One one things

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.