One one things

I just finished my 4th non-academic book for this term, and that’s a lot by my standards bc usually in term time I get enough academic reading to completely put me off reading for pleasure. But living in London means lots of tube travel, and that means finding something to do instead of reading the Metro, reading over other ppl’s shoulders or imagining life stories of ppl on the tube. So far I’ve read Namesake, Dylan’s autobiography, Flower Boy by Karen Roberts and just finished High Fidelity by Nick Hornby for the second time. I find it exasperating that soon after I finish reading something I totally forget the better part of the book. Actually this extends beyond books to movies, lectures, most conversations, trips and well most things really. This is one of the functions of this blog, to try and cling on to some things later on when I would have otherwise forgotten them, i’m a sucker for reminiscing. Anyway, I decided to buy High Fidelity recently bc I was thinking about it and realised that I don’t remember anything besides the fact that it’s about a guy who owns a record store and about his romantic liasons, and of course the fact that I loved the book. I’m glad I read it again, it’s still superb. A sketch of the plot is as follows, Rob is a middle aged chap who runs a record store in Cowley in London and has just broken up with his girl friend and realises that he’s struggling to get over her. This makes him trackback to all his previous relationships and try to find out why and where they went wrong. The book is a journey of self discovery and has incredibly honest insights into human relationships, from a male perspective. Hornby doesn’t coat things with sugar, everything is very real life and often quite bitter. There’s not much happily ever after, lovey dovey, head over heals, forever and always, till death do us part stuff. It’s more about the not so fun side of relationships, the stuff that happens after the first few months of bliss, the boredom, cheating, lying, insecurity, avoidance and pain. The great part is that he still manages to write with a tremendous sense of humour and this makes you want to keep turning the pages. I’d recommend the book to everyone, guys in particular, there’s a little bit of all of us in there somewhere.

But my favourite part of the book has to be the stuff about compilation cassettes. Rob is obsessed with them, and so am I, and we’re part of a rare breed, even rarer given the fact that Rob doesn’t exist. In my opinion the best gifts to give are music and books. At least that’s what I’d love to receive. And there is no greater gift than a personally compiled cassette. Now you’d think, hmm, wait a minute, shouldn’t he be saying CD’s? No. I like cassettes, I like the fact that they’re old fashioned, that they maybe slightly cumbersome, that they tend to die a bit earlier and that they only store about an hours worth of music. But there’s something about cassettes that makes me associate them with music, more so than CDs and MP3 players and what not. Digital music is all well and good, it can store everything you’d ever want to listen to and you can hear it with precision quality at the touch of a button, but there’s something synthetic and impersonal about them, that’s where cassettes I feel steal the show.
It’s all very psychological and silly, snobbery even, but then that’s me.

Making a compilation tape is an art. I tend to start off with something chilled out, maybe some reggae/soul/folk music to ease the listener into an hour’s worth of musical pleasure. After a couple of songs bring in something more alternative and then something marginally heavier. End side A with something that makes you nod your head and start to feel the music in you, something that makes you want to switch to side B. The start of side B needs to catch the listener where he left off and not let her/him drift away. I usually like to go back a few years, something a bit retro but with a good infectious beat to it, maybe a bit of Paul Simon, Doobie Brothers maybe. Then again go back to something with less energy but more depth, Counting Crows, Dave Matthews and finally end with a classic like Led Zep’s Kashmir or maybe some Pink Floyd. There are a few rules. I try to avoid putting the same artist twice on one cassette, and never the same artist back to back and always stick to progressive rhythm as opposed to one fast one slow, that’s just confusing.

I used to give everyone compilation tapes for their B’days and what not, but now that’s changed. Ppl seem to expect stuff with more “substance”. Compilation tapes are alrite but they need to be topped up with something else. Giving presents is hard work, I never know what to buy ppl, specially girls. I mean, buying clothes for yourself is trying at the best of times, I hardly know my waist size let alone collar, wrist, bust, crotch and what not sizes. Trying to buy clothes for girls is just impossible, it doesn’t help that there doesn’t seem to be a standard dress/shoe size. There’s a european size, american size, japanese size, pregnant size, and God knows what else. They don’t really give us boys a chance do they? And girl’s shoe sizes is another mission. Now, I wear size 10 shoes, but my housemate wear’s size 5, and her feet aren’t half my size! wtp?! The other option is jewellry, but girls can be incredibly picky creatures. They’d look at two seemingly identical things and fall in love with one and totally disregard the other. So what options are left? Perfume? Again, slightly dodgy, what if they don’t like that smell? Can just rely on some brand and hope the person doesn’t care about the odour too much. But then that hits the pocket more than I’d care to have it hit for most ppl. Soft Toys? How can soft toys have more substance than a compilation cassette?! And that’s usually the point at which I phone a friend and plead for advice. Failing which I buy a couple of original CD’s or a CD and a book, and must make sure that M Entertainment label is still on to ensure that I spent more than 400 bucks on their gift.

That said, it’s a fitting time to contradict all that I have just said and confess that I have sold my soul to consumerism. Yes, I now own a fully functioning Ipod. My saving grace is the fact that it’s a shuffle and is one of the least sophisticated of modern Ipods but it is an Ipod nonetheless. My housemate was selling her’s in order to upgrade to the new black Nano which is apparently a good deal better than my new friend. Unfortunately for cassettes, however much sentimental value they have attached to them, a walkman won’t quite fit in my coat pocket and will run out of batteries within a day’s usage. The shuffle is small, slick, has good sound and stores 10 CD’s worth of music, and for my current purposes functionality pips sentimentality. (If the latter is a word). So today I took to the tube a bit more of a Londoner than before, book in hand and earpieces firmly in place, shutting out the rest of the world one sense at a time. I do however have to get used to not singing the words of songs slightly louder than planned, today I was muttering the chorus of “Three Little Birds” and I got a few worrying looks from the dude sitting next to me. But I’m excused, I had just received the good news that I can do my dissertation from home which means I can get back to SL for summer.

Brian Lara is my favourite batsman in the world. I say that bc i’d be willing to pay the most to watch him bat. Now i’m very nationalistic when it comes to cricket so this is somewhat sacrilageous in my eyes, but i’m being honest with myself. Kumar Sangakkara is my next in line, he has all the shots, lots of flair and the cover drive on one knee is just stunning. But Sanga hasn’t been at it long enough to pip Lara. The other day Lara went passed Allan Border as the world’s leading test run scorer and I felt it was a good time to pay a tribute to the great man.

I first heard of Lara when as a 8 year old I was astutely reading The Island when I came across something along the following lines, “Brain Lara smashes 277 in Sydney”. Brain Lara, what a strange name I thought, must be a clever chap. I re-read the line and realised that it’s Brian and not so strange a name. I didn’t see that innings but Lara rates it as his best yet so it must have been superb. At the time Sri Lanka hardly ever played the Windies so we rarely got a chance to see them in action other than the odd World series game that was telecast on MTV for some reason. In 1994 Lara smashed a dubious English attack to all parts of the ground to hammer 375 and went passed Gary Sobers’ record for the highest ever test score. A couple of months later he got 501 not out for Warwickshire against another county (he was dropped on 9 i think and the keeper had said “oh dear, he’ll probably go on and get a hundred now”). So the world took notice of Lara and he soon became the prime target of any opposition when they played the Windies. I remember one game in Sharjah, the series before the Aussie series in ‘95 just before the ‘96 world cup, when Eric Upashantha had Lara caught and bowled, I got so excited I jumped up with my arms in the air and almost lost my fingers to the fan. The game before that Lara hammered 169 against us and they got 330 or something and we lost by one run. We had to get 4 to win off one ball and Hashan Tillekeratne was on strike to Andy Cummings, I think I rightfully expected to lose then bc the chances of Hashan hitting a boundary at the best of times are pretty slim. But then Cummings produced a waist high full toss which should have been a no-ball but wasn’t called, Hashan whacked it in the air to deep square leg where Stuart Williams took a catch with his feet on the rope, the bastard.

So back to Lara. What I love about him is the excitement, flair and sheer genius he brings to the crease. The exaggerated back-lift, the flourish of the cover drive, the trade mark pull-shot with the right knee high in the air and his deft footwork are things that I’ve tried to immitate but can never come close to matching. The fact that he’s had his rough patches, such as the infamous McGrath bunny status, failure as a captain, prolonged low-scores and spats with authorities including one time captain Richie Richardson, make him a flawed genius, and I find that endearing. When Lara comes to the crease you don’t want to risk getting up to get a coffee or to switch channels for a second to catch the song on MTV, bc you simply can not predict what will happen, he produces some amazing flashes of brilliance mixed with flashes or utter mortality. That’s what differentiates him from the Tendulkars and Steve Waughs of this world (these other two are his rivals for the status of the top batsman of his generation) they lack that excitement factor and unpredictability. Steve Waugh is quite dull whilst Tendulkar will happily get a hundred at home against a not so flash bowling attack when things are going well. Lara on the other hand has the capacity to produce things that are inhuman, he’d fight lone battles time and again within his declining team, he’d counter-attack with ferocity and he’d defend diligently, in short, he has the X factor. The fact that pretty much every time he comes out to bat under severe pressure, usually following from 2 quick wickets, and that he still plays so well is something quite special.

A couple of examples, the 153 against aussie in Barbados when the Windies were chasing 300 odd and had collapsed to 100 for 5. Easily the best innings i’ve ever seen. And his batting against Murali despite which Sri Lanka swept the Windies 3-0 at home. In that series he produced the best footwork i’ve ever seen against spin bowling. One thing ppl tend to underestimate about Lara is his determination and singlemindedness. He often gets dismissed in casual circumstances and his attitude appears slack when the windies are getting whipped, this gives an impression of nonchalance and carelessness. But that isn’t the trait of a man with 8 double hundreds, a triple hundred and a quadruple hundred. The first (and only) time I had to bat through 50 overs in a match I was mentally and physically drained and could barely walk the next 2 days, it’s hard to imagine what powers of concentration and physical stamina are required to bat for days on end the way Lara has done on several occassions. Apparently he used to practice with a wicket as a bat and marbles as a ball with flower pots as fielders, sounds familiar.

Lara is now 36 and still produces innings like the one in Adelaide the other day, a genius who has stood the test of time and yet never fails to entertain. He alone has kept the spirit of Carribean cricket alive during their fall from grace, and he ought to keep his collar up and head high. Brain Charles Lara, I salute you.

I discovered a new TV program recently. I tend to enjoy cookery programs, I think it goes well with my general machoness and oozing testosterone levels. But the F word, Gordon Ramsey’s latest offering, is something else. It’s not just about cooking and what to put and what not to put in your tasty dish, it’s about the whole culture of food, and in his words you’ll enjoy the show if you “cook everyday or have never cooked in your life.” Quite right I think. So on the last show I discovered a couple of scary things. First up, in the last 50 years the average male human sperm count has fallen dramatically. And not bc more males are watching cookery programs. But bc of the food we eat, and i’m not surprised too, all those chemicals and what not. Apparently males who cook are in more danger bc their private parts are close to the stove so the little buggers get heated up a bit more than they ought to. So girls, if you thought men who cook are the way to go, go the other way. Doesn’t change the fact that males are generally the better chefs though. So thats what restaurants are there for no? Anyway, back to sperm counts. The way to bring them back upto speed is apparently to eat the following, a lot of fish (the omega oils are handy), lots of nuts (don’t giggle), vegetables and fruits. Avoid coffee/tea (oops), skipping breakfast (oops), sugary stuff (oops) and alcohol (phew). Right, so that’s me sorted then. If I were to ask you who would have the greater sperm count, men or hamsters, who do you think it would be? If you thought hamster you’d be right. Hamsters have 160 Million sperm per ml (I think) whilst us chaps (on a good day) have only 60 Million per ml. Bad form. Outgunned by hamsters, no wonder those buggers breed so fast.

Also, if you’re considering buying sausages from tesco or sainsbury’s, don’t. The economy sausage in these two supers consists of just 32% meat, the other 68% is made up of connective tissue, fat, skin etc. And this is the legal limit. One tip is that packets labeled “Pork Sausages” consist of 42% meat so is a safer bet compared to those simply labeled “Sausages”. All this from one episode of the F word, along with how to cook pigeon and venison. In other good news, Henry is working after 9 days without heating or hot water. As much as I enjoyed having baths out of a big baaldiya of kettle heated water, I’m glad to feel nice hot water from a tap. If you want British Gas to get off their arses tell them you have asthma and that you’re going to sue them unless they show up, and produce a horrible wheezy cough on the phone, that showed them. Ha.

I hate Sundays, but I’m happy it’s Sunday, well barely, it’s 3am. It’s the beginning of a new week and I’m happy to turn my back on the week that passed. Though it’s hard to turn away completely from what matters most, the situation at home. I first heard the rumour on Friday morning when my housemate had just spoken to her father who said that Prabha is planning on declaring Eelam on the 26th, Villains Heroes day. I didn’t take much notice of it bc of the way that rumours in Colombo spread with as strong a foundation as a Hippo on stilts. Then I heard it again from two other reliable sources, this made it slightly more worrying. I’m a very optimistic person and something in me always says “Don’t worry, Sri Lanka will be OK, life always goes on in SL however screwed up things get.” And I still think that, but then I also think of places like N. Korea, maybe they thought the same things and looks what’s happened over there. I think this is a time when a lot of ppl at home feel insecure, and I know that I do.

What if the rumour is true? It terrifies me to think of what could happen. In my eyes the worst case scenario is a backlash in the South and West, an ‘83 all over again. If Prabha declares Eelam the Tamils in Colombo and the rest of the country will be targetted and told to “go home.” Considering the violent, volatile nature of certain political parties there’ll be plenty of fuel being thrown onto the fire. When I considered this my thoughts went to my Tamil friends, and the insanity of the whole situation just slapped me. Hotel Rwanda is a brilliant and sad film, in it a foreign journalist asks a Rwandan what the difference between Hootus and Tutsis are, apparently the Tutsis are fairer, taller and have longer noses than the Hootus. I laughed when I heard this, how idiotic. Ironic isn’t it?

I sometimes want to cry for Sri Lanka, now more than ever. We’re ruining our little piece of heaven. Nature gave us this fantastic little piece of land, it’s little but it’s got everything we could ever ask for. The nicest beaches, fabulous mountains, fertile lands, incredible wildlife, gorgeous food and poya days. I mean, just look at the Flickr pictures tagged Sri Lanka. I get through each day in England knowing that I have some place better to go to, a place where the sun shines, a place I call home and a place where I belong. A select few ppl, 20 million out of 6 billion, were chosen to live here but we don’t seem to care, we’re more hell bent on destroying what we have. And over what? Our differences? How bloody childish. You’ll say it’s not that simple, but trust me, it is. It’s like two kids put in a play pen for an hour with a whole heap of fabulous toys but spend the whole hour fighting over who gets what and neither of them get to enjoy the toys. I’m not saying any one “side” is to blame and the other is to be absolved, both are equally idiotic and myopic. All we need to do is to either recognize that there aren’t any real differences (which is unlikely) or just to come to a compromise, and if we can’t even sit down and have a chat together what hope do we have? Each group is just refusing to give a little bit, it’s all or nothing. I hate the fact that the ppl that do matter insist on behaving like obstinant children. We call ourselves human beings, the most advanced of God’s creatures, obviously God hasn’t done a very good job with us. We’re not advanced in the least.

Thoughts of leaving the country have infiltrated my parents’ minds, and i’m sure they’re not the only ones. I spoke to them on the phone and they mentioned this and asked what I think and I said I don’t know. I can’t imagine myself living anywhere else, and the fact that I’ve even had to consider this for a moment pisses me off big time. I don’t want to live anywhere else, and I don’t think I will, I don’t even want to think of the the circumstances under which I will actually be willing to leave.

Right now I’m angry, scared, sad, hopeful and helpeless. I’m asking myself what is wrong with us? Why are we pulling the rug under our feet? And the answers piss me off. I know this post sounds simplistic and naiive and I don’t care. It’s bc the issues ARE simple, at their root they’re so damn simple, and that’s what makes this hurt so much. It’s not like we’ve got a massive volcano that’s about to erupt and engulf us all, our problem is that ppl can’t get along bc they’re not willing to have a chat like sensible mature adults. I hope the rumour isn’t true, and if it is true I hope our ppl don’t react like idiots. My housemate said that hopefully we’ve learnt lessons in the last 22 years, but then, would we have elected who we elected? I hope I’m over-reacting, I hope a lot of the ppl back home that i’ve spoken to are over-reacting. Given a UDI, the alternative to a re-make of July ‘83 is a return to full fledged war, and it saddens me to say that is the better of two evils.

It’s hard to think of positives in a situation like this, it all seems very bleak. In 1989 when I was living with my parents in England whilst they completed their postgrad work, the JVP insurgency was at its height and my parents considered not returning to SL. Lalith Athulathmudali gave my father the following advice, “People may die, families may die, political parties may die, but countries never die. So come back home, things will be ok soon enough.” And sure enough they were. I hope his words remain true today.

The LTTE is really good at turning around and kicking you in the nuts. I’m not a fan of Mr. Wickremasinghe but I believed he was the best person to bring peace to SL. But now in the unlikely event that he wins, I still have little or no hope of peace. Today the LTTE proved that they are not genuine about peace, something that I’ve instinctively believed for sometime but an instinct that i’ve tried my best to quell. Without that genuine, mutual desire for peace there is no way that we could achieve it. The LTTE knows that the best chance for peace is via Mr. Wickremasinghe, and yet they blatantly squeeze him out of contention by disrupting polls in the North-East and thereby starve him of valuable Tamil votes. Despite promising to allow free voter turnout. And they have the cheek to say that it’s the ppl who choose not to vote, not anything they the LTTE have enforced. To quote a Reuter report;” ‘We will stop people going through to the government side,’ a rebel commanding a checkpoint in paddy fields outside the city of Batticaloa told Reuters, pausing from polishing his combat boots.” And the very next line reads; “People in the villages have decided not to vote. It is not the LTTE doing this. It is the people.”

WTP? They can’t seem to utter two sentences without contradicting themselves. I’m guessing their strategy is to win back some international support by pointing to the Marxist/Sinhala Buddhist sway of the Mahinda lot and hope Wimal and Co utter some pro-war, anti-minority slogans. Then drum up some additional funding and get back into Military fatigues and go about re-capturing Jaffna (the loss of which, I think, pains Prabha more than anything). I don’t think there’s a single Tamil person LIVING in the North and East who wants to go back to war. I wonder how the LTTE call themselves the representatives of the ppl in the North-East and keep a straight face. Must be damn good at poker. The twats.

This issue of unethical conversions came up in indi’s blog comments but I couldn’t find the argument clearly and completely articulated so i thought i’ll give it a go. (After reading this through I realised that it is neither articulate nor complete:) ) The issue has interested me and held me in a dilemma for sometime. So the question is, should unethical conversions be banned? We need to define what an unethical conversion is before starting off. A conversion is a voluntary change in religion, there’s nothing bad about it, a free choice is exercised. An unethical conversion is, I think, one where the freedom of the choice is compromised. Say for instance someone holds a gun to your head and says “oi, if you don’t let me baptise/circumsize/tie a pirith noola on you, I will shoot you.” Now that is clearly not a free choice, it is a constrained choice and is a form of coercion, this makes it unethical.

The argument for banning them would run along the following lines. The conversion is not voluntary and individual freedom to choose one’s religion is compromised. Now, if we consider the case where a person is holding a gun to a man’s head, the argument seems sound enough, the man is forced to abandon his religion since losing one’s life is hardly a choice at all (usually). But happily enough we don’t have such extreme cases. The usual ones we hear of are cases where ppl in extreme poverty are told that they will be given material benefits that will help them out of their current situation if they are willing to change their religion, their kids will be given an education if they are willing to change religion and cases in hospitals where grieving relatives are told that the dying patient will achieve salvation if the whole family converts. In each of these cases, the compromised situation of the convertees is taken advantage of, abused even. Now this is clearly not very nice of the converter.

But, is the freedom of the convertee being diminished? I would say no. We make constrained choices every single day. If your boss tells you to do something that you don’t enjoy, x, you can either do x or tell him to sod off. You’d do x bc you want to keep you job, but that doesn’t make your freedom any less, it’s not like you can’t find another job. But you choose to do x bc it’s a lot easier than going on a job hunt. In the constrained choice of education or religion, certain ppl will choose religion and others will choose education depending on their individual preferences. My grandmother was in such a situation and just told the Father to fly a kite and she quit school. She ended up being a housewife and had a life immersed in religion and ended up being very happy. Another person who doesn’t care much about religion and greatly values education will make the alternate choice. Creating a legal bar will actually diminish freedom of choice since it takes out one set of options from the picture. Similarly, if a man is in extreme poverty and would gladly trade religions for some quick bucks, what right does the government have to say that his choice is incorrect?

What can’t be denied is that the converter is being naughty. He is trying to take advantage of the compromised condition of the convertee. And that is arguably immoral. But then again, that happens all the time. Poor ppl with few skills are given jobs with low pay that can barely sustain their life. The employer is taking advantage of the fact that the man has few skills and is unlikely to find a better paying job and thus he can afford to pay him very little. Now arguably the employer is being immoral, but wouldn’t the poor man be happy to at least have a job, be it a low paying one? This is the argument put forward against minimum wages, it squeezes out so many jobs leaving ppl unemployed and unable to find subsistance wages. It won’t make sense to ban employers from giving low pay jobs to poor ppl just bc they are taking advantage of the poor man’s situation. If the govt. were to ban conversions they would have to ban a lot of other things on this same basis. Taking advantage of an individual’s circumstances maybe immoral but to bring it under the legal framework will create a lot of problems.

What we can conclude is that a conversion taking advantage of a person’s circumstances does not inhibit freedom of choice, but it is not very nice of the converter and it becomes very difficult to punish the converter in such cases. Furthermore, trying to bring such issues under the legal hammer are very difficult, it raises very subjective questions such as what exactly is a voluntary choice? Some may even argue that the man with a gun to his head could have chosen to die if he loved his religion enough. Do we really want the govt. deciding for us what is meant by a voluntary choice? The case for bringing religious conversions into the legal framework is quite weak, it would involve messing with individual choices and dealing with very subjective issues. Decisions about religion are best left to the discretion of the individual and the state has no role to play in this matter. What nags me is that men/women of religion are blatantly taking advantage of ppl’s circumstances and getting away with it. Men/women of religion are not mudalali’s and such behaviour is hypocritical, so I’d encourage anyone approached with such offers to produce your best kaney para and make it smart!

Woe is me, I am ill. And in a rather foul mood to boot. The road next to our house has been under perpetual repair and today again the silly buggers in the yellow hats are drilling away. I can feel my sinuses throbbing to a vaguely similar beat, not a good sign. Last night I thought that my teeth are finally beginning to give way. After 21 years of neglect, dodgy toothbrushes, cheap toothpaste, lot’s of coca cola, coffee and cigars, it is probably about time. One of my lower incisors began to pain a bit, and feel sensitive to heat and coolness. My childhood dentist, uncle Jiffrey, would shake his head and say that he told me so. But once again they are proved wrong, I realised that my teeth act funny soon as I get a clogged sinus, nothing to do with depleted dental health. Ha. That should buy me another few years away from that dental surgery, shudders.

I blame my ill health on the weather in this God forsaken country and the fact that our boiler, Henry, had passed away until this morning. Henry is an utter pain in the arse. From the moment we walked into this house he’s been giving trouble, always trippin’ the fuse, shuddering, blinking it’s lights of multiple colours and giving me a headache every time. Finally on Friday it gave up the ghost and decided to leak. And when Henry leaks it pours. Had to keep a bucket to collect all the water, I thought Henry was going to explode when it huffed and puffed a bit more and quietly passed away. Great, a weekend without hot water or heating. Just to double check I had to go and take a look at the gas meter which is inconveniantly placed just under the neighbours window. The last time I was checking it the window opened and a lady popped her head out and asked “Excuse me sir, may I help you?” I politely declined and she said “Oh, do pardon me, there have been a few break ins and I was worried”. I was slightly taken aback, I mean, is that how you’d address a suspected thief? Excuse me sir can i help you? In SL if there was a dodgy looking bugger (and I looked plenty dodgy that day, unshaven, squatting with my sarong tucked up ammuday style) under your window you’d be reaching for the mole gaha. British politeness, I tell you.

So I called British Gas who kindly said that my contract has expired and asked if my name is Fernando. After a bit of gawking and hyperventilating they said sorry sorry small kachal, contract is all good. Good! I wasn’t about to pay a plumber 65 quid for an hour of poking around only to say “Sorry guv’ your boiler’s knackered” and walk off. Anyway this morning the Brit gas dudes came in and sorted it out, Henry is back in action, for the moment. At least I have a decent excuse to cut my tute, though I do have a book that has been recalled by the library and they won’t be too thrilled with me for not bringing it back. I’m going to have to put a sob story and cough violently in their faces to convince them that I was sufficiently deincapicitated.

My mood was uplifted last night when I watched Nevermind the Buzzcocks. That is undoubtedly the funniest show on Brit television, Mark Lamarr is simply hilarious as host. Nobody really cares about the points and who wins, the idea is just to get in as many laughs as is possible within half an hour. The format is as follows. There are 2 teams of 3, each team has a standing member who shows up every week, both fairly ugly chaps, and 2 celeb guests on each team. There are 4 rounds of questions, in the first round each team has to spot the commanality between two musicians. Yesterday it was Rick Astley and AC/DC. Tough one. The answer was that both artists had their music played on loudspeaker as part of an attempt to drive a dictator out of his house in Lebanon (I think). Second round 2 players have to mimic the music in a song and the 3rd player has to guess the song. In the third round they pick a member of an ancient (70s/80s) inconspicuous band and put him in a identity parade with 5 randoms and the teams have to pick the correct bugger. The identity parade is a laugh a minute, they take the absolute mick out of the ppl in the parade and they have to all keep a straight face during the process. In the fourth round Lamarr reads the first line in a song and the teams have to say the second line. 90% of the show is made up of Mark Lamarr taking the piss out of the contestants and the subjects of the questions, even the contestants are invariably funny and the whole show is a good workout for those abs.

Last weekend was fabulous but I’ll write about it when i’m feeling more upto it, went for a Dali exhibition and Stomp the musical, marvellous stuff.

Thought for the day: When a woman sells her body she’s a prostitute, when a man sells his mind he’s a consultant.

It usually takes me a very short time to get homesick, it’s taken me almost 2 months this time. A combination of horrible weather, a broken down boiler, a few complications from the females of the species and the ever-present shadow of work, is not a good one. It just makes me want to say “nope, enough of that shit, i’m going off for a bit.” But no, I’m stuck here in front of the comp making notes on the influence of ideology on political outcomes. Right now I’d love to be in SL, a hot afternoon, at the old Commons having a coffee and a sandwich with a friend(s) and just chill. Or even at home, in my room, with my little Lab, a Bob Marley CD, a nice book, sarong, arm chair, cool thambili, ahh, c’est la vie n’est ce pas? But what’s to do, it’s just for one year and then i’ll be done at last, might as well make the most of this opportunity to live abroad.

I put on one of my two baila CDs, a welcome change. I’m often surprised by baila, the lyrics, though not profound, are so witty, melodic and clever. And at the same time they have a beat which is infectious and just makes you want to move. Dancing to baila is one of the most fun things to do, specially at parties, weddings and cricket matches with all your friends, it’s like you’re given a licence to be silly. (In fact I once went to a funeral where they had Baila. Our buggers one thing, any excuse for a party.) I particularly love the time of the evening when everyone joins a koachchiya and produces one big chain of energy and fun. The other time baila comes to the fore is on school trips. Bus journeys are never as fun without a solid baila session. Anything has the potential to become a musical instrument on these trips, empty bottles, chairs, windows, heads, anything within grab’s reach really. For some reason those sessions have the potential to go on forever, everyone contributes at least one line, specially the songs where individuals’ names are inserted into each stranza to make a different story each time. It’s funny how I know the lyrics of all the bastardised versions of Sinhalese songs and none of the proper versions, thanks to hours on school buses I guess. Unforunately baila is never quite the cup of expat teachers’ tea, they would forever complain about the “incessant beat” of Thararay thara poaduda, Baby, Thambi kadey and of course the Raptararara song and its many many extensions. They knew that profanity was being used each time we’d laugh aloud for little reason and would roll their eyes accordingly. Some of my favourite stanzas are;

There was once a man from Ceylon,
Who wished he’d never been born
He wouldn’t have been if his father had seen
that the tip of the condom was torn.

From the depth of the crypt in St. Giles,
Came a scream that resounded for miles
Said the Vicar, “Good gracious,
Has father Ignatius forgotten the Bishop has piles?”

There was once a man from Moratu
Who tried to bugger a Muththu,
The Muththu said “Thu! Umbay Ammata Hu!”
And burnt his Bush with a suruttu.

Sigh, good times. Sri Lanka, how I miss you.

It’s a Wednesday night, and that means chillax time bc I finish my major weekly tutes on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. As is usual on days like today I have consumed too much food and as a result i’m feeling lazy and bloated. Menu was grilled trout, chicken curry, parippu with niwithi and braised broccoli with more niwithi. Quite rich for a bunch of students innit? (I say innit purely in jest, it is not a term I use with any other purpose). I can’t remember the last time I had two types of flesh for one meal, probably was at home sometime. There was however a time when I ate no flesh at all, I had a vegetarian phase for about 10 months.

I wanted to be a vegetarian around mid 2001. But then I started uni in England and I realised that there’s a limit to how much carrot, potatos and cabbage one can eat without jumping off a bridge. (I am aware that the brits know how to make potatos in a multitude of ways but i still think the best you can do with a potato is to use it as a weapon against shop lifters in supermarkets). So I quit no sooner I started but made a quiet pact with my conscience to become fully fledged vege boy once I pass away out. In 2004 I eventually passed out and after spending a few days gobbling lots of seafood back home I quite abruptly stopped eating all forms of meat. That is, no fish, no meat, no crustaceans and no birds. This was part of my attempt to be more spiritual and “one with nature” since it is fair to equate consuming flesh to killing. And killing is frowned upon. I think I remember the exact moment of inspiration. I was having dinner with my parents and as usual we had some meat and I swatted an annoying mosquito. Ammi at once reprimanded me saying that it’s a sin to kill. Wtp? it’s ok to kill a chicken but not a mosquito? Chickens don’t make annoying buzzing noises when you’re trying to sleep and they don’t suck your blood and they don’t give you God awful diseases (other than recent buggers, bloody poultry - and what’s with Asian Bird Flu inconspicuously becoming Avian Bird Flu? It’s like Sinhala Urumaya becoming Sihala Urumaya after realising that the original name is ever so slightly politically incorrect). So I thought to myself, if it’s bad to kill a mosquito (which it is, doesn’t mean I like them, zzzz zzzz swat!!), it’s equally bad to kill chickens.

I’m guessing most families would encourage a young aspiring vegetarian. But not mine. They said things like, “Don’t be a fool, that chicken would have been killed whether you eat it or not so might as well eat it.” and “Just bc you don’t eat some fish you think all the bloody fishermen will throw their rods in the sea and start knitting hankerchiefs?” Ok so they do have a point, my reduced consumption will not make a sufficient dent in total demand to reduce supply and thereby reduce killing. And if everybody thinks that way there would be no reduction in demand for flesh. But, as more and more ppl think otherwise, the dent in demand becomes greater and greater. Today there are far more vegetarians than there were 10 or 20 years ago, and that would never have happened if everybody had the mindset that one person can’t make a difference.

People forever try to reconcile Buddhism with eating meat, but I think that’s a very tough proposition. They say that the Buddha never said to not eat meat. It’s very difficult to argue that eating meat is not tantamount to taking a life. If we didn’t eat meat nobody would kill cows and chickens and try convince us to put it in our mouths. A good way to look at eating meat is as a sin of collective society, and we as individuals in society are all equally responsible. The way to avoid the sin is to take individual responsibility and remove ourselves from the cycle of killing and eating, that is the least we can do.

Now this is important. I don’t have a problem with ppl who eat meat. We all sin every single day and we know it. We lie, we cuss, we consume intoxicating substances, we lust and we do most things that pious ppl shake their heads at. And yes, we eat meat. I do have a problem with ppl who eat meat and try to make it seem like it isn’t a sin and that it isn’t tantamount to killing. Just bite the bullet. It’s a sin, it’s mean but we do it anyway bc it tastes damn good! I also don’t quite understand how some ppl eat one type of flesh but don’t eat other types of flesh. Now Hindus in particular say that it’s not very nice to eat beef bc we drink the cow’s milk and the bulls work for us and all. Fair enough too, they deserve a peaceful retirement. But screw the chicken, eggs or no eggs, the chicken is going down. And the goats and fish and everyone else. So why is it that some ppl find it a terrible sin to eat a goat or a pig or a cow but quite alrite to eat a chicken or a fish? Aren’t the latter creatures living, breathing beings too? One might say that by not eating certain animals you’re cutting down on the amount of lives you consume. But just bc you don’t eat beef or mutton, are you going to go without flesh that day? You’ll probably compensate with whatever type of flesh that you do eat. If you’re going to not eat meat you might as well go all the way, this is one area where I don’t think there is a gray area in between, it’s either all or nothing. In fact it’s probably better to eat a dish of beef than to eat a dish of prawns bc the latter would result in way more deaths. Another common excuse is that you need animal protein to survive. Cock. There are plenty of vegans who live perfectly healthy lives.

So what happened to my vegetarian phase? Around March this year I got a flu and I was sick for a week, quite basic stuff except that my natural immunity failed to recover, my white blood cell count dropped 40% below normal and I was told that I’m not consuming enough protein and was ordered to eat flesh. Thank God. I had already started cheating by that stage and sneaking in a chicken buriyani on the odd day as opposed to my usual vegetable rice and curry and it was a matter of time before my mental strength gave way to the power of the taste bud. I missed sea food tremendously. But I was very lucky in that I just adore Sri Lankan vegetables. Mallums, wattakka, nelum ala, karavila, watakolu, wambotu and so on, I could just live on the stuff. If not for that there was no way I could have survived even the 10 or so months I did as a vegetarian. Now I eat pretty much anything, as my father says “duwana paninina ona ekak kamu.” I understand that it’s not a very nice thing to do, but then I do a lot of not nice things. Hopefully someday I will have sufficient mental strength to quit meat for good.

Disclaimer: All you vegans out there, hats off to you (don’t take the title personally, it’s from a T shirt I saw and felt i had to fit it in here somewhere). Except the ones who go to social functions and make a fuss saying they don’t eat this and that and embarass their hosts as a result, stop being anal, it’s not going to kill you to eat a bit of meat, though it might kill something else.

On friday evening I went back to the place I consider to be my second home. If ever Sri Lanka goes under water and England drifts a bit closer to the equator, I will gladly live in Oxford. It was my convacation on Saturday, a good 17 months after I passed out of university, so I had to make the short 90 mins journey up there with my parents on Friday evening. We stayed at the Head of the River hotel on Abingdon road, about 2 mins from the house I lived in during 3rd year, just by the Cherwell river. On friday we were all quite tired and my parents were jetlagged so they ate and slept early. After dinner I went up to Cowley road which is on the other side of town and where most of the students live. Cowley has loads of character and eating houses with food ranging from polish (try their zupy), jamaican, vietnamese, cambodian, thai, bangladeshi (they royally food poisoned me though), japanese and lebanese. I met up with two of my old housemates and went to a couple of bars, Joes and The Globe to have cocktails (I had something called Pimms something something, it resembled Kola Kenda and tasted similar, but nevermind that) and chatter. I couldn’t visit Oxford without having a kebab from Hassan’s van on Broad street outside Trinity, chips, cheese and chicken meat with chillie and garlic sauce, you can’t beat it. After several hours I took a cab back to the hotel around 2 and got to bed. The Head of the River is a nice place by English hotel standards, it costs 95 a night for a double room and is well located by the river where most of the University rowing takes place in Trinity (summer) term. The hotel is a pub as well, serving pretty decent food, they have good comfy beds and lovely bathrooms (with thermostatically controlled showers!).

The next morning I was up at 8 to pick my brother up from the rail station, he got a bit delayed so I decided to buy High Fidelity by Nick Hornby and a cup of coffee and settled down to wait for him. All of us had to be in my old College by 11am for the initial preparations for the ceremony, and that meant getting ready a lot earlier to get into Sub Fusc. The Sub Fusc is standard academic dress in Oxford, it consists of white shirt, black trouser, dark socks, black shoes, white bow tie, coat, academic gown and mortar board. I discovered that I had brought only one sock so I had to borrow thaththi’s extra pair and we headed off. I had a bit of nervous excitement in me, it felt like I was being examined and I didn’t want to mess up. Something in me said that there is a little something a miss. But it was nice to be back in College, loads of memories came flooding back, coming in for enrolment, walking into the JCR for the first time, going passed the computer rooms where I spent several hours in my first few weeks sending e mails home telling them that it gets dark so soon here and how the food is getting progressively worse.

After doing a few initial admin stuff I had to meet to Vic the head porter to sort out my gowning arrangements. After exchangingl pleasantaries he asked me where my BA gown and hood are. Shit. “I thought we get it from college” I said, my heart rate quietly increasing, the moisture in my throat evaporating, the vacuum in my stomach expanding. “No, no” Vic said “You have to get to Shepphard and Woodward immediately, hire a gown and hood, and get back to me before 12, that is imperative.” How idiotic could I get? Everybody has to hire their gowns for graduation, and I foolishly assumed that college sorts it out. I was surprisingly calm, I said alrite, jogged to the JCR, got some cash from thaththi and started to run. I didn’t know exactly where I was going but there were one of two academic dress shops to which I could have gone, one on the High street and the other on Broad street. I didn’t have time to go to both in case one was closed. I flipped a coin in my head and High Street it was. While I was running, in full Sub Fusc mind you, I realised that this was the road I used to take to lectures at the Schools each morning (ha who am i kidding, lectures EVERY morning?!). It seemed to take ages those days, but I passed Schools in 4 mins. I was making good time and I didn’t really have to run any more but I thought might as well get a bit of a work out bc lunch was going to be heavy. Got to S&W and there was something else that I didn’t factor in, everyone pre-orders gowns before booking them, what if there weren’t any left of my size? I finally got to S&W and happily enough the required garments were available. I walked back feeling lots more content.

Surprisingly there were several ppl in my year who were graduating at the same time. I had expected to graduate with a bunch of kids who passed out this year, but there were about 6 ppl from my year, and a couple from the year before mine as well. I ended up chatting most with a girl that I never even liked in my 3 years at uni. She was my staircase mate’s girlfriend and she’d forever come knocking on his door shouting his name, I hated it. But she was very nice on Saturday and it was fun catching up. The Dean of degrees, Simopoulos, sat us down for 30 mins to explain ceremonial protocol including the Latin we had to recognize and say, the order in which we bow to the proctors, which door to walk out of and which to enter and where to stand. The Latin wasn’t easy to remember, but ironically it sounded like “don’t forget” and we all agreed that if in doubt just say “D’oh!” and bow. We then moved in for the lunch hosted by College and I was relieved to see that according to the seating plan I was next to my Development Econ Prof and his guest. The coolest part of the day was walking into the dining room and having everyone stand up for us.

Guests at lunch in College, the High table is in the background.

For 3 years I sat in the lower tables and had to stand up when the Dons walk in to the High table and remain standing until Grace is said. On Saturday everyone stood up for us as we trooped upto the High Table, chests forward, collars up. Lunch was good, mushroom something something for starters (the menu was in french), grilled lamb with cheesy parsley potatos and salad for lunch and chocolate cheesecake for dessert. After lunch we had the usual coffee and Port and then Simopoulos led us to the Sheldonian building where our degrees would be betsowed upon us.

The Sheldonian theatre is in my opinion the most majestic building in Oxford. This probably has something to do with the fact that I was matriculated there and graduated there. It is regal on the outside and simply majestic from within. The building is in the shape of a Roman Collosseum and is designed by Christopher Wren.

The Sheldonian from outside (My brother’s photograph wasn’t great so i got an older one)

The amazing thing about the architecture is that in keeping with the collosseum design, it becomes difficult to place a roof on the building, but Wren managed to design a roof structured in such a manner as to not require supporting pillars. And to add a little bit of flavour there’s a gorgeous engraving on the inside of the roof. All this makes it rather annoying that the building was under some renovation and as a result there was scaffolding in the surroundings and the magnificent painting on the inside of the roof was covered.

The organ in the Sheldonian

When my college graduands walked in there were already quite a few of the other college graduands already seated. I sat down and looked around the interior and spotted my parents on the second tier, they waved at me and I grinned back. I noticed aiya looking rather dramatic and pointing to the camera, it looked like something was wrong. I found out later that the battery had died. There would be no photographs of my degree ceremony. Happily enough they make a DVD of the whole process so I’m going to order that soon. He did however get a couple of shots of the initial moments in the sheldonian.

My College arriving in the Sheldonian

We had to wait for several degrees to pass before it was our turn, the DPhils, the DLitts and the Masters. Simopoulos told us to look out for our names within one very long latin sentence at the end of which we stand up and walk towards the middle. Simopoulos holds the right hand of the graduand on his right, and the rest of the graduands of our college stand behind them in rows of 4. Simopoulos then tells the Vice Chancellor and proctors in latin that he presents his scholars in the Faculty of Arts and that he requests they be admitted to the degree bachelor of arts. The Proctor then doffs his mortar board to us and we bow before him and he recites the oath in Latin which is rougly translated as, you shall swear to follow the rules, statutes, privileges, customs and liberties of the university. We then say “Do Fidem” which means you bet! The VC then officially admits us in latin, and we nod and bow to the VC and two proctors and leave the building to get into our new BA robes. After changing we return through the main door to rousing applause (in Simopoulos’ words) and then go back to the VC and procs, bow to them again and we’re officially Bachelors of Arts.

After the ceremony we went to the Queen’s cafe to celebrate and I met up with some friends in the evening and went to a place called Baby Love Bar in the night for some Drum n’ Bass. By coincidence Anush was in Oxford the same weekend and I wanted to show him Cowley Road and its evening wonders but we were quite late so most of the bars were closing shop (except the Jamaican Pub but everyone thought it looked much too dodgy, despite the fact that i know the uncle there!). Finished up quite late and went back to a friend’s place, shared another kebab and chatted in a slightly buzzed state till 4 and then walked back home bc I had busted all my cash. The next day it was raining and I think I was coming in for some disease. I was feeling quite rotten and had a slightly dodge stomach to boot. Nonetheless I went into town with my parents for lunch at my favourite Creperie, Cleo’s. In my book the Crepe Newcastle (a crepe with white and milk chocolate) is the best sweet crepe and Le crepe d’Agneau (crepe with roasted lamb) is the best savoury crepe. I stepped out to say hello to Savi (who was also by coincidence in Oxford that weekend) and Anush again, showed them the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, from the tower of which you get some of the best views of Oxford on a clear day. I headed home around 5 that evening after dropping aiya at the station. I was incredibly tired when I got home but very satisfied too. I miss Oxford; the town, Cowley, my friends there and even the whole university thing (in some twisted way). Made a mental note to keep a few days free next Easter break to drop in again and visit my favourite part of England.