Tovil for Soma

Tovil for Soma.By Chandrika Gadiewasam

One evening a few weeks after their father’s death, Soma was lighting a lamp to a God in their garden, when she felt her wrist twist, like in a cramp. It was six thirty, that moment between dusk and night and the pain made her almost faint, and then both her wrists began to twist backwards, as well as the fingers on her hands, as though some invisible bully was trying to make her cry. And cry out she did since the pain was so intense, in the next fifteen minutes as she fell writing to the ground in front of the lamp, helpless in the grip of her own body which was spasming against her control, the extremities stretching unnaturally in impossible directions.
The pain was intolerable.
This was the beginning of Soma’s possession, and it did not cease though she was taken by her mother to a neurosurgeon , since they thought it was some kind of nerve disease. The free government clinic of course gave a date for a next appointment three months later, but since the medications were not working and the spasms continued Soma’s suffering mother begged money from her brother and took the girl to a private clinic. They found nothing wrong but listened in vague disbelief as mother and daughter told of how the girl’s body would contort in incredible positions. Her involuntary screams of pain too would be unnaturally guttural as if an angry man was shouting from her throat, which they thought was due to the pain involved.
The doctor gave her various sub classes of vitamin B, lots of it, and it made her nauseated. Within a few weeks as her family watched in helpless horror, the grunts and shouts of pain she made were converted into inexplicable Sinhala curse words which Soma would never have dreamed of uttering in her sound senses. The kind of words that the dirtiest thugs in the meat market would have used in a drunken brawl. Words which she didn’t even know. Her mother and sister figured it was the pain which made her swear like this but couldn’t understand how she developed a man’s voice; it was a fairly familiar voice too. She sounded like her father had, those days.
The village elders understood what had happened.I was a witness at the exorcism of Soma and it was an incredible fight we witnessed. Imagine the background of drums, gruesome masks and coloured lamps, a slaughtered cockerel, and the oil painted exorcist chanting century old mantras to evict the possession. It was her father possessing her, and he was a cruel drunk village thug who had beaten up his family members often and taken their food money for his gambling. He was also accused of other darker crimes abusing his daughters which no one could even speak about. He was dead, but he was not ready to give up the evil his life had brought to their family. He made her body behave like a monster intent on causing her pain, and twisted it self into contortions which were painful to watch.
She hoisted her skirt up like a thug in a drunken brawl and climbed onto the roof of her house from where to shout unspeakable obscenities in the midnight ceremony, weaving drunkenly across the roof, so that eye witnesses were praying that she would not fall. The evil entity that had been her father said it would continue exploit her, would not leave ‘ his family’ and would not let go, he demanded that they serve him they were his ‘property’ he said.
The Kattadiya(demon-priest) and the entity fought a three hour long argument, where Soma’s body was the battle field and her pain was of no consequence, and at the end of the three hours it seemed like the evil entity was winning. Soma’s mother rocked and keened in tears of anguish as she heard bones break in her daughters body and watched her hang like a rag doll across the roof tiles. Nothing seemed to be working, and the possessor kept insisting that he had the right to stay.
To be continued

BRINGING UP CHIPSY

Have you ever had a baby chipmunk on your hands? It’s a common situation I know in Sri Lanka where these tiny high-metabolism rodents get themselves into all kinds of trouble and then leave us wondering what to do. Sri Lankan mornings seem to be all about crows cawing, cocks crowing and chipmunks ting-ing to wake you up. At least since Im lucky enough to live in the suburbs. To be honest I am quite astounded at the sound a chipmunk makes in relation to its body size.
Chipsy is our latest family member though she is much smaller than a regular rat, she commands incredible love from all of us. We hardly dare breath with the wonder of her tiny delicate existence. Outside, Itchy the cat and Foofy and Mucky , the stray dogs are breathless too, but sadly its mostly with insane amounts of jealousy and repeat murmurings of “just you wait” . Sadly orphaned when her mother was gobbled by one of our backyard dwelling stray mutts, Chipsy too is a tiny and very transient miracle. I have no idea what her future will be, but I’m pretty sure predators out there are monitoring it. I try my best to protect her, with rather fanatic determination. It should be possible, for man who walked on the moon, to bring up and release a chipmunk successfully. I do not want to hold her in a cage. Next week I will tell you how best to look after a baby chipmunk.
For more photos and videos of Chipsy, read my blog www.chiptipsy.wordpress.com

TIPS FOR BRINGING UP BABY CHIPMUNKS
1. Do not give them powdered milk, or cow’s milk. The best for their delicate tummies is goat’s milk, diluted half half with boiled warm water.
2. You can feed them through a ball point pen, with the barrel removed and a cotton wick passed through the nib -space; it has to be a brand which does not have holes in the barrel. Strangely for the moment all I could find was a brand named “RADIENT” and I made the stationary shops very puzzled with how much I tried looking for this brand. Use the hold in the back to control the flow of the milk so that not too much comes.
3. Be really clean with the feeding equipment, don’t let the milk get sour; don’t let the pen get dirty. Change the wick daily, or better still, at every feed.
4. Keep them clean. Don’t let their fur be sticky with old milk etc. wipe with a ball of cotton wool dipped in lukewarm water , but make sure they are warm afterwards
5. After nourishment, the single most important thing to keep a baby chipmunk alive is warmth. How you keep them warm is simple, fill a plastic bottle with warm water, not boiling hot, but quite hot, put it in a sock or wrap it in a towel and then place the rodent on top of it. Baby chipmunks love the heat and stay sticking on this contraption for ages.
6. There’s the delicate and unmentionable matter of pee. Baby animals often cant pee themselves, and need the mothers “stimulation” aka licking for that too. If this is not done, they literally (and it must be a terrible way to die) could burst. All we can do is use a small ball of cotton wool or a cotton bud dipped in comfortably warm water, to wipe their unmentionables till they do pee. It takes patience, and yes, it has to be done, for the tiniest of baby orphans.
7. Last but not least, do not handle them by their tails, these can and do come off and that HURTS.

Shores of Another Sea Part Two

Shores of Another sea Part Two

part one was here

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.

The Environmental Impact of Vesak 2011

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 now, garish completely untraditional lanterns imported from China, (a country known in the civilized world for horrifying animal abuse) there was the incredible weight of evidence of carnival like feeding frenzies of mobs of citizens and their offsprings – ice cream wrappers, biscuit wrappers, food wrapping polythene and soft drink bottles and what not, thrown all over the city by people who clearly thought that Vesak was an excellent an excuse to litter compulsively.

Road sweepers were spotted dazedly trying to manage the damage the next day. It was as though a small religious cyclone had hit the country. So much sheer CELEBRATION! 2600 years of SAFEGUARDING Buddhism , we DID it! its all because of US that Buddhism is still around here!! The PURE SORT!! NO one else even knows what Buddhism is like, so much as we do! Sri Lanka is the one place in the world where pure Buddhism is safeguarded. Says who? Well, says us of course. Its true its pure and its safe here, if the noise is anything to go by, if the carnival atmosphere of jubilation is anything to judge by- we succeeded!!

I wonder if the Buddha would have agreed.

I fantasize and picture Him coming down and walking among us, dressed in normal clothes so as not to arouse suspicion.

He would probably be thinking “these poor people, I told them about suffering about impermanence and about being at one with the universe about being kind to animals and to this earth we share. I told them to live good lives and be kind to people and try and find a way out of samsara; What in the WORLD are they doing with all these blinking lights ? They are missing the whole POINT!! Jesus! ”

Child abuse, suicide and alcoholism rates are the highest in the civilized world,according to the WHO and UN but according to us we have the "purest" Buddhism. We measured it, on a kind of authenticity scale... Traffic accidents caused by the negligence of regular civilians who could not care less for the life of their fellow man are some of the highest in the world. Women throw babies in rivers, grandfathers rape baby girls, people eat the meat off cows legs while they are still alive, hakka patas traps kill wildlife slowly over weeks, corruption, lies and thuggery are all so normal we simply live with it all and ignore it like the mosquitoes, unaware that there are other non Buddhist countries where these things don’t happen. Countries where perhaps there is not so much noise and light and polythene for Vesak. Where, you know, the Buddhism is less pure.

What am I complainng about you wonder ? Who is this fancy author to tell people how they should celebrate the birth of the Buddha ??? what a party pooper!! Vesak balanna giye nadda?
Well- Im not that religious. I prefer to sit and do silly, lazy things like meditate in my little rented annex . And read old Dhamma books. And plot for a way of going as far away as possible from this madness the next time it comes around.

A SMALL BUT IMPACTFUL ADVERTISING SOLUTION

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 mediaplansrilanka@gmail.com and 777749924 and 717749924 for any out of the box idea solutions with a definite sensitivity to sri lankan outreach which is something I believe the big advertising firms sometimes over look since their talent is more cosmopolitan.

Airtel & Knickers,

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 feelings. I am sorry that I cannot fully agree with what you have said in this regard. We have to consider both side before we form an opinion. And we cannot be bias based on our genders. Here I think you have formed an opinion based on you being a woman. Guys may have got other things to say.

I just think of a similar situation where a man shows off his genitals in an office environment or a public place for becoming sexy, what will ladies say or how will women behave in such a context? In Sri Lanka, according to criminal law, a man can be punished for showing off his genitals in public, but not a woman. (What a fair justice!). Being a woman, you can just show off your private area to me by raising your dress up or put down your knickers, but if I do it to you, I will surely be charged in a court and put into jail. I personally think as a society where both genders have got equal rights today bear equal responsibilities for decent behavior and decent dress in an office environment or in a public place. If a girl can ignore what she displays or to what extent she exposes her private body parts to others in an office environment, I am sure her male counterparts won't be possible to work there by concentrating their minds on their work all the day through. Ultimately, the company will be bankrupt sooner or later. I also think the company has equal responsibilities to enforce a dress code for all its employees where normal decency levels are protected and guaranteed. If not, sooner ladies will come to work in bikinies and guys in their jocks. I closely watched the last picture in order to ascertain whether this girl has worn a panty at least to cover her private area sufficiently. But I doubt she has at least worn her kinckers as this picture clearly shows. What a pathetic situation! Or else is this another fashion of THIS INSANE MODERN SOCIETY. This kind of STRIP show OR BODY EXPOSURE by a working girl in a working environment cannot be accepted by any means.(If so we also need to ignore a guy showing off his penis under a table in pretext of cooling off his genitals in an office or for mere fashion). Also taking undercover pictures by her own stafff cannot be approved on the other hand. You see the pros and cons of such a situation. I cannot say anything if an over-sensitive guy started masturbating in this office once he saw this girl unlocking her tighs wide open time to time without any concern for men around or even ignoring the fact that she has not even worn an underwear. In Sri Lankan culture if you have a daughter, sister, wife like this, I think you should be honestly ashamed of her insensitive and careless behaviour or else you should commit suicide. It is o.k. for anyone to behave as they wish behind closed doors or in their private places, but not in public places like an office. If a girl cannot wear enough to cover at least her private parts, what will happen to our next generation. Young men will come wearing see-through pants where their privates parts can be seen easily. In this type of environement, do you think you can make your son a good man with fear to commit sins. Any young guy with natural feelings won't be hide his feelings before this type of hot exposures by an opposite sex even under a table. We know how men feel and women feel. Psycologically too both genders are different in sexual arousal. I think we should teach young women how to dress in public places and guys how to ignore mere nakedness of sexy & horney women in their work places in first place. It does not matter you have sex with anyone you prefer, but you need to ensure that society's age-long norms are protected. You cannot do certain things in public and can do it privately. Just because your body belong to you, it is not ethically correct to show off each and every bit as you prefer or wish. Remember you have got your freedom to circle your stick until you reach other's nose. Otherwise, this society will be a place where wild-ass freedom prevails.This is just my thought. You have the right to agree or disagree.

a month in Allys life

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 Dayan after so long
4 8 2009 WJB falls down the stairs in his socks.
9.8.2009 MB says his friends father died
11 8 2009 Major L texts from Indonesia saying would I like anything. Im honestly touched.
12.9 .2009 read up on UNIFEM (Bill and womens charter)
25.9.2009 Mrs AS catches her husband doing something to a woman with a metal stick.
26.9.2009 Mrs AS justifies paranoia saying she is stuck in this “gost prisan”

Life is a Woman

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?

PusheeKat Diaries 10

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 how little he cares about her and how much I care, she would not favor him, that scoundrel!! I did not eat my lunch today in protest. I don’t know if anyone noticed but I couldn’t .

Im trying to understand what has happened. Apparently Patchy has had a little blob, which is not very normal. So they have to go to the Wet, who has to Hoperate and take away said blob. I don’t know what the fuss is all about why cant hewmans not complicate things and not worry about blobs etc.This procedure even costs a lot of hewman money and they have to take her to a country called Bhattaramulla where all the best wets are. Ally and the Marmar were talking to each other on the long distance talkies and I was listening outside the bedroom window that’s how I know.

6.00 pm
They brought her back sleeping in a cardboard box. She is quite tipsy and did not recognize me and allowed me to look at her. She looked terrible but I was so happy to have her back I had to do more yeuwling. They chased me away with brooms, but I had a spot to look through the windows. They gave her milk and samon. They tried to give her medicine so she clawed them properly so they finally crushed the pills into kudu mixed it in honey and rubbed it on her left backside. That’s because anyway she is so clean and cant stand anything sticky on her coat so she licks it all off, and that way drinks her medicine. Ha ha, devious…
December 8th
Patchy of course spends her time jumping onto things as if she has a lot of important work to do, which is dangerous with the stitched tummy- but isn’t she lovely…shes back , shes alive and my life is all right again….(even if she dosnt notice me)…shes on her way to getting better that’s all I care about ; and if I ever meet that Wet I shall shake his paw oh yes I will !!
…………………………………………………………………………….
http://colombopetrescue.blogspot.com
NB Pusheekat Diaries are the thoughts of Peechy, an ordinary grey house cat who lives in a hewmie dwelling in Wellampitiya with 2 other adopted strays and a very pompous half Persian princess cat named Patchy. Although he is a cat of very refined qualities she does not return his affection and prefers the company of a thuggish, battered and diseased street cat named Pitchy. This leads to philosophical musings on all sides.

Parenthood Licenses

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 put a stop to not only the neglect and abuse of children but the unjustified reproduction of offspring that arrive to a world of chaos and injustice on the invitation of misguided humans who think that children are the "done thing"
http://gpso.wordpress.com/2009/12/08/one-womans-answer-empower-women-slow-population-growth-bulletin-of-the-atomic-scientists/

PusheeKat Diaries 9

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. I am almost dying of some kind of unease, it could perhaps be loneliness –Im not sure . True they descended from apes and are generally far inferior to us but they were kind of busy and interesting, they were company sort of and the food was much better when Marmar personally supervised it. Im disappointed. Did I do something bad to Marmar . ? Except for tearing his socks, putting paw prints on his windscreen and marking territory on the rice bags, I cant even think of something properly bad I did to him, anything REALLY unforgivable….

December 3rd
Oh praise Bubastis, they are back today!!! I was so happy I head butted their legs till I lost fur on my head! Oh my dear precious hewmies. They didn’t go away .Life is happy again. They didn’t leave me. They wouldn’t , they know how much happiness they get from giving us nice stuff like saman. I know they cant live happily without us. But whatss this I hear? They went to a place called Yarlar looking for a BIG CAT ?Whats this ? big deal !why do they want a big cat?Dont we do enough damage as it is?I mean we put paw prints on the car, we go and dump in the front yard, and we do a lot of fighting in the night on the roof, to keep them alert, we are much more active than the neighbourhood cats so why do they want a “lepperd” or something. Im daring them to bring one here, I shall not eat at all and I shall claw its eyes. What is this world coming to I don’t know – I don’t want any dirty big cat here apart from Patchy. LEPOD MY FOOT.

Pusheekat Diaries 8

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 “ filthy”) she’s the cleanest of us all as she never sits on the floor and has princess attitudes. Anyway Filthy is the name of another cat they had sometime back)
The words were barely out of her mouth I saw Patchy quietly and smoothly easing herself under the side board ; which is only about 6 inches off the ground and makes it very difficult for anyone to remove her unless they perform the land equivalent of the belly stroke.

November 28th -Attack of the Family Rat….

Oh, the shame of it! Well, we call him the Family Rat because funnily enough, while we are locked out in the cold watching through the windows, we can see him scuttling happily about helping himself to dustbin stuff and fooling about with the soap each night.

This is shameful. I bought it up at a recent meaw meaw , but Patchy ( who is the only one allowed in the night) was not motivated; “ Come on, they can afford one rat” was all she said .I have this suspicious that not only is she completely not interested in doing her job which involves the complete eradication of Rat, but she even approves in a underhand way of actually harbouring them. Disgusting!I can almost see its triangular face gloating out at me through the windows.
I hope it gets glued one day or something.

Patchy Translated..

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

Patches and a rather ugly hyena ...

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

Pusheekat Diaries 4

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 colours, did you know that? Smells on the other hand we sense in technismeller* This particular decomposing rodent smelt reminded me of the cave art of Australian aborigines…very fundamental if you ask me..

October 21st
The poor hewmie family of course began to walk around poking behind furniture and acting mighty paranoid. They changed the cushion covers, threw out some rugs and sent the kussi woman to the front shop for moth balls.
Then they had to call in “Bubbee”
This was interesting to watch and Bubbee broke the ceiling a bit and charged them Rs LKR 350/= to get ALL the thick white worms away without leaving any behind as otherwise they fall on the dining table...
I personally think Patchy should stick to being lazy and eating saaleyo and acting her age which is Old.
……………………………………………
Technismeller is the cat equivalent of human Technicolor and we smell dead rats as a very interesting shade of burnt sienna, with whorls of brilliant carmine in the centre like a strawberry roll would look to you. Hm… I think. –

Post card for Centre for Victims of Torture

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.

Introduction to Ally

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 experiment with Fair and Lovely cream on only one side of myself so if its working you will see a definite color difference.

Profession : ACCA finalist works as a Librarian, currently studying graphic design, journalism, web design, Arabic, and a whole host of other generally useless things
Education: till 13 schooled at various foreign schools including Norman Gordino in Kampala and a primary school in Manchester , Lindsay in Colombo, and from then on the world is my teacher. Would love to go back to school.
Religion:Humanist, Buddhist upbringing, admires all religious leaders, disagrees with Islamic ideas of practiced degradation of women. (Willing to argue on this topic for hours.) Gets along well with Christians Catholics, and vegetarians. generally terrified of Sri Lankan Buddhists as they have somewhat obscure ethics and tend in my experience to trample on you in their dedicated quest to stay on the "middle path"...
General Disposition: Cheerful, jovial, indulgent, honest, laid back, sympathetic, broadminded, understanding except where it comes to smoking
Vices : fickle. Dosnt take life seriously no matter how many hairline misses she suffers. Somewhat unhygienic, lazy and occasionally mean to small children, (only if trapped with them.) leaves used tea cups lying around and throws clumps of fallen hair and sometimes used underwear, behind book shelves etc. suddenly laughs and screeches loudly. Jumps to conclusions. Very bad singing voice. Useless at gardening – any plant dies if I so much as touch it.
Advantages : a very good telephone voice, good at soothing massages, anything I touch gets well soon- animals live- Excellent English , sense of humour if understood is guaranteed to bring cheer .does the counseling thing well, if the number of calls I get is any indication..
Likes: Sunshine, clean flat surfaces, sun dried kittens and animals of any type, milk, murunga, vaathathel, small onions, garlic, books and that row of second hand book shops in MacCallum Road, horror movies, Famous Fives, Tintin, Wilbur Smith, Alistair MacClean, Enigma Enya ,Spanish and Arabic Music, jungles, old monuments, a good cuppa tea, travel, writing and my black yamaha .
Dislikes : cleaning up after cooking, stuffed buses, cold rainy mornings , hypocrisy, being restricted ,confined or incarcerated in anyway, being suspected of lying (but to be honest it’s a long time since anyone dared to do so) & government offices .
Odd habits: taking tea and a magazine to the loo, smiling absently at no one in particular in the middle of a crowded bus, dressing in flannel.
Social Habits: avoids parties like the plague, vaguely disapproves of drinking and gambling- strongly disapproves of smoking and drugs, prefers to stay home with good music and a second hand book. Likes to go to temple but not on crowded days. Loves Latin dance but not very good at it

Seeking : a partner in crime. He should be : kind , intelligent, honest, a HAPPY PERSON dependable,caring,artistic at least 80 kg and 5’56’’ , preferably mid forties, should be divorced or widowed , preferably with kids, and he should understand everything in the above profile(even the murunga) even if he doesn’t agree. He should be willing to put up with lots of weird unsanctioned laughter and a few hippie friends, and actively support my cat farm and 2 dogs. .. He doesn’t have to have much money but a good bike would be much appreciated. but he must never make the mistake of borrowing money from me because I don’t respect that in a guy. He obviously has to be a person who appreciates good writing. Long hair is ok, dark skinned guys welcome, beards are no problem but nose and ear hair and mustos are OUT. Letters and calls and even meeting a few ex girlfriends will be tolerated even encouraged if it makes him happy. But, lying-never! There is just no need for lying in my home.
Oh and he has to smell nice.









ABSOLUTE ACADEMICS
by aljuhara

I admit I sometimes read the marriage proposals section of our Sunday paper. In fact , with the cost of living as high as it is ,we can only afford one hardcopy newspaper a week and the trick is to make all the waffle last my current weekly reading requirements during those periods of digestive constipation…ok let me admit it I also occasionally half heartedly scan the horizon for a suitable partner..or is that just an excuse to find merryment in unlikely places..?

Im noticing a recent trend now where advertisers for both brides and grooms are beginning their spiel with the obscure and decidedly ungrammatical words “absolutely academically”… either they claim to be absolute academics or are looking for such.(whatever these are) mind you -Tough luck in a country where half the kids failed their O levels.
And to be honest I would not like to spend the rest of my life with an ABSOLUTE ACADEMIC whatever that defines. It sounds quite boring and miserable, a partner with no interest in cookery,karate, fast motorcycles or Latin dance. Marriage to an absolute academic would in fact be a dreadful excuse for life, a fate worse than death… in my books...flies droning in Latin come to mind...

But it makes you think – what is it with this Sri Lankan obsession to be at the top of everything?? Sominona next door advertised and it came below mine nyah nyah

Are you advertising here to spend your life with people who just may give up searching before they get to advertisements beginning with the letter “d” or “f”??
Im thinking, you wake up in the morning and say “ who am I going to marry today” or as the case may be “who am I going to make my daughter marry today” and start by reading all the first adverts beginning with absolutely academic and then your enthusiasm fizzles away and by the time you reach around G/B parents Gampaha district , statistically the chances are that you are asleep drooling on your chest …?
seriously , if that’s the case, folks, we deserve all the desperation we're in!

Buses ... in front of Wellampitiya Police station

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..

DAILY MEWS 5

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 before I learned that it is only acceptable to climb my hewmans hind leg if he had trouser -longs on. I used to get unbearably over-excitied when he made my salmon and suddenly claw my way up his hairy hind limbs when he was wearing only trouser- shorts. Man, Goodness, he would howl and stamp about that close to swearing . His kitchen woman is better , she wears a long flapping sail of cloth called a SKERT which is much easier to climb. and she dosnt scream much except when I put my head into the “LICK- WIDIZER” I don’t know what that thing is but they put the chicken wings in it and then make a big sound and they produce the most delectable sloppy fishy mush. But sometimes I got lost inside her skert which is decidedly unpleasant I must say.

And then there are the hewmie cublets. They are strange silly dangerous things and I heard that one of them put Patchy inside a Krisco tin. The boy one. I need another page to write about all the weird things these young life forms get up to.
They like to throw us food though so they are not completely bad.
…………………………………………………………………………………………
* Editors note: Pichau seems to be referring to electricity
* *that’s us actually since we are in control of them! Hee hee.

DAILY MEWS 6

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 at a time and taking them about to clinics and to grandparents houses and showing them off and all. But don’t they think about their futures ,they have to live more than twenty five or fifty years or even seventy five don’t they ? so why do they keep messing up the earth with this polythene layer? Polythene aught not to just be banned it should be criminalized I tell you and anyone caught smuggling polythene given a pretty long sentence.


February 26th
Today my Hewmie family watched a movie called Slumdog. I wanted to watch it too because I don’t know why some dog anywhere should get a lot of prizes but it turned out the film was not about pooches. It was about people from Indian slums. Well, if you think the people are having a tough time in slums you should try talking to real slum dogs in poor countries like here and see, their lives are living hell. The best way to continue to survive would seem to be to get some real rotting skin disease where your pelt is practically history and raw bits of skin are falling off you- then you go on and on living (and itching ) forever…
Cats of course don’t live in slums .We use our brains and vote with our feet and go somewhere where food is decent. We have standards, again another of the reasons Egyptian nobility treated us like Gods.

DAILY MEWS 7

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 shiny and the medicine has been licked off. I guess a cat caught in an oil spill wont last very long, eh. Unfortunately for us we are a race of animals completely obsessed with our pelts to such an extent that we constantly need to keep licking it spotless. Pthew.

March 8th
Today is International Women’s Day. I find it strange. Hewmies have a day set aside specially for the female of their species. In fact I think, hewmie females are a strangely disadvantaged lot. No where in any other animal species do you see the female being abused, starved, ill treated, incarcerated and even killed just because she is a female. Most of the time in the animal world females are welcome as they are the ones who bring fourth young and half the time they are courted lovingly and even respected. And of course no one wants to mess with an angry mother…but it is strange that with all their power hewmie mothers seem to be very subservient and tolerant.

March 14th
Today mistress Hacketty got a bit annoyed because the baby cublets would not come for dinner. They like to sit near a square light, which makes them keep looking at it and their paws hit the floor in front of it with a lot of tapping . It makes them quiet and crazy a bit like kuppa –mania but it has a much longer effect. Sometimes they sit in front of this thing for hours. Then when they come to eat they are not very bothered about the food and their mother has to remind them that they are lucky to be in the worlds top 5 % of the population that can afford dinner. This of course makes me smirk, since, being her cats, we are in the top 1 % that can afford to be picky about dinner . Hee hee. ..

HORNIER THAN THE FRENCH, and honest at last...

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 topics with a scientific backing. “This can go a long way in dispelling the myths and taboos we see in our country.” He explained that further shocking evidence was disclosed by the Health Ministry survey. “Among the school children over the age of 15 years, 72% are sexually active with 43% engaging in heterosexual activities, 43% engage in homosexual activities and 29% watch pornographic movies frequently,” he stated. Family Planning Association Medical Director Dr. Shreen Willatgamuwa explained that proper education can lead to the minimising of unplanned pregnancies, and the number of abortions in the country. “Abortions are restricted by law, but our studies show that 650-1000 abortions take place every day. That is 125000-175000 annually and for every three babies born, two are aborted.” These are shocking figures and Dr. Shreen explained that most of the women who come for abortions are educated, married and with two children already. “These situations can be avoided if the youth are given a proper education on reproduction and contraception with a scientific background from a young age.”
Consultant Obstetrician and Gynecologist, Dr. Hemantha Perera explained that the prevalence of female and male sexual dysfunctions among the population can be easily rectified, but the lack of awareness and education keep their issues hidden leading to deteriorating mentalities and families.


http://www.thebottomline.lk/2009/03/25/index56.htm

Cars with Moustaches...ugh!

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 ....

Help with Prison Break

well, not exactly
I guess what we mean is to try and make life a little bearable for people who have made mistakes...heres an interesting Idea that came across in my in box.Please pass it on to anyone who might be able to help. I was particularly touched by the idea of deathrow convicts needing religious books.Think about it

Dear Sir / Madam/ colleagues and friends.

Requesting of materials and other support to develop the library facilities at the Prison in Welikada

I'm an undergraduate student from NISD and reading for BSW degree. According to my curriculum, now I'm on the field practice and working at the welfare division at the Welikada prison ¡V SL.

When I was going through the facilities that are available for the prisoners to develop them self and the resources which will help them to rehabilitate and develop their capacity, I could realize some needs and issues that has to be fulfill for the betterment of prisoners welfare.

At the library there are around 3,000 books and the total membership was around 450. Since the total prisoners of the prison closely 7000, the library is unable to provide membership for more prisoners due to several reasons.
Lack of books for the children's those who are living with their mothers inside the prison.
Lack of books that needed to learn about law and human right especially relevant to Latest novels are highly demanded among prisoners, but only few are available at the library
Lack of books about spiritual development. Since the people at the death penalty were very interested about religious kind of books to settle down there mind.
There is no single newspaper at the library
Prisoners were providing some vocational and technical training in several sections, so it would be better if there are any books that they can refer and learn new techniques and update their knowledge and skills on their subjects which they could really use in their future life as well as and income after leased by the prison.
Due to the vulnerability towards of STDs, and other diseases infection, drug addiction, there should be some reading materials for the prisoners to get some knowledge which will at least educate them up to some extent.
While interviewing with prisoners, I understood that the prisoners those who about to release, were disappointed and afraid of society since they had a gap and distance with this fast moving society. Therefore it is better to locate some resources and opportunities to update and develop their knowledge and understanding. And also this will help to decrease the number of re imprisonment. Further there is much to develop in counseling and guidance system in welfare section. Therefore improving of library will help the prisoner's welfare up to some distance.
Please note that this is only my personal idea and commitment but under the permission from Mr. A.D.A. Alwis, the head of the welfare section. I'll be volunteering on this matter to collect materials and coordinate things. Therefore you personally or your organization/ company/ institute /group could assist/support/direct/guide me in any ways of if directly involve this, I shall be really grateful.
Thank you
Asanga Coorey
Mobile 0715-306103 / 0772220967
asangapr@gmail.com

Essay Competition Awards Ceremony

Essay Competition Awards Ceremony



C.Gadiewasam
The Civil Society Network on Information Sharing (CSNIS) held an Awards Ceremony on December 4th at the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute to facilitate prize winners of the recent trilingual essay competition held to mark National Reading Month. Numerous entries had been received from participants' island wide including such areas as Vavunia, Batticaloa and Jaffna.

The Competition requested ideas under the title of "Sharing Information towards Humanity" and first prize winners in the over 19 category were Gayathri Wijekoon - Kandy, H G Dimuthu Prabhath - Kirinda, Tharshini Edward Ravindrarajah - Colombo, and first Prize winners in the under 19 category were Kayalini Panchadcharam - Batticaloa, M R M Irshad - Galle, Sindu Sivapalan - Jaffna

Keynote speakers at the event included F Hashim, Deputy Executive Director, Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies (CHA), Ms Priyanthi Fernando, Executive Director, Centre for Poverty Analysis (CEPA), and Ms.Sulochana Ragunathan, Director Documentation, FCE. Also attending were Jehan Perera, Executive Director, National Peace Council (NPC), Dr Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu, Executive Director, Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) and Ms. Damaris Wickremasekere, Executive Director, Law and Society Trust (LST).

The Civil Society Network on Information Sharing was set up by the library and information professionals of a number of leading civil society organizations with the intention of collaborating in information sharing in humanitarian and development work. The current members of the Network are Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies (the focal point), Centre for Poverty Analysis, Centre for Policy Alternatives, Law & Society Trust, Social Scientists' Association, Save the Children in Sri Lanka, National Peace Council, Room to Read, Foundation for Co-Existence and International Alert.

CSNIS aims to strengthen and sustain this collaborative network through its web site, www.csnis.lk , and regular meetings of members. The CSNIS website which has amassed more than 60,000 hits since its re-launch in December 2007 is a portal through which access is facilitated to approximately 20,000 titles held by the combined libraries of member organizations.

source Daily Mirror
http://www.dailymirror.lk/DM_BLOG/Sections/frmNewsDetailView.aspx?ARTID=34968

TEN GOOD REASONS WHY I WOULD MARRY YOU

here it is, and its better than the ad that got me 79 dates.
this is the article that got Daily Mirror 2000 web hits within a few hours of it being uploaded.

TEN GOOD REASONS

24 USES FOR NEWSPRINT ON A BORING SUNDAY AFTERNOON

What is large, almost weightless, highly inflammable and can be used to assassinate characters and dry soggy dogs?

When my friends go abroad (and so many seem to be doing so, quite often, which leaves me wondering…) and ask me what Id like them to bring back for me, can you possibly guess what I request? Not clothes since Im picky about what I wear and not toys because they inevitably break apart down here, but yes, a strange request by some standards, I tell them to bring back any English newspapers they can get their hands on.
My parents tell me that I have been reading newspapers from the age of three, which probably means that I spent my childhood more indoors than I should have.
Newspapers fascinate me, although quite often I don’t get the time to read them, and I end up without the political and sensational bits, since I carry them home from office roughly after the media monitoring team goes through them and before the cleaning woman ties them up to sell to the kiosk up the road, weighed by the kilo.
They tell me about a country, about the people of that country. They are a quick frozen intellectual snapshot of society at any particular time complete with the quirks, the hopes and the silly superstitious fears inherent, generously censored in some cases, and wildly exaggerated in others, newspapers will hold the (albeit biased) meaning of any peoples’ human day in one little tube of cheap newsprint and ink.
They cost much more than the nominal amount charged to buy one, and so have to be subsidized by the income from advertising. And yes, they advertise hoards of things. They also educate, inform, surprise, confirm and twist stories. They make you love, hate, laugh, cry or just shrug. They make you think. They also provide lunch wrapping, a meditation mat, sound proofing, a clean spot for a sudden home delivery and excellent drying material. You can wipe down damp pets, clean vomit and poop, wipe windows down with a dab of vinegar, wrap inconvenient corpses before disposing of them * apart from fill out crosswords and Sudoku and check your horoscope too. and if you need an apartment, a new job, a business partner or a suitable spouse, check the Sunday papers…

For me the strangest thing about Sri Lankan newspapers, are the matrimonials. So many excellent and upstanding young people all on one page, all teetotalers, non smokers with dazzlingly unblemished characters that one wonders where in the woodwork they are hiding. You just don’t see them around in real life. Divorcees are ALWAYS the innocent party and older wanna be spouses invariably look MUCH younger. They are rich, attractive and intelligent and would not dream of beating their wives. So where do all the realistic half human people disappear to? How about some honesty, how about being closer to the truth, at least in some respects and advertising like so:

" balding, downright mean looking but very conceited well connected 49 year old business man in fairly good health apart from mild episodes of piles, diabetes and liver trouble, with lots of lucre and a house in the hills, seeks ....
or "anorexic 38 year old acne prone virgin spinster with absolutely no sense of humour but good collection of jewellary who likes watching Hindi teledramas and sewing and strongly disapproves of sexual intercourse, seeks...."

Some time back the parents of a nubile and ostensibly very fortunate young lady of 25 , had advertised in the matrimonial column and (I seriously have no idea how this happened )given out my gmail address** for return correspondence. This resulted in my inbox being practically stuffed with hopeful enquiries from the most eligible available financially well endowed, handsome and downright eligible bachelors in the country,(sadly about ten years too young for me) such an unbelievable collection of decent and holier than thou teetotalers, non conners and do gooders, and such a concentration of sheer overpowering virginity (arrrk!) , that I was quite staggered. This was obviously where all the “good” men had gone; they certainly were not walking about in Colombo…honking, swearing and trying to run over innocent pedestrians and hoodwink their landladies, or sell their sisters, nah…that was different people….so for people who like reading fantasy, again, I do recommend Sri Lankan newspapers.

Still on the subject of how many things you can do with a newspaper, last but not least, how about making efficient gags, starting arson attacks and cutting out letters to paste in ransom notes. I mean, seriously since Im catering to all my readers here not just the decent ones. And im not finished yet, there are more ideas coming but since I have a deadline to meet in this paper, I shall stop for now…

………………………………………………………………………………………
* and now Im wondering, has a corpse ever actually been convenient ?
** all you nice people out there who sent in your sons’ horoscopes and really personal details to colombo4@gmail.com, now you know what happened to that information. It’s safe with me.

next article: 24 things to do to a cat on a boring sunday afternoon.

MONEY FOR NOTHING.. CHEQUES FOR FREE

What did they look like, I wonder, in the olden ages, these entities they called vampires? Vampires and blood sucking demons exist in folklore from around the world from Europe to the Far East and the Australian aboriginal legend, and with good reason I suspect. They are among us.
They look like you and I and sometimes they are beautiful, charming, and they captivate us always don’t they.
And then they take our life blood and walk away leaving us to either die slowly or survive for another day. Is it true that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? But is it worth it ? Why do bad things happen to good people and vampires simply walk away? I have always wondered.


Consider my friend, Jenny.
Jenny is perhaps the closest I have to a sister- since I don’t have one of my own. She saved my life ten years ago, at considerable risk to herself. She stands not even 5 foot high and has the weight and expression of a pretty little pixie and yet she took on the wrath of my heavyweight six foot owner-husband at the time, because I was being abused and she felt something was wrong and that at risk to her life she would interfere in my domestic misery and solve this problem for me. I doubt that I would go out of my way to put myself in danger for someone unknown as she had done and I was her bosses wife. That’s a long story involving police entries and the threat of acid disfigurement but she withstood it all and stood by my side because she has faith in the power of good and right.

Jenny was one of the unfortunate investors in the recent scam carried out by a small set of individuals who set up a sham financial institution, wrote out promissory documents in exchange for cash deposits and escaped the country with all the money.

She is one of the few people I know who I can trust with my children, my money, my life, and if I had a man, my man- and it breaks my heart to see this happen to her. Can you being to imagine what this means to her?

The money her family saved for the last 15 years, and they have a very modest income from government jobs and clerical wages; the family wealth and hope for a house gone; her dignity, her security, her future, and perhaps her marriage, gone because of one mistake she made.

This is all about a young couple who did not have much apart from each other, love, family and faith. And now in one moment of oversight they have lost everything material they ever had.

Jenny keeps smiling, she always has but I know that she is crying inside.
How did it happen I ask her?

“There was a very smart, charismatic girl who came up to me when I was travelling by bus” she sighs, “ she was so fluent with her story and persuasive in her manner. She said she had seen me in the area (!) and asked if I banked at her institution. Since I had been thinking about getting a loan to lease a vehicle for a business, I kept remembering her and the file she gave. We went there one day and they had this impressive office, smart furniture , framed photographs of the president on the walls, shiny certificates….”

At the risk of sounding patronizing, which I am not, my sense of empathy means that I suffer too, when I have to watch evil befalling people I just know are good; and it leaves me wondering , asking, groping for an answer , why them? In particular? Why?

“ of course they deserve it “says another friend of mine rather callously “these sri lankans , just greedy for anything that seems good, its that new lamps for old mentality ; Sri Lankans are just stingy , greedy and stupid”

Well, that’s extreme I would say, because I know Jenny is a very generous soul in her own way, she gives what she can to people she feels sorry for, and if she has no money, she gives of her time, on social causes, maybe its true she was greedy but then think of middle class existence in this country, day after day trying to scrape together some saving to make your future stable, and it never happens. Thousands of people living in difficult dreary drudgery unable to meet basic needs like a house of your own; sometimes you want to dream that there will be a way out of this… and so there are con artists who prey on your hope, who break you and leave you with nothing not even your self esteem.

Give me a mugger any day, give me a full scale armed robber, a carnivore who forcibly and violently relieves you of your possessions, this is much better; I would say, a natural predator who does not play mind games but takes what he wants and leaves you with clean unidirectional hatred. This can be therapeutic.
But conning is subtle, it is cunning, this way half of the hate will be directed at your self and eat you away in regret before you can even begin to think of the perpetrator.

Jenny is planning to leave the country if she can; she is a gentle soul, not very pushy in the co orporate area, but talented in home-sciences, high on EQ and very nurturing , so perhaps she can get a job as a caregiver or a nanny- I will try my best to recommend her to my contacts who can help. I want desperately for this to be an opening to a new horizon as tragedies have often been when they forge the human spirit in steel.
I know in my heart of hearts that she will survive this and today I pledge to do what I can to make her overcome this too.
Because I owe her.

How to make a couch potato dance…

Consider potatoes.
I myself have a relatively small family to take care of, catering wise, and that too only in the weekends. It ranges from four to seven people (not counting the cats dogs squirrels and occasional tortoise who stays-)but I have repeatedly had to confront so many potatoes in my life that they sometimes come close to boring me.
I view them as fleshy, bearing great taste potential but rather repetitive.
To housewives I think you may agree while the potato is plain and uncomplicated - it is also dependable. If you have potatoes you can definitely do something successful with lunch, your day has been saved...
They ve been around since the old Mohenjodaro Harrappans dug them up Im sure, or the Irish ,discovered them in their bogs…the French fry them, the British mash them and in Sri Lanka we oil them…anyway, the fact that I am writing and you are reading about potatoes perhaps reflects on how predictable and comfortable our lives as housewives or working women has become….plain, dependable, pleasantly starchy and …taken for granted…
Perhaps occasionally we should change that. Go out there and do something different, escape from our comfort zones and test new waters…take a dare!
As you probably know if you have read my previous articles, I do occasionally go out and get involved in something wild, just to break the monotony (perhaps of potatoes?) – years back it was Karate, and I still don’t have a belt, although I know a few moves, and have actually been unlucky enough to have to use them….Then there was the motorbike which became rather dependable and useful so whereas Im no racing star, I do get around “faster” (as one of my colleagues once said slightly tongue in cheek ..)
And more recently it was the Salsa.
My dancing I believe can only be described as torture to watch but unfortunately for the audience, I do still enjoy it very much. I try to tell anyone who listens that this is a truly fun filled pastime but most of my friends develop a glazed, politely condescending expression and smile, for some reason I am yet to figure out. This is why I thought I would wax lyrical in this article about the wonderful power of dance.
Dance liberates your soul. There are those moments when you get a complex step correct and you feel totally on top of the world. Possibly you will never go on to be a world champion but the whole point is the amount of fun you have along the way…isn’t that like life it self?
Dance mirrors, on a happy and mercifully small scale, the complexity of life itself.
You go out onto the dance floor with a partner you have agreed to dance with, ; from dance to dance you may be “seduced” by what seems like more attractive invitation from others you may or may not want to dance with or you may keep eyeing someone across the room who seems to have the most wonderful moves…you may find your self dancing alone because everyone else found partners, and yours couldn’t make it,(often the story of my life-)or you may find that you are the life of the dance and everyone wants to dance with you but you cannot oblige…ultimately at the end of the day you will wake up to a couple of inalienable truths …that the fact that you don’t have a partner need never prevent you from enjoying the music….And then….if you do have one, the longer you spend with one partner the more you understand each other and the more relaxed you are , the smoother your synchronization and the happier your dance.
Oh if only people understood this there would not be so much jealousy, possessiveness, infidelity and cheating going on in real life; I do believe wheras dance is easy going and obviously not hampered by legal issues, it does open your eyes to the value of “monogamy” although this is only a happy virtual world, a sort of laboratory on life and not the real thing…dance I believe is a wonderfully light hearted parody on life itself.
I don’t intend to judge my friends but I do see a lot of pain in their romantic relationships, which I do believe is largely unnecessary, which should not be there in this beautiful dance called life. I see many young people rushing into relationships and marriage perhaps goaded by their well intentioned parents, perhaps compelled by mistaken infatuations, and then life becomes a long journey without music. So many of us have forgotten the vows that make a relationship sacred , but have to live double lives of lies, deceit hypocrisy and finally real loneliness. But why is this? Life is meant to be happy, music has a power to uplift any spirit and dance, (even if you have no where to do it but your own living room as in “the sunscreen song”)…has that irresistible charm of its own once you let it get a hold of you.

On a practical down- to- earth note, for fitness enthusiasts, dance will keep you addicted so that your workouts are enjoyable and not something you dread, for shy people who like to meet friends this will build your confidence and your networks, and for the occasional people watcher like me this is a fascinating theater on life.

So maybe its time now to convince your better half to join if you have one, if not just bully any suitable friend into joining , buy yourself a pair of dancing slippers and come join the fun.

LION MOUNTAIN

Sigiriya…
What does this name invoke in you? Is this picture about a place or about a person? A heritage or a human? For me it brings an eternal sense of awe, a silent marveling, curiosity and a breathless freeze on time. I shut my eyes and I can see this paradise from a time long ago.
Quite, for a moment the din of vehicles, media and bustling Sri Lankans caught in this modern frenzy of activity , and please switch off your mobile phone.
Sigiriya will take you back in time, if you still your racing soul and let the orange afternoon scenes take a hold of you. Haunting earth colored pools, sunlight slanting across flat green gardens and an atmosphere thousands of years old. Can you hear the princesses laughing and playing in the water?
Remove for an instant the paraphernalia of modern civilization, your plastic bottles, gadgets, denims, IPods, Nike, Nokia or whatever; lead your mind gently back through the ages to a time when life was enjoyed at a slower pace; you have heard about this so called God- king who built a wonderful fortress on a rock a thousand feet into Ceylons light sapphire sky….think, every inch of its architecture fitted to a complex logical plan of breathless esthetics and practicality ,a breathtaking union of science and art, two thousand five hundred years ago.
This is what your ancestors accomplished.
Sigiriya was constructed using only Ceylon’s bountiful natural resources, there were no imports, no foreign consultants, no bribery and corrupt contract deals, no electronics, no computers, no construction equipment and no animals (or people) were harmed in the production of this paradise on earth. Or anyway that’s what I like to think…
Time for me, warps gracefully, around Sigiriya.
Yet I have a thousand timeless questions ….
What was the king like, and his Queen? Did she poison him or was that just defamation? Did he kill his father or was it because his father was trying to kill him that things happened like this? Are there descendents of his walking, driving and cycling around Dambulla, and do any of them resemble him even remotely (after all, he was supposed to have had 500 women and there was no “family planning”those days added to which birth control was probably not high on his agenda) (and anyway what is it with successful men and their drive to accumulate so many women in the first place ?) and lastly, if he reincarnated ,and I do believe in reincarnation, is he walking among us? Was this really about brother killing brother and are they still involved in that perpetual conflict?

I first climbed the rock twelve years ago with my daughter who was an infant and came tripping and tumbling happily along in a frilly white cotton dress. We dragged her to the top, her father and I , each holding a hand when she stubbornly insisted on not being carried, and allowing her to swing gleefully in the space between us, like a small primate. Predictably we were accompanied by relations, my in laws, her cousins , impish, skinny twelve year olds and I was a harried young housewife of mid twenties, those were what should have been the best years of my life.
So much has changed
My daughter is now taller than me, and sometimes looks after me, her cousins, the cheerful tomboys who argued their way up the steps clicking with complicated Japanese digital cameras, are now doctors, and one is married,; I have changed from a naïve, insecure young housewife , to an independent and self confident adult; I think, watch, appreciate and note life around me the way I have never seen it before.
I have learned so many lessons in life, they have changed who I am. Like a river which from moment to moment changes its composition, there is almost nothing in me of the girl twelve years ago, not even the physical features.
But the Rock Citadel somehow, remains the same doesn’t it.
Thousands of feet attack the steps each day , possibly more than King Kassyapa ever thought possible, and the steps are just as strong and stony now as they were then.
Hair rising accounts of bright ideas of turning the Rock Citadel into a Disney style theme park have thankfully been quashed,(for now anyway) and citizens mercifully have had to stop writing on the mirror wall, an old form of self expression resorted to in a time before internet blogging…so the Rock Citadel will have more time.
I don’t know how long this treasure will remain unchanged in this our modern atmosphere of smoke, pollution , global warming and mindless greed.
But I feel very privileged to have been there, seen it as it was.
I also feel I’ve been there before, sometime long ago….

Weighty Concerns

Last week I made my regular pilgrimage to the weighing machine in our central pharmacy and was pleasantly surprised by the large digital computer which spewed out a small note reporting that not only had I reduced two kilos in weight– but that I was also of “IDEAL BMI”.

I know its sad to be reduced to worrying about the opinion a digital weighing machine has of you but this is what my life has come to.

There comes a time in life, and mind you, to some people it comes earlier than others, when weight becomes a serious issue we lose dinner over. IN some cases it sneaks unexpectedly on us and a few lucky people wont even know what I’m talking about, but its called the middle aged spread- and for some it happens so much earlier than middle age.

It’s the beginning of the end of eating dinner and then you start having to resort to miserable substitutes such as soup and vegetables and pretending you actually like them. Its when you begin considering spending your evenings cycling when you have already reached exhaustion point from the work anyway; its when you consider putting on those silly sporty pants and sneakers and jogging about in the park or in the beach, and trying to look as if its making you really happy. Sadly if the actual evidence is true, all you are getting is lung fulls of greenhouse gas and enough repetitive stress on your joints to really ensure that your old age will be crusty and rigid…

This to me is bosh: give me dedicated couch potato- ing any day. Its sloppy its slouchy and its slow but its my ideal existence and has always been. But its with a sense of grim sasara kalakereema (that’s disillusionment) that I notice that this is just not to be the case for me anymore. I crave to be able to do some of the things that I did when I was young, or well, younger. Such as cramming my stomach with half a loaf of hot hot so called roast paang and excellent Soya curry and then eating that slowly with a good book, whilst lying like a slim young reptile on the sofa. Its not something I can even contemplate now since my stomach has got so used to being deprived, that a half a loaf of bread would probably send it into convulsions.

Starvation, paradoxically has become a part of my life, and mind you, just when I reached the stage when I can actually afford to eat anything I want and there is not much point even being philosophical about it. Eat vegetables and drink lots of water they say, to give you a full feeling. I’ve tried this and if feeling like you are a waterlogged garbage bag full of cellulose is supposed to make you happy – well I prefer feeling starved. It’s the rebel in me. I don’t want to feel full when it’s being self-deceiving and I’m actually empty as a vacuum. Let that traitorous metabolism monster do the worst it can I ve decided I’m actually going to get used to feeling starved (since I’m lucky enough to actually have some choice in the matter whereas millions don’t) and probably accepting it and living with it. ...

Either that or one fine day pretty soon I’m going to totally let go and accept the tires. .. Since what’s wrong with being fat anyway? To be honest, I have noticed that some of the jolliest, happiest friendliest CUDDLIEST people I know are fat, and loving it! And I’ve also read that paradoxically somewhat overweight people are healthier –they try to keep their weight down by exercise and diet control whereas the people who don’t have to worry a bit about weight usually don’t have boundaries when it comes to indulging themselves…
So at the end of the day maybe after all its that famous “Middle Path “ we need to stick to.
...Anything to keep from having to drink silly spinach soups! Yeauch!

Sunscreen

Just woke up to the fact that my life seems to be absolutely following this song.
I still love the words and Im ok so far so Ive decided to post it here in case you have not seen it
you can also wiki for the Sunscreen Song , to get at the credits....

Everybody's Free (to wear sunscreen)

Mary Schmich Chicago Tribune

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of '97... wear sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be IT. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now. Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are NOT as fat as you imagine. Don't worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday. Do one thing every day that scares you. Sing. Don't be reckless with other people's hearts, don't put up with people who are reckless with yours. Floss. Don't waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long, and in the end, it's only with yourself. Remember compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how. Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements. Stretch. Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don't. Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees, you'll miss them when they're gone. Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't, maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't, maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself, either. Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else's. Enjoy your body, use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it's the greatest instrument you'll ever own. Dance. Even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room. Read the directions, even if you don't follow them. Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly. Get to know your parents, you never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings; they are your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future. Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography in lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young. Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel. Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you'll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders. Respect your elders. Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out. Don't mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look 85. Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth. But trust me on the sunscreen.