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America’s most hallowed shrine, the Arlington cemetery

by Zanita Careem
On a Virginia hillside overlooking the Potomac river and the city of Washington DC is America’s most hallowed shrine, the Arlington cemetery. Situated away from the hustle and bustle of the city, its green slopes shelter veterans from every war that has involved the nation.

As you enter, one can see thousands of white tombstones; all graves of those who had given their lives during the war. There is a tinge of sadness when you pay homage to the fallen soldier. It can be somebody’s son, husband, brother or friend who did not come home.

The unknown soldier was to be symbolic of all persons who had given up their lives. All who are remembered here have this in common - service to their country.

To each one, no matter what rank or station, whether decorated or unknown belongs a place of honour.

I learned from the guide that although the majority of those buried here have been servicemen, many women who had contributed to the armed forces are also interred here.

Peace, Victory and Valour are written in bold letters at the entrance.

There were hundreds of visitors from all over. As we walk along, one is overcome with a sense of poignancy when one thinks of the gallant sacrifices made by these soldiers.

There were some who placed wreaths, some lit candles, but some of us walked away quietly.

When I visited the grave of Jacqueline Kennedy in space reserved for the Kennedy clan, it evoked in me reminiscences of the water-marks of her life, a sense of profound reverence and respect for the American elite who lie undisturbed in this cemetery.

Each year some three million visit the gravesite of John and Robert Kennedy, making this the most visited spot in the cemetery. Two deceased infant children, a stillborn daughter and a premature son lie with their parents in the plot overlaid with granite from the family’s native Massachussetts. The words "With history the final judge of our dead" are inscribed, quoted from his inaugural address.

The Memorial Amphitheatre, one of the most visited sections in Arlington cemetery, is now the setting for these observances.

Flags bedeck the circle of arches around marble benches and the podium where leaders pay tribute to those who served.

Presidential wreaths are presented each Memorial Day and Veterans Day, said a spokesman.

The tradition continues today during almost every official Washington visit by heads of state, who lay wreaths on special occasions. Even the President pays homage on that particular day.

The most impressive ceremony I witnessed was the changing of the guard. Every half an hour from March 15 through September and every hour on other days a guard change takes place in front of the sentinel’s booth.

It was a solemn moment when one attended the timeless rituals of honour at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

There is a round the clock vigil. The sentinel paces 21 steps down the mat before the tomb, pauses 21 seconds and returns.

"Here rest in honoured glory an American soldier known but to God", reads an inscription.

A funeral with military honour is a dignified and moving occasion. An honour guard accompanies the American flag draped coffin drawn by matched horses. A band plays a solemn march while muffled drums beat the slow cadence for the procession. Finally the guard folds the flag and presents it to the next of kin, said a spokesman.

Symbols of human struggle and sacrifice, the stones and monuments of Arlington cemetery are steeped in history. In their time, all buried here are from many walks of life, creeds and races, who answered their country’s call. Their stories will never be forgotten, and will go down fron generation to generation, and into the millenniums to come.

HIGH FASHIONS
Doctors’ wives make a fashion statement

by Kirthi Sri Karunaratne
The Doctors’ Wives Association celebrated their fifteenth Anniversary with an evening full of entertainment at the Galle Face Hotel last week.

This band of women led by the indefatigable Chrissy Aloysius as President works away from the limelight, seeing to the health care and needs of the less fortunate women, set their goal this time, towards using the proceeds from the evening for setting up of first aid units in rural areas.

The highlights of this evenings entertainment was a take off on the Ophrah Winfrey Show, with Nalini de Alwis paying Ophrah, and several doctors, wives of doctors, and their progeny playing the relevant roles with gay abandon.

Among the doctors in the skit were Dr. J. B. Pieris,Dr.Preethi Wijegoonewardena, Dr. B. A. V. Perera and Dr. Dennis Aloysious. Among the wives were Nirmali Wickremasinghe and Chitra Herat Gunaratne, and the young wife on stage was played by Duleeni de Alwis. Besides this were several other items, among them, sweet sounds of music on the piano, played by Dr. Manella Joseph, an exhibition of Latin American dancing by Anushka and Keith, and a fire dance by Ronnie and Salome.

It was also the time for meeting old friends and supporters of the good causes the association is involved with, besides bringing into focus how fashion conscious the doctors wives are. Chrissy who was responsible for writing the script for the playlet, wore an elegant saree in black and white. The black georgette had a embroidered scalloped border in white and sprays of flowers and pin dots in white scattered all over it. The blouse was in the simple black, and she wore pearls for jewellery. A black saree in silk printed in a contemporary design in white was the choice of Mohini Gunasekara, to wear with a double strand necklace of pearls and white accessories. A black and white checked top Neelakshi Samaranayake teamed with a black skirt for smart contrast.

The black saree Bhawani Nadarajah wore was bordered in a thread weave in subtle colours, for her to wear with a beautiful heirloom ruby necklace. The most innovative idea was on the blouse Rynee Mendis wore. The ice blue blouse which had three quarter length sleeves had a cowl at the neckline behind, and she passed the fall of the saree underneath the cowl for an unusual drape. The saree of blue silk was patterned in an unobtrusive print in mauve and turquoise, with a border and pallu in the ice blue in a silk thread weave. She too wore pearls for jewellery. The lovely coral toned chiffon saree Nirmali Wickremasinghe wore was prettily embroidered in white chain stitch in an all over design. Pearls for jewellery and white handbag were the finishing touches

Sriyani Samarasinghe wore a saree in a mangoosteen red bordered simply in the contrast of amber, with an amber pallu draped in the gujarati style, while her mother Beatrice Welgama wore a saree in a shaded ultramarine, bordered in black, white and bronze, in a stripe. The blouse in the meshed white was bordered at the edge of the sleeve in the same colours.

Dramatic was the necklace from Nepal that Sunethra Wijegoonewardena wore with a kaftan inspired salwar in brick red as exotic background for the jewellery, which also had long bell ear drops to match the striking necklace. A simple but classic dress in a deep blue with a self pattern on it was the choice of Shiromi Jayasuriya, to wear with a necklace in perfectly matched blue. Dr. Farzard provided excellent music for dancing.

A gathering of the clan

The Rockwood clan gathered for a special celebration and had themselves an evening of fun and nostalgia, recounting many memories, besides dining and wining and dancing, at which many senior members of the family enjoyed. The Rockwood women lent glamour to the event in their striking attire. Well known artist Saraswathy Rockwood favoured a simple salwar kameez out fit in an ultramaraine blue, the entire outfit in shades of the same colour, while daughter-in-law Rohini Rockwood combined blue and green in her salwar kameez. Around the neckine and down the panel in front was an embroidered border in pale gold and ivory, with little gold dots on the green. Sharmini Rockwood opted for a saree in the striking combination of black and red in an exotic print on ecru silk. The ethnic design of paisleys in the ecru was on large black triangles and the design in red crept up on the off white. A black blouse, and chunky silver jewellery completed the outfit.

Elegant entertaining

It was a quiet and pleasant dinner party that Rohini Wickremasinghe and her husband hosted in their home recently. Among the gathering were many old friends and friendly people who turned the evening in to one of delight, Fashion was subdued, but nevertheless evident. Styles varied from the saree to the trouser suit, inspired by the kurta. The black saree Rukmani Wijeratne wore suited her statuesque figure to perfection. The black silk had a floral border in white, the design outlined in a pinky toned red. Her necklace was in black and gold. A Kandyan saree in a charcoal silk patterned in scarves of red, blue, black and bordered in the same colours, made the traditional outfit high fashion wear. Her blouse was in black and she wore a long necklace of beads echoeing the colours. The embossed chartreuse silk long top was alive with colour. Felicia Sorenson teamed this with pants in a deeper hue, and simple gold necklace and earstuds.

Lord Kitchener - Grandmaster of Calypso is no more

by Cecil V. Wikramanayake
We have just been enjoying that wonderful game of "Cricket, Loverly Cricket", where our own hero Sanath Jayasuriya and his team of invincibles have routed Pakistan on their own home grounds. We have good cause to celebrate and sing once again "We are the Champions".

But let us give a thought to the man who made that Calypso, the Victory Test Match, 1950, famous. Lord Kitchener, the man who sang "Cricket, loverly cricket, at Lords where I saw it... They gave de folks plenty fun, second test and West Indies won. With those little pals of mine, Ramadhin and Valentine", died recently in his home in Trinidad home, at the ripe old age of three score years and seventeen.

Lord Kitchener was one of the leading exponents of the art of calypso, better described as the Trinidadian "newspaper in song", and provided the world with an eloquent commentary on the life of a West Indian immigrant in Britain during the early post-war years.

Lord Kitchener possessed a remarkable facility with rhyme and metre, coupled with a melodious voice and uncommonly clear diction — rare features in any artiste. He was also a highly prolific artist, claiming to have composed more than a thousand songs in his long career.

Born into a poor blacksmith family, Lord Kitchener was named Aldwyn Roberts, and as a child suffered from a speech impediment, an affliction he never quite conquered, although his singing was entirely unaffected.

On leaving school, Roberts entered his father’s trade as a blacksmith, but after a successful stint at the Young Brigade calypso tent — a temporary stage set up during the carnival season, he decided that being a calypso singer was his forte.

He began to make headway, adopting the name Lord Kitchener alongside other calypsonians as Mighty Sparrow, Lord Melody, and Roaring Lion. He was also an early supporter of steel band music, and from the mid-forties was composing melodious calypso scores specificially for Trinidad’s steel-band orchestras.

Way back in 1948 Lord Kitchener sailed for Britain abroad the "Empire Windrush". The arrival of the ship and its cargo of immigrants at Tilbury docks in June that year was widely reported in the press, and prominent in the Pathe Newsreel coverage of the event was Lord Kitchener, immaculate in double-breasted suit and snap-brim trilby, accompanying himself on the guitar while singing his latest composition "London is the Place for Me."

In the years that followed, Kitchener and his fellow passenger Lord Beginner ( whose real name was Egbert Moore) became friendly rivals in chronicling the West Indian experience in England.

In January 1950 the two of them visited EMI’s Abbey Road studios to take part in the first London calypso recording session.

Among the topics covered were transport (Kitchener’s The Underground Train) and the parlous state of Britain’s economy (Beginner’s The Dollar and the Pound) EMI continued to record a certain amount of calypso material, but the bulk was issued by a small record label Melodisc, for which Kitchener produced many delightful pieces.

These included a ringing endorsement of the Festival of Britain and less than ecstatic reports on British cuisine, climate and landladies.

In these early recordings Kitchener was accompanied by some of the leading West Indian musicians then exiled in London, such as Fitzroy Coleman, Rupert Nurse, Shake Keane and Clarrie Weir. Unhappily the Melodisc label sank without trade and the master recordings of these lifting and ingenious songs appear to have vanished with it.

In Britain, Lord Kitchener was a professional and social success. His record "Nora" became an unexpected hit both in Britain and in West Africa, and he was a popular nightclub singer as well. Eventually, in 1958 he opened his own club in Manchester.

Lord Kitchener returned home to Trinidad in 1962, the year of his country’s independence. He arrived to a hero’s welcome and immediately asserted his position as a master calypsonian by winning the title Road March King, granted to the composer of the song most performed in the street during that year’s carnival.

He won that title a further nine times and in the 37 year history of Panorama, the annual national steel band competition, no less than eighteen of the winners have played Lord Kitchener’s compositions.

Finally, in 1976, along with Mighty Sparrow, his only real rival, Lord Kitchener stepped down from competing in order to leave the field free for younger talent.

Unlike other veterans, Kitchener was never opposed to innovation. Many of his contemporaries view the new hybrid calypso dance form, soca, as heralding the end of civilisation, but Kitchener encouraged it and helped its most talented young exponents to get a hearing through his Calypso Revue tent shows.

Lord Kitchener’s portrait appeared on a Trinidad postage stamp and in 1994 a seven-foot tall statue of him as the Grandmaster of Calypso was erected in Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad and Tobago.

In your stars
Foreigns trips are indicated
A rare planetary combination

A rare planetary combination will take place during next few weeks when all four major planets, Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are combined together in Aries.

At present, Mars is in Aries along with Jupiter and Saturn and Sun is due to occupy Aries on April 13 with the dawn of the New Year. As Jupiter and Saturn are conjoined once in every 12 years and in Aries after 60 years this combination is very important as it would lead to crucial incidents.

When these four are compared with the human being, Sun becomes the King, Mars Army Commander of the King, Jupiter, the Minister and Saturn, the public. In another way, Sun represents human soul, Mars blood as well as protector of the world, Jupiter, morals and mediation where disputes exist and Saturn sufferings and destruction.

When the combination is set by these planets the characteristics will be mixed and will react in accordance with the relationship of the planets concern.

Jupiter is a friendly planet with all other three planets. Saturn is an enemy of Sun and Mars while they are friendly with each other.

The house, Aries where the combination is set belongs to Mars and is exalted to Sun. It is a friendly house to Jupiter but Saturn will be debility in that house.

The above planetary phenomena does not indicate a satisfactory position in the near future. The whole world is likely to suffer due to various types of violative incidents. Many will act impatiently and hesitantly due to uncertain environment situations and become angry and fall into unnecessary troubles. In the meantime violence will be created by clashes between various camps and groups over minor matters.

World peace is likely to be overshadowed by heated expressions and threats of wars by some world leaders who are involved in disputes with other countries. This position would affect adversely the Asian region particularly India and Pakistan as well as China and Taiwan as they are now in such disputes. The period will be a busy time for diplomats who are engaged in peace missions.

The armed groups also will have difficult time. All those who handle weapons and use force will be under heavy pressures. Therefore, terrorism too will have a hard time in practice but will be protected by mediators.

As a result of violative mood a media restriction likely to be imposed which would result in spreading rumours and gossips. At the same time mediamen are likely to fall in troubles.

People in various parts will suffer due to unexpected weather changes such as heavy rains causing floods, earthslips and earth tremors etc.

Generally, the period will be bad for Aries, Taurus, Virgo, Libra, Capricorn and Pisces while the position will be neutral for Gemini, Cancer, Scorpio and Aquarius. Leos and Sagittarians will have no impact by this change. - Sugathadasa Jayasekera.

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