්නේ තනියම තමයි ඉන්නේ නේද ඔබ ?

එහෙම නෑ 

නෑ හැමවෙලේම සිතුවිල්ලක් එක්ක ඉන්නේ අපි 

එයත් එක්ක ගනුදෙනු කරන්නේ 

එයා එනවා යනවා 

ඉන්න, යන,එන  තැන අනුව එයා වෙනස්වෙනවා - ඒක  නිසා තනියම නෙවේ ඉන්නේ අපි  

ගොඩක් අය එක්ක ඉන්නේ අපි 

ඔබ දුකෙන් නේද ඉන්නේ .... කවුරු හරි දාල ගියාද දරාගන්න බැරිද ?

ඔව්. 

කවුද ඒ ?

ඔබට කිව්වොත් ගෙනත් දෙන්න පුළුවන්ද ?

මොකක්ද කවුද ?

සිත - ඇවිල්ල ක්ෂණිකව යන හිත ගෙනත් දෙන්න පුළුවන්ද කලින් මගේ ළඟ තිබ්බ හිත?

ඔබ සතුටෙන් ඉන්නෙම නැද්ද 

සතුටෙන් තමා ඉන්නේ හැමමොහොතේම 

එතකොට දුකෙන් ඉන්නවා කිව්වේ ..?

සතුටෙන් ඉන්න නිසා 

එතකොට සතුටෙන් ඉන්නවා කිව්වේ ?

දුකෙන් ඉන්න නිසා .

මට තේරෙන්නේ නෑ.. මොකක්ද මේ ඔබ කියන්නේ ?

සිතුවිල්ලක් එක්ක ඉන්නේ. ඒකෙ  ඔක්කොම තියෙනවා 

දුකෙන් ඉන්නවා කිව්වොත් අනිවාර්යෙන්ම සතුටත් එතන තියෙනවා 

සතුටෙන් ඉන්නවා කිව්වොත් එතන අනිවාර්යෙන්ම දුකත් තියෙනවා 

ඒ කියන්නේ උපේක්ෂාවෙන් ද ඉන්නේ 

උපේක්ෂාව කියන්නෙත් සිතක්ම තමා 

එතකොට ඉන්නවා කිව්වේ සිතකින් ?

නැත්තන් කොහොමද ඉන්නේ අපි ?

මම දැන් මේ ඔයත් එක්ක ඉන්නවා කියන්නෙත් සිතකින් තමා මම ඔයා දැනගන්නේ - නැතිනම් වෙන කොහොමද ?

සිතෙන් වැඩ ගන්න දන්නවද ඔබ ?

ඔව් .

කොහොමද ?

හිතලනේ අපි වැඩකරන්නේ 

හරි. 

එහෙම තමා ඉන්නේ හැම වෙලේම අපි 

එතන මොකුත් නැති බව දන්නවද ?

නෑ .

ආන්න ඒ නැති දෙයක් එක්ක ඉදල බලන්න කෝ 

මොකක්ද දැන් එතන නැත්තේ ?

සිත 

ඔබ කියන දේ මට වැටහෙන්නේ නෑ 

ඔබ සිත තියනවා කියල නේද කිව්වේ ?

ඔව් 

දැන් නෑ  කියන්නේ එතකොට?

දැනෙන පේන සියළු සිත් අපට පේනවා වගේ විතරයි පෙන්නේ 

ඇත්තටම ඒ දැනෙන සිතෙන සිතට හරියටම සිත තියල බලන්නකෝ පොඩ්ඩක්  - ඒ කියන්නේ ඒ සිතට මේ මොහොතට දැනෙන සිතට හරියටම අවධානය දුන්නාම අපිට පේනවා එතන එහෙම දෙයක් නෑ, ඇවිල්ලා යනවා විතරයි, එහෙම දෙයක් වෙන්නේ.

මට තේරෙන දෙයක් තියෙනවා ඔයා ඉන්නේ මානසික අවුලක ...

ඔබ ඉන්නේ හොදටෝම මානසික පීඩන තත්ත්වයක 

අපි යමු බෙහෙත් ගන්න ?

එතකොට මේ දැනෙන ඔය ඔබ කියන දේ වැටහෙන සිතත්, ඔය ඔබ කියන විදිහට නැති දෙයක් නේ ...?

ඕක පිස්සුවක් ?

ආන්න හරි ඔබ අල්ලා ගත්තා ..

අන්න එතන තව බලන්න ඔබට පෙනෙයි එනවා යනවා විතරයි

එත් අපි මේ දකින පෙනෙන දේ අල්ලගන්න තියෙන කැමැත්ත, ඒක  වේගයක් සිතේම

ඒ නිසා මේ  එන යන දෙක අතර තියෙන පරතරය පෙන්නේ නෑ අපිට. 

මේ ප්‍රවේගය අපිට මේ භෞතිකයේ ඇති සනාථන ඇත්ත වසන් කරනවා. 

ඔබ ඔබට දැනෙන පෙනෙන සිතෙන කරන ඔය සිත දිහාම බලන්න 

ඒ කිසිවක් නැති තැන දැක්ක කෙනා 

ඉන්නේ ලෝකේ හරිම සතුටෙන්.

මේ කිසිවක් නැති තැන 

හරිම නිසලයි ගැඹුරුයි පහසුයි ලස්සනයි 

ඒ දේ තවකෙනෙකුගෙන් ලැබෙන්නේ නෑ 

මොනතරම් ලෝකේ දේවල් අපි වටා තිබ්බත් 

ඒ ඔක්කොම අපිට ආරම්මණය වන්නේ අපේ මනසෙන්, සිතෙන් - එතන සිතක් නෑ 

සිතක්,දැනෙනවා පෙනෙනවා කියල කියන්නෙම අල්ල ගැනීමක් විතරයි. 

තියෙනවා නම් තියෙන්නේ අල්ලගැනීමක් ඉංග්‍රීසියෙන් කිව්වොත් කැප්චර් කරගැනීමක්

ඒකත් ඇවිල්ලා යන එකක් - ඒත් අපිට පේන්නේ තියෙනවා කියලා - ඒ  නැති දෙයකට තියෙනවා වගේ පේන්නේ. 

සාමන්‍යය ලෝකයාට අපිට මේ දැනුත් පේන්නේ එහෙම මටත් ඔබටත්.

ලෝකේ මොකුත් නැති තැන ඉන්න, ගොඩක් වෙලාවට, ඔබත් ...!

දැන් නම් මටත් ටිකක් මානසික ව අවුල් වගේ .. 

මටත් බෙහෙත් ගන්න යන්න වෙයි වගේ?

ඔව් අනිවාර්යෙන්ම මගෙත් එක්කම යමු ඔබත්.

ඒ බෙහෙත තියෙන්නේ ඔයා ළඟ 

මගේ ළඟ  - අපි ළඟ 

බෙහෙත් ගන්න වෙන කෙනෙකුගෙන් බෑ අපිට තියෙන මේ රෝගයට.

ඔයා කිව්ව මට තියෙන මානසික අවපීඩන ව්‍යාධියට.

ඇත්තටම අපිට පේන්නේ පිස්සෙක් වගේ තමා මේ ලෝකයේ කිසිවක් ම නැති තැන දැක්කහම. 

ඒ කියන්නේ ඔබ කියන්නේ මට පෙන්නේ ඔබ පිස්සෙක් වගේ කියලද ?

නෑ මට පෙන්නේ මම පිස්සෙක් කියල - ඒ, ඔයාට මට ලෝකයට 

මේ අපි ජීවත්වෙනවා කියල කරන මේ දේවල් ඔක්කොම දේවල් දැක්කහම

ඉතින් එකට විසදුම මොකක්ද?

ඒ දකින දැනෙන ඇහෙන සිතෙන විදින මේ ඕනෙම දෙයක් - සිතක්, සිත් මාත්‍රයක් - ඒ මට දැනෙන විදිහ - එක මගේ ප්‍රශ්නයක් මිසක් වෙන කෙනකු හදපු දෙයක් නෙවේ අපේ ජිවිත වල තියෙන ප්‍රශ්න.

ඒක එහෙම පේන්න තමා අපි ඉපදිලා ඉන්නේ - මැරෙනකම් ම පේන්නේ ඔහොම තමා 

ඒත් පේන දේ හරියට දැක්කොත් එතන එහෙම එකක් නෑ කියල ඔබ දකිනවා 

ආන්න එතන දකින්න 

අන්න ඒ කිසිවක් නැති තැන එක්ක ඉන්න, කෝටියක් මිනිසුන් එක්ක ඉදගෙන, එතකොට හරි. 

ඇයි  එහෙම ඉන්න ඕනේ ?

ඔයාට අපිට මේ දැන් හිතේ තියෙන බර හෝ ප්‍රශ්න හෝ ගැටළු වලින් මිදිලා සතුටෙන් සැහැල්ලුවෙන් ඉන්න තමයි

එහෙම මේ මොකුත් නැති තැනක ඔක්කොම ප්‍රශ්න දාගෙන දගලන්නේ. 

ඔබත් මොකුත් නැති තැන දකින්න !

මහපොළොව සේ දරා ඉවසූවාට ...!

ඉවසන්න 

දරාගන්න 

මේ මහපොළොව වගේ  

කිව්වට  

සියල්ල විඳ දරා 

නොසැලී 

විරාජමානව,

තවතවත් 

නින්දා කොට හළන 

කප්පරක් 

වසුරු 

මළ මුත්‍ර අසුචි

සෙම් සොටු 

"චරාස්"  "චිරීස් " ගානා හඩින් 

අළුයම ලූ කෙළපිඩත් අහක බලාගෙන ම ලු, 

ගොජ ගොජ ගගා පැසවලා උතුරා ගලන ඕජස් සැරව 

පණුවන් දඟලන 

මළ මිනී 

මේ සියලු කැත කුණු කන්දල් 

ඉවසිය නොහැකි දුර්ඝන්ධ, ඇණුම් බැණුම් 

මහමෙරක් සේ  

දරාගන

අකම්පිතව

මේ විසල් මහපොළොව ම 

මිස 

ඉන්නේ වෙන කවුද?

ගිහිල්ලත් ඔබ 

යන්නම යන්න 

ආයේ එන්න බැරිවෙන්න 

එන්න එන්නම 

තව තවත් 

ලංවෙන්න 

තදින් අල්ලා ගන්නා  

සදහට වෙන් නොවන 

පිළිකාවකි,  

නොදිරණ

ස්පටික ප්ලාස්ටික් ඝන තන්තුවකි,

මහපොළොව ම අරා 

බදාගෙන 

පැතිරෙන 

භුවල්ලෙක්

ඔබ 

නිවිහැනහිල්ලක් නොදෙන 

මට 

ගැළවී  නික්ම නොයන 

ඔබගේ 

මේ වද බන්ධන

සියල්ල 

මෙතරම් ඉවසා වදාරා සිටින 

පළියටම, 

එන්න එන්න ම 

කිසිවක් නොදන්නවා, නොදැනෙනවා වගේ  

ලෝකයා 

කාරා මුදාහරින මළ සෙම් කැසි කුණු 

තව තවත් 

රිදුම් ගැරහුම් නවනින්ගිරාවන් 

දරා උසුලා කෙලෙස වාවා ගන්නද 

මේ මහපොළොව ?

නොසිතන මොහොතක 

එක් නිසොල්මන් 

මහා ඝන අන්ධකාර 

නිශා යාමයක 

කළුම කළු භූත බකමුණන් හොල්මන් කරන

මේසා විසල් 

දෙදරුමකින්  

මිහිකත පැලී 

දෙකඩව වෙන්ව, 

මුලක් මැදක් අගක් 

සොයා ගත නොහැකි තරමට  

කුඩුපට්ටම් ව සුණුවිසුණු ව 

අසරණව යන්නම ගියේ 

ගසාගෙන 

ජිවිතෙන් හරි අඩකටත් වැඩි කාලයක් 

සතෙන් සතේ උපයා 

අමාරුවෙන් මහන්සියෙන් 

හදාගත්ත මේ ගෙපැළ 

අපි එකට ඉන්න

  

 

මෙතුවක් කල් 

මහා රුක්ෂයක් ව 

ප්‍රාණ ජීවය ඔබේ  

ලෝකයට හොරෙන් 

රැකගෙන 

තනිව ම 

හඩ හඩා 

නිහඩව

කිසිත් නොදොඩා 

ලෝකයට නෑසෙන්න ම  

වැළපෙමින් ඉකි ගසා  

සියොළඟම දැවටිලා සැඟවිලා 

දරාගෙන දරාගෙන 

ලෝකයේ සාදු කොන්දේසි 

බෝම්බ ගසා පුපුරලා කුඩුකරන් 

කොන්දේසි විරහිතව 

පෙනීසිටියේ 

මේ මහපොළොව එදා 

ඔබ සතපන්න 

කාටත් හිරිහැරයක් නොකරපු 

අහිංසකම අහිංසක මිනිසුන්ගේ ජිවිත 

කිසිත් අනුකම්පාවක් නැතිව  

නසා වනසා  

ගහගෙන ම ගහගෙන 

යන්නම යන්න ගියේ 

"සේදිලාම"

අලුත් දුලිත් නැතිවන්නම  

භුමි කම්පාවට නොවේ,

මහපොළොව නුහුලන 

වේදනා 

රිදුම් 

දරන්න ම බැරි තැන 

හද කම්පාවට 

පැලීගිය ලය මඩල 

රත් පැහැ රුහිරු රුධිරය නොනවත්වා රූරා ගලන 

ඔබේ කැමැත්තට වාසියට 

සතුටු වුනාම ඇති 

අනෙකා මැරුණත් කමක් නෑ

ජීවත්වෙන්න ඕනේ 

ඔබ විතරයි 

හරඹ කරන්න ඕනේ 

මේ මිහිතලය මත 

දුක් විදපු කැපකරපු 

එකා ඔහේ හිටියාවේ 

ලෝකයා ඉදිරියේ මහරු විජ්ජුලතා නොදොඩා 

නොතෙපලා ශෝභනව 

පාඩුවේ අහිංසක ව 

එදා වෙලා පිරිමසාගෙන සිටිනා 

අනෙකා ගැන කිසිත් 

නැත තෙතමනයක් 

මිනිසුන්ට විතරක් නොවේ 

රැක දුන්නේ,  

හව්හරණක් නැති අහිංසකම අහිංසක 

සතා සිව්පාවා ගහ කොළ 

පණ ඇති සියල්ලගේම එකම නිවහන  

මේ මහපොළොව, 

අබ මල් රේණුවක තරම් වත් නොසිතා අනුන් ගැන 

ඔබේම අණසක 

රාජධානියක් කරගත්තේ  

ඔබගේ වියරුවෙන් බැටකෑවේ 

තනිකරම 

මේ මහපොළොව 

පළා පුපුරා 

පෙලා 

නසමින් 

සුන්නද්දුලී ව 

යටකරමින් 

සියළු වත්කම් බැරකම්,

කවුරුත් නොදන්නා 

අමු ම අමු මුසල තිත්ත රැයක 

උලලේනන් කෑ ගසන 

මේ අනවරාඝ්‍ර සංසාර ඕඝයට 

හසුව 

එයටම යටව, 

ගිගුරුම් ගුරම් ගුම් ගුම්  

නොනවතින මොරසුරන මහවැසි පිට 

එකපිට එක එන මේ මහා රාක්ෂ ජල කඳ  

තරංග බද සමග සටනින් පැරදිව 

කියන්නත් කලියෙන් 

උඩ සිට හෝස් ගා 

පහළට රූටා ඇද එන 

මහා කදු පංති එකපෙළට එකයායට  

කිසිත් හිත් පිත් නැතිවම,

දැන් ඉතින් කොහේ සැඟවෙන්න ද 

කොහේ කොතන උඩුගම් බලා දුවන්නද 

දසත රැව්දෙන 

පණ නල 

"රැකගන්නකෝ අයියෝ අනේ අපිව බේරාගන්නකෝ"  

විලාප මළ බෙර නද භියංකර 

හද ඔත්පල වෙන 

පණ ගිළිහෙන අනුවේදනීය කම්පන නින්නාද  පොඩිත් මහත් පැටවුන්ගේ 

ටිකෙන් ටික හිමිහිට අඩුවේගෙන අඩුවේගෙන නික්මෙන 

කවුරුත් කිසිත් දැන් නොදොඩන සීතලම සීතල 

බිහිසුණුම බිහිසුණු රැයේ

හිස් ලු ලු අත 

මොකවත්ම කරගන්න බැරි අහිංසකයින්ගේ 

නිද්‍රාවෙන් මුර්ජා ඇසිපිය වැසුන 

පුංචි දරු දැරියන් උඩුබැලි අතට පාවෙන 

නිරුද කය තැන තැන පාවෙන, 

කිරිබොන දරුවාද තුරුළු කර තැනෙක තුරුණු අම්මා කෙනෙක් වැසීගිය නෙතින් 

තව තැනෙක ගෙදර දරුවන් මව්න් පියවරුන් ඔක්කොම එකට ගුලිව

මේ මළ මාදැලෙන් ඔක්කොම එකට හසුව 

එකට කැටිකර  

එළිවෙන ජාමයට 

සියල්ල ම යටකර

ගිලා බසිමින් 

ගලා ගියේ 

"සේදිලාම" 

යන්නම යන්න 

ඔක්කොම 

බැරිම තැන 

මේ මහපොළොවට 

ආයේ දරන්නට  

 

මෙතුවක් කල් 

ඔබ වෙනුවෙන් 

ඇප කැප ව 

උසුලන්න බැරි බර 

දරමින් 

දරන්නම බැරිම තැන 

කවුරුත් 

නොසිතු වෙලෙක 

ගිළිහුණේ මෛත්‍රිය 

අතහැරුණේ මෙතෙක් කල් තද කරන් යටකරන් 

ඇතුලේ සඟවා සිටන් හිටිය රුදු රාක්ෂ මකර විෂ,

මහ හයියෙන් 

නොසිතු තැනක 

ලෝකයා උඩුයටිකුරු කර 

නැගිට්ටේ 

මෙතෙක් කල් සැතපි

කුම්භ කර්ණ 

නිද්‍රාවෙන් අවධිව 

මේ මහපොළොව 

මම,

එදා ඔබ 

එකට එක අත් බැදන් 

මුහුණට මුහුණ ඔබා 

ලයෙහි අත් ගසා 

අත්ල මහපොළොවට ගසා  

එපා එපා කියද්දීත් එදා ඔහොම දිව්රන්න  

මහපොළොවට ගසා 

"මේ මහපොළොව පල්ලා - බුදුන් පල්ලා" කියා 

මහපොළොව - බුදුන් දෙවෙනි කොට 

එදා දිව්රා සපත කල 

කඩ කල මිනිස් ප්‍රේමයේ 

ශාපයට 

මහපොළොව නුසුලනා ..!!!

 

Discovering the Rhythm of Measurement in Learning and Practice

 

Can one teach talent and competence?

 

What Is the Rhythm of Measurement?

 

Teaching is often mistaken for delivery—of content, explanations, or answers—but learning rarely occurs at the moment of instruction. It emerges later, through silence, curiosity, struggle, and practice. This essay argues that excellence, competence, and mastery cannot be fully taught through books, curricula, or lectures; they can only be awakened. True teaching is not about saying everything, speaking louder, or performing harder, but about knowing when to stop, how to leave space, and how to create a productive disturbance that invites learners to search for their own understanding.

 

What ultimately shapes learning is an individual, embodied rhythm—an internal sense of timing, balance, restraint, and intuition—formed through experience rather than instruction. I call this deeply personal process the rhythm of measurement: a way of knowing that lies beyond formal teaching, yet defines meaningful education.

 

No book, no teacher, and no professor can truly teach the rhythm of measurement—or the measurement of rhythm—that governs what we do in everyday life, whether in routine activities or in specialised professions such as cooking, driving, eating, engineering, medical treatment, surgery, music, dance, or theatrical performance.

 

The reason no one can formally teach the rhythm of measurement is that it emerges only through lived practice over time. Through long-term engagement, a practitioner gradually develops the competence to grasp and perform work with precision. For example, a chef knows the exact amount of salt required for a delicious curry, the right level of sugar for a satisfying cup of tea or coffee, or the precise balance of ingredients needed for a cake. Similarly, engineers, teachers, medical doctors, drivers, butchers, or tree cutters perform their work with accuracy and completeness not merely through instruction, but through accumulated experience.

 

Can one truly teach rhythm, timing, or the level of talent and competence required to achieve success in what one does? What defines success is not a formula, but the balance of elements and the way they come together as a coherent whole—one that allows others to recognise, enjoy, and feel satisfied by the outcome. Whether it is the taste of a dish or the fulfilment of an expected result, this sense of satisfaction marks achievement.

 

In this sense, the purpose of teaching and learning is not simply the transmission of knowledge, but the cultivation of judgement, balance, and embodied understanding that enables meaningful and satisfying outcomes.

 

This exactness—the perfect calibration of input to achieve the best possible output—cannot be delivered by books, libraries, schools, universities, or even professors. It is learned through time, labour, repetition, failure, and embodied experience. Gradually, practitioners learn how to apply their inputs to specific tasks, and over time, they acquire the rhythm of the work that enables success and satisfaction in the result.

 

In other words, without sustained attention, deep engagement, and mindful presence, it is impossible to reach the optimal composition or quality of achievement. This finely tuned balance—the smooth coordination between action, timing, and judgement—is what I call the rhythm of measurement, or the measurement of rhythm.

 

I describe it this way because no one produces extraordinary or incomparable results without this internalised competence. Such excellence is often recognised as talent or skill and sometimes described as intuition. While intuition is occasionally understood as an innate or even mystical ability, it is more often the outcome of sustained practice, embodied learning, and experiential wisdom accumulated over time.

 

---

 

Teaching as Practice: A Personal Reflection

 

My discussion proceeds from my position as a teacher, trainer, and university academic. I have become deeply interested in continuously experimenting with and researching my own profession—my teaching practices and the delivery of my responsibilities to my primary stakeholders: my students and learners. In short, I am always a learner first before I become a teacher. Preparation is my passion, and I remain fully immersed in it until the completion of each teaching mission.

 

I constantly think, both creatively and critically, about how I can deliver the same lesson across different years and contexts in new, engaging, and intellectually stimulating ways. Importantly, before considering how to attract my students or audience, I first reflect on how to make the delivery meaningful and enjoyable to myself. This is how I measure the quality of my professional success: my own intellectual satisfaction before external appreciation. In short, when I am satisfied with my work, my audience is almost inevitably satisfied as well.

 

Based on experience, I have realised that when I genuinely enjoy my lecturing, I become psychologically and cognitively more attuned to the subject. This self-engagement generates deeper insight, sharper understanding, and continuous reflection and improvisation during delivery. As a result, the message resonates more deeply with the audience, even if not every student responds in the same way.

 

Teaching the same lesson repeatedly over many years is one of the central challenges of the profession. Teachers continually ask a deeper question: How can I make a lasting impact on my students? Closely connected to this is another concern—how to nurture skillfulness, exceptional competence, or extraordinary ways of thinking. This challenge is not only pedagogical, but experiential and research-oriented, particularly in university and professional education.

 

One of the most meaningful lessons I learned about teaching came from my parents. My mother served as a college principal, and my father was also an educator. After listening to my teaching—often delivered from early morning until evening with intense energy—they once told me at the dinner table:

“Son, do not teach everything at once. Leave something unsaid. Allow your students to develop a desire for what you introduce. Let them search further, driven by their own love for knowledge.”

 

That advice has stayed with me.

 

A similar moment occurred around 2005, when I lectured a first-year Mass Communication class of over 500 students. I had used not only my allocated time but also several minutes from the next lecturer’s session. That lecturer, Professor Dharshana Rathnayake, smiled and remarked with gentle sarcasm:

“So, have you taught everything now?”

 

In that moment, I felt deeply uncomfortable. I realised that I had taught with excessive force—passa iragena igannuwa, or “teaching it down their throats”—but that intensity did not guarantee understanding.

 

Another memory reinforces this insight. In my village, Medamahanuwara, a free science class was once conducted by a young graduate whose voice echoed across the hills. Instead of inspiring learning, the village gradually lost interest. That was not teaching; it was noise without pedagogical rhythm.

 

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Concluding Reflection

 

Teaching, like any meaningful practice, requires rhythm—knowing how much is enough, when to stop, and how to leave space for curiosity and independent thought. Teaching is not about volume, force, or exhaustion, but about timing, balance, and restraint.

 

Through experience and reflection, I have learned that teaching must include variation, breaks, and moments of productive uncertainty. A teacher or a book can act as a productive disturbance, inviting learners to organise knowledge within themselves. This movement—from confusion to clarity—is the rhythm of measurement.

 

Rhythm is deeply individual. Each learner must discover their own way of thinking, practising, and becoming skilled. If a teacher can offer even a small clue that encourages someone to ask, What is my rhythm of work?—then true learning begins.

 

Helping learners discover this rhythm—in their work and in their lives—is the central goal of my teaching and writing as a university academic.

 

 

මහජන සම්බන්ධතා ප්‍රචාරණ වැඩසටහන් ක්‍රියාත්මක කිරීම, අධික්ෂණය සහ ඇගයීම. P...

 

 

“Generation Z, Same-Sex Intimacies, and the Hegemonic Constraints of Desire: Reading Athugala’s Makara Pendanaya”

 

Citations: Jinadasa, M. (2025). “Generation Z, Same-Sex Intimacies, and the Hegemonic Constraints of Desire: Reading Athugala’s Makara Pendanaya”. Manoj  Jinadasa Blog https://manojjinadasa.blogspot.com/2025/12/why-young-z-generation-men-are-more.html

 

Abstract

In his latest novel, Makara Pendanaya, Emeritus Professor Dr. Athugala explores why young men today increasingly gravitate toward same-sex intimacies, framing the phenomenon through a psychoanalytical lens. The narrative examines how economic pressures, cultural hegemony, and rigid heteronormative expectations shape Generation Z’s approach to relationships, intimacy, and desire. Through the experiences of Sahan and Li, Athugala reveals how young men negotiate personal identity and affection in a world where parental authority, societal norms, and inherited traditions often obstruct heterosexual expression. The novel portrays same-sex connections, homosocial bonds, and bromances not merely as emotional substitutes, but as adaptive responses to structural and cultural constraints—a nuanced reflection on desire, autonomy, and modern masculinity.

Keywords: masculinity, homosociality, Generation Z, heteronormativity, Sri Lankan fiction, Asian cultural studies

 

Introduction

In contemporary society, young men of Generation Z increasingly navigate intimacy through same-sex bonds—whether as homosocial friendships, bromances, or eroticized connections—finding them more emotionally secure and socially legible than traditional heterosexual relationships. This shift is not merely a matter of sexual preference but emerges from the profound pressures exerted by an unstable economic environment, rigid parental expectations, and entrenched cultural and hegemonic norms. In families where inherited values, social obligations, and economic ambitions dominate daily life, heterosexual desire is often constrained, moralized, or surveilled, leaving young men seeking connection, trust, and vulnerability elsewhere. Same-sex intimacy, by contrast, offers a relational space where emotional expression, loyalty, and desire can coexist with minimal judgment, creating a refuge from the suffocating demands of normative society.

Dr. Ariyarathna Athugala’s latest novel, Makara Pendanaya, provides a literary reflection of this generational phenomenon. Through the characters Sahan, a Sri Lankan youth, and Li, a Chinese peer, Athugala explores the pressures of cultural inheritance, parental expectation, and the complex negotiations of identity in a transnational Asian context (pp. 56–63). Sahan’s heteronormative desires are continually disrupted by societal and familial constraints, leaving him emotionally vulnerable and psychologically unsettled. In response, he develops deeper bonds with his male friend Gang, illustrating how homosocial and same-sex intimacy functions as both emotional support and a space for authentic self-expression (pp. 300–320). The novel reveals that such relationships are not mere deviations from heterosexuality but deliberate, culturally conditioned strategies for coping with hegemonic pressures, economic uncertainty, and the moral weight of inherited traditions. Athugala’s narrative captures the broader condition of Generation Z men: their yearning for connection and desire for intimacy, negotiated in parallel worlds of digital, social, and familial influence, where the traditional heterosexual ideal is often unattainable.

Through this lens, Makara Pendanaya becomes more than a story of romantic entanglement; it is a psycho-social and cultural investigation into why young men today increasingly find comfort, freedom, and emotional authenticity in same-sex bonds, exposing the tensions between inherited norms and lived desire, and offering a profound commentary on contemporary Asian youth navigating the pressures of modernity.

Emeritus Professor Dr. Ariyarathna Athugala has long stood as a transformative figure in Sri Lankan media and communication, challenging conventional frameworks of knowledge, culture, and representation. His fiction, pedagogy, and creative work blur the boundaries between literature, media, and cultural critique, inviting readers to confront the psychological, social, and ideological forces shaping contemporary life. Makara Pendanaya, his latest novel, continues this project, exploring the tensions between inherited cultural codes, modern youth desire, and cross-cultural encounters, particularly within the evolving Sri Lanka–China relationship. Through its symbolic narratives and intricate character dynamics, the novel becomes not just a story but a lens through which we can examine identity, intimacy, and the negotiation of desire under hegemonic societal pressures.

Context

සන්. in English Com. was the student magazine of the Department of Mass Communication at the time when Dr. Ariyarathna Athugala served as Head of the Department. During that period, the publication became the subject of critical debate, particularly when Professor Dala Bandara, then Professor of Sinhala at the University of Kelaniya, was invited to the department’s Sanjanani Radio. This took place when we were first-year Honours students in Mass Communication in 2001.

At that time, Athugala’s vision critically disrupted prevailing structural conditions and established notions of Mass Communication. His ideas metaphorically “blasted” the ears of the academy, challenging conventional assumptions about media, communication, and knowledge production. When we attended the first-year Honours lectures, Athugala directly confronted and unsettled the dominant identities and ideologies shaping society, culture, and representation.

Through this intellectual disruption, he offered us a sharp guide and a clear goal: to rethink how modern media and communication studies enable us to scrutinize reality in a smoother yet radically different way. He taught us that becoming a communicator or journalist is not merely about reproducing popular images or icons, but about interpreting them—rethinking their origins, meanings, and ideological functions. This, he suggested, is where the true origin of a communicator lies.

His teaching style was deeply compelling and intellectually addictive. Students who attended his lectures were visibly transformed—upended, unsettled, and reoriented. His words profoundly altered our thinking; our cognitive capacities were broadened and sharpened as a result. The impact of his lectures was not temporary but formative.

In this context, it becomes essential to understand Athugala’s fictional and creative contributions, irrespective of his personal, political, or private domains. Nevertheless, all these visible and hidden phases of his life and work are reflected in how we speak, think, and behave in our everyday lives, particularly within the creative communication enterprise. From today’s perspective, reading Athugala—his fiction, pedagogy, and total creative and academic contribution—becomes a modern psychoanalytical exercise.

The name “Athugala” resonates deeply with many of us—students, colleagues, and admirers. In Sinhala etymology, gala refers to a large rock or mountain, and Athugala also evokes the town of Kurunegala and the atmospheric identity of the Wayamba (North-Western) Province. He represents a figurative “rock” in the Department of Mass Communication, having made foundational theoretical, creative, political, and cultural contributions that shaped the academic and intellectual environment.

During my undergraduate days, I initially opposed some of his ideas in the classroom, and he encouraged this critical engagement, seemingly deriving satisfaction from debate. His teledrama Thunbiya, taught during his Creative Communication lectures at the University of Kelaniya, introduced us to modernized interpretations of myth, media, and the construction of images and icons. Later, in our final year, he directed the teleplay Samanala Kandawura.

Thunbiya can be critically interpreted as a teledrama foregrounding psychological pressure, scarcity, and containment as central metaphors of modern social life. The notion of thun biya (three fears / layered fear) functions not merely as a narrative device but as a symbolic structure through which individuals internalize authority, discipline, and social expectation. Athugala presents fear as something produced and circulated through institutions, language, and everyday interactions rather than as a purely personal emotion. The teledrama destabilizes moral binaries by showing how survival often demands silence, compliance, and self-fragmentation within hierarchies of family, class, and power. In this sense, Thunbiya aligns with Athugala’s critical media philosophy: it exposes how communication systems manufacture consent and anxiety, compelling viewers to recognize fear itself as a cultural and ideological construct embedded in Sri Lankan society.

Samanala Kandawura can be read as a symbolic teledrama that unsettles dominant social and cultural certainties through metaphor rather than narrative realism. The “butterfly camp” functions as a fragile, enclosed space where identities are suspended, observed, and disciplined, reflecting how society regulates desire, subjectivity, and difference under the guise of normalcy. Athugala resists moral closure and linear storytelling, instead exposing psychological tensions between freedom and control, visibility and silence. In doing so, the teledrama critiques ideological structures embedded in family, media, and institutions, inviting viewers to confront how power operates subtly through language, images, and everyday interactions. Samanala Kandawura mirrors Athugala’s broader intellectual project: destabilizing comfortable ways of seeing and cultivating a critical media consciousness that challenges assumptions about meaning, identity, and authority.

His film Matha expanded my understanding of cinema. I recall repeatedly trying to remain in the hall during screenings, only to be overwhelmed by the sounds, colours, and screen dynamics—experiences beyond my usual cognitive and perceptual limits. Matha is not set textually or narratively in the North–Eastern war zone, yet it resonates deeply with the historical, emotional, and ideological atmosphere produced by the conflict. The maternal figure operates as a symbolic condensation of loss, sacrifice, mourning, and moral obligation, reflecting societal experiences of prolonged militarization, disappearances, and normalized suffering. In this sense, Matha functions as a national allegory: the maternal body embodies a wounded social body, haunted by the war’s emotional and ideological afterlife.

His magnum opus stage theatre, Mahāsamāyama, stands out as a comprehensive work, integrating folk dance-drama traditions from kolam, sanni, sokari, mask dances, and other folk theatrical performances. Mahāsamāyama can be read as a dense allegorical work interrogating collective consciousness, authority, and ritualized power in Sri Lankan social life. Drawing on the idea of a “great assembly,” Athugala exposes how consensus is often manufactured through ideology, symbolism, and performative unity rather than genuine democratic engagement. The text dramatizes the tension between individuality and collectivity, revealing how subjects are absorbed, silenced, or disciplined within larger moral, religious, or political formations. Rather than celebrating harmony, Mahāsamāyama problematizes it, showing how collective order often depends on exclusion, fear, and the suppression of dissent. In this sense, the work resonates with Athugala’s broader critical project: unsettling sacred social narratives and revealing how communication, ritual, and spectacle function as instruments of power.

 Athugala’s film Saho can be read as a restrained yet incisive meditation on intimacy, male companionship, and the quiet violence of social expectation. Rather than relying on overt narrative drama, the film works through silence, gesture, and atmosphere, allowing affect to accumulate in the spaces between dialogue. Saho foregrounds male relationality not as heroic camaraderie or nationalist masculinity, but as a fragile emotional terrain shaped by fear, loyalty, repression, and unspoken desire. Athugala’s cinematic language—marked by slow pacing, minimalism, and a careful use of framing—disrupts dominant Sri Lankan filmic traditions that privilege moral closure and clear binaries. Instead, the film exposes how hegemonic cultural norms, particularly heteronormativity and moral discipline, render male intimacy both necessary and impossible. In this sense, Saho functions less as a conventional social realist film and more as a psycho-cultural text, revealing how modern South Asian masculinity is structured by silence, proximity, and unresolved affect rather than by articulation or resolution.

During my undergraduate thesis on Kandyan Udarata Bali Shanthikarmaya and its communicational meanings, later published as a book as Bali Sanniwedanaya (2010), supervised by Professor Sunanda Mahendra, I was deeply influenced by Athugala’s doctoral work, later published as Perception and Communication (1998/2008). He outlines how Sri Lankan and South Asian cultural narratives and myths—such as Kandyan and other traditional codes—provide a structured lens for understanding jana rūpa (folk form). These theoretical codes and metaphors offer analytical tools to interpret how local people perceive and interact with the world.

Many of these codes emerge from traditional forms of communication, including Bali–Sanni rites, rituals, and symbolic practices such as Patapahe Mal, ritual numbers (3, 5, 7), and offerings of food and flowers. These folk forms offer a systematic way to understand Bali and its communicational meanings. Professor Sunanda Mahendra, guided by his doctoral supervisor at the University of Leicester, Professor James Halloran, studied Buddhist Jātaka stories and their anthropological significance. His later books, such as Man and Myth (1992), and his work during our Mass Communication Bachelor’s Honours  degree program years, focused extensively on folk stories, myths, legends, and mythologies, forming a grand series of explorations that informed Creative Communications Trends 1, 2, 3… (2002)

Athugala expanded this framework, providing a richer context for reading traditional communication systems. He utilized popular cinema and cultural artifacts to teach how media images and icons should be interpreted beyond conventional stereotypes. One lecture on the time and space of cinematic language fascinated me and profoundly influenced my thinking; later, I published it as a paper in my book Sannevedana addyanaya: Understanding Media & Communication (2009). Cinematic language, he explained, captures and plots long verbal prose and stories quickly and symbolically, using visual codes to convey meaning without narrating every detail. It demonstrates how day-to-day physical time and space can be expressed visually, capturing symbolic and aesthetic depth.

Theoretical Framework: Male Intimacy, Silence, and Cultural Power

Professor Ariyarathna Athugala’s Saho can be theoretically situated within critical frameworks of masculinity, homosociality, and cinematic affect. The film’s emphasis on silence, proximity, and emotional restraint aligns with what Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick defines as homosocial desire—a form of male bonding structured by intimacy, rivalry, and repression rather than explicit sexual articulation. Sedgwick (1985) argues that “male homosocial desire is structured by a continuum that includes male bonding, rivalry, and the potential of erotic charge, even where sexuality is publicly denied” (p. 2). In Saho, this continuum is rendered cinematically through gesture, shared space, and withheld speech, allowing desire to circulate without being named.

The film’s resistance to narrative closure and explicit meaning also resonates with Roland Barthes’ theory of the writerly text, where meaning is not delivered but produced by the reader or viewer. Barthes (1974) observes that “the writerly text is ourselves writing, before the infinite play of the world” (p. 5). Saho operates precisely in this register: the spectator is compelled to read silences, decode glances, and engage effectively rather than consume a fixed moral message. Athugala’s cinematic strategy thus destabilizes the dominant Sri Lankan realist tradition, which often relies on moral resolution and clear ideological positioning.

From a psycho-cultural perspective, Michel Foucault’s analysis of sexuality and power provides a crucial lens for understanding how intimacy in Saho is regulated. Foucault (1978) argues that “power is everywhere; not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere” (p. 93). The constraints placed upon male intimacy in Saho are not enforced through overt violence but through internalized discipline—social norms, moral expectations, and cultural surveillance. The film reveals how men learn to govern their own desires, rendering intimacy both necessary and impossible.

Cinematically, Athugala’s use of slowness, minimal dialogue, and visual framing aligns with Gilles Deleuze’s concept of the time-image, where cinema moves away from action-driven narratives toward affective duration. Deleuze (1989) notes that the time-image emerges when “situations no longer extend into action or reaction, but into a pure optical and sound situation” (p. 17). Saho exemplifies this mode by privileging mood, stillness, and emotional suspension over plot progression, allowing the viewer to inhabit the psychological weight of male relationality.

Finally, the film’s critique of hegemonic masculinity can be read alongside R. W. Connell’s formulation of hegemonic masculinity as a culturally dominant ideal that marginalizes alternative masculinities. Connell (1995) states that hegemonic masculinity “is not a fixed character type but the masculinity that occupies the hegemonic position in a given pattern of gender relations” (p. 76). Saho exposes how such dominance is maintained through silence and emotional repression, producing male subjects who are bonded yet isolated, intimate yet emotionally immobilized.

Taken together, these theoretical perspectives position Saho as a psycho-cultural cinematic text that interrogates masculinity not through spectacle or confrontation, but through absence, restraint, and unresolved affect. Athugala’s film thus contributes to a critical South Asian film language that challenges heteronormative moralism and reveals male intimacy as a deeply political, culturally regulated, and emotionally charged terrain.

Makara Pendanaya - Critical Appreciation 

Athugala’s theoretical rigor and expertise have provided me with a holistic framework to read his latest fiction, Makara Pendanaya. The novel operates as a lucid metaphor and metonym for existing cultural conflicts, particularly highlighting tensions between Sri Lankan stereotypical cultural representations and transformations imposed by Chinese cultural influences and their global reach.

In the novel Makara Pendanaya, the protagonists Sahan and Li—the Sri Lankan young man and the Chinese woman—are used by Athugala to construct a cultural critique of conflict and contrast arising from contemporary cultural innovation and confrontation within the intertwined political and cultural metamorphosis of Sri Lanka–China relations. Makara symbolizes Chinese culture, while Pendanaya (the necklace) signifies how the Sri Lankan younger generation “wears” cultural heritage—often as a burden placed upon the head—reflecting the invasion, negotiation, and transformation of local traditions. At the same time, the novel acknowledges shared Asian philosophical lineages, particularly Confucian humanism, suggesting cultural closeness and mutual inspiration that allow both traditions to learn from one another and coexist as an intertwined cultural fabric.

However, Athugala does not romanticize this encounter. He carefully crafts the internalized tensions and psychological struggles faced by both characters, exposing how cultural negotiation is never seamless. Pages 46–50 are devoted to introducing Confucian thought and preparing the ideological ground for subsequent chapters. Pages 56–58 explore the cultural contradiction between Sahan’s Kandyan upbringing and his parents’ expectations for his future, expectations unsettled when he pursues higher education in China. This choice results in Sahan’s symbolic outcasting, as he becomes caught between inherited Sri Lankan cultural obligations and lived engagement with Chinese academic and social life.

On page 60, Athugala explicitly foregrounds the mutual struggle of Sahan and Li as they confront their respective cultural codes and inherited meanings. He narrates how their lives and metaphors intertwine in a shared search for peace beyond the confines of two traditions and two systems of cultural disposition. They reflect that while their words and languages differ, they are “strangely similar,” revealing a state of dialogic tension in which they continue to live and negotiate meaning. Through this historical and emotional passage, the two characters undergo a process of cultural metamorphosis. On page 63, the Makara—the Chinese dragon—emerges as a humanistic symbol, expressed in the poetic line, “We fly with this humanistic dragon.” This image captures the condition of the contemporary younger generation struggling within overlapping cultural, economic, political, and geopolitical layers.

Athugala’s portrayal is further enriched by his own lived experience. During recent years, he served as an invited visiting professor in several Chinese universities, teaching Sinhala to Chinese students. These encounters are creatively transformed through empathetic observation and critical reflection, resulting in a novel that objectifies lived experience through subjective, poetic, and culturally sensitive fictional expression.

In Chapter 6 of the novel, Athugala frames the discussion through concepts such as betrayal, treason, handing over, delivery, and cession of heritage, offering an incisive way of articulating contemporary cultural anxiety. Through the romantic relationship between Sahan and Li, the chapter psychoanalytically directs the reader to recognize how the younger generation is rendered ill or diseased by unresolved modern cultural conflicts. The relationship itself becomes symptomatic of deeper ideological fractures rather than a space of emotional resolution.

In Chapter 7, the dialogue between Sahan and Li develops into a comparative analysis of Sri Lankan Theravāda Buddhist values and Chinese (largely Mahāyāna-influenced) cultural ethics, articulated through Confucian philosophical principles. The novel suggests that the world constantly contains a space for spiritual politics (p. 83). Through the metaphor of the humanistic Dragon in Confucian philosophy, Athugala illustrates how Sahan becomes culturally alienated within China, while simultaneously being unjustly expelled—emotionally and symbolically—from his parental home in Sri Lanka, where his parents suffer in his absence. As Sahan remains caught between Li and these competing cultural–political codes, the novel foregrounds a Confucian vision that emphasizes harmony, asserting that peace within the family leads to peace in the world (p. 85).

My own skim-and-scan reading of this novel occurred during a particularly hectic period of life, shaped by my deep immersion in digital spaces—as both an ethnographic researcher and an isolated individual navigating a sense of a “lost world.” This condition was further entangled with institutional responsibilities as Head of the Department. These broader contexts inevitably shaped how I read and re-read the text, moving beyond traditional literary criticism or Western theoretical frameworks such as Roland Barthes or James Joyce. What the novel articulates—particularly on page 87—is that the relationship between Sahan and Li is narrativized not as a conventional romantic or sexual bond, but as a Hobson’s-choice relationship, marked by inertia and silence. Although they meet daily, they are neither fully lovers nor strangers; they encounter each other as if in love, yet spend more time in shared silence than in dialogue, often gazing into the distance. This quietude exposes a deep cultural irony embedded within contemporary intimacy.

From Chapters 10 to 24, the novel grapples with how two culturally distinct societies attempt—and often fail—to negotiate compromise and coexistence. Through the youthful journey of Sahan and Li, Athugala explores the difficulty of forming a smooth cultural synthesis while parental authority and inherited traditions directly obstruct their autonomy and humanity. The novel suggests that young people living within contemporary Asian societies—though sharing regional affinities—experience deep internal conflict, not only at the psychological level but also in their very sense of identity, leaving them uncertain of who they truly are.

In Chapter 25, the narrative introduces another layer of complexity within the troubled relationship between Sahan and Li. Sahan’s close friend Gang questions whether Sahan intends to continue his relationship with Li, subtly hinting at an unspoken tension between the two men. That night, Sahan repeatedly wakes, troubled by the question and reflecting on its deeper meaning. Eventually, Gang reveals his attraction toward same-sex relationships, a disclosure later communicated to Li. Li reveals that Gang’s affection predated Sahan’s relationship with her. Through this triangular dynamic, Athugala exposes a contemporary Chinese youth cultural phenomenon in which same-sex intimacy among young men does not always align with Western categorizations of “gay” or “homosexual.” Instead, the novel situates these relationships within pressures generated by urbanization, economic competition, social mobility, and heightened expectations placed upon young men—conditions that foster forms of homosociality, bromance, and fluid romantic or sexual bonds. This theme is carefully juxtaposed against the cultural conflict between Sahan and Li and the broader generational gap between a digitally mediated society and a more conventional parental social order.

By Chapter 32 (around page 300), the novel explicitly engages with contemporary Sri Lankan political life, particularly the Aragalaya movement. Athugala interrogates whether this uprising truly represents the authentic rebellion of modern Sri Lankan youth or whether it remains constrained by deeper structural limitations. The narrative examines how young people attempt to emerge from political, cultural, and economic entanglements, only to find themselves caught within complex global and regional power dynamics. Athugala extends this critique to the Global South more broadly, illustrating how everyday life is shaped and dramatized by regional geopolitics. Youth agency is simultaneously activated and suppressed by Indian and Chinese cultural–political influences, while local cultural authenticity and resistance are obstructed and fragmented by dominant regional power structures.

At times, I reread the novel from beginning to end in order to undertake a deconstructive reading of the text—one that combines communicative attention with a horizontal, virtual, and cross-sectional mode of analysis rather than a conventional intersectional or linear reading. Through this approach, I came to recognize how Athugala, as a former university academic shaped by Sri Lanka’s political drama, institutional academic turbulence, and intellectual disillusionment, brings a heightened sensitivity to social intensity and cultural conflict. Following his retirement and a period as a visiting fellow in China, Athugala appears particularly attentive to everyday cultural tensions, which he pinpoints and serially narrativizes through a comparative genealogy of Sri Lankan and Chinese regional cultures within a contemporary, digitally mediated political context. The novel functions less as a poetic or aesthetically driven literary work and more as an informative, reflective, almost curatorial narrative that documents how society and generations alike are caught in a state of conundrum and metamorphosis, living as citizens of a disturbed and dilapidated modernity.

For much of my reading, I found the novel difficult and even boring, particularly because it resists the familiar fictional communicative structure of ārambha, yatnā, niyathapthi, and phalāgama—the conventional narrative progression from beginning and struggle to climax and resolution. Yet, as the narrative slowly unfolds, a Makara pendanaya emerges, revealing a contemporary reality: the increasing visibility of same-sex intimacy among young men, whether explicitly homosexual or ethically ambiguous forms of same-sex romance. The novel suggests that this phenomenon is less a matter of Westernized sexual identity and more a consequence of intensified economic pressure and the widening cultural gap between digitally mediated youth and conventional parental heteronormative expectations. This is most clearly illustrated through the relationship between Sahan, Gang, and Li, where their friendship gradually shifts into a form of male bromance and same-sex intimacy, while the heterosexual relationship between Sahan and Li remains unresolved. Both Sahan and Li struggle to identify who they are, constrained by national belonging, parental economic expectations, and socio-cultural politics. In contrast, emotional clarity and affection are more coherently generated among the men themselves.

This tension culminates in Chapter 34, when Sahan, as an artist, portrays Gang instead of Li. When questioned by Li, Sahan explains (p. 320) that Gang was able to articulate who he was with honesty, openly expressing his same-sex desire, whereas both Li—and perhaps Sahan himself—remain trapped in uncertainty. Their inability to recognize themselves is thus framed not as personal failure but as a structural condition produced by cultural context, parental economic pressure, and restrictive social politics that deny young people the space to discover who they are.

After four years of university life, Li and Sahan finally arrive at a painful conclusion. Li speaks first, acknowledging that their respective countries—and the cultural, political, and familial structures embedded within them—do not allow their relationship to continue unless they choose to migrate elsewhere. In response, Sahan erupts in anguish, shouting, “Please do not play with my life. Stop this now” (p. 332). At this moment, Sahan is portrayed as deeply tormented, caught in an intense inner conflict. Athugala depicts his psyche as being galvanized by a Sri Lankan rural Kandyan embodiment, noting that “his mind was now searching for an ancient psychology, as though his values and norms had been preserved in a museum or an archive.” This metaphor powerfully conveys the weight of inherited cultural memory pressing upon the present, immobilizing the subject in a conflict between lived desire and ancestral moral codes.

The final chapter (Chapter 36) is notably more readable and compelling than the preceding sections, as it gathers and tightens the entire narrative arc. Here, the novel articulates the contemporary condition of young people whose homosocial and affective relationships—whether with men or women—remain lived but unnamed, practiced yet undignified, and emotionally real yet socially undefined. Athugala traces the root of this condition to a historically dominant, flamboyant, hegemonic heteronormativity, compounded by grand civilizational ideologies such as “Asian values,” Buddhist moral vision, Taoism, Confucian ethics, and entrenched Sri Lankan and Chinese parental expectations. Together, these belief systems construct a rigid fence—almost a concrete barrier—that predetermines who one should be and what one is allowed to desire. Psychoanalytically, the novel suggests that contemporary choices are governed by an internalized, ancient superego, which undermines and sabotages present life by disciplining desire through inherited moral authority.

This tension reaches its most lucid articulation in the novel’s concluding scenes. As Sahan returns from China to Sri Lanka, his mother sends a message implying that all expectations attached to his return are already broken, exhausted, and exploitative. Upon arriving at the airport, Sahan observes an overwhelming presence of Indian and Chinese travelers, while Sri Lankan youth appear conspicuously absent—having migrated, dispersed, or vanished from the nation’s social landscape. This moment operates as a striking metaphor for contemporary national loss: a country emptied of its youth, yet still clinging emotionally and symbolically to ancestral archives of cultural obligation. The novel thus invites a more objective reading of national decline, exposing how excessive emotional attachment to inherited ideals—museums of desire preserved by parents and society—has rendered both generations depleted and directionless.

Although the novel remains uneven and at times difficult to read, particularly in its overextended psychoanalytic exposition, its final chapter succeeds in excavating a rich cultural and political critique. Athugala’s work once again demonstrates his longstanding experimental approach across drama, teleplays, novels, and poetry, where media theory, philosophy, and aesthetic practice intersect. Even in retirement, his creative output reflects an ongoing engagement with contemporary life, offering a reflective model for both academics and creative practitioners across generations.

Conclusion

In short, as Dr. Athugala is an expert in film, cinematic aesthetics, and visual theory, this novel cannot be read in the conventional sense—as a smoothly flowing anecdotal story from beginning to end. Instead, the text functions as a cinematic object, designed to engage the reader both visually and theoretically. The narrative unfolds through a pathologized visual spectrum, requiring the reader to decode its meaning through a cinematic lens, in line with the Professor’s intent. I scrutinized numerous instances for visual engagement and was struck by how effectively the novel converges elements reminiscent of modern South Indian commercial fantasy cinema, offering a rich, imaginative, and cinematic reading experience.

Put differently, the novel can be approached through Roland Barthes’ methodology, where the contemporary virtual and digital context functions as an intertextual framework, allowing the author to reflect on human nature in the present scenario. Similarly, the triangular relationship between Sahan, Li, and Gang cannot be neatly categorized as gay, bisexual, heterosexual, or otherwise. It mirrors the fluid spectrum of desire characteristic of digitally mediated homosocial lives, dissolving conventional divisions between men and women. The unresolved, unfulfilled, and ill-defined desires of these characters reflect a continuum of eroticism and human intimacy, entwined with societal expectations and personal bonds, producing a nuanced commentary on the complexities of modern love, lust, and relational entanglements.

This insight becomes particularly striking when contextualized within the so-called flamboyant high cultures of Asia, encompassing rich Chinese, Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucian traditions. Athugala’s narrative traces how these diverse cultural and philosophical values intersect with dominant heteronormative structures, toxic patriarchal norms, and residual feudal moralities, illustrating the tensions between inherited cultural authority and contemporary desires. The novel thereby offers a critical lens on how modern Generation Z men navigate intimacy and relational identity amidst the collision of high cultural ideals, hegemonic pressures, and the fluidity of erotic and emotional expression.

 References

Athugala, A. (2008). Sanjananaya saha sannivedanaya [Perception and communication]. M. D. Gunasena.(Original work published 1998)

Barthes, R. (1974). S/Z (R. Miller, Trans.). Hill and Wang.

Connell, R. W. (1995). Masculinities. University of California Press.

Deleuze, G. (1989). Cinema 2: The time-image (H. Tomlinson & R. Galeta, Trans.). University of Minnesota Press.

Foucault, M. (1978). The history of sexuality: Volume 1 – An introduction (R. Hurley, Trans.). Pantheon Books.

Jinadasa, M. P. K. (2009). Sannevedana addyanaya: Understanding media & communication. Colombo: Godage & Brothers Publishers.

Jinadasa, M. P. K. (2010). Bali Sannivedanaya (Bali ritual and communicational meanings). Colombo, Sri Lanka: Godage & Brothers Publishers.

Jinadasa, M. (2025). Why young men today gravitate toward same-sex intimacies: Economic pressures, cultural hegemony, and heteronormative constraints on Generation Z relationships. Manoj Jinadasa Blog.

Mahendra, S. (1992). Man and myth: Studies in cross-cultural communication patterns. Udaya Publications.

Mahendra, S. (2002). Nirmanatmaka sannivedana pravanatha (Vol. 1). Colombo: Godage Publishers.

Mahendra, S. (2002). Nirmanatmaka sannivedana pravanatha (Vol. 2). Colombo: Godage Publishers.

Mahendra, S. (2002). Nirmanatmaka sannivedana pravanatha (Vol. 3). Colombo: Godage Publishers.

Mahendra, S. (2002). Nirmanatmaka sannivedana pravanatha (Vol. 4). Colombo: Godage Publishers.

Mahendra, S. (2002). Nirmanatmaka sannivedana pravanatha (Vol. 5). Colombo: Godage Publishers.

Mahendra, S. (2002). Nirmanatmaka sannivedana pravanatha (Vol. 6). Colombo: Godage Publishers.

Mahendra, S. (2002). Nirmanatmaka sannivedana pravanatha (Vol. 7). Colombo: Godage Publishers.

Sedgwick, E. K. (1985). Between men: English literature and male homosocial desire. Columbia University Press.