Rat Race
I’m back in town after 8 days in what felt like another world. It’s been one of the best experiences of my life in so many different ways. I got back home yesterday evening after almost 11 hours on the road, and I felt tired for the first time for a week. I love Colombo with all my heart, I was born in St. Michael’s hosptital here and lived here for almost all my life. Yesterday for the first time in my life I wasn’t too keen on coming back home. The idea of waking up and looking outside to see loads of concrete buildings wasn’t quite as charming as waking up to the sights and sounds of the ocean. Having breakfast over ESPN wasn’t quite as nice and gingerly lumbering upto Ali’s and having hot hot roti in a sarong. Rarely if ever do I not feel content whilst watching cricket, but this morning watching Sri Lanka bully Bangladesh just didn’t cut it for me. I wanted to be in Arugam Bay jumping into waves, or in Unawatuna sipping a Tonic while watching the waves tickle my toes every other minute. And yet something draws me back to Colombo to re-join the rat race that is life.
Beach Boys in Unawatuna spend the day bumming around, playing beach football, surfing, listening to Reggae, chatting with travellers, seems quite idealic, non? They won’t have a fancy house, car, job etc. but they don’t spend their day in an AC building, stressing about something quite mundane in the grand scheme of things, only to come home late in the evening exhausted with only enough energy to eat, shower sleep and do the same thing again tomorrow. But I can’t see myself swapping places with a beach boy. You might say that beach boys don’t have so great a life, what with drugs, sex and rock n’ roll (all horrible things of course) being such problems. Then what about the life of a guy who runs a small beach guest house? I still don’t think I could do that, I’d get bored. As opposed to the excitement of office life..woohoo.
It makes me wonder how screwed up our ideals are. Work, money etc. used to be a means to an end, they are now an end in themselves. Anyone read Silas Marner? It’s a similar story. I came back to Colombo yesterday to run into issues, problems and unhappiness. Sort out your VISA, pay the phone bill, sign these forms, attend to a flooded inbox. I catch up with friends’ problems and I’m back down to earth with a bang. I felt like saying screw that shit and just buggering off. But I can’t. It has been drilled into me that THIS is the good life, and somehow I can’t get that out of my head and can’t imagine any other for any prolonged period of time.
as much as im a born traveller, and i love new places and doing new things, and meeting new people…i love colombo. i gotta come back to the tightly knit circles of people where everyone knows everyone else and their dirty little secrets, the rotting garbage, the horrible driving on the not so good roads, the pollution, the cat-calling and horn tooting and whistling. i love this city. galle face green, my cousin’s house on green path, school, deli france, barista, dancing at the girl’s friendly society, bistro latino…i love it all. and my friends. my friends are mostly here, and its them i miss the most when im away.
Comment by Electra — September 13, 2005 @ 4:04 pm
i love colombo because it is MY city. it is the best place to be at this moment in history in the whole wide world. anything and everything is possible here right now one just have to try. nothing anywhere can beat it! so there.
we love the rat race because we have evolved to be ‘rats’.
silas marner is probably the most boring book ever.
Comment by sittingnut — September 14, 2005 @ 12:35 am