aljuhara

BRINGING UP CHIPSY

2011-08-26T02:30:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had a baby chipmunk on your hands? It’s a common situation I know in Sri Lanka where these tiny high-metabolism rodents get themselves into all kinds of trouble and then leave us wondering what to do. Sri Lankan mornings seem to be all about crows cawing, cocks crowing and chipmunks ting-ing to wake you up. At least since Im lucky enough to live in the suburbs. To be honest I am quite astounded at the sound a chipmunk makes in relation to its body size.
Chipsy is our latest family member though she is much smaller than a regular rat, she commands incredible love from all of us. We hardly dare breath with the wonder of her tiny delicate existence. Outside, Itchy the cat and Foofy and Mucky , the stray dogs are breathless too, but sadly its mostly with insane amounts of jealousy and repeat murmurings of “just you wait” . Sadly orphaned when her mother was gobbled by one of our backyard dwelling stray mutts, Chipsy too is a tiny and very transient miracle. I have no idea what her future will be, but I’m pretty sure predators out there are monitoring it. I try my best to protect her, with rather fanatic determination. It should be possible, for man who walked on the moon, to bring up and release a chipmunk successfully. I do not want to hold her in a cage. Next week I will tell you how best to look after a baby chipmunk.
For more photos and videos of Chipsy, read my blog www.chiptipsy.wordpress.com

TIPS FOR BRINGING UP BABY CHIPMUNKS
1. Do not give them powdered milk, or cow’s milk. The best for their delicate tummies is goat’s milk, diluted half half with boiled warm water.
2. You can feed them through a ball point pen, with the barrel removed and a cotton wick passed through the nib -space; it has to be a brand which does not have holes in the barrel. Strangely for the moment all I could find was a brand named “RADIENT” and I made the stationary shops very puzzled with how much I tried looking for this brand. Use the hold in the back to control the flow of the milk so that not too much comes.
3. Be really clean with the feeding equipment, don’t let the milk get sour; don’t let the pen get dirty. Change the wick daily, or better still, at every feed.
4. Keep them clean. Don’t let their fur be sticky with old milk etc. wipe with a ball of cotton wool dipped in lukewarm water , but make sure they are warm afterwards
5. After nourishment, the single most important thing to keep a baby chipmunk alive is warmth. How you keep them warm is simple, fill a plastic bottle with warm water, not boiling hot, but quite hot, put it in a sock or wrap it in a towel and then place the rodent on top of it. Baby chipmunks love the heat and stay sticking on this contraption for ages.
6. There’s the delicate and unmentionable matter of pee. Baby animals often cant pee themselves, and need the mothers “stimulation” aka licking for that too. If this is not done, they literally (and it must be a terrible way to die) could burst. All we can do is use a small ball of cotton wool or a cotton bud dipped in comfortably warm water, to wipe their unmentionables till they do pee. It takes patience, and yes, it has to be done, for the tiniest of baby orphans.
7. Last but not least, do not handle them by their tails, these can and do come off and that HURTS.

Shores of Another Sea Part Two

2011-08-19T20:11:00.000-07:00

Shores of Another sea Part Two

part one was here

The tsunami struck Matara at 9 23 on the morning of Sunday the 26th December 2004. I was in a small 30 seater inter-city bus on the coast, with my beloved father and a dear friend named Dieter. There were perhaps 3 minutes between us and a monstrous, 30 foot high, wall of destruction ploughing directly towards us at the speed of a runaway train.
This was the most terrifying moment I have ever faced and perhaps ever will. Thousands of metric tonnes of churning, raging, impersonal annihilation was coming straight for us. We were staring certain death in the face. I could not move.
Passengers in the bus had begun screaming in panic and grappling their way out. Human decency had given way to a sheer atavistic desperate race for survival. They had chosen, tragically for everyone of them, to outrun the wave.
I felt screams locking up my throat but somehow I was too weak to even let them form. I was simply paralyzed. I knew we had to run, but looking back at my father and then the wave, I simply couldn't move. I turned to Dieter, choking incoherently, feeling my breath twist in panic.
"No," he said, suddenly holding me by both shoulders, as if to shake me, but I knew it was simply to give me the strength I needed now. "Listen to me" he said. "Breathe!"
There was a moment where I thought I would lose consciousness but mercifully it passed. I looked into his steady blue eyes. They were very calm. "We may die anyway. "He said, turning to his mother tongue which he knew I would instinctively pay attention to, since he had taught this to me for so long. "We have to face this, my gazelle, so we must be strong. We will not run like wild goats but face this with dignity"
He released me suddenly and moved as quick as a dancer over to the doors, which he pulled shut firmly. Suddenly there was only one sound in the world. The engines had been gunned, the screaming had faded, there was only the roar of the wave, and it was coming closer.
Dieter reached me as quickly as he had gone and we sank into our seats again, in a strange little huddle, my father on one side, me in the middle with tears streaming down my face because no matter what Dieter said, no matter what happened to me, I could not bear to think of my beloved father dying this way- because no matter how brave I tried to be, this was that final moment I was going through and I was bewildered and unprepared.
And then the wave hit us.
The bus simply lifted off the ground. Dizzyingly, unbelievably it was being pushed along at a un definable speed, without any kind of resistance for uncountable yards inland. We braced ourselves…there was suddenly an obstacle of some kind and then there was a strange silence.
I knew we were now underwater, stuck against something. Little trickles of water pushed in at the seams of the windows. The curtains were still drawn and I did not want to look out.
Minutes passed and we cried our prayers quietly. In those moments, I faced sheer unbelievable terror: I also found out the meaning of true love: I felt the unbearable dread of losing my beloved father above all, and then Dieter took, from around his neck , his most precious talisman, a locket with the beautiful face of Mother Mary engraved in it , which he slipped into my hands, with a quiet prayer and a small smile , asking me to be strong for him.

The world had grown silent except for sinister gurgles of water trickling in through crevices of the vehicle. And yet we knew that there were strong currents pushing at it, and heavy bodies of matter passing close by. There could have been trees, debri from the destruction , whatever was pushed along by the current- in my minds eye I saw the bodies of my co passengers of late dragged helplessly along.
There was terrible brooding power in this silence.
And then, agonizingly, slowly, the water began to subside.
It would be over.
We had made it- strangely, unfairly we had been spared. We who were perhaps the most ready to die, had been allowed back to this earth. Because Dieter had not let us run, we would live to see another beautiful Sri Lankan day. I will never understand why.
The bus had lodged into a building, someones house, about a kilometer inland , which I heard was something that had happened to quite a few vehicles that day. But out of all passengers who entered that bus , we were the only ones that had survived.
The following hours were a dizzy haze I can barely recount. There were bodies everywhere, blank faces, mutilated people , the injured running vacantly around , and at some point I was carrying twin babies of about six months of age , whose bodies I had found in a car , and I was crying inconsolably. I cannot accept the fate that had led me to them, they were beautiful and as I recount this story the tears are beginning to flow again. I remember praying that some day these two lovely children would come back to me.
If ever I had children I wanted their souls to be reborn as my own children. They deserved to live, and to be happy and to play on the beach.
My people too miraculously, were safe, and Dieter remained in the country a few weeks more, the caring, gentle soul that he was, helping people wherever and however he could.
Continuing on the journey he began on the 26th of December, he subsequently left the country, left my life totally and he did not look back.
Something changed that day to all of us, and to Dieter, it was a flash of realization.
That there was a meaning in life and a meaning in death and that there had to be a way towards understanding both. This was something he had to search for. He had seen a higher calling, had laid eyes on the shores of another, darker more dangerous sea, one that we must all escape from someday
I understand this.
Time passed.
In time I met a wonderful and understanding man of my own race, who helped my heart to heal and my soul to sing. Just last month we were married, basking in the delighted smiles of our parents and all our relations.
The beach is clean and sunny again, life is good to me and the future looks promising.
But, I will not forget Dieter for as long as I live.
And now you understand why.

The Environmental Impact of Vesak 2011

2011-05-20T04:03:00.000-07:00

Floats, displays, Buckets, lanterns, “pandols,” flags, posters, cutouts, banners and swathes of bulb vines were festooned in a bewildering, dizzying display of colour, this Vesak in Colombo.

Loudspeakers were placed every few hundred yard, food outlets feeding not necessarily the hungry with offerings in little polythene bags, Halloween masks, music and disco lights expending copious amounts of electricity, polythene and plastic reminded any absentminded Buddhist who was unaware of it that we should be forcefully and effectively, and merrily and COMPULSORILY celebrating the birth of the Buddha. The UN has declared it a world wide national day, so we had kind of won in making other less civilized nations recognize us.

No half hearted, quiet displays of contemplation were allowed, each home, each street each institution, competed raucously to put more orange and yellow polythene and more electricity out in the name of the Buddha. Apart from the sheer tonnage of colored polythene and now, garish completely untraditional lanterns imported from China, (a country known in the civilized world for horrifying animal abuse) there was the incredible weight of evidence of carnival like feeding frenzies of mobs of citizens and their offsprings – ice cream wrappers, biscuit wrappers, food wrapping polythene and soft drink bottles and what not, thrown all over the city by people who clearly thought that Vesak was an excellent an excuse to litter compulsively.

Road sweepers were spotted dazedly trying to manage the damage the next day. It was as though a small religious cyclone had hit the country. So much sheer CELEBRATION! 2600 years of SAFEGUARDING Buddhism , we DID it! its all because of US that Buddhism is still around here!! The PURE SORT!! NO one else even knows what Buddhism is like, so much as we do! Sri Lanka is the one place in the world where pure Buddhism is safeguarded. Says who? Well, says us of course. Its true its pure and its safe here, if the noise is anything to go by, if the carnival atmosphere of jubilation is anything to judge by- we succeeded!!

I wonder if the Buddha would have agreed.

I fantasize and picture Him coming down and walking among us, dressed in normal clothes so as not to arouse suspicion.

He would probably be thinking “these poor people, I told them about suffering about impermanence and about being at one with the universe about being kind to animals and to this earth we share. I told them to live good lives and be kind to people and try and find a way out of samsara; What in the WORLD are they doing with all these blinking lights ? They are missing the whole POINT!! Jesus! ”

Child abuse, suicide and alcoholism rates are the highest in the civilized world,according to the WHO and UN but according to us we have the "purest" Buddhism. We measured it, on a kind of authenticity scale... Traffic accidents caused by the negligence of regular civilians who could not care less for the life of their fellow man are some of the highest in the world. Women throw babies in rivers, grandfathers rape baby girls, people eat the meat off cows legs while they are still alive, hakka patas traps kill wildlife slowly over weeks, corruption, lies and thuggery are all so normal we simply live with it all and ignore it like the mosquitoes, unaware that there are other non Buddhist countries where these things don’t happen. Countries where perhaps there is not so much noise and light and polythene for Vesak. Where, you know, the Buddhism is less pure.

What am I complainng about you wonder ? Who is this fancy author to tell people how they should celebrate the birth of the Buddha ??? what a party pooper!! Vesak balanna giye nadda?
Well- Im not that religious. I prefer to sit and do silly, lazy things like meditate in my little rented annex . And read old Dhamma books. And plot for a way of going as far away as possible from this madness the next time it comes around.

A SMALL BUT IMPACTFUL ADVERTISING SOLUTION

2011-01-25T22:31:00.000-08:00

When you flush do you know how the soap and detergent goes into your land? What did people do before soap? Have you thought about how your day to day life affects the world? And can you just imagine how the invisible waves around us, the so called SIGNALs must be affecting our heads? Will the whole of humanity find out too late that the results of the greatest biological experiment of all time – is quite ugly ? who can tell?

These are the interesting things I discussed in a chance interview with a fellow called Niranjana Wicremesinha the mind behind the striking, award winning CMEV NO TO VIOLENCE poster ("PRACHANDATWAYA EPA"), who heads his own Advertising gig called MEDIA PLAN.

Niranjana seems an ordinary chap but in quite a few ways has extra ordinary thinking in that he dosnt think the way your “typical sri lankan” does and has a very questioning and creative mind capable of lateral thinking – very refreshing in the local atmosphere.

You can contact him on mediaplansrilanka@gmail.com and 777749924 and 717749924 for any out of the box idea solutions with a definite sensitivity to sri lankan outreach which is something I believe the big advertising firms sometimes over look since their talent is more cosmopolitan.

Airtel & Knickers,

2010-11-02T00:32:00.000-07:00

This week I received a forwarded email of the craziest thing Ive seen in a long time, camera phone shots of a woman's legs taken secretly from under a table, which are supposed to belong to a pretty Airtel Employee, whose regular photo was also sent with her face circled. looking below in the list of people who had forwarded it there were womens names and the name of another Airtel Employee.

well, being your regular unshockable broadminded lady writer, I admit I do get a lot of porn, tasteful and otherwise forwarded by various hyperactive friends..but this was a fellow Sri LAnkan, and the photos were taken clearly without her knowledge, and these were so pathetic, just photos taken under a table of a womans legs
predictably yours truly lost no time in telling them what she thinks of them and is sure they wont even by mistake send her such emails again...
but can you beleive it, the men justified it saying it was to correct her...
heres one reply:

I read your mail with mixed feelings. I am sorry that I cannot fully agree with what you have said in this regard. We have to consider both side before we form an opinion. And we cannot be bias based on our genders. Here I think you have formed an opinion based on you being a woman. Guys may have got other things to say.

I just think of a similar situation where a man shows off his genitals in an office environment or a public place for becoming sexy, what will ladies say or how will women behave in such a context? In Sri Lanka, according to criminal law, a man can be punished for showing off his genitals in public, but not a woman. (What a fair justice!). Being a woman, you can just show off your private area to me by raising your dress up or put down your knickers, but if I do it to you, I will surely be charged in a court and put into jail. I personally think as a society where both genders have got equal rights today bear equal responsibilities for decent behavior and decent dress in an office environment or in a public place. If a girl can ignore what she displays or to what extent she exposes her private body parts to others in an office environment, I am sure her male counterparts won't be possible to work there by concentrating their minds on their work all the day through. Ultimately, the company will be bankrupt sooner or later. I also think the company has equal responsibilities to enforce a dress code for all its employees where normal decency levels are protected and guaranteed. If not, sooner ladies will come to work in bikinies and guys in their jocks. I closely watched the last picture in order to ascertain whether this girl has worn a panty at least to cover her private area sufficiently. But I doubt she has at least worn her kinckers as this picture clearly shows. What a pathetic situation! Or else is this another fashion of THIS INSANE MODERN SOCIETY. This kind of STRIP show OR BODY EXPOSURE by a working girl in a working environment cannot be accepted by any means.(If so we also need to ignore a guy showing off his penis under a table in pretext of cooling off his genitals in an office or for mere fashion). Also taking undercover pictures by her own stafff cannot be approved on the other hand. You see the pros and cons of such a situation. I cannot say anything if an over-sensitive guy started masturbating in this office once he saw this girl unlocking her tighs wide open time to time without any concern for men around or even ignoring the fact that she has not even worn an underwear. In Sri Lankan culture if you have a daughter, sister, wife like this, I think you should be honestly ashamed of her insensitive and careless behaviour or else you should commit suicide. It is o.k. for anyone to behave as they wish behind closed doors or in their private places, but not in public places like an office. If a girl cannot wear enough to cover at least her private parts, what will happen to our next generation. Young men will come wearing see-through pants where their privates parts can be seen easily. In this type of environement, do you think you can make your son a good man with fear to commit sins. Any young guy with natural feelings won't be hide his feelings before this type of hot exposures by an opposite sex even under a table. We know how men feel and women feel. Psycologically too both genders are different in sexual arousal. I think we should teach young women how to dress in public places and guys how to ignore mere nakedness of sexy & horney women in their work places in first place. It does not matter you have sex with anyone you prefer, but you need to ensure that society's age-long norms are protected. You cannot do certain things in public and can do it privately. Just because your body belong to you, it is not ethically correct to show off each and every bit as you prefer or wish. Remember you have got your freedom to circle your stick until you reach other's nose. Otherwise, this society will be a place where wild-ass freedom prevails.This is just my thought. You have the right to agree or disagree.

a month in Allys life

2010-02-23T07:12:00.000-08:00

20 7 2009 : Rat emergency in ceiling – smell goes up they say
20.7.2009 Went to Trinco with team. DS fighting with AR in the backseat because she touched his hand. Saw CK, He is cute,like a hobbit.
22.7 2009 Asked David Blacker for a kitten. He said he had already given one away.XX corresponded by SMS and said the hotel I had recommended was lovely
22.7.2009 Mrs AS asked me to find her a job. Broker TF kept proposing to me
23. 7 2009 Got a kitten from a strange woman in kotikaawatta. Patchy happy
24.7 .2009 RS says “I don’t know what is happening to me”
25 7 2009 Mrs AS leaves home finally and tearfully
27 7 2009 ASIW fights about chair and dosnt talk to me all day. I found how not to take men seriously from now on. Have two and switch when overdone.
27.7 .2009 C akki went back to USA – I didn’t go to see her this time I feel terrible,
278.7.2009 DS gets interested in NR
31.7.2009 RS says “will you marry me?” unfortunately he is already married
2.8.2009 back in touch with Dancer Dayan after so long
4 8 2009 WJB falls down the stairs in his socks.
9.8.2009 MB says his friends father died
11 8 2009 Major L texts from Indonesia saying would I like anything. Im honestly touched.
12.9 .2009 read up on UNIFEM (Bill and womens charter)
25.9.2009 Mrs AS catches her husband doing something to a woman with a metal stick.
26.9.2009 Mrs AS justifies paranoia saying she is stuck in this “gost prisan”

Life is a Woman

2010-02-21T06:19:00.000-08:00

Life gave you to her.

you grew inside a woman
you were born tearing her apart,
grew drinking her blood..

life gave her to you and night after night
you found heaven through a woman
and kept tearing at her flesh,

but life fades,
you will one day be old and weak
and a woman will guide your clutching,frightened hand.

did you ever stop to wonder if
Death is a woman too,and she will
lead you -gently-to your judgment?

PusheeKat Diaries 10

2009-12-25T07:48:00.001-08:00

December 7th
Disaster, Tragedy, DOOM! I didn’t know my life would come to this. They put beautiful Patchy, of the long fluffy fur, the love of my life, that irreplaceable cougar of my dreams, into some kind of large LUNCH BOX with slats and put cellotape around it and then carried her off in a three wheel! I couldn’t believe it and I didn’t really notice her and then I turned around and she was gone…
I spent some time hoodling and howling through the dining room window making the Family uneasy and they shouted at me to shut up, and stop worrying that she would be back. Yeah so they say. They had better be correct.

10.00 am So Im waiting.
1.00pm Its lunchtime .No sign of Patchy.
2.00pm Could not bear the suspense and did some more sniveling and youwling at the dinning room window. No one seemed bothered. No Patchy and No Mistress Ally.What do you think they would have done to my poor darling? And mind you Pitchoo was not at all concerned and had his lunch as usual, if only Patchy knew how little he cares about her and how much I care, she would not favor him, that scoundrel!! I did not eat my lunch today in protest. I don’t know if anyone noticed but I couldn’t .

Im trying to understand what has happened. Apparently Patchy has had a little blob, which is not very normal. So they have to go to the Wet, who has to Hoperate and take away said blob. I don’t know what the fuss is all about why cant hewmans not complicate things and not worry about blobs etc.This procedure even costs a lot of hewman money and they have to take her to a country called Bhattaramulla where all the best wets are. Ally and the Marmar were talking to each other on the long distance talkies and I was listening outside the bedroom window that’s how I know.

6.00 pm
They brought her back sleeping in a cardboard box. She is quite tipsy and did not recognize me and allowed me to look at her. She looked terrible but I was so happy to have her back I had to do more yeuwling. They chased me away with brooms, but I had a spot to look through the windows. They gave her milk and samon. They tried to give her medicine so she clawed them properly so they finally crushed the pills into kudu mixed it in honey and rubbed it on her left backside. That’s because anyway she is so clean and cant stand anything sticky on her coat so she licks it all off, and that way drinks her medicine. Ha ha, devious…
December 8th
Patchy of course spends her time jumping onto things as if she has a lot of important work to do, which is dangerous with the stitched tummy- but isn’t she lovely…shes back , shes alive and my life is all right again….(even if she dosnt notice me)…shes on her way to getting better that’s all I care about ; and if I ever meet that Wet I shall shake his paw oh yes I will !!
…………………………………………………………………………….
http://colombopetrescue.blogspot.com
NB Pusheekat Diaries are the thoughts of Peechy, an ordinary grey house cat who lives in a hewmie dwelling in Wellampitiya with 2 other adopted strays and a very pompous half Persian princess cat named Patchy. Although he is a cat of very refined qualities she does not return his affection and prefers the company of a thuggish, battered and diseased street cat named Pitchy. This leads to philosophical musings on all sides.

Parenthood Licenses

2009-12-17T19:41:00.000-08:00

Whats wrong with this photo, you may wonder? its one of those quick sudden camera phone things and you see a dad with three, repeat THREE helmet-less children, helmetless, racing to school or work... and if you look closely, the feet of the child in front are above the crashbar a couple of inches from those hefty 60mph tyres.

True it takes a few months and a bit of bribery and corruption not to mention some "rustifying" at the RMV to get a bike license...but the funny thing is that to procreate and produce confused and innocent life is still a choice available to anyone whos gonads are functioning without any social censure.
and in Sri Lanka oddly you can take these life forms around without minimal precaution, on an obviously dangerously overloaded death trap,in rush hour traffic, without even bothering to check where their feet are.
But, Im sure if interviewed the gentleman has a perfectly valid and innocent explanation for this.
I think as usual its women who will have to put a stop to not only the neglect and abuse of children but the unjustified reproduction of offspring that arrive to a world of chaos and injustice on the invitation of misguided humans who think that children are the "done thing"
http://gpso.wordpress.com/2009/12/08/one-womans-answer-empower-women-slow-population-growth-bulletin-of-the-atomic-scientists/

PusheeKat Diaries 9

2009-12-07T07:56:00.001-08:00

November 30th
Such a shock . Suddenly the hewmies have gone away. I think that perhaps our world is over. I don’t know what to do . I don’t know what I have done. One day they were here the next day they were gone! In that metal chariot, you know. Marmar has given up on us. I couldn’t even eat today . Well, mostly because the food was horrible with the boring harlmassas boiled by the kusssi woman. She never really liked us. But for some reason she came over and gave us all food. That’s all. The house is silent and cold and there are no lights. This is very very scarey.

December 1st

Today also. There is no one! I think the world has ended. Except for the kusi woman. Suddenly I want to throw myself keening at her feet. What if she too forgets us. What are we going to do. We might have to live on rats again. Why did they go? What did we do that they left us here like this ? Where could they be; its very selfish and heartless what they are doing…

December 2nd

Third day without the hewmies. I am almost dying of some kind of unease, it could perhaps be loneliness –Im not sure . True they descended from apes and are generally far inferior to us but they were kind of busy and interesting, they were company sort of and the food was much better when Marmar personally supervised it. Im disappointed. Did I do something bad to Marmar . ? Except for tearing his socks, putting paw prints on his windscreen and marking territory on the rice bags, I cant even think of something properly bad I did to him, anything REALLY unforgivable….

December 3rd
Oh praise Bubastis, they are back today!!! I was so happy I head butted their legs till I lost fur on my head! Oh my dear precious hewmies. They didn’t go away .Life is happy again. They didn’t leave me. They wouldn’t , they know how much happiness they get from giving us nice stuff like saman. I know they cant live happily without us. But whatss this I hear? They went to a place called Yarlar looking for a BIG CAT ?Whats this ? big deal !why do they want a big cat?Dont we do enough damage as it is?I mean we put paw prints on the car, we go and dump in the front yard, and we do a lot of fighting in the night on the roof, to keep them alert, we are much more active than the neighbourhood cats so why do they want a “lepperd” or something. Im daring them to bring one here, I shall not eat at all and I shall claw its eyes. What is this world coming to I don’t know – I don’t want any dirty big cat here apart from Patchy. LEPOD MY FOOT.

Pusheekat Diaries 8

2009-11-28T05:40:00.000-08:00

November 24th
The week started funny with some news from Rathmalana. The family daughter called in some hysteria to say that Hish , the teenage cublette had taken out some of his earwax and offered it to the dum kitten (named peach) they have there and what’s worse, the latter has happily eaten it.
There was some serious apprehension there as to what could be the consequences of such an act. I personally wonder about the motivation.

November 27th

I swear Patchi’s knows English, that Mother Tongue of the Queen: this evening we were sitting quietly in the living room pretending we were furniture. But Patchy, who thinks she is special and royalty, just because she has a hairy tail, was making a bit of nuisance of her self in the kitchen.
Then grandmommy who normally starts screaming slightly when cats come too near her, suddenly said “ someone put that Filthy Fellow out !” which was not only a mistake regarding gender and species ( “fellow”)but inaccurate regarding status (Patchy is not “ filthy”) she’s the cleanest of us all as she never sits on the floor and has princess attitudes. Anyway Filthy is the name of another cat they had sometime back)
The words were barely out of her mouth I saw Patchy quietly and smoothly easing herself under the side board ; which is only about 6 inches off the ground and makes it very difficult for anyone to remove her unless they perform the land equivalent of the belly stroke.

November 28th -Attack of the Family Rat….

Oh, the shame of it! Well, we call him the Family Rat because funnily enough, while we are locked out in the cold watching through the windows, we can see him scuttling happily about helping himself to dustbin stuff and fooling about with the soap each night.

This is shameful. I bought it up at a recent meaw meaw , but Patchy ( who is the only one allowed in the night) was not motivated; “ Come on, they can afford one rat” was all she said .I have this suspicious that not only is she completely not interested in doing her job which involves the complete eradication of Rat, but she even approves in a underhand way of actually harbouring them. Disgusting!I can almost see its triangular face gloating out at me through the windows.
I hope it gets glued one day or something.

Patchy Translated..

2009-11-28T05:39:00.000-08:00

PATCHYS VOCALISATIONS TRANSLATED

“MRRRP” that’s a positive rendition roughly translated as “You bet!” (in reply for example to a question like “how about some feesh Patchy?) or “Of course” or “YES!!’

“fHAAK” negative audio response usually accompanied by laid back ears and twitching whiskers .Lit: “Back off!” or “ It wasn’t me!” or “Crikey it’s a DAWWWg”

“MRROAWUU” quite negative in for example situations like being locked in the broom closet by mistake. This is a reflex expression caused by the presence of the hedious apparitions of souls of numerous rodents which she had bullied to death in her youth when she actually had had the energy to play with her food.

“PRRRRHH” very positive , last heard in 1998 before any of the stray cats were taken into the house. Usually accompanied by kneading motions and an ecstatic simple minded drooly expression like that hyena in Lion King which chews its own ankles

Patches and a rather ugly hyena ...

2009-10-25T03:50:00.000-07:00

Looking for a kind home –Patches and Hyena
These two sorry specimens were discovered in (a dustbin of course in) Mirihana .Please give them a kind home and save them from the impending monsoon if you can.
We will sort the preliminaries. –contact pusheekat@gmail.com, or write to this blog

Pusheekat Diaries 4

2009-10-25T03:45:00.000-07:00

October 20th
Patchy decided to surprise us all for once and catch a rat. I somehow don’t think it is because she is guilty about the financial burden she is causing Marmar. Im also convinced she did not plan it with the Forethought and Predatory Cunning Coming From Millions of years of Selective Evolution as they say on Discovery Channel. I think the real situation would have been that the rat was drunk and tripped over her front paws by mistake and got tangled in that little curved thumb claw, then Patchy panicked and tried to shake it off and get rid of it and in so shaking, it banged its noggin on the rafters and passed out on the spot. …subsequently lacking anything in the way of CPR it would probably have died of repercussions as they say on Cable TV….
Sigh…
The sum and total of this of course is that it started doing what dead rats do rather well in a tropical heat ie smelling delicately more and more interesting in stages…
I was monitoring this of course. We cats cant see colours, did you know that? Smells on the other hand we sense in technismeller* This particular decomposing rodent smelt reminded me of the cave art of Australian aborigines…very fundamental if you ask me..

October 21st
The poor hewmie family of course began to walk around poking behind furniture and acting mighty paranoid. They changed the cushion covers, threw out some rugs and sent the kussi woman to the front shop for moth balls.
Then they had to call in “Bubbee”
This was interesting to watch and Bubbee broke the ceiling a bit and charged them Rs LKR 350/= to get ALL the thick white worms away without leaving any behind as otherwise they fall on the dining table...
I personally think Patchy should stick to being lazy and eating saaleyo and acting her age which is Old.
……………………………………………
Technismeller is the cat equivalent of human Technicolor and we smell dead rats as a very interesting shade of burnt sienna, with whorls of brilliant carmine in the centre like a strawberry roll would look to you. Hm… I think. –

Post card for Centre for Victims of Torture

2009-08-19T21:19:00.000-07:00

this is the postcard I designed for CVT , after going through a large selection of their photos; CVT wanted none of the old stereotypes of pain and horror, but rather a vision of forgiveness and hope. Her face has that timeless serenity.

Introduction to Ally

2009-08-17T04:07:00.000-07:00

Name: Chandrika aka Pushy aka Aljuhara etc
Sex: Female, but I don’t accept any of the weaknesses attributed to the state.
Age: 38 looks a bit older, but feels a lot younger due to having lived life back to front.
Civil Status : Divorced in December 2004 after 4 years separated mother of two a lovely and cheeky daughter aged 17 who is quite capable of taking care of herself , and a naughty but sweet son aged 12 who likes to cook. The kids however want to stay with me and my mother in law is still a good friend as are all my sisters in law, so they are very much a part of my life and always will be.
Reason for divorce- obscure,but Im pretty sure I was the innocent party as boring as that sounds- I wish I wasnt !

Physical appearance: 5 ‘6’ 68 kg, 36-32-36. fair skinned, hirsute (you wont believe), frizzy hair(recently straightened fairly successfully but still wild) short sighted, a few teeth missing but so far all toes intact. Podgy nose. Excellent behind, I’m told.Have decided to experiment with Fair and Lovely cream on only one side of myself so if its working you will see a definite color difference.

Profession : ACCA finalist works as a Librarian, currently studying graphic design, journalism, web design, Arabic, and a whole host of other generally useless things
Education: till 13 schooled at various foreign schools including Norman Gordino in Kampala and a primary school in Manchester , Lindsay in Colombo, and from then on the world is my teacher. Would love to go back to school.
Religion:Humanist, Buddhist upbringing, admires all religious leaders, disagrees with Islamic ideas of practiced degradation of women. (Willing to argue on this topic for hours.) Gets along well with Christians Catholics, and vegetarians. generally terrified of Sri Lankan Buddhists as they have somewhat obscure ethics and tend in my experience to trample on you in their dedicated quest to stay on the "middle path"...
General Disposition: Cheerful, jovial, indulgent, honest, laid back, sympathetic, broadminded, understanding except where it comes to smoking
Vices : fickle. Dosnt take life seriously no matter how many hairline misses she suffers. Somewhat unhygienic, lazy and occasionally mean to small children, (only if trapped with them.) leaves used tea cups lying around and throws clumps of fallen hair and sometimes used underwear, behind book shelves etc. suddenly laughs and screeches loudly. Jumps to conclusions. Very bad singing voice. Useless at gardening – any plant dies if I so much as touch it.
Advantages : a very good telephone voice, good at soothing massages, anything I touch gets well soon- animals live- Excellent English , sense of humour if understood is guaranteed to bring cheer .does the counseling thing well, if the number of calls I get is any indication..
Likes: Sunshine, clean flat surfaces, sun dried kittens and animals of any type, milk, murunga, vaathathel, small onions, garlic, books and that row of second hand book shops in MacCallum Road, horror movies, Famous Fives, Tintin, Wilbur Smith, Alistair MacClean, Enigma Enya ,Spanish and Arabic Music, jungles, old monuments, a good cuppa tea, travel, writing and my black yamaha .
Dislikes : cleaning up after cooking, stuffed buses, cold rainy mornings , hypocrisy, being restricted ,confined or incarcerated in anyway, being suspected of lying (but to be honest it’s a long time since anyone dared to do so) & government offices .
Odd habits: taking tea and a magazine to the loo, smiling absently at no one in particular in the middle of a crowded bus, dressing in flannel.
Social Habits: avoids parties like the plague, vaguely disapproves of drinking and gambling- strongly disapproves of smoking and drugs, prefers to stay home with good music and a second hand book. Likes to go to temple but not on crowded days. Loves Latin dance but not very good at it

Seeking : a partner in crime. He should be : kind , intelligent, honest, a HAPPY PERSON dependable,caring,artistic at least 80 kg and 5’56’’ , preferably mid forties, should be divorced or widowed , preferably with kids, and he should understand everything in the above profile(even the murunga) even if he doesn’t agree. He should be willing to put up with lots of weird unsanctioned laughter and a few hippie friends, and actively support my cat farm and 2 dogs. .. He doesn’t have to have much money but a good bike would be much appreciated. but he must never make the mistake of borrowing money from me because I don’t respect that in a guy. He obviously has to be a person who appreciates good writing. Long hair is ok, dark skinned guys welcome, beards are no problem but nose and ear hair and mustos are OUT. Letters and calls and even meeting a few ex girlfriends will be tolerated even encouraged if it makes him happy. But, lying-never! There is just no need for lying in my home.
Oh and he has to smell nice.

ABSOLUTE ACADEMICS
by aljuhara

I admit I sometimes read the marriage proposals section of our Sunday paper. In fact , with the cost of living as high as it is ,we can only afford one hardcopy newspaper a week and the trick is to make all the waffle last my current weekly reading requirements during those periods of digestive constipation…ok let me admit it I also occasionally half heartedly scan the horizon for a suitable partner..or is that just an excuse to find merryment in unlikely places..?

Im noticing a recent trend now where advertisers for both brides and grooms are beginning their spiel with the obscure and decidedly ungrammatical words “absolutely academically”… either they claim to be absolute academics or are looking for such.(whatever these are) mind you -Tough luck in a country where half the kids failed their O levels.
And to be honest I would not like to spend the rest of my life with an ABSOLUTE ACADEMIC whatever that defines. It sounds quite boring and miserable, a partner with no interest in cookery,karate, fast motorcycles or Latin dance. Marriage to an absolute academic would in fact be a dreadful excuse for life, a fate worse than death… in my books...flies droning in Latin come to mind...

But it makes you think – what is it with this Sri Lankan obsession to be at the top of everything?? Sominona next door advertised and it came below mine nyah nyah

Are you advertising here to spend your life with people who just may give up searching before they get to advertisements beginning with the letter “d” or “f”??
Im thinking, you wake up in the morning and say “ who am I going to marry today” or as the case may be “who am I going to make my daughter marry today” and start by reading all the first adverts beginning with absolutely academic and then your enthusiasm fizzles away and by the time you reach around G/B parents Gampaha district , statistically the chances are that you are asleep drooling on your chest …?
seriously , if that’s the case, folks, we deserve all the desperation we're in!

Buses ... in front of Wellampitiya Police station

2009-06-04T05:30:00.000-07:00

I love camera phones –occasionally if you can be quick on the draw and your batteries hold out you CAN get some good shots.

Like these two buses careering along at about 40 mph around a three way roundabout one OVERTAKING the other at breakneck speed IN FRONT OF the wellampitiya police station…on a busy evening, around 5.15pm at a crowded junction …today 4th of June 2009

With danger and excitement like that , don’t let it ever be said that Wellampitiya is boring..

DAILY MEWS 5

2009-03-27T04:54:00.002-07:00

February 21st
Last night things were rather strange. The “KARANT”* went according to what my Hewmies were saying. I don’t know what kind of thing this is and where it went but it made them behave in a strange way. My Hewmie could not do his usual cooking. He banged his shin on the coffee table and hopped about. He finally set fire to a small wax pipe and walked about with it while making us dinner. I think this Karant is important to hewmans otherwise they are uncoordinated like toddlers. Come to think of it they are quite silly vulnerable bipeds although they think they are boss on this planet. ** Without their technology they are practically blind, hairless and they cant even smell a rat. I hate to admit it here but if they didn’t have fire sticks and clothes and were a little smaller than we are we would be eating them by the dozen, just by reflex and apologizing later. They do look so helpless.
But I admit some of them are kind.

February 27th
I remember when I was a kit, and long before I learned that it is only acceptable to climb my hewmans hind leg if he had trouser -longs on. I used to get unbearably over-excitied when he made my salmon and suddenly claw my way up his hairy hind limbs when he was wearing only trouser- shorts. Man, Goodness, he would howl and stamp about that close to swearing . His kitchen woman is better , she wears a long flapping sail of cloth called a SKERT which is much easier to climb. and she dosnt scream much except when I put my head into the “LICK- WIDIZER” I don’t know what that thing is but they put the chicken wings in it and then make a big sound and they produce the most delectable sloppy fishy mush. But sometimes I got lost inside her skert which is decidedly unpleasant I must say.

And then there are the hewmie cublets. They are strange silly dangerous things and I heard that one of them put Patchy inside a Krisco tin. The boy one. I need another page to write about all the weird things these young life forms get up to.
They like to throw us food though so they are not completely bad.
…………………………………………………………………………………………
* Editors note: Pichau seems to be referring to electricity
* *that’s us actually since we are in control of them! Hee hee.

DAILY MEWS 6

2009-03-27T04:54:00.001-07:00

February 21st
Last week Koookie developed some rather disturbing holes in her skin and spent a lot of time itching and licking. Kookie is one of my Hewmies resident mutts. They had to take her to the local petinerary sergen. Mistress Hacketty used a large polythene bag they found wrapping the new fridge and then she kept it in a cupboard for this purpose in future. This whole polythene problem makes me mad. Hewmans have made a horrible slimey material which makes a horrible high pitched noise like siri siri -, which they throw around everywhere which stays pasted to the ground and trees and things and never goes. Man, you cant even shift the sand a bit to take a dump, theres this clingy stubborn stuff wrapping clumps of sand!!. I hear they say it is so bad for the earth we live in. I really wont be affected much since the most I will live is fifteen years , but don’t they care about their own cublets ? these hewmans say they love their offspring. They are constantly having babies one at a time and taking them about to clinics and to grandparents houses and showing them off and all. But don’t they think about their futures ,they have to live more than twenty five or fifty years or even seventy five don’t they ? so why do they keep messing up the earth with this polythene layer? Polythene aught not to just be banned it should be criminalized I tell you and anyone caught smuggling polythene given a pretty long sentence.

February 26th
Today my Hewmie family watched a movie called Slumdog. I wanted to watch it too because I don’t know why some dog anywhere should get a lot of prizes but it turned out the film was not about pooches. It was about people from Indian slums. Well, if you think the people are having a tough time in slums you should try talking to real slum dogs in poor countries like here and see, their lives are living hell. The best way to continue to survive would seem to be to get some real rotting skin disease where your pelt is practically history and raw bits of skin are falling off you- then you go on and on living (and itching ) forever…
Cats of course don’t live in slums .We use our brains and vote with our feet and go somewhere where food is decent. We have standards, again another of the reasons Egyptian nobility treated us like Gods.

DAILY MEWS 7

2009-03-27T04:53:00.001-07:00

March 1st
I remember reading a joke somewhere about how to give a pill to a cat. It said something about 17 steps which always ended in the pill being lost and the administrator being hospitalized, which was not only funny but quite typical. Cats are tough creatures which is why they have survived for thousands of years among humans and in spite of being quite tiny in comparison to almost anything around, except perhaps rats. And these tough cats don’t ever accept that they need medication but they occasionally do. Our Mistress Hacketty I saw recently has found a solution to this. She merely grinds what ever pill it is and mixes it with bees honey and rubs it on Patchy’s pelt. This is gruesome to even watch. Patchy being the clean and self respecting feline she is, cannot so much as sleep until she has licked off the resulting mess and this takes a lot of determination and the occasional grimace of disgust which is hilarious to watch. But at the end of the day the poor cat is clean and shiny and the medicine has been licked off. I guess a cat caught in an oil spill wont last very long, eh. Unfortunately for us we are a race of animals completely obsessed with our pelts to such an extent that we constantly need to keep licking it spotless. Pthew.

March 8th
Today is International Women’s Day. I find it strange. Hewmies have a day set aside specially for the female of their species. In fact I think, hewmie females are a strangely disadvantaged lot. No where in any other animal species do you see the female being abused, starved, ill treated, incarcerated and even killed just because she is a female. Most of the time in the animal world females are welcome as they are the ones who bring fourth young and half the time they are courted lovingly and even respected. And of course no one wants to mess with an angry mother…but it is strange that with all their power hewmie mothers seem to be very subservient and tolerant.

March 14th
Today mistress Hacketty got a bit annoyed because the baby cublets would not come for dinner. They like to sit near a square light, which makes them keep looking at it and their paws hit the floor in front of it with a lot of tapping . It makes them quiet and crazy a bit like kuppa –mania but it has a much longer effect. Sometimes they sit in front of this thing for hours. Then when they come to eat they are not very bothered about the food and their mother has to remind them that they are lucky to be in the worlds top 5 % of the population that can afford dinner. This of course makes me smirk, since, being her cats, we are in the top 1 % that can afford to be picky about dinner . Hee hee. ..

HORNIER THAN THE FRENCH, and honest at last...

2009-03-26T01:32:00.000-07:00

Sexually active school kids shatter myths on cultural taboos
A survey conducted by the Health Ministry placed the average age of sexual debut for males at 15.3 for males and for females at 14.4.

* Beating even the French, survey shows Sri Lankans are sexually active from early teens
* Need for proper sex education in schools
* 2 abortions for every 3 babies born“These are shocking figures in a country that thinks that traditions and culture will not allow for such activities till a later age,” Consultant Psychosexual Specialist Dr. Kapila Ranasinghe said at a workshop organised at the Family Planning Association last week.
“Developed countries such as France have an average age of 17.5 and 17.2 for men and women respectively. This is because they have a proper sex education system which educates the youth to be more cautious and less curious,” he continued adding that the sex education included in the local syllabus is inadequate and does not comprehensively inform students on sexual topics with a scientific backing. “This can go a long way in dispelling the myths and taboos we see in our country.” He explained that further shocking evidence was disclosed by the Health Ministry survey. “Among the school children over the age of 15 years, 72% are sexually active with 43% engaging in heterosexual activities, 43% engage in homosexual activities and 29% watch pornographic movies frequently,” he stated. Family Planning Association Medical Director Dr. Shreen Willatgamuwa explained that proper education can lead to the minimising of unplanned pregnancies, and the number of abortions in the country. “Abortions are restricted by law, but our studies show that 650-1000 abortions take place every day. That is 125000-175000 annually and for every three babies born, two are aborted.” These are shocking figures and Dr. Shreen explained that most of the women who come for abortions are educated, married and with two children already. “These situations can be avoided if the youth are given a proper education on reproduction and contraception with a scientific background from a young age.”
Consultant Obstetrician and Gynecologist, Dr. Hemantha Perera explained that the prevalence of female and male sexual dysfunctions among the population can be easily rectified, but the lack of awareness and education keep their issues hidden leading to deteriorating mentalities and families.

http://www.thebottomline.lk/2009/03/25/index56.htm

Cars with Moustaches...ugh!

2009-01-27T01:23:00.000-08:00

this is something to do with my journalism class where they said you need a title which inspires reader curiosity. well if you were curious please check out the below photo (and Im no relation to these people so if you decide to rent from them you should really pay me a commis)
Im thinking what must those poor cars feel like ....

Help with Prison Break

2009-01-21T22:27:00.000-08:00

well, not exactly
I guess what we mean is to try and make life a little bearable for people who have made mistakes...heres an interesting Idea that came across in my in box.Please pass it on to anyone who might be able to help. I was particularly touched by the idea of deathrow convicts needing religious books.Think about it

Dear Sir / Madam/ colleagues and friends.

Requesting of materials and other support to develop the library facilities at the Prison in Welikada

I'm an undergraduate student from NISD and reading for BSW degree. According to my curriculum, now I'm on the field practice and working at the welfare division at the Welikada prison ¡V SL.

When I was going through the facilities that are available for the prisoners to develop them self and the resources which will help them to rehabilitate and develop their capacity, I could realize some needs and issues that has to be fulfill for the betterment of prisoners welfare.

At the library there are around 3,000 books and the total membership was around 450. Since the total prisoners of the prison closely 7000, the library is unable to provide membership for more prisoners due to several reasons.
Lack of books for the children's those who are living with their mothers inside the prison.
Lack of books that needed to learn about law and human right especially relevant to Latest novels are highly demanded among prisoners, but only few are available at the library
Lack of books about spiritual development. Since the people at the death penalty were very interested about religious kind of books to settle down there mind.
There is no single newspaper at the library
Prisoners were providing some vocational and technical training in several sections, so it would be better if there are any books that they can refer and learn new techniques and update their knowledge and skills on their subjects which they could really use in their future life as well as and income after leased by the prison.
Due to the vulnerability towards of STDs, and other diseases infection, drug addiction, there should be some reading materials for the prisoners to get some knowledge which will at least educate them up to some extent.
While interviewing with prisoners, I understood that the prisoners those who about to release, were disappointed and afraid of society since they had a gap and distance with this fast moving society. Therefore it is better to locate some resources and opportunities to update and develop their knowledge and understanding. And also this will help to decrease the number of re imprisonment. Further there is much to develop in counseling and guidance system in welfare section. Therefore improving of library will help the prisoner's welfare up to some distance.
Please note that this is only my personal idea and commitment but under the permission from Mr. A.D.A. Alwis, the head of the welfare section. I'll be volunteering on this matter to collect materials and coordinate things. Therefore you personally or your organization/ company/ institute /group could assist/support/direct/guide me in any ways of if directly involve this, I shall be really grateful.
Thank you
Asanga Coorey
Mobile 0715-306103 / 0772220967
asangapr@gmail.com

Essay Competition Awards Ceremony

2009-01-15T23:24:00.000-08:00

Essay Competition Awards Ceremony

C.Gadiewasam
The Civil Society Network on Information Sharing (CSNIS) held an Awards Ceremony on December 4th at the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute to facilitate prize winners of the recent trilingual essay competition held to mark National Reading Month. Numerous entries had been received from participants' island wide including such areas as Vavunia, Batticaloa and Jaffna.

The Competition requested ideas under the title of "Sharing Information towards Humanity" and first prize winners in the over 19 category were Gayathri Wijekoon - Kandy, H G Dimuthu Prabhath - Kirinda, Tharshini Edward Ravindrarajah - Colombo, and first Prize winners in the under 19 category were Kayalini Panchadcharam - Batticaloa, M R M Irshad - Galle, Sindu Sivapalan - Jaffna

Keynote speakers at the event included F Hashim, Deputy Executive Director, Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies (CHA), Ms Priyanthi Fernando, Executive Director, Centre for Poverty Analysis (CEPA), and Ms.Sulochana Ragunathan, Director Documentation, FCE. Also attending were Jehan Perera, Executive Director, National Peace Council (NPC), Dr Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu, Executive Director, Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) and Ms. Damaris Wickremasekere, Executive Director, Law and Society Trust (LST).

The Civil Society Network on Information Sharing was set up by the library and information professionals of a number of leading civil society organizations with the intention of collaborating in information sharing in humanitarian and development work. The current members of the Network are Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies (the focal point), Centre for Poverty Analysis, Centre for Policy Alternatives, Law & Society Trust, Social Scientists' Association, Save the Children in Sri Lanka, National Peace Council, Room to Read, Foundation for Co-Existence and International Alert.

CSNIS aims to strengthen and sustain this collaborative network through its web site, www.csnis.lk , and regular meetings of members. The CSNIS website which has amassed more than 60,000 hits since its re-launch in December 2007 is a portal through which access is facilitated to approximately 20,000 titles held by the combined libraries of member organizations.

source Daily Mirror
http://www.dailymirror.lk/DM_BLOG/Sections/frmNewsDetailView.aspx?ARTID=34968

TEN GOOD REASONS WHY I WOULD MARRY YOU

2008-11-12T16:59:00.000-08:00

here it is, and its better than the ad that got me 79 dates.
this is the article that got Daily Mirror 2000 web hits within a few hours of it being uploaded.

TEN GOOD REASONS

24 USES FOR NEWSPRINT ON A BORING SUNDAY AFTERNOON

2008-10-29T23:38:00.000-07:00

What is large, almost weightless, highly inflammable and can be used to assassinate characters and dry soggy dogs?

When my friends go abroad (and so many seem to be doing so, quite often, which leaves me wondering…) and ask me what Id like them to bring back for me, can you possibly guess what I request? Not clothes since Im picky about what I wear and not toys because they inevitably break apart down here, but yes, a strange request by some standards, I tell them to bring back any English newspapers they can get their hands on.
My parents tell me that I have been reading newspapers from the age of three, which probably means that I spent my childhood more indoors than I should have.
Newspapers fascinate me, although quite often I don’t get the time to read them, and I end up without the political and sensational bits, since I carry them home from office roughly after the media monitoring team goes through them and before the cleaning woman ties them up to sell to the kiosk up the road, weighed by the kilo.
They tell me about a country, about the people of that country. They are a quick frozen intellectual snapshot of society at any particular time complete with the quirks, the hopes and the silly superstitious fears inherent, generously censored in some cases, and wildly exaggerated in others, newspapers will hold the (albeit biased) meaning of any peoples’ human day in one little tube of cheap newsprint and ink.
They cost much more than the nominal amount charged to buy one, and so have to be subsidized by the income from advertising. And yes, they advertise hoards of things. They also educate, inform, surprise, confirm and twist stories. They make you love, hate, laugh, cry or just shrug. They make you think. They also provide lunch wrapping, a meditation mat, sound proofing, a clean spot for a sudden home delivery and excellent drying material. You can wipe down damp pets, clean vomit and poop, wipe windows down with a dab of vinegar, wrap inconvenient corpses before disposing of them * apart from fill out crosswords and Sudoku and check your horoscope too. and if you need an apartment, a new job, a business partner or a suitable spouse, check the Sunday papers…

For me the strangest thing about Sri Lankan newspapers, are the matrimonials. So many excellent and upstanding young people all on one page, all teetotalers, non smokers with dazzlingly unblemished characters that one wonders where in the woodwork they are hiding. You just don’t see them around in real life. Divorcees are ALWAYS the innocent party and older wanna be spouses invariably look MUCH younger. They are rich, attractive and intelligent and would not dream of beating their wives. So where do all the realistic half human people disappear to? How about some honesty, how about being closer to the truth, at least in some respects and advertising like so:

" balding, downright mean looking but very conceited well connected 49 year old business man in fairly good health apart from mild episodes of piles, diabetes and liver trouble, with lots of lucre and a house in the hills, seeks ....
or "anorexic 38 year old acne prone virgin spinster with absolutely no sense of humour but good collection of jewellary who likes watching Hindi teledramas and sewing and strongly disapproves of sexual intercourse, seeks...."

Some time back the parents of a nubile and ostensibly very fortunate young lady of 25 , had advertised in the matrimonial column and (I seriously have no idea how this happened )given out my gmail address** for return correspondence. This resulted in my inbox being practically stuffed with hopeful enquiries from the most eligible available financially well endowed, handsome and downright eligible bachelors in the country,(sadly about ten years too young for me) such an unbelievable collection of decent and holier than thou teetotalers, non conners and do gooders, and such a concentration of sheer overpowering virginity (arrrk!) , that I was quite staggered. This was obviously where all the “good” men had gone; they certainly were not walking about in Colombo…honking, swearing and trying to run over innocent pedestrians and hoodwink their landladies, or sell their sisters, nah…that was different people….so for people who like reading fantasy, again, I do recommend Sri Lankan newspapers.

Still on the subject of how many things you can do with a newspaper, last but not least, how about making efficient gags, starting arson attacks and cutting out letters to paste in ransom notes. I mean, seriously since Im catering to all my readers here not just the decent ones. And im not finished yet, there are more ideas coming but since I have a deadline to meet in this paper, I shall stop for now…

………………………………………………………………………………………
* and now Im wondering, has a corpse ever actually been convenient ?
** all you nice people out there who sent in your sons’ horoscopes and really personal details to colombo4@gmail.com, now you know what happened to that information. It’s safe with me.

next article: 24 things to do to a cat on a boring sunday afternoon.

MONEY FOR NOTHING.. CHEQUES FOR FREE

2008-10-02T22:13:00.000-07:00

What did they look like, I wonder, in the olden ages, these entities they called vampires? Vampires and blood sucking demons exist in folklore from around the world from Europe to the Far East and the Australian aboriginal legend, and with good reason I suspect. They are among us.
They look like you and I and sometimes they are beautiful, charming, and they captivate us always don’t they.
And then they take our life blood and walk away leaving us to either die slowly or survive for another day. Is it true that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? But is it worth it ? Why do bad things happen to good people and vampires simply walk away? I have always wondered.

Consider my friend, Jenny.
Jenny is perhaps the closest I have to a sister- since I don’t have one of my own. She saved my life ten years ago, at considerable risk to herself. She stands not even 5 foot high and has the weight and expression of a pretty little pixie and yet she took on the wrath of my heavyweight six foot owner-husband at the time, because I was being abused and she felt something was wrong and that at risk to her life she would interfere in my domestic misery and solve this problem for me. I doubt that I would go out of my way to put myself in danger for someone unknown as she had done and I was her bosses wife. That’s a long story involving police entries and the threat of acid disfigurement but she withstood it all and stood by my side because she has faith in the power of good and right.

Jenny was one of the unfortunate investors in the recent scam carried out by a small set of individuals who set up a sham financial institution, wrote out promissory documents in exchange for cash deposits and escaped the country with all the money.

She is one of the few people I know who I can trust with my children, my money, my life, and if I had a man, my man- and it breaks my heart to see this happen to her. Can you being to imagine what this means to her?

The money her family saved for the last 15 years, and they have a very modest income from government jobs and clerical wages; the family wealth and hope for a house gone; her dignity, her security, her future, and perhaps her marriage, gone because of one mistake she made.

This is all about a young couple who did not have much apart from each other, love, family and faith. And now in one moment of oversight they have lost everything material they ever had.

Jenny keeps smiling, she always has but I know that she is crying inside.
How did it happen I ask her?

“There was a very smart, charismatic girl who came up to me when I was travelling by bus” she sighs, “ she was so fluent with her story and persuasive in her manner. She said she had seen me in the area (!) and asked if I banked at her institution. Since I had been thinking about getting a loan to lease a vehicle for a business, I kept remembering her and the file she gave. We went there one day and they had this impressive office, smart furniture , framed photographs of the president on the walls, shiny certificates….”

At the risk of sounding patronizing, which I am not, my sense of empathy means that I suffer too, when I have to watch evil befalling people I just know are good; and it leaves me wondering , asking, groping for an answer , why them? In particular? Why?

“ of course they deserve it “says another friend of mine rather callously “these sri lankans , just greedy for anything that seems good, its that new lamps for old mentality ; Sri Lankans are just stingy , greedy and stupid”

Well, that’s extreme I would say, because I know Jenny is a very generous soul in her own way, she gives what she can to people she feels sorry for, and if she has no money, she gives of her time, on social causes, maybe its true she was greedy but then think of middle class existence in this country, day after day trying to scrape together some saving to make your future stable, and it never happens. Thousands of people living in difficult dreary drudgery unable to meet basic needs like a house of your own; sometimes you want to dream that there will be a way out of this… and so there are con artists who prey on your hope, who break you and leave you with nothing not even your self esteem.

Give me a mugger any day, give me a full scale armed robber, a carnivore who forcibly and violently relieves you of your possessions, this is much better; I would say, a natural predator who does not play mind games but takes what he wants and leaves you with clean unidirectional hatred. This can be therapeutic.
But conning is subtle, it is cunning, this way half of the hate will be directed at your self and eat you away in regret before you can even begin to think of the perpetrator.

Jenny is planning to leave the country if she can; she is a gentle soul, not very pushy in the co orporate area, but talented in home-sciences, high on EQ and very nurturing , so perhaps she can get a job as a caregiver or a nanny- I will try my best to recommend her to my contacts who can help. I want desperately for this to be an opening to a new horizon as tragedies have often been when they forge the human spirit in steel.
I know in my heart of hearts that she will survive this and today I pledge to do what I can to make her overcome this too.
Because I owe her.

How to make a couch potato dance…

2008-09-16T05:21:00.000-07:00

Consider potatoes.
I myself have a relatively small family to take care of, catering wise, and that too only in the weekends. It ranges from four to seven people (not counting the cats dogs squirrels and occasional tortoise who stays-)but I have repeatedly had to confront so many potatoes in my life that they sometimes come close to boring me.
I view them as fleshy, bearing great taste potential but rather repetitive.
To housewives I think you may agree while the potato is plain and uncomplicated - it is also dependable. If you have potatoes you can definitely do something successful with lunch, your day has been saved...
They ve been around since the old Mohenjodaro Harrappans dug them up Im sure, or the Irish ,discovered them in their bogs…the French fry them, the British mash them and in Sri Lanka we oil them…anyway, the fact that I am writing and you are reading about potatoes perhaps reflects on how predictable and comfortable our lives as housewives or working women has become….plain, dependable, pleasantly starchy and …taken for granted…
Perhaps occasionally we should change that. Go out there and do something different, escape from our comfort zones and test new waters…take a dare!
As you probably know if you have read my previous articles, I do occasionally go out and get involved in something wild, just to break the monotony (perhaps of potatoes?) – years back it was Karate, and I still don’t have a belt, although I know a few moves, and have actually been unlucky enough to have to use them….Then there was the motorbike which became rather dependable and useful so whereas Im no racing star, I do get around “faster” (as one of my colleagues once said slightly tongue in cheek ..)
And more recently it was the Salsa.
My dancing I believe can only be described as torture to watch but unfortunately for the audience, I do still enjoy it very much. I try to tell anyone who listens that this is a truly fun filled pastime but most of my friends develop a glazed, politely condescending expression and smile, for some reason I am yet to figure out. This is why I thought I would wax lyrical in this article about the wonderful power of dance.
Dance liberates your soul. There are those moments when you get a complex step correct and you feel totally on top of the world. Possibly you will never go on to be a world champion but the whole point is the amount of fun you have along the way…isn’t that like life it self?
Dance mirrors, on a happy and mercifully small scale, the complexity of life itself.
You go out onto the dance floor with a partner you have agreed to dance with, ; from dance to dance you may be “seduced” by what seems like more attractive invitation from others you may or may not want to dance with or you may keep eyeing someone across the room who seems to have the most wonderful moves…you may find your self dancing alone because everyone else found partners, and yours couldn’t make it,(often the story of my life-)or you may find that you are the life of the dance and everyone wants to dance with you but you cannot oblige…ultimately at the end of the day you will wake up to a couple of inalienable truths …that the fact that you don’t have a partner need never prevent you from enjoying the music….And then….if you do have one, the longer you spend with one partner the more you understand each other and the more relaxed you are , the smoother your synchronization and the happier your dance.
Oh if only people understood this there would not be so much jealousy, possessiveness, infidelity and cheating going on in real life; I do believe wheras dance is easy going and obviously not hampered by legal issues, it does open your eyes to the value of “monogamy” although this is only a happy virtual world, a sort of laboratory on life and not the real thing…dance I believe is a wonderfully light hearted parody on life itself.
I don’t intend to judge my friends but I do see a lot of pain in their romantic relationships, which I do believe is largely unnecessary, which should not be there in this beautiful dance called life. I see many young people rushing into relationships and marriage perhaps goaded by their well intentioned parents, perhaps compelled by mistaken infatuations, and then life becomes a long journey without music. So many of us have forgotten the vows that make a relationship sacred , but have to live double lives of lies, deceit hypocrisy and finally real loneliness. But why is this? Life is meant to be happy, music has a power to uplift any spirit and dance, (even if you have no where to do it but your own living room as in “the sunscreen song”)…has that irresistible charm of its own once you let it get a hold of you.

On a practical down- to- earth note, for fitness enthusiasts, dance will keep you addicted so that your workouts are enjoyable and not something you dread, for shy people who like to meet friends this will build your confidence and your networks, and for the occasional people watcher like me this is a fascinating theater on life.

So maybe its time now to convince your better half to join if you have one, if not just bully any suitable friend into joining , buy yourself a pair of dancing slippers and come join the fun.

LION MOUNTAIN

2008-09-05T08:40:00.000-07:00

Sigiriya…
What does this name invoke in you? Is this picture about a place or about a person? A heritage or a human? For me it brings an eternal sense of awe, a silent marveling, curiosity and a breathless freeze on time. I shut my eyes and I can see this paradise from a time long ago.
Quite, for a moment the din of vehicles, media and bustling Sri Lankans caught in this modern frenzy of activity , and please switch off your mobile phone.
Sigiriya will take you back in time, if you still your racing soul and let the orange afternoon scenes take a hold of you. Haunting earth colored pools, sunlight slanting across flat green gardens and an atmosphere thousands of years old. Can you hear the princesses laughing and playing in the water?
Remove for an instant the paraphernalia of modern civilization, your plastic bottles, gadgets, denims, IPods, Nike, Nokia or whatever; lead your mind gently back through the ages to a time when life was enjoyed at a slower pace; you have heard about this so called God- king who built a wonderful fortress on a rock a thousand feet into Ceylons light sapphire sky….think, every inch of its architecture fitted to a complex logical plan of breathless esthetics and practicality ,a breathtaking union of science and art, two thousand five hundred years ago.
This is what your ancestors accomplished.
Sigiriya was constructed using only Ceylon’s bountiful natural resources, there were no imports, no foreign consultants, no bribery and corrupt contract deals, no electronics, no computers, no construction equipment and no animals (or people) were harmed in the production of this paradise on earth. Or anyway that’s what I like to think…
Time for me, warps gracefully, around Sigiriya.
Yet I have a thousand timeless questions ….
What was the king like, and his Queen? Did she poison him or was that just defamation? Did he kill his father or was it because his father was trying to kill him that things happened like this? Are there descendents of his walking, driving and cycling around Dambulla, and do any of them resemble him even remotely (after all, he was supposed to have had 500 women and there was no “family planning”those days added to which birth control was probably not high on his agenda) (and anyway what is it with successful men and their drive to accumulate so many women in the first place ?) and lastly, if he reincarnated ,and I do believe in reincarnation, is he walking among us? Was this really about brother killing brother and are they still involved in that perpetual conflict?

I first climbed the rock twelve years ago with my daughter who was an infant and came tripping and tumbling happily along in a frilly white cotton dress. We dragged her to the top, her father and I , each holding a hand when she stubbornly insisted on not being carried, and allowing her to swing gleefully in the space between us, like a small primate. Predictably we were accompanied by relations, my in laws, her cousins , impish, skinny twelve year olds and I was a harried young housewife of mid twenties, those were what should have been the best years of my life.
So much has changed
My daughter is now taller than me, and sometimes looks after me, her cousins, the cheerful tomboys who argued their way up the steps clicking with complicated Japanese digital cameras, are now doctors, and one is married,; I have changed from a naïve, insecure young housewife , to an independent and self confident adult; I think, watch, appreciate and note life around me the way I have never seen it before.
I have learned so many lessons in life, they have changed who I am. Like a river which from moment to moment changes its composition, there is almost nothing in me of the girl twelve years ago, not even the physical features.
But the Rock Citadel somehow, remains the same doesn’t it.
Thousands of feet attack the steps each day , possibly more than King Kassyapa ever thought possible, and the steps are just as strong and stony now as they were then.
Hair rising accounts of bright ideas of turning the Rock Citadel into a Disney style theme park have thankfully been quashed,(for now anyway) and citizens mercifully have had to stop writing on the mirror wall, an old form of self expression resorted to in a time before internet blogging…so the Rock Citadel will have more time.
I don’t know how long this treasure will remain unchanged in this our modern atmosphere of smoke, pollution , global warming and mindless greed.
But I feel very privileged to have been there, seen it as it was.
I also feel I’ve been there before, sometime long ago….

Weighty Concerns

2008-08-20T02:19:00.000-07:00

Last week I made my regular pilgrimage to the weighing machine in our central pharmacy and was pleasantly surprised by the large digital computer which spewed out a small note reporting that not only had I reduced two kilos in weight– but that I was also of “IDEAL BMI”.

I know its sad to be reduced to worrying about the opinion a digital weighing machine has of you but this is what my life has come to.

There comes a time in life, and mind you, to some people it comes earlier than others, when weight becomes a serious issue we lose dinner over. IN some cases it sneaks unexpectedly on us and a few lucky people wont even know what I’m talking about, but its called the middle aged spread- and for some it happens so much earlier than middle age.

It’s the beginning of the end of eating dinner and then you start having to resort to miserable substitutes such as soup and vegetables and pretending you actually like them. Its when you begin considering spending your evenings cycling when you have already reached exhaustion point from the work anyway; its when you consider putting on those silly sporty pants and sneakers and jogging about in the park or in the beach, and trying to look as if its making you really happy. Sadly if the actual evidence is true, all you are getting is lung fulls of greenhouse gas and enough repetitive stress on your joints to really ensure that your old age will be crusty and rigid…

This to me is bosh: give me dedicated couch potato- ing any day. Its sloppy its slouchy and its slow but its my ideal existence and has always been. But its with a sense of grim sasara kalakereema (that’s disillusionment) that I notice that this is just not to be the case for me anymore. I crave to be able to do some of the things that I did when I was young, or well, younger. Such as cramming my stomach with half a loaf of hot hot so called roast paang and excellent Soya curry and then eating that slowly with a good book, whilst lying like a slim young reptile on the sofa. Its not something I can even contemplate now since my stomach has got so used to being deprived, that a half a loaf of bread would probably send it into convulsions.

Starvation, paradoxically has become a part of my life, and mind you, just when I reached the stage when I can actually afford to eat anything I want and there is not much point even being philosophical about it. Eat vegetables and drink lots of water they say, to give you a full feeling. I’ve tried this and if feeling like you are a waterlogged garbage bag full of cellulose is supposed to make you happy – well I prefer feeling starved. It’s the rebel in me. I don’t want to feel full when it’s being self-deceiving and I’m actually empty as a vacuum. Let that traitorous metabolism monster do the worst it can I ve decided I’m actually going to get used to feeling starved (since I’m lucky enough to actually have some choice in the matter whereas millions don’t) and probably accepting it and living with it. ...

Either that or one fine day pretty soon I’m going to totally let go and accept the tires. .. Since what’s wrong with being fat anyway? To be honest, I have noticed that some of the jolliest, happiest friendliest CUDDLIEST people I know are fat, and loving it! And I’ve also read that paradoxically somewhat overweight people are healthier –they try to keep their weight down by exercise and diet control whereas the people who don’t have to worry a bit about weight usually don’t have boundaries when it comes to indulging themselves…
So at the end of the day maybe after all its that famous “Middle Path “ we need to stick to.
...Anything to keep from having to drink silly spinach soups! Yeauch!

Sunscreen

2008-08-13T10:36:00.001-07:00

Just woke up to the fact that my life seems to be absolutely following this song.
I still love the words and Im ok so far so Ive decided to post it here in case you have not seen it
you can also wiki for the Sunscreen Song , to get at the credits....

Everybody's Free
(to wear sunscreen)

Mary Schmich
Chicago Tribune

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of '97... wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be IT.

The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience.

I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked.

You are NOT as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts, don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don't waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long, and in the end, it's only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don't.

Get plenty of calcium.

Be kind to your knees, you'll miss them when they're gone.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't, maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't, maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself, either. Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else's. Enjoy your body, use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.

Dance. Even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents, you never know when they'll be gone for good.

Be nice to your siblings; they are your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography in lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you'll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out.

Don't mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

NIFTY...

2008-07-21T05:13:00.000-07:00

Dialog users can enter #132# and then just SEND it and youll receive an automatic service message with your Name, NIC No and Mobile Number which I suppose can be used to prove that the SIM is yours .
Im sure you will have fun trying it..at the same time I dread to think what phone thieves will do with your full name and ID no, so... hang on to those phones!

BLOCKED

2008-07-20T07:50:00.000-07:00

and I dont mean writers block - Im referring to being stuck out side the backside of the BMICH for two hours due to some Pain-In-the-Propeller ( well, trust me I was thinking lots of worse words to call him during that whole time ) parking his car in front of us and walking off to the Rugby match or whatever. the Motor Show was disorganised enough so it took us about half an hour to get them to make an announcement and then I didnt even bother to walk into the match -it sounded like a Roman festival of feeding Christians to Lions. ..
meanwhile good ole dear Mr Sanath whatsis name (the famous cricketer) rolls up in a vehicle the size of a small apartment and parks it totally blocking ANY chance of us even scraping our way out and that resulted in me unfortunately giving him a look of the kind he was probably not used to (well the Medusa hair would have fascinated anyone-so he did happen to glance at me) - I found out from the fawning lackeys near the gate that he had indeed given them his cellphone number in case anyone needed to escape - but not the gray civic ...so there we were - having lots of FAMILY TIME -(although the small hisses of escaping cuss words somewhat took away from the quality of the experience - till out rolls the charming and ok, CIVILIZED looking youth whos vehicle is blocking us and I sally fourth to give him a piece of my mind - but then remember too late that there is after all nothing much I can get him to do , but apologize , which he did , and profusely- ( seems like a decent kid and evil plans I had of making him hold opposing ears and do squats on the main road were given up -) so I said gruffly "my brother has a few words to say to you, young man!" and of course they shook hands and that was about it....

pic shows my son falling asleep on our bonnet and since the owner of the Blocker car apologised I have left out his license plate...
moral of the story - take dinner, reading material and lots of water if you park anywhere in Colombo, because if someone blocks you and doesn't have his phone number around there is pretty much nothing you can do about it.

Of Gnats, Geckos and Creepy hairy things..

2008-06-16T23:46:00.000-07:00

Now where DO I start? When did it dawn on you that Sri Lanka is full of things that buzz, creep and slug about, and we don’t mean just the wanainchi.(1)

probably just when you stepped off the plane and had to choke on a few kamekazi houseflies…
Vermin in Sri Lanka range from curious to positively deadly with lots of slime in between and none of them taste good so don’t try this kind of revenge. Although we are poor and very bored we still have not started eating our insects; and there’s a reason for that, no doubt very cultural.
Here are the worst offenders I can remember and not necessarily in any particular order except that I scream loudest in this order, when I see them.
1. Dalam- boo-wars:
These are nasty hairy little caterpillars which descend quietly from particular trees, on invisible threads like spider web. Onto your towels or drying laundry no doubt and then they stay there until you unwittingly rub them into your skin , where they cause itching and pain worse than a centipede which lasts for about a month. This is Sri Lanka being really mean. Any landlord who harbors trees which drop dalambuwars should be abandoned forthwith. This is another good reason to really dust your clothes before you wear them and have a good look at them, because this lot are sticky and may not actually fall out even if you do walk around for ten minutes bashing your nightwear across the furniture ; besides a suspect which is just half an inch long and two millimeters across can still cause the same amount of suffering. Oddly the best first aid for both these torturers and for centipedes (see below) is a bit of garlic which has been sliced open –gently rub the area with that liquid garlic. Or mash it and apply it if you don’t mind the stink because it is very soothing. Really.
2. Garudas:
To not be too scientific about it, centipedes fall into three categories
Wiry
Hairy and
Dead Scary
The first are hardly visible like fine bits of running fiber, the second are larger and bite worse and the last are the so called garudas who fall from coconut trees and are about a centimeter in WIDTH , and have SEGMENTS which carry their hundred thick MUSCULAR legs about. I don’t want to find out what their bite feels like but if you are sensitive enough, the reaction can bring you to an inch of death. This is why it makes sense to batter your clothes before you wear them, and don’t hang clothes in damp bathrooms because centipedes usually come in through the drains. Occasionally you may find one in the laundry bucket or half dead in the suds. This is a nasty experience; cats sometimes alert you to the presence of these and other horrors, but most of the time they just cause another set of problems so, the only solution is to keep things dry and cool if possible.
3. Roaches:
You have these in any country since biologically they are an evolutionary success story that has hung around for thee million years in spite of the fact that every thing from the dinosaurs downwards tried to stomp on them; but I have heard that in comparison to the Americans, Sri Lankan cockroaches are particularly large, shiny, MEATY and HEALTHY LOOKING. Nothing a spot of bug killer cant handle so this is probably the least of your worries.
4. Mosquitoes:
Hurt and they are deadly; the list of diseases they carry is expanding from Malaria Filaria and Dengue to Chikunguniya and did we forget to mention insomnia ? There is four ways to deal with them that come to mind. Coils , Mats , Vapors and Nets.
5. Rats:
Being mammals are maybe the least revolting, but they are just as dangerous as they harbor obscure ratty germs. They don’t always take to the rat poison you may lay out to them. What can I say, a case for cats again.
6. Geckoes aka Hoonaas :
I don’t actually scream about geckos unless one lands inside my cleavage (and it has happened…) and I actually think they are quite cute friendly little beggars, which actually reduce the rest of the insect population from your walls anyway. I have named the two fat characters that live behind my writing desk at home ,Freddy and Mr Hide, and they often come out and give me a beady cross eyed stare (they have curious pupils shaped like + signs). However they can be deadly if they fall into your tea or curry while its cooking and you imbibe of this. I’ve heard of families dying of this , although Im not sure why and the internet is curiously mum about it too. Cats who eat hoonas are just very sick for sometime and don’t do it again, but boiled hoonas I hear is absolutely caustic. Don’t fry them either , I mean we have lovely little dried anchovies on the market which are much safer. And if you haven’t been frying anchovies but the kitchen smells like it – the reason could be that you have a rotting hoonar in the door jamb. Use a twig and a polythene bag and don’t worry , it wont bite *
7. Leeches:
This subject is too revolting for me to even consider writing about so please refer to some other guide book, or the internet. You are reading the work of someone under trauma. I have just two words on the subject. Salt and Pee.
8. Snakes:
The smaller they are the deadlier and sadly we don’t have any solutions for them except that so far they have left foreigners alone, mostly ; needless to say Sri Lanka has one of the highest snake bite rates in the world, not to mention apparently the highest rates for alcoholism and for suicide; a definite sociological conundrum which needs investigation. They hide in laundry and shoes and yes, again, cats notice them earliest.

(1) Lovely swahili word meaning "People". And why am I lapsing into Swahili ? I m darned if I know but Hakuna Matata!

aljuharas first attempt at advertising :-)

2008-05-29T22:48:00.000-07:00

BOOK SWAP EVENING

2008-05-22T18:44:00.001-07:00

Just to prove I have something of a personal life too, I went over to Sumathys yesterday for her “BOOK SWAP EVENING” and had a lovely time meeting a whole host of new contacts in the “NGO Field” (mind you the fun part is meeting people you already knew who already know people you know , slightly FACEBOOKY if you know what I mean )
Not only was the food great but I found some fantastic books too including STUPID WHITE MEN (Michael Moore) which as the critics say is right up my street , written as it is in PLAIN ENGLISH (ohhh so hard to find) which Im on to now. ...

The concept of BOOK SWAP EVENING is so simple I wonder why I never thought of it before– your kind host/ess arranges the ambiance and snacks and you bring any books you have which you are tired of and everyone else in the circle brings whatever they have, you throw it all in a pool and take what ever you like .
It really works.
Drop me a line if youd like to be invited next !

THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING LIKE THE TRUTH

2008-05-22T00:44:00.001-07:00

If there’s one recurrent trait I notice about Sri Lankans, its our Gross National Propensity to lie.

I figure this tradition started about two thousand five hundred years ago when a rascally Indian exile said “I love you bebes, and I Swear I always will” to a local wench with his fingers crossed behind his back; since then we have simply fine tuned fibbing into a National art…financial standing, number of Exes, boob size, age, you name it , we seem to compulsively alter it and present anything but the truth.

Even really mundane day to day facts get twisted with the calm aplomb of dedicated professionalism. Concepts like “ I only had one glass” or “Im just passing Borella (and how many times I have heard that in the Kosgoda bus!)not to mention the mother of all small corporate fibs “Im at a meeting , can I call you back?” from guys on the way to a bit of afternoon diversion…
Passive lying (which is when you have to listen to ground splitting inaccuracies being vocalized in front of you and have to shut up and let them go on) is almost as important as the original sin and I confess I have not had the courage to stand up and object to my moral space being thus violated, which fair makes my skin twitch.
You see, when I was a kid I was told that if I lied the ground would crack and Id fall through and end up in really hot water .To add serious worry to my juvenile concerns there used to be a sizeable crack in the concrete in our front driveway which seemed to expand each time I attempted to so much as stretch a fact or two, circumvent the absolute truth,, or even slightly waiver from the straight and narrow.
I have since figured this was faulty masonry but thanks to this crippling fear I have never been able to polish my fibbing skills to even a remotely passable national standard.
I paint and write passably well, or so I think , but unfortunately professional pretense is a talent I have not been able to master to even a half presentable level compared to the local pros, somehow coming from me, it just dosnt work. I honestly find myself marveling with respectful awe at some of the poker faced, effortless gems of linguistic misrepresentation I see around me on a daily basis..[1]
Mindboggliingly, considering the murder , corruption child-trafficking and an entire list of offences from grave crime to civil misdemeanor (and lots of good old fashioned garden variety adultery too) which goes on around us and is entirely impossible without the use of effective lying , it would appear that this is the one talent this nation excels at
--And this in spite of the fact that Sunday Schools and daham paasals are packed with earnest cherubic little patriots being lectured against lying till teachers and students are both blue in the face…which is a pity because if you consider very carefully, isn’t it obvious to you later on that the better you lie the higher you go!?
And I don’t mean to be a prissy little hypocrite here- so I assure you, that were I actually capable of remembering the facts, I would very much value the strategic advantage in being able to lie my way through life. Unfortunately some bits of wiring seem to have malfunctioned and the few honest attempts I made at properly perjuring myself led me to such obvious red faced perspiring embarrassment that I was forced to give up and retire to the comparatively safe ground of being entirely honest (or at least staying mum) because it was that much easier to remember the facts if they were true. I have trouble remembering things that DID happen (genetic, what with Grandma Isabelle) so trying to make up stuff which didn’t would probably be the giddy limit. So in my case its sheer necessity that makes it important to stick to the truth.
As a nation where we have collectively become so used to subtracting the exaggerations by default, and adjusting for dishonesty, the problem then is that if someone were to go around actually telling the truth , the strain of it all would probably be too much for our lie conditioned hard discs to handle and we would freeze and malfunction.
This does have a funny side, if like me you have given up trying to convince people anything. Sometimes the urge to lie is tied up with the urge to defend yourself against wholesale inquisition leading to large scale gossip- so a good way to nip things in the bud would be to quell speculation at the start and for example give them the information exactly the way they want it, before they have to fish and dig for it .

Try some of my unusual answers guaranteed to make people thoughtful:

· Oh, him ? he’s my Secret Paramour
· Thanks for the complement; I think I’m looking fairer today because I had my monthly bath…
· I’m sorry I got late; I was looking for dry underwear….

Now obvious truths like that should certainly seal the cracks in your masonry if nothing else…
............................................................................................
[1] “But I SENT you the spreadsheet last Friday; just check your junk box it may have fallen there”

THAT FIRST GREAT FEMINIST

2008-05-13T07:07:00.000-07:00

Consider Gautama.
Two and a half centuries ago in a land called India, a great land of traditionalist thinkers, there were alas people who then as now treated their women as chattels, as merely beasts of burden, to be bartered , trafficked , used and disposed of as convenient, …there were powerful people who wanted this to go on.
But consider Gautama who was a Radical, a Extremist Pacifist if you must, a fearless and staunch feminist, daring enough to give us equal rights , to recognize our humanity and potential and ensure women the respect and honor they do admittedly deserve.
No other religious leader has quite elevated the childish and capricious, reputedly confused female human to such a position of esteem and honor in society.
Some have given women equal rights but Gautama placed them higher. Some considered them too immature to know their own minds, deemed them an inconvenient distraction to men, for which they were restricted, penalize and disadvantaged.
Gautama elevated the mother to the head of the household , the divine force within the house.
Consider Buddhist women today.
We are not restricted by undignified rules over our freedom, our dress codes, our choice of whom to marry or speak to or be seen with, we don’t have to dress in carcinogenic colors to please our men-folk, the rules which apply to us are exactly the same as those that apply to our men.
Thanks to this great and gentle feminist we can learn, study, work, be ordained, marry, divorce and basically live the lives we chose. With freedom comes responsibility and if some of us do not recognized this it is perhaps because we do not stop to actually consider how comparatively lucky we are as Buddhist women and respected citizens. The respect is ours to keep or lose through how we live..
Women are welcome to find solace in places of worship, unlike in some faiths where they are considered unclean or unfit, we are welcome to leave the lay world if we so decide and be ordained, unlike in other cases. Recognizing the spirituality within us and the potential for greatness, no where have equal rights been so equal.
A Buddhist mother is the divinity in her household;but this is not to say she exploits the position and abuses her gentle reign.
We are not ostracized of blamed for the misfortune of being a widow.
There is no “love and obey” clause because a Buddhist marriage is a partnership of mutual respect..
There is a clear and beautiful constitution which governs the marriage contract , a set of simple rules which if followed faithfully are guaranteed to make earth like heaven, the famous Sigalovada Sutta. Touchingly a man who takes on a wife is instructed to provide for her and see to her comfort and in turn the wife is supposed to make his home a peaceful shelter from the outside world, so that he can concentrate on earning a righteous living.
Marital fidelity is a responsibility of both parties and so monogamy is our benefit there. …if you ask a woman of any race if she wishes to share the attention of a husband and in her heart of hearts the answer would be a resounding “No”. Amazingly, in India which prized glittering splendid harems as veritable trophies, this quiet, thoughtful teacher with the persuasive personality caused a strong paradigm shift when he laid out a clear foundation for marriages of mutual respect, giving women dignity and self worth. More amazingly he succeeded in a time without mass media, PR drives or body guards, in an environment of the usual hostility without a single life being taken in support of his doctrine.

In a era full of fear and uncertainly Gautama was in fact the first world leader to say to us, “Yes , you can win if you want !” and then point the way.
Its up to us to follow.

Strange and True

2008-05-08T22:57:00.000-07:00

here, for the benefit of all good Colombites are two things I learned yesterday

1. It IS possible to collide with a crow. I used to think that the kamaikazi dives they make into the middle of traffic were precision timed foreys of daring skill, but it turns out they are just greedy dimwits like the rest of us and if they see some food speck on the road they go for it with wretched single minded concentration , and that not on the traffic. I dont know if this has happened to other people but I tangled with a CROW near the General Hospital mortuary and the only reason its lived to fly another day is that I was doing a modest 40 kmph and riding near the drains as usual. Im lucky to be alive too, because, for someone who loves all things furry and feathery it was quite distracting to be mixed up in lots of shiney black feathers and small bits of tripe it had picked up from the road...

2. Sri Lankas Police uniform makes then WELL NIGH INVISIBLE at night and they think they have the right to JAY WALK all over the place, so the most hazardous traffic I have seen by far is cops jaywalking in unlighted areas of Flower Road at night. Yikes.

I also did enjoy Ashok Ferreys article on traffic in this months MONTAGE.
Happy reading, folks

dont you love Chinese?

2008-05-06T07:04:00.000-07:00

Im sorry about this , be careful if you are the sensitive type, but ,pass it on.
Perhaps we can make a difference , or perhaps this world is too far gone.Perhaps there are better worlds elsewhere. Makes you start to think.
http://www.peta.org/feat/ChineseFurFarms/index.asp

PROOF

2008-05-04T22:34:00.000-07:00

There are lots of things we hate about this country, but at the same time I love Sri Lanka for many valid reasons like my friends of all ethnicities, the lovely sunlight and color and the wonderful food; Beautiful though it undoubtedly, is there are lots of things wrong with Sri Lanka like people killing each other at the drop of a hat and other people not seeming to mind this at all.
So over time Ive had this increasingly uncomfortable feeling that something is wrong and this is not how people in the rest of the world live.

Finally last week I found the proof I was looking for- yes its true, Ive always suspected this but never had it in print and here it is; Foreign Policy Magazines ranking of Sri Lanka as among the top 32 “RED ALERT” locations of possible failed State : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Failed_States_Index

You read me right - Sri Lanka is officially up there among the crap countries list, last among equals like Niger, Iraq and North Korea, and steadily gaining foot hold! The conclusion is drawn from a list of twelve selected indicators, a few of which are uncannily familiar -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failed_state

The list includes, “Massive movement of refugees and internally displaced peoples” “Chronic and sustained human flight (including brain drain of middle class professionals…) uneven economic development, endemic corruption or profiteering by ruling elites and resistance to transparency, accountability and political representation, widespread loss of popular confidence in state institutions and processes and Progressive deterioration of public services (some things like hospitals and public transport would seem to have hit rock bottom, you will agree) and last but not least … (drumroll)…. widespread violation of human rights….

PIZZAZ NEW YEAR

2008-04-23T22:14:00.000-07:00

Ive said it before and Ill say it again- this April New Year thing gives me definite mixed feelings. There is a lot of hype about it , but what it boils down to is a oddly placed holiday at almost the hottest time of the year , and lots of strange rituals and firecrackers. My beloved pets are consistently reduced to gibbering silent wrecks from the trauma of constant explosions. Which strikes me as particularly odd for a country were bombs go off all the time- you would think our citizens have reached a saturation point where it comes to explosions but no, it would seem, the obsession with gunpowder goes on…
Some problems we had around New Year time never seem to leave us; one of my good friends was in a bus accident (due to a case of too much holiday spirit in the driver) and needed four stitches to her chin., she still has a dimple in her chin and a horrified shudder when ever she thinks about the New Year. Another Person I Know was involved in a sandwich accident where a drunk vagrant jumped into the road in front of him and the over enthusiastic young SUV driver behind him braked too late. …the vagrant is dead, but the court case is likely to go on for a few years…

Traditional New year is supposed to be “women’s time” I once heard someone say cheerfully on Radio….the time when Mother takes Pride of place around the home, organizing ,providing food for you ,lighting the hearth, and being in charge. Mother is now the Goddess in the household…well, actually nice try but Ive seen through it all. Call me a lonely rebel but I have realized its actually just another cunning Sinhala (-and Tamil-) strategy for the guys to sit around doing nothing as usual (except getting drunk and lighting fire crackers) while the women (as is usual in any festival time around the world) break their backs shopping, sewing, frying, cooking, cleaning and trying to out do each other.
However oddly the guys do join in shopping. Ladies, do us all a favor, don’t drag them out shopping. Never have I seen such a collection of bored, morose, tortured looking male mugs in one location at one time, as at the famous Colombo Dept Stores I visited just before NY, clutching sadly onto armloads of female apparel , being constantly elbowed and shoved around and not being allowed to openly ogle the other ladies, either , such a cheerless, unhappy bunch they look, one wonders that they have done to deserve this misery. Plus it just doubles the crowd, so please do consider sending them off to the pub or something instead in future, that way you are both happy…

And what is Traditional New year in Sri Lanka about ,you say? Well, the crux of the matter is doing things at the RIGHT time , or the auspicious time, even if the right time falls at a very odd time. So you have times when you drag the complaining groggy kids to the dining table to have breakfast at about 1.30 am…and then you believe everything will go right for you, that you will succeed…. That prosperity and success will follow.
And yet a most notable fault about sri lankans in Sri Lanka, to visitors, is that they never seem able or willing to honor an appointment. If they are supposed to meet you at 3 pm ,they will walk in calmly at about 3 45 with some pathetic excuse, and without even bothering to call and tell you that they were running late. (this is something that totally annoys my aunt who was a manager with Lloyds in London, and she has taken to summarily discontinuing any ganu denu with someone who does that to her with or without good reason, because it smacks off complete un-professionalism ) Office events are a nightmare with trying to get lots of people to congregate at the correct time and weddings usually are over by the time half the people come in, since this country seems to be entirely alien to the concept of doing anything at the correct time, except for this midnight binging. And the worst stand ups I have experienced are from people im waiting to meet who call and say they are “almost there” but don’t mention that they are stuck in some traffic two towns away …why do people undertake things if they cant follow through?

The traditional New Year is rife with exchanged wishes for prosperity. And yet we end up calling our selves a poor country (and expecting aid from foreigners whom we subsequently insult and accuse of hidden agendas…) Poor in what, is what I often ask my self. Tell me honestly; is Sri Lanka poor in natural resources? Then what do you call Somalia and the Chad. Half of Kenya is just sand. Most of China is freezing cold. Australia is mostly desert. Human Talent? There’s now 20 million of us and Sri Lankan students consistently turn out the best in universities all over the world. Are we an ugly looking peoples? Are we poor in Opportunities? Only the ones we lost ourselves. We were given the wealth of the English language by our colonists although we threw it away. We were given a culture of tolerance through Buddhism and we reject it. ………Are we disadvantaged in Global positioning ? Where would that put Iceland, Greenland and Japan which is almost off the world map? What exactly are we poor in, except discipline perhaps, so that we cant seem to do anything on time unless it’s the New Year? Face it, we are not a poor nation. . Corrupt, drunk, stubborn and set in our ways maybe and socially unjust, but certainly not poor…

Meanwhile, I personally had only two days of leave from office after ages, and so I wasn’t in the mood for frying Kavum and Kokis but instead since the time for eating was scheduled at 7pm which was logically dinner time, and the kids wanted something different ,we decided to order pizza instead. And, man, that was good.
……………………………………………………………………………………..
So here’s hoping you had a prosperous New Year absolutely swimming in milk and honey and lots of pizza if you prefer alternatives!!

Topless photo...

2008-04-21T22:40:00.000-07:00

Well,um …not really… but you can always paste this onto some nude greenish torso and try to blackmail me…. see if Id care…

Firstly this is not a Janet advert but yes, I bought one of her “home facials” and “did it myself”
This is the most pampering I have ever had for just 125/= bux and it left the bathroom smelling lovely for hours afterwards.
You will agree the photo leaves nothing much to the imagination- that there is avocado, and the eyes are red because Im bathing –(something I don’t do often) – and one bit of advice , do this at home by all means but not on an empty stomach , because it is torture.
The orange mud pac is ssso delicious to smell and at the point where you reach strawberry mask you are pretty much incoherent with wanting to eat this stuff. (But I suggest you don’t because after all it’s a facial, ie, for your skin, get it?)
Meanwhile the Home Facial must have worked because lots of people were saying that I looked, well… cleaner.

0774 343791

2008-04-17T22:24:00.000-07:00

Free Media Movement Treasurer receives threats and asked to pay ransom

18th April 2008, Colombo, Sri Lanka: The Free Media Movement (FMM) is appalled to place on record that its Treasurer, journalist K. Rushangan, has received threats demanding the payment of a ransom before 25th April 2008.

K. Rushangan is the Editor of the Tamil language news and information website www.inllanka.com and the Tamil journal Saamadana Nokku (Peace Monitor) published by the Center for Policy Alternatives. He also edited the Tamil language daily Thinakkahir published in Batticaloa from 2000-2002.

On Sunday, 13th April at around 4pm, a person who claimed to be “Ealaventhan” from the LTTE demanded that Rushangan handed over a motorbike or the cash equivalent of 1,500 US Dollars. The first deadline given was 16th April. The phone number registered on Rushangan's mobile phone was 0774 343791. This phone number is still accepting incoming calls. When Rushangan refused to pay saying that he is not in a position to do so, the caller threatened to abduct the journalist.

Though Rushangan lodged a complaint at the Dehiwala Police on 16th April, no one has been questioned or arrested by the Police to date, a situation the FMM finds wholly unacceptable in light of the seriousness and urgency of the situation.

The FMM does not have any information on the reasons for or the persons behind these threats. However, given the impunity with which extrajudicial killings and abductions take place in Sri Lanka today, the FMM hold the Police responsible for the safety and security of Rushangan and urge them to take immediate action to bring the culprits to book.

yamaha pose

2008-04-09T04:27:00.000-07:00

THE OTHER OUT THERE

2008-04-07T19:29:00.000-07:00

Ever wondered what it seems like from their point of view?

Yesterday one of my overzealous office buddies forwarded to me a sensational photograph (as she thought) of half of a mangled bomb victim who happened to have been a prominent public figure; I told her off for it but when I walked around the office I found clumps of my colleagues staring at this photograph on office computers and commenting over it.
Im sorry but I really don’t get it, Im missing the point here. I honestly don’t have any thing against cheery powerpoints of smiling orangutans that you receive in your email in the mornings, or heck, even a bit of quality pornography ( actually its called erotic art-) but hello, dead bodies? Before breakfast? And of Sri Lankans? Somehow, just like in porn, the fact that these are people of our own nationality is an added jar to the system.
Its not that I don’t find dead bodies quite fascinating, I admit I did my odd share of impromptu scientific experiments with ghekhos in Marmite bottles when I was a kid, and resignedly cut off the head of one of my beloved pets who had died of suspected rabies ( mind you my shoulders were aching for days afterwards, but a woman’s got to do what a womans got to do ) and I did actually have an odd ambition of being a forensic pathologist like Temperence Brenan, which didn’t happen because I got married early and had kids and in laws etc.
But leaving aside how much I love to gaze at other peoples gutted and charred earthly remains, I honestly baulk at the thought of forwarding them to friends on my spam list, simply because there is a sneaking suspicion in my mind that I would not like to find one of my loved ones stripped and hung on display on the internet, because I figure in my heart of hearts that apart from the misery of having lost someone you love to a terrorist attack, the second human rights violation would be to have your fellow citizens standing in little groups ooohing and aaahing over the naked dead and burnt torso of your husband/brother/son or father…are you ever going to be able to put THAT picture out of your mind?
Im left wondering , since I want to try hard to understand them, who these journalists are who grab that brief moment of desperate fame by attaching their names to this kind of cheap thriller. And what kind of people continue this cycle by forwarding this mail around to their friends and relations. Do they think that they are immortal ? that they will never find themselves at the other side of this lens/ or in the subject line of such emails ? you have to wonder.

New Gadgets and Gimmicks in the Gender Standoff – are we bound to lose?

2008-01-16T18:28:00.000-08:00

Ahh, those were the times… long ago amoebas simply split in two. But then they started complicating things by needing “sex”, which of course led slowly and steadily through millions of years of evolution, to a bunch of bipeds named Homo Erectus….who then began dabbling with technology …(and we know why)…its because they wanted to develop the ultimate X ray vision binoculars to see through our clothes…. or camera phones to film under our skirts …or Photoshop to paste our unsuspecting virginal heads onto hot naked torsos…
girls, I tell you there has never been a time like today when our modesty and integrity as the "chaste" sex is so under unfair threat…!

Where has it been all my life?

2007-12-05T21:48:00.001-08:00

its the book I have searched for all my life, from the guru I have longed to meet, about the mysteries I have longed to confront.
its an ordinary looking paperback and it was in a cardboard box in VijithaYapa Bookstore (the Thurstan Branch) (but dont go rifling through their boxes I think there was only one copy)
it cost a measly 400 rupees but I wont sell it to you for 4 laks if you ask. (although for 4 laks in GBP I may consider taking a photocopy and letting you have it)

it is the ulitmate guide.

and this book starts with the words

NOW THAT YOU HAVE FOUND THIS BOOK,
-DONT TELL ANYONE ABOUT IT!

the Ninth Day of Christmas

2007-12-04T22:32:00.000-08:00

Ok folks this is it, Ive decided to jettison a lot of nice new books (Wilbur Smith/ Alistair McClean etc) at half the price (how I got them is a long story) and bits of clothing that I picked up from sales which I cant fit into, plus a glitzy riding helmet(Unused) and some really useless electronic things which are lying around my house, and my daughters Nokia in preperation for an upgrade.

It’s a charity sale – you heard me- this is really charity , and Im hoping to be able to pay at least in part for my dentures.. I mean, dental upgrades ...and next years' contact lenses and routine maintenance like that, so well, give me a chance....
No -seriously, I mean ...there will be other people there selling normal useful entirely legal things. ...

NINTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS – A CHRISTMAS FAIR

Date : 9th Sunday December 2007
Venue: Royal Collage Sports Complex (Rugby Grounds) off Stanley Tillekeratne Mawatha (just next to the Indian Restaurant)

Time 10.00 am to 6.30 pm

Stalkers be warned: I’m not alone. There are two other ngo people with me and we know our rights. White Rabbit: dont even think of it.

Sri Lanka's Lion King by Walt Disneynayeke

2007-12-02T01:45:00.000-08:00

"Hit men always sneer. They follow a two-week course in Effective Sneering."...

It was the year 18 hundred something and King Rajadi Rajasinghe got Malaria and asked for Chloroquine. Chloroquine had not yet been discovered so they gave him Koththamalli instead.(Even if Chloroquine had been invented the idiots in the Health Department would have had a shortage of it! The Director of Health Services and his yes men could not tell the difference between their chloroquine, arses and their elbows!) The King died.
His last words were "AaaaaaH!"

the rest of the story,which is not mine, can be found here

http://www.crazylanka.com/historyrajasinghe.htm but this here illustration which is mine will be in Tuesday's Colombo Post .
Enjoy.

zimbabwe, anyone?

2007-12-01T23:13:00.000-08:00

Rather Scary

2007-11-28T20:31:00.001-08:00

yesterday of all days , on the way home,I forgot my wallet , meaning no ID (and no money...)
plus two good friends of mine (who happen to be Tamil) were dropping me home...
so I had this scarey experience of being on pins and needles all the way during the trip...
of shuddering every time we passed an army uniform...
of wondering what to say or do ...
and mind you this is in spite of the fact that I have excellent contacts in the forces who will vouch for me and bail me out of any problem within minutes....
this got me thinking about my friends who dont have that security...who have to always worry each time they pass a checkpoint...who get stared at coldly... who even if they do have an ID card, get penalised and suspected because of their names...
this is so sad, my friends , I know how you feel and I do feel for you.How do we solve this? when will it end?

on a lighter note my buddies in the car were thankfully not too worried about the predicament I had put them in and were joking about what they would say if they were caught (they would probably be in trouble for trafficking some unidentified female object -)
things like
* oh sorry thats just my mentally retarded domestic assistant she has let the dog chew her ID again...
* sorry officer, but the people at the previus checkpoint put her in and told us to take her to Kandana

* oh, officer- you mean theres a woman in the back seat ? wow?

yes there was a blast

2007-11-28T05:18:00.000-08:00

and its in Nugegoda in what has always seemed to be the busiest crowdiest place a blast could possibly hope for; for those of you monitoring Sri Lankan websites from abroad, the stuff we see on TV is lots of people milling about and quite a lot of broken building plus a small half hearted fire.
I also just saw two people walking really briskly and purposefully with the lower half of a person on a streatcher. Sometimes I wonder idly whether this is really the priority at a time like this. I think we should have a lot more First Aid Training on what to do in Energencies , instead of focusing on body parts which ostensiably cannot be resold( but then knowing Sri Lankans - anything could have been on their minds-) shouldnt we be doing more about the half dead...
the official count is ten injured so far but i think I saw at least 3 dead on TV and this IS Nugegoda.
sigh...

MY BITTER NOVEMBER

2007-11-22T07:08:00.000-08:00

Last week I felt crushed.
Really, I mean it- I don’t know what hit me. One day I was smiling, glowing, happy ,joking handling anything that came my way with the aplomb of an Amazon, my blog profile said “ contented, happy go lucky & placid” in description of me, then – suddenly I woke up at 3 am one night in a cold sweat of depression and panic, and it was officially the beginning of an all time low. My whole personality crumpled inwards as if its superstructure had collapsed. It was horrible.

Before you direct me to the nearest reputed psychiatrist, or send me links on the subject please let me assure you I have handled this sort of thing perfectly well previously and emerged visibly unscathed but somewhat older, so from afar this isn’t as serious as I make it sound; but when Im in it, this is genuine tangible depression as black as tar and as scary as Voldemort – and, what’s more , I’ve noticed this is what happens to me each year around November!

It’s when I realize another year is almost over and I can’t even remember what I set out to do this year in the first place, but there are more crows feet and less teeth, plus my toes are looking worse and there is more grey in my hair. Weight is becoming progressively more difficult to shed and my knees are beginning to act funny.

I honestly feel grouchy, self pitied, selfish, mean, low and totally anti social in November. I suddenly realize that I still don’t posses any of those critical success factors that society judges you by- a swanky residence, a posh set of wheels, a handy spouse (ok not necessarily in that shallow order) and a large impressive Doberman or two… the fact that I don’t has never actually bothered me from January to October so I cant for the life of me figure out why I feel like a total and abject failure in November….perhaps it’s the weather…if I believed in demonic possession Id say this was a classic example of standard low intensity interference and probably my friends in the medical profession would sign me up for a month of contraband Prozac. – but the good news, dear friends, is that one way or another each year I beat it, each year, by myself .

How?
Religion has always helped me. Any religion. You sit inside a temple or a church or heck you even sit in front of a shrine in your own home ,alone with candles and beads, there is beautiful magic in that.

Empathy helps me, involving me in the problems other people have , some of which make mine seem laughable, trying to help other humans and animals in this difficult obstacle course called life, making old people smile again, and doing something small for someone which they didn’t expect.

My friends help me; year after year I find that there is always someone, it doesn’t have to be the same set , but inevitably I have been blessed with friends who go out of their way to lend me a helping hand and pull me out of this strange darkness. To scold me out of it , to drag me away from it, to distract me and cajole me – my precious friends are a formidable team that no obscure condition can ever hope to beat. Thank you all, you know who you are!

And of course, family.
There is family I had from the time I was born and there is family I discovered recently, there is family who joined me a few years before. There is also family that I have adopted. What makes them family is how dependable they are, how close, and not necessarily the ties of blood. That first and last refuge for the weary, a place to rest ones soul.

Looking at this list of precious resource I have, I wonder how I could ever possibly feel dejection in the first place - but then considering the laws of Universal balance, perhaps just to make up for the optimism I feel eleven months of the year, I must experience one month of inexplicable somberness.
That would be November.

SIMBA's STORY

2007-11-20T02:24:00.000-08:00

Long long ago , Egyptians actually worshipped us as Gods. …I’m lucky in this day and age, to find a nice, amendable biped.

So folks, if Ive heard it once, Ive heard it a hundred times. The account of how I was found. On a roof of all places. After two days of mewling and almost getting croaky and incoherent in the throat. How I got there no one knows (we suspect it had something to do with Colombo crows, evil , devious critters aren’t they ) but I guess something sad had already happened to my dear old mother, god rest her soul. Luckily I was picked up by a biped (that’s a two legged upright walking anthropoid of primate descendent, in case you don’t get the word ). A nice warm blooded, gullible one.

Between you and me , when you pick a biped, or, as they think , allow one to pick you, there are a few things you have to consider. Does he live alone, and does he wear baggy pants and does he look like a doggy person. See, if he has a mate, one that doesn’t like cats , you’ve had it from day one – I mean Ive heard these women wait till the chap is out to do mean things to you like throw you out of the house or forget your dinner. And they don’t think its funny when we squirt at the laundry basket. Nasty. And about the baggy pants , well its easier to climb up his legs and watch what he is cooking without having to actually sink your nails into him- they react to that with strangled-cat like howls and you may get thrown across the room by the scruff of your neck by mistaken reflex, so after a few weeks I learned only to climb their legs if they have long lose pants on. Let that be a lesson to you young, potential biped owners.
As for the doggy person look, if you have to share your biped with a dog, seriously this takes much of the joy out of life. They are noisy, clumsy and smelly and they have rotten breath and they constantly try to whine their way in to your biped’s heart by being unselfish and constantly devoted! Disgusting.

Although they are sometimes not exactly maternal,(and sometimes sit on you by mistake if you are the same color as the dining chair upholstery ,) male bipeds make much better catches than females, because the latter may actually reproduce themselves and that involves cunning little offspring bipeds who sometimes purposefully do horrible things to hapless cats, regardless of which religion they are brought up in. I have heard nasty urban legends about kittens , freezers, microwaves and Barbie Dolls…I wont go into the depressing details here. Males are also about 3 degrees warmer because of some obscure biological detail as in they don’t have to grow layers of fat for childbearing. This is good news for any cat, you will agree. When I was a kitten I would sleep in the crook of his neck until I grew so big and furry that one morning, January the 1st I think , I honestly thought I had asphyxiated him - and so decided to move onto his stomach for both our sakes.
To be honest, life wasn’t all plain sailing – I did have to train him in a few aspects of good bipedal etiquette .He now knows to pick the best chicken parts from the local supermarket and pressure cook them to that degree of perfection any gourmet would envy (otherwise I puke all over his bedroom tiles or lose my voice.) I’ve organized for a special entrance for myself, hand picked flannel for our bed and organized regular cleaning of my toilet. Also it is considered rude to move until I say so, if I’m sleeping on his chest. And I’ve impressed on him that he should STOP bringing home more cats, because this cramps my style. (Meechee and Matty Pooz are quite enough for me to feel species companionship with)
And female bipeds has been out of the question, he tries once in every couple of years but I give them a beady eyed look and sit radiating hostility at them and they get the idea and clear off . This is in spite of him being a very presentable specimen all round, or so I hear.
Afternoons are the best. My biped uses his treasured tubes of pigment to create lifelike representations of me and of larger cousins of mine and hangs them on his walls, to further revere me I suspect. And then people come over and admire the visualizations and look at me in Great Awe too, and some even supplement his chicken purchasing power by BUYING his realistic visualizations. He sure has thought about everything, wouldn’t you say?
Suffice it to say, Ah, we have a good life, my biped and I….as my hero Garfield once said “John and I have everything I could possibly want .”
But to be honest, at times I regret the selfish way I own him and wonder if it is better to let him find a mate too since he has been very nice about me and not snipped me anywhere and Im sure in time he will need those of his own kind, plus off springs to look out for him (and us) when he is old and beyond it.
So maybe one of these days I shall actually approve of one of his pretty visitors and give them my blessing.
But probably not just yet.

WEANING SRI LANKA

2007-11-01T21:55:00.000-07:00

As of late all we seem to be able to talk about is the alarmingly rising cost of powdered milk; whose direct “fault” this is we have yet to stay up late nights to figure out –and in quite a few homesteads this may indeed be the scenario if a sizeable percentage of the population is below the age of two, due to the time honored traditional emphasis on reproducing first and then worrying about financial stability later…
Ah , Sri Lankans…,
Anyway ,dear Citizen, neither the wails of the milk-less mites nor the profusion of cartoons and media critiques on the subject, nor late night political chat shows ,nor ranting nor raving nor whining nor kutukutu is going to make a jot of difference here (as if it ever has! ) so as a nation we might as well buckle up, and resign ourselves to being compulsorily weaned of the glorious substance in future . And hey, maybe that isn’t such a bad idea after all. In time honored sour grapes tradition lets blast a few of those myths about that lovely liquid symbol of love, peace and prosperity…
The Facts on Factory farms: here’s where the cheaper imported milk comes from….
Factory farmed animals are trapped inside large, stinking, windowless buildings on factory 'farms'. They never feel fresh air and their natural freedoms are brutally denied. The goal is meat and dairy products as cheaply and quickly as possible like tins of beans. Intensive farmers forcibly generate their animals via rape racks, artificial insemination, etc and this industry produces animals so cheaply that although they die by the millions - from disease, suffocation or maltreatment - profits are still not seriously hurt.

The dairy cow is forced to keep producing a calf (or two, or three, artificially, by Caesarian) every year until she dies or is killed (within 5 years).

The calves she gives birth to are taken away from her after only 12-24 hours. If it is a male calf (a 'byproduct') it may be exported and forced to endure 16-20 weeks of torment in veal crates.

In her natural state, a cow's udder produces enough milk for her calf, holding approximately 2 litres of milk containing about 3 times as much protein as human milk - in intensive farming conditions she has to produce 10+ litres. Every year over 50% of dairy cows suffer lameness due to deformations caused by huge udders (which may be so large that they drag on the ground), poor housing, and very painful diseases such as laminitis and mastitis. Symptoms of systemic mastitis include hot, swollen, acutely painful udders, fever, loss of appetite, and mammary glands so inflamed they are as hard as stones and bubble blood into the milk.

Sometimes milking machines give cows repeated electrical shocks, causing them prolonged trauma, sometimes leading to death. A single farm can lose several hundred cows to uncontrolled electric shocking. Milking machines are used anyway, because they enable a single farm worker to milk 86 cows in 2 hours.

And every year in UK alone 150,000 pregnant cows are slaughtered for hamburger meat, many approaching full term. The calves, unwanted by farmers, may still be living when their mothers are disemboweled. When the womb tumbles out onto the concrete floor, the still-living calf thrashes and drowns in the pile of bloody organs.
Source : http://www.carn-age.org.uk/
Other lactose intolerant websites you can visit:
http://www.milkgonewild.com/
http://www.vegetarian.org.uk/
and that mother of all animal rights sites:
http://www.peta.org/

So although the advertising people show you contented looking animals in lovely rolling green fields, that’s actually cow – hollywood and/or bullshit. For the most part powdered milk does not come from organic farms. For the real scenes visit any of the websites mentioned in this article and be prepared for a few unholy surprises.
Moot point- this milk of “human kindness” is extracted through a process that causes untold animal trauma on an unbelievably large scale. For a majority Buddhist and Hindu country, whose fundamental tenets are avoiding causing suffering to any living being, and indeed positive veneration of the cow, respectively, factory produced powdered milk is an abominable hypocrisy. Why then do we continue to be so fixated on it?

Myth No 1
Milk is nature’s ideal food! That’s what your mother always said, and for a nation of middle aged juveniles who still get their mothers to cook and do their laundry for them till they are fifty, mother knows best. It is nature’s perfect food—if you are a baby calf, have four stomachs, and are trying to weigh 1,000 pounds by your second birthday. Otherwise, it’s not so perfect. Think about it: No other species drinks milk beyond infancy or drinks the milk of another species. It’s just not natural! Medical studies indicate that rather than preventing the disease, milk actually causes osteoporosis and leads to cancer. Dairy products definitely contribute to the health problems of the one billion people worldwide who are obese. Cow’s milk is also the number one cause of allergies, according to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology.
Myth No 2
Dairy products are a main source of protein! In practice protein deficiency is actually rarely heard of unless you live in a famine-stricken country. You will get all the protein that a human body needs from legumes (beans, peas, and peanuts), vegetables, nuts, seeds, yeast, and tofu.
Myth No 3
But our babies need milk!
Actually the average human female is still perfectly capable of supplying her child’s milk requirements for as long as they are necessary. The benefits of breast-feeding above expensive unhygienic indigestion inducing substitutes have been recounted at countless forums down the ages. What remains is to engender a paradigm shift towards responsible procreation where young people make long term plans for the off spring they intend to produce, which include some quality family time where young mothers do not work, but take time off for the important first years of a child’s life, and where this is VALUED. Unfortunately in our society rat race the fact that a woman stays at home lactating could set her career back by four or five years for the average two children family. Tragic isn’t it. But on the bright side, she would save quite a packet on milk food…that’s some recognition of our value at last! Not bad.

Modera's Baby Twisting Nightmare

2007-10-29T21:02:00.000-07:00

ok , if the photo is spooky, wait till you read the story...its in WOW of Daily Mirror this week.

and what I havnt mentioned there is that this is a true story.

This story revolves around an average house in Modera which is one of three houses belonging to siblings now long dead and gone. In the left of the row of houses there had lived a ravishingly beautiful but somewhat vain Sinhala woman named Sriyankanthi, who unfortunately had a personality totally in contrast to her name and angelic appearance. Neither more nor less vicious than the average Ceylonese woman she appears by all accounts to have been obsessed with the usual shallow local pastimes of comparing peoples wealth, status ,castes , race and judgmental gossiping, and back biting. Her son was one of the most good looking young colts in the whole area at the time and the apple of her proud maternal eye, although his personality turned out different and he selected for his wife a woman of less social standing and little wealth based on his genuine affection for her. Probably someone of more human values and intelligence from the stoic way she bore up her future miseries as you will see, and a girl of another race or caste , either way – unsuitable in Sriyakanthie’s eyes.

Sriyakanthi was furious with her sons choice for all the usual superficial reasons. This would be a serious social let down and the girl did not have the wealthy background she had been hoping for. She had spent her life looking down on this sort of person and now chose to consider it a slap in the face from the son she had invested so much love and care in, although naturally most of the blame went to the potential bride for be-witching him.
However to Sriyakanthie’s consternation the son was adamant about his choice and went ahead and married the despised girl. She ranted and raved and caused scenes, totally rejecting the daughter in law from the start and effectively drove herself ill with this reaction to the situation. Maybe it was a terrible consequence of this prolonged hysteria or maybe some other medical condition hitherto undiagnosed, either way, within a few years of her sons marriage, beautiful Sriyakanthi lay wasted on her death bed and eventually passed away but not before uttering a final curse on her own son and his wife, to the effect that she would personally make sure they would never children.[1]
Life for her relations was quieter after her death and she was soon generally forgotten except perhaps on anniversaries either way, the son and daughter in law who had faced so much rejection, made the best of their new life at that home.

Months passed and then Sriyakanthie’s daughter in law was with child, and then in time duly gave birth to a son. Sadly, and perhaps we can speculate here, due to the psychological tensions she had undergone, and the subconscious dread of what she had heard, her child was indeed lame and misshapen, club footed and rickety from the start, in short looking as if it had survived some terrible accident. . But being stoic Buddhists, they accepted this as their lot and never considered the child a burden but did their best as parents to take care of it.
Within another year another child was born to this unfortunate couple, again sadly, a misshapen and deformed little girl.
You can imagine the sadness in the lives of these two because their destiny according to my friend, was to give life to a third child and it too was an physically deformed and slightly mentally handicapped too. Apparently the burden of looking after the three special children was simply too much for the young woman to handle and she pleaded with her husband to shift the family and live with her parents in a different town. He conceded to this plan and Sriyakanthie’s accursed house was whitewashed to be given on rent.
The house itself was a very pleasant and presentable piece of property and many potential tenants expressed interest. Then as now , the newly wedded couples were the majority of applicants usually in their quest to evade interfering in laws or be closer to a place of work.
A young couple who was already expecting a child rented Sriyakanthie’s house
Within a few months of moving in ,the young wife suffered a miscarriage of her fetus, in a very tragic and terrible mid night drama in which she too almost died. They did not know about the background of the house or indeed have any reason to even suspect any background worth mentioning but now the neighbors were beginning to speculate about this series of events.

To be continued next week.

Another Day in Paradise

2007-10-14T23:38:00.000-07:00

OCTOBER 16th 2004
Al Juhara writes…
…unfortunately for you, gentle readers, quite compulsively. Be it dairies, letters, emails or heck, even the odd “To Do” list, I find an entire waffle of literary produce emerges when I lay pen to paper. Or finger to keyboard.
I remember when I was eleven and the subject at school was “My Ambition” I waxed eloquent about wanting to be a writer. How I filled a three-page essay with that basic decision is currently a mystery to me, but it must have worked as I know I consistently got marks like 99 for English. What being a writer actually entailed I had not bothered about and still do not and the dream continued as you can see from a page out of my 2004 dairy.

7am
Have decided I must write a book to surpass “God of Small Things,” ”Harry Potter,” and “Lord of the Rings,” combined, which will shoot me to Instant Fame and Riches, so that I can buy a house, but have not decided what exactly to write, or if its actually easier to instead dictate into borrowed micro cassette, as handwriting in busses not really that legible.
But stuck for ideas.
Also not sure if grammar and syntax correct.
(Mosquitoes munching me under table – vague visions of dying tragically at young tender age of thirty three, like desert rose, five minutes off to light the ARS coil)
One thing for sure:
I need to get richer! Quicker!
Because if I go on at this pace with the librarian job in the NGO , I will need estimated four hundred and seventeen years of desperate savings and scrimping to buy myself the house of my dreams.
Which brings us to issue of “what is wrong with house already inherited”(for more details see page ….)
Am late for work today and will have to sit through long bus trip and not looking forward to it. Although admittedly gives me a lot of time to think of subject for Blockbuster Novel. Also ends up in me day dreaming and falling asleep on way to work ,and subsequently imagining derisive public speculation on what had been doing last night…

Have you noticed the amazing color in a Ceylon bus?
They are really story book vehicles
painted gaudily
adorned with rows of Hindu Gods
Windows are stuck
Water gutters inside alongside windows (occasional drips of puke here)
Not enough leg room for a tall woman
We burn them when we get really fed up with them.(Colombo traffic ,pg…)
Give you a long time in which to think about life and being poor in a third world mega city.
Occasionally therapeutic as in when I have had a major row with 927862.
and get into a bus and go off without my mobile phone, to make him worry. I did that one poya day , went off to discover myself and having reached Dematagoda, returned all in about forty five minutes. Brother dearest admitted that was quick. He had known people who took five years off in Tibet to find them selves and still couldn’t..
Noisy
Smelly and
Have a knack for stalling alongside garbage dumps.(For Colombo Garbage see page ….)

Every morning I pass a hardware store which is opening up for the day .There are ceramic squatting pans hung one atop the other , and colorful plastic mops, aluminum buckets and sinks and this wonderful old Turk in a white fez , who very patiently with a bucket and a small plastic cup ,cleans the ground in front of the shop. Smiling at him is pointless as he concentrates on this floor cleaning as though his hope for Moksha depends on this , and limited by the size of his plastic tea cup I am sure the process takes up at least forty five minutes each morning. A kind of Japanese Tea Ceremony in an aluminium ware background…
7.35
Checked again to see if phone has lost its charge: 927862 said he would call…

Looked over the flyway into the railroads below in Maradana and regretted it :
Then there is the Pola, in Dematagoda.
In the morning it is not the smell for sore throats. In other words, the cloying early morning stink of garbage is something alive and pulsating, kerchiefs and helmets are flimsy arsenal against this determined blanket of bio degradation. Year after year it continues to mark Dematagoda like a large in-your-nose landmark to your sense of olfactory direction.

Decided that I am looking quite hip in bus taking notes like some kind of casual social scientist . Peeps are staring at me rather curiously-

However, regretfully, sometimes that dreaded monster called Writers Block stands in your way and you go days months or even years without being able to create anything remotely presentable. Perhaps this is one of those phases. Or maybe its just that I’m cooking up a surprise…

a one in a million publication…

2007-10-03T22:43:00.000-07:00

IF ONLY someone had broken the silence- by Kamla Bhasin (illustrated by Bindia Thapar) 50/- available at Social Scientists Bookshop, Col 5 or online at http://shtriishakti.org/booksonsale.html

As adults we know that pedophiles lurk everywhere, in buses, schools, family gatherings...you name it, we are paranoid; but like the little girl in the book says “why didn’t the people who loved me warn me about people like this?”

IF ONLY someone had broken the silence is a poignant little booklet, ably illustrated with adorable caricatures, on one of the most sensitive subjects in Asian society today- sexual violence against children.

Sensitive, professionally written books for children, on sexuality are generally limited to very expensive imports from USA and UK and available in upscale outlets mostly unaffordable by the average middle income family anyway. So I must say I have been searching for this sort of a book for ages, and its disappointing that there doesn’t seem to be any like this around in the local market, and oddly even this booklet is “for limited circulation only” .

The truth is maybe we parents do tell children about these things but just like all the other advice you give a child, sometimes it becomes difficult to make things exactly clear and to get their attention for long enough to emphasize the gravity of these problems.
The difficult subject of child abuse is approached from the first person account of a little Indian girl growing up among a typical extended family of diverse family members and relations. A theme so sensitive must be handled carefully and this booklet can be regarded not just as a work of art in its own right, and timely reading for children on ground realities of life, but as an obviously professional output.

Ms Bhasin’s little booklet can be called an excellent opening point, or conversation starter or perhaps a revision of things already discussed. Either way it’s a book that I recommend parents to invest in and perhaps the powers that be should consider translating it, because child abuse is one of the best kept secrets in local society and as Dr Martin Luther King Jr said “We Have to Repent, Not So Much for the Evil Deeds of the Wicked People But for the Appalling Silence of the Good People"

now heres a picture worth a thousand words...

2007-09-25T05:02:00.000-07:00

in fact I kept bursting into laughter whenever I saw it or even remembered it - its just so speechless...

If I wus President for a day...ok, make it a year

2007-09-11T01:51:00.000-07:00

Im often being asked, by otherwise completely normal and stable characters , in what they probably think are flashes of blindening witticism and humour, whether I am "not Bandaranaiyeke, no?" when I say that my name is Chandrika, over the phone.
....to this my cold and somewhat scathing reply is "I should think not,” because considering my reputation for spending time blogging, drawing cartoons, making Facebook entries and lurking on Kapuwa, I should think she had better things to do in life , such as for example... run the frikking place
....but just last week I got to seriously thinking what life would have been like if I was indeed the president of the Republic. ....hm. in a word...if I wus the President of Sri Lanka it would be a much odder place...

for example:

Cable TV would be subsidized. Research down the ages has proven that mind numbing addiction to Hallmark and HBO will keep the citizenry off the streets and unaware of the real political implications of their franchise. It’s also a accepted scientific hypothesis that Attilla the Hun, Genghiz Khan and Hitler would never have been so intensely single-minded with destructive urges if they had other ways of keeping themselves entertained, like WWF. *

Human Reproduction would need a license and written declarations that you are entirely responsible for all the arson, looting and general rapine that your decedents may engineer. Reliable witnesses** would have to guarantee that you are indeed a responsible, experianced human who can handle the consequences of your uncontrollable urge to procreate, not to mention feed, clothe and educate it. This means you would have to intern a couple of years at least, free of charge, helping bring up someone else’s children. This would solve our domestic labour problem too. See, two birds.

Dogs would never be taxed. They are our best friends and its a downright sh*tty thing to do. Ten thousand years of defending us from wolves, marauding rival tribes and the crafty little mind tricks that cats play, and you do this to your best friend? shame! Un-neutered TomCats on the other hand should be serially taxed. Ever considered the noise pollution they cause with all that caterwauling at night, not to mention the royal pong in the neighborhood, and when you run over one you have to sell the vehicle or it is inauspicious.

Dowry would be compulsory. Yup, if you wanted to get married you both would have to pay a heavy bond to the government. That’s for putting a strain on the mental health sector, and possibly burdening us with more people who look and think like you….and it will help pay for all the milk food subsidies you expect later on…

Bullock carts would be given auxiliary motors. That’s to make them stop obstructing the traffic and go a bit faster; the only reason I would not be totally banning them is that rich foreign people think they are quaint and like to take photos of them. (Anyone knows if you are going to effectively rule the place plus strengthen the economy you mustn’t negatively repercuss tourism.)

Crows would be trained and exported in batches. They are very intelligent and can carry out all manner of complex procedures. Plus we have rather a surplus in Colombo. Either that or we have to start cooking them soon. And Ive been to Bangkok , trust me they taste like chicken! What do you mean cruel? What we do to chickens isn’t, what with all the tetracycline injections and stuff?

the Capital would be Tamil Nadu, because I like the food there ,or if they objected to that on the grounds that I am messing with their territorial integrity I would at least transfer it to Anuradhapura. This is to shake up all the Colombo 7 people and make them watch land prices plummet horribly so that they stop being so elite. Imagine: Cinnamon Gardens would be the new "Grassroots” and they would have poor infrastructure .

Local Guys who married foreign women will be forced to pay large fines and give up all their property in Sri Lanka. This is cause we don’t have enough guys here what with them being involved in ethnic conflict and the old ones all being lazy, reading papers all day and getting heart trouble so they are all becoming superior about the imbalance. On the other hand, local ladies who manage to net a foreign dude and get him to stay here will be richly rewarded. Cant help it , desperate times call for desperate measures.

Elephants would be treated much more strategically . We could farm them, you know, fatten them and export them. Just think of all the protein. What do you mean cruel? You kill one elephant its more beef than 20 cows, or 2000 chickens and its only one death! Be PRACTICAL!

And last but not least, I would appeal to the International Court of Justice to MAKE Indonesia take out third party insurance and pay a massive amount in compensation each time they start an earthquake which affects us. It’s just not fair; I just know they are digging too deep for oil or something over there that’s why this keeps on happening!

………………………………………………………..
* that’s da World Wrestling Federation in case you confused it with the World WildLife Fund
** ie. Government Officials/ Heads of Pirivena’s with fixed assets of over five million…

on "Provoked"

2007-09-02T23:21:00.000-07:00

Last week, dear readers, I’m proud to say I watched a Meaningful and Intellectually Relevant film, as opposed to the trashy special-effect-laced exorcism films I usually unwind with.
It is a film about an Indian lady in England who gets assaulted, humiliated, raped and generally treated very badly around her own home, by the guy who was supposed to care for her (that would be her husband). A common tale as ever, you would say but this time it had been handled by British film makers and Aishwarya Rai took the lead part; which unfortunately very nearly prevented me from watching it in the first place, although I have nothing against her, bless her cotton socks; it was just that her name at the start hinted at lots of gaudy and frivolous scenes by default and so it was difficult to imagine how this would turn out and whether I could actually stomach it.
But, since I had nothing much to do on Sunday evening I took the dare and managed to sit myself down with fruit juice, peanuts and a tub of citronella paste,(for the mozzies) the better to truly appreciate this tropical movie experience with, on my cheap pettah DVD player hooked up to our family Telly which needs to be started up about half an hour before you watch anything because a blown capacitor means it is “ bondha vela” for some time , till it does “heat up”…
I know its not the done thing to approach a serious topic like Domestic Violence with jokes, but since I find that a sense of humor has occasionally effectively saved me from self destruction and feel that if people spent more time watching comedies and being jolly they would not have the time to give their wives black eyes –its probably time to take a step back and take a long hard tongue-in-cheek look at the human race it self and why this whole domestic abuse thing is allowed to happen in the first place. …
Wife beating is an Eastern Tradition. No, hold on, it’s a Western Tradition too. No come to think of it , it’s an inherently human tradition . Even you kids reading this will agree with me that in the case of cats and dogs and swine and such like , apart from tenderly sniffing each other ‘s rear ends, male animals certainly would never be caught assaulting females animals -its just not the done thing!!! Male monkeys wont come up with a large coconut and bash a female monkey on the head with it , with a “that ll teach her !” kind of expression, neither to my knowledge (mostly gleaned the usual way from National Geographic by listing to Sir David Attenboruugh’s stealthy whispering and Crocodile Hunters noisy yodeling ..) would say a bull elephant trunk a cow elephant over the head with a tree branch or a guy wildebeestie stick a lady wildebeestie with his horn rack just to show them who’s boss: Its just so totally “no no” in the Savanah although it seems to be accepted among the Punjabis and the Brits and so on.*
Since this film was based on a true story, this one too was generally predictable; there are complex psychological terms for the various cycles in abusive relationships that you can probably google or wiki for, but the crux of the matter was : there’s a glittering Asian wedding and then boy meets girl, boy cheats girl, boy beats girl and after ten years of this, girl napalms boy, which really need not have happened if only society had provided her with feasible alternatives. It really need not end this way!
Token Bully Husband did a brilliantly convincing performance I must say, slit eyed, mean, and so unshaven and drunk that you could almost smell his BO off the screen and I’m sure if I was less educated and saw him walking the streets of Liverpool I would spit copiously in his direction and swear. (Plus he showed off truly hideous legs at one point, for which he simply cant be forgiven…)
The lady in the film paradoxically found real peace in prison which I quite understood after the in depth introduction to a English clapper that viewers were given. They have good comfortable facilities with clean decent cells, washing machines for the clothes, games hours and a library, although continuos exposure to British food may have constituted one of the more unusual forms of torture you could possibly overlook it just this time…
In come The Sisters, a bunch of feminist NGO ladies who unfortunately in spite of all the good work they do, have a compulsion to smoke cigarettes continuously and drink the nights away not to mention wear tons of mascara and chunky wooden beads, sending out a rather regrettable message about feminists as bossy painted women with lots of baggage…however I did like the very natural way they all act in this film , from the Cops to the prisoners to the Court people , and right down to Aishwarya whose “Englees… note good” , I found the acting smooth, genuine and generally very believable.
The rest of the story is on how to get her Appeal through and try getting a milder sentence on the basis that she was provoked due to years of systematic abuse, and this case is one of the precedents which changed British law on the subject so it’s a worthwhile watch for the legal people too.
Somewhere in all of this there are serious lessons to be learnt, for wives, husbands and mothers in law. I think its all about not getting pushed into corners where the only alternative is to set fire to your spouse in order to get some peace around the house. Divorce, while sometimes equally messy, is comparatively a less destructive way out and women should be given that alternative in practice by society they live in. Make it simpler for pity’s sake, especially when the fractures begin…
I find paradoxically that this is a film I would suggest the whole family watches, (or at least moms and kids together) unsuitable though it is for youngsters, since real life is generally more unsuitable anyway. I imagine moms will lecture sons by saying “that’s a very bad Daddy, isnt it , now when you grow up that is not the way to treat your wife , ok?” (The added threat of incineration should provide some incentive if nothing else does, I’m sad to say) and to their daughters, in a very Beatrix Potter tone , “Now my dears, that sort of patience is not called for in Marriage. If anyone tries to iron your face, you MUST report it to the nearest Police AT ONCE ” (duh?)
I don’t know about anyone else but its certainly what I intend to do…
……………………………………………….
*And the Chinese, and the Africans and the Latinos and so on and so fourth , you get the drift…

the Immoral of it all

2007-08-29T06:50:00.000-07:00

Im not a great one for Jataka Tales - but i got a chance to read a translation this evening and heres how it goes

The Sambula Jatakaya may be taken here as an example (Amaramoli 1962: 250-258)

source http://www.lines-magazine.org/Art_Nov04/Bindun.htm

King Bambadat of Varanasi appoints his grown son to succeed him, and makes the princess, Sambula, his consort.
She is most beautiful, with skin so lovely it glows like a lantern in a dark unlit place.
They live happily together for some time. The heir-apparent then breaks out in a terrible rash.
Informing the King it is better to die alone, he leaves his harem behind, yet as he tries his best to take leave of his wife Sambula, he finds he cannot not do so, and takes her with him.
He builds a temple in a beautiful forest, and resides there.
Saying, “My Lord! Do not fear, I shall attend to all your needs,” Sambula worships him and goes into the forest with a basket and tools to pull out roots and pluck fruit. She brings a basket of fruit to the temple daily, then fills a pot with water and bathes the king with many herbal balms and ointments. She feeds him sweet fruit, gives him scented nectar to drink, and covers his wooden bed with the branches of trees to make it comfortable. When he is asleep, she attends to all their other needs, washes herself, eats her own meal of fruit, and then sleeps next to him.
One day on her way back from the forest, she sees a rocky pond, and placing the fruit basket on the ground, goes into the fresh water and bathes. Applying turmeric to her body, she sits on a rock. The forest delighted in the beauty of her body as if the forest was covered with the rays of gold.
A rakshaya flying by, seeing a princess more alluring than all the golden women of the heavens, and falls in love with her. The rakshaya says to her, “The whole forest glistens as if gilded in gold because of you, I bow before thee! – Who art thou?’
The Princess says, “I am Sambula, wife of Soththisena, the son of the King of Varanasi, in the City of Kasi.”
“Why serve a prince so severely diseased, so helpless and alone? I will make you the favorite of my harem, with hundreds of the finest performers, dancers and musicians, you shall be their Queen, and delight in whatever you wish. I shall be your husband.”
“Rakshaya! My husband is sick; I sorrow for him day and night. What is this beauty you see in me, my clothes so rough and rude? This forest abounds in nymphs, goddesses and Naga damsels. Select one of them. What use could you derive from me? Do not pursue me.”
“What anyone most enjoys in this world belongs to me. Come with me, let us make the most supreme love. If you do not willingly come with me, I shall take you by force to live with me. If you still refuse to live with me, I shall kill and eat you.”
“This rakshaya will take me, pluck off my hands and legs like stripping sugarcane, but this will not sadden me.’ What is grief to me is if the king so sick for a long time thinks that Sambula, being so young and pretty, so much so no one’s eyes can turn away from her, is late returning – because I was making love with another…”
Sakra, the king of the gods then appears and warns the rakshaya. The rakshaya listens in fear to what Sakra says, and lets the princess go. Sakra, thinking this rakshaya may harm her, then whisks the rakshaya off to another mountain, and returns to heaven.
As the sun sets, the princess walks back to the temple in the moonlight. The king hearing movement thinks Sambula’s lover is returning with her to kill him. The king hides and watches.
The Buddha then said to those assembled thus: Sambula returned to the temple that day in the moonlight. She could not find her husband, and with great sorrow, walked here and there, crying…
Soththisena, seeing his wife in great sorrow, her heart at the point of breaking, shivering and begging for help from the gods, appears at the door of the temple.
The heir-apparent Soththisena says, “Women are fickle, and cannot be understood. Just as one cannot determine the course of fish swimming in the water, and of birds flying in the air, the nature of women too cannot be fathomed.” Sambula then performs sathiyakriya, resolute in her own fidelity.
Due to the power of her fidelity, the husband’s rash is cured. Crowned King, Sambula is made Queen.
The King, however, ignores his Queen and spends his hours frolicking with his harem. Sambula, overcome with shame and jealousy, grows weaker day by day.

cut and pasters comment : - uhm, there is a moral in there somewhere.

We need a car but Im keeping my kidneys, thanks!

2007-08-23T05:46:00.000-07:00

Husband Sells Wife's Kidney

thats a good headline and its really old news but I really wonderd how it was done, dont you?
and what we women could possibly market of our husbands if we set our minds to it...

ok heres the long and short of it and of course it happened because some people think that women are chattel(or was the word cattle?)
of course we are chattel/cattle if we sit around and wait while our organs are sold on the open market.

youd think one would notice ourselves a little LIGHTER and the guys bank account a little HEAVIER...gnnnn
I like to think of the dialogue which would have gone on after that say about ten years down the line, when they are old and grey and the guy is all mellow and contrite

W: you hopeless louse you, you took my thingy and sold cheap- its worth more than ruddy tractor see it doenst even have proper accelerator and its all rusty now
H : but honeypie I was thinking of our future...why you always harping on this , ok so I made a mistake , ok so I should have told you about it - I wanned it tuh be a liddle suprise !

W. its bl**dy taking up twleve feet in the front porch you asole , how can it be a little surprise...

ok ok at last - to find out how it was actually done just google for MAN SELLS WIFES KIDNEY
becos the link is too long to paste here
sorry...
and I know what youre all thinking...she has TWO kidneys ...

El Caballo Negro*

2007-08-13T20:23:00.000-07:00

“ I went for my riding test today, I really must blog about it!”
“Why, what happened?!”
“Nothing. It was all very efficient.”
“You’re right; you definitely should blog about it!”

Well, dear Readers, at last, at the ripe old age of , well, a few years away from forty anyway, yours truly went for her driving test. Or to be precise a riding test, since I am actually aiming modestly low for the class D license so that I can legally operate my hot Caballo Negro, on the wonderful action packed streets of Colombo, and a little further out too, if possible…
So, I’ve changed my spectacles, dyed my hair, registered the bike, taken it out on practice runs, and last but not least filled my organ donar card and kept it in a easily accessible place in my wallet so that if Im found brain dead they can salvage the rest, and here I am ready to hit the streets , well hopefully not literally but , you get the picture…

Why unprotected?
The written test itself was rather an eye-opener. I have never actually seen half the signs in the Highway Code book on any of the streets I have traveled through. I believe studying seriously for this written test has given me a true appreciation of road signs. Im sure that I will sit up and point and take pictures if I see an obscure road sign somewhere in Habarana or wherever. The dubious fact that you never see orange and green together on a traffic light was impressed upon me. Nice drivers, believe it or not , are not supposed to park on the pedestrian crossing (maybe I should carry my Highway Code around everyday and read sections of it out to them politely?) and there were odd multiple choice questions like :
At night due to low visibility you should
a) Have really bright headlights
b) drive very fast , since there is not much traffic
c) drive carefully since visibility is low.

With such challenging choices one can imagine why there are quite a few failures in Colombo and also wonder how any one actually passes, considering what they actually practice...
...The exact sign for Unprotected Level Crossing is burned into my minds eye along with my tiny scribbled footnote on why such things are allowed in the first place, since they look like very dangerous situations. I wonder - does it take a messy, gory death or two for our Local Government to find the money for a small piece of wood with a stone at the end of it ? I know a lot of banks and government departments and even department stores have those little barriers, why can’t we afford them?

Wither the fairer sex?
And this is what I noticed most about the people at the Driving Test joint. There were, if I calculated correctly at least from a hundred to hundred and twenty people that morning and out of them I’d estimate 80 % were youth between the ages of 18 and 25, another 10%-15% were more mature looking guys of around upto 35 years of age as a maximum and as for the 8 or 9 females apart from myself, they could have been anywhere from 20- 40 years old, and they were comparatively well dressed and looked like they were from genteel middle income families. So what happens to the poor lower income females, like my Kusumawathi ? Is it some plot to make sure that they are always immobile, always dependant on their generally drink sozzled men-folk? Why have the Colombo guys made sure that poor women in Colombo cant at least ride a bike or a bicycle to get their work done, but must continue at the mercy of the tyrannical weirdos on buses, or in tuktuks? Or is it the women themselves, shutting themselves in with an established attitude that somehow it’s Just Not Done to get yourself a license unless you can afford a car? What am I missing here, by being so thick skinned?

And , how long will I be here?
I confess to being a total and utter scaredy-cat at heart. Coming from a very sheltered background but being compelled by a fierce lust for independence to defiantly shake lose the caring shackles of my long suffering loved ones, I find myself nevertheless praying hard when I’m on the bike, discretely trying to ride as close to the drains as possible at a maximum speed of 25 kmph, praying that some large drunk bus wont make a meal of me as it races along on its deadly business. If my life were actually in my own hands it would be bearable, its not- its at the mercy of some hairy, godless, drunk semi literate third-world public transport driver out there who just may be having a Homicidal Negligence Day. Or perhaps I will be ridden over by one of the racing non governmental intellectuals in off roaders who criss cross Colombo with important agendas and are not only sloshed but have been breaking rest too, at the local Karaoke bars till 3 am…. Who knows? I just pray that it will be quick. Ce sara sara, or whatever. My nights, then are punctuated with disturbing visions, not exactly dreams and yet, not nightmares either ,of being gently put to sleep – merciful release in a sense, but of course there is that element of the unknown which appeals to the encaged adventurer in me: where would I go from here? And yet, my friends, you know why I do this?
I guess it’s because I can.

……………………………………………………………
/aka the Drain Rider chronicles
And that means, the Black Stallion in Spanish, which is what I have been trying to learn for the last 3 years, and haven’t really had the time for. Its on my to do list.

of antacids and Destiny

2007-07-29T23:51:00.000-07:00

In my thirty sixth year , so the planets dictate, I am to publish my first book. Now that’s big news I just cant ignore, as fanatical as I am about the whole subject of reading , books and the Written Word.
I have to then grudgingly acknowledge that many of the milestones in my humble life have in fact been previously dictated by the same bunch of nine regular suspects that affects everyone else only at a slightly different angle. Birth , Childhood illnesses, a fore doomed marriage and the exact number of offspring I will finally produce , you name it, the same set of interstellar gas balls was at the bottom of how they turned out.

I objected. I scoffed. For the last thirty six years I have successfully dismissed the entire lot of predications as the improbable , impossible rantings of ganga dazed tribal witch doctors (which for the most part they probably all were, except for my darling mum who is a qualified architect, and the best in her predictions) – but now I am forced to cringe at how diabolically accurate they all were.

About a fortnight ago, if I am correctly informed, Saturn shifted to the sign of Leo. Or some such thing. Personally I couldn’t give a fig leaf for where Saturn wants to park itself, but imagine my consternation when no less than five people I know met with accidents on that day( or perhaps this just says a lot for the type of company I keep?)
By bizarre coincidence I too have been plagued since that day, by vague but consistent discomfort in the middle region – more on that later.- apparently there are also other things I can look forward to:

My lord the Sun was generally in some house which gave me regular gastritis, my Lord Saturn was squeezed unceremoniously into some house with Venus and Mercury which meant they were all probably cramped for space and subsequently bad tempered, an that darling gentle satellite the Moon “conjectured” them and sat alone (probably laughing stupidly )across at a tangent on my Birth-chart, giving me my mildly autistic and half dazed disposition.
How could I ever hope to exercise free will over my destiny with such a formidable gaggle of cosmic debri out there to impose their effects on me and generally give direction to my life? I mean- what am I actually supposed to do?
Ill be good in what I study, they say…does this mean that I should study more? Or less? Or just relax and expect to pass by the will of Saturn? Or will I just want to study by default and pass because I happened to turn up for the exams?( I guess I wont be able to if I don’t turn up ,eh?)

Im a spender, it says, due to Kuja being in some place. Good, that means I shall have money( haven’t really seen any yet but one lives in hope) Since of course theoretically its impossible to spend unless you have the stuff (wwwwell, ok you can always spend on debt but that isn’t the same. Gulp. Lets not even go there.) Anyway I thought the whole point if earning was to spend –that would really add meaning to the whole concept of earning , right? Since if you actually had money that you didn’t spend, what exactly were you supposed to do with it? Wrap lunch? Wallpaper the drawing room? Or light bonfires on chilly November evenings?

Since it seemed like an accusation I must admit I kept trying not to. Spend that is. But then with the cost of living in Sri Lanka that’s not really easy. Even if you bank it you find that it’s been spent for you on bank charges, Withholding Tax and odd little penalties. …

Then there is my weak tummy: Im always being hit below the belt by this Shunny character and doubling up in agonies of gastritis although God only Knows I do not have worries (motto: hakuna matata-) nor am I a great fan of chillie( its ruddy expensive for one thing). Oh the Vedhas have a good explanation for this – nasty “heaty” planets in the place of my digestion. So its just me and my absurdly puny defense of a bottle of strawberry flavored antacid against some giant malicious fireball spinning inauspiciously against me some thirty million light years away. Bad show, I say- why don’t they pick on someone their own size?

And yet, destiny has it that I have a few friendly, positive giants on my side too. The Lord of the Rings is really out to teach me a lesson and not necessarily make my life a nightmare- so I will end up wiser and more decent and probably appreciate things I would otherwise have taken for granted. Like non gastric days. For example, how many of you have actually leaned back and sighed with pure happiness and thought, “what a lovely day - my digestive juices are staying down”? Jupiter will make me generous so that my spending will be on the less fortunate (so don’t look at me like I’m some sort of angel-) and Venus will force me to appreciate the beauty all around me (even in stinking Dematagoda- have you seen dew drops on a crow at dawn?) and finally that big gentle moon will keep me mildly unbalanced so that the incongruity of it all wont tax me too much….

Thirty six years after my birth chart was foisted on me, I finally believe in this whole bundle of waffle. I know I shouldn’t -I know its not logical or justifiable – that there is absolutely no basis for this (I mean they talk about the magnetic push from planets but then shouldn’t it affect us the same according to where we live?) but-

Even beginning to figure out the grandiose plan which directs the interlinking destinies of 6 billion humans and probably a thousand times that many non humans- would honestly tax my delicate grey matter beyond endurance.
So I’ve decided to accept what my astrologer says without questioning it and watch my first book come out, by co incidence in the same year foretold in 1971. I shall think of it as destiny. And if you enjoy reading what I write, perhaps you will think of it as something to look forward to. .

Little Peacock Dancer

2007-07-16T01:59:00.000-07:00

Stuttgart 2006 then, it is winter and I’m came watching the hippie art students paint on the cobbled streets holding brushes in mittened hands. The sun shines coldly in this beautiful ancient city of art and here I sit in a very modern hair salon with a haute-couture fashion magazine on my lap, listening to my favorite music on a marvelous little gadget I was given for my 30th birthday.

“The usual, Dr Rumenegge?” inquires the tomboy hair dressing assistant, by the way, and she knows I will nod. She begins to spray my hair with sweet smelling stuff and I settle into the comfort of being pampered and petted. I ask her about her degree, her mother, her latest companion.
This is my favorite place when it comes to getting my hair done and they know exactly how I like it – half way between lady Diana’s and Demi Moore, in the 80s, it’s a style that never becomes outdated : short, crisp and chic.

Business like hair, no nonsense hair because I am a modern woman in a world I have in the palm of my hand.
I studied, suceeded, met and married a brilliant Austrian professor and settled down with him in Stuttgart. I’m working in one of the city’s fore-most law firms, lecturing in Criminal Psychology, and I continue my dancing ; I have come where I never even dreamed I could and it has been an eventful journey but it began long ago in Sri Lanka. I wasn’t always Dr Rumenegge, I was a student of dance and my hair was longer then.
In dusty beautiful Jaffna a dozen years ago , my first name is Leelawathi, named after the brave Goddess Durga, and my hair then fell like a waterfall to my ankles; when the wind blew it would spread out behind me “like the tail of a peacock,” he would say , and I know that was what enchanted him most.

Jaffna 1995, one of those specially tense times in this war story-the Army had re-taken Jaffna, the Tigers were out for revenge, the streets were desperate and dangerous, we, my family and I, were refugees in an a large decrepit school building near the lagoon.

There had been a incident a few weeks back where in the thick of the war, the Army had started firing on this refugee camp too, tricked by teasing rebel strategy, an incident that may have resulted in a terrible tragedy had not one woman run out desperately with a white flag, into the line of fire.

Miraculously nothing had happened to her, and the shooting had ceased- her act had saved the lives of the refugees in the camp at the time. The woman was my mother and the act was typical of her recklessly daring spirit, she had given us all another chance to live, but we were on the edge of death and we desperately wanted to get away from this town of war.

I remember a numb state of panic, thinking this could not be happening, but it was.
My father, was a retired engineer and a man who had worked hard all his life to bring us to where we were. He could barely come to terms with the horror of having to live in a refugee camp in such basic conditions, we were not rich but we had middle class standards and as a family this was the lowest we had ever been. We were not beggars, we had our pride, we understood the state of the town but we were sinking with it and this was something we would do anything to get away from.

And I know he was worried out of his mind about the lack of safety for me and my little sister, in a city under siege. I was nineteen and I was worried about my puppies. Strange to have pets in a refugee camp where even people hardly got the bare necessities but by some strange concession we had been allowed to keep them , and they were tied up in corners howling and shivering and beaten when they made too much of a fuss, as puppies do, since they are not the priority in a time of siege. In retrospect I realise this was an absurd concession to be granted in such desperate times, but then I was too distracted to realise this. I remember standing on the second story hallways looking down into the school parade ground and crying, quietly, when I first noticed ..him.
Preoccupied as I was with my own grief, I took some time to realise then that this tall, handsome soldier seemed to be looking my way often and seemed to be around more than the rest, seemed to be more involved in the decisions shaping my life and my family’s destiny, for whatever reason, although he never spoke to me.

Perhaps in the circumstances this was wise because in the state we were in, I would have been heartily suspicious and terrified of any man, let alone an army captain, making conversation with me.
It is however an age old prerogative of the female to know when a man is tenderly interested in her and before too long I knew from his quiet smiles and from catching him looking my way ever so often, that he must definitely be enamoured with me. Yet, and perhaps thankfully in the circumstances, there was no communication, no advance, merely a kind, distant concern that followed my situation.

Within a couple of weeks then, arrangements had been made to transport our family out to Colombo. We would be escorted safely away from the war zone, an absurd concession in the circumstances and I knew that he had organized this, using whatever means he could, to obtain a safe getaway for me- my family and our possessions, down to the pet cocker spaniels were loaded onto an airforce airplane and we left one Sunday morning on a flight which would mark a bright new beginning for us all.

On my reaching Colombo and with a safe distance between us, the Captain decided it would be safe to talk to me, he called me from Jaffna one evening and put into words what I had suspected all along.
He was in love with me. He had been from the day he saw me on the stone balcony in the old school, and he had thought about me to distraction. But his life was ruled by a strict code of principles which he would not as a leader allow his subordinates to violate and neither would he bend them for himself. Firstly, he was a soldier with a mission and he could not afford to be in love.

He had, he said, thought about things carefully and he could not possibly take the risk that I would mistakenly reciprocate his feelings based on the power dynamics at play in a dangerous situation of siege, between a protector and a very vulnerable young refugee. So he had used his influence to send me safely away from him, given me wings so that I could escape from him and from the love that might perhaps be a mistake – without considering for a moment that I may feel for him too.

And that was when I knew that I truly had, but then it was sadly too late.

So in Colombo, that evening, in a moment of calm resolve, I took scissors to that hair and let it fall away from me, taking with it my innocence, my hopes and childlike dreams, to give way to new strength and determination. And so it has been since then.

My Top Seven Horrors of Modern Living

2007-07-12T01:42:00.000-07:00

My grandma was afraid of electric irons. Mortally afraid and simply because, she explained, they made clicking noises which she didn’t like. She spent years insisting on using polkatu irons, which are very quaint, and don’t click, I imagine. My youngest aunt is paranoid that people will hack her yahoo email and unravel her personal details; although one realistically wonders what levels of desperation would necessitate such intervention-I don’t really blame her the unease: the more we seem to evolve as a race and make things simple, the more difficulty we have in staying calm; apart from the recurrent nightmares of waking up with no broadband, I suffer from morbid modern phobias for :

Hotel Taps
Gone are those basic uncomplicated cold (blue) and hot (red) taps :the modern arrangement is a complex joy stick type of device which swivels on a plain of 360 degrees in four dimensions. To obtain water that is still constant at a humanly tolerable temperature you need to think laterally and out of the box while struggling to keep a vertical position ; it helps if you are a retired fighter pilot who regularly loops the loop while gunning down invaders. One slight mis judgement or accidental elbow jab and your poor defenceless behind gets well and truly broiled…

Office Printers
As a rule they get stuck when you are printing your CV on them , which everyone knows you shouldn’t be doing. They can also spew out a lot of strange sanskrit like coding when there is a room full of foreign delegates in a meeting waiting for the one little annexure you forgot to print. They can sometimes blink silently in sinister patterns of green and orange morse which could mean anything from a metallic “ the paper tray is empty ” to “we know what you printed last summer…”They would gang up with the xerox machine except for the fact that they thought it was below them. The latter knows it should get stuck when its replicating copies of your CV…

Microwave Ovens
So either your food is cold and the container is sizzling and making crinkling noises - or it’s the other way around. The result is generally unsatisfactory. I also suspect some microwaves try to influence us subliminally and make up cruel and unnatural experiments we could be doing with the neighbours cat. Something this small and powerful has just got to be evil…and there is a host of stuff you really shouldn’t be microwaving but somehow, in the name of science, it begs to be done. Like damp gym shoes…. Old CDs to see what will happen. Is it our plain scientific curiosity or do they make you do things you shouldn’t? Spooky…

Celphones
Uhh where do I start… apart from giving you a major headache and an awful lot of interference on your equipment they are rumored to cause brain tumors and did I forget to mention that guys are not supposed to store them between their legs while driving. And have you noticed that they invariably do? Reason? Its easily accessible. Yeah , right. How do we know what kind of human race we will have mutated into after twenty years of having these things sticking with us? I mean- there’s no previous experience with them, is there?

Laptops
We know there’s an Intel inside but just how safe it is, is the question…The idea was that they should be portable. Next thing you know –they need power, a modem cable and there’s a mouse extension. And you can always drop coffee on them , trip over those cables or just lose them in a taxi. Chose your worry. Even if insurance handles your problems what about losing all that data? Yeech.

Elevators
Could the guy who got in with you alone, be a stalker? Will the thin cable holding up this ton of steel be strong enough to take all the definitely overweight looking people who got on board (after all they didn’t get on scales before they heaved themselves on-) and last and definitely worst of all , will the doors clamp on your shoulders as you struggle to get out.? Could you live with the sheer embarrassment of it all?

And last but not least- Escalators
Im not exactly what you’d define as a gameh-latha, and yet escalators honestly turn my stomach. At what point are you supposed to jump on to them? Will your floppy bata slippers get stuck among one of those realigning steps, bringing things to a grinding halt and making the entire establishment lose power? Who will you call if so? (perhaps you should just forget your slipper and run away genuinely hoping for once, that prince charming is no where around) - What happens when you get to the end of it , if you just do nothing? will it help if you jumped into the air at the last minute when you are getting off ? And how can you calculate the exact moment? Has anyone else noticed how petrified you are about this? And so on and so fourth…

If you spend valuable time thinking about these scares, and trying discretely to avoid them, trust me, you are not the only one. Quite a few of us just grin and bear them too. Now you know.

local governance week

2007-07-12T01:31:00.000-07:00

good local governance is apparently the in thing,the hot topic,the absolute buzz word these days- if you dont attend one of those seminars -take a look at what you are missing :

" we came at 5 but no one called us so we didnt know the seminar had started - thats why we missed yesterdays sessions " PS lady looking fresh as a rose, surfacing from her hotel room on morning of Day Two and asking for the publications she had missed

" Working group? um, we missed that ...we went for a walk.-just got back: sorry " Deputy Mayor dude and male colleague when i asked them how the working group had gone (at 11 am on day two mind you - )(going for a walk with another guy? how sad can you get?)

"This loch ness monster fellow, is he dangerous ? " one senior LA representative trying to chat up Ian, the intern from Scotland...(this is the same guy who went for a walk with the Deputy mayor -Ian,watch out)

and last but not least Deputy Mayor trying to make polite small talk when I said I was the CPA librarian...
" I once knew a librarian ; unfortunatley he died: Last year."

.....

Chatty heads for Ampara

2007-06-14T00:06:00.000-07:00

From a rather unexpected source, Chatty learns three little tricks, which definitely helped make one marriage work

I have a clay water jar in my kitchen and whenever I see it I remember a long journey and a special and interesting character I met.
About two month’s back, in the course of duty I was instructed to visit Ampara which since I hardly get the chance to travel was a thrill to even contemplate. Ive seen many photographs of this dusty outback territory and these always seem to give the impression of stubborn survival amongst rather desperate odds and a desolate environment. I have sat and painted the barren landscapes and dusty ruins I saw in some photos and I really wanted to see those places for myself. Names like Ninthavur and Sainthamaruthu have, to my thinking, a wonderfully exotic ring to them, and I had practiced rolling them off my tongue while writing (admittedly arm chair based) progress reports from Colombo : so I really wanted to experience the dust, heat and live action of awesome Ampara, first hand.
First came the usual administrative hurdles of sanctioning a decent set of wheels, a cool laptop (with wireless mind you!), an old Canon digital camera, and last but not least a willing driver ** and then my hurdles of packing phone charger, biscuits, cotton clothes, extra cotton undies, and all the other luxuries that must accompany a fastidious Colombo lady on her way out to stark barren wilderness, as I thought… I had also put a stop to any interference from my own relations into where I go, with the blunt reminder that traffic in Colombo is statistically more dangerous than anything that could happen to me in Kalmunaikudy…
So there ahead of me was a trip of about 7 or 8 hours (in a excellent vehicle I must admit, one of those large off road things with humongous antennas, in case we need to radio for help from Headquarters) with nothing much to do except gossip, which fortunately I’m very good at and it turned out my capable driver cum guide cum entertainer was quite good at it too.
He was a bright cheerful character of, I estimate, around his mid to late thirties, with an attractive smile and a very honest and inquisitive personality. About an hour into the trip he knew all about my family, my educational qualifications, my general philosophies in life and thanks to how much of a dedicated gossip I am, my marital status( viz happily divorced) . This is not information I give out easily because it sometimes brings out the worst in people – but here I was trusting this cheeky pint sized guy and leaving myself open to analysis and judgment and not really feeling too worried about this…I have no idea why.
There was something about this guy, a perpetual smile of tranquility and contentment that made me relax around him, something that I don’t find in many of my acquaintances…a chippy cheerful bounce to his step and a jolly chuckle to his laugh that is not easy to find.
He had, he said, been married for a dozen years or thereabouts. He had two children a girl and a baby boy. The salary paid monthly was not enough for himself, the wife and two kids, so honestly financing life was difficult. But they had discussed things and agreed that he should not work too much overtime, because being with the family was more important.
“We have a law in our family – on Sundays we go out. We don’t spend much, but bike to the park or to the beach and sit around eating ice cones and talking, all of us. I don’t let anything interfere with that.”
Not buddies, not work , not relations?
“Its our family time, its important.” He nodded. “and I have a trick where I make money keep us together too,” he said carefully. “you see, all my income goes direct to the bank and can only be taken by me through the ATM and my wife keeps track of this,”
I asked for a further explanation on how that helped in the relationship.
“You see, then she knows what I’m up to. You see, I’m a Normal Guy,” he shrugged as though it was an incurable affliction he was referring to - “ as such I can easily be tempted to get up to any kind of mischief just like any guy. We are just humans! But too much straying is not possible if my cash flow is monitored. And I welcome that kind of monitoring. It helps me keep to the path that Ive decided to take, which is to be a good husband and a proper dad.”
“ So she controls your expenditure.”
“I have insisted she do so. I appreciate it when she tries to economise for the sake of our family and I love it when she involves herself in the day I have spent. We were talking about this in the drivers mess, and the guys were laughing at me saying I was a real kandeya for allowing my wife to control my money…but I asked them if they thought they were the Real Cool, getting themselves sozzled with liquor and wasting money they could give their kids on dissolute women….”he chuckled. “.Well- .I don’t think so,”
Neither, by gum did I ,to be honest.
“But come on, what’s wrong with a little fun once in a way?” I asked him.
“Yes, once a week or so after a lot of hard work, I go out for a beer with the boys, and she knows about it and she just smiles and says ‘enjoy yourself” ”he smiled cheerfully….
I was honestly impressed. So here was a barely literate local chap from the village who had figured out what even double degree holders in the modern day and age didn’t know: the meaning of family and how to make it work for you! I felt a small pang of regret too, that among all the educated, sophisticated johnnies I knew there didn’t seem to be even one with this basic down to earth EQ that this guy had…!I needed to think and to play my Enigma CDs to really get out of that mood I was in, and this is how we traveled up to Kandy where we were supposed to have lunch and pick up another officer..
At this point , as is usual in life , the unexpected happened and we were radioed news that a bomb had gone off in a bus in Ampara and it just may be insecure to go in right then. We were advised very seriously to turn back the mission, and I remember we picked up my other colleague and went for a very mediocre lunch in a tiny road side kiosk, before turning back to Colombo.
This was a sizeable disappointment to me after all the planning Id done. But that wasn’t the end to the day’s adventure. On the way back we just had to stop at one of those colorful roadside clay pot joints which sold vases, water pots, door chimes and all manner of lovely fired clay items. I had the idea that I might as well buy something to remember this trip with and I had always wanted a gurulettuwa *** so that’s what I got, (after considerable haggling with the clay store owner who wanted to charge international rates based on the size of our borrowed land-cruiser !).
Our driver smiled sheepishly and bought a small clay vase which he said he knew his wife would like. It may have cost about 100 rupees, but then I knew that it would mean a lot to this lucky woman- it meant he had thought of her…
Well, alak and alas I never did get to see Ampara!
But the trip was certainly not a waste of time and will not fade from my memory easily: I had a laid back Sunday cruising our beautiful country and I spoke to a wonderful and cheerful character who somehow gave me back some faith in an institution I had totally given up on.- that of marriage!
And so while there are sunny types like that around, I guess we womenfolk still have hope!

* Her real name. Not to be confused with the powerful, serious stateswoman of the same name, this one is a little younger and generally more giggly.
**Not all of them think the possibility of being caught in cross fire and shelling out there, is exciting and bloggable,– they have families to feed and so on
*** traditional clay water cooler.

THE REST OF THE STORY

2007-06-13T03:56:00.000-07:00

is available at
http://www.dailymirror.lk/sections/supp/w@w/120607/03.asp

some people have told me they could not stop thinking about this story for days, it had moved them so deeply.

Shores of Another Sea

2007-06-06T02:01:00.000-07:00

I will not forget Dieter, in many ways he made me who I am. .

He was different, so different and although he touched my life only comparatively briefly, he made impressions that will never be lost. To say that I owe a lot of what I learnt in life to him, would not be enough. I owe him my life.

Christmas Day 2004. When I was at home by the beach ,in Matara, with my father and Dieter, they would be discussing philosophy as usual, and I would sit watching their faces at the dinner table , listening not to the words but to the comforting cadence of their tones.

Dieter was soon to leave our country, to go back to his own, to gracefully relinquish a dream that could have been, because we knew it should not. Dieter was leaving me tomorrow and we knew this.
We loved each other, we knew this, but we had never spoken about this. There would be too much upheaval caused in the lives of the people I loved. He did not want to cause this. Although I was his student in a language and in his way of thinking too, and I had learnt well about his culture and he about mine , there still would be obstacles too difficult to overcome when it came to the reactions of my people . He did not wish to cause problems to anyone, no matter how right it seemed to us. And I could not hurt my beloved parents.
Somehow the beach has always been therapy to me. It is where I go to cry, to sing, to think, to dance. On the 25th , it was where we went to spend a final evening together, and it was a beautiful evening that I will never forget. We walked that day, over wooden bridges to a place among the islets where an ancient and ruined Buddhist monastery stood surrounded by the waves. It was a place of ordaining monks - a place of peace among the crashing surf. A moment of nostalgia, of the end of an era and hope for a new one. We hung on to every minute of this last evening of ours , made it count because we knew it would be our last together, possibly for ever.
There is a church in the area , no less than a hundred years old, beautiful and white among the sand.
I knew that he would want to go to church, and he knew that the child in me wanted to play in the carnival. It was an ancient, creaking merry go round on the beach, but that was something Ive always wanted to do, playful and lighthearted as it sounds, and somehow I had to smile this last evening. And to make him smile
That night after dinner we decided that we would leave for Colombo in the morning.
I remember waking at about 7.30 preparing some tea for my father and our guest, and telling them it was better to leave as early as we could. My uncle who lived next door was walking about with some bananas that he had just cropped and agreed to drop us at the bus halt in his wonderful old Hilman. He would have gone to the market later in the morning but since he was taking us there, he finished his marketing early and returned home safe we heard.
It has always baffled me how very mundane decisions or distractions can mean the difference between life and death. Do people realise that the two minutes they lingered to kiss a loved one goodbye could mean the difference between catching or missing the train that takes you to your death? Just how much of our action is our own free will and how much of it is predestined?
I remember that bus, it was the everyday air conditioned inter-city Rosa bus you see racing along the Galle road routes. We had very little in the way of luggage and our bus began its trip at 8.35am . I settled back into the seat to read a little book of verses, the curtains were half shut against the lovely blazing sunlight of that Ceylon Morning, and I remember thinking how strangely relaxed I was feeling although I was heartbroken that I was losing him.
Eight minutes into this journey it began hazy and unreal like a nightmare that you cannot grasp.
People talking , then shouting , then keening in panic, and through the wind-screen in front the sight that met our disbelieving eyes was something simply out of this world. A part of the ocean seemed to have lifted itself vertically up towards the skies, like a great shimmering , judgmental wall of death and was racing in towards us . The breath struck in my throat and I could not speak.
(End of part one)

why we get bombed all over these days-

2007-06-05T04:34:00.000-07:00

from wikipedia, a simplified explaination of what happened, in case any of us have forgotton..

Rajapaksa offers less autonomy than Wickremasinghe to the northeast, home to most of Sri Lanka's 3.2 million ethnic Tamils. His narrow victory was arguably engineered by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) who want Tamil Eelam to be an independent country. The LTTE boycotted the election, thereby preventing thousands of Tamils from voting, and so Wickremasinghe, whose election promises included a Federal state to the North and East, from taking power.

thoughtprovoking to say the least. makes you wonder what would have happened if the LTTE had not done what they had done...perhaps we would all have gotton SOMEWHERE?instead of goin round and round ?

I hate being elboobed..*.

2007-05-29T02:26:00.000-07:00

thats when some large oily female sits next to you in the bus and excavates for change in her humongous purse, all the while digging you in the boobs with her elbow. She stoicly pretends she has no idea of the substantial mammary irritation she is causing, and the search for change, is followed by a search for a kerchief, or for that mobile phone etc etc . I used to think that, that sort were frustrated lesbians , but it cant be since it has happened to me so MANY TIMES! Guys are way better because 1) when they reach for their wallets they side swivel out of their seats and avoid too much contact and 2) you can hit them if you want...

* the term ELBOOB is copyright Urban Dictionary

knox never tried eating a kabaraya, I guess

2007-05-24T05:57:00.000-07:00

"There is a Creature here called Kobberaguion, resembling an Alligator. The biggest may be five or six feet long, speckled black and white. He lives most upon the Land, but will take the water and dive under it: hath a long blew forked tongue like a sting, which he puts forth and hisseth and gapeth, but doth not bite nor sting, tho the appearance of him would scare those that knew not what he was. He is not afraid of people, but will ly gaping and hissing at them in the way, and will scarce stir out of it. He will come and eat Carrion with the Dogs and Jackals, and will not be scared away by them, but if they come near to bark or snap at him, with his tayl, which is about an Ell long like a whip, he will so slash them, that they will run away and howl. This Creature is not eatable."

Robert Knox from - An Historical Relation of Ceylon

crux s ....new from Yamaha

2007-05-23T06:17:00.001-07:00

below is a pic of my new set of wheels. and this is a real bike at last. Yamaha Crux S to be precise. Ive never experianced something like this before .... this thing seems to have a life of its own and Im very bad at shifting gears... I practiced a bit on my road yesterday and the natives all took their kids indoors /stray dogs disappeared-

controversial letter...

2007-05-22T22:30:00.000-07:00

The Most Reverend Rowan Williams
Archbishop of Canterbury

By telefax to: 44.20.7261.1765 and 44.20.7898.1369

Most Reverend Sir:

International Educational Development (IED) and the Association of Humanitarian Lawyers (AHL) write to express our profound shock over your comment of 11 May 2007 that “surgical military actions against terrorism should take place” in Sri Lanka. Besides evincing opprobrious ignorance of humanitarian law, this comment will surely encourage Sri Lankan President M. Rajapakse in his genocidal assault on the Tamil people in Sri Lanka, and, in turn will forward the geopolitical interests of the United States and other international actors who eye the port of Trincomalee, the airfield at Palaly and the exploitation of resources in the Tamil part of the island.

Sinhala policies have oppressed the Tamil people from the day the British flag was lowered and the Tamils were taken by surprise when the new flag was raised featuring the Sinhala lion. Early protests by the Tamil leadership fell on deaf ears, and the Sinhala majority and their political leaders began an all-out assault on the basic rights of the Tamil people from that ominous day. After more than thirty years of negotiations and peaceful protests failed to improve the situation, the Tamils began talking of severing their area from the Sinhala part of the island and forming their own militias to protect themselves. In 1983, severely shaken by the 1983 massacre of Tamils by Sinhala mobs, the largest of the militias, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), began a full fledged war that, except for intermittent periods, has continued to rage. This armed conflict is fully governed by all applicable rules of humanitarian law, and the combatants in this war, as in any war, are allowed to have land, sea, and air forces and to carry out military operations. Our organizations have been involved with monitoring this war since we first addressed the United Nations human rights expert body about it in August 1983.

Armed conflict is not terrorism. People still have the right under international law to resist oppression and racist regimes. The right to use force as a last resort to achieve freedom and restore human rights is fully protected. What is allowed for Kosovans is allowed for Tamils. While we always regret when any situation deteriorates to the point of war, we can attest that the Tamils clearly had the right to use force long before they actually resorted to it.

The LTTE, the only current resistance force of the Tamil people, is not a terrorist organization. This does not mean that one is siding with the LTTE in the armed conflict or that one has to “like” the LTTE (or the Tamils for that matter); it merely recognizes the obvious -- a war has broken out -- and places review of that war properly under the humanitarian law regime. As should be patently obvious, terrorist organizations, unlike the LTTE, are not in military uniforms, do not carry out military operations using the instrumentalities and materiel of armed conflict, do not control territory, and usually do not even have an identifiable chain of command. We are well aware that the term “terrorist organization” has been applied to the LTTE by the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union, but this has been to forward a political agenda, is not in conformity with applicable humanitarian law and is clearly wrong on its face.[1] Many legislators, experts, and human rights and humanitarian law organizations, including our own, have protested this false, politically-motivated designation.[2]

We understand that some, if not many, are confused by the terms, in part because of the purposeful obfuscation by the United States in its operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and at Guantanamo, and by its desire to be able to decide at will who is a “freedom fighter” and who is a “terrorist” based on its own interests -- as it has since World War II. We also understand that most ordinary people are intimidated by the labeling. However, we would expect that a person of your stature, traveling in a country at war, on a mission that you claim was to help bring peace to the island, would know better. Instead you contributed to the orchestrated confusion and, even worse, openly sided with the Sinhala in the Tamil/Sinhala war. This is reinforced by the fact that you did not visit the Tamil areas. We wonder if you even asked to.

Perhaps the worst outcome of your remark is that it fosters the notion that the Geneva Conventions and the laws and customs of war do not apply to this war and makes the dire situation of the Tamil victims of this war far worse. The government has clearly taken advantage of the lack of international review of this war using applicable humanitarian law to carry out serious war crimes with apparently no fear of international consequences: attacks on hospitals, children’s schools, churches, camps for internally displaced, villages and towns and aid workers; wholesale disappearances and murders of Tamil civilian; the denial of food and medicines for the Tamil civilian population due to blockades; -- to name a few -- receive little or no mention.[3] Those who dare ask about the fate of Tamil civilians are instantly attacked by the Sri Lankan authorities for supporting “terrorism.” The government of Sri Lanka has even backed the United Nations Human Rights Council and its mechanisms into a corner, making a laughing stock of them and threatening to destroy human rights systems carefully built up since 1948.

We are not aware of remarks you may have made privately to the Sri Lanka authorities, so it may be that you spoke candidly, if not forcefully, about the need to reopen all ground routes to allow food and medicine to all Tamils in the North and East or about the need to cease bombing civilian targets, or the need to call off the “white vans” that scoop up Tamils every day, or the need to allow full humanitarian aid to all victims of the armed conflict, or the need to allow proper monitoring of the situation, and other highly pertinent topics. We would certainly hope so. However, the fact remains that you made a highly offensive public comment for which the international community, especially the Tamil people, needs a full apology. The Tamil people were clinging to a ray of hope in their ordeal for their rights, but instead received cruel disillusionment. We also expect before your next “peace” mission to a war torn area you study the conflict well in advance, and bring along texts with the rules of humanitarian law.

We also send you a copy of our letter to the United Nations Special Advisor to the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in light of the situation of Tamils. We are happy to provide other pertinent material we have submitted to the United Nations if you so request.

Yours most sincerely,

Karen Parker, JD
Chief delegate of IED to UN
Co-Founder and President, AHL

[1] Under current United States “definitions,” Ethan Allan and the Green Mountain Boys and, indeed, even George Washington’s Continental Army would be terrorist organizations and the Boston Tea Party a terrorist act.
[2] We note, that in spite of the repeated use of the term “terrorists” by Sri Lankan officials when referring to the LTTE, and the governments active role in seeking a “terrorist” label by other States, the government has not officially labeled the LTTE as a terrorist organization.
[3] Please note that under the Statute and Elements of the International Criminal Court, restricting food and medicines for the civilian population is part of the crime of extermination. See ICC, Rome Statute, Articles 7 (1)(b) and 7(2)(b); ICC Elements, Article 7(1)(b).

ISABELLE VER.01

2007-05-17T19:35:00.000-07:00

And so, since all stories must have a beginning, my life story probably starts with a wonderful ancestor, grandma Isabelle.
Now if that name makes you think of sweet, genteel colonial ladies with delicate fans, parasols and elbow length white gloves, partaking of “Tiffin” or groping tremulously for their smelling salts, let me bust the bubble because Grandma Isabelle was, well – different. *
I remember her looking sternly at me over her thick spectacles and saying “are you wearing decent knickers, child? Otherwise if the skirt goes up people will laugh- big shame, no”
I remember looking back at her blinking speechlessly and nodding humbly “yes, nana” ; I dare say your own grandma probably told you stuff like this too, when you were a kid, but the difference here was probably that I was 30 at the time, and had come to visit her, riding a small Indian Yamaha, without a valid license. …(gulp!)
And she boasted of language that could out-swear the hairiest drunkest Pettah naatami and was not afraid to use it. Words like thoe, yakoe, and bung, and rolled off her tongue with as much dubious ease as the lyrics of Shakespearean verse, Edelweiss and old Nat King Cole numbers…She conscientiously objected to the Dickmans road cripple who made oodles of money just by hobbling around the posh Prados passing through that junction, so she would spend mornings dutifully insulting him from her baloney for being such a low down parasite…
Grandma Isabelle was maybe a tad over five foot high and as light as a thistle but ate like a marine, and knew how to enjoy life to the fullest. I remember she loved anything packaged in England (peaches, tarts, wheetabix) for the same reason that children do, that its bright , flavorful and generally not locally available, and she would cheerfully guzzle chocolates, fig biscuits and apple tarts with a devil may care “to hell with the diabetes” attitude.(Blood sugar, predictably, didn’t dare to rear its ugly head and try cramping her style, because I suspect she would have told it to go take a hike)
My art, writing and sense of esthetics I believe I owe to her side of the family and she taught me, I remember, how to paint ostriches in the African Savannah. I can still mix the exact color of an ostriches butt feathers which are a “bluish greenish black with a slight touch of yellow in it for depth”.
It was later on that I actually learned that Colombo’s“Morotuwa” people are somewhat famous for the arts, (art, music, sculpting and writing ) and that “down south” people sometimes don’t really value this much because they are way more practical in useful talents like cooking and making broods of exemplary offspring…intermarry these two and there will always be gentle disdain from both sides about what the other cant do.
Grandma Isabelle’s favorite movie was “Colamba Sanniya”(Coming Sweet) which although I have never seen in my life, I have listened with delight to detailed accounts of, since I was 7 and thus can actually picture clearly in my minds eye, right down to the white scratch marks on the movie.
The hero was (played by?) Freddie or Eddie Someone who won a lottery as the story was repeated to me on torpid tropical Ceylon afternoons, which along with my love for ambul bananas, large Marie biscuits(no longer produced) and good Ceylon tea, makes me now realize how ancient I must be…it is classic 1950s style comedy about some village godeyaars** who win a luxury house in Colombo that they don’t know what to do with. Around the point where they start doing their laundry in the water closet, grandma falls into numerous staged microsleeps and I have to start prodding her for the balance.

Its tough when you have not much control over your life, and have to listen to “good” advice from people 40 years younger than you. So by 90 and definitely as part of a complex counter plan, Grandma Isabelle developed a Strategic Wheeze which she could produce when things weren’t going to her liking, such as when anyone suggested a healthful after dinner walk or any such physical exercise…or a visit to the dentist…monthly checkups… etc
She also had a distinctly selective and very volatile memory, something computer junkies would have called “Need Only Memory” because she remembered things only if they suited her, and otherwise resorted to a an extremely blank and innocent expression of pleasant non recognition which she had perfected down the years.
So questions like “ would you like another piece of angel cake ?” would be met by a carefully worded “ what angel cake ? did I just eat a piece?” which meant of course but don’t tell anyone I ll be having two. That face was also used when reminded of old correspondence she should be replying to.

I don’t believe Nana worried about death at all, even thought she was past 90 when it got her. Although she sometimes discussed passing concerns like globalisation, deforestation and whether young Tushi was having an unsuitable affair in her office , she accepted inevitable eventualities like illness and mortality with the calm don’t care attitude of a tattooed underworld thug.
In fact quite predictably, she went down singing and joking all the way and her last recorded words where actually a cracked old baila very loosely translated as “shall I tell you of the love I have for you? In the afternoon come to the bathing pipe-and ill tell you”.
Nana was a happy rebel in her age, like I am in mine. My mother is comparatively a very normal, mainstream and ladylike character and so is my daughter, so I guess this weirdness skips generations.
They say that each person will somewhere be duplicated in her ancestry or among her descendents, and if so I do wonder if I will someday have a pixie faced, happy go lucky tomboy of a grand or great grand daughter, who will write about me.
If so she’s forgiven in advance….

………………………………………
* This sort of explains me, but not fully
** Pardon the haughty colonial expression

domestic available -good credentials

2007-05-08T22:54:00.000-07:00

Now you know how difficult it is to find a good domestic in Colombo. ..the paradox is that there are so many poor folks out there looking for a job but they just dont seem to get the right linkage..Kalyani is looking for a job as a domestic - she says she can look after kids , keep the place clean that sort of thing shes asking about 7,500/- a month (negotiable)
She has experiance working for a family in Bahrain, and lives in Kirrillewela , in her own house. Shes married and has three sons ,and she can only work as a daily help- from 8-5 pm
... you want more info about her please write to me

CRICKET IS EVIL

2007-04-30T05:54:00.000-07:00

all about the bad side to Cricket
Wait a minute! There is one? Yup, Im afraid there is – just as much as there is a bad side to anything and I actually went deep into thought on the subject last Saturday night.
Have you noticed there is nothing like electricity cut to get one really philosophical? It’s the sudden withdrawal of constant media overload , that abrupt silencing of soap, sausage and posh car adverts and the compulsory return to nature which drags us protesting back to the stone age*, where hairy cavemen sat huddled around wood firelight worrying about what might be lurking beyond it - last Saturday this was excellently simulated in Kolonnawa and the resident mozzies found poor Al sitting in pitch darkness at 3 am in the morning in heavy humid torpor listening in horror to the distant rat a tat of something that just could not have been crackers (duh, we were losing according to sonny boy, whom I consulted for updates from his squeaky portable pocket radio from Pettah) .
Along with vague but serious anxieties that the country was being taken over by armed rebels, SMS-ed rumous that Colombo was under siege and that doomsday was nigh, I was also subconsciously formulating a solid case against cricket, and now that I have my broadband back I can actually put it into words and on line.
For a start, I might as well admit, shockingly, that I am not a cricket fan, and have never been able to sit still long enough to understand what all those guys are trying to achieve running about with little white balls. It looks like something that only mad-dogs and Englishmen would want to do and I cant for the life of me understand why anyone would continue to submit to this torture once the cloying mantle of colonial coercion had been withdrawn.
But they do, and not only the team (bless their cotton socks, they seem like decent enough chaps!) but the spectators-at least in my estimate 65 % of our population who are mad about cricket are willing to put career, family, romance, peace and indeed anything aside just to fixate on this game, not just while its being played but to watch the re runs , spend hours afterwards analyzing it and if that’s not enough they will read about it too in the papers and write home about it just in case anyone has missed a single ball .
Lets start with the effect on the economy:
So for a poor third world country if you do the maths ,the reason we are extremely poor even if we are a happy bunch ,may possibly be traced to the fact that we have more holidays than anyone else, and to the estimated effect of just one fairly interesting game of cricket on the local GDP
The mathematics works out like this 20 million people x 65 % x two working days =Rs 13 Billion (because the average manual laborer can make 500 a day and here I have taken minimums- if you are a doctor who earns 10000/= a day well, do enjoy your holiday because its expensive) Electricity consumed to watch and analyze the game – do get these horrible stats from the CEB but Im sure its nothing less than Rs 2 Billion-so total at a minimum 15 billion loss to the country from one game of cricket. Probably more than our politicians can swindle us out of in a month of corruption and being really immoral! (two working days comes from : 8 hours for the game, 4 hours for the drunken stupor afterwards + 4 hours discussing and anazlysing and another 2 hours writing home about it -like Im doing now . Also note Saturday and Sunday in middle class Sri Lanka, as many of you will accede, are days we often work harder than the weekdays )
Then there’s the effect on Family life.
The average couple returns from work , the guy takes to the tv cos its his day. The kids are running about unwashed, possibly in the process of developing the addiction, ignoring their homework. The mom of the house has enough steam coming out of her ears, to pressure cook a village-chicken. She will need to stay up till 1 am just to get the housework done and the rest of the family is in a trance, where you cant get a coherent response from them. Trust me there will be repercussion. I don’t need to tell you all of this – you see it in your homes often enough haven’t you ?
The effect on romance
Same as above. What was that saying again, when poverty knocks ,love flies out the window? Well , when poverty and cricket knock , homicidal rage sneaks in too. Hence the bashed televisions, women with black eyes and occasional suicides during cricket season-and this even when we are winning!
The effect on peace and camaraderie
Well, until Saturday I thought there was a positive effect on general peace in the country what with everyone gathering if not around the negotiating table, at least around the flat-screen at the same time, cheering in unison for the same multi-ethnic bunch.
This lovely thought used to bring a warm fuzzy feeling to me and a tear to my eye, not to mention an emotional twitch. But alas the effect is now irreversibly spoiled by the realization that there are probably unexploded ordinances in the canal behind our house, and that what happened last Sunday was just not cricket! So apart from the loss to the economy of my estimated 15 billion, the other lesson learned would probably be that one has to be more paranoid than usual during matches, if such is possible**….so cricket simply increases tension , if that is possible , for the already stressed sentinels who guard our perimeters…that’s a truly sobering thought any day.
But what about how happy it makes people?
Yes, indeed, and there you have it , this is probably why Sri Lanka although poor by economic standards may nevertheless be quite high on the unofficial Happiness Index. That is why I have decided to quit being so grinchy about it and try and figure out what its all about so that if I cant beat them, I can at least join them next time and share in the fun!

After all , cricket may be evil but that certainly doesn’t mean you shouldn’t enjoy it !!!
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
* Or at least the kerosene age
** and Im not going to even begin to comment about the international signed balls controversy because the gurus have already been there and done that. Do write in and give me al l the good reasons why I should join the leagues of the cricket crazy

ayyo madam

2007-04-28T22:10:00.000-07:00

so Where exactly were these bombs? well, according to the testimoney of local Wellampitiya ear witness Kusumawathi* "ayyo madam honda welaawata api beruney. Light niwwe nisa unta tena hoyaganna barry vela , apey geval pitipasse wela ta vatilane bomba tika."
Losely translated – thank goodness we alive madam lights off so tigers not finding oil corporation and dropping boms on canal behind our house and we scared (to death ?)

* http://aljuharawrites.blogspot.com/2006/10/domestic-bliss-kusumawathie-files.html

3000 left, and dwindling....

2007-04-24T02:03:00.001-07:00

Is the very move - relocating elephants in the national parks - aimed at protecting these majestic animals killing them? Kumudini Hettiarachchi reports on a visit to the
Lunugamvehera National Park where elephants appear to be dying of starvation.
Are elephants starving to death? Not outside but in the very place they have been driven to in the name of protection and safety - the Lunugamvehera National Park.

Several of the elephants, about 250 herded into the Lunugamvehera Park, under two phases of an elephant drive that began in 2005, may have died for lack of food, resulting in malnourishment and disease, The Sunday Times learns, after a visit to the area this week. What will be the fate of the remaining elephants, considering that the dry season is just starting?

"I saw three elephants dead in the park," says T.A. Ajith Kumara, 18, who lives just outside the
boundary, explaining that their carcasses were by the bund of the Lunugamvehera tank, in the jungle.

Giving a time period of one and a half months, just after the tank reached spill level, he says
others in his village have seen another eight or ten dead elephants.

Recently, the elephants were always near the electric fence, put up at the boundary, but they
are no longer here because wanajeevi (wildlife) people have cut a massive drain, he says,
pointing to a large swathe of earth churned up by bulldozers.

A long stretch of the park off the Wellawaya-Tissamaharama Road is now barricaded not only by the electric fence but also this deep drain. At night, the fence is guarded by wildlife
officials from temporary cadjan-thatched open huts. The fence is also hung with small kerosene
containers which are lit at night to keep the elephants beyond and within the park itself.

Ajith says recently he counted more than 150 maha evun and pataw (big ones and babies) one night, adding that some elephants had wounds and rashes and most of them were godak kettu (very thin).
"Some of them who used to come with babies later came alone, most probably the babies may have died," he says, explaining that wanajeevi people come in regularly to treat the elephants, when informed.

"Even last night, I saw a very big cow elephant with a baby that was thin and weak," says Ajith
while his mother and brother confirm that even wanajeevi people have mentioned that the
elephants do not have enough food in the park.
The elephants also fight each other, with most confrontations occurring between the resident
park elephants and those who have been brought in.

A short walk into the park through an opening in the electric fence left for the fresh-water
fishermen to have access to the Lunugamvehera tank comes as an eye-opener.

The land is already parched and this is only the beginning of the dry season which would extend up to the end of September. The only scrub left without being touched are those that cannot be
eaten by the elephants. The andara (thorny) bushes, the fodder of elephants, have all been stripped to the core.

Several kilometres away, in their home, with the main road on one side and the electric fence of
the Lunugamvehera Park on the other, husband-wife W.K. Anurasiri and H.G. Dayawathie are only too willing to explain the plight of the elephants while also pointing out that Wildlife Department officials are trying to do their best amidst many problems.

"Yes, the elephants don't have anything to eat and we have been feeding them kehel bada through the fence," says Anurasiri, blaming the shortage of food within on the people who are using the area as grazing grounds for large herds of cattle which add up to many thousands.

The cattle eat up all the grass on the tank bed, leaving nothing for the elephants. Then the
elephants attempt to breakthrough the electric fence and forage for food in the villages close
by. That's the problem in this area. When the electric fence is on, the thin and gaunt
elephants walk up and down along the fence looking for food, waiting for whatever we can give them, he says.

"We heard of the deaths of three elephants within about a month very recently. We need elephants. Do you know that in the Maha we cultivators know that it is going to rain in about six-seven days when the elephants get together and keep trumpeting for a while," he says, also pointing a finger at the fishermen who frequent the tanks inside the park for disturbing elephant habitat.

His views are echoed by many in the area including Kusuma Senarath Abeywardena, who runs
the family boutique along the Wellawaya-Tissamaharama Road, close to the park.

All wildlife officials The Sunday Times spoke to declined to confirm or deny whether elephants
were dying of starvation in the park.
What has gone wrong at Lunugmavehera? Is this a problem only at this park or is it reflected
elsewhere in places such as Yala and Wilpattu, where elephants have been driven and imprisoned? Should Sri Lanka continue with elephant drives to collect these animals from areas that are their birthright and then put them into parks where already there is a resident elephant population?

Several wildlife officials told The Sunday Times that the department maybe rethinking its policy about elephant drives in the light of new developments.

"What can we do?" questioned one, explaining that the moment there are one or two incidents with elephants, there is a lot of pressure from people and politicians to "do something" about it, with
strong signals that the elephants should be removed from those areas.

The Sunday Times understands that under the drive conducted last year, elephants from forests around the left bank of the Walawe, mostly Forest department lands, covering more than 350 sq km. were herded to Lunugamvehera Park which is around 250 sq.km. The park itself may have had about 100 elephants and around 250 have been added to this
number. There is a large number in the park but the spadework necessary to accommodate them had not been done before the drive.

While this may have already resulted in some elephants dying from lack of food, yet another
drive was done two weeks ago into the same park, where another 100 elephants were driven in from state lands around Pelawatte, north of the park.
The Sunday Times learns that another drive is to take place into Wilpattu soon.

The Director-General of the Wildlife Conservation Department, Dayananda Kariyawasam was unavailable for comment as he was in the field, both on Wednesday and Thursday.

The need of the moment is for the department to launch an immediate investigation to ascertain whether elephants are dying of starvation. If these majestic beasts are facing death and
disease for lack or shortage of fodder, urgent steps are essential to save them right now before
the dry season takes its toll on these hapless creatures.

As the guardians of a heritage that belongs to the whole country, the Department of Wildlife
Conservation has a responsibility to find out and inform the public of the wellbeing and fate of
the elephants that have been driven to Lunugamvehera, an operation which cost over Rs. 160 million in public funds.

In the throes of death. A long and belaboured
intake of breath, then an equally shuddering
exhalation. No massive struggle, just the
forelegs pushing the earth and the eye glazing over.

A giant has been felled. We were witness to a
heart-rending death - the death of a majestic
bull elephant surrounded by concerned villagers
on the dried up bed of Tammennawewa in
Lunugamvehera just before noon on Tuesday. The
villagers had covered the dying elephant with
large leafy branches to ward off the noonday heat
while bringing water in small plastic buli (cans)
to wet it and also pour into its mouth.

This was yet another death due to gunshot
injuries, the villagers told The Sunday Times
while a young woman carrying a baby sighed sadly
and said, "We are angry with elephants when they
crash into our chenas or home-gardens but very
sad when we see them drop like this."

She had put the human-elephant conflict in a
nutshell, giving voice not only to the situation
the men, women and children in the area are faced
with but also to the plight of elephants.
[]

The dying elephant close to Tammennawewa: Pix by M.A. Pushpa Kumara

During a day's walkabout in the area from which
elephants were driven into Lunugamvehera Park, we
talk to knots of people. Three men about to leave
on their bicycles looking for kuli weda are vociferous about the ali
karadara.

"We are awake the whole night because the
elephants, especially the young males come to our
doorstep. Last year one elephant charged the wall
of a hut and killed a woman," says A.G. Siripala very critical of the drive.

Adds K.G.A. Nishantha: "Even if a small child
falls ill in the night we are unable to take him
to hospital for fear of elephants."

The consensus is that kisi hevillak, belillak
nethuwa (without checking out), the drive was
carried out. While a majority were herded into
the Lunugmavehera Park, many were left behind and
are creating a bigger problem than what villagers
faced earlier, because now elephants are familiar
with the ali wedi and thunder crackers used to chase them.

According to U.G. Jayalath elephants from other
areas have been brought to the area and this has
caused numerous problems to the villagers
numbering about 70 families. Not only are W.
Gamini and M.A. Sirimawathi willing to talk to us
but also take us around their large plot of land
to show jumbo footprints. "Can't grow a thing
here," says Sirimavathi, adding that she met an
elephant face-to-face in the garden in the
gloaming and was so scared that she rushed into
their tiny hut and shut the door. "I didn't step out until the next
morning."
Come walk in the wela and see what destruction
the elephants have caused, suggests H.S.
Dahanayake relating an incident where the
previous night his neighbour had to leave his hut
and hide in the bedda because an elephant very
nearly pushed the hut's wall down.

Most of these villagers have also helped in the
elephant drive. D.J.S. Weerasuriya gives details
of the drive. "The elephants were rounded up from
areas such as Ridiyagama. Madunagala and
Suriyawewa and brought close to Lunugamvehera in
August 2005, when the drive had to be called off
due to heavy rain. Then in August 2006 it was
initiated once again and about 350 elephants were
rounded up and led to the park. But about 175,
among whom are about 45 thaniyas ehe meha vuna
(the loners moved away)," he says giving the
final verdict that the drive was a 99% failure.

While those days the villagers had to contend
with only about four to five elephants now they
have to deal with a large number, he says.

M.K. Gunapala who keeps vigil in his tree hut
high up, protecting his melon crop against
elephants, says after about 6 in the evening
people are frightened to get out of their homes.

All these complaints and grumblings are from the
area elephants were driven from. While it is
crystal clear that the drive has not solved the
problems the villagers had with elephants, it
seems to have aggravated the issue. While most
villagers lay the blame for a "failed" elephant
drive squarely at the door of the Wildlife
Conservation Department, others claim wildlife
officials are doing their best in a difficult situation.

Those in the fifth colony warned us against going
to the next village, the sixth colony, as my
colleague was in khaki slacks. "People may
mistake you for wanajeevi..they are waiting for
them to come," said U.G. Jayalath.

Leaving recriminations aside, what needs to be
done is damage control and implementation of
effective long-term remedies, not only for the
protection of humans but also of elephants.

THE HECK WITH THE JONESES

2007-04-17T18:02:00.000-07:00

A while back I happened to change channels and stumble an episode of a foreign TV reality show as they are called, and what do you know, these otherwise brilliant and beautiful young people were agreeing to the most disgusting kinds of torture in order to win a prize.
Some of them had to eat sausages made of living , squealing beetles which sprouted bitter liquid when they were touched, or munch and swallow clumps of furry caterpillars, or huge chunks of four day old rotten fish with the maggots crawling in it. All this to pass through stages of this game which meant higher levels of loathsome torture and a possible grand prize of so many USD -With the amount of retching, vomiting and sheer suffering going on I ended up wondering if I should SMS Amnesty International (-not to mention PETA: after all- how do you think the poor darned caterpillars felt being chewed to death on Candid Camera? ), and would I do this sort of thing even if someone obviously really sick offered me a million dollars to do it?
I figured finally that it wasn’t the money really (you really cant get very far with so many USD in USA-they have a real high COL), these kids had taken on something and wanted to prove themselves, that they can do this , that they would win this – and stubbornly did not want to back out of the series of tortures arranged for them.-because they didn’t want to lose face.
Well , have you ever found yourself going though something really uncomfortable, miserable and downright painful , just because it was the done thing ?because you wanted to prove a point? Or because your loved ones or peers expected this from you ? This all sounds quite Noble and Meaningful and its probably how man got on the moon (big deal) but at the end of the day its also the root cause underlying some less glamourous institutions ranging from FGM, bulimia, body piercing and widow burning, to of course, the taking of ones own life when all else fails…in other words , perhaps sometimes it would be actually safer and less fatal, to say “Heck ,no” if you don’t want to do something, in spite of what the people at office think. …

I hail from a family of non conformists. No, its not a cult, but it does mean we have most of the time lived our lives the way we please, and are often thus inexplicably happy.
We gave up worrying about public opinion a long while back. So our actions and reactions in life are not governed by such worries as “Chee lamayo what will the neighbors say ?”(or for the word neighbors, you can safely substitute: “ relations” “classmates” or “people in the staff van” etc)
Before you get me wrong here, this does not mean that we run naked through the streets *or drive without third party insurance or sit around doing any of the hyper embarrassing things that drunk people do when they lose their inhibitions; it just means we have a family code of not letting world opinion interfere with our decision making and how we find happiness in life.

Its extremely sad to me therefore when I see so many of my lovely friends suffering in life , not because they believe in something , but because they will worry about what the neighbours/relations/co workers or what have you are likely to say to their decisions.

Take local marriages. I know you’ve seen them too, the sad examples of obviously mismatched people dragging through years of misery because they cannot gather the courage to end it decently and face the brief publicity involved . They grasp desperately to the excuse that its “For The Sake of the Kids,” as a stock reason to continue with a gloomy limbo of emotional imprisonment, until the kids themselves turn back in their mid thirties and probably choke with guilty amazement at the prolonged anguish they have unwittingly caused.
I suspect too, that this is again nothing but a stock excuse, because people who live together through years of arguing, screaming and cheating- “for the sake of the kids”- hardly ever take to more constructive ways to stay married, such as marriage counseling, therapy or alternative arrangements (heck – even swinging-) because again even those words have certain stigmas attached to them…
Finally since adultery is fairly well accepted socially (by the guy population anyway who keep it a well guarded secret) this becomes the first and last resort and you don’t need me to tell you there is a heck of a lot of it going on…
There is of course a positive and limiting factor in public opinion: 21st century man doesn’t run round naked, copulate or defecate on the streets and that is good. But in practice has it ever prevented dastardly crime or any of the atrocities that really matter? Have terrorists or dictators or underworld killers ever actually thought twice before they lobbed a hand grenade and killed people, on the lines of “oh goodness what will mallika-anti think if this is traced to me ?” Highly unlikely – but neither probably would they like to be caught picking their noses on State TV – that’s just so not cool.

Perhaps then, its time to non-conform. To take a step back and think – this is your life .You are finally responsible for how happy you are, you can make it happen, you can decide how it goes and since these are not the dark ages there is some measure of freedom of choice.
You wont be burnt at the stake in Town Hall just because you decided to walk away from something that is making you miserable. Quit worrying about the opinions of the people up the road –chances are they have their own problems to sort out and would probably want you to be happy anyway.
Or at least not another messy statistic.

……………………………………………………………
*Not a good idea anyway with all this dust and pollution
Authors note: Non conformity, in general, should not result in damage to self either.-so avoid doing things you see on the Jackass Movies-some of those guys don’t have teeth, and you can imagine how they lost them . One wonders what else they don’t have.

A PAGE FROM THE PAST

2007-04-11T20:50:00.000-07:00

Al’s Diary 2006 April 10th
I confess the idea of a New Year in April has always vaguely befuddled me and no matter how old I grow I somehow seem to live in general ambivalence towards the idea. It doesn’t actually register as a New Year, no matter how much it should. Sure, there’s the heat, the tedious spring cleaning involved, the pilgrimages to visit hoards of obscure relations Down South (although they are lovely people , its tiring and this is supposed to be a holiday). And there’s that horrible raucous bird ….but New Year?

Well,ok, I’m not really breathlessly looking forward to New Year much; let me be totally honest with you. Its one of those times of the year where my inadequacy as a housewife really shines through, where my non conformity actually embarrasses me and the happy complacent spiders in my mahagedaera loom larger and hairer in their misplaced confidence that I find their intricate traceries of web-design actually esthetic. This is not the case, I don’t. It’s just that finding a broom and covering the furniture with sheets is so tiresome…

IN fact I confess I don’t know how to make perfect boorees in the Kavum or paint those wonderful patterns on the floor, and I haven’t done any shopping, in fact I don’t even have a pot to boil the proverbial milk in. I don’t like coconut milk its difiicult ,whine whine (ok-Very Bad!)
In fact compared to all regular housewives , I think I exist as a benchmark , a role non model against which you can all actually look really good set against! You good readers should be pleased that set besides me you all stand out as paragons of cleanliness, virtue and downright good habits , every last one of you !

All I can hope for then is that this time will pass very quickly and I can sink back into the pleasant idyll of a somewhat musty but homely house and happy but un-bathed pets and my usual hobbies and pastimes…as soon as possible! This is not to say I wont be happy this year…my happiness has never really depended on what season , area or circumstance I may be going through…happiness is not , I figured , something someone out there can bestow on us, or some circumstance can arrange for us.
Happiness is a state of balance and its something you decide you will afford your self regardless of the things you don’t have and the problems you do…its when you realize, not that your bottle is half full or not empty, but when you take it in your hands, hold it to the sunlight and simply marvel at what a gorgeous achievement of aesthetics a glass bottle really is in the first place !

So my friends, in spite of the spiders and the heaps of newspaper and old bottles that I have to lug, the serious expenditure I will have to incur on oily rubbish I cant eat, and the general embarrassment of not being able to afford to paint the old home….in spite of all of this, the traditional New Year will, I know , be a happy one for me because very simply I’ve decided I’m going to be happy.
And I do hope you decide the same too! :-)

Al's New Year Clean Up List 2006

all truce agreements with spiders have effectively expired
last years stringy underwear goes in a bonfire
the first aid drawer needs an overhaul .no matter how life saving they seem , all fungicidal tubes with an expiry date before 2002 need to go
only 12 pairs of footwear to be retained for daily purposes, the rest will be bagged and sent under the stairs with reference numbers ….

THREE QUOTATIONS THAT CHANGED MY LIFE

2007-04-11T20:47:00.000-07:00

Last week I got an anonymous SMS, which went as follows:

I AM MARRIED AND HAVING FAMILY PROBLEMS .I AM LOOKING FOR A LADY TO FULL MY LONELY LIFE TO A COMPLETE SUCCES. EVEN I HAVE ENOUGH MONEY, LIFE IS BORING.

Well, I know what youre thinking
1) if that were my husband I would use a large pineapple on him, and 2)rotten grammar!

either way it sure got me wondering …what is complete success?

Well, Im a great one for self help books. From “ Men are From Mars” to the “Seven Secrets of Success” and the Unofficial Guide to Corporate Success, you name it, its sitting in my bookshelf gathering dust and acting as a refugee camp for egg carrying ants during the rainy season (and what is it with ants and old books, TV remotes and CD wallets? You turn around for a few weeks and suddenly the little beggars are hauling in a large collection of messy white larvae, and if you disturb them they collectively project a truly self effacing aura of surprise & damp apology and start running around)… … I must have spent an absolute fortune on self improvement books which I havnt read, or like in the case of "MEMORY BOOSTERS -ten tips to a popwerful memory", cant remember who I lent to..

Yoga , Karate and Belly Dance CDs sit gathering dust in my CD Racks and my daughter has warned me against any more meditation books ,sternly pointing out that if I invested that much in X FILES SEASON NINE , at least SOME ONE would find happiness…

If that’s not enough guidance, there’ s free advise, unloaded on the unresisting computer user daily :My email inboxes , for example are permanent repositories for such newsletters as “The Weight Loss Game Plan” “How to Catch and Keep Your Man” and “Size does matter, increase yours!”which promise you happinss around the corner ,if you just could possibly reach that ideal level…

With all this good advice, tips tricks and guidelines all over the place ,you wonder how people can be as disgruntled , dissatisfied and downright disturbed as they are in this modern age and indeed I too have given this a lot of thought. If statistics are anything to go by, it would appear that some Sri Lankan’s actually find lasting happiness by uncomplicated straightforward means such as being regularly drunk, beating women or animals and giving into road rage. Or adultery:

Personally I don’t “have” a lot of things that are perceived as success in society. I don’t have a house, a car, a man or even a steady dog (two of them left because they got tastier stuff nearby and one got rabies)…I have beautiful children but because I could not afford a committed lawyer , I did not get custody of them. I do have a cool job but most of the time Im crippled by inexplicable insecurity about if I deserve it..and so go through life apologising for myself, it is a thought provoking list.

So am I successful? Has something stuck from reading all the gigabytes of good advice Im exposed to ?Am I happy? the answers are worth examining.

Im a whole lot happier than the bloke who sent me that message, and I have never been happier in my life, not even when I had all those things viewed as critical Success Factors.- I was comparatively miserable then because I never appreciated their value, took them for granted and generally didn’t even notice anything remarkable about them. I know, I now value what I do have. For example:

I have wonderful children…all around me ,not just mine, but every where I look, small eager ,powdered , dusty kneed, pop eyed, bursting with curiosity and potential , those sweet miracles of the universe.Like puppies and kittens,they represent years of potential happiness in watching them grow.

I still have some of my teeth, in spite of the fact that maintaining them is taking a sizeable chunk of my salary monthly. I look down at my toes and think “ gosh those appendages are thirty five years old – they don’t look that BAD!” I mean imagine gloves or socks you have used for thirty five years around the clock. The human body is miracle and a evolutionary success fine tuned over millions of years- and we just never notice.

I have sunlight, each morning I wake up and marvel at the beauty of this country, things that we usually just don’t seem to notice or appreciate. Waiting for the bus last Wednsday I watched the local troupe of languars dash cheekily across power lines, clowning furry black bodies against a haunting back drop of a totally amazing giant orange globe of rising sun, and this mind you was in Wellampitiya twenty minutes away from Central Colombo. No one saw them, I guess everyone else was concentrating on how to be a success that day….for me if the sun shines the day cannot be bad .

There are thirty six million colours around me. :As Im writing this article Ive had a long tiring day and Im enjoying a small square box of pineapple juice the kind you can get in any grocery for 22 rupees. It’s a lovely bright yellow and red marvel of modern packaging and there are luscious looking beads of dew on the outsides. Have you never looked at one of those packages closely? True they are the products of commercial strategizing but are they not beautiful all the same ? Would not ancient man have stopped in his tracks if confronted with such art , but don’t we take it for granted like all the other beautiful things in life we don’t bother to notice?

So I have to admit (touch wood) at last and at the ripe old age of thirty six, I have finally got what I want in life. And incidentally I have not clawed my way up some symbolic co orporate ladder, back stabbing hapless fellow humans along the way, married into a rich dynasty or won any thing larger than a 50/- sweep ticket , in my life.

I have in fact , as my good friends know, been steadily creeping my way down the proverbial corporate ladder, and yet, I have what I want, or maybe its just that I want what I have and that’s what makes all the difference…Perhaps someday I will write my own book to tell people how it was done but for now there are three lines I have always lived by and probably always will:

“ Everything can be taken from man, but his power to chose his reaction.”
By Victor Franknyl, a survivor of Auschwitz
“You cannot give someone happiness without having some of it rub off on yourself ,”
Mother Theresa (I think)
And of course, from the sunscreen song –
“DANCE – even if you have no where to do it but in your living room!”
…………………………………………………
The author recognises that she owes her happiness to a wonderful and supportive family & ex-in laws and a few good friends. She is no expert and the above are simply personal observations and in no way actually guarantee to bring success into readers lives. But do give them a try…

AL’s SINISTER SILENCE EXPLAINED

2007-03-22T12:30:00.000-07:00

In case you are wondering what happened to poor Al Juhara, these last few weeks, here’s the whole sad story: The last month, my dear friends, things fell apart.

That is to say, years of avoiding doctors like the plague, staying stubbornly clear of all those much advertised medical check up retreats cum therapy sessions, or in fact any product or service which even remotely proffers any sort of health benefit…suddenly took its toll.

And so with the onset of March madness, there I was hit suddenly and simultaneously by backache, headache, toothache and allergic reaction not to mention manic depression plus the odd touch of candida ,(on top of the usual list of dandruff, halitosis and intestinal parasites which I have long come to terms with and am treating symbiotically* )- ie you name it – I was hit by it!

And serves me right you may say.

Pretty much anything to do with the whole medical process totally revolts me. Saying that hospitals are claustrophobic disinfectant smelling nightmares to me, a mere step away from mortuaries or asylum, and doctors particularly the handsome ones, basically give me the creeps, would be quite understating my stance.

From medical laboratories, where I pantomime realistic torture scenes, to X ray rooms and agonising about how radio active I am becoming over time, down to the pharmacies where I am prepared to spend ages bullying staff for the cheap SPC version of anything – and last but not least, the emphatic and long standing declaration of hostilities I have with the insurance people , the entire process is a hassle I conscientiously try to avoid as though my life depended on it. …

There’s rustifying….

That’s one word which should be in the Oxford Dictionary if it isnt already, it means waiting hanging about wasting time. You stand in one long, thought provoking queue get a chit, stand in another, find out it’s the wrong one, go back to another, get your blood drawn, another to get your results, and another to channel a doctor and this is all mind you in the relatively hassle free paying section. And then how about all that waiting ? So tiresome, so much so that last week I was wondering if I could channel the ENT specialist while I was hanging about waiting for the orthopaedic surgeon. And perhaps check in on a gynaecologist too, on the way out….but I saw the cashiers looking at me in a bit of a strange way so I refrained myself from going too deep into this request….

….There is embarrassment. … .

Mammograms and ECG’s are humbling blouse-less episodes involving mammary compression and welt forming suction cups respectively. Have you any idea about that half circle shape you see in a mammogram? Well it’s not a cross section of your erm, assets, it’s a compression gone through on a horizontal axis, which they get by pressing you between two freezing metal plates till there is only two inches of space. Get it ? Truly the stuff of sadism nightmares…However people who have been to a proctologist have even worse things to say…

And there is lots of pointless arguing…..

Consider this real life dialog I recently held with an obviously unprepared call centre executive in my medical insurance company:

‘Good morning, I’m calling about my latest claim for policy number 123123, my name is XYZ”

“Yes, ma’am, how can I help you?”

“I submitted these bills in September. Why have they not been processed?”

“Hold on a moment, ma’am while I check…. (Pregnant pause) um, these are for vaccines, ma’am, we don’t reimburse vaccines…”

“Excuse me! That’s the Human Anti Rabies vaccine. Its not something we take for cosmetic reasons. It’s a Post Exposure Emergency Measure **IT was an emergency requirement … I had to spend twenty five thousand on this, and if you don’t help us out in life and death emergencies like that what is the point in having a policy ? I might as well suck up to my Rich Aunt in Liverpool….”

“Um hold on ma’am…let me check…”There was a REALLY pregnant pause this time, and the sound of flies buzzing.. after which she asked me the most blog-worthy question I have been asked this year…“Umm madam, were you showing symptoms of the condition at the time .In that case I think we are allowed to reimburse….”

Here folks, my usually fairly well flowing reserves of presentation English totally dried up, and left me speechless as in most really good opportunities I ever get to defend myself. Which was most disappointing because in retrospect I wondered if I could have mentioned to her that now I come to think of it, there had in fact been a Little Frothing….

To be honest, I am quite broke now and would admit to almost anything if it would help the claim….

……………………………………………………………………………

*maybe that’s why Im single. Or maybe it’s an oxymoron and Im not really technically single. You decide

** Yup, I know the jargon, I tell ya

Crowing about Pocky-Part 2

2007-02-25T21:28:00.000-08:00

What followed was about 40 hours of wild and total chaos. Pocky’s condition improved exponentially and he gorged himself on papaws and salmon, which he naturally had to expel pretty soon; crows either have short digestive tracts or this one was so starved that whatever he ate went right through. Pretty soon my bedroom was covered with a series of artistic streaks of half digested muck which I did not want to analyze. My bed, carpet and walls, in fact any patch of room I did not cover with newspapers and polythene was liberally decorated with half formed guano. My monitor and keyboard were favorite areas as well as the dressing table where Pocky would land near my deodorant collection and preen in the mirror.

At some stage in the proceedings Mom reported on me to Thaththi and he mercifully adopted a “Wait and See” approach since it was a bit late in the day to worry about germs. This meant if anything went wrong (or wronger than it already had,anyway) I could probably look forward to a humbling lecture on how I should be more responsible and not Do Nonsense like this etc. The rest of the family came by to see things for themselves and were rudely judged by Pocky.
The Persian cat gave me a long silent look I wont forget and stayed beyond a radius of 30 feet from my bedroom, for Pockys entire stay.

Within 24 hours Pocky had learned two tricks. To come when he was called, and sit on my mouse pad if I tapped it(perhaps it looked friendly and familiar like an helicopter launch site?) and the Silly Cotton Bud Trick: Cotton buds were to Pocky what a red flag is to a bull- you showed him one, he would take it as a personal challenge, and grab it from you, yank it angrily out of your fingers and place it on the ground. Then he would give you a beady-eyed look as if challenging you to touch it. If you did try to touch it, he would hold your finger very threateningly in a strong black beak and push your hand away. But there was a glint of mischief in the beady eyes that spoke of smiling inside.

This then, is why it has been outlawed to harbor crows, their intelligence is incredible for something that bird-brained, and I believe uncharted, I’m sure if they had opposable digits these little black suited gentlemen would be running the show. This was a wild crow that could not possibly have known a word of human, let alone English and here he was answering to a silly name I had given him within a matter of hours.

The worst challenge was catching hold of him for long enough to force-feed the tetracyclin as per the six hourly course. This was an exercise in guerrilla warfare that took about 2 hours for me to win, and helped me lose a lot of weight since it involved me stalking, crouching , pouncing and missing around my bedroom. Pocky did not want to have a bitter powder shoved down his throat and freely expressed his disgust in no uncertain terms. From the strangled objections it was pretty obvious that I would soon be hauled in by the Wellampitiya Police, not just for harboring a crow but for general breach of peace, environmental pollution, and if Pocky had his say, animal rights violations too.

48 hours of this was the giddy limit. SO two days after I had rescued a weak droopy lump of crow on Greenpath, I opened my windows in Wellampitiya and told Pocky he was free to go.

The croak he let out was definitely something like “that’s more like it” and out he flew like a large relieved black torpedo. Characteristically he did not disappear at once, but sat down on a banana leaf outside my window (prudently just out of my reach in case I changed my mind ) looked hard at me, sideways, and burst into an earnest and elaborate monologue of cackles and caws.

It definitely included an element of grudging gratitude in it, hidden among possible indignation that this was Wellampitiaya I was releasing him in , which was probably an affront to a Colombo 7 crow; I can also safely assume it was something in the lines of “So long and thanks for all the antibiotics!” or he could have been warning me about the plots my cats were hatching, or telling me to go easy on the deodorant- I do wish I had an interpreter.

Either way, within a minute, he was soaring off into the wild blue yonder and I was sitting in a really smelly room, feeling sorely dumped.

Pocky may have left me in favor of freedom but I have sweet memories, which I treasure, of two days spent hiding a little black suited refugee in my bedroom. And now whenever one of them comes and sits on the branches outside my window, I cannot help but smile and wonder if he’s telling me that a friend is going to visit – or if its Pocky come back to see how I am…

…………………………………………………………………………
Got more endearing crow experiences? All furry, feathery, even slightly mangy stories about Sri Lankan fauna are welcome at : www.colombopetrescue.blogspot.com

My Darkest Secret

2007-02-21T00:13:00.000-08:00

Its been up on two years now but the guilt of it has kept me silent so far. Even now I will not tell you who I am, for your author, dear gentle reader, is guilty of having broken the law, violated the penal code and /or acted unconstitutionally to boot and what’s worse now intends to crow about it too!

The cause of this was a beady eyed, near comatose bundle of black feathers I found on Greenpath , one Monday evening last July on my way back from work.

This creature was later named Pokey and he*was ill; birds of his feather had gathered around thoughtfully and were noisily discussing their intention of putting him out of his misery. Hint: this would involve being summarily pecked to death because they did not want to leave you to the cats. They obviously give a lot of thought to this sort of thing, crows.)
Well, you know me, I cannot walk past a creature that desperate, with my eyes wide shut- so I called up a passing tuk tuk , demanded a polythene bag from the surprised driver and placing the uncomplaining black mass in it, hired a lift home.

My Wellampitiya Vet and I have an excellent understanding: he maintains a straight face and does not burst out laughing or screaming hysterically when I bring the latest case in – and I provide him with lots of useful On the job experience. This was no exception.

Pokey was examined closely , his wings flexed , his rigid, gnarled claws forcefully unwrapped, and his throat shed light into with a good torch, after which dear ole Dr Perera decided that the paralysis could be treated by modern day anti biotics. He showed me how to take a “karala” and divide it iinto eight parts one of which I was supposed to administer at 6 hourly intervals.

So there was I saddled with a limp, dying crow, a 3 day course of tetracyclin and a cardboard box which I hastily requisitioned from the nearby supermarket.

The next challenge was to smuggle said refugee into our house without my father noticing.
My father is the serious, strict, Decision Maker person at home, the king of the Castle so to speak, who gives a lot of thought to possible calamity in life and solidly disapproved of anything with feathers on the basis that “they can have all kinds of dirty diseases” and this ,mind you , was in the seventies, decades before bird flu was even invented, and in spite of the fact that he grew up practically on a farm.
This therefore had to be a quiet back door entry kind of thing and so it was that I managed to sprint my unresisting secret up to my bedroom before the gate man could even turn around, and shut the door firmly against inquisitive family members to take a deep breath and really think about what I had just done.

Im a working girl, out from 9 to 5, and I have a small carpeted bedroom about 8 by 10, a very peaceful feminine pad furnished in pastel pink décor with lots of stuffed Disney characters- and now I had a large heavy rude black bird convalescing in it. Just how rude he was I was about to find out.

The first dose of tetracyclin was a breeze because I d found a needleless syringe and mixed the dust with honey, and Pokey was not expecting this , neither had he enough strength to object. Down the hatch it went, with a bit of feather – rustling.
And within an hour or two , it was working ! The listless doomed look was replaced by a suspicious calculating look, the head stood alert. Even the feathers were glossier. It was one of those good moments in a pet rescuers life.
It was also when the problems really started because Pokey began expressing his opinion, in a harsh and unlovely tone, probably listing his constitutional rights etc …

7 or 8 hours and two doses afterwards, Pokey was visibly transformed from being a limp beaten black heap of feathers with an obvious death wish- he was now walking around in his cardboard box bobbing his head critically up and down like a hygiene inspector, testing his wings for flightworthiness and emitting short , rude judgmental test -croaks which sounded anything but grateful.

The challenge was now to get him to shut up, because I was not supposed to harbor crows in my bedroom. Leave aside the penal code and the neighbors, my dad would have a fit. My mother came around as she usually does on her evening -bringing-the-tea-walk, and I opened my door about three inches and had a bright chat with her after which since she knew the funny look on my face was anything but innocent she began pushing very gently at the door and saying sad things like ‘ is something the matter? I know you are hiding something. Im your mum. You can talk to me, you know,” that sort of thing.
Subterfuge was pointless here so I pulled her into the room and shut the door firmly – subsequent conversation went something like:
“You can’t hide a crow in here, darling.
“ I know”
“Puthey, First of all you’d better own up to dad,”
“I know , but he wont approve,”
“You don’t seriously think you can hide a crow in here? You know it might be conceivably possible to hide a man, but a CROW?””
“It’ll get better in a few days and Ill just put him out. Will dad notice ,do you think?”
thats a dumb question if any -would he notice all the raucous shrieks, flapping and thumping and the steady build up of guano on the windows –let me think, YES!

at which point, and as if to prove a point Pokey chose this moment to burst noisily out of the cardboard incarceration he was supposed to be quietly recuperating in , emit a loud Jurassic Park type caw, and go for a preliminary test flight around the room which ended in a loud and negative thump as he connected with the window pane.
Mom was right about this. It wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought.

Next week: A crows got to do what a crows got to do:shit!

* Neither the vet nor I ever did find out if it was a he or a she , but I prefer to think of all crows as masculine: Compared to other regular birds, they are dark, solid and make a lot of noise and .
its obvious they are discussing politics or cricket.

Letters to the Pet Rescue People

2007-02-20T04:29:00.000-08:00

occasionally we get a real gem which we must share

Dear Eva,

i am a resident of Kandy, now living overseas for the past 8 years, i was in kandy late last year & found all these stray dogs, which is a real threat to the safety of children & others
i am sure you guys are going this not for the love of animals. but to get some money from from stupid NGO. all i can say is,if you need money to live "GET REAL JOB" & leave stray dogs to be dealt buy the council...the health & safety of people come FIRST before Dogs..
its sad to see that you & your NGO do not have the respect for the humans, that you have for DOGS....

Amila

a CURIOUS tale if any

2007-02-15T22:46:00.000-08:00

for those of you who do read papers the link is
http://www.dailymirror.lk/sections/supp/w@w/060207/17.asp
others - I just reaslised that I have not posted this .Enjoy...

Curious* was discovered by a local garbage dump, weak, hungry and crooked, one soggy July evening in 2005 . Numerous unpleasant incidents with our growing menagerie mean, that we try not to see or hear stray orphans as we walk or drive around the streets of Colombo, but this one hit my eyes, solidly and firmly although it probably measured no more than three inches across at the time, from nose to ratty tail tip. This bug eyed, quizzical looking vision of a blurred orange ball with a string on one end, would not leave me. Curious was destined to be my favourite.
Mentally and physically Curious is slightly handicapped, possibly mildly "autistic". Just like with humans, in the animal world too, this happens occasionally but we see hardly any instances of such because cruel laws of the jungle dictate survival of the fittest and shrewdest and even they never get a second chance. Curious it would appear, was supposed to. Add to this the fact that he had lost his mother early in life , and you understand why he is twice blessed , doubly lucky and a symbol of hope in a world gone wrong.
Curious lives his life at a tilt of about 23 degrees, and so probably is the only one among us who actually sees the world as it really is. This is due to some obscure spinal deformity which makes him slant his head quizzically when he's walking about or sitting thinking. To the every day rat or ghecko he must appear an extra sinister and calculating predator, but we find it extremely endearing, probably because we know that he would never think of catching or killing any thing, far less eating it: Curious is the closest feline domestica ever came to being a practising vegetarian, and prefers papadam and cheese buttons to chicken. In fact any crackling sound will inevitably cause him to spring off his perch and come sniffing thoughtfully around.
Curious has been in one or two very narrow escapes.There was the day, which we will never forget , when he went looking at his reflection in my loo and fell in. Yours truly is a working girl who goes out at 7 am and returns at 6 pm, so that drop involved a lot of dog paddling, raucous screaming and commode water ingestion until he was discovered in the early afternoon by the daily help and another generous philanthropist, who put his hand in and fished him out, shampooed him with warm water and Sunsilk shampoo, and wiped him down amidst yowling protests, with one of my tea cloths, whilst admitting that there were, in retrospect, not many people around he would do this for…Curious survived this episode unscathed but with a respect for water closets.
Curious is not interested in the usual singing and serenading competitions that Tom Cats spend much of their waking life thinking about. He is no threat to Patchy (the local princess) and would not know the difference between one end of a female cat and the other, and probably would not bother finding out. As far as she is concerned, he is the epitome of genuine unselfish love and companionship and sits near her on cold evenings, quietly watching the funny humans cooking and arguing about who finished the good curry powder.
Curious accepts life good naturedly, although he does not understand it.
For some weeks he would experience hunger, and look curiously at his food , not realising that the actual consumption thereof would relieve the pangs gnawing his innards, but with the vague idea that some kind of participation was expected of him.
We had to fend off the rest of kittenkind and favour him a bit until he got the idea….
Curious lacks balance and will regularly fall on his backside and look miffed about it. We thus never throw him out of the front door , but place him carefully on the front carpet if we need to de-cat the living room. He is the only cat I know to have missed a fridge, by which I mean he tried a running jump from a table to a refrigerator two feet away and missed it to end up falling short and going down scrabbling half heartedly at the door, again to land on his rump with a audible burp.
Curious is a cat, an ordinary cat and nothing like an ordinary cat. HE was discovered among garbage and yet he has enriched our lives more than many expensive diversions money can buy. He has taught us not to take things for granted and yet to accept some things with grace, even if you cant understand the reasons for them. He's one of the reasons I cant find employment abroad, apart from my attachment to my children and my book and DVD collection and the fact that I love Wellampitiya.
I cannot think of anyone but myself taking care of Curious, and it would break my heart to have to let go of him.
So who's the dependant one, you wonder?
----------------------------------------------------------------
* also fondly referred to as MANTALThere are more abandoned orphans like Curious featured at www.colombopetrescue.blogspot.com and we hope you will stop by and spare a minute for them. Well, more than a minute if possible?

What Men Really Want

2007-02-15T04:47:00.000-08:00

see? I told you they dont care if your eyebrows are trimmed or not!

Ally’s Day Out…:in Pettah

2007-02-14T00:20:00.000-08:00

In search of stimulation yours truly takes to investigative journalism in the streets of Pettah…

Pettah is therapy to me. It’s a dirty, noisy, colourful hippies paradise of low priced marvels from China, India and goodness knows where else, brimming with cosy multi-lingual camaraderie, an absolute kaleidoscope of cooking types and an absolute conundrum of contrasts. I find strangely, in spite of the incessant noise from vehicles, loudspeakers and those cheesy beeping alarm clocks and bamboo bird cages, that it is a place to meditate , to be at one with yourself, to recharge those mental batteries. It’s a crossroads and a hub and some of the richest chaps in the country spend their working days in happy and unhygienic squalor in its tiny winding streets.
Its where I go to recuperate…

The people are so friendly…it could be because they have just lifted someone’s wallet or side lights or groped a passing damsel but those Pettah chaps all wear permanent and decidedly moony smiles. You stop to ask directions and there will be people bending over backwards to help you out and sell you something at the same time if possible. …if you’re out there alone and in tight jeans you will get a lot of very fervent compliments.

Its multi-ethnic ….Religions are represented simultaneously. From the gaudy little glass statue boxes inside tuk tuks and buses, to the eating joints (and I bet the drug dens too,) they have rows and rows of colourful symbols, gods and saints of the major religions hanging out side by side. Joss sticks, funny sweets and candles are presented to them equally. Pettah people like to insure them selves fully, to ensure prosperous businesses and personal safety and that’s probably why they are tolerant of each other too.

The food is awesome…- its cheap and it tastes good too. Not only that - its pretty obvious form the way they prepare it that if you actually survive it your immune system is running at peak performance and now isn’t that something to be thankful for? There are mounds of oily red blobs which scream “diabetes are us”, sugar encrusted yellow balls, rings and squares, not to mention stuff that looks like concrete debri from a demolition site,* dates, raisins and all manner of tropical fruit – can you believe that so many colours are actually edible?? (This is why I so totally approve of ethnic diversity! More choice in food and in guys!) Samosas , peanuts and mangoes with chillie powder and those joints where you drink out of aluminium and wipe your hands on squares on yellow typing paper…and don’t let me start on the waday..

The stuff is fantastic…. Phones, Aluminium kitchenware, Wedding Cards, Trouser Materials, Umbrellas ..whatever you are looking to buy has its own Street… Im not a thread buying person, in general, I go for the gadgets, and Pettah sells the weirdest things that run on batteries And cheap too and everything is multipurpose. Ive just brought this “battery less bulb less torch- and I’m reading the box which says “no need any power no environmental pollution low noise and good health” if those aren’t enough reason to buy it , further benefits are that “constantly using this health torch it can benefit your palm (!?) arm, shoulder and blood circulation so as to let your hands relax and make the brain clever improving hand & brain co ordination and promote memory” all that for 100 bux? Where has it been all my life? This has to be paradise! (hey and it lights up in the dark too, now fancy that!)

In conclusion then, whether you are searching for calm in the eye of the storm, cheap crockery or the higher meaning of life, head for Pettah; and of course, hold on to your purse, it could run off on its own!!!

http://www.aljuharawrites.blogspot.com/
* I’m told that the word for it is “Aluwa”

LOVE IS IN THE AIR

2007-02-04T20:14:00.000-08:00

But hello, some of us prefer oxygen…

And so pretty soon itll be Valentines Day. And let me warn you smug, settled twosomes out there, as you wait in anticipation of that sickening waist thickening box of chocolates or the bourgeois frigid roses imported from Copenhagen,which could single – rosedly fund a meal for twenty five local IDP’s….. – that I’m about to attack your comfortable bubble of contentment, and rather rudely at that.

And lest you conclude that I am commenting with the jaded attitude of someone who cant get into this rosy state, let me declare that I have been there, done that Ive reached that stage where I actually find it funny(thats Ally for you) which could be why, the last time someone extremely suitable gathered up the courage to propose suit to me, I actually burst into helpless laughter and had to change the subject in case he took offence. (You can be sure he didn’t do it again)
Its not that I have any thing against romance, its just that there are so many excellent reasons to remain in blessed singledom, a FEW of which Im going to list below:

Benefit Number One : Peaceful Slumber.
My slumber is now truly peaceful and unruffled since the date around four years ago when I last extricated myself from the deep and emotionally charged partnership I was in . It is now only broken occasionally by comparatively desperate insomniacs who are in the thick of intense and committed long term relationships and thus on the verge of suicide / self mutilation and/ or serious damage to property due to some profoundly convoluted argument stemming from a basic disagreement as to who should take out the garbage. So I refer to my otherwise redundant MEN ARE FROM MARS Manual and groggily read out a few basics before I turn the bedside light off and lapse back into happy oblivion. IN case of further disturbance my Nokia has an excellent function which silences further calls from any particular number so that I can view them with detached fascination the next morning and speculate clinically at the varying occurrences of attempted contact, 2 am, 3am 5 am etc.
Let me blow my trumpet a bit here, but I admit to higher levels of EQ and a good telephone voice – both of which combine to result in me being something of an agony aunt to my friends and contacts, although some of the advice I give would definitely not be sanctioned by the Samaritans or even the local Police come to think of it (“so what, hit him back!” or “ Why not adopt a cat – TODAY! Or : “Hey you need to watch BORAT it’ll take your MIND off things…”)
But what does one do when faced with mind-boggling conundrums like:
Aunty Al, shes driving me nuts, she smashed the Flatron today…. Or,
Aunty Al, I love him but I don’t like sex …or
Aunty Al, I think she’s having an affair with a tuktuk driver ,what do I do ? or
Aunty Al, I love her but she doesn’t like sex…and last but not least-
WOTS A G SPOT *

Benefit Number Two : Sheer Independence :
Guys this is one for you. You can work late, get sloshed, get delayed or get laid and you don’t have to explain it to anyone. You can fill your USB drive with hardcore pornography and you don’t need to justify it. And you retain rights to your phone and gmail inboxes. Holidays are something you can actually look forward to, where you RELAX , not drive someone around to in law dinners.Have I given those committed family dudes a slight pang here….?

Benefit Number Three No more faking it
Lets be honest about this girls, we love them but we need only about a quarter of the actual physical intimacy they do. The rest of the time we have to not just grin and bear , but fake it convincingly and there’s the worry about what would happen if we don’t. The onus is on us to get them to stick to one supplier and it gets harder with the years. And then there’s all those mysterious female conditions that happen when you are um, sexually active. Face it lots of those weird funguses and Itises not to mention having to depend on those horrid fattening daily supplements are undoubtedly the by product of all that sweet loving .
Darned if you do, darned if you don’t.

Benefit Number Four. Less Pollution.
Its kind of complex but please bear with me. All this loving means you’re expected to get hitched and then society expects you to procreate. Its odd, because there are about a quarter million orphans in this country alone, who need parents, and there is nowhere in the Constitution that says you are supposed to add to the population. But you go do the I DO thing and all the neighbors- and old wives and new aunts and the lot of them, mostly female , can think about is, “what no kids yet?” So you submit to that pressure. Please don’t get me wrong – I have nothing against kids , precious darlings, its just that I wonder why its so totally compulsory to reproduce once you are mated, almost as its imperative on any one in romance to get hitched, regardless of whether you can provide comfortably for them or even have any idea of the real meaning of what you are about to do.
The results, of this social pressure, who honestly look as if they wish they had never been born, can be seen each morning in Colombo, freshly powdered and stuffed vertically and sometimes horizontally into smokey windowed school vans and buses.( Ive since figured that dusting them with talcum powder is a sort of friction reducing thing to make it easier for them to claw their way out of the buses when they reach school..)
Then there are the “luckier” lots who are piled onto over crowded motorcycles, I often speculate on how they chose which one should be at the back of a bike seating five…do they draw straws, or is it that just by co incidence its always the little girl in the family- And how do you think she feels about more siblings?
In conclusion – is it just me or would it seem that the less love there is, the more peace and happiness there will be all around?

So there you have my complex and admittedly somewhat unfeeling theory about how Valentine is ultimately responsible for the traffic in Colombo, but, as an afterthought, please don’t let that cramp your style. Be there, do that, and, as they say in the Sunscreen song, “throw away the old bank statements but keep: your old love letters!” the reason for that is, of course, they may be harder to come by in future…
See, some people are actually figuring out that Valentine’s Day isn’t actually compulsory.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
For true malcontent, google for “alt.suicide.valantines day survival kit”, and order your “HATE IS GREAT” and “SCREW VALANTINES DAY” T Shirts, although I would personally draw the line at bombing the Hallmarks outlets- since after all, although I think love sucks , I do support peace!
* This is rather besides the point I admit. However it wins Ally’s unofficial award for the Single Best Text Message of 2005 and I just had to include it here.

Nothing much to report...

2007-01-24T19:08:00.000-08:00

...except that
* I weighed David Blacker's book and it weighs exactly 600gms and
* its official : I will be joining the Red Cross. This means I wont be blogging for a few years. Sorry, guys.I will really miss life at the Centre.
The spirit is willing, but cash is the issue...

Spooking people ?Ill do it MY WAY,thanks!

2007-01-21T20:21:00.000-08:00

Ten things I wouldn’t be caught dead doing:

Having been a steadfast fan of ghost stories and horror films for the last 30 years, I have decided to face the fact of my inevitable mortality and subsequent passage onwards with some creativity on my part which I hope will continue to confuse and intrigue people long after I am dead and (at least nearly) gone.
Once a geek always a geek though and technology is going to play a large part in my afterlife too, you can be sure.
For example here’s a list of ten things I just won’t be caught doing, in the afterlife, because Ill be doing it my way:

I will not walk through doors; just to be sure I’m not invading anyone’s privacy , Ill knock cheerfully first and identify myself before blasting my way in with a borrowed machine gun: beat that for cool.

I will not hover, wave or materialise shakily because I think that’s a sign of an insecure ego (or worse, low cellular signals). Instead I will appear solidly accompanied by the sound of Windows starting up and speak clearly and unmistakeably, when I warn people about impending doom or whatever message from beyond I’m supposed to deliver.

My presence will not be announced by a vague feeling of cold and dread. Instead there will be a positively warm fuzzy feeling when I enter the room: and animals will simply love me, as always.

I will not visit the dentist every six months. I won’t have to. That’s one of the perks of being dead.

I will not be answering my email. Lord knows, I’ve wanted a plausible excuse not to have to.

I will not posses innocent Catholic teenagers. There are, instead, a few corrupt local politicians and unkind extremist terrorists whose lives I would like to plague. But I will not paste them on the ceiling and make them froth at the mouth because it just looks silly. Instead I’ll mess up their backup drives and cause them to lose valuable data which will definitely traumatise them much more.

If I’m ever caught on camera , I will make sure that it looks like a crude Photoshop paste job gone wrong plus I will positively ensure that my hair is tied up into a neat pony tail and not hanging wetly over my face no matter how good it is!

I will not tolerate sombre orchestral music in any cinematic reconstruction of my manifestations .Instead there should be something with beat like Ricky Martins Livin La Vida Loca or the frog song.

I will not hang about haunting my family or home. Sweet though they are, that would be dead boring.*and I have been trying to get away from them for years. I will instead board a world cruise and visit all the places and countries that I couldn’t afford the tickets to, for the first 300 years of my new existence. Then I will get on a space shuttle and head out to see what life is like wherever they are heading.

And finally, whilst not scaring and not boring people I will also not be using my powers for personal gain since Im dead. But I will be involved in a lot of mysterious and irreversible funds transactions that mess up the civilised world’s perception of electronic money. That way Sub Saharan Africa and Bangladesh will suddenly find that they are two of the richest nations in the world and the USA will have to borrow from Latin America. Paris Hilton will have to attend collage and get a job, most of her wealth having inexplicably been donated to the Cambodian “Save the Orang-utan” Fund. And neither will Angelina Jolie nor Mrs or Mr Bill Gates in anyway be affected. However the latter will not be able to figure out what happened, or how to reverse it.

· Pardon the pun. Well, no, actually on second thoughts, its quite a good pun if I do say so myself, so don’t.
more ideas on doing the afterlife thing your way? add comments here!

CAT IN A LAT

2007-01-17T21:33:00.000-08:00

... and other feline tales.

Cats plague me. They greet me with vibrating purry meows when I get home, track me excitedly around the house when Im looking for my sandals, spray my motorcycle jacket cheerfully with nauseous civet musks and drop suddenly out of the ceiling onto my dining table when I’m entertaining important guests….

I look around and wonder to myself how I ever got so surrounded by this many smelly mewling mangy excuses for former Egyptian Gods.-the answer is I love my kids and they love playing with string and kittens. I also love kittens, I admit, and from garbage dumps and temple corners they all seem to be asking me to take them home. The problem is these kittens I bring in mutate within six months and for the next decade I’m hounded (no other word for it) by large, obnoxious feline predators calmly decimating the crockery and waving insouciant, in – your –face balls, or “cutlets” ,as the kids call them...

My cats embarrass me and stink up my house but keep me warm if ever I am cold or lonely(admittedly not often).However there’s good reason to believe I may be in future: I have had to reject at least three perfectly good marriage proposals (not easy to find for a middle aged divorced broad in Colombo-) due to the fact that I just knew/ or found out in the nick of time that the otherwise excellently moneyed and suave suitors hate cats and such marriage would probably end in catricide- and/or worse.

Cats hypnotize us. My worst cat is a half Persian Garfield –wannabe with a tail like a Christmas tree, named Patchy because she is black with tabby patches and has a yellow eye patch rather like a pirate in negative. She will not lower herself to the level of common cats who use the sand patch in the front yard. She uses our bathroom instead. I have Nokia videos of her pissing leisurely in the bathroom sink, which I always wanted to send to Atapattama but am not sure if they will clog bandwidth, or actually what their email address is.

Solid waste is quietly deposited in a corner behind my laundry bucket, and followed by a brief absence from the domestic scene. That is until she gets lonely and broody and wants to do the kneading thing.

I call it that from want of any more scientific term but what Im referring to is the slightly psychotic purring /kneading /claw digging Massage scenario that cats subject you to once they get you under them in the evenings. Evolution has mutated a whole totally weird group of sub-humans who actually tolerate being pinned under a heavy cat, and being pawed and kneaded firmly and rhythmically- and I admit to being one of them, perverted as it sounds. I do believe, thought scientists have not researched this, that they include a mildly hypnotic and decidedly sedative chemical in the substantial clouds of fur they release in the process otherwise why would I be under my cat for stretches of up to even 15 minutes? Some one tell me I’m not the only one that does this?

PLAYBOY style T Shirt Spotted in Dematagoda

2007-01-17T18:30:00.000-08:00

On the Back :
NO SEKS
NO BOOS
NO ENTERTANES

and on the front :
IM A POORBOY.

quotes I cant help but quote...sorry!

2007-01-17T18:20:00.000-08:00

Unbloggable content usually implies me.
— Darth Teddy to Kahuna, attempting to amass rights to all questionable content.

http://circus1.blogspot.com/search/label/Unquotable%20Quotes
enjoy.

these guys are a scream...where have they blogged all my life? who are they ? what kind of software must they be writing?(shudder!)

I need to go through the archives, durnig the weekend I guess, so Im recording the link here, but hey- it doesnt mean all my readers can abandon me forever....ok?

THE MOPED DIARIES part 3 –

2007-01-09T04:56:00.000-08:00

MY FIRST LESSON and other embarrassing moments
Leading Colombo driving schools do offer ladies motorcycle lessons and this means you have to get on a bike with a strange dude and after some time he sits behind you.

From my 2004 diary,then:
3rd jan 10.00 am
I’m sitting in the neatly painted but nevertheless shabby third world office of a Colombo driving school.. As a rule I notice, the Driving Instructors are grey haired, casually dressed fiftygenarians, who give the aura of being totally drunk and gregarious but hopefully are neither The one I saw first was no exception-and shot me a very stern and dignified glance , more of a glare really, before yanking shut his fly with the determined , pointed air of someone ready to get down to serious business. …
However, to my heartfelt relief he strode past me and then it was that my designated instructor came out searching for me. It so happened (oh the relief-) that he was neat (had all his clothes buttoned on), clean (no ear hair or carbuncles), young (normal eye colour, not rheumy red and most of his teeth intact) and –beat this-even tall dark and good looking too (well, ok that’s totally besides the point, but one must be thankful for large mercies…)

He spent a lot of his time looking over the room which was odd, as I was the only person there, and I looked all over the room behind him, since it was obvious from his behaviour that it was not me he was looking for- until it sunk into him, painfully I must say, that I was to be his instructee. The co-ordintor with the registry book clinched matters by gesticulating in my direction and I swear there was a secret half smile on the faces of at least 3 other staff in that room-my doomed instructor however looked at me as if I was something disgusting the cat had left on the bedside floor mat and I was later to find out why…I beamed cheerfully at him and he scowled at his feet, and then we went down to get aboard a motorcycle – at last.
Ok girls- time for some embarrassing moments (well, this is not as bad as a visit to the proctologist but) – yes, I had to sit behind this strange bloke and he took me on a spin to a nearby churchyard- and I could not hang on to his waist or shoulders (which I believe only friends or relations can do – neither did I actually want to -) but had to grip desperately at some kind of handle below my seat , while whining cravenly for him not to ride too fast …
He took about half an hour to explain carefully ,like dealing with a total drooling idiot, the accelerator, brakes and gears and what the dials meant -and then got me to sit in front , after which very genteelly and without any unwanted physical contact, managed to take me on a few test loops followed by (really scareeeey-) the point where he let me steer .That accomplished ,he proceeded to hand me total control of the handlebars , and a few ,jelly like wobbles away I was riding.
…the next thing this impossible person was suggesting, barely an hour after id met him –was that I practice on my own. Before you know it, he was lounging happily under a tree, checking his inbox, and I was being allowed out there on my own, describing happy somewhat rabid circles in the dusty church car park!

Ladies and gentlewomen, there is nothing I can think of that will beat this feeling (well, ok, nothing printable) - you are in the pilot seat, the wind is in your hair and you are responsible for your own direction, and speed, not to mention keeping your teeth, knees and elbows intact:
You are in control:of your destiny and your destination.
You are at one with your surroundings and a living part of a powerful machine.

Needless to say this is an adrenalin rush that can become highly addictive.

No amount of being the model pupil would make the instructor so much as grunt a positive comment, until he had withdrawn to a prudent distance from me and watched me do my thing for about an hour- after which he sheepishly admitted that many of the women he taught had no sense of balance and had put him through about half a dozen nasty falls, which is why he had been dreading this as much as me. …have you ever experienced gravel rash on your elbows or knees? Its crippling....

What can go wrong? Plenty. But you can be prepared. Insure your bike fully , that way you need not worry about parking it somewhere and going home in an emergency. Third party insurance means that if you knock one of those expensive lights out on a passing Prado, you will not have to work as an indentured slave for the next ten years to pay for it (or marry the owner which is, of course, worse). Insurance is quite affordable coming to just about 5% of the bikes value.
Follow the usual technical advise about petrol and 2T oil and go easy with the experimenting- do not listen to the tykes next door who suggest kerosene or sunflower oil. Carry a first aid box with antiseptics, stay away from lose gravel because its like oil to bike wheels, always have your tools nearby so that if you are stuck at least someone who passes by can help you. Memorize where the repair joints are – there is one almost every 200 yards in Colombo and be prepared to use your marketing smile to get things done. The strange thing is that although or because women on bikes are not yet common to Sri Lankans, they are also tolerated with a good deal of instant affection. There is nothing like riding up on a bike to open doors for you, you get treated amazingly akin to royalty or at least with indulgent smiles which means you can get almost any kind of assistance you politely require, from people who would not glance at you twice if you came in a three wheeler….You may also have to push the bike for a few miles if you get a flat tyre- or if you have a spare fifty rupee note you can simply pay a more manual looking passer by to help you by pushing it themselves.

You will tumble which is another good reason to wear thick denim pants and if possible Xena like breast armour. Falling is pretty much compulsory but happens when you least expect it. If you are going at 20 miles an hour, near the drains, you will not have to worry about something large running over you after you do. You will also hit a few pedestrians if you keep staring at SHOE SALE signs, so don’t. As for ogling well built male pedestrians, well, you deserve what you get if you do (but don’t let that stop you)

Insure yourself too but accept that you are responsible for your fate. Your life is in your hands so don’t ride no hands. Pray three times a day to every deity that will listen and take one day at a time. Never ever start out late, or worry about reaching your destination dead on time. Answering cel-phones on the ride should be out of the question.

Finally if you are killed randomly on the spot, remember to be happy because it means your troubles are over sooner rather than later. That’s what you call win win. Hakuna Matata!
--------------------------------------
The author affectionately remembers her mentor Gaya, who practices archery, owns a 600cc Suzuki and taught her not to be afraid of bikes. You go, girl!
She also reiterates she will not be held responsible for casualties resulting from decisions to follow in this extreme hobby based on this article series.

(ps the above graphic is probably copyright Daily Mirror )

The Moped Diaries. part 2 No license- no helmet - no underskirt…

2007-01-04T03:15:00.000-08:00

The Moped Diaries. part 2 No license- no helmet - no underskirt…

This is not a technical article - technical advice you can get from just about any guy you know who rides a bike, or from the friendly salesmen at joints selling them. What follows are the kinds of tips you won’t hear from the guys: stuff like how to choose road friendly feminine underwear and what parts of your riding trainer it is better not to grab on those early test runs. Also please understand, first and foremost you need to know how to balance on a foot-cycle as its called, it’s a pre requisite without which you make life a living nightmare for the poor soul who has to teach you, since he will be worrying about how many tumbles he has to take with you and gravel rash on ones elbows hurts to the point of being crippling, trust me.

Helmets are a good idea whether the government requires then or not, since we only have one grey hard disk and damaging that could have embarrassing permanent repercussions. I was given this polite advice by a fatherly grey haired gentleman while waiting in traffic in the middle of Town Hall and I remember him with affection to this day. Have a helmet with a tinted face visor so you don’t need to get distracted smiling at anyone or have a sore throat every day.
As for what to wear- well, the less female you look, the less traffic you will snarl. If you really want to hear the regular hair rising screeching of truck brakes right behind you and feel a thousand eyeballs so tangibly fixed on your rear end that they seem to be arguing for space amongst themselves… then by all means dress like Barbie on the Malibu set of “California Dreams” . If on the other hand you just want to get safely from point A to point B with the least amount of hassle, blend in. Flesh as innocent as exposed calves is rare and delectable fodder to some of the desperate househusbands on Sri Lankan roads, and if you don’t have a bloke in front of you, it’s assumed that you are advertising its availability. I am personally pretty sure that if I pasted my phone number on my bike, I would not only get at least 100 calls a day and be able to market whatever I wanted- but also cause a sharp spike in traffic mishaps in the greater Colombo area due to people focusing on all the wrong things …occasionally I admit, I do toy with the idea of placing the number of the Dehiwala Zoo, on my rear luggage carrier, just for kicks ;-)…moving on:
I’ve tried lots of stuff (except skirts which I really don’t want to) -colourful blouses and shalwars just end up looking absurd, in my humble opinion, high heels are never practical, covered shoes are much better if you wish to actually recognise your toes at the end of the day, and a dust jacket is a good idea- it actually keeps the dust and diesel fumes out of your cleavage (oh ,is that another reason why the guys go first ?)and camouflages the consistency of your bust- for the same reason, make sure those under supports are nice and firm. None of the lacy, flexible stuff you find at fancy Colombo department stores: to take on the potholes of Colombo your valuable assets need to be strapped into the type of coir reinforced lingerie that Mrs Trunchbull wears to netball practice. (She is, for my dear readers who have missed the fun, the 175 kg, ex mud wrestler now tyrannical school principal in Mathilda who throws children out of school windows by their plaits, a creation of Roald Dhal one of the most wonderful and honest children’s authors this world has known.)
Which reminds me, if you have long hair ,for Pete’s sake tie it up- you don’t need that getting caught in the spokes or passing bullock carts. This again is why shalwars shawls and saris make unsuitable riding gear although we have been conditioned to think that if there is a male creature in front of us anything goes .Think about it? How many chances will you get to reverse stupid mistakes like this?
Finally do not think of hanging your groceries on the handle bars. Riding through Colombo needs 150% of your concentration and you don’t want to be worrying about whether the tomatoes are getting squishy by being slapped about against passing private coaches. Guys regularly get away with doing this because they don’t really care about the tomatoes (no matter how much they assure you that they do)-and there are some guy motorcyclists out there who look as though they would not notice it if one of their kids fell off, you will agree. For any kind of luggage you must install a proper luggage carrier and lock it so that at least that is out of sight and out of mind.

Now: onto the subject of the young male road audiences of Sri Lanka: they will as a rule, hoot, whistle and howl, if you look the slightest bit unsteady, or go slowly enough to be noticed, wearing eye catching feminine clothes. It’s a Sri Lankan thing, as unlike in India, women on two wheelers are not yet socially accepted. This decidedly chimpanzee-like pedestrian behaviour goes on for the first couple of weeks but peters out once they figure that you are not bothered and you are handling it better than they would ever. It also helps a lot if you are about 2 inches taller than the average local teenager and are yourself, large and in charge like me. My policy is to focus on every third guy who makes a noise, turn the bike around slowly , take it close to him, look him in the eye and gently say, “monowahari PRASHNAYAK thiyenawaadha?" with a sweet smile. Chances are he will get a glazed uncomfortable look and start wriggling uneasily. So you continue staring him down with the same sweet smile and make your voice firm and slightly metallic and say “ no, seriously, does my back tyre look flat to you ? is there anything odd you noticed…?”while giving the bike a few noisy revs and if he has nothing to say, smile honestly and move calmly off back the way you came from. If he answers you with anything spunky, park the bike and stand up. This is where those Fie Quando classes* come in handy, as they take away a woman’s natural paralysis when it comes to handling potentially uncomfortable situations. Nine times out of ten, the average street gang respects a woman who stands up for herself and will end up cringing and smiling cravenly…and saying “naa naa mukuth naa” because they never expected you to confront them and are feeling mighty foolish about it.
Don’t forget these are the same gangs who will bend over backwards to help you, if you are in trouble, (it has happened to me and resulted in a world of new contacts: I now have useful friends in low places) so never take the hooting personally enough to get annoyed by it! □
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
• another story altogether

Motor-biking in Colombo although affordable fun, can be injurious to your health, not to mention, final. The article is merely a nostalgic account of personal experiences and the author does not take responsibility for any damage sustained by readers, female or otherwise, who take up this dubious sport subsequent to reading same. Next week: my first lesson and what can go wrong.