One one things

I’ve never been much into fitness in the form of gyms, jogging etc. mainly bc when i was in school i was usually involved in some sport or the other, cricket, badminton and miserable attempts at football (my record remains 1 own goal and 2 hand balls, both of which resulted in penalties against my team) at interhouse level. Even in university i continued to play cricket during the summer and had to walk all over town anyway so fitness was never much of a concern. However after university i became more concerned about my health. One thing i would like to avoid in life is to get some horrible disease and die after many years of suffering, so i decided that i ought to get myself in tip top physical condition. I didn’t do a particularly good job at first bc, well, i’m fairly lazy. But eventually i managed to get myself SSC membership and began swimming on a daily basis, nice relaxed and reasonably fun too (specially secretly racing fellow swimmers, unfortunately,or fortunately, most of them are 60 year old businessmen who discuss the latest happenings on the stock market, and thus offer little challenge).

I’ve been swimming like this for close to an year and thought myself to be reasonably fit. That was until yesterday. One of my friends (yes, hello) coerced me into joining a gym with her in the quest for becoming ultimate fitness queen(s). (I kid..thankfully). So yesterday we popped along to one of these classes which happened to be a Boxing class. I’ve never boxed before, unless of course my limited karate skills count as boxing, so I was a bit apprehensive. I found myself panting after the warm up session, not a good start. But afterwards it gradually became interesting, fun even. Towards the middle of the session I really got into it and imagined myself in a ring fighting this guy and I punched hard, made sure my hands were up protecting my face, despite knowing very well that nobody was planning on hitting me. Ppl say that boxing is a beautiful game (or is that football?), anyway, something to that effect, and i’ve always pooh poohed them bc how could a “sport” where two ppl beat the crap out of one another be beautiful? next time someone would say that WWF is a beautiful sport, oh wait, that’s not a sport. But yesterday i realised that there is a lot more to boxing than simply being a glorified waliya. You need to be quick and agile on your feet, you need superb hand eye coordination, quick thinking and sharp reflexes. The more time i spent there the more i realised how graceful a sport it is, the deft dancer like movements, finding gaps in your opponents defence, outsmarting him with dummies and the fantastic feeling and sound of a well placed punch.

There’s only one problem. It’s bloody exhausting! After one hour I could feel myself gasping for water and breath. We staggered out and I could still feel the blood pumping through my veins. I had to drop into Arpico to buy some food for the dog and when I had to sign the credit card receipt I could barely grip the pen. My signature was made up of two blobs and thankfully the cashier didn’t bother to compare it with that on the card. Got back home and had a shower but I was still tired and fell asleep quite early. Even now my fingers shiver when I hold them out straight, probably due to keeping them clenched in those gloves for so long. Despite this I’m very keen on trying it out again next week. It’s great cardio and it should help me out the next time I find myself in a dark alley. Mohammad Ali, watch out.

I just handed in my last project for work. It feels odd, the end of my first real job. I’ll have to show up in office the next two days as well and I hope boss doesn’t decide that he wants some ammendments made to my paper. But the feeling is bittersweet, I’ll miss work and the friends i’ve made, I won’t miss having to wake up at 7.30am and I won’t miss deadline pressure. Planning on doing lots of travelling between the end of August and when I leave the country in September. Had a bit of a taste of what to expect over the weekend, spent 3 days running around the country from Kithulgala to Unawatuna.

On Thursday night around 1am a friend calls me up and asks if i’m doing anything on Friday, I said that I have work, but he convinced me that white water rafting is a lot more fun than working on a Friday, and of course he was right. So off I went, 6am, put some petrol in the car and picked up a couple of the fellows and we were on our way. It was to be my first time driving out of town, my parents are forever worried about this and that so whenever I go with them I don’t get to drive. But I thoroughly enjoyed it, the thrill of overtaking a private bus just in time to get back into lane before crashing into one coming from the other side, the cool mountain air and some top music and conversation to keep us going. It was my second time rafting and the first time was good fun. It isn’t anywhere near as dangerous as one expects it to be, afterall Kithulgala rapids are only level 3. Nonetheless you get a solid adrenaline buzz, bruised hands and a good old fashion ducking. The instructor asked us if we want to topple the boat in one of the rapids, and we thought yeah, more to remember. Unfortunately it didn’t fully topple, the boat just crunched up like an egg shell and we got thrown all over but only one of us actually fell out. A nice part was getting into the water to swim through one of the smaller rapids. It’s actually not swimming at all but lying down and being dragged and hoping like mad not to hit a rock. The ride is topped off by a relaxing dip in the Kelani river, helmets and life jackets off, just floating around in gay abandon. Oh and a solid lunch afterwards!

The only hitch was a bit of cop trouble. I don’t know what’s gotten into them the last few months but they’ve taken corruption to new levels. My friend was driving wearing a skinny and the cop threatned to fine him for “Shareeraya Pradarshanaya kireema”. How idiotic is that? One of my friends suggested the surge in corruption is bc the fines have been increased ppl are willing to bribe higher amounts. Those days the fine was something like 150 bucks and nobody will be willing to pay a cop 1000 bucks to avoid such a small fine. But it’s getting ridiculous now, cops ask for money even without a rule being broken. Can’t stand our coppers, almost as bad as VISA officers!

Got back home safely on Friday evening but with a splitting headache bc I was driving facing the sun. Slept early and woke up at 6 the next morning to get to Maradana station to go to Galle. A friend of mine had got a bungalow for the weekend so we tagged along. Took the train which got delayed by an hour bc they couldn’t find a guard who was on duty at the time! Sigh..only in Sri Lanka! The best part of the Galle trip was unawatuna. I hadn’t had a proper sea bath since Patalangala bungalow in Yala last December. I’ve never stayed in Unawatuna, it’s a fantastic place. The beach is lovely and was relatively empty, specially on Sunday morning when it was just us lot. The water is just calm enough to enjoy a swim without it being too boring, and you can venture out fairly deep into the ocean without it getting too strong. They were having a BBQ on the beach on Saturday night and we were so so tempted to go, but unfortunately the bungalow ppl had already prepared dinner for us. That evening I met for the first time in my life a genuinely nice politician. You’d expect politicians to be in your face, crude, pompous and condescending, but this guy was just the opposite. Absolutely humble and down the earth, soft spoken and accomodating. It was a nice, refreshing experience. Hehe but he did sort of admit to taking part in the hora chanda business.

We came home on Sunday evening, took an intercity bus more out of compulsion than choice. The only train available had just 3rd class. I still don’t know why we just didn’t drive to Galle in the first place! The bus wasn’t all bad though, it was cramped and hot and had to keep the bag on my lap, but we got home in 2.5 hours so thats got to count for something.

Having got a taste of this we made tentative arrangements to do a road trip from Colombo to Amparai next week to meet our friend who’s working at the Hospital there. Stopping over at unawatuna, hiks, yala and arugam bay. It sounds like a plan!

Savi passed me a book baton.

Number of Books on the Shelf
A lot! Got two shelves in my room with most of the books i’ve owned since I was about 13. So there’s everything ranging from my old Archers and Forsythes, cricket books, wildlife, general fiction and my old university texts. That excludes my beloved Asterix and Tin Tin books which ammi gave away to a kids home!

Last Book Purchased
HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

Book Reading Right Now
Monkfish Moon - Romesh Gunasekara

Last 5 Books Read
Hitch hikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Distant Warriors - Channa Wickramasekara
Beach - Alexander Garland
Colpetty People - Ashok Ferry
Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi

Books that mean a lot to me
Once Upon a Tender Time - Carl Muller - A lot of Muller’s books mean a lot to me but if I had to choose one it would be once upon a tender time. It’s an excellent piece of writing about childhood and Sri Lankan society. It’s got Muller’s characteristic writing style, the wit, the sharp details and Singlish thrown in. Any book that can make me want to cry and laugh within the same chapter will be right up there in my rankings.

July - Karen Roberts - I love books that are close to home, and July hits very very close. I wasn’t born when the ‘83 riots occured, July took me the closest i’ve ever been to that horrible horrible time. The story also dabbles in love and was really well written and presented overall.

Man Eater of Punanai - Christopher Ondaatje - A true story about a Man Eating Leopard in Eastern Sri Lanka in the 1940’s. I have the hardcopy and it’s brilliant. Got lots of great photography, nice writing and a chapter on my favourite place on earth Yala. There’s nothing like a good thrilling adventure story!

The Critique of Pure Reason - Emmanuel Kant - I did a finals paper on Kant and the Critique is the most difficult book i’ve ever read. I used to spent several minutes trying to get to grips with each sentence, and the Philosophy is so so abstract and difficult to grasp. It helped that I had a brilliant tutor (quite a hottie too). So the Critique means a lot to me, not for reading pleasure but for a feeling of conquest.

In general, I love books that can make me very sad or make me laugh. Most of the books I mentioned are sad ones. For laughter, nothing beats Carl Muller (of course), Oscar Wilde and P.G. Wodehouse.

Just read a post by Kusal Perera and wanted to comment but it needs me to sign up, and I’m feeling a tad lazy so i’ll just post it.

Couple of thoughts, the benefit of education is not nil if one doesn’t get into university. The fellow who writes the bills in the kadey across the road probably didn’t go to uni, but had he not gone to school he wouldn’t have learnt how to read/write.

The problem with education in SL is not the fact that it is free, it’s the fact that the syllabii and teaching methods have been quite poor. I mean, memorising the day that Dathusena last scratched his nuts isn’t going to help us much is it? So the answer isn’t abandoning free education but in looking at improving syllabii and teaching methods. And I think thats under way, don’t know how long it’ll take for the benefits to materialize though. It’s easy to criticize free education whilst forgetting that it gives a hell of a lot of ppl some shot at a decent life, despite it’s many ills I think free education should live on.

So, onto more important topics, I am ill. And i’m not happy about it. Runny noses, sore throats and I don’t enjoy one another’s company.

Yesterday was a rollercoaster day. Went through pretty much every emotion possible. Professional satisfaction of a good days work, joy at hearing the good AL results of friends and students, sadness and reflection at a funeral, the joy of reunion and friendship at a party, and a bit of disappointment thrown in later on. I slept at 3am and woke up at 6 bc my dog was throwing up, so I rehydrated her and made sure she was alrite. Bit of a scare bc we had just put pesticides to kill off the termites that morning, and I was worried Teq had gone and eaten some of it. Happily enough that was not the case and she threw up probably bc she ate some oily chips last night, the silly girl. Couldn’t sleep after that so I pottered around a bit and did some reading in the balcony. I’ve never noticed how quiet Colombo can be, all i could hear was birds chirping and doing their morning thing. It was a perfect time to philosophise, so I did just that.

I was born a Bhuddist back in ‘84. From the time I remember I thought it a super religion bc it let me do pretty much what I wanted, no rules besides the pansil which were fairly leniant too. My first doubts emerged when my Great Grand Mother passed away in ‘93, thought to myself, “bugger, what’ll happen to her? I’ll probably die sometime as well, no more ddm, no more voice in my head!” Saying bye to the voice in my head was the biggest fear I had, saying bye to the Cogito. In order to find out what happens after death I asked my elders and betters, and they said that you’re reborn, but ideally you don’t want that to happen. I was like wtf!! If there’s any chance for my cogito to remain I’m jolly well planning on keeping the bugger going! After that I began to grasp Bhuddist Philosophy but never quite liked the idea of trying to stop the cycle of birth. My argument at the time was that life isn’t all suffering, it’s good fun most of the time, but you got to put up with some shit in order to enjoy the good stuff; fair deal in my book. So I needed something solid to back up my theory and justify my lack of attraction towards Nirvana. I got an idea when I was about 15, it went something like this. How did the population increase from 1 Billion to 6 Billion in 100 years? (nono, I’m not asking where babies come from, we all know it’s that damn stork) Where do the surplus souls come from? And the elders said ah it comes from other universes, planets etc. I wasn’t convinced, possible but not plausible. So I kept the whole idea of rebirth on hold for the time being. My little understanding of Kant somewhat justifies this. He says we can’t have knowledge of things that are beyond the realm of our experience, beyond the bounds of sense as he calls it. (It’s incredible how little I remember of what I learnt in undergrad). We can’t experience life after death, so it’s silly to pretend to have knowledge about it. I’m not a big fan of faith, possibly to my detriment, and now there’s very little I cling to beyond what I “know”. I still base my life around that, I don’t exactly know what’ll happen when I die, so i’m going to just try and live my life well, to the fullest and not harm others in the process.

Anyway, how does all this relate to yesterday? Well yesterday was a perfect example of a day with everything, a bit of sorrow, a bit of a joy, a bit of disappointment. Life, relationships, passions and pretty much everything else works on that template. So, to avoid the bad things do we run away from it all and thus give up the good parts too? Or do we bite the bullet and fight it out? Sometimes it’s very tempting to run away, it’s the easy way out. I think Bhuddism seems to suggest we run away, it seems cowardly, but it’s the right thing to do sometimes, and sometimes the only thing to do. I’m not convinced yet about Bhuddism, but I may have got a bit closer the last few weeks.

There’s been a lot said about the LTTE of late, and there’s a small thing I feel like getting off my chest. On kottu and other sites there has been debate as to who killed Kadi and various (often bizarre) conspiracy theories have raised their respective heads. All this is fine, I guess we still don’t “technically” know who did it so I’ll just keep quiet about that. There is however one thing that disturbs me a lot. I’ve been meaning to write about this ever since I started reading Distant Warriors, and this morning I read a comment on kottu saying something along the lines of the LTTE aren’t stupid, they have Oxford, Harvard and Cambridge advisors, and that triggered me. (The rest of the comment went on to condemn the LTTE and the rest of the post doesn’t concern that comment).

When ppl who live abroad glorify the LTTE it pisses me off. We all know what happened in 1983 and I think most of us condemn it with every possible stregnth. Given that situation it’s fair enough that lots of ppl, Tamils in particular left the Island and now live in foreign nations. It’s also human nature to carry a bit of a grudge against those who they feel were responsible for ‘83, and the SL govt. of the time does bear a lot of the burden of that responsibility. So naturally a lot of these chaps felt that the LTTE is fighting for the rights of the Tamils in Sri Lanka and therefore threw all their weight behind the LTTE in terms of support.

The LTTE probably started off with the best interests of Sri Lanka’s Tamil’s in their hearts and minds. Things today are different. The LTTE has successfully wiped off all moderate Tamil leaders who opposed them (just ask Douglas Devananda, that bugger is Houdini I tell you) thereby becoming the single representative of the Tamils by default. I can’t quite see how that is in the interest of the Tamils. They recruit child soldiers, depriving them of their childhood, and more often than not, their life (heard of the ceaseless waves tactic? who do you think “volunteers” to be the first wave?). When the LTTE attacked the Dalada Maligawa and the Sri Maha Bodhiya, what did they want to achieve? they wanted to piss off the Sinhalese to such an extent that July 1983 is reincarnated. And who suffered in ‘83? yes, the Tamils.

Now, those who sit in their lovely flats in London, Vancouver, Melbourne etc. and raise funds for the LTTE, speak at public forums glorifying them and lobby their respective Governments to acknowledge them, they get away with everything. It’s not their kids who are abducted from school and taken to a training camp, it’s not they who get caught to LTTE suicide bombs and it’s not their houses that will be stoned and burnt if a Sinhala mob reacts to LTTE provocations. If you think the LTTE is so wonderful come here and face the bloody music. If you’re too scared to do that, then shut up and stop funding and glorifying the wankers.

Now for some self criticism (always a good thing). It’s not just certain (I hope a miniority) Tamils living abroad who do this. Around Colombo dining tables we hear conversations about how to end the war, and ppl say “apo what peace talks men? those buggers aren’t genuine we should fight and finish them off right now when there is international condemnation of terrorism”. Ok, so tomorrow morning are you sir, going to pick up your AK-47 and step up to the FDL’s or are you going to pick up your brief case and step into your A/C office? Methinks you just might choose the latter. This happens in my own home and it pisses me off. I am not willing to give up my life for this wretched war and I sure as hell don’t expect somebody else to give up their life for me, so no, I don’t think we should go back to war and “finish the buggers off”. However screwed up the peace process has been, I think thats the only solution I can afford to support.

If you’re not willing to hang around when the shit hits the fan, please don’t throw shit at the fan in the first place.

P.s.
This might be an obvious disclaimer but I’ll say it nonetheless. The post above refers to certain elements in society. It is NOT a generalised statement and if it does appear to be so please remember that evergreen saying, “assumption is the mother of all fuck ups”.

Last night was potentially a fun evening with a play followed by a night out to say bye to a friend. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be the case, the play was super and i’ll write about it later, the night out wasn’t particularly fun bc my departing friend got caught to some family engagement. There were about 15 of us, most of whom weren’t close friends and thats not exactly my idea of fun so I called it a night around midnight and came home. I think it’s a sure sign of ageing when you’d rather sit in a circle with 5 good friends talking and laughing rather than going to a club with loud music and well partying. But yes, thats what I’ve become. 21 going on 62. Haha and I’m listening to Abbey Road right now, doesn’t help my case does it?

But no, that’s not what this post is about. I came home around midnight and get a text message saying that the Foriegn Minister has been shot. This caught me totally off guard. Had this been 1998 sure, another assasination.But this is 2005, we haven’t had one of these for ages and I was shocked. Ran to my parents room asking thaththi if they heard anything about Mr. Kadi, they wake up and my mother appears to have got a text confirming this. The Helicopters were hovering over Colombo and Teq (my dog) was getting agitated by the noise, so was I. I felt suddenly very insecure all of a sudden, scared almost. Not that I expected anyone to run into my house with guns, but I was just thinking, ugh not again, this can’t start again.

I was getting a bunch of texts asking if i know anything about this and some of the reactions bothered me a bit. One person said that Kadi was old anyway and he was no longer useful to the country as much as earlier, another person was worried about losing on the stock market. I mean, thats not the first thing you think about is it? This person is well, a person, a human being with feelings, family, dreams and what not. I was imagining him lying in the bed in NHSL wondering if he’ll be alive in 10 minutes time and wondering whether it is possible to kill the dull pain. Imagine what it must be like to be his family. He wasn’t just The Foriegn Minister, he was Lakshman Kadirgamar, father, husband, uncle, grand father (maybe).

But i’m not trying to play holier than thou, I realised that I’m pretty pathetic too. How many ppl die everyday under tragic unexpected circumstances? Does it have to be the life of a prominent individual to jolt us? We read it in the papers every day “Father of two shot dead at residence, Youth found murdered in ditch” and usually don’t even give it a glance. I remember even keeping cuttings of paper articles in my wallet of ppl who died under ridiculous and funny circumstances, how screwed up is that? We mourn every day how life has become so meaningless, even cheap to us now, how for 5000 bucks one person is willing to shoot another. Let me tell you, those hitmen aren’t the only ppl who are guilty, each and every one of us are just as guilty. (Sorry, that’s being unfair, I’m sure a lot of us are very concerned and get upset each time they read the papers, so this is mainly self criticism). But then, one might argue, what’s the point of mourning? getting depressed each time you hear that a person has died? I guess, there is no point. It’s not going to bring them back to life is it, life does go on.

So, does that mean that life IS cheap, and that we just have to live with it, unless of course the cheap life that is taken is in fact our very own.

There are few things better than a Sri Lankan day night cricket final. Last night that was proved to be the case, again. During last year’s Asia cup final I had a rotten experience with crowd trouble and was totally put off getting seats for this year, but luckily my father’s best friend had some extra seats in Upper B and told me to come along. So I went along, and it was marvellous. My throat is still sore and adrenaline is still pumping (or at least thats my excuse for being unable to concentrate on work).

I had to leave work early to meet uncle B and his two friends and kid by 2pm, got past the traffic and we were on our way. As we were walking into the stand I saw Champaka Ramanayake and remembered my first ever live cricket match which I also happened to watch with uncle B when i was about 9 years old. I still remember the game, SL vs England at Keththa in 1993, we won it and I remember Ramanayake opening SL’s bowling.

We had reasonable seats, all 5 in a row, good view and most importantly, there was a papara band within 10 yards. We batted well, Sanath was hitting crisply but I was concerned about his fitness as he was struggling 15 overs into the game. My fears were justified when he ran himself out. I was really happy for Mahela, he’s rarely performed when it counted but for the second time this tourney the bugger put his hand up. He was brilliant yesterday, picking the singles and later playing some super shots (except that bloody reverse sweep that he always pulls out of the closet just when we don’t need a wicket to fall!). I lost 50 bucks to uncle B when we punted on the estimated score, given the fact that we had 5 wickets in hand including Russel and Dilshan I betted that we’d score 290, uncle B said 280 and he won (thanks to Vaasy’s three 4’s off Nehra). With 281 I expected the game to be in the bag, I’d always bet on Sri Lanka defending anything upwards of 220 in Keththa. By this time the uncles were getting quietly intoxicated and the brilliant quotes started to make an appearence. I’ll remember one quote from uncle B, “Boy” he said to me, “Life is a series of gambles, know your horses, place your bet and see it through.” Yes, he would say that after nicely nicking 200 bucks off of us (actually make that 150, his kid refused to pay up..at which point uncle B gave him 50 bucks saying that its his pocket money and promptly asked the little fellow to cough it back up).

The start of the second innings was hardcore. Sehwag gave us all the hibbery-jibberies by batting quite brilliantly. I remember when this guy first made his presence felt with a 60 odd ball ton against the kiwis I thought to myself “ha, another Tendulkar wannabe, will burn out within an year”, but i’ve been proved wrong. Sehwag despite having a quite horrendous technique remains a most potent force. Last night that force hit us like nothing else. That over of Lokuhettige, poor bugger will have nightmares. I actually heard the smack of leather on willow when he swatted that six over long-off. I sent a text to my friend in lower B simply saying, “bugger.” And then, in Vaasy’s 4th over he got one to curve in and force Sehwag to drag onto middle and off. I can quite safely say that I’ve never heard a louder roar. I jumped out of the seat, pumped my fists in the air and just shouted randomly non-stop all the way until he was back in the pavillion. Dilshan then removed the over-rated Ganguly but Dravid and Yuvraj took India to within striking distance. By this time I had moved downstairs to lower B where the average age dipped below the 40 mark. Met another bugger from work who had taken the afternoon off (Anush being the dilligent chap he is, felt that its best not to take an afternoon off to watch the cricket, that boy is messed up I tell you.) The people I was tempoarily with were certain of a SL defeat and said they were going home if no wickets fell by the 35th over, I urged them to hang on till the 40th at least, bc I knew that there is nothing quite like the pressure of a Sri Lankan spinners’ strangulation on a Keththa turner. And so it proved to be. Chicky (Chandana) started the rot by removing Yuvraj, Dravid got idiotically run out and then it was game on. The rest of the game was a formality, Murali, Dilshan, Arnie and Chicky squeezed the life out of India and we won yet another final (SL has won 14 out of 16 finals that they have played in). We’ve never lost a match that I have been to (touchwood) and we maintained the record.

I moved back upstairs for the last wicket and by this time the uncles were cocked. Getting home was worrying me since my car was parked in uncle B’s place and we had to get there in one of the uncle’s cars. A cop in the car park saw the swaggering uncle B and asked “mahaththayala kohenda?” Uncle B gave him his card (he’s a fairly senior lawyer) and the cop looked at it and said “ah hari mahaththaya karunakarala watenne nathuwa hemita pitath wenna”. The drive back was hilarious, some of the things said included,

1) Shotgun uncle to driving uncle- “Ado! take your hand off the hand break men! Let me hold it! Mad bugger, at least I’m sober” (yeah right!)

2) Shotgun to uncle B - “Which way to turn men? tell this bugger (driver), he doesn’t have a clue”
Uncle B - “Who the fuck knows?”, to his son, “Do you the fuck know?”
Son - giggles
Uncle B - “Why are you so innocent you fucker?”

3) Shotgun to all of us - “right or left at the junction?”
Us - “left left left”
Bugger turns right.

We then proceed to go down the wrong road and we’re laughing too much to correct him. We stopped at somebody else’s house and one of the uncles almost got down and rang the bell. I eventually got home around 12, had a shower and got to bed. I woke up this morning and was worried if anyone had missed me at work, but then it doesn’t matter too much even if i get into trouble, I got my priorities straight. As the T-Shirt I wore yesterday reads,

“Cricket is life. The rest is mere details”

I’m feeling rather unhealthy. Eyes are smarting, head is hurting and stomach is making unholy noises. Small wonder given that I’ve skipped lunch and blatantly ignored sleep requirements the last few days. I find it most inconvenient that on weekends I’m up and about before 7.30 (despite going to sleep around 2.30) and weekday mornings are nothing short of a battleground between me and that formidable adversary the alarm clock. I had a varied weekend, would like to mention a couple of things.

Went out on Friday night to find that Glow was almost empty. Every other time i’ve been there it’s been difficult to see 2 feet ahead of you due to a combination of Sri Lankan bus like crowds and a screen of smoke. Pleasant change it must be said. It was good to see ppl being ID’d at the entrance and underage ppl being “branded” (chuckles) so that they can’t be served alcohol, I’m not too sure how far it’s enforced though. Also, I don’t think the age limit should be 21, 18 is probably more appropriate. Met a bunch of ppl who I hadn’t seen since school days and it was really nice to see in what ways they’ve changed/stayed the same. (Also should say hello to A, another reminder of my lack of anonymity on this blog!)

On Saturday night I made my way towards the Bishop’s College auditorium to watch Rhythm’s of one nation. Was a solid show. The Band Paradox was good and innovative with their sound, Charles Mark was very pleasant, super dancing all around, the final Baila Paduru party was very entertaining and Anush was super with his rendition of Tequila Sunrise and I absolutely loved the retro stuff he did. Hats off to the bugger and all the other performers. The single low point in the show was the one compere who for some reason made an odd political statement that was totally uncalled for and more importantly out of place and out of context (the whole “spoilt, rich kids” speech). I’m willing to bet a lot of money that it wasn’t part of the organized show and that it was an individual outburst, silly fellow. Besides that, superbly done, very professional job specially given the fact that almost all performers (and backstage) were amateurs.

I managed to lose my signal lights, AGAIN. It was a Sunday afternoon and I had parked on Barnes Place for a couple of hours. Being Sunday I expected most thieves to be having an afternoon nap, but I obviously underestimated the work ethic of the Barne’s Place Junction kuddas. My lights have probably been sold in Panchikawaththa (from where I will most probably have to re-purchase them or a similar pair) and converted into solid dope money. Today on my way home i’ll probably see some trace of my lights in the eyes of the kudda on Barnes Place who tries to direct me into the big parking lot every single day.

Sunday night was reserved for the movie SAW. Brilliant psychological thriller, i’ll recommend it to anyone. I must admit that I was totally fooled and thought the wrong bugger was the culprit right till the very end, brilliant twist. I thought the production and directing was really good, but the acting could possibly have been better, specially Adam. Probably not a good idea to watch it late in the night, specially if you imagine ppl creeping through your window at 3am

Don’t you hate it when your work is edited to such an extent that it’s no longer yours? I wouldn’t have any problem with editing if the writing is poor or the content of the piece is inaccurate. But I do have a problem with editing in order to be on everybody’s good side. Too “sensitive”..ugh. There’s no point in writing something if it isn’t going to make an impact! And it was an objective factual piece on an economic issue, not some mindless slander that we see in so many writings. Small wonder our country can’t move forward, self-criticism is just thrown out the window.

As far as I’m concerned thats no longer my work, and I regret putting in the effort in researching it and coming up with those new ideas.

Edit: I finally got my hands on the publication a few months after it was printed and was very pleasantly surprised to note that my piece appeared in full! The editors obviously changed their minds and grew some balls