One one things

I’m in a bit of a puk mood. It shouldn’t be the case bc I just got back from a nice holiday so I should be feeling all energized and ready to rock n’ roll (ok maybe just energized). But no, I’m feeling a bit down, I think it’s my first case of sunday evening blues since i left school. The worst days were the Monday’s at the end of holidays and going back to school when i was in Royal, back to those dragging classes copying off the blackboard and faking a headache to avoid Mr. Gunaratne’s sinhala class. Those were (not) the days.

But as I said, I’m feeling spoilt bc I shouldn’t feel down, just had a nice relaxing, enjoyable and educational trip to England and continental Europe. Ah yes, another reason for my puk mood, I was thrilled that we were to be back on the 31st bc it would give me a chance to catch the last day of Fefu. We got back early morning and i dragged myself out of bed at 2pm to go to barefoot to get tickets but it was sold out, i half expected it though. Happily enough i bumped into two friends there and we sat and listened to the afternoon jazz. Then I come home and go online around 8 and find that there’s another showing of Fefu at 10 but tickets sold between 4 and 6, and also read that everyone on kottu is going gaga over fefu, so that explains it (choking computer).

So on to more fun things. We were in England for 2 days for aiya’s convacation, it was mara nice, all his friends had also done well and are now a bunch of doctors. Makes it 3 out of 4 in the family now, they don’t talk to me much, I have my own economists corner where i sit alone, with Adam Smith, he’s nice (if a bit smelly). The only bad thing about the convacation was that the photographer for the family photo said that i’m standing like a scarecrow and that i need to loosen up. So much for not hunching. So after all that we took off to Austria. The plan was a coach tour from Innsbruck to Venice to Salzburg to Vienna then back to London for 3 days before coming home. If I go to write about the whole trip I’d probably get tired, so i won’t. Instead i’ll give snippets.

Innsbruck: A little ski resort town in Austria, absolutely lovely. Unfortunately spent just one night there but it had the quaintest little night cafe where we walked around for hours. It’s the sort of place I wish we had in Colombo, a place to go in the evening with friends or family, have a nice dinner, enjoy the outdoor music,
then go to another shop for ice cream and stop over for lovely coffee before getting home.

Venice: 4 hour coach drive from Innsbruck, lot’s of 304. Got to venice by afternoon and fed pigeons who are so brave that they jump onto your arm to grab the bird feed! The only dissapointment was that the water in the canals was a bit filthy. Had a super Gondola ride, the (driver?!) was a real character, he let the two girls steer the Gondola at one point and gave me his hat. He kept chattering and raced other Gondolas and even tried to sing for us, the word try being operative. The architecture was another highlight, all the buildings are protected by UNESCO and the occupants can’t change anything on the exterior without prior permission and regulation. Again just one afternoon and lots of photos in Venice. But apparently it’s very boring to live there, in the words of our Gondolier (Italian accent on) “No bars, nightclubs, stripshows, nothing.”

Salzburg: Birth place of Mozart (I had a time convincing the fellow trippers that Wolfgang is not pronounced how in English we say wolf as in the animal. It’s more like how we say golf and gang is pronounced gung). It rained unfortunately, but we got to see a park where lots of the Sound of Music movie was filmed and watched a live musical version of Sound of Music. I too sang along, despite only knowing two lines, namely “these are a few of my favourite things” and “eidelweis” (if one word counts as a line).

Vienna: One of the most under-rated Europeans cities. It has some of the most diverse, often radical (Hundertwasser) architecture i’ve ever seen. We only had time for a drive through the city and a short guided walk. The number of different museaums, galleries, operas and historic buildings is mindboggling. Vienna is one city that i’d certainly want to visit again, everyone was wondering how come places like Paris are held in such high regard while nobody ever talks of Vienna. Also i’ve decided that if i ever get down to making my own house, some part of it must be in the Hundertwasser style. This guy believes that all architecture should be in harmony with nature so all the floors are uneven, the walls not straight and nothing symmetrical. Also, bc when landscaping we remove trees and bushes, these must be allowed to grow ON the building, be it the roof garden or the walls themselves! Overall effect; radical, interesting, beautiful in its own way.

London: Well we all know about London, but Phantom of the Opera..just, wow. The music, the dramatics, the acting the stage effects, there’s little I can say to describe them. I’m planning on trying to watch at least 2 shows a term next year, hopefully can cover my list. Was at Leicester Sq. on Friday night and it was just packed with people, the resilience of these guys is very heartening. But the presence of a cop squad near the Odeon didn’t go un-noticed, it’s quite scary to think what could happen if the terrorists strike there on a Friday night. Let’s hope it doesn’t happen. Ah and if you go to China town go to the Peking Duck (Or roast duck, can’t remember) restaurant, you won’t be dissapointed.

Alrite time to bugger off for weekly grandparental dinner.

I have time to kill so i’m going to write some more. I decided to stay awake so that I can sleep on the plane as much as I can. So I’m going to London tonight and quite a few people have been saying “ah be careful, never know when a bomb will go off” and I think what the hell, I’m Sri Lankan, I’ve lived all my life here and we know a thing or two about bombs. But, I seem to have taken for granted the lack of severe terror attacks in Colombo over the last couple of years. The first 16 years of my life was spent wondering when the next one will go off. Each time there’s a big bang I remember running to the phone (pay phone in school, what cell phones those days!) feverishly dialling my parents work places, then after getting to know where it’s exploded calling up people in those areas. The bombs that will forever be etched in my memory are the JOC bomb, Central Bank, Town hall and Ranjan Wijeratne.

The first bomb i remember is Ranjan Wijeratne’s blast. I must have been around 7 or 8 years old. For some reason aiya and I were dropped at my uncle’s place, which was in Thimbirigasyaya, very close to the explosion. I don’t remember much about it except that the adults were all very tense and I was feeling quite scared. My uncle took us to the blast site, which probably wasn’t too clever. I distinctly have a picture in my head of half a face of a man (ear and beard) lying on the floor near the pavement. I still feel sick thinking of it. Also I remember the Rambutan pieces scattered all over. I think that was the first time the war really hit me, I think I knew that there was a war in our country but it was then that I knew that it’s in OUR country and not just some place where we’d never set foot in.
If the Wijeratne bomb failed to convince me entirely, the JOC bomb left no stones unturned. I was in Royal in year 2 which is incredibly close to the then JOC. The explosion was massive and I remember the lights going out, we ran outside with the teachers. One image i’ll never forget is of a guy in year 4 or something running towards year 2 block whilst everyone was running away, apparently his little bro was in our grade. Reminds me of that famous Tsunami pic of that woman running towards the sea to save her kids. Most of it is hazy now, I remember the Nawarangahala was the place where injured kids were treated and I remember finding aiya somewhere there (he wasn’t injured thankfully). We were all told to evacuate to the senior playground and it felt like a stampede bc everyone was going through a small gap in the wall, and being three and a half feet tall doesn’t make things easy. We finally got home in the afternoon sometime and I sort of remember not talking for most of the day.

The Central Bank bomb occured a bit later on when i had a fairly good understanding of the war and its many brutalities. I was in my French class, third floor (F2?) in cis and there was a massive noise and I could have sworn the building shook. Everyone knew it was a bomb and I just ran off to find aiya and try and call our parents, it was so loud it felt really close but then we heard various stories one of which was that the bomb was in Nawaloka where thaththi works, my heart sank and I wanted to throw up but then the rumours stopped and we got to know it was at the Central Bank. The sheer magnitude of that bomb just shocked me and as I watched the news over and over I just got so depressed.

The town hall bomb that killed C.V. Gooneratne wasn’t the biggest bomb to hit Colombo but it depressed me as much as any other. It occured around early August and at the time I had been reading about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The town hall bomb cracked a mirror in our house, and soon after it happened I went into (by my standards) a bit of a depression. It’s best described as just feeling kalakirila about life in general, I remeber not talking a lot and also going over the Newsweek and Time about Hiroshima and Nagasaki repeatedly, including pictures, again not very clever. I probably just got sick of wondering when is it going to be me or someone in my family, when will one of us be “among the dead”.

Last year I was in Killinochchi and I met boys around my age, and they’ve known nothing other than that same fear for their whole life. When you see bullet marks on the walls of houses it probably hits home, literally. Someday, when we ACTUALLY finish this war, we’re going to have a serious issue in terms of sorting out the mental side of things. Living in fear all the time will certainly do things to you, we need to figure out a way to sort it out.

I have developed a fair aversion to flying. I’ve always had motion sickness, when I was less than 5 i had the pleasure of throwing up in JFK airport. In a few hours i’ll be off on a 10+ hour flight to England, not fun. One of the things I hate is that damn aerosol they spray just prior to touch down, makes me really sick and i have to close my eyes and nose each time. I’m not looking forward to the flight but i’m looking forward to getting to England and seeing aiya’s convacation and then moving onto a couple of places in the continent. I also need to sort out where i’m living next year so it’ll be a hectic 9 or so days. Anyway, onto more pleasant issues, i need to re-visit Kathmandu.
On the second evening there was another social event, less formal and it involved just the foriegn participants for a piss up followed by dinner. I can’t remember if i mentioned this last time but by some coincidence the hotel was having a Sri Lankan food festival and the manager wanted me to inspect the dishes before the buffet was open. There was some dishes that were rather un-Sri Lankan to be in a Sri Lankan buffet, but they got the chicken curry, parips and mutton curry right so it was good enough. Amusingly the embul thiyal wasn’t black and had hodi, there was some dish involving green peas which is a bit odd considering we don’t even eat green peas here. Ah and there was a guy making kottu and another making hoppers (aappam as he called it). I enjoyed it overall, quite decent and hats off for effort. So my Pakistani friend and I decided to ditch the rest of the gang (mainly 60+ year olds discussing south asian politics and the many vices of SAARC, fascinating stuff) and go and see the town with two of her friends from the States. Unfortunately the two friends were feeling lazy and decided to join us at the hotel so we just ended up chatting for a few hours and buggering off to bed around 1.
The next morning I was presenting and it went fairly well which pleased me immensely. Everyone seemed a lot more interested in me afterwards and lots of ppl came to say hello and talk about Sri Lanka or my paper, I felt quite important! That afternoon I went shopping with my new found friend to a place called Thamil. It’s a proper tourist trap but i managed to get some masala tea for thaththi and aiya, a book for ammi and 5 CDs for myself. We then stopped into a pizza place which was brilliant! It served the best pizza i’ve had since pizza express in England and it was so cheap! food in Nepal is very cheap in general. Had to head back to the hotel for the next couple of hours bc my friend had a dinner and then we went out again to an open air pub/bar called New Orleans around 10pm. Got properly ripped off by the cabbie and almost got into an argument, he was looking fairly mean and raised his voice so we thought it best to hop off. The New Orleans was superb, really relaxed chill place with Cuban music (I was fairly pleased that i bought myself a cuban cd earlier on in the day). I had an Irish coffee and we discussed where she should travel over the next few days (she was having a slightly extended break). I wish I could have done the same bc there’s a National park close by which had Tigers! One of the 3 things I want to do before I die is to see Tigers in the wild (already seen the 2 legged kind ) the other two are to travel in Africa, particularly safari and to go for a Counting Crows concert. We chatted for an hour or so and then went to a late night book shop and browsed around and decided to take a rickshaw back to the hotel. That was a brilliant if slightly scary experience bc it did rock (in the traditional sense) to and fro a great deal. I took a couple of pictures but i doubt they came out well. Ah i forgot to say, while i was walking single file along the road in thamil (it’s really narrow and two cars can’t go in parallel) this little kid was walking just behind me and then he made a noise, something like hachis, i thought he sneezed but then he did it again and followed it by “sir”. So i slowed down and looked at him, he looked about 14 at most, and he grinned and said “Hashish, sir?” I naturally declined (nono really) and quickened my pace and caught up with my friend. She was very amused. This isn’t the first time i’ve been thought of as a potential kudda. Long time ago, must be 4 years at least, i was out with some friends after a massive sea food buffet and we decided to have a cup of tea before heading home so we stopped at some kadey near a friend’s house. The waiter took our order and whispered something in my friend’s ear, my friend then started laughing like mad and shook his head, the waiter grinned and left. Apparently the waiter had asked if my friend wants some goods and when he declined he had asked if anyone else does and added that the fellow with the dodgy hair (yes, me) would like some bc apparently I’m an “adinawa wagey” person. Maybe I do need to crop that hair a bit then.
So that was pretty much the end of my visit to Kathmandu, and the rest was uneventful except that at the breakfast buffet a mother had forgotten to put a diaper on her kid and she carried him while he took a piss against the window. I mean, wtf!! The fellow looked close to 1 and surely they can afford a diaper if they can holiday at a 5 star (apparently) hotel. Ah and the worst thing, she cleaned it up using the napkin provided at the table. Very distressing. When i was leaving the airport was a bit mad, they manually checked my suitcase twice and then removed the wires from my laptop saying that I can collect it from Colombo from the restricted luggage ppl! Apparently the flight to Colombo is a “problematic” one and there were military ppl all over, checking the plane and what not. There was no money changer upstairs so I had to strike a deal with the duty free liquor guy to change my Nepalese rupees to US$. He proceeded to rip me off but i had little choice. The going rate is 70Rs to 1$, he charged me 80. So I was in a puk mood when i left but overall i really enjoyed the trip, I made some friends, saw some nice places and had some fun experiences. It’s a place i’d certainly want to return to and spend a bit more time there. Of course it would help if we had a direct flight,speaking of which, thank God the Colombo -London is direct! I probably should have a nap before I go.

Was in Kathmandu the last couple of days and got back this morning. You wouldn’t expect going to Nepal from Colombo would involve 14 hours of travel, but it does.. (15 if you count home to katunayake!). The flight is via Bangkok and it’s really tiring. As a result I’m looking a bit of a wreck, and even a strong cup of coffee has failed to wake me up. But, it was all worth it. Absolutely brilliant trip, professionally and personally.

On the first day i couldn’t do anything at all, the Kathmandu airport was a bit of a culture shock. Only one of the immigration counters was manned, you have to walk from the plane to the airport, and the baggage moving thing (i can’t remember the word) gets stuck every 5 seconds. When we started driving to the Hotel, Colombo felt like a first world country. There’s not one high rise building, there were ppl rummaging through massive piles of garbage and just overall a hugely under-developed city. I was thinking if the capital is like this what of the rest of the country? no wonder the Maoists are running amock. The experience was a real eye-opener, it’s the first time i’ve been in a capital city less developed than Colombo. Got to the hotel around 4 and just flopped into bed and slept till 7 when I was reminded about the social event that evening.

The evening was pleasant, had to small talk my way through old diplomats and foreign service folk but also got to watch some native dance routines. I was a bit annoyed bc the dancers were doing their best to put up a show and the “audience” hardly bothered to look and just continued discussing politics and what not. If i’d been one of the performers i’d be well pissed off. I wish they’d also explained the meanings of the dances, it’s really fun trying to figure out how the dancer tries to express his/her story but its also damn tough without some clues! There was one dance depicting the story of a medicine man curing a rather spastic patient, another which i figured was Nepalese flirting techniques (the prequel to that evergreen classic The Karma Sutra) and finally a dance showing what i thought was a bull-fight between a hairy man and a harier bull (turns out to be a Yeti taking on a Yak). There was some interesting food on offer, Yak’s cheese and paneer are favourites in Nepal, and the enthusiastic waiters served paneer cooked in about 8 different ways. Paneer is lovely at most times, but this was exceptionally good stuff.

The proceedings began on the 2nd day and they were as mundane as expected. I was getting nervous about the 3rd day bc thats when i had to do my thing. Funny thing happened early afternoon on day 2. The Pakistani delegate sat next to me and asked me when my father is presenting. Naturally this was odd since my father was happily in Colombo running around the new world. She then asked me if the guy next to me earlier was my father. I said no no. Apparently she thought i was the spoilt kid of one of the delegates who had been dragged along for a free trip and was cursing South Asian nepotism! After that we struck a chord and got along really well. She was one of the youngest ppl around being “only 30″. We decided to hang out and explore Kathmandu together over the next couple of days.

This will be the topic of the next exciting episode of: ddm in Kathmadu. (ding ding ding..and other suspenseful background music).

P.s. Namasthe apparently means “I salute the God in you”.

What do you do when the shit hits the fan?
I am just sitting here quietly in the loo
Wish I was home with a CD or two
Instead I’m hanging around trying to do a choo

Ranil is marching on the streets at two
In this cunning sun, must be missing a screw
I suck at poetry, how about you?
This was fun, Shakespeare who?

Ahh it’s just one of those days. You know when you have a million and one things to do and solitaire and minesweeper just seem to become the most fascinating things on earth? Reminds me of all night essays in uni, 3am struggling through a sentence and you think “ah what the hell men, one more game of solitaire.” It’s probably a reaction to stress. I’ve been blessed with the ability to block away anything unpleasant (usually just work that doesn’t stop piling up) and live like there’s no tomorrow, but I guess not feeling stressed doesn’t mean that you aren’t stressed inside. Anyway screw it, I will continue to block..and blog.

Last night i went to have coffee with my future housemate, haven’t seen her since she came down to Colombo for summer. Had an exorbitantly priced iced coffee (250 bucks! bloody hell) and was chatting with her and a couple of her friends when a chap walks towards the place we’re sitting, he’s apparently a friend of one of the buggers with us. He looked mildly familiar and had a very familiar name. As the evening progressed he reminded me more and more of the fellow in school with me about 15 years ago. But then I didn’t want to say “machan do you remember me?” only for him to say “eh?”. (reminds me of this one time our cricket coach saw Aravinda de Silva and in front of all of us asked him “Ara, how are you machang?” .. to which Aravinda replied “Meh, oya kawda?”..naturally the coach didn’t hear the end of it). So anyway, I had to get home by around 9 to do some work so i buggered off. Near Kollupitiya i get a call from my future housemate telling me to come back bc the chap had just realised that he knows me, hehe he then came on the phone and said that we used to sit together in class in year 4 or something.

So it was another case of everyone in Colombo knowing the other bugger in some convoluted manner. It just seems to come up all the time. The other day i was walking from the kadey to office and this car swerves past me in a rather erratic manner, I looked up to utter some profanity under my breath and to see its a girl who was one year above me in school. Colombo is sort of like a small village in a big city. It’s impossible to go somewhere without bumping into someone you know. It’s superb in a way bc it’s lovely to meet people you haven’t met in ages and just stop and catch up, or if you have to go for a conference or a seminar alone there’s a good chance you’ll meet somebody from school or a family friend or something or at least strike up a conversation with somebody who knows somebody that you know! In that sense Colombo is very homely and you rarely feel alone.

The catch however is that there is little or no sense of anonymity. You can’t go anywhere without meeting an aunty or an uncle who’ll run and tell your parents “ahh i met your son that day, he was in a hadu shirt!” (and of course far worse things than that). And you also end up hearing some bizarre stories about yourself and ppl that you know from total strangers since everyone is so connected. Unfortunately a lot of the stories are fairly off the mark, and not very pleasantly twisted. For me the worst thing about Colombo is the nature of some of its ppl, in terms of spinning bizarre tales and the pleasure some ppl get out of the failure of others. This just seems accenuated by the fact that everyone seems to know the next person. But at the same time one of the nicer things about Colombo is that you can go somewhere and always feel at home bc there are so many ppl you know.

So I can’t decide whether I love it or hate it, it’s one of those things we’ll forever have to live with and just learn to take the good with the bad.

P.s. Mr. Ferry I apologize for cribbing your title to an extent, I am however a big fan of your book and encourage all and sundry to get a copy of Colpetty People, available at all leading book stores. (It has a lively cover..purple with tinges of orange, if i remember right).