Sunday, December 24, 2006
Friday, December 22, 2006
old water paintings dug up from behind a cupboard..
Art by Chandrika Gadiewasam 1989
this is a water color copy of an absolutely stupendous one by my favourite wildlife art hero , Robert Bateman. http://www.robertbateman.ca/ However , at 19 I was rrrather happy that I could even produce a copy which somewhat resembles such a master piece. ...then I got married at 20 and never had the time to paint after that.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Seasons Greetings to all my friends!
do take a minute to visit this link - one of my favourite mottos are here-
http://www.llerrah.com/lettherebepeaceonearth.htm
remember , you are NOT alone , this good earth loves you - treat it right and you will never regret it.
photo © Dananjaya Edirisinghe,2006
Monday, December 18, 2006
a day in the life of the average lankan bus passenger
This morning the bus in front of me, calmly and quietly ran over one if its intended passengers in one of those quiet desperate early morning scuffles , in front of the Maradana halt. I saw a crowd, saw the looks on their faces and as we moved off I saw a half view of someone lying on the ground with his legs broken and his lunch packet scattered around.
That was the saddest part, the lunch packet, some caring mother or wife must have woken early to prepare, the fact that we live in such a rat race that it becomes a part of daily life that you get quietly maimed on your way to work. The fact that in spite of having to dodge prados and jaguars and mercedeses all over the streets of Colombo , we are so poor that we need to pack people in till they fall off and die.
The fact that this is preventable.
It also brings me to the question – what do you do in such a situation ? the already mangled victim is at the mercy of the well meaning efforts of a bunch of o level educated clerks and carpenters from the looks of it – and bad to worse things can happen when you take a casualty like this and fold him in four to get him into a tuk tuk and send it off to the General Hospital (which is something I saw done to a bike accident victim) ….is there at least a National strategy on educating people on basic first aid? is it taught in schools? Is it given sufficient emphasis? Leave aside the clerical class worker population of Colombo , do you and I know what to do in a life and death situation ? or is it left for National Safety Day ?
That was the saddest part, the lunch packet, some caring mother or wife must have woken early to prepare, the fact that we live in such a rat race that it becomes a part of daily life that you get quietly maimed on your way to work. The fact that in spite of having to dodge prados and jaguars and mercedeses all over the streets of Colombo , we are so poor that we need to pack people in till they fall off and die.
The fact that this is preventable.
It also brings me to the question – what do you do in such a situation ? the already mangled victim is at the mercy of the well meaning efforts of a bunch of o level educated clerks and carpenters from the looks of it – and bad to worse things can happen when you take a casualty like this and fold him in four to get him into a tuk tuk and send it off to the General Hospital (which is something I saw done to a bike accident victim) ….is there at least a National strategy on educating people on basic first aid? is it taught in schools? Is it given sufficient emphasis? Leave aside the clerical class worker population of Colombo , do you and I know what to do in a life and death situation ? or is it left for National Safety Day ?
Thursday, December 14, 2006
The bars of my dreams….I think
Can you imagine an odd job johhny who can fix anything around the house,wires, plumbing, masonry yada yada , who gives quotations that do not require you to be resuscitated, and does not ask for more than his initial estimate no matter what unexpected frights he faces in the job? No? neither can I ..but I seem to have picked one up. The kind of man I ve always wanted to meet, (although he has a face that could launch a thousand mortars ) -he even has a celphone –how did I get him you wonder? Well I was in desperate crisis and hung around the nearby hardware kadey whining that my toilets were refluxing and I needed a piyippa bars and there he was.....ah, Al just lucky I guess.
* fingers crossed , next week I may tell you that he ran off with our satelite dish, so stay tuned...I never trust guys who talk too much. Come to think of it I dont trust guys who are quiet either. and so on.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Tintin in Tibet?
no its Ally in Kalutara - busy posing and fooling about in the beach when she had set herself the task of reading Chowrya Rajina to find out what all the fuss was about. ..
anyone want to buy my copy ? Im broke and my Superiors at The Kendraya wont fund the copy I bought in the interest of personal capacity building ...(wanted to find out what HRH's secrets were ,of course)
Ill personally autograph it , if it makes any difference ? pwease?and Ill pass on the Vijitha Yapa discount they gave me, a whole whopping 38 /-
I mean it has some interesting photos...better than this here one...
:-)
Second Hand copy of Chowrya Rajina Available for Sale ...
the BOOK ,I mean- the BOOK is for Sale.
Saturday, December 09, 2006
at last! a cure for importance!
I was recently going through this frazzled second hand women’s magazine Id bought from a pavement in Bamba, when I found this half page colour advert about a healthy though expensive new vitamin preparation containing some Chinese root or another which is supposed among other things to cure importance. Now that’s the actual spelling they had used, along with a photo of rather obscene looking tuber and a really happy looking couple... I did not have time nor inclination to read thought the whole half page but later on, after a lot of careful thought on the subject I figured it’s a very good idea and long overdue.
Have you noticed what a crippling affliction importance can be in some people? You see it in the way they sit, taking up as much room as they possibly can (ankle crossed on knee to make a little space for pricey Lamborgini Notebook which everyone should notice -), the way they talk (much deep clearing of throats and palpable care with their choice of exact wordings) the cultured accents (mock Oxford or Harvard elocution although they’ve been to third world banana republic schools*) and the generous servings of jargon they introduce into their day to day communications…You wonder if they talk to their dogs like this too? In the first place if a dog could survive around anything as important as this without rolling over and dying of acute inferiority?...words like zeitgeist , raison d’etre (I dont even know how its spelt and Im not apologising) and de facto need to be casually batted too and fro in any gathering of Importants for them to feel, well, important, which is (creek, creek –the echoing of crickets chirping in my comparatively empty head- ) alas actually lost on us lesser mortals and has us groping weakly for our thesauri.
At the Office, the Important cant just meet and talk like normal people, but must brainstorm, rationalise and strategise in hushed tones, then take elaborate minutes of the proceedings, and rework them to about 54 pages of research findings which they distribute to all on their spam lists and which no one spends more than 3 seconds on before junking.
Institutional importance clouds any reading material that originates from the average workplace and results in about 2.5 pages of possibly good ideas being hidden in at least 65 pages of a report in stodgy official jargon, which, lets be honest, no one WANTS to read , even if they had the time. This is not only really bad news for trees , but disturbing for Internet users since it probably grows at the mind boggling rate of billions of gigabytes per day what with people posting stuff on servers for further reference.
Medical and Scientific Importance I wont even go into here, because it would need a whole centre spread to begin on, and the same can be said for shh quietly now- state Importance. The best way to handle incurable individual Importance is to stand back, open your mouth in an awestricken gape and agree reverently with whatever the person says, while at the time coyly gushing “my, my, what a genius you are! Where do you get these ideas? What brilliance! What an amazing intellect!” at regular intervals( And sound as if you mean it!)
Readers or recipients of such Important -cattle waste are just as much to blame for the trend: they consistently continue to be obviously unimpress-able by anything less than a centimetre thick when it comes to documentation, or a speech which has any less than one hundred obscure words. This in spite of, or could it be because of , the fact that it just means they have less time to walk the dog, talk to their parents or spouses or practice Tai Chi, which although everyone agrees is good for you hardly anyone seems to actually provide for. Strange.
I personally envisage,I mean, foresee,(someone hit me with a brick- its rubbing off on me, help!!) a future where people will actually realise the value of keeping things simple(- stupid!) . They will speak and write down what they think in the most basic four or five letter words, accompanying anything written with cartoons and embedded audio clips which get the point across painlessly, with perhaps dormant links to the resource websites they poached it all from. This is so that if you have a lot of spare time and nothing planned for the weekend you can carry out further fact finding to whatever depth you feel you need for your development as a human being with only an average lifespan of 75 years to plan for.
In the meantime I want to find out what that root was and serve it secretly to some people I know- just to find out if it works and they become approachable normal people.
* No offence: They are probably as good as any other ,I’m only referring to the tedious accents.
Have you noticed what a crippling affliction importance can be in some people? You see it in the way they sit, taking up as much room as they possibly can (ankle crossed on knee to make a little space for pricey Lamborgini Notebook which everyone should notice -), the way they talk (much deep clearing of throats and palpable care with their choice of exact wordings) the cultured accents (mock Oxford or Harvard elocution although they’ve been to third world banana republic schools*) and the generous servings of jargon they introduce into their day to day communications…You wonder if they talk to their dogs like this too? In the first place if a dog could survive around anything as important as this without rolling over and dying of acute inferiority?...words like zeitgeist , raison d’etre (I dont even know how its spelt and Im not apologising) and de facto need to be casually batted too and fro in any gathering of Importants for them to feel, well, important, which is (creek, creek –the echoing of crickets chirping in my comparatively empty head- ) alas actually lost on us lesser mortals and has us groping weakly for our thesauri.
At the Office, the Important cant just meet and talk like normal people, but must brainstorm, rationalise and strategise in hushed tones, then take elaborate minutes of the proceedings, and rework them to about 54 pages of research findings which they distribute to all on their spam lists and which no one spends more than 3 seconds on before junking.
Institutional importance clouds any reading material that originates from the average workplace and results in about 2.5 pages of possibly good ideas being hidden in at least 65 pages of a report in stodgy official jargon, which, lets be honest, no one WANTS to read , even if they had the time. This is not only really bad news for trees , but disturbing for Internet users since it probably grows at the mind boggling rate of billions of gigabytes per day what with people posting stuff on servers for further reference.
Medical and Scientific Importance I wont even go into here, because it would need a whole centre spread to begin on, and the same can be said for shh quietly now- state Importance. The best way to handle incurable individual Importance is to stand back, open your mouth in an awestricken gape and agree reverently with whatever the person says, while at the time coyly gushing “my, my, what a genius you are! Where do you get these ideas? What brilliance! What an amazing intellect!” at regular intervals( And sound as if you mean it!)
Readers or recipients of such Important -cattle waste are just as much to blame for the trend: they consistently continue to be obviously unimpress-able by anything less than a centimetre thick when it comes to documentation, or a speech which has any less than one hundred obscure words. This in spite of, or could it be because of , the fact that it just means they have less time to walk the dog, talk to their parents or spouses or practice Tai Chi, which although everyone agrees is good for you hardly anyone seems to actually provide for. Strange.
I personally envisage,I mean, foresee,(someone hit me with a brick- its rubbing off on me, help!!) a future where people will actually realise the value of keeping things simple(- stupid!) . They will speak and write down what they think in the most basic four or five letter words, accompanying anything written with cartoons and embedded audio clips which get the point across painlessly, with perhaps dormant links to the resource websites they poached it all from. This is so that if you have a lot of spare time and nothing planned for the weekend you can carry out further fact finding to whatever depth you feel you need for your development as a human being with only an average lifespan of 75 years to plan for.
In the meantime I want to find out what that root was and serve it secretly to some people I know- just to find out if it works and they become approachable normal people.
* No offence: They are probably as good as any other ,I’m only referring to the tedious accents.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
the dreaded chocoriano© fever …
...and other serious worries we should be, well, worrying about…
Last week I got a text message from a bloke in office saying to please tell the admin officer that he had got chocoriano fever and wasn’t going to be able to make it …. I spent some time pondering seriously as to what this gruesomely named malady could be, and visions of Mars Bars gone wrong, Cocoa beans taking long overdue revenge on humankind etc clouded my imagination until I figured that the T9 text on his mobile phone had probably spelt chikungunya out like this and he had probably been too delirious to correct the text ( and mind you T9 is one of those other horrors of the modern world I wont even bother to go into here…)chiken what?you ask, hello- don’t we have enough on our plates?
Life in this day and age is full of worries. The average Colombo housewife like me has so many diverse concerns at any one point in time to worry about - leave aside the obvious ones like possible bomb explosions, kidnappings, paedophiles stalking our kids and escalating fuel prices, floods and power cuts , I can worry whether I will get diabetes because I don’t eat enough fruits, whether I’m using enough moisturiser or sunscreen or breast cancer is silently creeping up on me, and now, when not if chikunguniya will strike me and my loved ones. Thanks to regular blasts of well presented paranoia from local TV adverts we can add osteoporosis, cholesterol, MSG, bird flu and a whole gamut of oddly named diseases and conditions to this list- both regular and obscure. The film industry with its serial defamation of innocent dumb fauna adds to our subliminal anxieties about roving Sharks(Jaws), fish (Piranha) Dogs(Gujo), Snakes( Cobra, Anaconda, Anaconda two, Snakes on a Plane, Snakes on a Train, whatever next? Snakes on a bus? Yikes- ) and even Rats (poor persecuted vermin!)- plus the Bollywood spin offs to all of these.
Time not spent worrying about these identifiable worries can be filled by the vague worry that we may actually be missing out on certain worries just by not being actually informed about them so the key is to spread the word – usually in the form of urgent bulk emails which greet you in the morning when you stagger dazedly into the office (with the top priority ^ symbol of course) about such horrors as what could happen to you if you let your defences down for even a moment by letting your credit card out of sight , sitting on chairs in theatres without checking them and getting a particular unpronounceable worm in your computer. These emails are usually forwarded by someone who personally knows someone to whom this terrible thing has actually happened.
Awareness raising is therefore the keyword and apparently what you don’t know can kill you, so you make an effort to be informed ,sadly ignoring the fact that even if you know it , it will still kill you, the only difference being that instead of breezing through the life you do have , you would have faced it cringing cravenly and guiltily convinced that it was somehow, something you could have avoided if you had just been a step quicker…
It’s the price of civilisation, you see: those days worries were tangible uncomplicated things – the risk of invading Mongolian armies*kidnapping you , rampaging herds of wild mammoths , drought ,famine and the bubonic plague (read the totally yukky description in Wikipedia)are now a thing of the “savage" and “stressful” past . Modern man has organised his environment so well as to take all dangers and discomforts out of it –you forage for food at Cargils, and you usually don’t see saber toothed tigers ,dinosaurs or invading Cholas ploughing through Colombo on your way home - but hey have you noticed that worries are a strangely self perpetuating species – and were designed to never actually become extinct, but, rather like amoebas, simply break in half and mutate into newer and funkier versions…so the next thing you should be worrying about is credit card fraud, ozone depletion and the effect of UV rays, not to mention of course, the curse of that obscure chocoriano virus…
This is, you may say to me, dear gentle reader, exactly why civilised man invented the concept of “Insuarance” – to let us have some measure of relaxation in life and handle some of our more tangible worries for a fee. Seriously have you read through the fine print in any of those policies lately ? the one I have promises 2 million in damages if I lose an arm and a leg on THE SAME SIDE of the body! Try remembering that when you are next involved in a bus collision! (The same side, man- you need to turn with the agility of Catwoman to co ordinate that at a crisis moment -) and if an accident results in death WITHIN 60 days of the event your next of kin gets 2 million smackers . Can you possibly imagine the bated breath and hushed whispers that will surround your bedside on day 59?
Loss of a finger gets you a paltry 5,000/= each which of course means you are more valuable than 50k (SLRs which works out to about 25 GBP)but the next worry is whether someone related will notice this and relieve you of your digits, when they need to pay an instalment on the new home theatre system. Or if you have actually remembered to pay the premium on time , since it would be kind of embarrassing to turn up fingerless and find that the policy had lapsed. And so this list goes on. ..;
* this was of course before cable TV , and Need for Speed 2, they were bored and had nothing in the way of recreation besides plotting to invade neighbouring territories and increase the content and diversity of their harems.
...and other serious worries we should be, well, worrying about…
Last week I got a text message from a bloke in office saying to please tell the admin officer that he had got chocoriano fever and wasn’t going to be able to make it …. I spent some time pondering seriously as to what this gruesomely named malady could be, and visions of Mars Bars gone wrong, Cocoa beans taking long overdue revenge on humankind etc clouded my imagination until I figured that the T9 text on his mobile phone had probably spelt chikungunya out like this and he had probably been too delirious to correct the text ( and mind you T9 is one of those other horrors of the modern world I wont even bother to go into here…)chiken what?you ask, hello- don’t we have enough on our plates?
Life in this day and age is full of worries. The average Colombo housewife like me has so many diverse concerns at any one point in time to worry about - leave aside the obvious ones like possible bomb explosions, kidnappings, paedophiles stalking our kids and escalating fuel prices, floods and power cuts , I can worry whether I will get diabetes because I don’t eat enough fruits, whether I’m using enough moisturiser or sunscreen or breast cancer is silently creeping up on me, and now, when not if chikunguniya will strike me and my loved ones. Thanks to regular blasts of well presented paranoia from local TV adverts we can add osteoporosis, cholesterol, MSG, bird flu and a whole gamut of oddly named diseases and conditions to this list- both regular and obscure. The film industry with its serial defamation of innocent dumb fauna adds to our subliminal anxieties about roving Sharks(Jaws), fish (Piranha) Dogs(Gujo), Snakes( Cobra, Anaconda, Anaconda two, Snakes on a Plane, Snakes on a Train, whatever next? Snakes on a bus? Yikes- ) and even Rats (poor persecuted vermin!)- plus the Bollywood spin offs to all of these.
Time not spent worrying about these identifiable worries can be filled by the vague worry that we may actually be missing out on certain worries just by not being actually informed about them so the key is to spread the word – usually in the form of urgent bulk emails which greet you in the morning when you stagger dazedly into the office (with the top priority ^ symbol of course) about such horrors as what could happen to you if you let your defences down for even a moment by letting your credit card out of sight , sitting on chairs in theatres without checking them and getting a particular unpronounceable worm in your computer. These emails are usually forwarded by someone who personally knows someone to whom this terrible thing has actually happened.
Awareness raising is therefore the keyword and apparently what you don’t know can kill you, so you make an effort to be informed ,sadly ignoring the fact that even if you know it , it will still kill you, the only difference being that instead of breezing through the life you do have , you would have faced it cringing cravenly and guiltily convinced that it was somehow, something you could have avoided if you had just been a step quicker…
It’s the price of civilisation, you see: those days worries were tangible uncomplicated things – the risk of invading Mongolian armies*kidnapping you , rampaging herds of wild mammoths , drought ,famine and the bubonic plague (read the totally yukky description in Wikipedia)are now a thing of the “savage" and “stressful” past . Modern man has organised his environment so well as to take all dangers and discomforts out of it –you forage for food at Cargils, and you usually don’t see saber toothed tigers ,dinosaurs or invading Cholas ploughing through Colombo on your way home - but hey have you noticed that worries are a strangely self perpetuating species – and were designed to never actually become extinct, but, rather like amoebas, simply break in half and mutate into newer and funkier versions…so the next thing you should be worrying about is credit card fraud, ozone depletion and the effect of UV rays, not to mention of course, the curse of that obscure chocoriano virus…
This is, you may say to me, dear gentle reader, exactly why civilised man invented the concept of “Insuarance” – to let us have some measure of relaxation in life and handle some of our more tangible worries for a fee. Seriously have you read through the fine print in any of those policies lately ? the one I have promises 2 million in damages if I lose an arm and a leg on THE SAME SIDE of the body! Try remembering that when you are next involved in a bus collision! (The same side, man- you need to turn with the agility of Catwoman to co ordinate that at a crisis moment -) and if an accident results in death WITHIN 60 days of the event your next of kin gets 2 million smackers . Can you possibly imagine the bated breath and hushed whispers that will surround your bedside on day 59?
Loss of a finger gets you a paltry 5,000/= each which of course means you are more valuable than 50k (SLRs which works out to about 25 GBP)but the next worry is whether someone related will notice this and relieve you of your digits, when they need to pay an instalment on the new home theatre system. Or if you have actually remembered to pay the premium on time , since it would be kind of embarrassing to turn up fingerless and find that the policy had lapsed. And so this list goes on. ..;
* this was of course before cable TV , and Need for Speed 2, they were bored and had nothing in the way of recreation besides plotting to invade neighbouring territories and increase the content and diversity of their harems.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
A funny thing happened on the way to work today..
...there was another bomb in Kollupitiya...
Im ok. But I was about 5 minutes near it, and the smell was nasty. I usually get off and walk that way to office. Id phoned in this morning to say Id be a little late. Well ,ok quite late considering Im normally at office by 7 am.I had to check on my bike and do some extreme banking and it was 10.40 by the time I reached this junction.
today I had been tempted to get down in Maradana and get a flyer for the Bajaj CT 100 (drool) after which I got in the NEXT bus and thus was about ten minutes later than I would have been.
Life is funny,eh. I wow to hencefourth give in to sudden temptations more often.
Im ok. But I was about 5 minutes near it, and the smell was nasty. I usually get off and walk that way to office. Id phoned in this morning to say Id be a little late. Well ,ok quite late considering Im normally at office by 7 am.I had to check on my bike and do some extreme banking and it was 10.40 by the time I reached this junction.
today I had been tempted to get down in Maradana and get a flyer for the Bajaj CT 100 (drool) after which I got in the NEXT bus and thus was about ten minutes later than I would have been.
Life is funny,eh. I wow to hencefourth give in to sudden temptations more often.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
KUSUMAWATHIE RETURNS
THE RETURN OF KUSUMAWATHIE*
Kusumawthie, my faithful domestic and possibly Wellampitiyas’s answer to Mary Poppins, Elisa Doolittle, and Joan of Ark all in one, is back after a month long vacation, spent searching for a glass dot in her sole.
… last Monday I waded home through a sudden evening shower and found my front yard shin deep in a small stagnant tidal wave caused by a blocked drain. Silhouetted against our living room lighting the poor dear was battling the flood valiantly, trying to divert water away from the front door using the bathroom squeegee, and failing miserably, as the drain had a sizeable bolus of polythene stuck in it which she hadn’t thought to remove.
Having lived through the Kolonnawa Oil Refinery blast, regular Dengue episodes, surprise Police raids and instances of all out power blackout, not to mention all night exorcism ceremonies with noisy climaxes, I try to be calm in the face of disasters in general, but this was critical -if I had been another 15 minutes late, the sofas and then my bedroom carpets would have been well and truly soaked. We don’t want that to happen- those carpets contain the combined DNA of about 25 long dead cats and dogs who have been our pets down the ages (plus a crow and a bat who escaped and may still be alive) and they STINK when wet so I wanted, honestly to scream, and demand why she hadn’t called for backups, but since this is was our good Kusumawathie , I didn’t….she lives Ive noticed by rather convoluted logic which I cant begin to understand.
Kusumawathie is fifty five according to her NIC but looks much younger or older depending on whether its a fluorescent, daylight or torchlight (-not recommended) . Although she has taken to going through life hunching abjectly in a long suffering attempt to blend in with the furniture and not attract negative attention from malicious planets spinning light years away- her life story, sad to say, involves enough violence, mishap and excitement to make the average paparazzo gasp in awe.
To my knowledge she has so far been 1) knocked down by a car which affected her spine so she cant lift anything 2) scratched in the cornea by a potentially rabid kitten so she wont go near animals and 3) nearly strangled by another moonshine sozzled Sedawatte druggie cum robber cum potential molester who at the last moment in a flash of self loathing let her go on condition that she wouldn’t tell anyone about him- (which of course she did, with relish, anyone who would listen )not to mention the regular crockery throwing matches with her perpetually inebriated better half, and wrestling dramas in local buses. She has also had at least two serious accidents with firewood and hot kettles.
What doesn’t kill you makes your stronger, they say , but Ive noticed in some cases it just makes you paranoid- I have to admit regular serial misfortune has left poor Kusumawathi with a collection of phobias which she firmly incorporates into day to day work: irons for example are unpredictable death traps only to be approached when chaperoned by a capable English speaking person of responsible adult status possessing a valid driving license and vehicle, in case she gets electrocuted and the iron gets stuck to her( yeow!). Irons during a suspected thunderstorm even if it is 30 miles away, in the Bay of Bengal, are out of the question. Rice and pressure cookers and fridges command (un)healthy amounts of veneration although strangely the liquidizer has been allowed some measure of trust since it makes the coconut milk thick in spite of the ruckus. Gas tap replacement is an awe inspiring technical process to be monitored from a prudent distance, and the microwave is a thinly disguised portal to the netherworld as far as Kusumawathie is concerned: anything that small, square and inexplicable just has to be intrinsically evil.
Household dogs are best heard but not seen, preferably incarcerated behind chicken wire barricades so a lot of indistinct muttering greets any attempt to liberate these unfortunates while she is around. Any new pets are greeted with DISTINCT muttering and threats about going into retirement.
Potential visitors are categorized as regional criminals until proven otherwise, and firmly instructed to return with proper credentials.( I admit they often are so I approve)
Storms have a negative psychological impact on Kusumawathie due either to the Awe Inspiring Spectacle of Unrestrained Power unleashed by Nature in All its Glory, or the fact that she doesn’t like getting her feet wet- so the suggestion of a cumulo nimbus (or even a very small harmless regular nimbus) anywhere on the horizon means you can bet your last fiver she wont be turning up: so no hot dinner.
With all this caution getting in the way of her work, you may be wondering what it is she actually does around the house to earn her keep.
To be honest, now I come to think of it, so am I .
Sometimes there is hot dinner and she does make a mean Soya curry, but that’s not really it. It’s the comforting feeling that there’s someone in the back ground just in case you need her, and that’s nice to know in this day and age. So I’m not actually complaining.
*not her real name, of course
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The author gratefully acknowledges that she owes a lot to her domestic assistant without whom she would never have time for the hobbies she enjoys such as: blogging, drawing cartoons, playing pinball on her mobile phone, and going for short dangerous spins in her moped.
Kusumawthie, my faithful domestic and possibly Wellampitiyas’s answer to Mary Poppins, Elisa Doolittle, and Joan of Ark all in one, is back after a month long vacation, spent searching for a glass dot in her sole.
… last Monday I waded home through a sudden evening shower and found my front yard shin deep in a small stagnant tidal wave caused by a blocked drain. Silhouetted against our living room lighting the poor dear was battling the flood valiantly, trying to divert water away from the front door using the bathroom squeegee, and failing miserably, as the drain had a sizeable bolus of polythene stuck in it which she hadn’t thought to remove.
Having lived through the Kolonnawa Oil Refinery blast, regular Dengue episodes, surprise Police raids and instances of all out power blackout, not to mention all night exorcism ceremonies with noisy climaxes, I try to be calm in the face of disasters in general, but this was critical -if I had been another 15 minutes late, the sofas and then my bedroom carpets would have been well and truly soaked. We don’t want that to happen- those carpets contain the combined DNA of about 25 long dead cats and dogs who have been our pets down the ages (plus a crow and a bat who escaped and may still be alive) and they STINK when wet so I wanted, honestly to scream, and demand why she hadn’t called for backups, but since this is was our good Kusumawathie , I didn’t….she lives Ive noticed by rather convoluted logic which I cant begin to understand.
Kusumawathie is fifty five according to her NIC but looks much younger or older depending on whether its a fluorescent, daylight or torchlight (-not recommended) . Although she has taken to going through life hunching abjectly in a long suffering attempt to blend in with the furniture and not attract negative attention from malicious planets spinning light years away- her life story, sad to say, involves enough violence, mishap and excitement to make the average paparazzo gasp in awe.
To my knowledge she has so far been 1) knocked down by a car which affected her spine so she cant lift anything 2) scratched in the cornea by a potentially rabid kitten so she wont go near animals and 3) nearly strangled by another moonshine sozzled Sedawatte druggie cum robber cum potential molester who at the last moment in a flash of self loathing let her go on condition that she wouldn’t tell anyone about him- (which of course she did, with relish, anyone who would listen )not to mention the regular crockery throwing matches with her perpetually inebriated better half, and wrestling dramas in local buses. She has also had at least two serious accidents with firewood and hot kettles.
What doesn’t kill you makes your stronger, they say , but Ive noticed in some cases it just makes you paranoid- I have to admit regular serial misfortune has left poor Kusumawathi with a collection of phobias which she firmly incorporates into day to day work: irons for example are unpredictable death traps only to be approached when chaperoned by a capable English speaking person of responsible adult status possessing a valid driving license and vehicle, in case she gets electrocuted and the iron gets stuck to her( yeow!). Irons during a suspected thunderstorm even if it is 30 miles away, in the Bay of Bengal, are out of the question. Rice and pressure cookers and fridges command (un)healthy amounts of veneration although strangely the liquidizer has been allowed some measure of trust since it makes the coconut milk thick in spite of the ruckus. Gas tap replacement is an awe inspiring technical process to be monitored from a prudent distance, and the microwave is a thinly disguised portal to the netherworld as far as Kusumawathie is concerned: anything that small, square and inexplicable just has to be intrinsically evil.
Household dogs are best heard but not seen, preferably incarcerated behind chicken wire barricades so a lot of indistinct muttering greets any attempt to liberate these unfortunates while she is around. Any new pets are greeted with DISTINCT muttering and threats about going into retirement.
Potential visitors are categorized as regional criminals until proven otherwise, and firmly instructed to return with proper credentials.( I admit they often are so I approve)
Storms have a negative psychological impact on Kusumawathie due either to the Awe Inspiring Spectacle of Unrestrained Power unleashed by Nature in All its Glory, or the fact that she doesn’t like getting her feet wet- so the suggestion of a cumulo nimbus (or even a very small harmless regular nimbus) anywhere on the horizon means you can bet your last fiver she wont be turning up: so no hot dinner.
With all this caution getting in the way of her work, you may be wondering what it is she actually does around the house to earn her keep.
To be honest, now I come to think of it, so am I .
Sometimes there is hot dinner and she does make a mean Soya curry, but that’s not really it. It’s the comforting feeling that there’s someone in the back ground just in case you need her, and that’s nice to know in this day and age. So I’m not actually complaining.
*not her real name, of course
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The author gratefully acknowledges that she owes a lot to her domestic assistant without whom she would never have time for the hobbies she enjoys such as: blogging, drawing cartoons, playing pinball on her mobile phone, and going for short dangerous spins in her moped.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
COSMIC TRANCE
I dont know how old or how new this album is but I want it-
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000065V9J/ref=nosim/societyforhumans
its PASSION by Peter Gabriel who along with Enya , Enigma and Gregorian - is the real meaning of music to me: a point where space, life and time stand still and your being drowns in theta waves..
Any one out there got it ? Ill swap with my giant compilation of 500 titles. Ill actually go out of my way to meet you. Help me!
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000065V9J/ref=nosim/societyforhumans
its PASSION by Peter Gabriel who along with Enya , Enigma and Gregorian - is the real meaning of music to me: a point where space, life and time stand still and your being drowns in theta waves..
Any one out there got it ? Ill swap with my giant compilation of 500 titles. Ill actually go out of my way to meet you. Help me!
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Wellampitiya Revisited
Wellampitiya Revisited...
-or part 2 of the Looney Planet Guide thereto.
-or part 2 of the Looney Planet Guide thereto.
You have probably heard about all kinds of vice emanating from Wellampitiya – murders, shoot outs, bus arson(oh joy) and occasional hauls of moonshine: well, speaking from the inside I must tell you these people are not really evil ,mostly they have merely given up with pretenses and dislike beating about the bush and hypocrisy. I personally approve, I mean - instead of the malicious gossip ,backstabbing and subtle under cutting you encounter in so called “civilized” joints, I suggest it would be much more straight-forward to challenge someone you have a grudge against to an open shoot out and have done with them- it’s crisp and uncomplicated.Also being shot cleanly in broad daylight would really be a blessedly quick end to all those vague anxieties about the cost of living, the ozone layer and whether mobile phones damage the few surviving brain cells you do have...
Anyway- to continue from last week-
Endangered Fauna- High on the endangered list is Picky, a local canine citizen I met about a decade back. Among other unspeakable eccentricities, he has a compulsion to mark territory, i.e. pee, on piles of coconuts laid for sale at the local Pola. This would make even the gentlest of meditation-practicing buddhist grandmothers understandably miffed but we are talking about hairy, tattooed underworld beefcakes, so I really don’t know how he has survived this long. True to local tradition, he sports deep manne scars of different levels of freshness on his skull and neck and is blind in one eye; I swear I have seen him chase smaller rivals into the paths of oncoming buses; at the same time, he is very gentle with children and kittens and just yesterday I found him walking around inside a neighborhood pediatric clinic , looking silly and unfocused.
Apart from bats ,kabarayas, visiting troops of grey langaurs, wading birds, water fowl, hoethamboowahs, bandicoots and mongooses, I am rumored to personally harbor a white cobra at the bottom of my backyard, but I have never heard of it harming anyone. If it does exist, it is welcome to stay there. If not, it would mean that the natives have smoked it out, doused it in kerosene and given it a fiery send off, something they do to hapless reptiles, centipedes, scorpions and anyone they suspect of having an alternate sexuality, on the days they don’t attend temple.
Youth activities Little Wellampitians (or Wellampettes as I like to call the precious darlings) are short, shiny and very cute but have sturdy constitutions since their mums went through pregnancy dodging batons, brickbats and bullets and fortifying themselves on exhumed moonshine, instead of regular stuff like Anmum or Preglac: they have fine tuned survival to a happy art, spend the afternoons playing Catapult-The-Town-Idiot, setting fire to the tail tufts of wondering cows and cheerfully riding their tricycles around dodging (and occasionally under) the 40 foot Maersk container-trailers that head in from Orugodawaltta to Peliyagoda.
Garbage Disposal Is an issue here, which the local cattle sadly cannot handle all by themselves though they do try. Some of my neighbors have crossly demanded to know why I carry my garbage long distances and dump it in the local Urban Council collection bins (which are overflowing and stinky) instead of, like them, putting it in my own land since I live on a comparatively large extent of land. I have had to point out that really, I don’t like them putting their garbage in my backyard, either, so will they please stop.
Deadlines
The road watching Wellampitian males are patient and take the security watch matter quite seriously staying up sometimes till about 1 am , doing pretty much nothing except discussing politics ,cracking lewd jokes, chewing things and occasionally hoisting their sarongs into strange arrangements the better to properly air themselves by. There is always a vague air of expectancy but what exactly they are waiting for I’m never really sure.
In conclusion-Wellampitians don’t pretend:if they think someone did something wrong, they tell him so, while ramming his skull rhythmically into a blokgal wall and making him chew on knuckle sandwich.
If they like a woman they appreciate her loudly and enthusiastically.
If they like you as a person you get to attend every festival they can afford to invite you to viz age comings, home comings (after honeymoons or after a stint in jail), funerals and the-after-funeral-but-before-the-anniversary party, you name it, you are welcome. They take Sri Lankan hospitality to new levels. And trust me, as with usual Sri Lankans, there is some darn good cooking at each of these (particularly the funerals ) .
For those of my friends who think this is an article aimed at policy makers,and the local Urban Council I honestly don’t mean it that way and personally wouldn’t suggest changing a thing, except perhaps the mosquito situation. The uncaged writer in me thrives on such excitement as neighborhood flood-outs, vigilante revenges and extreme exorcisms : this beats watching WWF on cable any day. I’m just sorry my article cant be larger, with a colour supplement. :-)
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
The author does not intend to offend anyone local by this lighthearted and affectionate account of her beloved hometown. (Well…Understandably, in the circumstances…)
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Information Professionals Unite
Knowledge is power!
Our friend Chammika’s excellent Colombo Knowledge Centre unfortunately does not seem to pop up on search engines , whereas whatever we say on a blogs seems to . ...
So I thought I would do everyone a favour by refering to it here and store the link so you can just click for info. http://www.humanitarian-srilanka.org/CKC/index.php
The Forum on Right to Information or Civil Society Initiative on Information Sharing, whatever it gets to be called (we are still experimenting ) will also hopefully be hosted here under Consortium’s capable auspices…for info please bug Chammika…
Ps Im wondering if this is a chance for Information Professionals in Sri Lanka to pool resources and get cracking on some kind of Association with its own regulations, qualifications and CPD opportunities. ..
Our friend Chammika’s excellent Colombo Knowledge Centre unfortunately does not seem to pop up on search engines , whereas whatever we say on a blogs seems to . ...
So I thought I would do everyone a favour by refering to it here and store the link so you can just click for info. http://www.humanitarian-srilanka.org/CKC/index.php
The Forum on Right to Information or Civil Society Initiative on Information Sharing, whatever it gets to be called (we are still experimenting ) will also hopefully be hosted here under Consortium’s capable auspices…for info please bug Chammika…
Ps Im wondering if this is a chance for Information Professionals in Sri Lanka to pool resources and get cracking on some kind of Association with its own regulations, qualifications and CPD opportunities. ..
Sunday, November 19, 2006
by popular request....The add that got me 79 calls a day...
…for three days till I had to switch that phone off, plus about 55 texts, mostly with awful spelling which turns me off, 35 insincere expressions of interest from already married dudes, 20 rude suggestions from teenage dudes, 7 really nice new friends , 3 freelance-job offers from advertising sector people and 2 genuine marriage proposals ….in spite of the fact that I had said “please text”.
Above numbers are approximate but certainly not exaggerated and I still occasionally get a call about this add, probably from someone who is reading an old paper wrapping his lunch or just before he cleans up some cat- poo…
In answer to your next question, Im still single and picky.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
The concise “Lonely-Planet-like” guide to...
.....Wellampitiya.-part 1
Wellampitiya… rocks! No seriously, I’m not saying this because it happens to be my home town, and I want to help jack up the land prices by at least 10 rupees per square foot in the area-. Its just that I find it one of the most colorful, interesting, downright adventurous places to live in .And its not that I have lived here all my life, no: I do hazily recall comparatively civilized places like Nawala, Manchester and even exotic Nairobi and they honestly bore me, they are refined, predictable , really sane compared with this joint.
Getting there
Wellampitiya… rocks! No seriously, I’m not saying this because it happens to be my home town, and I want to help jack up the land prices by at least 10 rupees per square foot in the area-. Its just that I find it one of the most colorful, interesting, downright adventurous places to live in .And its not that I have lived here all my life, no: I do hazily recall comparatively civilized places like Nawala, Manchester and even exotic Nairobi and they honestly bore me, they are refined, predictable , really sane compared with this joint.
Getting there
Located in the suburbs just outside Colombo , beyond Dematagoda on the Kolonnawa Road, you can reach it by making use of that overcrowded very slow, roundabout bus numbered 140 which heads in from Colombo 3, or the 131 from Maharagama: I am constantly surprised to not hear yet that someone has been found suffocated to death in those buses, frozen clawing rigidly at the straps… I think they must be two of the poorest, smelliest most overcrowded buses in Colombo.
It is also a mere 15 minutes drive away from Colombo’s Town Hall – that’s a maximum of $ 3.50 in a Six-Eight-Eight Cab if you can actually convince them to go that way ( we face the same problem with Pizza Huts unfortunately- I cant think what the natives have subjected them to, they do not give reasons but those cute Pizza delivery chaps would rather run their bikes off Lovers Leap than agree to deliver anything to us although we are technically within their allowed mileage: Sad)
The Local Economy
A substantial number of average Wellampitiya blokes do not actually attend day jobs but send their womenfolk out instead. Since I have a day job I too am not really sure what it is the employed ones do but I’m guessing its very macho and involves a lot of noise. Welding, masonry, truck driving – that sort of thing. And of course its more or less a homeland of tuk tuk drivers, those hairy, honest epitomes of lower middle class moral rectitude. Even the comparatively more effeminate Wellampitia bloke who ends up in the local Chinese food outlet, makes a lot of ruckus about it , chopping kottu roti as if it’s the necks (or worse) of rival gang members and actually manually assaulting the stir fried veggies which lends it that wonderful so called “umami” flavour.
Local Hobbies
Most male Wellampitians have excellent roofing in their homes but spend their lives on the road. The crack of dawn finds these ernest over-zealous early birds walking up and down the main road in banians and gym shorts , brushing their teeth, drinking kola kanda and waiting for the morning newspaper(no doubt for updates on the latest local throat slitting incident ).
Safety : D
It is also a mere 15 minutes drive away from Colombo’s Town Hall – that’s a maximum of $ 3.50 in a Six-Eight-Eight Cab if you can actually convince them to go that way ( we face the same problem with Pizza Huts unfortunately- I cant think what the natives have subjected them to, they do not give reasons but those cute Pizza delivery chaps would rather run their bikes off Lovers Leap than agree to deliver anything to us although we are technically within their allowed mileage: Sad)
The Local Economy
A substantial number of average Wellampitiya blokes do not actually attend day jobs but send their womenfolk out instead. Since I have a day job I too am not really sure what it is the employed ones do but I’m guessing its very macho and involves a lot of noise. Welding, masonry, truck driving – that sort of thing. And of course its more or less a homeland of tuk tuk drivers, those hairy, honest epitomes of lower middle class moral rectitude. Even the comparatively more effeminate Wellampitia bloke who ends up in the local Chinese food outlet, makes a lot of ruckus about it , chopping kottu roti as if it’s the necks (or worse) of rival gang members and actually manually assaulting the stir fried veggies which lends it that wonderful so called “umami” flavour.
Local Hobbies
Most male Wellampitians have excellent roofing in their homes but spend their lives on the road. The crack of dawn finds these ernest over-zealous early birds walking up and down the main road in banians and gym shorts , brushing their teeth, drinking kola kanda and waiting for the morning newspaper(no doubt for updates on the latest local throat slitting incident ).
Safety : D
usk finds numbers of male Wellampitians squatting in little huddles by the road side, chatting , slapping each other on the back, drinking from strange murky bottles and generally taking their civic duty seriously by monitoring all traffic, particularly the younger female citizens who happen to be returning from a days work. Ok I admit this is what most Sri Lankan’s and indeed most human male creatures in general prefer to do anyway given half the chance but Wellampitians take this very seriously- more as a job than a hobby. The result is, its actually very safe for local women to walk the streets at almost any time of the day or night. Women spend the evenings in temples or walking up and down between houses swapping dishes and retrieving children who have got slightly dispersed during the day(See “Youth Activities)
Organised Crime (we’re talking really organized)
But it’s a different story if you are a stranger in Wellampitiya. The silent looks of calculating concentration from the locals and the decidedly hostile snarling of about 15 under-sized, blotchy but vicious looking stray dogs per average road will send any but the most determined intruder back where they came from within a few minutes at most.
I am personally convinced that thieves, rapists and criminal elements do not stand even a remote chance here unless they have actually agreed through prior bookings with the locals on whom to rob/plunder/molest and to what extent, etc.[1]
I also suspect aspiring criminals from other towns are sent here for final year training and if they ever do get out alive it means they are ready to graduate. Most of these resultant “honors” students leave minus superfluous appendages like noses, thumbs and the occasional eyeball but then those are the subject of good drinking stories later on (plus you get landed with short pithy names like Potta Nihal or Sedawatte Sudo). A very good friend of mine, an ex-Wellampitian who has subsequently moved to Nugegoda and reformed[2] recounted to me that after being attacked by half a dozen knife welding rivals, he regained consciousness in a ditch on the “Bundt” at 3 am with his scalp partitioned into three distinct flaps, and thought to himself- “this cant be my bedroom”
Next week: Youth Activities, Endangered Fauna, and garbage disposal in Wellampitiya
Organised Crime (we’re talking really organized)
But it’s a different story if you are a stranger in Wellampitiya. The silent looks of calculating concentration from the locals and the decidedly hostile snarling of about 15 under-sized, blotchy but vicious looking stray dogs per average road will send any but the most determined intruder back where they came from within a few minutes at most.
I am personally convinced that thieves, rapists and criminal elements do not stand even a remote chance here unless they have actually agreed through prior bookings with the locals on whom to rob/plunder/molest and to what extent, etc.[1]
I also suspect aspiring criminals from other towns are sent here for final year training and if they ever do get out alive it means they are ready to graduate. Most of these resultant “honors” students leave minus superfluous appendages like noses, thumbs and the occasional eyeball but then those are the subject of good drinking stories later on (plus you get landed with short pithy names like Potta Nihal or Sedawatte Sudo). A very good friend of mine, an ex-Wellampitian who has subsequently moved to Nugegoda and reformed[2] recounted to me that after being attacked by half a dozen knife welding rivals, he regained consciousness in a ditch on the “Bundt” at 3 am with his scalp partitioned into three distinct flaps, and thought to himself- “this cant be my bedroom”
Next week: Youth Activities, Endangered Fauna, and garbage disposal in Wellampitiya
[1] Rather like in the fabled city of Ankh Morpork- check the Wikipedia entry.
[2] Honest!
also available at http://www.dailymirror.lk/sections/supp/w@w/211106/03.asp
(illustration property of Daily Mirror )
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Nokia Photography
Something I did using my cheap Nokia 3220 , captured not in a desolate savannah outback but on the Orugudawatte-Wellampitiya route on a blazing island afternoon.Subsequently run through a Photoshop Watercolur Filter. Enjoy.
Why we call Ginger Nuts, Mantal
Mahisha has asked me why we call one of our cats "Mantal"...I thought Id reply here-
Mantal has slight problems - I dont know exactly what its called.He takes time to notice things. For example he may be hungry but he doesnt realise that actually eating some food will solve it. SO he runs around sadly sniffing the air. He also dosnt know that sitting behind the tyre of a reversing car will result in getting his head flattened, so we have to keep rescuing him from our car. He does not know what fire is and sometimes sniffs the gas ring and loses all his whiskers in one go. Needless to say we dont let him go out onto the road and in fact he has no interest in going out. As for mating season, the poor dear doesnt know which side of a female cat he should approach if its actually worthwhile so he doesnt bother. He is a cat in a million and very sweet, but I know he will come to a sticky end someday.
One day soon I shall tell you about Mantal and the resident guarandiar...
Mantal has slight problems - I dont know exactly what its called.He takes time to notice things. For example he may be hungry but he doesnt realise that actually eating some food will solve it. SO he runs around sadly sniffing the air. He also dosnt know that sitting behind the tyre of a reversing car will result in getting his head flattened, so we have to keep rescuing him from our car. He does not know what fire is and sometimes sniffs the gas ring and loses all his whiskers in one go. Needless to say we dont let him go out onto the road and in fact he has no interest in going out. As for mating season, the poor dear doesnt know which side of a female cat he should approach if its actually worthwhile so he doesnt bother. He is a cat in a million and very sweet, but I know he will come to a sticky end someday.
One day soon I shall tell you about Mantal and the resident guarandiar...
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