I promise I’ll do anything you ask…this time……
Anicca vata sankhara, "Impermanent, alas, are all formations”
Appreciate people for the good they did for you because they loved you and not the indifference they showed you because they did not know any better. Before it is too late.
A national identity issue and cake
I’ve read a couple of posts recently that piqued my considerable mental prowess and got it ruminating on the issue of a ‘national’ identity, primarily a Sri Lankan identity and what seems to be a never ending quest to find/formulate one. The posts in question included this one addressing labels and purpose and another one entreating Sri Lankans to join hands in preserving ‘traditional’ Sri Lankan music.
The first post I found intriguing in its critique of ‘labeling’ which though I feel is a valid criticism is to me pretty much unavoidable. I need to label people, not just with names but where I met them, their backgrounds, preferences, religious beliefs, etc. This is simply because I need a ‘context’ to the people that I know. To me it’s unrealistic to behave exactly the same with every person I know; knowing their ‘cultural’ backgrounds, personal preferences lets me tailor my behaviour to each person individually. The negligible minoritist made an interesting point about purpose, but it hurts my head to think of anything meaningful to say about that, but it does make for some interesting pondering.
The second post I read I wasn’t too fond off, especially because it seemed to make certain assumptions of what constitutes Sri Lankan culture based purely on the authors personal preferences and exhibited what to me is a somewhat ‘fishbowl’ attitude in a fear of all things ‘foreign.’ What I found even more annoying actually was the condescending view the author had that just because I left Sri Lanka when I was 18 and though being a regular visitor (well more than regular on some occasions) somehow I had given up the authority to discuss Sri Lankan culture. Actually a sentence that I found telling and a little scary was “…as a Sri Lankan, I’d love to request u to come home and spend some time here, see if u can find that old Sinhalese spark u’ve lost.” Funny because nowhere did I make the insinuation that I am Sinhalese and though being Sinhalese is for sure part of being Sri Lankan it doesn’t give me any more ownership over the Sri Lankan identity than anyone else. I in fact could not be bothered responding to the last comment I got in response to mine simply because I see no point in arguing with idiots, especially those with a ‘holier than thou attitude’ but reading the comment did spark a light bulb over my noggin when I thought of it in the context of the minoritist’s post.
Here’s the thing, I think barking up the tree of a “Sri Lankan national identity” is a mistake, especially when it seems to involve pigeonholing people into being Sri Lankan. I mean what makes a Sri Lankan, our ancestors landing here 2000 years ago from North India, coming in with the invading armies of Elara, evolving in Balangoda, coming to trade with the Arabs or being brought as slave labour by the British. There are so many people who do not fit into the traditional pigeonholes that have contributed so much to Sri Lanka in both traditional and non-traditional fields.
Are we to discount Bawa’s contributions to Sri Lanka’s evolving architectural heritage either because he was a burgher or because he spent time abroad being exposed to (shock, horror, gasp) foreign influences? Are we to turn our back on Arthur C. Clarke’s achievements and contribution to Sri Lanka’s literary and technical development just because he wasn’t born in Sri Lanka? Or similarly Romesh Gunasekera or David Blacker simply because they spent or spend significant time away from Sri Lanka or don’t fit what the ‘traditional’ pigeonhole of what being a Sri Lankan is?
I say fuck national identity. It’s enough being concerned enough about Sri Lanka to write, sing, take photographs, and think about Sri Lankan matters and issues. It’s enough to feel it in your bones that you are Sri Lankan. Who gives a shit where you’re from, what your genetic makeup is or any other of those insignificant little things that make us who we are on the exterior. I think we should be looking for a policy of acceptance, of people of all origin, colour, race, sexual orientation, etc, as long as they are proud of some part of them being Sri Lankan.
P.S. If you like my ideas I might run for presidency in 2015, vote for me and I shall give you not bread but cake for five rupees a pound…and not just any cake, chocolate fudge cake…
I used to be a party starter, as R put it once I was the kind of person who could start a party in Antarctica, just needed some vodka and a couple of cans of RedBull. And the boy was my partner in crime, the ultimate wingman. We used to be good, roll into Clancy’s, pour ourselves some 75’s and head out on the hunt, him with his killer smile, me with my humour. A plethora of girls passed before us, most of them I can’t remember, just nicknames like Dead Fish, White Top, etc (well actually I can only remember one, N, who’s actually a good mate now despite her irrational want for me to walk on the beach after I’ve consumed 10 pounds of seafood and two bottles of wine…yeah, never gonna happen!). Even when not on the hunt, we still enjoyed ourselves, a bottle of Blavod and we were on the tables at Glo, rocking until the early hours of the morning. We didn’t leave anybody behind either, K, Chinky Pinky, the Akkis all enjoyed themselves, Evil started smoking again, Bounty used to have to find himself a new job every time we came down and rebuild his reputation every time we left. But from the beach , to the Blue, to Glo, Holiday Inn and the early morning drives on Galle Road it was a blast…
But somewhere along the line we lost it, going out became more escapism than enjoyment. Pouring a drink is more pressing the button of self destruction, not that either of us are alcoholics since we don’t drink alone or all the time. But for me personally partying is not about having fun anymore, it’s about forgetting what sucks in life for a brief moment. Case in point, my penultimate night at home, my issues were 20% girl, 60% illness in the family and the rest the prospect of leaving what makes me, me behind on a 10,000 mile trip in couple of days. It was supposed to be quiet drinks at Buba, mostly because I was trying to sort the girl out, but that didn’t happen.
So I pressed the self-destruct button, a couple of quick texts to Akki to find out how Hikka was and to do some discreet convincing calls to P and Bounty. I tried to get Evil involved but apparently he was too busy entertaining his harem. One hour, some insane driving, a fruitless search for an open hotel for P to pee in (apparently because he can’t leak on the road) and Poot’s rather endearing incredulity about the fact that we were actually going to Hikka and we were walking into Mambo’s.
Money handed to P
Get me a vodka red bull
Gulp, gulp
Another please?
Machang chill
Don’t worry dude, it’s under control
What followed was pure escapism, I forgot the girl, the family, dealing with issues from 10,000 miles away and impending exile. All I was aware of was the alcohol sparkling in my bloodstream, Akki grinning away, Loo pulling on my hair, kupadi grin at a hot girl in a red top, gal look back, Indian girl in a skirt, Maldivian girl drunk off her head, etc.
Three hours or so of vodka, white rum and Old Reserve straight from the bottle and I ended up on the roof of P’s car being handfed onion rotti by Akki, almost killing Poot over a chocolate rotti, getting stuck in the window of the car trying to crawl in and then passing out on the way back on S’s shoulder.
It was a night that will probably go down in the annals of the crew as being one that was completely off the hook, but to me there will always be something wrong about that night. I fuelled the fire and was as Bounty put it when I asked him whether the night was entertaining, I was the ‘entertainment.’ But it wasn’t about fun for me, it was about self-destructing, escaping. Even now when I laugh about what I got up to that night, my laugh echoes hollow.
I have to stop pressing that button and learn to deal, somehow. The first step I took in Sri Lanka last year, for better or worse. This year I deleted all the girls I don’t want to know anything about, remember who they, don’t give a shit about from my phonebook (I didn’t really delete the girl’s number because I doubt that chapter is closed, well I don’t want to close it just yet I guess).
It’s time to get real I guess.
So even though its still the 19th in the ‘Heartland’ (sigh…I don’t understand where they came up with that misnomer)…it’s most definitely the 20th in Sri Lanka…which means that it has been a year since I started blogging. I’ll admit I’m rather impressed with myself and quite surprised that I’ve actually stuck with it. Along the way I’ve had many arguments, come across a fair number of fools, learnt a lot from other people, come to realize how similar and different I am to other people, made some new friends which is again weird to me as I really haven’t met most of them in person, learnt things about old friends that I didn’t know of before (Evil that’s you) and even met people who have both an irrational hatred for Coldplay and trouble judging vertical distances (sorry shorty, I really couldn’t resist that, I tried very hard, but I’m weak).
So happy anniversary TLF, it’s been a pleasure getting to know some of you fellow bloggers and flickrs over the last year and hopefully I can stick to this for a bit longer, barring any unexpected car accidents, cirrhosis, lung cancer or the innumerable ways a person of my disposition could exit the world.
Sigh…the problem with bringing your favourite type of chocolate all the way from Sri Lanka to this household is it never lasts long enough, especially when from the mater to the schizo schizu (pictured in all his innocence below) are all chocoholics. Admittedly this maybe a bit of the pot calling the kettle black, amongst my many addictions from Old Reserve, Gold Leaf and pretty Sri Lankan girls, superblende ranks pretty damn high, even higher than the gastronomic orgasm that is La Maison du Chocolat.
But this is the last of the wonderful chocolate milkiness of the superblende, at least this time I had most of my stash to myself. Last time I brought the stuff back I foolishly left my suitcase unzipped and the damn Schizu mauled around 78% of my supplies. I watched him avidly for a few hours in the sadistic hope that he would keel over from sugar shock or whatever it is that causes canines to decease from the consumption of chocolate, but to no avail. He is truly part of the family, a mutant mutt that can eat his own weight in chocolate and suffer no ill-effects. He can also, somewhat like me, both hear the opening of a chocolate wrapper from half a mile away and smell it, with a following wind, from about two or three miles.
The chocolate is going to be sorely missed; I still remember how the twenty slabs that Chinky Pinky brought me in the summer of 2004 to London helped me keep my fortitude in writing up my M.Sc. thesis. I subsisted then on a daily diet of a prawn sandwich, two slabs of superblende and around 11 pints of beer. Needless to say after that summer I was hardly a picture of glowing health, but it was still entertaining at the time, despite suffering alternatively from sugar shock, alcoholic highs, nasty hangovers and headaches from staring at a computer screen all day.
Sigh….no more superblende…guess its time to hit the gym…
So T forgot that she needed more than just one page on her webpage, seriously I worry about the girl sometimes 
! I ended up having to trudge to Barefoot on my penultimate day to take some more shots in front of that now famous wall. An hour of groveling in the dirt, ribald comments from the one assistant, ass/crotch shots and I was done. This time I got paid in limejuice and a sausage and waffle…definitely going up in the world. My favourite shot from the shoot, definitely the one below,
BTW if there was any incentive to move to Sri Lanka and get involved in photography, I can’t think of anything more than this…talk about jaw-dropping beauty! I was without doubt spending time in the wrong places in Sri Lanka….next time…next time….
Straight off my 30 plus hour journey back to the land of the free I had to head to a two day course on CEQA, an utterly fascinating way to recover from jetlag if I do say so myself. The following conversation ensued with one of the participants.
It’s been absolutely freezing over the past couple of months, the 5 was closed because of snow…
Oh yeah I heard about that, thankfully I wasn’t around to experience the pleasures of the cold snap
Where were you?
In a nice, warm tropical country far away…
Oh, tropical? Where was that?
Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka! Sri Lanka…isn’t that off the coast of Italy?
Hahahahaha….ahh…your not kidding are you? Sigh….
There are three types of cigarette experiences, boredom, camaraderie and the regret cigarette. I’m not including post-coital (the usual cliché) simply because I’ve never really needed a cigarette after sex, just sleep.
The boredom experience is the most common in a club, especially as of late. I generally have nothing to do in clubs anymore, one can’t have a conversation with a friend without endlessly going ‘eh’ and there weren’t any random pretty girls to hit on and grin stupidly at. The alternate for me is to smoke a cigarette, watch the glowing front recede towards the butt, feel the smoke bite into your lungs and billow in front of your face as you exhale. The main thing I remember about smoking in clubs is the glow of the cigarette, lightening as you inhale, darkening as you stop.
The camaraderie experience is completely different, I’ve noticed I light up as someone else lights up. Sitting around a table on a quiet night having a few drinks, when someone reaches for a pack, taps it and pulls out a smoke, you can be guaranteed that at least two more people will do it. Smoking around a table while chatting and drinking the only act of smoking that I am aware of is lighting it, mostly because someone else will light it for you or if you initiated the session, you will be lighting the others smokes. There is of course that old story about the bad luck that accompanies lighting three people’s cigarettes with one match originating from I’m assuming one of the World Wars. With the flare of the match an enemy sniper would only have time to adjust and pop the last person whose cigarette is lit, a good thing to keep in mind if lighting up in a war zone.
The last most intense smoke is the regret smoke, a smoke that one does to try and clear your mind, let the nicotine rush deaden the pain of chances missed and friends and family lost. Your self-destructive focus is entirely on the cigarette, the lit match close to the brown and white tip, which rapidly turns black as you inhale deeply. You can almost hear a crackle as the flame races up the cigarette, feel the smoke entering the deepest parts of your lungs, you close your eyes as the ‘high’ takes effect and lean your head back, rest it against the wall behind you. You hold it in, savouring the deadly flavour, before exhaling it in a languorous, slow swirl, the smoke whirling before your now open eyes. Yes it is deadly, but during that microsecond, all you are aware of is the smoke, the heat and the taste, nothing else matters. That I guess is the deadly beauty of an addiction, that pure moment where it’s just you and what could, if you let it, destroy you but is yet so pleasurable.
NB: Before people start emailing me either hate mail, for promoting smoking or concerned mails demanding me to stop, I neither condone the habit and am making a concerted effort to quit, it’s a slow process but I will get there.
I had my first ‘official’ shoot yesterday at Barefoot, official in the sense that a friend wanted some pictures of herself for her website and I got paid in limejuice. Actually the limejuice was much, much appreciated considering the severely dehydrated state I was in due to the previous nights antics. I was actually very nervous about taking the shots, mostly because when I head out with a camera I head out for myself, what I want to capture and showcase to the world. Yes I do care what other people think of my work but mostly because any shortcomings they can point out helps me improve my work. That and there is that ‘small’ ego thing of people swooning over one of your pictures. I hadn’t really dealt with handling someone else’s expectations, but it was definitely worth the effort.
Barefoot was hot, very hot and I had two ‘assistants,’ which made me even more nervous with the painful shyness around strangers that I suffer from. Also I’m sure I looked a bit odd rolling around the ground in a white t-shirt at a café in Colombo. Thankfully the wall T had chosen as the backdrop was at the back of the foot, so my antics would have only amused my subject, the two ‘assistants’ who spent most of their time sitting around and making ribald comments (including one un-kept promise of a bit of disrobing) and the kitchen staff. Of course since I started off as a wildlife/nature/research photographer I really don’t mind groveling in the dirt too much, but still.
Some things I learnt, in a situation like that composition is of the essence, especially when the subject is as fussy as T and perspective, a couple of inches vertical either way works wonders. Also burst shots are essential; there are so many emotions that cross a human face in the space of milliseconds that I think for portrait work shooting fast is essential. You never know when you might get that one unguarded moment that is magical. Anyways it was a most enjoyable experience, hopefully the pictures come out well, the subject is happy and pacified and I’m definitely looking forward to more limejuice shoots.
Just a taste below….T in a pensive mood
