One one things

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).