21-02-2025

In February PhD researcher Sulakshana de Mel went back to Sri Lanka for the 125 years' celebration of Ladies' College Colombo. Sulakshana who is an alumna of LC spoke with several media about the coffee table book she composed about LC.

In an interview with The Morning, Sulakshana tells about her involvement in the book project that started over a year and a half ago, when the Ladies’ College Principal and her team invited Sulakshana to work on a coffee table book celebrating 125 years of Ladies’ College in 2025. This resulted in the book Through the red gates 100 + 25.

Sulakshana wrote a book that was not just a ‘history’ book with facts and figures, but something that would invoke the curiosity of the reader to explore the school’s history beyond the obvious. She spent many days reading and collecting material, diving in the LC's archive and family archives of alumnae.

Read the interview in The Morning here.

Watch the interview in Hi Exlusive here.

As a PhD researcher at KITLV Sulakshana focuses on the Sri Lankan Malay community under the project Trajectories of Taste: An analytical framework of culinary change. Her research focuses on the Dutch period Ceylon, the communities that came to Sri Lanka during that period, and reading history through the food culture they brought with them.