Mud Ghecko

  Curious* was discovered by a local garbage dump, weak, hungry and crooked, one soggy July evening in 2005 . Numerous unpleasant incidents with our growing menagerie mean, that we try not to see or hear stray orphans as we walk or drive around the streets of Colombo, but this one hit my eyes, solidly and firmly although it probably measured no more than three inches across at the time, from nose to r atty tail tip. This bug eyed, quizzical looking vision of a blurred orange ball with a string on one end, would not leave me.   Curious was destined to be my favourite. Mentally and physically Curious is slightly handicapped, possibly mildly "autistic". Just like with humans, in the animal world too, this happens occasionally but we see hardly any instances of such because cruel laws of the jungle dictate survival of the fittest and shrewdest and even they never get a second chance. Curious it would appear, was supposed to. Add to this the fact that he had lost his mother ea...

On the occasion of the 99th birth anniversary of Mrs Sessy Paulis of Sirimal Uyana Ratmalana When I met my adorable mother in law Mrs Sessy Paulis, she was about 70 and I was 19 so actually more than a mother-in-law, she seemed like a grandma to me too which was wonderful since I didn't have one of my own close-by. She was a very graceful and elegant figure, usually in light blue sarees with a string of pearls which she wore when visiting. What stood out at the first impression was one of a very loving, compassionate, and genuinely caring lady of class and standing, who also knew to bond with any strata of people. Since I was a very young daughter-in-law I’m very happy to say that I learned a lot of things from her, and I'm very sure that her lessons of kindness and tolerance live on through me as much as they do through her own children and grandchildren. I was comparatively impressionable and vulnerable at that age, so I do believe she adopted me at once as anothe...

image aptly titled "our packages" from   chandrapanagoda.lk   I didn't know till recently how much a coffin costs in Sri Lanka, it hasn't been that high in my "need to know" list. But this year I found out that it can be anything from 20,000 to 400,000 LKR.,and at each end of the spectrum the damn things look the same! They are shiny polished OBLONG WOODEN BOXES with handles! They have some shiny white material inside. The 400,000 one doesn't look 20 times as posh as the other one, it just looks the same but a bit heavier. I was told that monks get the high quality send off. Of course that makes sense, burning a box that costs enough to make a small home for a destitute family, just because they are a Buddhist monk. Just what the Buddha ordered! As each year starts we look into it and wonder with new hope, if finally this will be the year we waited for, if this year we will find what we were looking for. None of us imagine that this may be the year in w...

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...

Glue traps are a gruesome way to die for little animals, and this is Tinkerbelle a stray kitty who was caught in one, her front leg also breaking in the effort to release her, which is a common occurrence in victims of these inhumane devices. Tinkerbelle's rescue was funded by a private animal rescue fund named NO CAT LEFT BEHIND SRI LANKA.  This FB page based fund was initiated in 2016 by Dutch national Anouk Gaastra who was also the founder of Cat Protection Trust later taken over by animal rescuer Indira Sahadevan. The objective is to sterilize street cats and the cats of poor owners who cannot afford it, so as to prevent/reduce overpopulation and suffering among stray cats. ​ Locally resident animal rescuer Marilyn Wouters, who runs a shelter for disabled and paralysed cats in Negombo now helps raise and manage resources for this fund too, personally contributing to the fund on a monthly basis. With the kind support of a team of dedicated vets who work at subsidsed rates,...

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 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, : 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. 164 and 166 too go in that ...

​ (Art courtesy Daily Mirror ) Its been close upon two years now but the guilt of it has kept me silent so far.  Even now I will not tell you who I am, for your author, dear gentle reader, is guilty of having broken the law, violated the penal code and /or acted unconstitutionally to boot and what's worse now intends to crow about it too! The cause of this was a beady-eyed, near comatose bundle of black feathers I found on Greenpath, one Monday evening last July on my way back from work. This creature was later named Pokey and he * was seriously ill; birds of his feather had gathered around thoughtfully and were noisily discussing their intention of putting him out of his misery. ( Hint: this would involve being summarily pecked to death because they do not want to Leave you to the Cats. They obviously give a lot of thought to this sort of thing, crows.) Pocky did not have enough strength to so much as lift a wing but lay abject and lifeless waiting f...