Mud Ghecko

Floats, displays, Buckets, lanterns, “pandols,” flags, posters, cutouts, banners and swathes of bulb vines were festooned in a bewildering, dizzying display of colour, this Vesak in Colombo. Loudspeakers were placed every few hundred yard, food outlets feeding not necessarily the hungry with offerings in little polythene bags, Halloween masks, music and disco lights expending copious amounts of electricity, polythene and plastic reminded any absentminded Buddhist who was unaware of it that we should be forcefully and effectively, and merrily and COMPULSORILY celebrating the birth of the Buddha. The UN has declared it a world wide national day, so we had kind of won in making other less civilized nations recognize us. No half hearted, quiet displays of contemplation were allowed, each home, each street each institution, competed raucously to put more orange and yellow polythene and more electricity out in the name of the Buddha. Apart from the sheer tonnage of colored polythene and ...

When you flush do you know how the soap and detergent goes into your land? What did people do before soap? Have you thought about how your day to day life affects the world? And can you just imagine how the invisible waves around us, the so called SIGNALs must be affecting our heads? Will the whole of humanity find out too late that the results of the greatest biological experiment of all time – is quite ugly ? who can tell? These are the interesting things I discussed in a chance interview with a fellow called Niranjana Wicremesinha the mind behind the striking, award winning CMEV NO TO VIOLENCE poster ("PRACHANDATWAYA EPA"), who heads his own Advertising gig called MEDIA PLAN. Niranjana seems an ordinary chap but in quite a few ways has extra ordinary thinking in that he dosnt think the way your “typical sri lankan” does and has a very questioning and creative mind capable of lateral thinking – very refreshing in the local atmosphere. You can contact him on mediaplansril...

This week I received a forwarded email of the craziest thing Ive seen in a long time, camera phone shots of a woman's legs taken secretly from under a table, which are supposed to belong to a pretty Airtel Employee, whose regular photo was also sent with her face circled. looking below in the list of people who had forwarded it there were womens names and the name of another Airtel Employee. well, being your regular unshockable broadminded lady writer, I admit I do get a lot of porn, tasteful and otherwise forwarded by various hyperactive friends..but this was a fellow Sri LAnkan, and the photos were taken clearly without her knowledge, and these were so pathetic, just photos taken under a table of a womans legs predictably yours truly lost no time in telling them what she thinks of them and is sure they wont even by mistake send her such emails again... but can you beleive it, the men justified it saying it was to correct her... heres one reply: I read your mail with mixed fee...

20 7 2009 : Rat emergency in ceiling – smell goes up they say 20.7.2009 Went to Trinco with team. DS fighting with AR in the backseat because she touched his hand. Saw CK, He is cute,like a hobbit. 22.7 2009 Asked David Blacker for a kitten. He said he had already given one away.XX corresponded by SMS and said the hotel I had recommended was lovely 22.7.2009 Mrs AS asked me to find her a job. Broker TF kept proposing to me 23. 7 2009 Got a kitten from a strange woman in kotikaawatta. Patchy happy 24.7 .2009 RS says “I don’t know what is happening to me” 25 7 2009 Mrs AS leaves home finally and tearfully 27 7 2009 ASIW fights about chair and dosnt talk to me all day. I found how not to take men seriously from now on. Have two and switch when overdone. 27.7 .2009 C akki went back to USA – I didn’t go to see her this time I feel terrible, 278.7.2009 DS gets interested in NR 31.7.2009 RS says “will you marry me?” unfortunately he is already married 2.8.2009 back in touch with Dancer Daya...

Life gave you to her. you grew inside a woman you were born tearing her apart, grew drinking her blood.. life gave her to you and night after night you found heaven through a woman and kept tearing at her flesh, but life fades, you will one day be old and weak and a woman will guide your clutching,frightened hand. did you ever stop to wonder if Death is a woman too,and she will lead you -gently-to your judgment?

December 7th Disaster, Tragedy, DOOM! I didn’t know my life would come to this. They put beautiful Patchy, of the long fluffy fur, the love of my life, that irreplaceable cougar of my dreams, into some kind of large LUNCH BOX with slats and put cellotape around it and then carried her off in a three wheel! I couldn’t believe it and I didn’t really notice her and then I turned around and she was gone… I spent some time hoodling and howling through the dining room window making the Family uneasy and they shouted at me to shut up, and stop worrying that she would be back. Yeah so they say. They had better be correct. 10.00 am So Im waiting. 1.00pm Its lunchtime .No sign of Patchy. 2.00pm Could not bear the suspense and did some more sniveling and youwling at the dinning room window. No one seemed bothered. No Patchy and No Mistress Ally.What do you think they would have done to my poor darling? And mind you Pitchoo was not at all concerned and had his lunch as usual, if only Patchy knew ...

Whats wrong with this photo, you may wonder? its one of those quick sudden camera phone things and you see a dad with three, repeat THREE helmet-less children, helmetless, racing to school or work... and if you look closely, the feet of the child in front are above the crashbar a couple of inches from those hefty 60mph tyres. True it takes a few months and a bit of bribery and corruption not to mention some "rustifying" at the RMV to get a bike license...but the funny thing is that to procreate and produce confused and innocent life is still a choice available to anyone whos gonads are functioning without any social censure. and in Sri Lanka oddly you can take these life forms around without minimal precaution, on an obviously dangerously overloaded death trap,in rush hour traffic, without even bothering to check where their feet are. But, Im sure if interviewed the gentleman has a perfectly valid and innocent explanation for this. I think as usual its women who will have to...

November 30th Such a shock . Suddenly the hewmies have gone away. I think that perhaps our world is over. I don’t know what to do . I don’t know what I have done. One day they were here the next day they were gone! In that metal chariot, you know. Marmar has given up on us. I couldn’t even eat today . Well, mostly because the food was horrible with the boring harlmassas boiled by the kusssi woman. She never really liked us. But for some reason she came over and gave us all food. That’s all. The house is silent and cold and there are no lights. This is very very scarey. December 1st Today also. There is no one! I think the world has ended. Except for the kusi woman. Suddenly I want to throw myself keening at her feet. What if she too forgets us. What are we going to do. We might have to live on rats again. Why did they go? What did we do that they left us here like this ? Where could they be; its very selfish and heartless what they are doing… December 2nd Third day without the hewmies....

November 24th The week started funny with some news from Rathmalana. The family daughter called in some hysteria to say that Hish , the teenage cublette had taken out some of his earwax and offered it to the dum kitten (named peach) they have there and what’s worse, the latter has happily eaten it. There was some serious apprehension there as to what could be the consequences of such an act. I personally wonder about the motivation. November 27th I swear Patchi’s knows English, that Mother Tongue of the Queen: this evening we were sitting quietly in the living room pretending we were furniture. But Patchy, who thinks she is special and royalty, just because she has a hairy tail, was making a bit of nuisance of her self in the kitchen. Then grandmommy who normally starts screaming slightly when cats come too near her, suddenly said “ someone put that Filthy Fellow out !” which was not only a mistake regarding gender and species ( “fellow”)but inaccurate regarding status (Patchy is not...

PATCHYS VOCALISATIONS TRANSLATED “MRRRP” that’s a positive rendition roughly translated as “You bet!” (in reply for example to a question like “how about some feesh Patchy?) or “Of course” or “YES!!’ “fHAAK” negative audio response usually accompanied by laid back ears and twitching whiskers .Lit: “Back off!” or “ It wasn’t me!” or “Crikey it’s a DAWWWg” “MRROAWUU” quite negative in for example situations like being locked in the broom closet by mistake. This is a reflex expression caused by the presence of the hedious apparitions of souls of numerous rodents which she had bullied to death in her youth when she actually had had the energy to play with her food. “PRRRRHH” very positive , last heard in 1998 before any of the stray cats were taken into the house. Usually accompanied by kneading motions and an ecstatic simple minded drooly expression like that hyena in Lion King which chews its own ankles

Looking for a kind home –Patches and Hyena These two sorry specimens were discovered in (a dustbin of course in) Mirihana .Please give them a kind home and save them from the impending monsoon if you can. We will sort the preliminaries. –contact pusheekat@gmail.com, or write to this blog

October 20th Patchy decided to surprise us all for once and catch a rat. I somehow don’t think it is because she is guilty about the financial burden she is causing Marmar. Im also convinced she did not plan it with the Forethought and Predatory Cunning Coming From Millions of years of Selective Evolution as they say on Discovery Channel. I think the real situation would have been that the rat was drunk and tripped over her front paws by mistake and got tangled in that little curved thumb claw, then Patchy panicked and tried to shake it off and get rid of it and in so shaking, it banged its noggin on the rafters and passed out on the spot. …subsequently lacking anything in the way of CPR it would probably have died of repercussions as they say on Cable TV…. Sigh… The sum and total of this of course is that it started doing what dead rats do rather well in a tropical heat ie smelling delicately more and more interesting in stages… I was monitoring this of course. We cats cant see colour...

this is the postcard I designed for CVT , after going through a large selection of their photos; CVT wanted none of the old stereotypes of pain and horror, but rather a vision of forgiveness and hope. Her face has that timeless serenity.

Name: Chandrika aka Pushy aka Aljuhara etc Sex: Female, but I don’t accept any of the weaknesses attributed to the state. Age: 38 looks a bit older, but feels a lot younger due to having lived life back to front. Civil Status : Divorced in December 2004 after 4 years separated mother of two a lovely and cheeky daughter aged 17 who is quite capable of taking care of herself , and a naughty but sweet son aged 12 who likes to cook. The kids however want to stay with me and my mother in law is still a good friend as are all my sisters in law, so they are very much a part of my life and always will be. Reason for divorce- obscure,but Im pretty sure I was the innocent party as boring as that sounds- I wish I wasnt ! Physical appearance: 5 ‘6’ 68 kg, 36-32-36. fair skinned, hirsute (you wont believe), frizzy hair(recently straightened fairly successfully but still wild) short sighted, a few teeth missing but so far all toes intact. Podgy nose. Excellent behind, I’m told.Have decided to exper...

I love camera phones –occasionally if you can be quick on the draw and your batteries hold out you CAN get some good shots. Like these two buses careering along at about 40 mph around a three way roundabout one OVERTAKING the other at breakneck speed IN FRONT OF the wellampitiya police station…on a busy evening, around 5.15pm at a crowded junction …today 4th of June 2009 With danger and excitement like that , don’t let it ever be said that Wellampitiya is boring..

February 21st Last night things were rather strange. The “KARANT”* went according to what my Hewmies were saying. I don’t know what kind of thing this is and where it went but it made them behave in a strange way. My Hewmie could not do his usual cooking. He banged his shin on the coffee table and hopped about. He finally set fire to a small wax pipe and walked about with it while making us dinner. I think this Karant is important to hewmans otherwise they are uncoordinated like toddlers. Come to think of it they are quite silly vulnerable bipeds although they think they are boss on this planet. ** Without their technology they are practically blind, hairless and they cant even smell a rat. I hate to admit it here but if they didn’t have fire sticks and clothes and were a little smaller than we are we would be eating them by the dozen, just by reflex and apologizing later. They do look so helpless. But I admit some of them are kind. February 27th I remember when I was a kit, and long...

February 21st Last week Koookie developed some rather disturbing holes in her skin and spent a lot of time itching and licking. Kookie is one of my Hewmies resident mutts. They had to take her to the local petinerary sergen. Mistress Hacketty used a large polythene bag they found wrapping the new fridge and then she kept it in a cupboard for this purpose in future. This whole polythene problem makes me mad. Hewmans have made a horrible slimey material which makes a horrible high pitched noise like siri siri -, which they throw around everywhere which stays pasted to the ground and trees and things and never goes. Man, you cant even shift the sand a bit to take a dump, theres this clingy stubborn stuff wrapping clumps of sand!!. I hear they say it is so bad for the earth we live in. I really wont be affected much since the most I will live is fifteen years , but don’t they care about their own cublets ? these hewmans say they love their offspring. They are constantly having babies one ...

March 1st I remember reading a joke somewhere about how to give a pill to a cat. It said something about 17 steps which always ended in the pill being lost and the administrator being hospitalized, which was not only funny but quite typical. Cats are tough creatures which is why they have survived for thousands of years among humans and in spite of being quite tiny in comparison to almost anything around, except perhaps rats. And these tough cats don’t ever accept that they need medication but they occasionally do. Our Mistress Hacketty I saw recently has found a solution to this. She merely grinds what ever pill it is and mixes it with bees honey and rubs it on Patchy’s pelt. This is gruesome to even watch. Patchy being the clean and self respecting feline she is, cannot so much as sleep until she has licked off the resulting mess and this takes a lot of determination and the occasional grimace of disgust which is hilarious to watch. But at the end of the day the poor cat is clean and...

Sexually active school kids shatter myths on cultural taboos A survey conducted by the Health Ministry placed the average age of sexual debut for males at 15.3 for males and for females at 14.4. * Beating even the French, survey shows Sri Lankans are sexually active from early teens * Need for proper sex education in schools * 2 abortions for every 3 babies born“These are shocking figures in a country that thinks that traditions and culture will not allow for such activities till a later age,” Consultant Psychosexual Specialist Dr. Kapila Ranasinghe said at a workshop organised at the Family Planning Association last week. “Developed countries such as France have an average age of 17.5 and 17.2 for men and women respectively. This is because they have a proper sex education system which educates the youth to be more cautious and less curious,” he continued adding that the sex education included in the local syllabus is inadequate and does not comprehensively inform students on sexual t...

this is something to do with my journalism class where they said you need a title which inspires reader curiosity. well if you were curious please check out the below photo (and Im no relation to these people so if you decide to rent from them you should really pay me a commis) Im thinking what must those poor cars feel like ....