One one things

There was a time around the end of last year when i was very jobless and i was eager to do a bunch of stuff outside work. But soon enough they piled up along with work commitments. This week saw the end of one of these extra things. I’ve spent many of my evenings over the last 8 months teaching 2 (at one time 4) AL students the wonder that is economics. AL’s finished this week leaving me a bit more time on my hands, but also a bit of a void.

I had always wanted to teach bc some of the greatest influences on my life have been my teachers, be it school teachers to uni teachers to the odd tuition teacher. The first teacher who made an impact on me was my form 2 history teacher mr. O’ kane. I don’t remember a lot about his classes, but i used to hate history till then beacause it used to bore the hell out of me. I owe Mr. O’Kane bc he helped open our young minds a great deal at the time. Not many teachers take 11 year olds seriously but Mr. O’Kane did, and that’s the main reason why he was able to connect with us and make history enjoyable for the first time.

My favourite teacher of all time is Mr. Outred who taught me literature for OL’s. Outy had a great way of teaching. He’d use a lesson not just to get through the syllabus but to actually teach us stuff that we’d hang on to after we’ve forgotten all the quotations from Macbeth and the Crucible. He once found an excuse to show us a gallery of naked Swedish ladies claiming it was art. I think it was some debate on the thin line between art and porn (it’s art it’s art!). Outy was a bit mad though. He once wrote in big letters across the white board “Jesus Christ Superstar came down from heaven on a yamaha” and then struggled to cover it with his slight frame when the Principal paid a surprise visit. I had always expected to get through life without making head or tail out of poetry until Outy’s classes. All of a sudden it all made sense, for one simple reason, you can take poetry to mean what you want it as long as you have a reason for why you think what you think. The freedom that Outy gave our minds was probably his best quality along with his sense of humour. I heard recently that Outy is a computer game tester in the Uk, it might be just SL talk but i won’t be surprised, Outy is the sort who would do what he wants without needing to have someone else second his ideas.

Mr. Watson showed me my economics ropes. He wasn’t particularly good at getting through to the class nor at maintaing any degree of discpipline. But what I appreciated about him was his patience, even when ppl were taking the piss out of him he’d do his best to drill comparative advatage into our skulls. For me his explanations were crystal clear and brilliant, I’m not sure if i’d be an economist now if not for those foundations. Watty played a big part in helping me get into uni with personal statements, mock interviews and general advice. Best of all he managed to laugh at my horrendous jokes which is always a good thing. He’s now a hotshot london lawyer, hope i bump into him next year.

One guy who hardly taught me but managed to make an impression was Mr. Dias who took our AL english classes. Now I didn’t do English as an AL subject but the authorities felt it best if we spent a hot afternoon hour each week learning English. Happily enough it was great fun. The classes were basically a chance for us to be creative and express ourselves and have a bit of fun as long as we didn’t screw up the essay and comprehension at the end of year exam. So Dias took the artistic licence to introduce us to Dali and Descartes. I never looked at art the same way after that Wednesday afternoon looking at Dali’s Last supper, St. John’s Cross, Metamorphosis of Narcissus and the amazing swan elephant painting. Even today I have 2 Dalis in my room (originals of course, what a silly question). Similarly, had i not read Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy I probably wouldn’t have got interested in Philosophy and wouldn’t have done PPE and wouldn’t be the person I am today. Dias called me up the other day, it was great to hear from him.

Mr. Jega is someone to whom i’ll be forever grateful. I’ve been quite good academically, but the times i did stumble Mr. Jega has helped me out of it. When i was struggling to switch from sinhala to enlgish medium at age 10 Jega taught me maths and science. He was kind enough to accomodate me in his AL and OL classes that were on at the time and taught me the absolute basics, even simple things like Brownian motion getting it’s name from a chap called Brown.
Despite me being among the worst mathematicians in town, Jega was able to get something out of me when i was doing AL maths and needing an A to get into uni. I owe Jega as much as any of my teachers. What i respect about Jega is he did what he did bc he loves teaching, he never cared about money, he just trusted us to repay him accordingly but he never really kept track. Sadly some ppl abused this.

All these guys inspired me to try my hand at teaching, and this week I finished my first shot at it. I hope the kids do well with the results, but we worked really hard and I’ll be very proud of them whatever happens. I don’t think i was anywhere near as good as the superb teacher’s i’ve mentioned but i had a great time teaching, there’s nothing quite like working hard to explain something and seeing somebody else understand it and watch them smile as it dawns upon them. Teaching is one of the most underated professions in Sri Lanka and many parts of the world. Over here they get paid 8k a month in govt. service which is laughable really. It’s easy to forget that it is because of them that we are what we are today.

It’s not very often in Sri Lanka that we get good quality original live entertainment. So when there is something going down ppl tend to get fairly excited. Yesterday I had almost an overdose, two activities in one evening! Started with the SL v Singapore rugby match at Longden place. I’m not a major rugby fan but i enjoy watching it and enjoy the odd game of tap. I went for the match with my ardent rugby fan buddy, unfortunately mixed up the kick off time, thought it was 5 when it was 4.30. But luckily the first half hour was bad for SL and as soon as we entered the ground after a BIGASS queue we got our first try. Overall it was great fun, SL played some superb rugby in between some rather clumsy looking fumbles. The odd thing was that the Singapore team had rather a lot of..new zealanders :S Was tempted to shout “all black reject” when one of them passed by but it was much too unbecoming of a hospitable Sri Lankan fan (i mean, i could have taken him out if things got messy, not that i’m scared or anything). Within those 80 mins we managed to shout ourselves hoarse, mainly things like duwapang! umpire hora! come ooon! and yeaaaaaaah! heh nothing like a good sports event to get the adrenaline pumping, can’t wait for the west indians to come to town.

So we finished at the rugby by 6.30 and had to be at the Wendt by 7.30, cutting it fine. We were going to watch Elizabeth, Almost by chance a woman. I was expecting good things from this play for 2 reasons, 1) stage light(fright) and magic(tragic) have produced some stuff that i have really enjoyed, like the abridged shakespeare stuff and romeo and juliet (despite the excessive legnth). 2) The plot looked to have great potential to be extremely funny if it was done properly. The evening didn’t start particularly well though, we got 2 seconds late (i’m not exaggerating..ok maybe just a bit, make it 5 mins) and we walked in and the girl at the door says “sorry sir, can’t let you in after it started, you’ll have to go to the balcony”. shit. wank. bugger.
I had paid 650 bucks, booked 2 weeks in advance to get seats in the first tier. “I can let you in during the interval” she said..fine fine, we went up and then the clown at the balcony entrance removed our ticket tags, meaning we have no way of proving our seat numbers after the interval. So the girl who was taking us up had to come back tell the balcony entrance clown that she’ll sort it out, poor thing, she was looking quite stressed. Got to the balcony at the start of the letter to George Bush. It was very funny so my mood improved. And then we see 3 buggers going and sitting in the front row downstairs just minutes after we had been refused! Got pissed off again. Another fellow came and told us that there are 2 seats available downstairs and to follow him. So we went, and ran into an important looking guy who had a pony tail, also looking very stressed. He said sorry, can’t let anyone in. Now properly ticked off, we’re missing the play, even if its just standing in the balcony! so back up to the balcony we went, fuming. Then within 5 mins another fellow comes up, talks to my friend, looks at me pats my shoulder and says to come down that the seats are ok. Ran into the pony tail again and he had changed his tone, apologised to us and took us in.

Finally was able to sit down and enjoy the play. Unfortunately the play left a lot to be desired by stage light standards. I mean, there were parts that were very very funny. The letter to george bush was superb (if the whole P.T.O bit was a flogged a tad too much), anuruddha’s acting was super, as was ifaz (bit too much slapstick though), Martha and Marsh. I loved Mama Zaza’s (not sure if thats the spelling) miming but a lot of her was overcooked. The problem was that there was too much slapstick, too many obvious innuendos and i didn’t like how they just swore to make ppl laugh. Swearing is fantastic, great part of language, but its much funnier when its used in a more subtle, tongue in cheek way rather than just putting the word fuck in a sentence to make ppl laugh. Ok good example, the part during the Bush letter when the lights went out and Ifaz was giving the finger to the cameraman not realising the lights had come on, funny, clever, not crude.

But overall the acting was very good, as was the script and the adaptation to Sri Lanka. The parallels drawn with CBK were cleverly done and subtle enough to make it enjoyable. Thing with stagelight is they don’t need to add in all sorts of slapstick and don’t need to abuse the english language in order to be funny, and the fact that they did do that made it a bit disappointing. But in SL we’re starved for this sort of thing so how to complain? as my friend said “something to laugh at is better than nothing.” Considering watching “wun shOt” next week. (tongue firmly in cheek).

It feels like ages since i’ve had some free time but i don’t think thats quite true. I haven’t been particularly busy but been doing lots of other little little things and as a result not had time to sit in front of a computer with not much to do. This evening i’m engaging in one of my favourite chilling modes, TNL, cuban coffee and a book. Coffee is possibly the strangest drink i’ve had. If not for its addictive qualities it probably tastes quite bad. For the first 18 years of my life i drank nescafe or island kopi with 2 big lumps of sugar, in fact in those 18 years the best coffee i’ve had was at my old neighbour’s house, his mother makes the most fantastic, sweet coffee that just dances down your tongue. It’s even better than the Raheema’s and Pilloows stuff. But in the last 3 years my coffee drinking took a turn, a bitter turn. In my second year at uni i lived with a bunch of english guys (and girl) and they quietly converted me into what they call a “real coffee” drinker, as opposed to nescafe. Now “real coffee” means coffee, no sugar, and if you’re more hardcore than the rest of us no milk either. We had a fantastic variety of coffee in our house, brazillian, arabian, kenyan and what not. At first coffee without sugar tasted horrible (like beer! God forbid), but then i tried to be brave and over the year i quietly got converted, and now i love it. Happily enough i haven’t forgotten to appreciate good old Sri Lankan coffee, loaded with sugar and damn milky.

Last night I went to watch Glen Terry and that swedish guy Roland Van Straaten on Harmonica at barefoot. We got there a tad later than planned and as a result had to park somewhere on Galle road, i feared greatly for my mirrors, hub caps etc. I’ve lost plenty of them the last few months. The place was packed, i think the barefoot ppl were a bit naughty and sold way more tickets than they should have, most ppl were standing and could barely see the stage. Unfortunately we had to stand in some corner and the sound was buggered as well bc the speaker kept going off. When the lady seated next to us said shush when i was talking to my friend I thought to myself ok this is 750 bucks poorly spent. And then came the blessing, in a fairly cunning disguise. Rain. And in colombo when it rains it pours, proper proper rain, not like the horrid chiri chiri rain in england. So the 4 of us thought screw it, we’ll get wet anyway so might as well hang around. As the rain intensified the well mannered ppl in the front rows took shelter in the corridors leaving several vacant, very wet but vacant, seats. So we occupied these seats and it was fantastic! It really felt like a private show, with a few ppl in the corners peeping over our shoulders. We got properly properly soaked, i was shivering at the end. The music was outstanding to say the least. The harmonica player Mr. Van Straaten wasn’t all that flash other than some bizarre yet fascinating and entertaining vocal thing he did in competition with the Indian tabla/other drums player. It reminded me of eminem’s film with those rapping contests. It should have been called indian chap vs. van straaten da remix respect rastafari..or something along those lines. Anyway, great stuff. The Indian tabla player, vocal talents aside, was brilliant, as was the guest female jazz singer, the bass guitarist who showed up late and mr. Terry himself. I’ve never seen Glen Terry perform before, and i expected a caucasian with hair, instead Glen Terry turns out to be a Sri Lankan without hair, and very very good at what he does. All combined it was a super super show.

By the time the band took a break my friends and i were in danger of catching multiple chills so we decided to bugger off. Popped in to grab a bite to eat from dinemor, i don’t think too many other places would have accepted us looking like a bunch of shipwrecked pirates (yes, johnny depp and orlando bloom watch out).

Like coffee, appreciating jazz is something that didn’t come naturally to me. I used to change the dial whenever jazz was on but my housemate in uni was doing a music degree and one day i was listening to his CD’s in the basement and gave the jazz a chance and it really kicked in. So the next day i ran along and bought a couple of CDs of Coltrane and Miles Davis and i’ve been hooked since. I mean, i still can’t properly appreciate jazz in all its sublteties, but i really really enjoy the sound of it. It’s probably difficult to really appreciate something unless you actually try it out yourself. For instance its difficult to fully appreciate a beautifully crafted dismisal by a swing bowler in a test match unless you’ve been there, tried that and failed a million times and maybe succeeded the odd time. Bc you know what its like, you know how hard it is.

I’ve never had the remotest musical skills so unfortunately i don’t think i can ever appreciate music as fully as someone who does have that skill. Nonetheless i’ll forever enjoy listening to jazz and drinking unadultarated coffee, for this I must thank my old housemates. Keeping an open mind can lead you down some very interesting paths, however hard it is to force that mind open against our dogmatic beliefs.

Hmm, I think i’ve signed my own diarrhoea warrant. Just ate a fish pastry that smelled a bit dodgy, from a shop that has in the past given me, among other things, diarrhoea. But then its the closest shop to where i work, its about a 25 meter walk. The next closest shop is at least 15 meters further away. But then, if i can survive the Imperial Ball’s delightful Sri Lankan buffet, I can survive most things. Wait, I’ve never got through an imperial ball with my bowels unscathed. Let me tell you, it’s an utter bitch sharing a small flat (for the night) with about 10 other buggers and fighting to get to the toilet first. Specially when girls by default get right of way (who said there are no similarities between girls and buses?).

Other ordeals of the imperial ball are; 1) getting dressed, 2) choosing what to wear, 3) what to do with the hair etc. Happily for me i answer these questions in a fairly prompt manner. 1) 5 mins (of which 4 are devoted to the tie), 2) i have only one suit and few appropriately formal shirts 3) sod all. However being the popular chap that i am i don’t go to the imperial ball alone. I go with the ppl who are kind (sympathetic) enough to let me crash at their place. Girls are usually good fun, but they have their drawbacks, dressing up is one of them. The process begins around 4pm (on a good day) and after much wrapping and unwrapping of sarees, doing and undoing of hair, nasty safety pin accidents and much yelling, they’re dressed by around 8, which is late. So we then proceed to run (limp) to the nearest tube station, saree potas in hand and many complaints of aching souls. The imperial ball day is one of the many days that i am happy to be male.

Nonetheless Imperial balls are great fun, I went to a uni where Sri Lankans are fairly scarce. So its quite nice to bump into half of cis and other schools on the same night, do the usual “adooo how you bugger??”, dance to some good baila, eat some sri lankan food in suitably large quantities (despite the consequences), and best of all to just party with your good friends who you haven’t seen in a few months. In that sense it’s fairly similar to 31st night at galle face, or a clancys on a tuesday night (back in the day, not now). Sometime next year i’ll hopefully be at my last imperial ball ever, must invest in some immodium just in case they don’t change the caterers.

I just had a very pleasant chat with the oldest member of our staff. Mr. P is involved in the administration where I work and is one of the nicest ppl i work with. Unfortunately i don’t get to interact much with him bc he’s not involved in the research stuff so we only say hi bye when we pass one another on the corridor. Anyway today i had to go meet him to sort out some reimbursement stuff which would have taken 2 mins but we had a 30mins chat! He started by asking me about my plans for the next few months and he was very happy that i’m doing a masters and went on to tell me that its good to be prepared for any eventuality given our countries present situation. I felt the pain in his voice as he said this bc he’s obviously someone with a great love for Sri Lanka. And he felt that this was the time to give vent to his feelings and gave me one of the best history lessons about Sri Lankan irrigation and agriculture, about his days in Pollonnaruwa battling mosquitoes and tank flies and how he and his friends had fun despite the lack of electricity and all the pleasures we enjoy today. Apparently they would bathe in the Parakrama Samudraya and then relax in the cool evening breeze sitting on the rock next to the massive Parakramabahu statues. Now if anyone knows the exact place i’m referring to they’d understand how appealing this sounds. Often i wish i lived in a more outdoorsy area, without all the buildings, pollution, cars and noise. But at the same time i love colombo, i love going out and enjoy the limited entertainment our city offers.

Mr. P was by now in nostalgic mode, after all these years he’s still amazed at the brilliance of 12th C Sri Lankan engineers. He actually drew a map on the back of an envelope showing me how the different tributaries have been created in order to provide irrigation for the settlements in the area! And then told me a story of how he and his friends got lost in Wasgamuwa forest!
More than anything else what made our chat so pleasant was his enthusiasm, very few ppl these days are so keen to just talk to somebody. Not that i’m an exception, i hate small talk and go to great legnths to avoid it. It’s different with ppl from that generation. Another time that i had a fascinating conversation was with an 83 year old WW II veteran in england.
I was travelling by coach and i never talk to ppl on the coach usually but that time i sat next to William Kentish and we had a 1.5 hour long chat about WWII (he was in the navy and was involved in the battle of the Bismark!!), his days at cambridge, religion, his wife and kids and so much more. I still remember the first thing he said to me, “You’re young, you’re lucky.” I think our generation discounts the value of conversation, we always have something to do, somewhere to be and so we hardly have time to just talk to someone. People like Mr. Kentish and mr. p probably miss that part of what they used to have back in the day, and greatly value any chance they get now.

I always get along well with old ppl bc they’re willing to talk if you’re willing to listen. We can learn so much from our grandparents generation, particularly those who are not too cynical. Unfortunately quite a few of them are cynical and only ever complain, but i’d certainly recommend just listening to an elderly person, just to hear what they have to say, there’s not much to lose other than time, and hey if they can spare some i’m sure we can!

A little over an year ago i finished uni and was looking for work for the first time in my life. Being the lazy scallywag that i am i never did any internships or part time work during uni vacations. I always told myself that i’ll be working till im around 60, so why rush into things? I’m not sure if i regret it or not, i had a damn good time all those summers. Had i been working i wouldnt have been able to amble back home at 4am and sleep till 12, wake up and go watch a movie or play cards till evening and then run off to play cricket with the pals and do the routine all over again. But then I would have also had a better shot at my masters applications, but as it turned out im happy with what i got.
Anyway after that long digression, the point is this time last year i got my first job as an intern at the un and today, one year later, i got my own intern!!! I’ve been having a really busy few days since i got 2 external projects landed on me and the boss decided to allocate not one but 2 interns to help me out! I’m still a bit shell shocked but the first guy turned up today and i had coffee with him. Turns out he’s a first year at ucl and happened to go to the same school as i did. Typically enough we know about 10 ppl in common and had a typical sri lankan chat..”ahh you know this bugger?” ..”"adey yes! my good friend’s bro” etc. etc.

On monday the second intern is scheduled to show up. So its all a new experience and i’m going to try and be nice and not give them menial tasks and try to get them as involved as possible in interesting work. The worst thing about interning is sitting around having nothing to do while everyone else is much older than you and do their own things. I still remember the first thing i had to do when i was an intern was to call up a bunch of people inviting them for some meeting, intellectual stimulation to the max. One of my close friends interned here last year and she loved it bc there were loads of ppl of the same age interning and they all got along well, unfortunately when i interned my friends were at least twice my age and were twice as busy! I still managed to get along ok with them, the best part was a field trip to Killinochchi. I went with dev and Ganesh, two fantastic guys and i learnt so much from them, ranging from how to make murunga curry jaffna style and where to get the best koththu in the wanni to the history of northern kings and how the LTTE recruit cadres. The most memorable parts of the trip were visiting the LTTE war cemetry, seeing where prabha gives his martyrs day speech, seeing a young girl with a text book under one arm and an AK-47 under the other and sitting outside the building where Tamilchelvam entertains foreign visitors. Oh and how to forget the fantastic parippu wadey in vavuniya. Hehe and also having to pay a Sinhalese tax! soon as i walked into the killi market all the vendors who had been saying “waanga waanga, nalla rusi” saw me and said “malli malli, elawalu laabai, palathuru laabai” i was shocked that they spoke such fluent sinhalese..i paid 40 bucks for 1kg of wambotu and discovered later that the market price is 30 bucks!

I don’t think i can provide that sort of experience to the two interns working with me, unless of course they’re turned on by the nitty gritty of south asian trade patterns. But i’ll try keep them amused in as many ways possible. I still can’t believe i’ve got an intern!

Ugh just got soaked. Got late to have lunch so all the buth packets in the kadey were over so i had to hop to dinemor to get a bite. Unfortunately 45 seconds into the trip it started to piss down, a 3 wheeler fellow had just scooted passed me and horned to see if i wanted a lift but i cockily shook my head, he must have laughed when it started to rain. Anyway I just got back and ate.

This morning when i walked into office one of the secatries gave her usual greeting of “ahh malli baba, you came?” and i said “yes, yes, how?” and went into my room. Now both sentences contain big chunks of Singlish, which is I think mixing Sinhalese and English words in the same sentence and also mixing Sinhalese Grammar into English sentences. It’s something that we don’t always notice but when you (I) think about it, it’s fascinating. Some examples:

How? (used as a single word, one of my standard greetings) - Kohomada?
I’ll go and come - Gihing ennang.
ahh you came? - ahh aawada?
Anything followed by no..eg. can’t be no? - Wenna ba ne?
How to do this? - Kohoma karannada?
Who to tell? - Kaata kiyannada?
what to do so? - monawa karannada ithin?
what men?? - mokado oy??

There’s probably lots more but can’t think of them. Singlish is best expressed by Carl Muller. He’s such an under-rated writer bc lots of ppl are put off by the profanity and the starkness of what he writes about. I must admit the first time i read Colombo I thought bloody hell, i didn’t know seeya is into this shit! (the first scene is one of the Galle Face umbrella scenes, great fun). But if you do allow an open mind it’s really possible to enjoy his writing style and fantastic story telling skills. He gives a real taste of Sri Lankan life, not just the oh so lovely beaches and the oh so horrible war, he writes about the perverse Sri Lankan culture where outside everyone is very conventional and God fearing whilst at home they go abuse the neighbour’s servant girl. He also writes in the style that Sri Lankan ppl speak in, therefore lots of Singlish. My favourite thing about Carl Muller is the fact that the same book can make me laugh like mad at one point and make me incredibly sad at another. For a first time reader the obvious start is The Jam Fruit Tree and then progress along the 3 generations of the Von Bloss family (my favourite is Once upon a tender time). Keep an open mind and bring along your sense of humour.