One one things

I was on holiday somewhere in the North of SL with my family, my grandparents were most prominent, but I know my immediate family was also around. We were all walking somewhere when we strayed into a jungle area and saw LTTE boys prowling around with guns. There was a problem with my eyes and I could barely see where I was walking, but I could see little bits from the tiny openings. Thankfully someone was helping me walk. It was the closest I’ve felt to being physically handicapped. We got close to the cadres and had to hide behind the bushes to avoid being seen. They heard us and came towards us slowly; I felt that dread of knowing there’s no escape. My heart beat faster, thudding against my chest, I tried to not breathe so they won’t hear us; I could taste the adrenaline. Leaves rustled underfoot and then they were just above us, rifle butts raised. They were really quiet. I put my arms over my head and said “surrender surrender”, terrified. I closed my eyes tight and my muscles tightened as if expecting to hold back the bullet. But it never came. I remember being led down through the forest with my arms behind my back.

The next thing I recall was waking up in an air conditioned room. The room was rectangular, and yellowish in colour, there were lots of books, a water dispenser. We were being held captive in excellent conditions. My grandfather was physically weak, and the cadres paid special attention to help him. I felt surprised at their kindness. We were given tea and one of the senior officers came to talk to us, he looked a lot like Karuna but didn’t have a prominent mustache. He was very relaxed, laid back on a couch, arms crossed overhead, smiling a lot while he spoke. I remember feeling suspicious, wondering if this was the calm before a storm. But they continued being nice to us. The Karuna look alike had a long discussion with us but I can’t remember the details. What I do know was that we struck a chord and we all seemed to be on the same wavelength. They finally said they were going to release us, and for some reason I thought this was an extremely intelligent move on their part, something along the lines of taking the moral high ground and looking very good internationally, a smack in the face of GoSL. I spoke to Karuna lookalike and said, “That’s a very smart move, you know the implications of this, right?”. He looked at me and smiled. I was also happy bc my grandfather is somewhat hawkish in his attitude towards the conflict, and I hoped this would temper him a bit. Deep down I’ve always hoped for some genuineness in the LTTE, and have always always been disappointed, maybe there was something decent in them after all? I felt justified in having this naive hope, redemption even.

We were released after breakfast in two vehicles, and I somehow ended up in a car with a girl that i didn’t know. From a previous visit I recognized the area as Killinochchi, though it didn’t really look like it, and we managed to get lost. I was struggling hard to remember the names of roads but I failed. The girl kept telling me, “You know this place right? You know the roads right?” We ended up by the sea, and I walked along a beautiful bare brown ridge which overlooked a perfectly blue Indian Ocean. It felt like the war was going to be over soon, and I was happy that we could again enjoy that which has been denied to us my entire life. I knew that things were a bit off when four of my friends floated by in kayaks, and I was wondering how the devil they managed to come to the North without a problem. But then I just jumped into the water and it felt perfect, home again.

A week back home and I was ready for the last leg of a month of travels. I had never been to the Philippines and hadn’t been East of Sri Lanka in a while, so I was quite looking forward to it. More importantly it was a WTO gig and I’m a fan of multilateral trade. The annoying part was that the flights had to be via Singapore, with an overnight transit both ways. The SQ inflight entertainment is excellent and I watched more movies that I had in ages on those flights to Dhaka and Manila. Arriving in Singapore however was a lot more eventful than I had hoped. I rocked up to immigration armed with my laptop and a print out of my hotel reference number. The woman at the counter looked at my passport, tried to scan it but it didn’t register. She asked me to follow her and I was led to some desk where a couple of other young Lankan boys from my flight were hanging around. Great, VIP treatment for LKA holders. A stubby Singaporean immigration woman asks the four of us if we’re together. I shook my head and the other three said they were going on holiday. We were herded into a little corridor where a couple of other SL chaps were sitting around. I sulked and walked up to a wall next to two fellows sitting down and one of them mumbled while looking hard at the ground “Apith ekka katha karanna epa, api anduranne nathuwa wagey inna” I thought this is a bit sketchy, the last thing I wanted was to be rounded up with some dodgy buggers trying to get in on the sly. After about 20 mins we were taken to a room one at a time to be finger printed and photographed. This was really taking the piss. I was here to stay 10 hours and get some sleep and had to go through all this nonsense. I was not a happy bunny. Eventually it was my turn and I didn’t make a fuss and let him fingerprint me. A list of criminals come up on the screen with finger prints of similar nature. To my horror one bugger shows up 100%, some Canadian Tamil chap. The immigration guy looks hard at my passport picture, then at the screen and then back up at me. He adjusts his specs, points to the screen and shrieks “He look like you!” I said “No no man that’s not me” and laughed it off bc the chap really looked nothing like me. He readjusts his specs and says “He you! he you!” At this point I got a bit nervous, what if we all look alike to them, like they do to us. Then luckily he said okok and smiled. I said that I’m on transit and showed him my hotel number, and he looked very troubled and said, “Ohh transit?? you should have say. No problem with transit. You go.” Great. Why didn’t i say that before? I went back and got my passport stamped and got a million apologies from the immigration chap, but it really was my fault for assuming that this is standard procedure for SL passport holders. It turns out the reason for the detainment was that my passport was of the old variety that doesn’t get read by their scanners. Oh well.

The night in Singapore was pleasant, I found food at a street market and the airport drama felt miles away as I slurped up noodles and dim sum. The next morning my cab driver on the way to the airport from my transit hotel was interesting. He had been on holiday to SL and lectured me all the way about Kandy, Colombo and the LTTE. All along I was thinking it would be quite fun if our three wheel chaps can go on holiday to S’pore. 4 hours later, touch down in Manila. The ride to the hotel was in the hotel vehicle and the driver was a hoot. The car itself was quite dodge despite being a pretty fancy merc, it kept stalling and Romeo, the driver, kept swearing. Manila looked very dry and lacked any greenery at first glance. There was American influence all over. Burger shops, kids playing basket ball - it was how i’d imagine a Latin American city, even the ppl looked like Latino. Romeo got chatty and started asking what my plans were. “So you wanna go out in the night and all eh? you married?” He grinned back at me through the mirror. I was tired and mumbled that i’m not married. “So then in the evening, if you want to go get some beer, see some dancing” another big smile..”Maybe some naked dancing?”. I looked sheepishly out of the window, Bangkok all over again. “Alcohol, girls, both, haha, you tell to call me, ask for Romeo, any evening eh, girls, dancing, you want to fuck? anything, haha.” I mumbled some more and the topic shifted to music, jazz in particular; I asked if there were any live gigs in the evenings close by. He didn’t know of any but he did say that his favourite was Diana Krall, bc she looks sexy. The traffic increased as we got closer to the city and there were loads of slums lining the waterways, and in the background the sky scrapers began to emerge, classic South East Asian cities.

The hotel was fabulous, and the girls by default wore really short skirts. A quick nap, informal welcome dinner and bed. The proceedings began the next day and i was somewhat disappointed. It was full of NGO chaps who hadn’t a clue about economics and spent the day WTO bashing. More details a couple of posts down (Down with them liberals). I laid into one guy who went on and on about how NAMA was not in the interest of Sri Lanka (based on preference erosion - without him having ever heard of the term preference erosion), he kept saying NAMA will result in x number of job losses in SL, y number of factory closures, women will be destitute, save us, save us! He never once mentioned the term preference erosion. It’s pretty ironic that in Geneva SL is fighting hard against a move by certain African countries to exclude 21 US tariff lines from NAMA reductions bc they receive preferences at the moment. Anyway, idiots. This went on for two days, and I took every chance I could to get under the skin of these fellows using rubbish data and sad excuses for economics. I was very unpopular by the time the final dinner came round. A Pakistani chap said over dinner, “So it seems only the man from Sri Lanka is happy with this trade business” I smiled and said something about small markets, economies of scale blah blah. He wasn’t convinced.

My flight was on the 3rd night, a few hours after the closing sessions, so unless I skipped a bit I wouldn’t get to do any exploring. The hotel was in Ortigas, a very commercial area full of malls and offices, not my idea of travel. Luckily an Indian guy who I knew from a previous conference was keen on seeing a bit of Manila and he suggested we take off just before lunch and get back for the final session. It sounded like a plan. Quick change and we were in a cab to Manila Bay. The driver had absolutely no command of English and before we knew it we were on a wild goose chase. He kept radioing HQ and muttering “Anila Way? Banila May? Vanilla Ray?” Eventually PK lost patience and asked him to stop near a building and we got down and asked for proper directions. Manila Bay was a bit useless at 1pm, it was a promenade lining the bay, but it looked promising for the evening; little cafes waking up to dusk and street musicians collecting coins in hats. Plan B was Fort Santiago in Intramuros a bit further up. This Spanish fort was the final home of several prisoners who were executed by the Japanese in WWII. What stands today is what was rebuilt in 1945 following the original structure being destroyed by the yanks during the War. The place was charming if slightly commercial - with horse rides and a mini golf course. There were interesting tunnels, moats, dungeons and several life like models of soldiers guarding the place. Intramuros itself was very nice, it reminded me a lot of Galle, it had the same narrow streets, old buildings, cobble stones and an air of coolness (literally). After having a look at the cathedral we took a ride in a buggy attached to a bike. This was the old Manila, much more interesting than where I had spent my first 3 days. Our buggy took us through a maze of roads, little cafes lining the street and fort walls. The driver (cyclist/guide) stopped every so often to point at something and fire away in Phillipino. Time flew, it was three O clock so we decided to find some food and head back. Unfortunately we couldn’t find the nice cafes we had passed and we wandered around in search of food, ending up in the poorer areas full of cheap dorms. All we found was an internet cafe jam packed with teens playing Warcraft.

Hungry and late we headed back to where we came from to find a cab to Ortigas. But every cab driver we stopped just shook his head and sped off when we said Ortigas. We asked some locals and they said that Ortigas is really far away and nobody will be willing to take us at this time. Shit. Wank. Bugger. It was only later on looking at a map that I realised how far we had traveled in that short time. It was almost 4 and we were running out of options. Luckily PK spotted a bus that said “ORTIGAS” in the front. Relieved, we sat down in the A/C comfort and it felt great to only cough up 20p between us compared to the 100p the cab set us back. We told the conductor to let us know when we reach SM mall, the nearest landmark to our hotel. We drove along for about 20mins in bumper to bumper traffic, PK fell asleep. The bus stopped and the conductor waved at me, “SM mall SM mall”. I looked out and it wasn’t where we had to be. I hurriedly walked up to him, “Is this Ortigas? ORTIGAS?” He clicked his tongue, shook his head, asked for another 20p and we drove on. The route was completely unfamiliar, and by now I was worried that we’d end up in the middle of nowhere, it was impossible to communicate with anyone else. Luckily 3 adolescent chaps got onto the bus brandishing ipods. I showed them our map and pointed to where we should be and said “Ortigas, discovery suites. You know?” They seemed excited and poured over the map, pointing fingers, disagreeing with one another and eventually the guy in the middle said, “OK I tell you when to get off.” Brilliant. But there was always a chance that he could be wrong as well. It was almost 5 when the guy told us to get off at the next junction. PK and I gathered our stuff, thanked them and pushed our way to the exit, the kids were grinning and one yelled “God bless you” as we waved. Hoping we’d make it for the last few minutes we sprinted back to the hotel, just in time to find everyone winding up and bidding their farewells. It was a relief to have made it back, but I was annoyed bc we might as well have stayed a couple more hours since we missed the final session anyway.

The trip back wasn’t eventful and it felt really nice to be making that last drive from Katunayake to Colombo. What a month. I never thought I’d get through it, and it was really tough at times, specially the hours upon hours at the airports, the jet lag and most of all the red tape of visas and the like. But it’s nice now to look back and feel satisfied that I made full use of every aspect, workwise and travelwise. Here’s to more.

Of all the conferences that month, I was looking forward to Dhaka the least. I was needed in Dhaka for just one day, the meeting would last about 6 hours, about 2 of which was spent in a display of South Asian pomp and mutual ego massaging. I landed on Friday night, via Singapore (don’t ask), conference on Saturday, and flight out of Dhaka on Saturday night. So I knew there would be no chance of exploration, and I’d not heard too many good things about Dhaka either. Expectations suitably low, I set off for Katunayake on Friday morning. There was no visible airport pickup - not a good start. I ventured outside and saw a bored looking chauffeur-like character with a book at hand. I mentioned my hotel name and by some luck he pointed to another guy who looked for my name on his own dossier but failed to find it. It didn’t take long to convince him that I should be in his van and away we went, with an oriental guy as second passenger. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the roads - wide and smooth, traffic was flowing well. The driver entertained us with his cassette of 80s English love songs - globalisation, got to love it. He was extremely friendly and kept speaking in a most respectful manner and constantly apologising for the traffic as if it were his own fault. Grey buildings shot by in a blur as I strained my eyes to capture as much of the city as I possibly could, but there was nothing much that could be seen in the night. As we came towards the city, traffic intensified and cops manned the junctions, blowing whistles and waving sticks menacingly at vehicles. One bus swerved a bit too close to one of the cops, almost knocking him over,prompting a furious spate of whistling as he chased after the bus on foot trying to hit the conductor with his baton. Great fun. We sped off and made it to the hotel just short of midnight. Shower, water, sleep.

The conference itself was quite dull. Hacked topic, same old arguments - I just wanted to say my thing and bugger off. But it was very pleasantly surprising to hear the comments from some of the participants. I hadn’t said anything interesting as such but a bunch of Bangladeshi chaps seemed quite taken up by it and for a short while I felt like a celebrity, with 5 ppl waiting patiently to talk to me. Everyone was really nice - 2 ppl invited me to their homes to have dinner with their families, it was amazing to see such hospitality. But much more was to come. I had lunch at a random table, and sat next to a guy from the Bangladeshi chambers of commerce. He seemed relatively young - early 30s I guessed, and we chatted about the food on offer and about Bangladesh in general. While we were having dessert he got a call from a friend - and from the smattering of English that peppered the conversation I gathered they were going to meet up that evening. I grimaced at the thought of missing another weekend trip, my friends were scheduled to go out of town as usual. To my surprise, he told his friend that he’s having lunch with a guy from Sri Lanka, then held the phone away and asked if I would like to join them for a coffee. I was amazed, I don’t think i’ve ever experienced such kindness extended to a stranger. I accepted, thrilled at the chance to see even a little bit of Dhaka in the 6 hours or so before my flight.

A quick change and I was in Noor’s car. It was about 2.30, giving me about 4 hours before I had to leave for the airport. We stopped for petrol, the tank was near empty, fingers crossed that this shed had petrol in addition to the more common natural gas. Dhaka looked a typical South Asian metropolis - hot and sticky in a way that you can almost see the heat reflecting off the road, crazy driving and old buildings which were unfortunately more dilapidated than charming. We got to a Coffee World and met up with Imtiaz, an old school friendship rekindled after a decade. I felt right at home, sitting between them, watching two friends gather up old memories like fallen pieces of a puzzle. They reminisced their days in a metal band, long hair, late night jam sessions, Metallica and Iron Maiden. Seeing them now I’d never have guessed their roots - one is a successful businessman in a suit, neat hair and young family. The other was in the army and now in outsourcing - reserved, articulate and witty. There’s no better way to learn about a country than by engaging with locals, and though Noor and Imtiaz were clearly members of the minority subset of a successful, Westernized younger generation, it was nonetheless enlightening. They complained about the lack of nightlife, the fact that English language movies are not accessible till 2 years after they are released and the limited offering of restaurants (there’s still just one pizza hut in town) and other forms of recreation. It reminded me a lot of Colombo a decade ago. But the signs in Bangladesh are mostly positive, at least their economics numbers are good. I wanted to know about the rest of the country beyond Dhaka, and according to them there isn’t a great deal to offer tourists. I was most interested in the Sundarbans - home of the Bengal tigers with a taste for human flesh - but this is apparently not what it used to be because of pollution and illegal logging.

We continued chatting over frappes, as the younger generation of Dhaka rolled in. Groups of good looking, well dressed, English speaking young boys and girls took over the couches and their laughter took over the cafe. We knew it was time to move on. Noor and Imtiaz quarreled over who gets to pay and I again felt overwhelmed at the warmth and generosity of the Bangladeshi people that I had met. Like back home the conversation spilled over to the parking lot. Imtiaz referred to Noor by another name and it turns out that Noor is a nickname. I was curious because even the Bangladeshi cricketers have nicknames in addition to their regular names. Former stumper Khaled Mashud is Pilot, Mashrafe Mortaza is Koushik, Javed Omar is Gulla and their former captain Aminul Islam is Bulbul. Noor had even more amusing examples including “Eve’s Breast” and names of vegetables. They said this is common bc in the villages ppl have nicknames, but that today even in the urban areas, often in official forums, nicknames linger on. Naturally this results in confusion - clients often call say “but I was told to speak to Sadrullah, who is this Noor?” and Noor would patiently explain that Sadrullah and Noor and one and the same. However the use of nicknames is likely to change, particularly since there’s a mild social stigma attached to it and Noor categorically said that his daughter has just one name, no confusion, no nonsense.

We finally wound up the tea time rendezvous and Noor offered to drive me around Dhaka. I felt bad bc he was still in his conference attire, but he was insistent and I still had about an hour and a half to kill. He suggested that we don’t go towards the older part of the town so we stuck to the more modern areas and first stop was at a lakeside recreational spot. I declined a cigarette and watched families paddling in little boats, couples seated on the banks and an open air amphitheater of sorts where ppl entertain on weekends. This used to be the area where as a young guy Noor used to rock up with his friends on their motor bikes and rev it up to impress the girls. The colourful, intricately decorated rickshaws sped up and down the surrounding roads, bringing new ppl to the scene as the atmosphere built up. Unfortunately we had to leave, and we drove towards the university area, passing the oddly designed parliament building and several large houses with stand out architecture mainly belonging to politically well connected businessmen. Amusingly half the owners were in jail for backing the wrong horse in the last elections. As we approached the leafy Dhaka university area, Noor said that students over here are very powerful and vocal, and the university area is almost a city within a city with unwritten rules of conduct for the public passing through. It all sounded quite intriguing and just then four students nonchalantly crossed the road in front of us as if they owned it, one girl sticking her hand out telling us to stop while they crossed. Noor looked at me and shrugged. We then passed a very sketchy looking mosque, quite different to normal mosques in that it looked under construction and didn’t have the traditional domes. Noor explained that the Mullahs in that mosque are extremely powerful, with close links to international extremist movements including Al Quaeda. “If you are sent in there, however powerful you are, whatever influence you have, nobody can get you out.”

Noor was full of stories, about his own life in Bangladesh, growing up in Dhaka and his childhood. One street was entirely dedicated to pet stores and according to Noor if you know who to speak to you can get your hands on any animal from these shops - including a Bengal Tiger. He told me about a monkey that he used to own from this street until his mother had finally assisted the monkey’s escape. A friend of his had woken him up one morning with an odd request for cockroaches. Apparently he had procured an Indian Python from one of the shops and had run out of food for the animal. It was getting dark and we finished up around 6. Before dropping me off Noor wanted to show me a mall just near the hotel. It was in complete contrast to the rest of the city that we had seen - large, shiny and imposing, throngs of people, 8 floors, over 300 shops, a cinema hall and bowling alley. The owner of the building was also in jail like most ministers from the former government. When I was in Bangladesh the country was being run by the caretaker government (constitutional practice before election time to prevent fiscal imprudence) with military backing. It was initially popular because they had swiftly dealt with corrupt politicians from previous regimes, but unfortunately the caretaker government had overstayed its mandatory 3 month period and had just imposed emergency rule and delayed elections. Sadly one of the world’s most promising economies looks like it will be stifled by politics.

It was finally time to leave and we stopped at a pirated DVD store where Noor asked me if there’s anything I liked. I couldn’t think of anything and he fished out the new Mr. Bean movie, and seeing my grin he promptly purchased it and gave it to me. Despite a whole day of Bangladeshi hospitality I continued to be surprised. Noor asked several times if I want to join his family for dinner but I had to refuse bc of my flight. I was sad to leave and insisted that both Noor and Imtiaz visit SL at some point, though I’d be very surprised if I could even come close to making them feel as much at home as I did in Dhaka. I left Dhaka a lot happier than when I arrived. Five days at home before taking wing to Manila, three down one to go.