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!
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