THE SMILE

Love. Pain. Life.Hope- sometimes you need a bit of encouragement to go on.

When I return to Ceylon, no matter how old I get there is one place I must see.

And no it is not an endangered archaeological site or a famous land mark, since they are around and will be taken care of by the authorities and I do not need to check on them. But from time to time I visit an ordinary temple in a modern suburb, the sort of place you don't need to write home about, peaceful incense tinged, floor tiled sort of edifice with multitudes of Araliya trees and Jasmine bushes and the usual stray cats and dogs wondering contentedly around, where stands a particular stone door guard who captured my heart a long time ago..

I come to see a statue, a oversized cream coloured sentinel who guards the temple doors fixed eternally in standard pose, dressed in fifth century Indian ornaments , with his long hair tied up in ancient head gear. He has sightless eyes which look nevertheless deep into your thoughts and seem to take a hold of your fear and take it gently away for you.

And a smile I cannot begin to describe

And this sentinel awaits eternity with this smile which is at once tender, strong, comforting, and warm to me, a smile that left my burden of pain at that threshold when I passed through, and promised me hope in the future not too distant.

Temple sentinels are installed to take the duty of keeping evil from entering. This one somehow seemed to understand my torment as I sat on the stone steps crying at dusk. This one seemed to listen to my thoughts. There was no one else for me, but an eight foot block of concrete I presume, sanded smoothly to a beneficent radiance by drunken local masons, smiling sightlessly in the moonlight, at the woman in white who called over daily to sob away her pain.

Pain is a part of a human being, and I have since accepted that. There were days when I was young and innocent when I felt I could barely handle it.

Women have always been granted larger capacities for pain, and often bequeathed with more suffering because of their womanhood.

For a woman pure at heart and in body the accusation from her lover that she was unfaithful is sometimes the worst pain that can ever be imagined.

Blows, beatings and torture cannot come close to the trauma of one careless unfounded accusation of infidelity to a traditional Asian woman who has been moulded all her young life to being a dutiful, loyal and obedient partner to the person she considers her lord and master.

My husband, the man I loved and honoured next to my father, the man chosen by my father to look after me since I turned nineteen, the man I trusted, adored worshipped and placed on a pedestal as more precious than the deities I prayed to- turned into a monster within a few months, a stranger who abused, battered and finally spoke the words I could not bear to listen to. And there was no one to vouch for me, no one who could listen to me, without judging me, I sometimes felt –no one but the cold sentinel with the kind smile.

Sometimes I would sit far across the sand, watching that statue.

Sometimes when I sat crying alone, maybe in the kitchen maybe in the bathroom, where no one could find me, sometimes as I contemplated even ending it all, I would see that smile and feel the warmth.

On bright days I would imagine what it would be like to be the consort of that handsome, smiling guardian, on dark days I would wonder if there was a soul trapped in that stone perhaps by sorcery, as I could not be that smile was inanimate…

Well, time went by and I did not fade away , I made it through that dark spell, lost my naïveté and left the man who made me cry.

I have since left the land, found freedom, found contentment and helped many other women in their times of sorrow. Often it amazes me at how they let the people they love hurt them to distraction in the name of love. Are we that desperate to be accepted and needed ? Is it that difficult to find a caring smile?

Now when I return to the stone sentinel I return his smile, not minding what watching people may be wondering.

Its a secret we share, and his smile was right, I would make it through

Harry meets Satty

I've known Harry for three years now. He is one of my closest confidantes and "advisory committee members", my " cheer-er up", and my honored partner in crime; we screen each others partners, SMS each other at unholy times of the night and we know so much about each other that should we fall out, blackmail would not be a feasible alternative - the worst stories would simply cancel each other out.

I also know what not many other people have a chance to know, that beneath that tough machang exterior is a very sensitive and caring human, someone who goes out of the way to help without any reason and without expecting anything in return. And occasionally gets exploited!

By strange co incidence, we are actually first cousins and for twenty five years, we didn't know about each other …

The internet is a really dangerous place, my girlfriends tell me with wide eyed conviction, all kinds of weirdoes live on the net ….well, seriously considering that I am quite well entrenched on the net and bring up about 300 hundred answers when you search for my pen name… I have to sadly agree.

However looking at it from a psychological angle the fact of the matter is probably that people on the net are certainly no more or no less weird than people in real life are - they just chose pseudonyms and feel safe behind the fact that you can't see their faces.

I also have to grudgingly admit they are much more honest, open and ready for quick bonding.

I mean, imagine going up to someone in the 140 and saying "A/S/L ?" ** you'd probably get kicked half way to Maradana - in the case of the net however, even the most fuddy duddy of serious collage professors or confirmed aunty types would probably pause politely and answer back just as cryptically but anyway it would be that all important human contact.

And then that again may be why, once you are used to friend seeking on the net , this becomes a habit and you find yourself giving out all your most classified information and confidence to some jobless and non-judgmental hippie in Quang Xhigong province and not your own mother -human evolution has progressed to such a selfish state that we want company but none of the bother. Having a human over for tea has never been easier, you don't need to dress, or brush your teeth, and to hell with the tea- but you can chat in total comfort providing your connection is ok. Typical, convenient modern instant relations for you.

It began one boring torpid Sunday afternoons I decided to search for my own actual surname on the World Wide Web. The results turned out rather a disappointment because there were only four references, two of which were in relation to my esteemed workplace, one was about my brother and the final one was about some stranger I had never heard of. Let's call him Harry as its close enough to his name…

That got me curious. There was someone out there on the net with my oddball surname, he had to be related or at least be pretty pleased to meet someone with the same tag! As luck would have it, he had left his number and email address on the web reference so I plucked up my courage, took a deep breath and dialed his number.

The conversation started something like-"I um, got your number off the net…and I was curious about your surname since I have the same name…. Would you happen to be related to me, do you know?"

The answer after a few moments of audible surprise was "I'm not sure…perhaps if you give me your details I could ask my dad and he may know …we probably are cousins"

I have, at the last count anyway, a total of thirty seven of the dear things, since my father came from an absurdly fertile down South stock who by the looks of it, believed in producing their own manpower for the paddy fields. Unfortunately for Sri Lanka, they did not become farmers, but most of them are lawyers, doctors, teachers, architects and software engineers, I found out later. Any day to day problem is usually solved from within this close network because there is inevitably a professional of the required qualification available. We have among our immediate family at least one high ranking police officer ***, two business magnates , an ayurveda doctor and three regular ones and two import-export experts who can be counted on to procure anything we need from foreign climes- very useful in the circumstances I can imagine.

Family weddings in Galle mean they have to choose a very large hotel and book the whole thing and it turns out like a national symposium. The ones with any brains have migrated to Australia, UK and the USA and are fondly referred to as D'iaspora, contributing significantly to Sri Lanka's brain drain, and this is just my immediate relations mind you. (The lazy ones like me prefer sitting under coconut trees and half-heartedly insulting whichever administration is in power)

As luck would have it my father has been the lone ranger in this family and distanced himself from them at a rather early stage due to various reasons - so I really have hardly met any of these people. By some quirk of fate they don't all have my surname, either.

So narrowing down exactly which cousin this was , turned out a bit of a trick. Harry was not sure who I was because I was going by a slightly changed name too. He went on to consult his father and informed me that he was " the one from Thanthrimale" which successfully narrowed it down. They had also figured me out. The last time I remember seeing this guy he was a chubby two-year-old in nappies, burping, hiccuping and generally making a lot of noise and I was a very mature serious nine or thereabouts. We had in the interim, attended various family funerals and weddings but I certainly hadn't noticed him among the crowds or bothered as to who he was. The next time I met him, after months of bullying him into agreeing to this, he was suddenly some thing like 6 foot 2 and looked ninety kilos, with long silky hair that I am jealous about, riding a red hot Apache. We went out to a nearby coffee shop and caught up on 25 years of not knowing each other -stories such as What Happened to Uncle Bongo, the Secret of the Haunted Loft, the Story of the Free Trip to NgoroNgoro etc…

From that day onwards we got along like a timber house on fire although we see each other only very rarely, preferring to add revenue to the local phone networks most of the time.

I've discovered my humongous family, he found a new friend.

The rest, of course, will be history.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

* Regret I won't be giving you my surname for obvious reasons

**Traditional cryptic net query meaning: "age, sex, location?"

*** Useful in the occasional instances when we face the real possibility of getting jailed.

The author would like to thank her cousin Harry for his continued good humor, counsel and free flowing critique.

You the man!

The story of my little clay water jar

About two month's back, in the course of duty I was instructed to visit Ampara.

I've seen many photographs of this dusty outback territory and these always seem to give the impression of stubborn survival amongst rather desperate odds and a desolate environment. I have sat and painted the barren landscapes and dusty ruins I saw in some photos and I really wanted to see those places for myself. Names like Ninthavur and Sainthamaruthu have, to my thinking, a wonderfully exotic ring to them, and I had practiced rolling them off my tongue while writing (admittedly arm chair based) progress reports from Colombo : I really wanted to experience the dust, heat and live action of awesome Ampara, first hand.First came the usual administrative hurdles of sanctioning a decent set of wheels, a cool laptop (with wireless mind you!), an old Canon digital camera, and last but not least a willing driver ** and then my hurdles of packing phone charger, biscuits, cotton clothes, extra cotton undies, and all the other luxuries that must accompany a fastidious Colombo lady on her way out to stark barren wilderness, as I thought I had also put a stop to any interference from my own relations into where I go, with the blunt reminder that traffic in Colombo is statistically more dangerous than anything that could happen to me in Kalmunaikudy.

So there ahead of me was a trip of about 7 or 8 hours (in a excellent vehicle I must admit, one of those large off road things with humongous antennas, in case we need to radio for help from Headquarters) with nothing much to do except gossip, which fortunately I'm very good at and it turned out my capable driver cum guide cum entertainer was quite good at it too.

He was a bright cheerful character of, I estimate, around his mid to late thirties, with an attractive smile and a very honest and inquisitive personality. About an hour into the trip he knew all about my family, my educational qualifications, my general philosophies in life and thanks to how much of a dedicated gossip I am, my marital status( viz happily divorced) . This is not information I give out easily because it sometimes brings out the worst in people - but here I was trusting this cheeky pint sized guy and leaving myself open to analysis and judgment and not really feeling too worried about this…I have no idea why.

There was something about this guy, a perpetual smile of tranquility and contentment that made me relax around him, something that I don't find in many of my acquaintances…a chippy cheerful bounce to his step and a jolly chuckle to his laugh that is not easy to find.

He had, he said, been married for a dozen years or thereabouts. He had two children a girl and a baby boy. The salary paid monthly was not enough for himself, the wife and two kids, so honestly financing life was difficult. But they had discussed things and agreed that he should not work too much overtime, because being with the family was more important.

"We have a law in our family - on Sundays we go out. We don't spend much, but bike to the park or to the beach and sit around eating ice cones and talking, all of us. I don't let anything interfere with that."

Not buddies, not work , not relations?

"Its our family time, its important." He nodded. "and I have a trick where I make money and keep us together too," he said carefully. "you see, all my income goes direct to the bank and can only be taken by me through the ATM and my wife keeps track of this,"

I asked for a further explanation on how that helped in the relationship.

"You see, then she knows what I'm up to. You see, I'm a normal Guy," he shrugged as though it was an incurable affliction he was referring to - " as such I can easily be tempted to get up to any kind of mischief just like any guy. We are just humans! But too much straying is not possible if my cash flow is monitored. And I welcome that kind of monitoring. It helps me keep to the path that I've decided to take, which is to be a good husband and a proper dad."

" So she controls your expenditure."

"I have insisted she do so. I appreciate it when she tries to economise for the sake of our family and I love it when she involves herself in the day I have spent. We were talking about this in the drivers mess, and the guys were laughing at me saying I was a real kandeya for allowing my wife to control my money…but I asked them if they thought they were the real cool, getting themselves sozzled with liquor and wasting money they could give their kids on dissolute women…."he chuckled. ".Well- .I don't think so,"

Neither, by gum did I ,to be honest.

"But come on, what's wrong with a little fun once in a way?" I asked him.

"Yes, once a week or so after a lot of hard work, I go out for a beer with the boys, and she knows about it and she just smiles and says 'enjoy yourself" "he smiled cheerfully.

I was honestly impressed. So here was a barely literate local chap from the village who had figured out what even double degree holders in the modern day and age didn't know: the meaning of family and how to make it work for you! I felt a small pang of regret too, that among all the educated, sophisticated johnnies I knew there didn't seem to be even one with this basic down to earth EQ that this guy had…!I needed to think and to play my Enigma CDs to really get out of that mood I was in, and this is how we traveled up to Kandy where we were supposed to have lunch and pick up another officer.

At this point , as is usual in life , the unexpected happened and we were radioed news that a bomb had gone off in a bus in Ampara and it just may be insecure to go in right then. We were advised very seriously to turn back the mission, and I remember we picked up my other colleague and went for a very mediocre lunch in a tiny road side kiosk, before turning back to Colombo.

This was a sizeable disappointment to me after all the planning I'd done. But that wasn't the end to the day's adventure. On the way back we just had to stop at one of those colorful roadside clay pot joints which sold vases, water pots, door chimes and all manner of lovely fired clay items. I had the idea that I might as well buy something to remember this trip with and I had always wanted a gurulettuwa *** so that's what I got, (after considerable haggling with the clay store owner who wanted to charge international rates based on the size of our off roader).

Our driver smiled sheepishly and bought a small clay vase which he said he knew his wife would like. It may have cost about 100 rupees, but then I knew that it would mean a lot to this lucky woman- it meant he had thought of her…

Well, alak and alas I never did get to see Ampara!

But the trip was certainly not a waste of time and will not fade from my memory easily: I had a laid back Sunday cruising our beautiful country and I spoke to a wonderful and cheerful character who somehow gave me back some faith in an institution I had totally given up on.- that of marriage!

And so while there are sunny types like that around, I guess we womenfolk still have hope!

* Her real name. Not to be confused with the powerful, serious lady of the same name, this one is a little younger and generally more giggly.

**Not all of them think the possibility of being caught in cross fire and shelling out there, is exciting and bloggable,- they have families to feed and so on

*** traditional clay water cooler.

Shores of another sea

The tsunami struck Matara at 9 23 on the morning of Sunday the 26th December 2004. I was in a small 30 seater inter-city bus on the coast, with my beloved father and a dear friend named Dieter. There were perhaps 3 minutes between us and a monstrous, 30 foot high, wall of destruction ploughing directly towards us at the speed of a runaway train.

This was the most terrifying moment I have ever faced and perhaps ever will. Thousands of metric tonnes of churning, raging, impersonal annihilation was coming straight for us. We were staring certain death in the face. I could not move.

Passengers in the bus had begun screaming in panic and grappling their way out. Human decency had given way to a sheer atavistic desperate race for survival. They had chosen, tragically for everyone of them, to outrun the wave.

I felt screams locking up my throat but somehow I was too weak to even let them form. I was simply paralyzed. I knew we had to run, but looking back at my father and then the wave, I simply couldn't move. I turned to Dieter, choking incoherently, feeling my breath twist in panic.

"No," he said, suddenly holding me by both shoulders, as if to shake me, but I knew it was simply to give me the strength I needed now. "Listen to me" he said. "Breathe!"

There was a moment where I thought I would lose consciousness but mercifully it passed. I looked into his steady blue eyes. They were very calm. "We may die anyway. "He said, turning to his mother tongue which he knew I would instinctively pay attention to, since he had taught this to me for so long. "We have to face this, my gazelle, so we must be strong. We will not run like wild goats but face this with dignity"

He released me suddenly and moved as quick as a dancer over to the doors, which he pulled shut firmly. Suddenly there was only one sound in the world. The engines had been gunned, the screaming had faded, there was only the roar of the wave, and it was coming closer.

Dieter reached me as quickly as he had gone and we sank into our seats again, in a strange little huddle, my father on one side, me in the middle with tears streaming down my face because no matter what Dieter said, no matter what happened to me, I could not bear to think of my beloved father dying this way- because no matter how brave I tried to be, this was that final moment I was going through and I was bewildered and unprepared.

And then the wave hit us.

The bus simply lifted off the ground. Dizzyingly, unbelievably it was being pushed along at a un definable speed, without any kind of resistance for uncountable yards inland. We braced ourselves…there was suddenly an obstacle of some kind and then there was a strange silence.

I knew we were now underwater, stuck against something. Little trickles of water pushed in at the seams of the windows. The curtains were still drawn and I did not want to look out.

Minutes passed and we cried our prayers quietly. In those moments, I faced sheer unbelievable terror: I also found out the meaning of true love: I felt the unbearable dread of losing my beloved father above all, and then Dieter took, from around his neck , his most precious talisman, a locket with the beautiful face of Mother Mary engraved in it , which he slipped into my hands, with a quiet prayer and a small smile , asking me to be strong for him.

The world had grown silent except for sinister gurgles of water trickling in through crevices of the vehicle. And yet we knew that there were strong currents pushing at it, and heavy bodies of matter passing close by. There could have been trees, debri from the destruction , whatever was pushed along by the current- in my minds eye I saw the bodies of my co passengers of late dragged helplessly along.

There was terrible brooding power in this silence.

And then, agonizingly, slowly, the water began to subside.

It would be over.

We had made it- strangely, unfairly we had been spared. We who were perhaps the most ready to die, had been allowed back to this earth. Because Dieter had not let us run, we would live to see another beautiful Sri Lankan day. I will never understand why.

The bus had lodged into a building, someones house, about a kilometer inland , which I heard was something that had happened to quite a few vehicles that day. But out of all passengers who entered that bus , we were the only ones that had survived.

The following hours were a dizzy haze I can barely recount. There were bodies everywhere, blank faces, mutilated people , the injured running vacantly around , and at some point I was carrying twin babies of about six months of age , whose bodies I had found in a car , and I was crying inconsolably. I cannot accept the fate that had led me to them, they were beautiful and as I recount this story the tears are beginning to flow again. I remember praying that some day these two lovely children would come back to me.

If ever I had children I wanted their souls to be reborn as my own children. They deserved to live, and to be happy and to play on the beach.

My people too miraculously, were safe, and Dieter remained in the country a few weeks more, the caring, gentle soul that he was, helping people wherever and however he could.

Continuing on the journey he began on the 26th of December, he subsequently left the country, left my life totally and he did not look back.

Something changed that day to all of us, and to Dieter, it was a flash of realization.

That there was a meaning in life and a meaning in death and that there had to be a way towards understanding both. This was something he had to search for. He had seen a higher calling, had laid eyes on the shores of another, darker more dangerous sea, one that we must all escape from someday

I understand this.

Time passed.

In time I met a wonderful and understanding man of my own race, who helped my heart to heal and my soul to sing. Just last month we were married, basking in the delighted smiles of our parents and all our relations.

The beach is clean and sunny again, life is good to me and the future looks promising.

But, I will not forget Dieter for as long as I live.

And now you understand why.

Shores of another Sea

June 4 2007

I will not forget Dieter, in many ways he made me who I am. . He was different, so different and although he touched my life only comparatively briefly, he made impressions that will never be lost. To say that I owe a lot of what I learnt in life to him, would not be enough. I owe him my life.

Christmas Day 2004. When I was at home by the beach ,in Matara, with my father and Dieter, they would be discussing philosophy as usual, and I would sit watching their faces at the dinner table , listening not to the words but to the comforting cadence of their tones.

Dieter was soon to leave our country, to go back to his own, to gracefully relinquish a dream that could have been, because we knew it should not. Dieter was leaving me tomorrow and we knew this.

We loved each other, we knew this, but we had never spoken about this. There would be too much upheaval caused in the lives of the people I loved. He did not want to cause this. Although I was his student in a language and in his way of thinking too, and I had learnt well about his culture and he about mine , there still would be obstacles too difficult to overcome when it came to the reactions of my people . He did not wish to cause problems to anyone, no matter how right it seemed to us. And I could not hurt my beloved parents.

Somehow the beach has always been therapy to me. It is where I go to cry, to sing, to think, to dance. On the 25th , it was where we went to spend a final evening together, and it was a beautiful evening that I will never forget. We walked that day, over wooden bridges to a place among the islets where an ancient and ruined Buddhist monastery stood surrounded by the waves. It was a place of ordaining monks - a place of peace among the crashing surf. A moment of nostalgia, of the end of an era and hope for a new one. We hung on to every minute of this last evening of ours , made it count because we knew it would be our last together, possibly for ever.

There is a church in the area , no less than a hundred years old, beautiful and white among the sand.

I knew that he would want to go to church, and he knew that the child in me wanted to play in the carnival. It was an ancient, creaking merry go round on the beach, but that was something Ive always wanted to do, playful and lighthearted as it sounds, and somehow I had to smile this last evening. And to make him smile

That night after dinner we decided that we would leave for Colombo in the morning.

I remember waking at about 7.30 preparing some tea for my father and our guest, and telling them it was better to leave as early as we could. My uncle who lived next door was walking about with some bananas that he had just cropped and agreed to drop us at the bus halt in his wonderful old Hilman. He would have gone to the market later in the morning but since he was taking us there, he finished his marketing early and returned home safe we heard.

It has always baffled me how very mundane decisions or distractions can mean the difference between life and death. Do people realise that the two minutes they lingered to kiss a loved one goodbye could mean the difference between catching or missing the train that takes you to your death? Just how much of our action is our own free will and how much of it is predestined?

I remember that bus, it was the everyday air conditioned inter-city Rosa bus you see racing along the Galle road routes. We had very little in the way of luggage and our bus began its trip at 8.35am . I settled back into the seat to read a little book of verses, the curtains were half shut against the lovely blazing sunlight of that Ceylon Morning, and I remember thinking how strangely relaxed I was feeling although I was heartbroken that I was losing him.

Eight minutes into this journey it began hazy and unreal like a nightmare that you cannot grasp.

People talking , then shouting , then keening in panic, and through the wind-screen in front the sight that met our disbelieving eyes was something simply out of this world. A part of the ocean seemed to have lifted itself vertically up towards the skies, like a great shimmering , judgmental wall of death and was racing in towards us . The breath struck in my throat and I could not speak.

End of part one.

Bright Sunshiny Girl 2007

Fifteen years ago, in this serene month of June, and for my birthday I suppose, I was blessed with a baby daughter. Red in the face, cherubic and complaining loudly in the harsh lights of the nursing home she had pushed me into, she was placed swaddled in flannel on to a table near me, and I stared at her in total panic.

I was supposed to feel maternal hormones coursing through me naturally guiding me on what to do next.* But, the heck I didn't ! - the father of all this stress was standing around cheerfully taking photos of me just emerging from labor looking like a drowning -victim which didn't really help at all…. Where do I start? I wondered, in shock.

At the best of times I'm clumsy around kids but this was my responsibility entirely, or so I felt, and I was honestly clueless. Sure, there were famous books written on this sort of thing but this was a person and she would have opinions some day and I was the one who would be held somehow responsible for them. How could you do this from books? Its not rocket science- just a lot of nail biting scarier!…arrrk.

Well, I had creativity on my side. Plus a lot of opinionated but helpful in laws. Well-intentioned outlaws joined, the whole pack of them seemed to know stuff that I didn't. Annoying to say the least!

First I took a small exercise book in which to chronologically enter all the serious and relevant developments in our lives. This I still have with me, and is full of entries like "Baby hasn't bogged for three days now. It may be the rusks" or "Baby only ate two bananas today" Deciding moments around which my entire life revolved in these years of being a serious mother.

Foot prints, which look like they belong to some small rhesus monkey… Teeth graphics with dates for when they fell out and then when they grudgingly re-appeared. ..A list of vaccinations each with a story behind the dates, of pain and misery (on my part of course since she can't remember being vaccinated but I can vividly feel the gritted teeth and the tears - mine- when her soft defence-less backside was being assaulted by mean nurses with long needles…)

Milestones are faithfully recorded here, like when she first smiled, first said mama, and ate her first flying ant, wings and all (kids here just have to do that, - this is Sri Lanka and there's a lot of interesting fauna crawling about with them, no matter how much you sweep; on white tiles I guess they look really delectable like mobile marzipan…)

My self-esteem began eventually to depend entirely on getting this strongly resisting little creature to eat, bag or burp at a generally acceptable frequency, and I honestly found this all a serious challenge.

She for her part seemed to be designed entirely to continuously thwart any plan I had at all, to make her eat properly of the correct food groups, defecate with the required frequency or say suitably nice acceptable things in front of our visitors.

So it became a recurrent battle between a life form 4 or 5 kilos in weight (which was very slowly and resistingly increasing) and one 5 foot 7 in height (which was rapidly aging) and of course the former kept winning….

Life went , from Montessori to school from Sunday school to tuition class, to extra stuff and back, growing , learning,crying laughing and dancing. Happy at the end of the day I do hope, as we have tried our best to make her so. Her sibling will be , we trust , a lifelong supporter , someone to fight and make up with, someone to defend and watch out for her, and she in her turn will continue to bring that sunshine that only a daughter can bring.

My, how she has grown and not just the height- suddenly there's a lovely individual personality, bright, caring ,sensitive and with a wonderful quiet sense of humor!

Amazingly, it seems, the little two foot long bundle that was sleeping on a small plastic square on our bed, is now taller than I am. …Which is good because she can get me that baby book from where I kept it on the cupboard and we can sit and giggle about what's written in it.
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Quotable quotes :

"Mummy - always wash your hands after you touch him"

(Baby N five years later, on being presented with a small, strange smelling sibling- applying the same theory used for stray kittens and pet rodents)

Mom , will the ants all come out printed ?

Thoughtful observation of a series of household black ants who were walking aimlessly around on copy paper we have just placed on the Print in tray

"You figured that out only today, is it?" Sounding calm after a bomb exploded near her school and I called her up, palpitating, to tell her Sri Lanka was a horrible dangerous country and we should get out if we can.
"Ma, what was that set of words again? I need to build up my vocabulary!"

After I had just mistakenly let rip a dubious string of rude words I had picked up from my more depraved office buddies

"Meka yakage aanduwak,neh ! Moong okkoma ekai! " Critically judging the entire male gender after misinterpreting Enrique's song which goes "I love to see you cry"

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………*lactate, or something uncomplicated like that.
** hell of a system, no! these jokers are all the same!
Message from the author (ie mom): I love you, my baby girl! Have a wonderful year and be blessed always!

My Reluctant House of Cats

Cats plague me. They greet me with loud vibrating purry meows when I get home, hunt me excitedly around the house tripping me up, when I'm desperately 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 but cat averse 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 perhaps is I love my kids and they love playing with kittens and bits of newspaper tied onto strings. I too 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 that these kittens I bring in mutate alarmingly within four to six months and for the next decade I am hounded (there's just no other word for it) by large, obnoxious feline predators calmly decimating my crockery and waving insouciant, in – your –face balls, or "cutlets" ,as they slope off on private after dinner cat business.

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 totally single in future: I have had to reject at least two and a half perfectly good marriage proposals (not easy to find for a chubby, middle aged, divorced broad in Colombo-) due to the fact that I knew or found out in the nick of time, that these otherwise excellently suitable and suave suitors hate cats and such a 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 is also called Tally's Pussy, after the lovely young lady who gifted her to me, but that is just too long a name to keep repeating). She will not lower herself to the level of common cats who use the reeking sand patch in our front yard. She uses our bathroom instead. I have Nokia videos of her peeing 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 I'm 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?

Call me paranoid, but I think they can communicate, like the raptors in Jurassic Park.

That none of them bother with recognizing man's superior intellect and power over all small and vulnerable creatures, is an old story. I honestly feel that this lot is actually conniving among themselves against me. I know that just like in the horror films, the last thing I will hear, when the salmon runs out and I am lying helplessly at the bottom of the stairs, will be a very apologetic, bug eyed feline telling me in Mewish**, not to take this personally but they have decided to finish me painlessly after all, and transfer my funds on line to someone who will ensure them a comfortable, fishy retirement…

In my heart there is space for all the cats who have owned me down the ages: I have taken the liberty of naming them and I'm sure they had good names for me too, such as Big Time Suckerette , Freaky Friday or Looney Tunes perhaps(latter because they are the only life form I will dare subject to renditions of my musical talent or conspicuous lack thereof).. I remember Kiichi Miyazawa (named after the then Japanese Minister of Finance) Meechu, Wooshu and Pheobus (from the Disney classics) Abeyratne (named after our rascally coconut plucker,who objected to it) & Chincha Maanika( lady in Buddhist mythology who got a block of wood dropped on her toes for saying dirty defamatory things-Chinchy for short) and currently: Curious, Serious, Pitchy (Black) and Ginger-Nuts, ostensibly named after a type of biscuit …at least that's what I tell the kids…and there are more where those names came from….

So why do I put up with them? Well…they are comforting, and they tell me how to relax, and scientists have proved that just watching a cat stretch out is a stress reliever. They are wonderful living feng shui as long as they don't defecate under my bed, or turn rabid.

My cats tell me that this rat race is not really as urgent as I imagine. They remind me that as long as there is cheap smelly fish in the freezer and a warm patch of sun or lap to sit in, Maslow can roll his set of wants and stuff them- they will be happy and snug as bugs in rugs and so could I be if I only realized this. Now that's a deep thought if any*.

*Of course, another more honest reason may be that unless the author trimmed their whiskers, put them in thick "gunny" bags and left these in the Wanni, they probably would track her back. But she's too much of a softie to do things like this, our Ally.

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

This is not a technical article - tekky 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 twenty pairs of 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'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 Miss 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 Mattilda 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.)

On the subject of plaits, 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? (is something the matter ?)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, mis" (n. n. nothing, ma'am) 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! ?

* Her real name
* 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.

Do comment to chandrika6@gmail.com

Next week: my first lesson and what can go wrong.

 

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, I'll 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. I've 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 lord Forsaken 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:)

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

2009

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 Im always trying to hang on to.

IN the meantime I got to thinking about so called "auspicious times" .Arnt we a society totally happy with leaving things to a nakath welawa? Isnt that why we love being absolutely depraved on 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 with geckoes apparently .Yes, you heard me. In Sri Lanka if one of these small sticky pallid house hold pests make a short room -to room call , we people 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. The idea that a country's respected national Newspapers would stoop to seriously setting out in black and white , suggested timings coughed up by local soothsayers guiding us on the correct planetary line up to (among other things) have the first bath of the year, rub grease on your head and set out for work etc.... never fails to amaze me. I continue to wonder on how a country so obsessed with timing things accurately to ensure prosperity and success remains so consistently dirt poor , although I have to admit , judging from the smiles, that 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 of Yama". Hence the local legend of poor Tikiri Liya who was molested by another semi domestic reptile-and there 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 as well as to day dream about the Prince Charming that must be out there somewhere making arrangements to carry her off...the ugly truth was only hinted at vaguely to me and involved a rather horny 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, during those nubile teenage years-), 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 is 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 admit 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 dark and 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 this 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 (rather like hookworm , I figured ) absorb whatever nutrition was rightfully yours and leave you to wither away and become skinny :a decidedly unfashionable demise in the last century.

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 it : all yours" does NOT make you lose weight...

As you probably noticed by now, the end result of thus being subjected to almost paralyzingly frightful myths and old wives tales during your youth and having to fight your way around 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 subtly 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, the author sends her readers best wishes for this New Year 2007.May the smile be with you!

A CURIOUS TALE if any

A CURIOUS TALE if any

By al Juhara
Curious* was discovered by a local garbage dump, weak, hungry and crooked, one soggy July evening in 2005 . Numerous unpleasant incidents with our growing menagerie mean, that we try not to see or hear stray orphans as we walk or drive around the streets of Colombo, but this one hit my eyes, solidly and firmly although it probably measured no more than three inches across at the time, from nose to ratty tail tip. This bug eyed, quizzical looking vision of a blurred orange ball with a string on one end, would not leave me. Curious was destined to be my favourite.

Mentally and physically Curious is slightly handicapped, possibly mildly "autistic". Just like with humans, in the animal world too, this happens occasionally but we see hardly any instances of such because cruel laws of the jungle dictate survival of the fittest and shrewdest and even they never get a second chance. Curious it would appear, was supposed to. Add to this the fact that he had lost his mother early in life , and you understand why he is twice blessed , doubly lucky and a symbol of hope in a world gone wrong.

Curious lives his life at a tilt of about 23 degrees, and so probably is the only one among us who actually sees the world as it really is. This is due to some obscure spinal deformity which makes him slant his head quizzically when he's walking about or sitting thinking. To the every day rat or ghecko he must appear an extra sinister and calculating predator, but we find it extremely endearing, probably because we know that he would never think of catching or killing any thing, far less eating it: Curious is the closest feline domestica ever came to being a practising vegetarian, and prefers papadam and cheese buttons to chicken. In fact any crackling sound will inevitably cause him to spring off his perch and come sniffing thoughtfully around.

Curious has been in one or two very narrow escapes.
There was the day, which we will never forget , when he went looking at his reflection in my loo and fell in. Yours truly is a working girl who goes out at 7 am and returns at 6 pm, so that drop involved a lot of dog paddling, raucous screaming and commode water ingestion until he was discovered in the early afternoon by the daily help and another generous philanthropist, who put his hand in and fished him out, shampooed him with warm water and Sunsilk shampoo, and wiped him down amidst yowling protests, with one of my tea cloths, whilst admitting that there were, in retrospect, not many people around he would do this for…Curious survived this episode unscathed but with a respect for water closets.

Curious is not interested in the usual singing and serenading competitions that Tom Cats spend much of their waking life thinking about. He is no threat to Patchy (the local princess) and would not know the difference between one end of a female cat and the other, and probably would not bother finding out. As far as she is concerned, he is the epitome of genuine unselfish love and companionship and sits near her on cold evenings, quietly watching the funny humans cooking and arguing about who finished the good curry powder.

Curious accepts life good naturedly, although he does not understand it.

For some weeks he would experience hunger, and look curiously at his food , not realising that the actual consumption thereof would relieve the pangs gnawing his innards, but with the vague idea that some kind of participation was expected of him.

We had to fend off the rest of kittenkind and favour him a bit until he got the idea….

Curious lacks balance and will regularly fall on his backside and look miffed about it. We thus never throw him out of the front door , but place him carefully on the front carpet if we need to de-cat the living room. He is the only cat I know to have missed a fridge, by which I mean he tried a running jump from a table to a refrigerator two feet away and missed it to end up falling short and going down scrabbling half heartedly at the door, again to land on his rump with a audible burp.

Curious is a cat, an ordinary cat and nothing like an ordinary cat. HE was discovered among garbage and yet he has enriched our lives more than many expensive diversions money can buy. He has taught us not to take things for granted and yet to accept some things with grace, even if you cant understand the reasons for them. He's one of the reasons I cant find employment abroad, apart from my attachment to my children and my book and DVD collection and the fact that I love Wellampitiya.

I cannot think of anyone but myself taking care of Curious, and it would break my heart to have to let go of him.

So who's the dependant one, you wonder?

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* also fondly referred to as MANTAL
There are more abandoned orphans like Curious featured at www.colombopetrescue.blogspot.com and we hope you will stop by and spare a minute for them. Well, more than a minute if possible?