Where have all the beggars gone?

Uh, well, I know I should actually be asking the Central Bank or Ministry of Poverty Alleviation or whatever, but I was personally facing this question last week as I cruised the blazing tarmacs of Maradana under a blistering midday sun looking for these beings of legend because of a little plan I had to “Do good” (Further embarrassing details below- )

You hear people griping about the economy, the cost of living, the sheer exhausting poverty of this third world city we live in – and you’d think logically that the number of destitute people (ok ok Financially Challenged Fellow Citizens) would be an excellent indication of the levels to which we have sunk , but goodness, have you noticed there just aren’t any when you need them! Deserving looking ones I mean, not those unshaven intense looking ones with bloodshot eyes who reek of alcohol, and twitch suspiciously when they talk– I’m talking about real deserving honest-to-God cases of serious “Have.Not.”

Now why, you may ask, would Al, actually “need” beggars? Well, the truth is I’ve been well brought up on some serious Buddhist theory and occasionally when someone close to me conks off, or when I go through some narrow scrape, a prickle of unease nags at my conscience: a positive inclination to go fourth and do something “meritorious” so to speak.

Since I personally hover delicately at the edge of lower middle class penury, large scale organized charity like saving herds of cows(!) or donating prime land for orphanages is beyond me, but I do pride myself on the occasional “Food- Packets- For-Hungry- Beggars” thing, duly arranged on Saturdays in auspicious quantities of 3,7,9 or 21 which hopefully will keep Saturn happy and keep me out of serious trouble for just a little bit longer( And I have given up trying to even begin to figure out how an entirely gaseous planet billions of miles away may possibly directly affect things like my education, my marriage and the sporadic bouts of eczema I suffer. I just accept it like death, taxes and server outages)

So, to cut the cackle, last Saturday found yours truly cruising slowly through the Dematagoda /Baseline/Maradana route in the cornea-frying noon sunlight with a “dicky” full of lunch packets, looking for tatty deserving looking beggars poor people who would kindly take these things without actually insulting me about it – yup, I was getting pretty desperate.

Trust me this is an excellent way to get sunstroke, migraine and a lot of *fishy* looks from the army. A fat woman on a rusty moped is odd. Same woman going really slowwwwly looking left and right, is just pushing it. You get my drift.

Well, the sad conclusion I came to last week (or the happy one, from the National Policy making point of view-) was that there just are not enough really deserving beggars in Colombo!

I mean, sure, under the Baseline flyover there were people blissfully sleeping it off in little happy bundles of rag and newspaper but I was too afraid to actually go and tweak them for lunch, since you never know what they could be sleeping off.

Three( 3) of the more coherent ones relieved me of the (by now really silly looking) rice packets (possibly for the resale value= one cigarette?)with condescending grunts and walked off insouciantly without so much as discussing the attendant blessings and fortunate afterlife that I was hoping would accrue to me as part of the bargain.

Two (2) people asked me for money and would not budge until I parted with cold hard cash and one of them mumbled something about the fifty (50!) buck note I had given him (eh ,did I hear that correct? 50 bux wasn’t enough? Raising cost of living ? but ,erh-these people didn’t actually DO anything , they just sat there- what kind of bills did they have to pay anyway?- )

Well , I admit I was here for a totally self centered and petty personal-gain reasons, so yes I would have liked a “bohoma isthuthy” even if “pinsiddhawechaawe” is now out of fashion, even “jolly decent of you,old gal " would have been ok, but these cool, nonchalant shrugs were kind of , how shall I put it, bloody annoying, sorry - rather discouraging, actually.

Finally in Maradana near the Police station , under some leafy trees I stumbled upon an endearing young old lady beggar with a really charismatic smile who along with her hubby (ok here I was assuming it was the hubby unless they were not married and just begging- in – sin-) at least bestowed gracious smiles upon me when I handed out the final packets – and yes, there was even a brief hands clasped moment too so I must bookmark that spot for future reference in case I need beggars again. (Alternatively, I think I will start practicing Tonglen, instead. At least it doesn’t involve making the long suffering STF uneasy)

But then it happened , near a Base line Road temple , at last , I came upon that One True beggar who finally made my whole Sunday worthwhile, a wonderful character of enduring fortitude, the memory of whom still brings tears to my eyes- a speech challenged ,shivering, gibbering octogenarian on a crutch who actually smiled widely and toothlessly and mumbled the old fashioned intonations I had wanted to hear, thanking me, blessing me, referring to my parents in a positive light, wishing me the best in life and the hereafter, (for eons actually) -perpetual, everlasting cosmic success and eternal beauty in return for a 50 buck packet of Kowloon Take Away’s Delishes Fish Curry Special .He sure knew the words and he sure made my Saturday, and although I bet he was as well fed as the rest, I guess he was one for keeping to traditions!

Well -that task completed finally, I rode back home, kind of glowing in the sunlight, not only because I felt I had done something worthwhile at last ,but also I did honestly feel that ,here at least on my track, there aren’t so many truly desperate people and things couldn’t really be that bad. Well, I wish anyway….


The author lives in Wellampitiya with 5 cats named: Patchy, Scratchy, Serious, Curious and Mantal.
And yes, she rides a moped.

ETHNIC POLITICS -

Fed up with the general consensus that I am an empty head with a loud voice box, I have decided to edufycate myself further in my current field of work (Current Affairs ) by drawing on the books in my library, at least on the odd rainy days when I cant take a bike to work.

This weeks read was a book by Dr Vellaithamby AMeerdeen titled : ETHNIC POLITICS OF MUSLIMS IN SRI LANKA, a subject about which I think not that much has been written.

Let me hasten to add, I did not have time to read the book from cover to cover but did one of those new age speed reads within about 45 minutes ,which coupled with the motion sickness brought on by my 140 bus winding around in Maradana and Norris Canal road, (whopeeeee!) may have given me not the entire picture but I do have a ROUGH idea of what the book is about and I can recommend it.

Dr Ameerdeen’s presentation and language is GOOD: plain, crisp and straightforward, and Im not just saying this because I ve met him personally and he’s got lots of charisma, but because I could actually UNDERSTAND what I was reading without having to read sentences thrice. This is his Phd Thesis and it’s written in plain English! some of you Policy Maker Academics out there should try doing that for a change!

There are chapters on the Muslim culture in Sri Lanka (pretty much on par with any of the other cultures we have here, what with dowry issues and women being left uneducated etc muslim’s apparently are not too thrilled about marrying their sons to their sisters’ daughters which is such a relief. This leads to inbreeding and imbeciles which may explain us Sinhala) a lot about the Muslim Congress,(bit stodgy) lots of useful statistics (if you are doing your own thesis on anything remotely similar) one or two interesting documents like a SLMC –LTTE MOU in 2002(where they agree on a few mundane day to day things but rather fundamental things like “we agree not to kill Muslims” have been surprisingly overlooked- ….anyone else want to sign an MOU with the LTTE? ) and admittedly a lot of interesting facts on recent political history of Sri Lanka from a Muslim viewpoint.

What can I say , I found the book good and I would read it more thouroughly if I had time.
But Im at work , it’s a busy Wednsday morning and I have just got news that my beautiful ancestral town of GALLE IS CURRENTLY UNDER ATTACK , so I shall stop blogging for now. What a life.

Als first day in print

well: thats the cover page of the Daily Mirrors WOW magazine of 17th October - and my story is in it on page 2 with a reference to this site.

and thats a first for me! :-)

those burning questions

Here are the answers to pretty much all the most important of those serious philosophical questions you have ever asked yourselves on decrepit sunday afternoons..how did the universe evolve? who made us ? and why do we have pubic hair ?

Boardroom notes from that first roundtable discussion on how to create the upright biped- and make sure he stays around....

http://freearticle.name/Default.aspx/News/The-Invention-Of-Sex;-An-Eyewitness-Account-Part-One-of-The-Invention-of-Everything/132/

“I don’t know. I think having some hair here and there might help them feel more at home with the other creatures.”
“Instead of all by their lonesome selves on some otherwise desolate planet?”
"Right."
“Good insight. Very harmonious. I want you to know that. OK, so let’s recap it and take a vote. Here it is. The male has a tube. Can we agree on that?”

all that trouble with the anti abortionists and then this:

It may sound morbid, even bizarre, but Sri Lankan scientists are going ahead anyway. In a bid to unravel the mystery behind Lanka's soaring suicide rate highest in South East Asia anatomists will soon start picking the brains of the dead

http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/02-01d-05.asp

"An alarming 70,000 people have committed suicide from 1990 to 2000 in Sri Lanka, with an estimated 14 million suicide bids. The rate has increased by 10 times between 1950s to 1990s. To get to the root of the problem, we have decided to adopt a two-pronged approach. While the first would be an epidemiological study, the second one would involve taking brain cells of cadavers to zero in susceptible genes"

here are the stats in comparision with our poor neighbours,proving that its not totally for economic reasons that we die:
http://www.searo.who.int/en/Section1174/Section1199/Section1567/Section1824_8078.htm

and for details of a totally sucidal family read this
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/dec2001/sri-d28.shtml

yup, Sri Lankans are an inbred bunch but then does it mean we got to kill ourselves due to odd genes...seems so unfair on those lovely parents who take a lot of trouble in bringing us up, a slap on the face to your mother ....pregnancy, lactation ,stretch marks and sleepless nights , schooling ,education etc all thrown to waste.
Perhaps better family planning is the key so that we dont breed kids who wish they had never been born...

or maybe its just the price of petrol driving us round the bend...

pls comment at the entry below too...

tell me WHY.

Sri Lanka is reportedly worlds number one for
* suicide
*alchoholism and
* child abuse

thats what I hear. Now, what I would welcome, is for all you Colombo bloggers out there to visit my blog and put forward your theories and creative ideas as to
1)whether this is true and
2) if so if there is any link between these three and the general social situation that makes up sri lanka.

meanwhile off I go to Kalutara for a residential course in improving my understanding of something important or another, and I shall be back with all the photographs (of the brainstorming of course) on Monday.Happy blogging.

ps personally I think the root cause of all of this is Sri Lankans dont get laid enough.
or let anyone else get any.

Domestic Bliss- the Kusumawathie Files

Much has been said about the domestic assistant in Sri Lanka, that smokey eyed kitchen beauty the 'ammey" or the gaunt grizzled garden jonson who has been around since forever,and provided support and stability to our lives1[1]..
There are actually Yuppies in this country who could earn millions in greener pastures but do not leave because they would have to say good bye to their domestics and for those of us under-privilaged society snobs who don't have one ...-up there in our wish lists right between "buy private yatch "and "get bust lift" is a small entry "find honest servant[2]"..
Let me tell you from personal experience - Ive been there done that - and you are not. missing. much.

Consider my Kusumawathi:
She comes from an impoverished Colombo slum where she has to wait hours near a community water pipe, fighting for her place among local women of ill fame, to drag up some mouldy slush which looks like water for the daily cooking , then forage for hours in Kabaragoya infested suburban thickets for firewood, for same and she sports an impressive collection of batter and burn scars on her body made by a cross eyed drunken carpenter bass whom she married by mistake a half a century ago and stubbornly insists on staying with "for the sake of the kids"(who ehem, are in their 40s now and earn better than me, mind you)
But: I invite her to work gently two hours per evening in my spartan studio apartment (sans microwave and washing machine and things i have accumulated through years of toil,mind you )and she has the dubious luck to stumble upon a microscopic sediment of glass from a long forgotton beer mug, which lodges in a crevice of her callused bark like, sorry, delicate feminine, sole, and thus begins three MONTHS of reproachful limping, pointed self pitied sighs and the mumbling, groaning and general apathy more reminiscent of a terminal case of what the Victorians called "the Great Depression"
The usual gist of normal doctors prod and poke her while she grimaces heroically but cannot find anything wrong with her so its more general groaning, grumbling and self appraisal , until along comes that perennial champion for lower class[3] human rights, that all around safe haven for poor sri lankans, the General Hospital which decides (after 4 days of visits ,standing in queues and absence from work )that this dot of glass may even Lead To Cancer and to avoid this she needs an "operation"
I swear this is the word she said they used.on this imaginary dot of glass...and they give her a date for the great event:the 4th of October.
So to picture the run up to this, imagine, if you will, the self pitied mumbling, animated purchases of hospital gear, pillows and plastic lunch boxes etc, the writing of wills ,tearful visits from long forgotton relations and a general aura of martyrdom leading to the great day ...(Let me never be accused of callous bourgeois indifference to the sufferings of the underprivileged- but no matter how hard I tried I could not bring myself to show fake sympathy for an operation on a "veeduru katta") ..General hospital staff then proceeded to ensure that this operation hurts a great deal to prove that they are doing something of seriously life threatening import , so from her own groaned cellphoned report, the injection made her scream "a lot"(let me get this clear , that's the Novocain injection, mind you - for the lay person -the "hiri vattana" jab-)and she is currently in great suffering and may not be able to turn up for work indefinitelly: to add insult to injury the supposedly free health system had also landed her with prescriptions of stuff running to "Rupiyal Panseeyaka vithara!!!" which is ehem not really free if you get the drift...
by mobile phone, she also makes it a point to notify me of all the support she is receiving from the local drunkards, kuddas, sundry Sedawatta neighbours, and various ex employers who in their efforts to get her to come back to them, are now showering her with one off bribes and incentives so that I end up feeling like a blood drinking villain-ess for not being able to bring myself to actually say anything sympathetic - and notifys me that she will not be able to come to work for the next.two.weeks.

So that's why this article is short, and unfocused- Im looking forward to making that kitchen habitable again…

Foot Note Wait a minute - I just thought of something: maybe she wants a raise...


[1] Not to mention the occasional requirement for a strong sedative...

[2] "servant" is a very bad old fashioned word from the Feudal times,.so I promise not to use it again. We are supposed to call them Domestic Assistants.
[3] another bad way of saying things.

Land of Lala

Our lady of Vanga had trouble on her brow.
Trouble brewing darkly on the fair and lovely brow of a beautiful principal consort of the sovereign of Vanga: and no amount of sandalwood paste nor costly unguents couriered in from far away Alesandra could erase the creases that were taking up permanent residence on her fair brow.
It was, of course on account of a Beautiful Daughter.

But then this was nothing new in the Great Chronicle, where most of your Royal Seehala problems could be roughly categorised into:
a) Randy beautiful daughters who must be incarcerated effectively else they would duly elope with the neighbourhood despot and ruin your reputation
b) Calculating parricidal male offspring who couldn’t wait the ten or twenty years of reign an average Sinhala king could expect those days (what with antibiotics and the Hiemlich manoeuvre still being about two thousand years away from being discovered)
c) Drought, famine and a general shortage of war elephants
d) and invading Cholas,[1] usually in that order.

Queen Maya , the herself Beautiful Daughter of Kalingha was now seriously worrying on subject(a)
She had just had this mother – daughter chat with her glowing offspring and this most radiant of princesses had admitted to some of the most scandalous desires she had ever lent Royal ear to.
The princess was of course one of those endearing, mixed up and misunderstood nymphos that dot the Great Chronicle and as this story was written by a few serious minded and generally disapproving monks, in a secluded hermitage in Ceylon, the only possible reaction to her honest confession, was shock(!) horror(!!) and shame… (!!!)
She for her part was a feisty young thing who would not be restricted and demanded her independence unlike the unfortunate Ummada Chitta[2]…and this resulted in her finally being allowed to go for walks in the jungle alone.
That’s what the Chronicle says although it is difficult to imagine that the King would not have sent a pose of body guards at least a safe distance behind her – if he cared, I mean: it was his daughter and his reputation and all that not to mention, a matter of National Security if you look at the facts ….

The princess taking a solitary walk, unattended and disguised ….(pg29)decamped under the protection of a caravan chief who preceded to the Magada country…

And then along comes this lion..


She observed him and recollecting the prediction she had heard of the fortune tellers, freed from all fear , exciting him, caressed him…(pg 30)

We all agree we need to learn from history. My personal observations then are that :
(a) Fortune-tellers are darned dangerous: they tell you this sort of stuff and you take it seriously and then you go and do this sort of thing. If this lion had’nt been randy enough Ms Kalinga would have been just another statistic and there would not have been any Sinhala at all.
(b)If not for how poetically it was drafted, the Great Chronicle would be the oldest document to be rated triple x, considering that this is technically zoophilia we are discussing here.

…by her having thus fondled him, his passion being aroused the lion then…

more next time,folks...

Footnotes
[1] This was of course before the invention of Cable TV and the only recreation these poor dear Cholas seem to have been able to come up with was constantly but half heartedly plotting to invade Ceylon…
[2] another story in its own right

more corny gardiyawasome humour

It actualy took me years to find this site- which either says Im a terrible googler or the author was very discrete.But I always knew this was out there somewhere and here it finally is
http://www.sumna.com/2006/03/09/cockroaches-inside-the-underwear-for-pleasure-sic/#comments

you know,this sumna charachter has just got to be related to me. ..Ill let you be the judge of that


ps it came as a shock to me,but it hit me from a recent wedding invitation, that me and another 8 of my family members have been spelling our names wrong for the last 30- 60 years. Thats unnerving to say the least.

why this cow went off milk

www.peta.org is not a site for the faint hearted, nor should you visit it if you want to continue enjoying your burghers. and if you want to visit a website which actually worked on me, a simple bit of http which totally changed my life, then step where angels fear to tread. www.milkgonewild.com
its nasty, its pukish and its logical. .True hell is a place on earth,in fact ,if you are a lactating bovine mammal- its earth . You will never be able to forget these sites, so be warned.

Why I love Sri Lanka...

Yo peeps yo always hear me bellyaching about Sri Lankan buses, trafffic and sexual harrasment but I just read about why there is no rape in Pakistan and at the end of that, tremendous feelings of adoration for my smelly mother land and its despotic Buddhist Government flooded my heart: I take back every word I ever said abuot GOSL , here I am on my knees kissing the dubiously shaped rubble of my office driveway :- Im glad Im a Sri Lankan cow and not governed by :

The Hadood Ordinance subsumes adultery, fornication, rape and prostitution under the rubric zina and treats them as offences against the State. With the adoption of Hadood laws, for the first time in Pakistan’s history, fornication (extra-marital sex) was rendered illegal and along with adultery, non-compoundable,1 non-bailable2 and punishable by death (Human Rights Watch, 1992: 34).

The level of proof required to convict a man of rape is extremely high *and in effect the same as that required to convict for adultery. In the absence of the necessary proof of non-consent, the accused is released for lack of evidence while the woman who has alleged rape is vulnerable to being convicted of adultery. Under the terms of these laws, the rape complaint is itself a confession of zina. If convicted under the Ordinance, the rape victim is sentenced to one hundred lashes if she is unmarried and to death by stoning if she is married. http://www.crvawc.ca/docs/pub_khan2001.pdf

*if the accused a) confesses (in which case- stoning !) or b) there are four adult, pious, male muslim witnesses to the act of penetration

English translation : FOUR(4) religious old MALE geezers have to COMFIRM that rape occured IN FRONT OF THEM otherwise the woman gets executed...

PS
For the record :when I say I love Sri Lanka I DO NOT mean literally.I am EXTREMELY monogamous by nature.

of primates and pachyderms

Yes, about the Horror photo post, you were right - it was a grey languar.and this is the same one caught with the Minolta last Saturday from my balconey and I live only 20 minutes away from Flower Road, so either Im using a truely fantastic zoom or there are gray languars near Colombo.
Another of my favourite subjects, as you know, is elephants and I came across this curious bit of news on the net about using Chilies in the human elephant conflict in Africa.
has it been done here and how come it seems to be working with these great big extra nasty Africans - perchance the Asians actually like chillie? anyone got any info on that ?
http://www.wwf.org.uk/gowild/tenalpreports/elephantconservation.asp

Perils of travelling without an ID in Colombo

I got "copped" twice yesterday - first time cos I couldnt produce my ID , (and 3 blokes from my office have spotted me being interrogated on Greenpath) and the second time...welll, the guy actually came to my office with this great big "Special Task Force " badge pinned on his lapel

Ok ,Im kinda joking, I admit- this, at last, is AP , my favourtie Law Enforcement person (the coffin- on- toes episode and the ten points about dating a cop,remember ?) and this time he condescended to pose for a photo.
He is unfortunately unable to smile having suffered loss of nerve signals to one side of his face, but this is nothing really unusual as he does not smile much anyway- in his profession wondering if he will see the next Sunday there is nothing much to smile about. I totally understand.
The trouble with me is no matter how good looking a bloke is I need to be around someone smiley. So you see why this wont work.

Girls , never forget that ID in the morning and
ladies...if this is your husband nows the chance to start questioning him..

only in Sri Lanka?

Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC)
SRI LANKA: The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka has stopped investigations into 2000 disappearance cases to avoid having to pay government compensation to the victims
In a very strange move that will surprise anyone concerned with the global effort to eradicate disappearances and gross human rights violations, the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL), which claims to be the country's prime agency for the protection and promotion of human rights, officially decided to stop further inquiries into disappearance cases unless an order is received from the government to continue with the inquiries as the findings may result in the "payments of compensation etc".
more reading:
http://www.ahrchk.net/statements/mainfile.php/2006statements/646/

I guess this would actually be funny if it was happening to some other peoples- ....say the Swazilanders or Inner Mongolians....but this is the same lovely Sri Lanka which is pushing a one Mr Jayantha Dhanapala (http://www.jayanthadhanapala.com/) forward to audition for UN Sec Gen,isnt it?

SOFFEL IS DANGEROUS!

Had a rather odd vaguely erotic nightmare of the “Bug man” in X files trying to do something invasive to me( and succeeding). This involved being pinned down by a giant upright insect with a million eyes and a huge proboscis which was doing something to my *forehead* which felt awfully good and tickled at the same time.
This proves I am something of a pervert since most normal woman would have dreamt of Mulder, if the nights theme was X files.

Note to self : Must cut down on the usage of “SOFFEL “ in the evenings .

Worth a thousand..

Yes that is the finger he is showing there.
This is from my treasured copy of The Last Hero (Terry Prattchett) the art is by Paul Kidby, an artist truely in tune with Pratchettes vibes.
wikipedia has an entry on this work of art
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Hero
you can also read about the
The Thieves' Guild which "was established early in Lord Havelock Vetinari's rule of Ankh-Morpork. Lord Vetinari realised that what people crave is stability, and that, while it is impossible to stamp out crime altogether, it is possible to regulate it. The major gang leaders of the city were therefore called to the Patrician's Palace, where they agreed to be held responsible for ensuring a socially acceptable number of thefts."
and lots more about Ankh Morpork, one of the most interesting cities after Colombo for people who like living on the edge...
note "While initially the main money-making venture of Thieves' Guild members remained theft, albeit under strict guidelines and leaving a receipt, more recent books show a system of "insurance", whereby people may pay a fee directly to the Guild and therefore become immune to robbery for a specified period."

ps Part of the Code of Conduct :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankh-Morpork_Thieves%27_Guild#Code_of_Conduct
Members are required to carry their membership cards during all offcial activites (i.e. crimes).

the Truth about Saladin

Growing a 12 inch beard and changing you religion officially seems a lot of trouble to go to to be able to cheat in peace but one of Colombo's online MBA*s has successfully pulled it of. More details at the Grand Kapuwa Expose http://aljuhara.blogspot.com/

* the term refers to people who have officially registered themselves as married but are still widely available. So widely it would impress us normal puny mortals

999 visitors

Thanks all of you for stopping by !Next month , I promise you ....its going to be more interesting,more visual , and I promise Im going to work on my own website too, so please do keep visiting !

funny thought for the day

Pottuvil killings: Govt. rejects call for UN probe
By Easwaran Rutnam
The government said yesterday there was no need for international assistance to investigate the Pottuvil killings and the trend which took centre stage following the killing of aid workers in Mutur should be avoided.
Defence spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella told a news conference, Sri Lanka had the expertise to carry out a full probe and assured the truth would be revealed once a statement was recorded from the lone survivor.

http://www.dailymirror.lk/2006/09/20/front/1.asp

Sri Lanka ? Expertise ? dont make me laugh.
on second thoughts ,make me laugh,since it releases endorphins and all that ,but leave that poor Lone Survivor alone.Please.

from the pre blog Diaries

Dec 12th 2005
Someone once told me that having lots of cats was a sign of mental instability!

*Shucks!* I cant remember where I buried him...!

from the days before Blog

Twiggy called me on Thursday and asked me what people do when raped. I was in the middle of selling three MootPoints to a chap from the Ministry of Defense so I told him to take a seat and told her that the usual procedure was to get a medical examination ,file a police entry and take the Morning After Pill asap and could I get back to her as I was busy.
She asked me petulantly if I wasn’t going to enquire as to who had been raped – so I said I was not really that curious,right now.
She said it was she who had been raped , so I said oh that’s terrible, in that case did she want to talk about it...and shall I come and provide moral support etc etc?
Then she giggled and said she was joking so I said in that case could I call her back .

I was a bit worried later on, as to whether this could be slightly true or it may be a “ cry for help” kind of thing but a mutual friend suggested that if it was actually her who had been raped , we should probably find the rapist and offer him psychiatric counseling, see if he is still coherent ,that sort of thing….

20th July 2005 From the pre blog Diaries of Al Juhara

the REAL answers...

-to all the problems I could ever dream up...have apparently fallen in my junk mail in box,it would appear !

SHUCKS! so this is why I always feel that Im actually missing out on that indefinable somthing that everyone else seems to be enjoying around me!!!

why did I not search for all this before,contented placid lump that I am?!

anger management...

Its soundless, you can roll it and put it in your pocket, its as flat as a cardboard file and you can pretty much pour coffee all over it ,no problem- its just LKR 500/= and available from Global High Technologies in Liberty Plaza...but ...
looking closely* at the 'manual ' I discovered that there are some things you are just not allowed to do with your new high tech rollable keyboard....
for example having "putted it in the oven and roasted it"would strictly be a violation of all warrenty terms... !
well, I confess there have been really bad traffic days in Colombo but I personally have never actually had to consider microwaving my keyboard...
but its a thought...


*yes, you can click on that photo to read the details

Seriously ....

Ever considered….
That modern Sinhala Buddhist marriage seems to be one of the strangest legal agreements around. We enter into a legally binding contract ,sign on a dotted line in front of respected witnesses , and its even filmed on tape-but what we are actually signing for is only very vaguely defined – based on old wives tales and assumptions - there is no ten page contract with large and little print, and the parties to this contract hardly even know beyond the basic theory.

What you are actually signing about is in fact open to as many radical ,personalized and individual interpretations* as the people signing it, but beyond the fact that this man and woman are legally bound to each other, nothing about the nitty gritty is really even spoken aloud, let alone written anywhere…and the funny part is when you try to extricate yourself from this totally undefined contract you need to pay lawyers to help you out and your spouse invariably has better ones who screw up the rest of your life.

Havn’t you seen countless middle aged guys veritable slaves , dolling out princely monthly ransoms for a crime they never committed , that mistaken assumption that marriage would bring them happiness and social acceptance- ...and those countless young women dragging through each miserable day of servitude only because they feel bound by a signature ,but bound to what exactly no one really defines…

There are not ever basic lines in that contract –
1) I agree not to screw around at least not obviously
2) You signing here does not give me the right to beat you up, treat you like a slave and extort your inheritances.
3) I agree if there are kids fathered/mothered by me Ill provide for them/take care of them at least equally.
You'd think these were kind of obvious but there are people out there who thought so and found there wasn’t any legal recourse at the end of the day….their spouses continuously break the most fundamental tenets of the institution day after monotonous day and there is basically nothing they can do…

*rather like the Sri Lankan constitution


Aljuhara apologises for getting all serious, this gloomy Monday : A small plank fell on my head on Sunday when I was trying to fix a light fitting in our ceiling .This is the result.

Cool Colombo Tip

This is roughly where I am right now ...and this is where you find the Pretty Cool Interactive Colombo Map with Zoom:
http://www.hot-maps.de/asia/sri_lanka/colombo/homeen.html

you type in the street name you want and in theory you get directed to that street. Wonder how they do that.

and no,for the record there is no space to park an elephant in Flower Rd.

under a palm tree

This is the mural I painted on my living room wall. I like the feeling of island idyl it gives our house. Cant you almost hear those leaves rustle?
If you click on this photo and look closely you will even spot the rubber snake, I pasted on with super glu.
I also like snakes.
Rumour has it that we have a cobra in our backyard whos been living there the last 20 years doing nothing subversive.
I have to admit however that I hate super glu.
It sticks on anything but what you want it to stick on and it leaves your fingers totally sensationless for the rest of the day.

Top Ten Signs you are dating a cop

10 . Mysterious scars on his knuckles that he is not willing to explain/fibs about.
9 Lots of grinning references to the old "baton polla."
8 The pet Alsation remains at attention for hours until he remembers to tell it to relax.
7 He insists on sweeping the hotel bedroom for hidden devices before beginning dinner.
6 Your ex-es are suddenly oddly polite and formal with you and any new friends think twice before calling you "babes"
5 He wakes up suddenly at sharp 5 am, reciting the Miranda Clause.
4 Needs to practice half an hour of tai chi to get the bowels moving each morning.
3 Recites the penal code when he’s trying to get some asleep: All 376 sections of it.
2 Has a note saying POLICE LINE :DO NOT CROSS across his mini bar.
and the number one sign you are dating a cop ...

1. Handcuffs don't actually turn him on.


Aljuhara begs forgiveness:- three of these funny lines are from a website somewhere else on the net.
The other 7 are from personal experiance. ..

Peace Confidence Index-funny but true

I cant beleive this - can you ?Sri Lankans!!!

Majority prefer India in facilitator role
Rasika Somarathna
COLOMBO:A majority of the Sinhala community has picked India as the most suitable country to play the facilitator role in the peace process.
http://www.dailynews.lk/

amazingly SHORT memory spans we seem to have (and Im not referring to my grandma here - she usually couldnt remember who I was although I tried to take her olives and fig biscuits at least once a month-)....can any one remember what happened the LAST time we asked India to interefere ?sorry , intervene?
EVEN MORE Murder, Rape, Arson and coconut- rights violations* than we usually have...
plus they lost their prime minister. we were practically crying and begging for them to butt out at the end of that! REMEMBER?!?

* you may have never considered this, but coconuts have feelings too.they SUFFER due to people continously bashing them on stone altars to impress deities, in order to have their mundane material wishes fulfilled. ..

ps For the record. I have nothing against Indians .They are smart, beautiful ,intelligent and sophisticated and have learnt how to laugh at themselves which, above all, is my idea of civilisation.

letter from Zorro

Dear Aljuhara

on the entrities of my beautiful better half Kumarihamine I haf decided to take your kind offer and veesit Colombo to see what I can do there. .....
Also since you have all taken so much time to design an environment friendly uneeform for me. .....

How ever getting the Veesa may take some time ,Im trying for 3 months tourist veesa with flexibility to extend it but the SL embassy is being reelly constiptaional* about it.

meanwhile since I understand the innocent people of your lovely country are having so many problems in life can I direct you to a wonderfully promising website…
http://www.calastrology.com/wangadolls.html
where you can find the Love Wanga , Money Wanga, Luck Wanga and even the Weight Loss Wanga . If you are a real economist at heart you will see at once that it is the All Purpose Wanga that fits your budget http://www.calastrology.com/voodoo.html....

etc etc
yours truely
zorro


*editors note - I think he means anal

Horrible religious history...

• Its true I bellyache about what pathetic Buddhists we are in Sri Lanka , but have you ever stopped to consider what we would be called if Buddha hadn’t existed?
  
  Well according to the standard 9 Buddhism text book we might have ended up being sorry creatures called Kesakambalists, Pakuda Kachchayanists or worst of all Belliattaputtists- (who had,if Im correct, no theory about anything!)these were apparently the major theories in India just before Buddha began to clean up all the misunderstandings.
  
  How do I know – well last Sunday my house was overrun by kids as it usually is on weekends and one of them happened to be cramming for her Buddhism exam (this is Grade 9) I had a peep at the standard textbook and this was quite *enlightening* to say the least
  
  So to get this clear there were 5 main theories put forward about the meaning of life,death and our ultimate agendas (in those sorry times before cable TV) and they were :
• Poorna Kassapas – he said “ there is no real cause or effect in killing stealing ,making sacrifices, being good or in fact doing anything at all…”
• Makkalee Gosala who said “ Theres no reason for creatures being born, death, no reason to be clean* (arrk !) Everything has no cause or reason (basically he was a FATALIST) everything is pre planned pre decided and all creatures have to live exactly 84 eons in Samsara in misery and then find automatic Nirvana (gulp!)
• Ajitha Kesakamabala (and from his name I can visualize a real trendy young evangelist like the Siriasa Isuperistar…)who said “the four elements come together to form life (duh ! but I guess the Indians of that time thought it was pretty deep-) which elements separate and then there is death –no reincarnation(what ! you mean that’s IT?I would not give up the theory of reincarnation for anything in the world . It means I can be 16 again at some point!)
• Pakuda Kachchayana “no here and no hereafter,”(pretty much same as above)**
  and finally
• Sanjaya (another film star type Indian I bet-) Bellatiputta- “ who when asked about the meaning of life, death and human being -“ lokaya ho vimukthia pilibanda va kisindhu adhahasak prakasha no kaleya,” ….which is , kind of , “no comment,”….can you beat that ?bet he grew fat and rich on that theory!

personally ...There are not much of us left, but Im sure glad I got to be a Buddhist...

* anyone who dosent beleive me read page 22 of the standard Govt Buddhism text book Grade 9

** HEY! get your own theory!!

super hero costume designer wanted

this is with reference to our humble entreaty by email to Zorro( who has retired and now lives in Copacabana,with his lovely sri lankan concubine Kumarihamine and a cat named Zhivago) to please come over and save Colombo from Murder ,Rape,Arson and Generous Dallops of Nepotism, - the gentleman has posted a comment on our blog which reads:

zorro said...
Are you nuts? do you have any idea how hot Colombo is ,if you are compelled to wear a black cape,leather boots and crocodile skin underwear on the outside- the chaffing is horrendous..Im sorry I cant save your city unless someone designs a more comfortable uniform for me..

any ideas, you creative folks out there...?

Colombo horror photo of the month

YIKES ! what *is* that thing on my roof?
is it a bird?
is it a plane ?
is it a chupacabra?*
the answer next time
Hint - actually its a stunt to get you all to visit this blog plus its me showing off the capability of my newly acquired Konica Minolta-
photograph copyright aljuhara aka Chandrika Gadiewasam
* dont know what a chupacabra is? Watch X Files more often!

Writing Project Part 1

hola , mes amigos

or whatever
Yours truely has decided to start writing again somehow and my new buddy Nury Bey is helping - any potential writers out there please help us put out this joint venture...
Inspired by such greats as MURDER in the LIBRARY and MURDER IN PETTAH ...the title we picked was

MURDER IN COLOMBO which sounded kind of cool but then since I felt the word murder just didnt define all the excitement here I had to change it to -
MURDER ,RAPE ,ARSON and SUNDRY TRAFFIC OFFENSES in COLOMBO ...but its still open to your good suggestions - you decide- anyway from now *we will be trying to write a action adventure mystery novel set in red hot colombo - ...


the production so far :
Lets base it on an estate.a spooky but valuable old house. I know a vigilante- he hacked to death a child molester and buried him in his backyard or something…
Dark , eh? Work with me you never know – we could be the next batman and robin, or tarzan and jane or Wallace and Grommit



*till I get bored of it

Blog moved

Oh, just a notification …
my blog on pet rescue www.colombopet.blogspot.com, has had to be moved to http://www.colombopetrescue.blogspot.com/
this is because due to the slight technical hitch of leaving our passwords lying around a typical human(homo erectus- what more can I say ?) infilterated it* and took over and is presently giving “animal lover" a new meaning over there…. Well…it wont be difficult to trace who did it from my tracking stats so lets see what happens next….

More about Ginger Nuts ,then at the real pet rescue blog…
http://colombopetrescue.blogspot.com/2006/08/ginger-nut-archives.html


*dont you pity people who need this sort of thrill ? I mean how low can you go?
your girlfriend making you all frustrated,again is it, pussy boy?this has just got to be a Sri Lankan!

in case you wondered...

where all the jacked up light bills go....


Shock treatment for corrupt CEB officials The government assured yesterday that inquiries would be completed within a month on charges that 12 executive officers of the Ceylon Electricity Board were involved in a multi-million rupee fraud.
http://www.dailymirror.lk/2006/08/26/front/6.asp

and on the same page

Thousands face starvation in LTTE-controlled WanniA serious food shortage is developing in the LTTE-controlled Wanni areas as a result of the closure of the entry-exit point at Omanthai, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned yesterday


isnt that lovely and Buddhist of us? 200 miles away people are starving and down in the South next week they are increasing electricity tarrifs so that a few bathymathaas can peel off millions for their private coffers. and when they start embezzling they cant do it gently a few hundred laks isnt enough it has to be "clean Colombo out while you can!"

if we are going to rewrite the constitution there should be a little clause where embezzling public funds means you lose body parts, in Lipton CIrcus preferably.
ok , since Im a Buddhist , Ill consider allowing local anesthetic!

ginger nuts

Ginger Nuts 2005
Read more at this blog about the excellent progress of bug eyed Ginger Nuts (also fondly refered to as MANTAL) who was then a slightly autistic kitten with a tilted neck and none of the usual cat reflexes, found wondering around in inaccurate circles in a Wellampitiya dustbin ...

http://www.colombopetrescue.blogspot.com/

at last

Le Grand Kapuwa Expose – or

THE "K" FILES
The truth maybe out there-at home its all barefaced lies!

www.aljuhara.blogspot.com

Ladies and Gentlemen...I give you ...Terry Pratchett

my most favourite writer in the whole world and if you check these links , or better still buy a book, you will see why...

"Why don't we just invite them to dinner and massacare them when they're drunk?"
"You heard the man, there's 7000 of them"
"Ah...so it would have to be something simple, with pasta then?"

The Yen Buddhists are the richest religious sect in the universe. They hold that the accumulation of money is a great evil and a burden to the soul. They therefore, regardless of personal hazard, see it as their unpleasant duty to acquire as much as possible in order to reduce the risk to innocent people....
-- (Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad)

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and - rocks.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites)

Of course, Ankh-Morpork's citizens had always claimed that the river water was incredibly pure. Any water that had passed through so many kidneys, they reasoned, had to be very pure indeed.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Sourcery)

Cuius testiculos habes, habeas cardia et cerebellum.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)

http://www.lspace.org/books/pqf/

http://homepage.eircom.net/~odyssey/Quotes/Popular/SciFi/Terry_Pratchett.html

she that painted elephants

....still on the subject of elephants, I used to love to paint them , when I was a kid. * this here one however is not technically a painting - I got a wildlife CD from Pettah ,froze a good frame, pencil sketched the elephant in a few minutes adjusted the sketch with a good eraser and some spit, then it was scanned and run thru photoshop7, colour varied , and then I used the gradient tool forthe sky. I intend to subject this poor animal to more unnatural manipulations *,so do stay tuned.

* paint here, means on paper . Not the other way.You figured ,right?
*I mean, in *Photoshop*

Alternative Transport

(Budget available - 60k)

Pros of buying a well trained Asian Elephant to take me to office -

1)Id be helping conserve the asian elephant

2)Id be totally *environment friendly*

3)Id save on the petrol thereby indirectly helping our Balance of Payments situation (wow ! Patriotic!)

4)If tuk tuk drivers try to say things to me I can gently instruct the Elephant to pick them up and place them in the nearest canal. or on a roof top.Carefully and courteously mind you.

5)I wouldnt have to worry about getting run over by maniac 138 buses . I can tell my charge to sit on them for a while and hopelessly delay them if they are rude to me.

Cons :

• it would take me 1 hour to get to work at the lesuirdly pace taken by local pachyderms and if there are females in the nearby temples there may be what perhaps can be called "diplomatic incidents"(=further delay)
• and there is one little problem at my Flower Road office - parking.

I guess thats why I had to settle for a moped.Dang!

*Bike* for Sale-colombo

ok, ok its technically a moped. Im asking 30k.
its done about 3000 km and its running fine - I refill the fuel tank about once in two weeks (and i make a profit whenver i hoard a 5 litre jerry can as prices have invariably risen since the last time I stocked up -) and-best of all- I can park on a cutting board. Plus no helmet or license required so far.I want to go for a bigger bike that will take me down south on sundays.
enquiries: chandrika6@gmail.com
sorry- you will not get to meet me by answering to this add frivolously,you will only waste your time- my gardner is handling the sale, and he is a .hairy. red eyed. beetle chewing octeganarian. from wellampitiya.

haaaaiiii...

oo. ow. ouwch..grrrrroaaaaan.
thats what happens when you stay away from Karate Class for 3 months and then pop up,grinning sheepishly -1) master khalid makes fun of you and your organisation for good effect "if THIS is how they monitor elections ,no wonder the country is like this " or something to that effect , all in good cheer mind you
2)you get thrown in at the deep end and all those exhuberent 11 year olds start gleefully throwing you just to see the interesting sound effects produced when your skull hits the floor..
well that was my Thursday evening for you.

and meanwhile - I just found out that are lots of friends from Kolonnawa reading (wow - there is intelligent life near Wellampitiya !!! it must be after Perera and Sons opened up) welcome yo all- Im a Kolonnawian too, altho I keep saying Colomboan-(I wish !) (well actually to be honest Im Wellampitian,* cringe*)
you can now, thanks to technical assistance from Maus, enter annonymous comments on my blog.Please doooooo!
love ya all and have a nice weekend!


ps next week : " my zits dont lie"

pssssshttt!

.....this gallery is so hot, my mouse started melting and getting welded to the mousepad.Seriously.
http://gayarab.org/secret.htm

ps: ladies, ignore the guys on guys stuff-they are just being high spirited. ...

ps again: how I fell on it is by tracking the proxy addresses of some blokes who had visited my blog- I do that kind of thing occasionally...see, Ive been watching you ,watching me...

ps for the third time- now please dont stay away from here because of that. If you track mine you'll find I surf in much worse places- and Im no prude about it ,so hakuna matata!

letter from a friend

Hey guys,

As a fellow member of a "generation born into the war", I have reached saturation point where I just want to do something! I feel that anything has got to be better than just sitting around belly aching about the "useless" Govt, the "atrocities" of the war, how useless the situation is or how helpless we are to make a difference. I've decided that if I can't make the 2 parties come to the table, I'm atleast gonna help the victims of the war (IRRESPECTIVE OF THEIR ETHNICITY)! Cos' simply too many ppl have died, too many ppl have been displaced and are being forced to live under "pathetic" conditions that it's hard to even imagine that ppl can live like that and just too many of us have become indifferent to what's going on around us!

So, to cut to the chase, I did a bit of digging and one of my friends found out that the College of Journalism is collecting stuff for the displaced ppl in the North and East and will be sending the stuff there via Muslim Aid, a local NGO, that will be personally responsible for distributing the stuff to the displaced ppl in the North and East.

The stuff needed are;

Dry rations – sugar, dhal, flour, rice
Baby products – milk, nappies, soap, powder
Sanitary napkins
Toothpaste, soap
Sarees, shalwars, sarongs

The drop off point and contact person is;



65/5, College of Journalism,
C/o, Sri Lanka Press Institute,
Ward Place,
Colombo 07

Contact - Amantha Perera - 0712-295929


PLS FWD THIS TO AS MANY PPL AS YOU CAN.

Thanks alot for caring!
Love: Marisa.

the Golden Ankh

well since Im so blocked and wont be coming here again for some time and probably have to go to Negombo again this evening ,let me leave my friends with a bit of prose that i have written a while back- pls tell me what you think - because its your brickbats and bokays* that make me write and you never know, you may actually like it if I kept on writing...


Extracted from the Golden Ankh-Aljuhara 2002


“How’d it go son?” inquired Mousey’s mother, handing him his normal dinner flat bread and fried fish.
“Well there was this sort of cheaper place like downtown, where you don't have to mortgage
your pyramid to embalm a dead rat …But like its kind of final, sort of…they take out more than they put in you know..”
“That’s life dear, The spirit is willing but the cash is tight …I’ll tell you what, its your cat
so I’ll let you keep him in your bedroom until we pass Bubastis on our way to visit the 2nd gran…” absentmindedly she was being more than just generous here since their living room was already so full of extended relations who had died of the plague that there was no room for their meager furniture and Dad had started using one of his cousins to support the ashtray…
“Which particular gran would that be, mum?” Mousey asked vaguely and immediately regretted having asked.
His mother seemed to swell “ the valuable one, the one with the Gold and turquoise eyeballs
… how many times have I told you we have to remember the dead …do you know the one I’m talking about?”
“Uh … “
“Mouse lazybones … You sleepy headed dung beetle eater …It never does to forget the dead. You know our Profession…”
He knew only too well and everyone else knew too that although Mousey’s father called himself a carpenter the only carpentry he did was axing open other peoples coffins in the deserted
acropolis around Thebes. It was his “profession”. In fact it was the profession of his father too and his grandfather and so on. It all really depended on having a good memory for places and names. Mousey had, frankly neither. His mother tried often to force him to study and memorize some top-secret lists of important locations and names but he was honestly hopeless. Anyone could see he would make a lousy tomb robber some day, digging on all the wrong places and completely messing up the system. If, that is, he ever did go out and start to actually do something as strenuous as digging in the first place!

http://www.writeclique.net/work.php?ID=474

*(pardonez moi, mutter aney oi prench wagey ispelling nam hari amaarui -no honest i dont know how to spell bokay, ironic I guess-gimmi some time Ill check )

really blocked

I was doing a google search on the phrase "Crush my frog hour by hour,"(which in itself is a scream I will tell you about later- I think its on EvilLankans website but I cant really remember where - help me Mr Evil, I want that text on my bike -) when I came upon this bit of text
The Frog and the Princess
Once upon a time, a beautiful, independent, self assured princess happened upon a frog in a pond.The frog said to the princess, "I was once a handsome prince until an evil witch put a spell on me. One kiss from you and I will turn back into a prince and then we can marry, move into the castle with my mom and you can prepare my meals, clean my clothes, bear my children and forever feel happy doing so."
That night, while the princess dined on frog legs, she kept laughing and saying, "I don't think so!"
http://thefrogkiller.tripod.com/
and somehow the frogs it made me think of the local sri lankan guy scean....
Guys - dont get the impression Im a "man-hater"- far from it ,I assure you.
I just find Sri Lankan male chauvanism so FUNNNNEE.
Like when we were at the police station and the cop there told my (now ex) husband that he really didnt have the power to make me go back home with him - you should have seen the look on his FACE.
it was like "What ? You mean women arent legally our PROPERTY once you get them to sign>?SHUCKS! "
may be in Taliban land , honey...

an old bit of prose

Kittens are a miracle that God places everywhere but people do not notice.
Small , perfect , sweet to smell.
Innocent, Trusting. Fast to grow.
Ticklish, wicked , hard to tame.
Earnest, wonderful, poetry in curious motion
And then suddenly they are asleep at peace with the Universe.


pst. bad news,dear gentle readers : I have writers block today. This happens whenever Im given a deadline. Its astounding. It feels as if its spreading to my speech centres too, (claustrophobic paranoia!) I imagine the final outcome will be "Speakers block" (arrrk). Just picture a quiet and very boring pause during a middle class dinner in Colombo and the only thing you can think of saying is -
“yes, …in fact…Ive decided to take some time off and have my Fallopian Tubes tied…”

Norah

something I did a few months back...

Borella

on the way back from Negombo I was passing thru Borella- and there is a crowd of bathymathoon ( term copyright Maus ) there looking for a bomb. I mean that - they are taking the challenge personally - you know -" last one at the bomb site is a plebe, nyah nyah "that sort of thing

now dear Extremist Terrorists out there - heres how to get maximum impact for your locally made, budget priced, small scale explosives,remember - you can get truely international dimensions to the incident : -

step one - take a small ordinary looking, old, cardboard box write on the sides of it " BOMB- stay clear! Highly Explosive ! " in 2 inch letters on the sides (remember to translate to sinhala too)
step two - wait for a large crowd to form around the box (this should take about 5 minutes since the State hasnt come around to importing those yellow polythene tapes you see on the X FILES with "POLICE LINE STAY CLEAR " written on them)
step three - throw in a small lump of hand modelled plastique - nothing too fancy,you can make it on the run-since the crowd is already there ,youll have your headlines...

naa, dont mention it , youre most welcome
I just know it -this blog is going to get me killed one way or the other.
for those of you who need a translation - Im trying to tell people to stay clear of danger spots but then its wasted since I know the people reading this are not that dumb...

yes.its me. I m back.

if its anything to judge the thickness of my skull by, I have,for the record ,been serially federalised over and over again at countless civil society workshops, seminars, conferences , symposiums, what have you and I manage to remain stubbornly and stupidly unconverted, stuck with my own (humble but pigheaded) opinions.
Yesterday was no exception. The food was good, the room was fine, the beach in the morning was glorious as beaches always are at dawn,
but I still dont see an "ethnic problem" , do you my wonderful multi ethnic friends?
I totally approve of ethnic diverstiy and always have - it means there are lots of interestingly different hunks* around-and fantastic fusion music and lots of sumptious types of food to chose from!!! wadey, samosa,thosai and aappa - who wants to eat French Fries all day long , for petes Sake?!

I do see CRIME ,TERRORISM, CORRUPTION and HYPOCRISY plus a lot of inefficiancy in our intelligence bureaus, and a lot of really dense Colomboans but still no reason to panic. Sri Lanka is beautiful! Dumb but beautiful!

*click here for example hot pic of diverse hunks, http://gayarab.org/images/5.jpg

Overheard...

"you did it,youre on Kottu,woo hoo, - quick: say something scandalous or salacious -"" ( re aljuhara's blog being submitted to kottu.)

"never mind all that- where can we get the VCDs?"( re Anakarli being censored)

"the problem is - we dont have enough rock concerts in this city," (re The Colombo Wars - Attack of the Robed Ones.)

"Youre going to Negombo? You mean I have the house to myself ? its safe for me to have that threesome I was planning ? Quick- I must order the choclate ice cream"

ya,ya I know I said I was going to Negombo,- Im waiting for the van to show up...the other johnnies are smoking, Im blogging.

see ya...

Hey, I must thank all you people who visit and read! wonderful beings like Just Mal,Mr Evil, and sittingnut (what names will you think up next!) among others, welcome to my blog...sorry, I dont know how to thank you individually...
Now since Im leaving my readers for a few days I must leave you with some thing to look forward to...so I promise you next week: the Great Kapuwa Expose.

You ever been lectured to by some important fuddy duddy character in a very high up post who says sanctimoniously that prostitution should be criminalised in Colombo and all the brothels burnt to the ground ? or has your goody two shoes husband been acting mysteriously of late deleting his text messages the moment he receives them and his face glows oddly in the dark???
well...yours truely has been doing 6 years of research on Kapuwa.com under a whole host of multiple personalities(which is why I never lie - its too complex to keep track of all the things I tell these good people!) - and from next week I shall be bringing you all the details you didnt know about Colombos Married but Available....
suffice it to say- the gist of my research has me wondering why these people ever BOTHER with the lace and flowers and wasting other peoples time( you have any IDEA how much rastiyadu we have to do in Pettah to find MATCHING blouses for your crummy high profile weddings which dont last three months in spirit altho on the outside they drag on for decades -??!!) - my conclusion ? Colombo is a veritable barnyard- and they are all being religious and hypocritical about it as usual !!!
...stay tuned!!!

ps and if Im killed on the way back from Negombo ,well ,so much for freedom of speech....
(I can almost hear the screams :waahhhh somebody ban aljuhara!)

Escape from Colombo

one day I swear I shall write a book titled as above- but in the meanwhile - tomorrow Im scheduled to take a working break at Negombo at a Teacher Training Workshop.
workshops , seminars,meetings yuh thats life these days

and yup... the clipart is mine...:-)

ps this is what you call a "grassroots"meeting as they are all sitting on the ground-- the alternative in NGO parlance is a "National "meeting (all in some plush Colombo joint eclairs and spring rolls served) or an National Seminar (plush Colombo joint , booze served with the food) and International Sympoisum means really big plush OUTSTATION Joint and booze and real food and people being simultaneoulsy translated into world languages and teleconferencing. and email notes are copied to Kofi Anan.

ahhh...only in Colombo...

One Shot: Ranjan accused of sexually abusing Anarkalli
By T. Farook Thajudeen

The Child and Women’s Bureau of the police charged yesterday that film director and actor Ranjan Ramanayake had sexually abused the under aged actress Anarkalli Aakarssha while filming ‘One Shot’.
The bureau made its complaint to Colombo Chief Magistrate Kusala Sarojini Weerawardena and said at the time of making the film Ms. Anarkalli was a minor.
more at
http://www.dailymirror.lk/2006/08/19/front/4.asp

There we go again. Colombos Child and Womens bureau apparently have nothing better to do with their time. all the little slum girls who are obviously pregnant with their grandpas baby , and all the Dubai housemaids' kids' who daily have to fend off foetid advances from their kassippu drunk baaappas , the thousands of garment sector women who are foreced to submit to molestation so they can keep their jobs - they collectively pale into insignificance when someone shapely dances in the rain, in something thin.

....the funniest part is that the lady in question vehemently denies it and there are people jobless enough to fight for her rights on her behalf, on moral and philosophical grounds . ..
yo, Child and Womens bureau! - it would be a nice change if you actually spent some time checking out ,for example, some of the things happening in Colombo buses, maybe that way,some day, a decently dressed lower middle class young girl can travel in peace, without actually being ejaculated on all the way from Town Hall to Angoda!

well said, FMM!

Free Media Movement – Sri Lanka

Press Release / 2006.08.18

On Violent Disruption of Anti War Rally in Colombo

The Free Media Movement (FMM) condemns the forcible attempts by group of monks and lay persons under the banner of the Jathika Sanga Sammelanaya ( National Buddhist Monks Association) to disrupt the peaceful anti war rally held in Colombo on 17th August 2006.

.....
FMM deplores the violent behaviour of the agitated crowds as well, and calls for non violent forms of resistance in the face of aggressive and provocative behaviour.
....

Free expression of diverse ideas is a hallmark of any democratic society. Tolerance and promotion of diverse opinions are a necessary precondition for any democratic discourse. We note with serious concern the trend towards violence and suppression of protest on the part of certain extremist groups who seem, evidently with leverage among ruling parties, and functioning under a religious cover, want to impose their hegemony in the sphere of ideas by force. Only extremism and authoritarianism can prevail under such conditions.

FMM stands for the right of the Jathika Sanga Sammelanya to have and express their own opinion, and urges them to respect the same right of other organisations and persons. At the same time FMM would like to reiterate that the government is duty bound to protect free speech in a democratic country.


Free Media Movement




sorry this is slightly shortened, the full text is available at http://www.freemediasrilanka.org
-aljuhara

point of view

I totally agree with you, Mr Evil about hypocrasy in Sri Lanka- I see it all over the place-
man would I like to get my hands on one of those Point Of View Guns from the Hitchikers Guide -
now for example what would people do to us ,if we ,or the Anti War bunch , were to crash one of the Saadhu meetings and start shouting and waving placards on their stage ??

and on the subject of For- War sadhus , I have it on good information that there are about 30,000 of the happy souls in robes in this country. If they want war , why dont they join the army - it would be quite uplifting to Army Moralle, dont ya think ?
If they need to fight for the Dharma Dveepa - (and maybe they can find ways to justify such a fight ), fight with the rest of the army boys and when Jaffna is resplendent once more, they could come back and put their robes back on - what do you say ?


"But Master, how do I not contend with a man that would contend with me?" -- Caine
"In a heart that is one with nature, though the body contends, there is no violence, and in the heart that is not one with nature, though the body be at rest, there is always violence. Be, therefore, like the prow of a boat. It cleaves water, yet it leaves in its wake water unbroken." -- Master Po

http://www.dm.net/%7Ekaren/kungfu/kungfu1.html#KingoftheMountain

Never mind

...the "monk"bit , is this a Buddhist...

snatch the pebble from my hand...

or is this a Buddhist?

you decide!





"The universe contains a certain pebble, known as the earth. And many are the men who have formed attachments to it, no less foolish than yours." -- Master Kahn
http://www.dm.net/%7Ekaren/kungfu/kungfu2.html

mallika- nanny/housekeeper available - Colombo

Now you know how difficult it is to find a good domestic in Colombo. ..the paradox is that there are so many poor folks out there looking for a job but they just dont seem to get the right linkage...
Mallika is a good example -she works in my office and Ive known her about 3 years now , absolutely splendid housekeeper and makes the place shine ,but the cleaning company exploits her - they pay her about 200 a day and they make about 15000 a month on co ordinating things. well , i dont blame them considering how difficult it is to manage some people but I personally would like to help poor old mallika - shes looking for a job as a domestic - she says she can look after kids , keep the place clean that sort of thing shes asking about 7,500/- a month (negotiable) but I dont consider that too steep for , say a busy executive family who needs a domestic help ?
What I find trying about some colombo yuppies is that they earn salarys which run to laks a month with all the perks and then they tell me they want some one to baby sit for about 3000/- a month
now that really annoys me - they would spend that on one bottle at a poolside dinner - but what exactly do they think you can do with that amount ? they are human,right??
and hey these are their precious children they want looked after right? surely they are worth more than that ?

if you want more info about Mallika write to me chandrika6@gmail.com - dont worry,Ill vouch for her behaviour- I think shes a good sort.

meanwhile - heres todays reading its a heartwarming tale indeed
http://www.newsfinder.org/site/more/the_german_baroness_who_became_a_buddhist_nun/

aljuhara

I guess its time I told you all that my pen name Aljuhara comes from Jewel of the Nile which is my favourite film of all time. My favourite character is the sufi -he sits around meditating in the middle a lot of chaos on top of a speeding train. Another of my all time favourites is Kung Fu starring David Carradine.
Strange I totally respect sprituality in people but I have become rather a hopeless materialist....

Entirely on a tangent here is some of my third world clip art..some of them are on post tsunami relief themes. You need anything like this you know who to contact...

and back to my musings....shucks! Im wondering if its actually spelt al jawhara...in which case I dont stand a chance on ANY search engine..waaaah!!!

thriller

well I was actually thrilled to see that somethings I say show up on Google. Just do a search on Srina Palace and my nasty but true and extremely vindictive article pops up. yeeehaa.freedom of expression. A wicked thought comes to mind.What if I were to make this website an actual forum for all those downtrodden middle class Colombo consumers who have had their civil rights mangled by various powerful commercial institutions and small print. A sort of Colombo Consumer Voice. What do you all say, my fellow Colomboians?
Power corrupts, but blogspots reveal.

by the way the only place on the net I found any reference to some sort of protection for a Colombo Consumer is -
Mr. Leel Gunasekera.
President.
Federation of Consumer Associations,
Fax: 94-1-500544
you people out there are welcome to tell me what happens when you send the gentleman a fax.

and ps- no Im certainly not being elitist. you dont have to be a Colombian to compain about the atrocities in the marketplace these days.

CHinese Red HEads>

Garudas are really hardy by the way - I had soaked some laundry over night, washed it, squeezed it and then rinsed it in softner again and after i hung it all out, I found this rigid crooked looking centipede (garuda - thats the maeaty overweight nasty one -apparently a vegetarian who lives in coconut trees) in the remaining water in the bucket.I poured the bucket in the drain as usual and I thought the garuda was dead and was about to lift it out of the drain with my fingers then it started waving a feeler....man that was close -
photo from
http://www.goldenphoenixexotica.com/cent.html
I know what my ex hubby would say " You see how she washes my shirts!"


and if you want your own Chinese Red Head just order from here http://www.goldenphoenixexotica.com/order.html but remember
*Handling of Scolopendra species is NOT recommended

Srina Palace Horror Story

Srina Palace of Horror......
Last evening me and my friend Asanka decided to do a "shopping paarak" ,you know one of those lesuirdly no deadline escapedes where there is a vague goal in mind but you just check out the available stuff ,drool over things and gernarlly drive sales people bonkers. Her mom was already in Borella so we were to rendevous with her near the famous Srina Palace (trinkets ,fancy goods and girlie things joint) where she would chose a small imitation necklace for an upcoming wedding...as it would happen aunty had already chosen this item and was coming out with it when we all looked closely at it and decided that it really didnt cut the grade and we would like a change.
Now I know this is naughty but it really shouldnt be a hanging offence,should it, women being the capricious creatures they are ,often get items changed and this was barely ten minutes from being sold packing intact etc.
we walked in and politely asked if we could change this,from a burly mustachioed guy behind the counter and to our total surprise he started booming out loudly what an inconvienace it was and he would not put up with this sort of thing .He must have weighed about 100 kilos and had a voice like a boombox which he was used to intimidating customers with, a regular little mini terrorist I daresay - and then when the poor girl tried to buy something she needed from the cosmetics section he started SHOUTING that only imitation jewelary could be swapped for imitation jewelary and complaining in stegasaurus tones that she was really being a pain. This was an absolute loud show with the sole purpose of humiliating and intimidating us ,since this was his ostensiably his castle.
Finally my friend was forced to purchase some overpriced glitzy false bangles which she did not want and withdraw in embarresment.
My question is - does this man really think that people will come to his place any more with an attitude like that ?I must admit it is an unusual sort of marketting .I have for example done business with Mr Ajmal of Ajmal Traders who is practically a billionaire and I only purchased a moped from him which is nt even worth as much as one of the lights on his SUV- and I have called him up with petty problems which are not really part of his after sales agreement but he has been polite and courteous to me!
as for Mr AWM Nazar , I belive his name is , well , the legal aspect of this is something I intend to investigate. At no point in the whole building was there any sort of nofitication about their replacement policy and the fact that someone politely asked for an exchange within ten minutes of a sale and was thus punished with harrasment and intimidation until they had to hastily withdraw with a terrible sense of depression after what should have been a pleasent friday afternoon shopping tour - proves that in its large and small ways terrorism is still very much alive and well in this country...
Girls - if you want to shop in peace and have a good time - stay away from Srina Palace at least when Mussolini is around ! (the other sales people are saints in comparision -but just think he is the one who gets the huge margins )and anyway try good old fashioned Pettah for all the glitzy stuff and you will find just the interaction with the freindly helpful people there is a fulfilling experiance itself ! I actually do that as a personal birthday treat to myself every year- take a day off and shop till I drop,in colourful friendly Pettah!
Location details available here but sugegst you stay away unless you are doing a study on how not to attract customers http://www.manaali.com/srina_palace.htm

for Sale

Newbies Gullarm is for Sale - I think he wants about 2 laks for it - not bad considering
see: http://aljuharawrites.blogspot.com/2006/01/newbies-gullarm.html

so you think you can dance?

RUIN ME ,NIGEL! GOVERN ME ! TAX MY STAMPS!

thats me -

thats me at a recent seminar, just fudging as usual

oh and this blog may not be time sorted because I keep changing it here and there.

and on the subject of Consumer Rights in Sri Lanka- how about all that misrepresentation in the small print ? I was reading this Service Contract between Ceylon Business Appliance and some poor company and clause number 13 said something like : CBA reserves the right to terminate the contract fully with no reason given whatsoever if it deems necessary.
and this was the service provider mind you ! so half way into the year you need your copier serviced and the service company whom you have paid good money to in January, says no can do and you have to shrug and get on with life.

coool

Then One Shot throws Anarkali off his motorbike and she is never seen again...


http://www.indi.ca/2006/04/things-i-love-about-sl/

security situ

Hm,I guess I needed a gang of armed men to knock on my door last night at about 1 am , to realize that my security was next to nil and my dogs were on leave. This is all because my bro fed the cats and left the front door open , and APA was passing through the neighborhood and wanted to see me. ..Im not exaggerating , and I dare say I have been though a lot but opening your bedroom door and finding a huge hairy half drunk and armed cop(although admittedly he was limping after the coffin trip incident -) is one of those things you don’t forget.
He was rather sheepish about it, and polite though, which sort of mitigates the gravity of it, but heck Im going to check the doors from now onwards.
"Very bad security situation,"was all APA had to say giving me a really stern look.

sorry thamai

Among her friends Al is known for providing that proverbial shoulder to cry on,and lending an ear to their troubles etc- so much so that :

APA: (hot STF hunk): here , you don’t know what happened to me, I cant walk –my leg has had it – Im in pain!!!waaaaH!
AJ : Oh my, you poor dear , was it something to do with yesterdays bomb?
APA: not exactly – I was at this army funeral and I was carrying the coffin and I triped and sprained my big toe.
AJ: Uh….

uh...

"Is the Army Commander dead?"
"uhmm...not officially."

funny …. this isn’t my bedroom

Newbie called yesterday evening.
Hes the second of my friends during the last month who had to have their head re stitched and their ears pasted back on and he also got stabbed but Im not clear as to actually where.
He gave me all the lurid details such as how he was left unconscious in a drain (in it self surviving that is a miracle –never mind benig beaten up with hockey sticks and stabbed randomly)and he woke up at about 3 and thought “that’s funny , this isn’t my bedroom…”and then had to flag down a passing lorry and plead with them to get him to hospital on the assurance that he would sign a document absolving them of any involvement in the likely event that he died…
Im seriously wondering whether this is just the kind of people I hang out with- they seem to come from the same factory, like Odel Models…but Im not complaining, see, I can write BOOKS about these people.
and I am.
writing , I mean.

I am what I am

Evelyn: Look, I... I may not be an explorer, or an adventurer, or a treasure-seeker, or a gunfighter, Mr. O'Connell, but I am proud of what I am.
Rick: And what is that?
Evelyn: I... am a librarian.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120616/quotes

once upon a time

Princess Fiona: You didn't slay the dragon?
Shrek: It's on my "to do" list. Now come on.
Princess Fiona: But this isn't right. ...You're meant to charge in, sword drawn, banner flying-that's what all the other knights did. ...
Shrek: Yeah- right before they burst into flame.

Bahirawayas explained

Sri Lanka is full of buried treasure – if its not the rough gems lying around it would be royal stuff left behind by so many ancient kings who were half the time on the run from regicidal wannabes . So if you just dug about in your back yard a bit you could really find adventure but would you want to is the issue. Legends have rather bad things to say about people who try. The reason given is that these Royal persons kept grabbing hapless passers-by and be-heading them , with the Royal instruction to the dying person to guard the treasure from anyone. So ostensibly the country side was dotted with resentful homicide victims cursed into guarding royal trinkets with all the spiritual might they could muster – the usual vengeful confused earth bound sprits with Unfinished Business.

...from YAK BERA ,
Al Juhara 2006

Silly little planet. Anyone could take over the place with the right set of mammary glands.
-Serleena in MIB2

Hey, do the world a favor! Move your issues off the road!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0268380/quotes


last night I opened my bedroom window and left it and by morning there were not one but THREE fat cats sleeping purring like engines on my feet and it was a disturbance but quite comfy and happy too!! These were of course our cats although I doubt cats are ever owned- Pitchy ,Peekachew and Ginger Nuts( we are considering changing his name to Strawberry - because he feels like a large heavy berry covered in straw- of course) but by morning the two black ones had moved off, and only Ginger was still around looking rather dazed and confused as usual...
hes the one with the balance problem

ICE AGE

"Uh, Diego.... retract the claws please."
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0268380/quotes

I did love Ice Age - just the good clean fun!!!