CAT IN A LAT

... and other feline tales.

Cats plague me. They greet me with vibrating purry meows when I get home, track me excitedly around the house when Im looking for my sandals, spray my motorcycle jacket cheerfully with nauseous civet musks and drop suddenly out of the ceiling onto my dining table when I’m entertaining important guests….

I look around and wonder to myself how I ever got so surrounded by this many smelly mewling mangy excuses for former Egyptian Gods.-the answer is I love my kids and they love playing with string and kittens. I also love kittens, I admit, and from garbage dumps and temple corners they all seem to be asking me to take them home. The problem is these kittens I bring in mutate within six months and for the next decade I’m hounded (no other word for it) by large, obnoxious feline predators calmly decimating the crockery and waving insouciant, in – your –face balls, or “cutlets” ,as the kids call them...

My cats embarrass me and stink up my house but keep me warm if ever I am cold or lonely(admittedly not often).However there’s good reason to believe I may be in future: I have had to reject at least three perfectly good marriage proposals (not easy to find for a middle aged divorced broad in Colombo-) due to the fact that I just knew/ or found out in the nick of time that the otherwise excellently moneyed and suave suitors hate cats and such marriage would probably end in catricide- and/or worse.

Cats hypnotize us. My worst cat is a half Persian Garfield –wannabe with a tail like a Christmas tree, named Patchy because she is black with tabby patches and has a yellow eye patch rather like a pirate in negative. She will not lower herself to the level of common cats who use the sand patch in the front yard. She uses our bathroom instead. I have Nokia videos of her pissing leisurely in the bathroom sink, which I always wanted to send to Atapattama but am not sure if they will clog bandwidth, or actually what their email address is.

Solid waste is quietly deposited in a corner behind my laundry bucket, and followed by a brief absence from the domestic scene. That is until she gets lonely and broody and wants to do the kneading thing.

I call it that from want of any more scientific term but what Im referring to is the slightly psychotic purring /kneading /claw digging Massage scenario that cats subject you to once they get you under them in the evenings. Evolution has mutated a whole totally weird group of sub-humans who actually tolerate being pinned under a heavy cat, and being pawed and kneaded firmly and rhythmically- and I admit to being one of them, perverted as it sounds. I do believe, thought scientists have not researched this, that they include a mildly hypnotic and decidedly sedative chemical in the substantial clouds of fur they release in the process otherwise why would I be under my cat for stretches of up to even 15 minutes? Some one tell me I’m not the only one that does this?

PLAYBOY style T Shirt Spotted in Dematagoda

On the Back :
NO SEKS
NO BOOS
NO ENTERTANES

and on the front :
IM A POORBOY.

quotes I cant help but quote...sorry!

Unbloggable content usually implies me.
— Darth Teddy to Kahuna, attempting to amass rights to all questionable content.

http://circus1.blogspot.com/search/label/Unquotable%20Quotes
enjoy.

these guys are a scream...where have they blogged all my life? who are they ? what kind of software must they be writing?(shudder!)

I need to go through the archives, durnig the weekend I guess, so Im recording the link here, but hey- it doesnt mean all my readers can abandon me forever....ok?

THE MOPED DIARIES part 3 –

MY FIRST LESSON and other embarrassing moments
Leading Colombo driving schools do offer ladies motorcycle lessons and this means you have to get on a bike with a strange dude and after some time he sits behind you.

From my 2004 diary,then:
3rd jan 10.00 am
I’m sitting in the neatly painted but nevertheless shabby third world office of a Colombo driving school.. As a rule I notice, the Driving Instructors are grey haired, casually dressed fiftygenarians, who give the aura of being totally drunk and gregarious but hopefully are neither The one I saw first was no exception-and shot me a very stern and dignified glance , more of a glare really, before yanking shut his fly with the determined , pointed air of someone ready to get down to serious business. …
However, to my heartfelt relief he strode past me and then it was that my designated instructor came out searching for me. It so happened (oh the relief-) that he was neat (had all his clothes buttoned on), clean (no ear hair or carbuncles), young (normal eye colour, not rheumy red and most of his teeth intact) and –beat this-even tall dark and good looking too (well, ok that’s totally besides the point, but one must be thankful for large mercies…)

He spent a lot of his time looking over the room which was odd, as I was the only person there, and I looked all over the room behind him, since it was obvious from his behaviour that it was not me he was looking for- until it sunk into him, painfully I must say, that I was to be his instructee. The co-ordintor with the registry book clinched matters by gesticulating in my direction and I swear there was a secret half smile on the faces of at least 3 other staff in that room-my doomed instructor however looked at me as if I was something disgusting the cat had left on the bedside floor mat and I was later to find out why…I beamed cheerfully at him and he scowled at his feet, and then we went down to get aboard a motorcycle – at last.
Ok girls- time for some embarrassing moments (well, this is not as bad as a visit to the proctologist but) – yes, I had to sit behind this strange bloke and he took me on a spin to a nearby churchyard- and I could not hang on to his waist or shoulders (which I believe only friends or relations can do – neither did I actually want to -) but had to grip desperately at some kind of handle below my seat , while whining cravenly for him not to ride too fast …
He took about half an hour to explain carefully ,like dealing with a total drooling idiot, the accelerator, brakes and gears and what the dials meant -and then got me to sit in front , after which very genteelly and without any unwanted physical contact, managed to take me on a few test loops followed by (really scareeeey-) the point where he let me steer .That accomplished ,he proceeded to hand me total control of the handlebars , and a few ,jelly like wobbles away I was riding.
…the next thing this impossible person was suggesting, barely an hour after id met him –was that I practice on my own. Before you know it, he was lounging happily under a tree, checking his inbox, and I was being allowed out there on my own, describing happy somewhat rabid circles in the dusty church car park!

Ladies and gentlewomen, there is nothing I can think of that will beat this feeling (well, ok, nothing printable) - you are in the pilot seat, the wind is in your hair and you are responsible for your own direction, and speed, not to mention keeping your teeth, knees and elbows intact:
You are in control:of your destiny and your destination.
You are at one with your surroundings and a living part of a powerful machine.

Needless to say this is an adrenalin rush that can become highly addictive.

No amount of being the model pupil would make the instructor so much as grunt a positive comment, until he had withdrawn to a prudent distance from me and watched me do my thing for about an hour- after which he sheepishly admitted that many of the women he taught had no sense of balance and had put him through about half a dozen nasty falls, which is why he had been dreading this as much as me. …have you ever experienced gravel rash on your elbows or knees? Its crippling....

What can go wrong? Plenty. But you can be prepared. Insure your bike fully , that way you need not worry about parking it somewhere and going home in an emergency. Third party insurance means that if you knock one of those expensive lights out on a passing Prado, you will not have to work as an indentured slave for the next ten years to pay for it (or marry the owner which is, of course, worse). Insurance is quite affordable coming to just about 5% of the bikes value.
Follow the usual technical advise about petrol and 2T oil and go easy with the experimenting- do not listen to the tykes next door who suggest kerosene or sunflower oil. Carry a first aid box with antiseptics, stay away from lose gravel because its like oil to bike wheels, always have your tools nearby so that if you are stuck at least someone who passes by can help you. Memorize where the repair joints are – there is one almost every 200 yards in Colombo and be prepared to use your marketing smile to get things done. The strange thing is that although or because women on bikes are not yet common to Sri Lankans, they are also tolerated with a good deal of instant affection. There is nothing like riding up on a bike to open doors for you, you get treated amazingly akin to royalty or at least with indulgent smiles which means you can get almost any kind of assistance you politely require, from people who would not glance at you twice if you came in a three wheeler….You may also have to push the bike for a few miles if you get a flat tyre- or if you have a spare fifty rupee note you can simply pay a more manual looking passer by to help you by pushing it themselves.

You will tumble which is another good reason to wear thick denim pants and if possible Xena like breast armour. Falling is pretty much compulsory but happens when you least expect it. If you are going at 20 miles an hour, near the drains, you will not have to worry about something large running over you after you do. You will also hit a few pedestrians if you keep staring at SHOE SALE signs, so don’t. As for ogling well built male pedestrians, well, you deserve what you get if you do (but don’t let that stop you)

Insure yourself too but accept that you are responsible for your fate. Your life is in your hands so don’t ride no hands. Pray three times a day to every deity that will listen and take one day at a time. Never ever start out late, or worry about reaching your destination dead on time. Answering cel-phones on the ride should be out of the question.

Finally if you are killed randomly on the spot, remember to be happy because it means your troubles are over sooner rather than later. That’s what you call win win. Hakuna Matata!
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The author affectionately remembers her mentor Gaya, who practices archery, owns a 600cc Suzuki and taught her not to be afraid of bikes. You go, girl!
She also reiterates she will not be held responsible for casualties resulting from decisions to follow in this extreme hobby based on this article series.

(ps the above graphic is probably copyright Daily Mirror )

The Moped Diaries. part 2 No license- no helmet - no underskirt…

The Moped Diaries. part 2 No license- no helmet - no underskirt…

This is not a technical article - technical advice you can get from just about any guy you know who rides a bike, or from the friendly salesmen at joints selling them. What follows are the kinds of tips you won’t hear from the guys: stuff like how to choose road friendly feminine underwear and what parts of your riding trainer it is better not to grab on those early test runs. Also please understand, first and foremost you need to know how to balance on a foot-cycle as its called, it’s a pre requisite without which you make life a living nightmare for the poor soul who has to teach you, since he will be worrying about how many tumbles he has to take with you and gravel rash on ones elbows hurts to the point of being crippling, trust me.

Helmets are a good idea whether the government requires then or not, since we only have one grey hard disk and damaging that could have embarrassing permanent repercussions. I was given this polite advice by a fatherly grey haired gentleman while waiting in traffic in the middle of Town Hall and I remember him with affection to this day. Have a helmet with a tinted face visor so you don’t need to get distracted smiling at anyone or have a sore throat every day.
As for what to wear- well, the less female you look, the less traffic you will snarl. If you really want to hear the regular hair rising screeching of truck brakes right behind you and feel a thousand eyeballs so tangibly fixed on your rear end that they seem to be arguing for space amongst themselves… then by all means dress like Barbie on the Malibu set of “California Dreams” . If on the other hand you just want to get safely from point A to point B with the least amount of hassle, blend in. Flesh as innocent as exposed calves is rare and delectable fodder to some of the desperate househusbands on Sri Lankan roads, and if you don’t have a bloke in front of you, it’s assumed that you are advertising its availability. I am personally pretty sure that if I pasted my phone number on my bike, I would not only get at least 100 calls a day and be able to market whatever I wanted- but also cause a sharp spike in traffic mishaps in the greater Colombo area due to people focusing on all the wrong things …occasionally I admit, I do toy with the idea of placing the number of the Dehiwala Zoo, on my rear luggage carrier, just for kicks ;-)…moving on:
I’ve tried lots of stuff (except skirts which I really don’t want to) -colourful blouses and shalwars just end up looking absurd, in my humble opinion, high heels are never practical, covered shoes are much better if you wish to actually recognise your toes at the end of the day, and a dust jacket is a good idea- it actually keeps the dust and diesel fumes out of your cleavage (oh ,is that another reason why the guys go first ?)and camouflages the consistency of your bust- for the same reason, make sure those under supports are nice and firm. None of the lacy, flexible stuff you find at fancy Colombo department stores: to take on the potholes of Colombo your valuable assets need to be strapped into the type of coir reinforced lingerie that Mrs Trunchbull wears to netball practice. (She is, for my dear readers who have missed the fun, the 175 kg, ex mud wrestler now tyrannical school principal in Mathilda who throws children out of school windows by their plaits, a creation of Roald Dhal one of the most wonderful and honest children’s authors this world has known.)
Which reminds me, if you have long hair ,for Pete’s sake tie it up- you don’t need that getting caught in the spokes or passing bullock carts. This again is why shalwars shawls and saris make unsuitable riding gear although we have been conditioned to think that if there is a male creature in front of us anything goes .Think about it? How many chances will you get to reverse stupid mistakes like this?
Finally do not think of hanging your groceries on the handle bars. Riding through Colombo needs 150% of your concentration and you don’t want to be worrying about whether the tomatoes are getting squishy by being slapped about against passing private coaches. Guys regularly get away with doing this because they don’t really care about the tomatoes (no matter how much they assure you that they do)-and there are some guy motorcyclists out there who look as though they would not notice it if one of their kids fell off, you will agree. For any kind of luggage you must install a proper luggage carrier and lock it so that at least that is out of sight and out of mind.

Now: onto the subject of the young male road audiences of Sri Lanka: they will as a rule, hoot, whistle and howl, if you look the slightest bit unsteady, or go slowly enough to be noticed, wearing eye catching feminine clothes. It’s a Sri Lankan thing, as unlike in India, women on two wheelers are not yet socially accepted. This decidedly chimpanzee-like pedestrian behaviour goes on for the first couple of weeks but peters out once they figure that you are not bothered and you are handling it better than they would ever. It also helps a lot if you are about 2 inches taller than the average local teenager and are yourself, large and in charge like me. My policy is to focus on every third guy who makes a noise, turn the bike around slowly , take it close to him, look him in the eye and gently say, “monowahari PRASHNAYAK thiyenawaadha?" with a sweet smile. Chances are he will get a glazed uncomfortable look and start wriggling uneasily. So you continue staring him down with the same sweet smile and make your voice firm and slightly metallic and say “ no, seriously, does my back tyre look flat to you ? is there anything odd you noticed…?”while giving the bike a few noisy revs and if he has nothing to say, smile honestly and move calmly off back the way you came from. If he answers you with anything spunky, park the bike and stand up. This is where those Fie Quando classes* come in handy, as they take away a woman’s natural paralysis when it comes to handling potentially uncomfortable situations. Nine times out of ten, the average street gang respects a woman who stands up for herself and will end up cringing and smiling cravenly…and saying “naa naa mukuth naa” because they never expected you to confront them and are feeling mighty foolish about it.
Don’t forget these are the same gangs who will bend over backwards to help you, if you are in trouble, (it has happened to me and resulted in a world of new contacts: I now have useful friends in low places) so never take the hooting personally enough to get annoyed by it! □
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• another story altogether

Motor-biking in Colombo although affordable fun, can be injurious to your health, not to mention, final. The article is merely a nostalgic account of personal experiences and the author does not take responsibility for any damage sustained by readers, female or otherwise, who take up this dubious sport subsequent to reading same. Next week: my first lesson and what can go wrong.

the Moped Diaries

The Motorcycle ok,ok,- *MOPED*.. Diaries part 1

Two years ago, around this time of the year, I bought myself a shiny new Chinese moped from a very user friendly joint in Kohuwela. There was, I recall, a significant amount of family opposition to the idea of me riding a “motorcycle”. Notably most of the negative attitude was feminine. My best friend, a lovely, most lady like creature I have known since grade 7 in Lindsay BMV, wrote me a 234 Kilobyte email from New York, expressing in detail, her delicate horror at the idea. My long suffering mother called me IDD from Nairobi, to vocalise a pleading monologue on the subject and from something like 13,000 miles away and without a web-cam, I could clearly picture her wringing those lovely hands all over the place and getting red nosed with emotion.(Failing to change my resolve, she lapsed into prayers to the entire Hindu pantheon, which is generally something she has had to do for many years now, since it’s the only way she can resign herself to my fate….)Another of my very dearest friends did her best to dissuade me and failing, blasted me dutifully in three languages, to my awe, after which she reminded me that she would be my friend to the bitter mangled end. Last but not least my daughter told me, bluntly, to go take a long hard look at myself.
I have, dear people, trust me, I have.
I’ve worked it out on my trusty Citizen calculator , how much time an average Sri Lankan woman spends contorted into osteoporosis-inducing shapes on local buses and it works out to about a month per year, if you only have to travel an hour to work and an hour back: that’s an entire month of contortion, suffocation and cheerfully rejecting pineapple salesmen, jokers with banjos and kassippu scented, rheumatoid beggars with weeping eczemas. A whole article can be written about fending off lurid expressions of interest from the hairier, smellier sex, but I wont because I’m sure you have already read or heard all about life on buses :pretty much everything that happens anywhere else, the whole circle of life thing, can and does happen on buses- mating, pregnancy, birth, puberty, old age, death, and tax collection, so I wont bother going into it here.

A word, though, about what happens before you even begin your commute:
The double bus cha cha
Musical chairs, the bus way. You sit in one bus at the station and its getting late, everyone is waiting watching the clock- suddenly this little Hitler look alike dude in cargo pants comes along and says “who told you to get in that bus, its not the one – it’s the other one”. The whole herd of you, neatly dressed office going people stampedes to the other bus and there is a desperate and unsightly musical chairs thing to get a seat. You manage and then a different Mussolini lopes by and says the same thing…not this bus it’s the OTHER one. Makes my jaws stand out in grit, Ill tell you.
The bus halt tease.
Local bus halts involve about 30 feet of area. If they judge it carefully enough the drivers can appear to break about ten feet ahead of point A so that a sad desperate crowd of already late, sari clad women have to run en masse to the projected point of halt. A truly expert bus driving tease will then not bring it to a complete halt but continue to drag it temptingly about twenty feet more so that the bright little crowd has to run following it. Ive often speculated idly as to whether this feeds the drivers desire for power , for the need to control, to have a little herd of respectable working class citizens panting and tripping about in their wake ….I have idly concluded that these men were probably always nondescript and had domineering mothers and never were able to make an impression on society when they were young. Thumb sucking infants they may have been, with bed wetting issues and difficult protracted puberties. ..

The Total Avoid
That’s when you are the only desperate human standing at a bus halt waiting for a bus which comes every 15 minutes and it’s the only one that comes to the lordForsaken spot- and the bus in question zooms past, half empty , totally ignoring you because it has to get somewhere fast and you don’t count. On an average Sunday you can stand about 45 minutes waiting this way until the voices in your head start suggesting evil things, like how good it would feel to be done with it and throw yourself under the next one in revenge. Sadly at most they would probably not really notice you and wonder if it was a new speed bump and at best you may delay them a bit.

. All this hassle and women still think that a bike is dirty and rough? Really who makes us think this way !? well…I personally havnt got that many rich uncles who will write me into their wills and die leaving me enough doh for a modest little maruti(actually yuk) neither will I get paid more than enough to hold body and soul together in this interesting somewhat journalistic profession I work at (never mind the wicked job satisfaction) and finally, I m done with the marrying for money thing, since it didn’t work last time- so at the end of my tether: I decided to get me a bike.

Oddly enough, I have to say, the guys in my life have been actually approving and totally supportive, and took my declaration as no big deal, which was pretty comforting: I was accepted into hitherto male only office conversations on the price of different models of Kawasaki (not that I could ever dream of affording one since they cost more than the average car, these days )and various swapped experiences on changing a front tyre on the fly, not to mention Recounting Worst Tumble Taken competitions( which was incidentally won by a guy who ended up with scratched knuckles, alive and happy, albeit rather smelly, under a municipal muck truck).Tuk tuk driver blokes I know, instead of cold shouldering me, welcomed me like a true heroine, and continue to provide the odd screwdrivers, pliers, nuts, and plastic my cola bottles of petrol anytime I so much as say the word, not to mention bending over backwards to help me when I pretend that I cant change my signal lights or tighten my brakes….

This also means that I could casually introduce words like “alloy wheels ” , “four stroke” and “triptronic suspension*” into my day to day parlance, which I found rather ego boosting, I must admit, for an average Colombo housewife whose social standing had hitherto been measured by the weight of her( alarmingly underweight but happily active)toddlers or if she could get the yearly kavum to manifest symmetrical buriyas ( which I admit I never could, though all my excellent sisters in law can:oh the shame of it!) in fact as Ive often told anyone who would listen, getting a bike was pretty much the most legitimate fun I have had since my honeymoon…!
Next week:
Handling hooters and what not to wear.
* ok,I admit Im pulling your leg. Triptronic suspension doesn’t come with bikes but with some very expensive cars and the occasional Nasa shuttle.sorry...:-)

Weird Local Beliefs -made simple

Good times, Bad Times and other Weird Local Beliefs
Made Simple.


well, I'm back: I survived the recent holiday and the astounding sense of boredom and anticipation that Nationally relevant times like this carry with them, and did not actually get hit by the chikun virus ,perhaps because, like in Jurassic Park, I already harbor viruses which are ten times nastier and crunch up the chikuny ones on sight...old Picky, my unfaithful canine friend paid me that bi annual visit he does because he wants to escape from cracker noises by hiding under my bed...and I steadfastly continue to maintain the grinchy theory that compulsory breaks are a pointless waste of time involving loss of focus, something I’m always trying to hang on to.

IN the meantime I got to thinking about so called "auspicious times" .Aren’t we a society totally happy with leaving things to a nakath welawa? Isn’t that why we love being absolutely depraved until around New Years eve and then following it up with a list of goody goody resolutions on New Years day? Waiting for the Correct Time has never been so official as in Sri Lanka, and these strange , mind boggling theories start apparently start with geckoes. Yes, you read me. In Sri Lanka if one of these small sticky pallid house hold pests make a short room -to room call, we humans actually stop whatever we were planning and go back to the drawing board!

You also dont set foot out of the house if its currently a so called "Rahu " Time which is a temporary half hour planetary configuration that occurs, inconsiderately , every day but at slightly different times. I remember from my distant youth , the local newspapers had a page each year featuring these no go time zones and my parents dear would organise to stick the centerfolds conscientiously on the kitchen door, and glance at them before stepping out to work .If the time was wrong they would hang about gossiping and wasting time until it was clear. That a country's respected vehicles of media would stoop to seriously setting out in black and white, timings coughed up by hairy tipsy local soothsayers guiding us on the correct planetary line up to (among other things) have the first bath of the year, rub grease on our heads and set out for work etc.... never fails to amaze me. That a country so obsessed with timing things accurately to ensure prosperity and success, remains so consistently dirt poor, too in food for thought, although I have to admit that , judging from the smiles, we must be way up high on the informal Happiness Index anyway.

Then there were a lot of "bad" times that I was personally warned about during my adolescence. A newly " grown up" teenage girl was supposed to watch out specifically for certain times (and places) where she should never be alone- noon was very bad, and dusk was creepy ,the bottom of the garden was out at these times of the day unless you wanted strange and bad things to happen to you , and I later read that junctions (!?) and bathing spots are strictly no- no places and the times are called the "Four watches " Hence the local legend of poor Tikiri Liya who was molested by another semi domestic reptile-and there's also was a whole rule book about the correct days to bathe and to avoid bathing , which is odd for a race of people who make it a national pastime... Try explaining the rationale to a budding 16 year old writer/artist who just only wants to be left alone to write and paint and day dream about Prince Charming...the ugly truth was only hinted at vaguely to me and involved a rather horny dark local demon who was out to spiritually ravish you and leave you a gibbering white haired wreck. Also remember that if by unfortunate chance , you were out there alone somewhere at a junction , near the well or lost in a jungle (fat chance considering that I was manually so well chaperoned that it almost amounted to house arrest), and you met someone walking about with their head on back to front , you were supposed to look at them "under your arm" (!?) or you would have to be exorcised, perhaps painfully .( Of course in Wellampitiya ,as I explained a few weeks back, we are quite used to a lot of strange and wonderful characters and would probably just shrug if we saw someone running about with his feet on back to front ....)Looking back, it was just not worth the stifling restrictions I had to undergo particularly considering that the end result was a gibbering white haired wreck anyway.

Ikky superstitions were simply rife in our family. Dead pets immediately lost their furry charm faster than body heat and became "kili" (sort of unhygienic ghost magnets) ie, stuff you had to get rid of pretty darn quick unless we wanted to attract evil and greedy spirits. Ok, I guess no one actually wants to keep old Ringo or Poospatty around for days after they have gone into rigor and started making gassy noises, not to mention jettisoning hoards of ticks, but the inference that your furry friend was now just a potential host for malignant forces was kind of hard on a 5th grader apart from the natural depression at having lost a partner in crime...it was plain freaky, if you ask me.

Neither least nor last on my list, I must mention the awful fear of "Pretha Balmas"(lit Hungry Spirit Looks) ...the theory here was that if you ate your food outdoors or with someone hungry watching you or if you walk about at one of those bad times having eaten fried stuff and without washing your mouth, you get visited or boarded if I understand correctly , by stubbornly clingy ghosts who would (perhaps like hookworms?) absorb whatever nutrition was rightfully yours and leave you to wither away and become skinny :a decidedly unfashionable demise.
My dear gentle friends, let me tell you , since gym equipment and membership is so darn expensive these days and I am a couch potato at heart , I have tried this a few times but it just. does. not. work. Eating hot Isso wade and walking slowly past the local cemetery shouting " over here: come and get me: all yours" does NOT make you lose weight...

As you probably noticed by now, the end result of thus being subjected to so many frightful myths and old wives tales during your youth and having to fight your way above them, means society now has a generation of truly hardened cynics in its midst.
This is probably very bad news for soothsayers, insurance reps and horror movie producers among others. The latter have to keep coming up with more unusual stuff to hold our attention. Severed heads (Army of Darkness) or the Walking Dead (Interview with a Vampire) have just become such common ideas that they are almost silly and movie producers are resorting to more subtle-and-creepy ways of turning our stomachs, such as water logged contortionist cadavers (the Ring) or odd pulsating boluses of human hair in the drain (the Grudge) and if all else fails, shaky, motion sickness inducing cameras (Blair Witch Project) (gulp!).
The bad news is that whereas I am a steadfast fan of good old fashioned horror movies, I do compulsively continue to totally spoil it all for everyone else by cracking silly one liners and comic suggestions at what should be critical heart stopping moments.... Guilty as charged I must regretfully admit. Its part of how I grew up...
...........................................................................................................................................................

From Wellampitiya, with love, al sends her readers best wishes for this New Year 2007.Keep smiling!

Why middle class Sri Lankan guys dont want to grow tall - 1

why middle class Sri Lankan guys dont want to grow tall -2

why middle class Sri Lankan guys dont want to grow tall 3

old water paintings dug up from behind a cupboard..

Art by Chandrika Gadiewasam 1989
this is a water color copy of an absolutely stupendous one by my favourite wildlife art hero , Robert Bateman. http://www.robertbateman.ca/ However , at 19 I was rrrather happy that I could even produce a copy which somewhat resembles such a master piece. ...then I got married at 20 and never had the time to paint after that.

Seasons Greetings to all my friends!

do take a minute to visit this link - one of my favourite mottos are here-
http://www.llerrah.com/lettherebepeaceonearth.htm


remember , you are NOT alone , this good earth loves you - treat it right and you will never regret it.






photo © Dananjaya Edirisinghe,2006

a day in the life of the average lankan bus passenger

This morning the bus in front of me, calmly and quietly ran over one if its intended passengers in one of those quiet desperate early morning scuffles , in front of the Maradana halt. I saw a crowd, saw the looks on their faces and as we moved off I saw a half view of someone lying on the ground with his legs broken and his lunch packet scattered around.
That was the saddest part, the lunch packet, some caring mother or wife must have woken early to prepare, the fact that we live in such a rat race that it becomes a part of daily life that you get quietly maimed on your way to work. The fact that in spite of having to dodge prados and jaguars and mercedeses all over the streets of Colombo , we are so poor that we need to pack people in till they fall off and die.
The fact that this is preventable.

It also brings me to the question – what do you do in such a situation ? the already mangled victim is at the mercy of the well meaning efforts of a bunch of o level educated clerks and carpenters from the looks of it – and bad to worse things can happen when you take a casualty like this and fold him in four to get him into a tuk tuk and send it off to the General Hospital (which is something I saw done to a bike accident victim) ….is there at least a National strategy on educating people on basic first aid? is it taught in schools? Is it given sufficient emphasis? Leave aside the clerical class worker population of Colombo , do you and I know what to do in a life and death situation ? or is it left for National Safety Day ?

The bars of my dreams….I think

Can you imagine an odd job johhny who can fix anything around the house,wires, plumbing, masonry yada yada , who gives quotations that do not require you to be resuscitated, and does not ask for more than his initial estimate no matter what unexpected frights he faces in the job? No? neither can I ..but I seem to have picked one up. The kind of man I ve always wanted to meet, (although he has a face that could launch a thousand mortars ) -he even has a celphone –how did I get him you wonder? Well I was in desperate crisis and hung around the nearby hardware kadey whining that my toilets were refluxing and I needed a piyippa bars and there he was.....ah, Al just lucky I guess.

* fingers crossed , next week I may tell you that he ran off with our satelite dish, so stay tuned...I never trust guys who talk too much. Come to think of it I dont trust guys who are quiet either. and so on.

Tintin in Tibet?

no its Ally in Kalutara - busy posing and fooling about in the beach when she had set herself the task of reading Chowrya Rajina to find out what all the fuss was about. ..
anyone want to buy my copy ? Im broke and my Superiors at The Kendraya wont fund the copy I bought in the interest of personal capacity building ...(wanted to find out what HRH's secrets were ,of course)
Ill personally autograph it , if it makes any difference ? pwease?and Ill pass on the Vijitha Yapa discount they gave me, a whole whopping 38 /-
I mean it has some interesting photos...better than this here one...
:-)

Second Hand copy of Chowrya Rajina Available for Sale ...

the BOOK ,I mean- the BOOK is for Sale.

at last! a cure for importance!

I was recently going through this frazzled second hand women’s magazine Id bought from a pavement in Bamba, when I found this half page colour advert about a healthy though expensive new vitamin preparation containing some Chinese root or another which is supposed among other things to cure importance. Now that’s the actual spelling they had used, along with a photo of rather obscene looking tuber and a really happy looking couple... I did not have time nor inclination to read thought the whole half page but later on, after a lot of careful thought on the subject I figured it’s a very good idea and long overdue.

Have you noticed what a crippling affliction importance can be in some people? You see it in the way they sit, taking up as much room as they possibly can (ankle crossed on knee to make a little space for pricey Lamborgini Notebook which everyone should notice -), the way they talk (much deep clearing of throats and palpable care with their choice of exact wordings) the cultured accents (mock Oxford or Harvard elocution although they’ve been to third world banana republic schools*) and the generous servings of jargon they introduce into their day to day communications…You wonder if they talk to their dogs like this too? In the first place if a dog could survive around anything as important as this without rolling over and dying of acute inferiority?...words like zeitgeist , raison d’etre (I dont even know how its spelt and Im not apologising) and de facto need to be casually batted too and fro in any gathering of Importants for them to feel, well, important, which is (creek, creek –the echoing of crickets chirping in my comparatively empty head- ) alas actually lost on us lesser mortals and has us groping weakly for our thesauri.

At the Office, the Important cant just meet and talk like normal people, but must brainstorm, rationalise and strategise in hushed tones, then take elaborate minutes of the proceedings, and rework them to about 54 pages of research findings which they distribute to all on their spam lists and which no one spends more than 3 seconds on before junking.

Institutional importance clouds any reading material that originates from the average workplace and results in about 2.5 pages of possibly good ideas being hidden in at least 65 pages of a report in stodgy official jargon, which, lets be honest, no one WANTS to read , even if they had the time. This is not only really bad news for trees , but disturbing for Internet users since it probably grows at the mind boggling rate of billions of gigabytes per day what with people posting stuff on servers for further reference.

Medical and Scientific Importance I wont even go into here, because it would need a whole centre spread to begin on, and the same can be said for shh quietly now- state Importance. The best way to handle incurable individual Importance is to stand back, open your mouth in an awestricken gape and agree reverently with whatever the person says, while at the time coyly gushing “my, my, what a genius you are! Where do you get these ideas? What brilliance! What an amazing intellect!” at regular intervals( And sound as if you mean it!)

Readers or recipients of such Important -cattle waste are just as much to blame for the trend: they consistently continue to be obviously unimpress-able by anything less than a centimetre thick when it comes to documentation, or a speech which has any less than one hundred obscure words. This in spite of, or could it be because of , the fact that it just means they have less time to walk the dog, talk to their parents or spouses or practice Tai Chi, which although everyone agrees is good for you hardly anyone seems to actually provide for. Strange.

I personally envisage,I mean, foresee,(someone hit me with a brick- its rubbing off on me, help!!) a future where people will actually realise the value of keeping things simple(- stupid!) . They will speak and write down what they think in the most basic four or five letter words, accompanying anything written with cartoons and embedded audio clips which get the point across painlessly, with perhaps dormant links to the resource websites they poached it all from. This is so that if you have a lot of spare time and nothing planned for the weekend you can carry out further fact finding to whatever depth you feel you need for your development as a human being with only an average lifespan of 75 years to plan for.

In the meantime I want to find out what that root was and serve it secretly to some people I know- just to find out if it works and they become approachable normal people.

* No offence: They are probably as good as any other ,I’m only referring to the tedious accents.

the dreaded chocoriano© fever …
...and other serious worries we should be, well, worrying about…

Last week I got a text message from a bloke in office saying to please tell the admin officer that he had got chocoriano fever and wasn’t going to be able to make it …. I spent some time pondering seriously as to what this gruesomely named malady could be, and visions of Mars Bars gone wrong, Cocoa beans taking long overdue revenge on humankind etc clouded my imagination until I figured that the T9 text on his mobile phone had probably spelt chikungunya out like this and he had probably been too delirious to correct the text ( and mind you T9 is one of those other horrors of the modern world I wont even bother to go into here…)chiken what?you ask, hello- don’t we have enough on our plates?

Life in this day and age is full of worries. The average Colombo housewife like me has so many diverse concerns at any one point in time to worry about - leave aside the obvious ones like possible bomb explosions, kidnappings, paedophiles stalking our kids and escalating fuel prices, floods and power cuts , I can worry whether I will get diabetes because I don’t eat enough fruits, whether I’m using enough moisturiser or sunscreen or breast cancer is silently creeping up on me, and now, when not if chikunguniya will strike me and my loved ones. Thanks to regular blasts of well presented paranoia from local TV adverts we can add osteoporosis, cholesterol, MSG, bird flu and a whole gamut of oddly named diseases and conditions to this list- both regular and obscure. The film industry with its serial defamation of innocent dumb fauna adds to our subliminal anxieties about roving Sharks(Jaws), fish (Piranha) Dogs(Gujo), Snakes( Cobra, Anaconda, Anaconda two, Snakes on a Plane, Snakes on a Train, whatever next? Snakes on a bus? Yikes- ) and even Rats (poor persecuted vermin!)- plus the Bollywood spin offs to all of these.

Time not spent worrying about these identifiable worries can be filled by the vague worry that we may actually be missing out on certain worries just by not being actually informed about them so the key is to spread the word – usually in the form of urgent bulk emails which greet you in the morning when you stagger dazedly into the office (with the top priority ^ symbol of course) about such horrors as what could happen to you if you let your defences down for even a moment by letting your credit card out of sight , sitting on chairs in theatres without checking them and getting a particular unpronounceable worm in your computer. These emails are usually forwarded by someone who personally knows someone to whom this terrible thing has actually happened.
Awareness raising is therefore the keyword and apparently what you don’t know can kill you, so you make an effort to be informed ,sadly ignoring the fact that even if you know it , it will still kill you, the only difference being that instead of breezing through the life you do have , you would have faced it cringing cravenly and guiltily convinced that it was somehow, something you could have avoided if you had just been a step quicker…

It’s the price of civilisation, you see: those days worries were tangible uncomplicated things – the risk of invading Mongolian armies*kidnapping you , rampaging herds of wild mammoths , drought ,famine and the bubonic plague (read the totally yukky description in Wikipedia)are now a thing of the “savage" and “stressful” past . Modern man has organised his environment so well as to take all dangers and discomforts out of it –you forage for food at Cargils, and you usually don’t see saber toothed tigers ,dinosaurs or invading Cholas ploughing through Colombo on your way home - but hey have you noticed that worries are a strangely self perpetuating species – and were designed to never actually become extinct, but, rather like amoebas, simply break in half and mutate into newer and funkier versions…so the next thing you should be worrying about is credit card fraud, ozone depletion and the effect of UV rays, not to mention of course, the curse of that obscure chocoriano virus…

This is, you may say to me, dear gentle reader, exactly why civilised man invented the concept of “Insuarance” – to let us have some measure of relaxation in life and handle some of our more tangible worries for a fee. Seriously have you read through the fine print in any of those policies lately ? the one I have promises 2 million in damages if I lose an arm and a leg on THE SAME SIDE of the body! Try remembering that when you are next involved in a bus collision! (The same side, man- you need to turn with the agility of Catwoman to co ordinate that at a crisis moment -) and if an accident results in death WITHIN 60 days of the event your next of kin gets 2 million smackers . Can you possibly imagine the bated breath and hushed whispers that will surround your bedside on day 59?
Loss of a finger gets you a paltry 5,000/= each which of course means you are more valuable than 50k (SLRs which works out to about 25 GBP)but the next worry is whether someone related will notice this and relieve you of your digits, when they need to pay an instalment on the new home theatre system. Or if you have actually remembered to pay the premium on time , since it would be kind of embarrassing to turn up fingerless and find that the policy had lapsed. And so this list goes on. ..;



* this was of course before cable TV , and Need for Speed 2, they were bored and had nothing in the way of recreation besides plotting to invade neighbouring territories and increase the content and diversity of their harems.

A funny thing happened on the way to work today..

...there was another bomb in Kollupitiya...
Im ok. But I was about 5 minutes near it, and the smell was nasty. I usually get off and walk that way to office. Id phoned in this morning to say Id be a little late. Well ,ok quite late considering Im normally at office by 7 am.I had to check on my bike and do some extreme banking and it was 10.40 by the time I reached this junction.
today I had been tempted to get down in Maradana and get a flyer for the Bajaj CT 100 (drool) after which I got in the NEXT bus and thus was about ten minutes later than I would have been.
Life is funny,eh. I wow to hencefourth give in to sudden temptations more often.

KUSUMAWATHIE RETURNS

THE RETURN OF KUSUMAWATHIE*


Kusumawthie, my faithful domestic and possibly Wellampitiyas’s answer to Mary Poppins, Elisa Doolittle, and Joan of Ark all in one, is back after a month long vacation, spent searching for a glass dot in her sole.
… last Monday I waded home through a sudden evening shower and found my front yard shin deep in a small stagnant tidal wave caused by a blocked drain. Silhouetted against our living room lighting the poor dear was battling the flood valiantly, trying to divert water away from the front door using the bathroom squeegee, and failing miserably, as the drain had a sizeable bolus of polythene stuck in it which she hadn’t thought to remove.

Having lived through the Kolonnawa Oil Refinery blast, regular Dengue episodes, surprise Police raids and instances of all out power blackout, not to mention all night exorcism ceremonies with noisy climaxes, I try to be calm in the face of disasters in general, but this was critical -if I had been another 15 minutes late, the sofas and then my bedroom carpets would have been well and truly soaked. We don’t want that to happen- those carpets contain the combined DNA of about 25 long dead cats and dogs who have been our pets down the ages (plus a crow and a bat who escaped and may still be alive) and they STINK when wet so I wanted, honestly to scream, and demand why she hadn’t called for backups, but since this is was our good Kusumawathie , I didn’t….she lives Ive noticed by rather convoluted logic which I cant begin to understand.

Kusumawathie is fifty five according to her NIC but looks much younger or older depending on whether its a fluorescent, daylight or torchlight (-not recommended) . Although she has taken to going through life hunching abjectly in a long suffering attempt to blend in with the furniture and not attract negative attention from malicious planets spinning light years away- her life story, sad to say, involves enough violence, mishap and excitement to make the average paparazzo gasp in awe.
To my knowledge she has so far been 1) knocked down by a car which affected her spine so she cant lift anything 2) scratched in the cornea by a potentially rabid kitten so she wont go near animals and 3) nearly strangled by another moonshine sozzled Sedawatte druggie cum robber cum potential molester who at the last moment in a flash of self loathing let her go on condition that she wouldn’t tell anyone about him- (which of course she did, with relish, anyone who would listen )not to mention the regular crockery throwing matches with her perpetually inebriated better half, and wrestling dramas in local buses. She has also had at least two serious accidents with firewood and hot kettles.

What doesn’t kill you makes your stronger, they say , but Ive noticed in some cases it just makes you paranoid- I have to admit regular serial misfortune has left poor Kusumawathi with a collection of phobias which she firmly incorporates into day to day work: irons for example are unpredictable death traps only to be approached when chaperoned by a capable English speaking person of responsible adult status possessing a valid driving license and vehicle, in case she gets electrocuted and the iron gets stuck to her( yeow!). Irons during a suspected thunderstorm even if it is 30 miles away, in the Bay of Bengal, are out of the question. Rice and pressure cookers and fridges command (un)healthy amounts of veneration although strangely the liquidizer has been allowed some measure of trust since it makes the coconut milk thick in spite of the ruckus. Gas tap replacement is an awe inspiring technical process to be monitored from a prudent distance, and the microwave is a thinly disguised portal to the netherworld as far as Kusumawathie is concerned: anything that small, square and inexplicable just has to be intrinsically evil.
Household dogs are best heard but not seen, preferably incarcerated behind chicken wire barricades so a lot of indistinct muttering greets any attempt to liberate these unfortunates while she is around. Any new pets are greeted with DISTINCT muttering and threats about going into retirement.
Potential visitors are categorized as regional criminals until proven otherwise, and firmly instructed to return with proper credentials.( I admit they often are so I approve)
Storms have a negative psychological impact on Kusumawathie due either to the Awe Inspiring Spectacle of Unrestrained Power unleashed by Nature in All its Glory, or the fact that she doesn’t like getting her feet wet- so the suggestion of a cumulo nimbus (or even a very small harmless regular nimbus) anywhere on the horizon means you can bet your last fiver she wont be turning up: so no hot dinner.
With all this caution getting in the way of her work, you may be wondering what it is she actually does around the house to earn her keep.
To be honest, now I come to think of it, so am I .
Sometimes there is hot dinner and she does make a mean Soya curry, but that’s not really it. It’s the comforting feeling that there’s someone in the back ground just in case you need her, and that’s nice to know in this day and age. So I’m not actually complaining.

*not her real name, of course
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The author gratefully acknowledges that she owes a lot to her domestic assistant without whom she would never have time for the hobbies she enjoys such as: blogging, drawing cartoons, playing pinball on her mobile phone, and going for short dangerous spins in her moped.

COSMIC TRANCE

I dont know how old or how new this album is but I want it-
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000065V9J/ref=nosim/societyforhumans

its PASSION by Peter Gabriel who along with Enya , Enigma and Gregorian - is the real meaning of music to me: a point where space, life and time stand still and your being drowns in theta waves..

Any one out there got it ? Ill swap with my giant compilation of 500 titles. Ill actually go out of my way to meet you. Help me!

Coming soon ...

Wellampitiya Revisited

Wellampitiya Revisited...
-or part 2 of the Looney Planet Guide thereto.

You have probably heard about all kinds of vice emanating from Wellampitiya – murders, shoot outs, bus arson(oh joy) and occasional hauls of moonshine: well, speaking from the inside I must tell you these people are not really evil ,mostly they have merely given up with pretenses and dislike beating about the bush and hypocrisy. I personally approve, I mean - instead of the malicious gossip ,backstabbing and subtle under cutting you encounter in so called “civilized” joints, I suggest it would be much more straight-forward to challenge someone you have a grudge against to an open shoot out and have done with them- it’s crisp and uncomplicated.Also being shot cleanly in broad daylight would really be a blessedly quick end to all those vague anxieties about the cost of living, the ozone layer and whether mobile phones damage the few surviving brain cells you do have...
Anyway- to continue from last week-
Endangered Fauna- High on the endangered list is Picky, a local canine citizen I met about a decade back. Among other unspeakable eccentricities, he has a compulsion to mark territory, i.e. pee, on piles of coconuts laid for sale at the local Pola. This would make even the gentlest of meditation-practicing buddhist grandmothers understandably miffed but we are talking about hairy, tattooed underworld beefcakes, so I really don’t know how he has survived this long. True to local tradition, he sports deep manne scars of different levels of freshness on his skull and neck and is blind in one eye; I swear I have seen him chase smaller rivals into the paths of oncoming buses; at the same time, he is very gentle with children and kittens and just yesterday I found him walking around inside a neighborhood pediatric clinic , looking silly and unfocused.
Apart from bats ,kabarayas, visiting troops of grey langaurs, wading birds, water fowl, hoethamboowahs, bandicoots and mongooses, I am rumored to personally harbor a white cobra at the bottom of my backyard, but I have never heard of it harming anyone. If it does exist, it is welcome to stay there. If not, it would mean that the natives have smoked it out, doused it in kerosene and given it a fiery send off, something they do to hapless reptiles, centipedes, scorpions and anyone they suspect of having an alternate sexuality, on the days they don’t attend temple.
Youth activities Little Wellampitians (or Wellampettes as I like to call the precious darlings) are short, shiny and very cute but have sturdy constitutions since their mums went through pregnancy dodging batons, brickbats and bullets and fortifying themselves on exhumed moonshine, instead of regular stuff like Anmum or Preglac: they have fine tuned survival to a happy art, spend the afternoons playing Catapult-The-Town-Idiot, setting fire to the tail tufts of wondering cows and cheerfully riding their tricycles around dodging (and occasionally under) the 40 foot Maersk container-trailers that head in from Orugodawaltta to Peliyagoda.
Garbage Disposal Is an issue here, which the local cattle sadly cannot handle all by themselves though they do try. Some of my neighbors have crossly demanded to know why I carry my garbage long distances and dump it in the local Urban Council collection bins (which are overflowing and stinky) instead of, like them, putting it in my own land since I live on a comparatively large extent of land. I have had to point out that really, I don’t like them putting their garbage in my backyard, either, so will they please stop.
Deadlines
The road watching Wellampitian males are patient and take the security watch matter quite seriously staying up sometimes till about 1 am , doing pretty much nothing except discussing politics ,cracking lewd jokes, chewing things and occasionally hoisting their sarongs into strange arrangements the better to properly air themselves by. There is always a vague air of expectancy but what exactly they are waiting for I’m never really sure.
In conclusion-Wellampitians don’t pretend:if they think someone did something wrong, they tell him so, while ramming his skull rhythmically into a blokgal wall and making him chew on knuckle sandwich.
If they like a woman they appreciate her loudly and enthusiastically.
If they like you as a person you get to attend every festival they can afford to invite you to viz age comings, home comings (after honeymoons or after a stint in jail), funerals and the-after-funeral-but-before-the-anniversary party, you name it, you are welcome. They take Sri Lankan hospitality to new levels. And trust me, as with usual Sri Lankans, there is some darn good cooking at each of these (particularly the funerals ) .
For those of my friends who think this is an article aimed at policy makers,and the local Urban Council I honestly don’t mean it that way and personally wouldn’t suggest changing a thing, except perhaps the mosquito situation. The uncaged writer in me thrives on such excitement as neighborhood flood-outs, vigilante revenges and extreme exorcisms : this beats watching WWF on cable any day. I’m just sorry my article cant be larger, with a colour supplement. :-)
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
The author does not intend to offend anyone local by this lighthearted and affectionate account of her beloved hometown. (Well…Understandably, in the circumstances…)

Information Professionals Unite

Knowledge is power!

Our friend Chammika’s excellent Colombo Knowledge Centre unfortunately does not seem to pop up on search engines , whereas whatever we say on a blogs seems to . ...

So I thought I would do everyone a favour by refering to it here and store the link so you can just click for info. http://www.humanitarian-srilanka.org/CKC/index.php

The Forum on Right to Information or Civil Society Initiative on Information Sharing, whatever it gets to be called (we are still experimenting ) will also hopefully be hosted here under Consortium’s capable auspices…for info please bug Chammika…

Ps Im wondering if this is a chance for Information Professionals in Sri Lanka to pool resources and get cracking on some kind of Association with its own regulations, qualifications and CPD opportunities. ..

by popular request....The add that got me 79 calls a day...

…for three days till I had to switch that phone off, plus about 55 texts, mostly with awful spelling which turns me off, 35 insincere expressions of interest from already married dudes, 20 rude suggestions from teenage dudes, 7 really nice new friends , 3 freelance-job offers from advertising sector people and 2 genuine marriage proposals ….in spite of the fact that I had said “please text”.

Above numbers are approximate but certainly not exaggerated and I still occasionally get a call about this add, probably from someone who is reading an old paper wrapping his lunch or just before he cleans up some cat- poo…

In answer to your next question, Im still single and picky.

The concise “Lonely-Planet-like” guide to...

.....Wellampitiya.-part 1
Wellampitiya… rocks! No seriously, I’m not saying this because it happens to be my home town, and I want to help jack up the land prices by at least 10 rupees per square foot in the area-. Its just that I find it one of the most colorful, interesting, downright adventurous places to live in .And its not that I have lived here all my life, no: I do hazily recall comparatively civilized places like Nawala, Manchester and even exotic Nairobi and they honestly bore me, they are refined, predictable , really sane compared with this joint.

Getting there

Located in the suburbs just outside Colombo , beyond Dematagoda on the Kolonnawa Road, you can reach it by making use of that overcrowded very slow, roundabout bus numbered 140 which heads in from Colombo 3, or the 131 from Maharagama: I am constantly surprised to not hear yet that someone has been found suffocated to death in those buses, frozen clawing rigidly at the straps… I think they must be two of the poorest, smelliest most overcrowded buses in Colombo.
It is also a mere 15 minutes drive away from Colombo’s Town Hall – that’s a maximum of $ 3.50 in a Six-Eight-Eight Cab if you can actually convince them to go that way ( we face the same problem with Pizza Huts unfortunately- I cant think what the natives have subjected them to, they do not give reasons but those cute Pizza delivery chaps would rather run their bikes off Lovers Leap than agree to deliver anything to us although we are technically within their allowed mileage: Sad)

The Local Economy
A substantial number of average Wellampitiya blokes do not actually attend day jobs but send their womenfolk out instead. Since I have a day job I too am not really sure what it is the employed ones do but I’m guessing its very macho and involves a lot of noise. Welding, masonry, truck driving – that sort of thing. And of course its more or less a homeland of tuk tuk drivers, those hairy, honest epitomes of lower middle class moral rectitude. Even the comparatively more effeminate Wellampitia bloke who ends up in the local Chinese food outlet, makes a lot of ruckus about it , chopping kottu roti as if it’s the necks (or worse) of rival gang members and actually manually assaulting the stir fried veggies which lends it that wonderful so called “umami” flavour.

Local Hobbies
Most male Wellampitians have excellent roofing in their homes but spend their lives on the road. The crack of dawn finds these ernest over-zealous early birds walking up and down the main road in banians and gym shorts , brushing their teeth, drinking kola kanda and waiting for the morning newspaper(no doubt for updates on the latest local throat slitting incident ).

Safety : D

usk finds numbers of male Wellampitians squatting in little huddles by the road side, chatting , slapping each other on the back, drinking from strange murky bottles and generally taking their civic duty seriously by monitoring all traffic, particularly the younger female citizens who happen to be returning from a days work. Ok I admit this is what most Sri Lankan’s and indeed most human male creatures in general prefer to do anyway given half the chance but Wellampitians take this very seriously- more as a job than a hobby. The result is, its actually very safe for local women to walk the streets at almost any time of the day or night. Women spend the evenings in temples or walking up and down between houses swapping dishes and retrieving children who have got slightly dispersed during the day(See “Youth Activities)

Organised Crime (we’re talking really organized)
But it’s a different story if you are a stranger in Wellampitiya. The silent looks of calculating concentration from the locals and the decidedly hostile snarling of about 15 under-sized, blotchy but vicious looking stray dogs per average road will send any but the most determined intruder back where they came from within a few minutes at most.
I am personally convinced that thieves, rapists and criminal elements do not stand even a remote chance here unless they have actually agreed through prior bookings with the locals on whom to rob/plunder/molest and to what extent, etc.[1]
I also suspect aspiring criminals from other towns are sent here for final year training and if they ever do get out alive it means they are ready to graduate. Most of these resultant “honors” students leave minus superfluous appendages like noses, thumbs and the occasional eyeball but then those are the subject of good drinking stories later on (plus you get landed with short pithy names like Potta Nihal or Sedawatte Sudo). A very good friend of mine, an ex-Wellampitian who has subsequently moved to Nugegoda and reformed[2] recounted to me that after being attacked by half a dozen knife welding rivals, he regained consciousness in a ditch on the “Bundt” at 3 am with his scalp partitioned into three distinct flaps, and thought to himself- “this cant be my bedroom”

Next week: Youth Activities, Endangered Fauna, and garbage disposal in Wellampitiya

[1] Rather like in the fabled city of Ankh Morpork- check the Wikipedia entry.
[2] Honest!

also available at http://www.dailymirror.lk/sections/supp/w@w/211106/03.asp

(illustration property of Daily Mirror )

Nokia Photography

Something I did using my cheap Nokia 3220 , captured not in a desolate savannah outback but on the Orugudawatte-Wellampitiya route on a blazing island afternoon.Subsequently run through a Photoshop Watercolur Filter. Enjoy.

Why we call Ginger Nuts, Mantal

Mahisha has asked me why we call one of our cats "Mantal"...I thought Id reply here-

Mantal has slight problems - I dont know exactly what its called.He takes time to notice things. For example he may be hungry but he doesnt realise that actually eating some food will solve it. SO he runs around sadly sniffing the air. He also dosnt know that sitting behind the tyre of a reversing car will result in getting his head flattened, so we have to keep rescuing him from our car. He does not know what fire is and sometimes sniffs the gas ring and loses all his whiskers in one go. Needless to say we dont let him go out onto the road and in fact he has no interest in going out. As for mating season, the poor dear doesnt know which side of a female cat he should approach if its actually worthwhile so he doesnt bother. He is a cat in a million and very sweet, but I know he will come to a sticky end someday.

One day soon I shall tell you about Mantal and the resident guarandiar...

TNA parliamentarian N. Raviraj shot dead.

...this morning. Check the news: -in theory you should be able to find live radio streaming here:
http://www.surfmusic.de/country/sri+lanka.html

feeling suicidal ?

if you are a wabbit this should just about push you over the brink....

http://alisher.city.tomsk.net/shared/bunnies/

and Im sorry Im doing this- I know I shouldnt I just cannot resist it.
please someone buy that book, its worth it ,trust me.

another fantastic photo

I totally love these cartoons. This person doesnt know me but is getting me spot on! Wonderful style. Yes, for those of my friends who need something substantial and real to hang on to - my rain story is in wow, (with a few adjustments in the tense ) and thats a wow feeling for me :-) heres the photo of yours truely with the five cats.
http://www.dailymirror.lk/sections/supp/w@w/071106/03.asp
speaking of which, why do so many Sri lAnkans hate the poor things? I love cats- I think they are walking feng shui,the majority of people I meet actually shudder at the idea. Why ? I mean what have they ever done to you ? Being afraid of dogs I understand (altho I love them too) - they are clumsy, smelly and bite you suddenly and absentmindedly in spots you dont want to show the local GP. But cats? why do some people REALLy hate cats? They are clean, quiet* and smell lovely when they come in from sunning themsleves. Is it because they look as if they know something we dont ?for example - how to really really relax and take life easy?

* except for Pitchy (aka Boogie Nuts) Blak ,who must compulsively rear-squirt my rice sack. Marking territory I think the scientific explaination is, but then at our place no one really disputes his ownership of the general area. Not Mantal anyway(the only other male feline around,the one living life at a tilt)

medical reports are in again..

well I dont normally do the cheap trick of copying funny stuff off other websites and pasting here- but for just once I will make an exception possibly because these were so priceless, I dont want to ever lose them (plus I must rememeber never to have myself autopsied without my explicit verbal consent...) (the brackets are mine..)



She stated that she had been constipated for most of her life until 1989 when she got a divorce. (I actually personally relate to that one)
The patient was in his usual state of good health until his airplane ran out of gas and crashed (must check on that black box!)
Rectal exam revealed a normal size thyroid. (Long fingers?)
Between you and me, we ought to be able to get this lady pregnant. (gulp)
A midsystolic ejaculation murmur heard over the mitral area. (scientific but it sounds pleasent whatever it is)
The patient lives at home with his mother, father, and pet turtle, who is presently enrolled in day care three times a week. (lugubrious-probebly because it takes the turtle two days to travel)
Both breasts are equal and reactive to light and accommodation.
She is numb from her toes down.
Exam of genitalia was completely negative except for the right foot.
The patient was to have a bowel resection. However, he took a job as stockbroker instead. (what with the prices at Apollo and all I quite understand-)
When she fainted, her eyes rolled around the room. (is that what you call an Out of Body Experiance?)
Examination reveals a well-developed male lying in bed with his family in no distress. (who did this exam, did he pass?)
She has no rigors or chills but her husband says she was very hot in bed last night. (wonderful, appriciative men like this are hard to find)
She can't get pregnant with her husband, so I will work her up. (gulp , again)
Whilst in Casualty she was examined, X-rated and sent home. ( oh, the disappointment! )
On the second day the knee was better and on the third day it had completely disappeared. ( I often wish mine would too-it would be another decidedly bloggable incident)
The patient has been depressed ever since she began seeing me in 1983. (Im guessing this lady isnt insured.)
I will be happy to go into her GI system, she seems ready and anxious. (these people must be Chinese)
Patient was released to outpatient department without dressing. (no comment)
I have suggested that he loosen his pants before standing, and then, when he stands with the help of his wife, they should fall to the floor. (Im at a total loss for words here- think I shall stop now and let you enjoy the remaining reports...)
The patient is tearful and crying constantly. She also appears to be depressed.
Discharge status: Alive but without permission. (I couldnt resist comenting - I know the feeling...)
The patient will need disposition, and therefore we will get Dr. Blank to dispose of him.(thats got to be Dr Who's nasty psychotic cousin)
Healthy-appearing, decrepit 69 year old male, mentally alert but forgetful.
The patient has no past history of suicides.
The patient expired on the floor uneventfully. (How LUCKY can you get? )
Patient has left his white blood cells at another hospital.
Patient was becoming more demented with urinary frequency. (who wouldnt,poor sod)
The patient's past medical history has been remarkably insignificant with only a 40 pound weight gain in the past three days. (jeeze!)
She slipped on the ice and apparently her legs went in separate directions in early December. (ouch!)
The patient experienced sudden onset of severe shortness of breath with a picture of acute pulmonary oedema at home while having sex which gradually deteriorated in the emergency room.
Patient has chest pains if she lies on her left side for over a year.
By the time he was admitted, his rapid heart had stopped, and he was feeling much better.
The patient is a 79-year-old widow who no longer lives with her husband. (phew!)
The patient refused an autopsy. (Remind me,I must put this on my "to do" list)
Many years ago the patient had frostbite of the right shoe.
The bugs that grew out of her urine were cultured in the Casualty and are not available. I will find them.
The patient left the hospital feeling much better except for her original complaints,....


http://www.thedoctorslounge.net/humour/bloopers.htm

Gallantry getting kicked in the guts...

Sad to say in this day and age of equal rights, women who want special treatment are becoming just as selfish as men sometimes worse. You hear a lot of cribbing about selfish guys but occasionally when a guy tries to be decent he is trodden down anyway. Today in the 140 bus about 3 rows ahead of me there was this school kid maybe about 16 yo who had his hand in a plaster. A heavily built young mother with a six yo kid came down the aisle and the boy gave up his seat for her and the kid, in spite of the fact that his hand was bandaged and he was obviously wincing holding his school bag no one offered him a seat (mostly women and school kids nearby) and the woman he gave the seat to ignored the fact that he had a massive school bag to hang on to, and took the set as if it was her God given right . I was 3 rows back squished into the corner of the bus so it would have been rather conspicuous me interfereing but when I nudged the person in front to take his heavy school bag, she actually took it off him and sent it back to where I was! Really thoughtful! Then the person sitting near the mother-and-kid stood up and left and instead of the mother giving the seat to the poor kid with the broken hand, she simply took her chubby little kid off her lap and placed it there. This mind you in a bus stuffed to choking with people and hardly breathing room.
And most of the time I think that I’m a gernally slow unobservant dufus, but the fact is that our average sri lankan woman on the road will quite easily only spot the things they WANT to see , for example illicit affairs 5 rows away , how many bed bugs live next door etc but not a person with a broken hand right near your seat: no one at all seemed to want to notice …kind of typical.

Oops I did it again, again…

Let’s talk about public bloopers… Total, hair raising, absolute, community-witnessed embarrassment. We all have those nightmares don’t we of being well and truly and totally mortified in front of a crowd. (And kindly leave Janet Jackson out of this – she did it on purpose as you all know)
Well, dear gentle readers, ever since I can remember my nightmares normally come true…
Perhaps it was the encaged extrovert exhibitionist hiding in me: I remember trying to sing when I was about 12, the song was the Carpenters’ one which begins “Such a feelings coming over me…” Well, I was just into the first line when my voice choked up and refused to work – in front of a class of 40 7th graders and the resulting silence was astounding, but nothing compared to the following sniggers and snorts- children, precious darlings, are very honest and open about their unfeeling and un empathetic opinions about other children– so that was effectively the cruel abrupt end to my career in song.

Unfortunately for you, dear friends, I bounced back. Resilience is another characteristic of 12 year olds. But years of undaunted, shameless, liberated exhibitionism later I continue to get myself into potentially humiliating situations which would crush a lesser mortal and freeze her in sheer paralytic agonies of discomfiture. Imagine falling off your motorbike in front of Nalanda collage(at school opening time). …been there, done that. Imagine accidentally scratching the paint off your best office buddy’s brand new Primera, and then being stupidly honest enough to owe up to it … Imagine gesticulating absentmindedly sideways at a totally blank whiteboard while lecturing to first year Econ students. They start blinking lugubriously like in Southpark, slowly and seriously. Almost as bad as being ragged into shouting out the name and description of your favorite Family Planning device in the middle of a crowded Colombo pharmacy?(“no, no please not the one with studs-the plain one-!) and imagine if you will, organizing a surprise office staff birthday party and forgetting to drag in the person whose birthday it is…ouch, now that’s got to make you wince, for years …Can people DO this, you wonder? Relax, folks-and remember to keep Al as a benchmark, set against which any of you normal folks can Feel Good about your selves and say –“Well, at least I haven’t XYZ. .like al did in 1996…”
How can she keep doing it, surviving the sheer mortification time after time, you wonder?
It’s the bigger picture, you see. The average human attention span being approximately 3 seconds, and what with larger issues such as the ozone layer, Ruwandan genocide and whether mobile phones make you impotent, being higher on peoples’ worry lists, the truth of the matter is that it’s really difficult to make a lasting impression on anyone anyway. Ie: no one actually gives a flying f***.
To be honest, in spite of the fact that the human population is swarming, people have never been lonelier or more self centered than the present age! We are all over the place and yet people are constantly dying alone, frozen solid in front of their televisions with a boring supermarket dinners on their laps! So if you are as embroiled in today’s rat race as you claim to be, the chances are that whatever foot in mouth situation made me wince yesterday will be generally forgotten by next Friday and definitely out of public recollection by this time next month- so I take heart!
And if it isn’t, well, look on the bright side: I actually scored and will be the filler subject during those awkward pauses in pre dinner conversations when a circle of drunken people are groping desperately for something to talk and choke about!
Now that’s what you call win-win. ..

Rain,Rain...

Its here again: that time of the year when you wish you were anywhere else but damp, sticky, moldy smelling Sri Lanka. Its monsoon time- or to use less exotic terminology “drippy, grey, rainy days are here again”

My cats are frozen into catatonic lumps- you see them lurking like watchful gargoyles, on sideboards, in the ceiling ornaments, on cupboards, too cold to shake a limb but occasionally blinking balefully at the podgy geckos they are too lazy to catch.
The half Persian has swollen to twice her size because she is cold and her bristles are sticking out, and taken to answering the calls of nature indoors, ie, in the kitchen sink.

And the Ally living room is permanently damp and dotted with empty plastic Cargills ice cream tubs strategically positioned to catch stubborn leaks. Friends are compelled to fend off the damp feline advances of kittens who are trying to poach body heat from them, and have to sit across from me on the couch and make themselves heard through the gentle tymphany of heavy tropical droplets of water landing on plastic. To the optimistic feng shui enthusiast, this may have its special charm but I personally hate the whole idea. Leave aside the limp underwear and tea cloths with things growing on them, rugs so damp that you have to actually fight them to get your shoes back, reeking feline foot prints patterning across the tiles in livid muddy shades- there is the Smell: take old army boots , a second hand chicken coop , manky towels, a lot of rotting wood and a generous dollop of pulsating tropical lichen (and this mind you is after the household dogs have been banned and cruelly locked out to fend for themselves!)- and you come somewhere close to this, keeping in mind that its not very strong, just a faint whiff, since we have got used to it anyway and if it were stronger we would have to root it out some how: no- the damp atmosphere does not smother – it just hangs about sheepishly.

But the smell does get to me – so once I land at home in the evenings I need to light two Ninja coils and 3 Dhoop sticks before I can even begin to think straight. –that’s after the trip home since I need a little time to “unwind” and recap that journey home-

..oh, did I forget to tell you how I actually get home? Well, I cant use the moped because my spectacles get foggy in the rain and don’t have wipers- so I have to travel in bus like all the other normal middle class peeps, which means squeezing in with about 85 other damp wheezy people who have just folded their dripping umbrellas and found a spot to stand in that’s not half an inch under water on the bus. Then we spend 45 minutes in the compulsory company of all kinds of droplet infections produced by the copious hacking and sneezing and occasional snorts from people who forgot their kerchiefs and are using their sleeves instead (or even perhaps your shawle if you doze off a minute-) …

Anyway having survived that theres the lovely tropical trek, home depending on how far you live from the bus halt. Wonderful Serendipity! Ten to fifteen minutes trudging cheerfully up those rustic, winding little side tracks that lead to home,if you think about it carefully :these puddles are SCAREY. Never mind the typhoid and gonorrhea that must lurk in them I personally have a horrible phobia ( due to watching too many horror flicks like Jaws , the Deep and Lake Placid) that if I put my foot in the wrong puddle I may not actually get it back!

And here at last is a problem that we cannot blame on the GOSL,LTTE , globalization or the IMF!So theres no point ranting about it on Kottu – unless Waruna* gets His own blog running and allows us to post comments and suggestions to him. So till then, happy sloshing,while I go off to microwave my undies.

*Balinese deity of Rain, Oceans (and thus tsunamis) and other water related issues..

At last! a Full lenght photo of Aljuhara!

At last, for all my new online friends who complained that my mugshot was too small and blurred (-and deceptively young looking-) heres the full lenght photograph, courtesy Daily Mirror. I honestly love this ! the artist has actually managed to visualise me perfectly right down to the mildly bemused head scratching ...:-)hee.hee.

http://www.dailymirror.lk/sections/supp/w@w/241006/03.asp

Sadism alive and well in Colombo

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has written to President Mahinda Rajapakse highlighting what the organization called the blatant mistreatment and violation of basic human rights of psychiatric patients in the mental health wards in Colombo and elsewhere in Sri Lanka. In the letter, the human rights watchdog highlights several such violations as follows:
The AHRC says that patients are systematically given shock treatment (Electro-convulsive Therapy -- ECT) as it is cheaper than giving them antipsychotic drugs. Whenever psychiatrists are asked what they want from overseas the response is "a new ECT machine". It is said that this treatment settles the patients for about 3-4 days and then they are back to being shocked.
Patients are beaten when perceived as unmanageable. Patients are also tied to their beds or wall hooks when seen as difficult to manage. Food that is given by visitors is taken away. Patients walk around with a 1/4 loaf of bread in their hands as their evening meal when the government provides adequate money for a better meal.
The AHRC also says that items given like sewing machines for occupational therapy are used by staff to run their own small businesses from the ward for instance patch work, quilt making. Meanwhile patients remain unoccupied, and their behaviour is not managed, and then they are subjected to inhuman restrictive practices.
Food that is provided by the family on a day out is taken away by staff. Any meat is confiscated and plain buns are given instead as the staff say that the meat will not agree with the patients. But observers have noticed that the meat is not thrown away but taken away by staff in bags.
Then, soap and basics provided to maintain hygiene are taken away by staff and pieces of inexpensive soap like Sunlight is provided instead which reacts badly with the skin of the patients giving rise to added problems. These things are actually happening within these wards and the information is reported by credible NGO staff, mental health professionals and support persons.
What is worse is these atrocities are happening to an extremely vulnerable section of the community who cannot advocate for themselves. All they can do is plead with their relatives to remove them from the wards. However they are not believed and considered delusional by their families. Also the families are afraid to remove them as they are not sure how to handle the patient at home.
What becomes clear from this information is that the psychiatrists, nurses and attendants are abusing these patients and obviously see this group as anything but human. On several occasions mental health organisations have taken up these issues but the results have been negative. What happens in the end is that the staff of such organisations are prevented from visiting the wards and hence are unable to monitor the situation or act as a deterrent against this behaviour.
As a result the organisations stopped pursuing legal action in order that they would be able to continue visiting the wards. However, sadly they believe that there is much that happens when they are not around.
The situation of the treatment of psychiatric patients needs to be urgently investigated and the practices that prevail at the moment need to be prevented immediately. The AHRC has thus urged that appropriate action be taken on this matter as an urgent priority.

http://www.dailymirror.lk/inside/justice/060826.asp

Dentists had it good those days too!

Thieves, secret excavations and long forgotton curses.....Now you know why the Middle East never ceases to fascinate me! Some things are so happening even though the story is 4000 years old.

SAQQARA, Egypt - The arrest of tomb robbers led archaeologists to the graves of three royal dentists, protected by a curse and hidden in the desert sands for thousands of years in the shadow of Egypt's most ancient pyramid, officials announced Sunday

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061023/ap_on_sc/egypt_new_tombs

hear Kitty!

FMM decries bombing of the Voice of Tigers (VOT)

The Free Media Movement (FMM) decries the bombing of radio station Voice of Tigers (VOT), the official radio station of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam ( LTTE). Fighter jets belonging to Sri Lankan Air Force bombed the station in Killinochchi, an LTTE held town in Northern Sri Lanka on 17th October 2006. The attack destroyed broadcasting towers of the station and injured two workers.

find the balance at http://www.freemediasrilanka.org/index.php?action=con_news_full&id=346&section=news


well..hello, this is the Voice of Tigers, we are talking about, and they have been banned in the pretty much the rest of the civilised world (not just had their broadcasting licenses revoked! )although the GOSL has not yet come around to noticing this .but-
how cruel is bombing Tigers! - surely there are more civilised ways of making them conform.... Revoke their permits!Tax their stamps ! FINE them! or something-