Mud Ghecko

October is the month of my wonderful liberating divorce, and I remember it with such mellow happiness, you might consider it rather shocking.  The truth is, hardly any anniversary makes me so inexplicably happy!!  Perhaps obscenely, I have many times wanted to propose divorce parties and I know if I was a minister or something I would host large-scale nationwide celebrations with free butterscotch ice cream dansal, pole dancers and/or fireworks, which ever is more fun... I want to tell you because I trust you not to judge me… sometimes divorce can be a really good happy thing, and people really should do it more often - and with more kinds of things (not necessarily your spouse) that are just not working out- you can divorce your job, your daylight robbing trishaw man, your insufferably nosy aunt next door, your current vocation if you don't like it, your motherland if its taxing you too much and you cant take it anymore.... theres so much to be said about simply not taking it any ...

(Unrelated artwork by Chandrika Gadiewasam)  Scandalous, I know,  but I have concluded that if it wasn't, the human race ,   which put man on the moon and invented Velcro, not to mention, outwitted the smallpox vaccine, and the bubonic plague, would have done something about it …so all I can conclude is , there must be some people out there who support it, and not just the perpetrators…I think I know a few... it's  like this… Last week, three days in a row,  yours truly had to go shockingly dinner-less! I had had my share of late work at office and so it was quite demoralizing when I had to crawl home in the dark, to find my home dark , silent and cold, with nothing on the dinner table except for a few moldy rice grains and bread crusts, and a starving cat or two. " Madam I am not able to come today   and tomorrow as Champika has a Problem " my dear domestic assistant Kusumawathi notified me   in  a sepulchral tone in the middle of one of our Uni...

  In my thirty sixth year , so the planets dictate, I am to publish my first book. Now that's big news I just cant ignore, as fanatical as I am about the whole subject  of  reading , books and the Written Word. I have to then grudgingly acknowledge that many  of  the milestones in my humble life have in fact been previously dictated by the same bunch  of  nine regular suspects that affects everyone else only at a slightly different angle. Birth , Childhood illnesses, a fore doomed marriage and the exact number  of  offspring I will finally produce , you name it, the same set  of  interstellar gas balls was at the bottom  of  how they turned out. I objected. I scoffed. For the last thirty six years I have successfully dismissed the entire lot  of  predictions as the improbable , impossible rantings  of  dazed tribal witch doctors (which for the most part they probably all were, except for my darling mum who is a qualified architect, and the best in her predictions) - but now I am fo...

I dont have a degree in Communications. Neither does my daughter Nadeesha. But we have been published for a number of years in leading newspapers, written two columns and been co- authors of a book, not to mention becoming co-founders of popular online forums with thousands of members. My writing has shamed a big company into doing the right thing. It has organised charity work, saved a number of animals' lives big and small, alternatively boiled and soothed my readers and also brought many a smile to their faces. We have written Sri Lanka's first book of Horror Stories in English, which was great fun in the compilation. I've also had the honour of working with the company doing promotions for a very famous international drama series in 2010, as a Social Media researcher during its production stages.  Nadeesha worked part-time with a British content provision company. She influences many friends to eat better, live better and be happier. We are above all, happy ...

Moonlight across the dunes. Gentle, ululating expanses of sand.  This is the scrub desert surrounding El Thebsi and there is a soft breeze in the air and the muffled sound of hooves in this sand. A lone horseman accompanied by a lithe desert Saluki gallops towards the vast red fortress on the horizon. He is smiling in the moonlight beneath his shawl, and the dog is frisking with joy since this is their home and they have been away for months and they long to be back home. The horse is most eager too, because of its exhaustion - it has travelled uncounted miles The horseman shouts. The fortress does not reply. The dog begins to curve around and whimper, dashing erratically back and forth in anxiety. The horseman, Carlos Romero DeLa Nostra y Carreras - he wheels his horse around the dog and urges it on, suddenly uneasy at the atmosphere that exudes from his home.  "What has happened? Where is everyone?" Carreras choked into his face covering, his joy changed in the flicker of a...

The Mad Witches of Modera In a modern Colombo suburb, three long-suffering housewives decide to punish and reform their errant men using black magic, a daring plot that has unpredictable results. CHAPTER ONE Resting Witch Phase Really-what kind of man can cut off his dead lover's head?  It's not easy. You need muscle. Your arm aches for days afterwards. The spinal column in an adult female can not be easy to sever. I wish I could find out from that girl, what she saw in him. What do we see in any of our abusive South Asian men? That is what I was thinking while I ran to meet my writing deadline at the Weekend Financial Review. I had an idea about this because I had once cut off a dogs head. When it was dead of course. It took some time. That is an old story.  Once upon a time in Colombo there were three forty-plus women who were friends.  One was an actress, let's call her Bibi, one was a journalist, that's me and the third was a s...

Tintin in Tibet? at last! a cure for importance! the dreaded chocoriano© fever … KUSUMAWATHIE RETURNS COSMIC TRANCE Wellampitiya Revisited by popular request....The add that got me 79 calls a day... The concise "Lonely-Planet-like" guide to... Why we call Ginger Nuts, Mantal Oops I did it again, again… Rain,Rain... Where have all the beggars gone? Domestic Bliss- the Kusumawathie Files Perils of travelling without an ID in Colombo https://aljuharawrites.blogspot.com/2007/ MY BITTER NOVEMBER SIMBA's STORY Modera's Baby Twisting Nightmare Another Day in Paradise a one in a million publication… If I wus President for a day...ok, make it a year on "Provoked" the Immoral of it all El Caballo Negro* of antacids and Destiny Little Peacock Dancer My Top Seven Horrors of Modern Living Chatty heads for Ampara Shores of Another Sea Shores of Another Sea Part Two https://aljuharawrites.blogspot.com/2008/ 24 USES FOR NEWSPRINT ON A BORING SUNDAY AFTERNOON How to make a c...