The Forgotten: He who died for me

There was always something that bothered me about the man in olive fatigues holding a gun who stood at the top of the street. I think this is a feeling that was/ is shared by a good many people in Sri Lanka over the last years and now. The fact that he stood in the sun, two wet streaks running down the sides of his face, while we scuttled to find a shady spot bothered me then. It bothers me now.

But I’d never really been able to put my finger on why it exactly bothered me. I rationalised that in a country where there was a war, someone had to die, someone had to give their life. For if I didn’t think like that, I guess I would need to take up arms and give my life too for ‘the cause’ whatever that was.

Yesterday, I found why it bothered me so much. I went for a concert held as a fundraiser to fund a housing scheme for soldiers. At the start of the concert two minutes’ silence was observed for those who gave their life for us. And images I’d seen in the media rose unbidden while I stood thinking, being reminded once again, that every day of my life I stood on the blood and tears of so many men. And though for a moment something snapped within me as it always does at the end of this train of thought, this wasn’t the powerful moment. That was to come much later.

In the middle of the concert a soldier, who had lost his leg to the war, sang a couple of songs too. After the singing, he hobbled off stage – stiff-legged, leaning heavily on a metal cane, concentratingly watching his feet put one in front of the other. That half a minute he took to painfully walk off the stage brought home the fact that no matter how much we thank the forces, no matter how much we give to ‘them’, it’s never enough. Never.

We thank the army, the navy, the air force, the entire thrivida hamudava. But how many of us remember that it’s not a ‘people’, a mass we must thank, but one person at a time? One person at a time? A person who will live the rest of his life without an arm and/ or leg that was familiar to him as much as my arm and leg is familiar to me now?

When we observe those two minutes of silence, when we see images of the dead, our dead, we think of them as those who died for us, but forget to see that it was he who died for us.

And I guess that is the reality of war. Not that someone had to stand in the sun so I can stand in the shade, but that when I pay tribute, I pay tribute to a lot of people. Not really to the one person who watched life expire from his limbs, lungs, loved ones.

In reality then, doesn’t that one soldier, that one person who died forever, or in bits and pieces as he was de-limbed, therefore remain to me forever nameless? Faceless?

Forgotten?

Dimi tagged me..Grrr!

Ok, so I have to do this weird tag thing all because of Dimi..

To do:

1. Grab the book closest to you.

2. Open to page 123, go down to the fifth sentence.

3. Post the text of next 3 sentences on your blog.

4. Name of the book and the author.

5. Tag three people.

Done:

1. Grabbed

2. Opened. Fifth sentence found.

3. "The serfs, as it happened, believed rumours then circulating that the new king, Alexander II, intended to liberate them unconditionally. They smelled a rat. They did not spot Count Tolstoy's pretentiousness but feared, rather, his (non-existent) business acumen, and flatly refused his proposal."

4. Paul Johnson, Intellectuals

5. I tag Turtle (whose uni work is not half as important as this!), Jokerman (who will finally kill me for this surely) and Evil (who will either find this distraction useful in his new dis-tobacco-ed state OR never visit this blog again!).

And Dimi, you ain't getting any chocolate from ME! :op

Going home - the scary and the hope :o)

Tonight I go back home to Sri Lanka and I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit this week. There are things I look forward to, but there are lots of things that also scare me. This fear, I think, is rooted in the fact that I have come to realize that I don’t really know Sri Lanka. I grew up in Colombo, and I don’t think I knew the real Sri Lanka except in glimpses here and there. It is as Arthur Jarvis said, in Alan Paton's Cry, The Beloved Country, of growing up in South Africa:

“One can ride, as I rode when I was a boy, over green hills and into great valleys. One can see, as I saw when I was a boy, the reserves of the Bantu people and see nothing of what was happening there at all… One can read, as I read when I was a boy, the brochures about lovely South Africa, that land of sun and beauty sheltered from the storms of the world, and feel pride in it and love for it, and yet know nothing about it at all. It is only as one grows up that one learns of the hates and fears of our country. It is only then that one’s love grows deep and passionate, as a man may love a woman who is true, false, cold, loving, cruel and afraid.”

What I know of the real Sri Lanka is so little because as a teenager growing up, one lives (at least I did) in a bubble where there’s so much going on – school, exams, sport, emotional roller-coasters – that you don’t let yourself really open your eyes and look around you…except for a brief cursory glance. It really is when you start growing up that you learn of the real storms thundering around you. But I did that growing up elsewhere, outside of Sri Lanka. I saw bits of Sri Lanka through these new “grown up” eyes during holidays – but that’s really what they were in the end – holidays in which I saw things, heard things, but left behind at the end of the month.

I did my growing up and the real seeing and hearing in Melbourne. I did find a lot of 'good' here, but in end, I can’t reconcile myself to accept the pile of bad no matter how sparkly the pile of good glitters. Men arrive on these shores with only the clothes on their back, for fear of their lives, and are locked up like common criminals; and families which were victimised and broken apart by fundamentalists elsewhere are once again victimised and broken apart by liberals here – again and again. There's nothing as painful as watching a grown man cry for his wife, for his children; there's nothing as uplifting as promising him you'd find a way; and there's nothing to compare to the fear that keeps you awake night after night afraid of other men's policies that'll make your words drown in nothingness. In some ways, I'm leaving because I know I don't want to stay.

When I return to Sri Lanka, I return to what I'd seen only in glimpses here and there over the last couple of decades. But also buried deep within those slightly thundery unsure images and the “golden beaches” of brochures and postcards, I also carry a few special images; rare glimpses of real radiance like the complete untouched beauty of the morning fog over Lokgaloya. I found that unexpectedly, the breath caught in my throat, as I passed through on the way elsewhere.

So I leave behind the country I could not really connect with, the country that destroyed my faith in simple humanity. I know I will never return to Melbourne. For me, that golden ball of fire in the sky here is a hypocrite; lighting the blue skies whilst a dark thundery cloud lies hidden on the horizon; firing mundane trees to blanket whole areas in thick grey fog.

Yes, it's inevitable that I’ll see such dark clouds in the blue skies of Sri Lanka too. Yet that is MY country and right now, that seems to make all the difference. And so here's hoping for real love for Sri Lanka in the coming months and years. And maybe, just maybe, even real and dramatic enough to be “deep and passionate, as a man may love a woman who is true, false, cold, loving, cruel and afraid.”

Painting: Monet's Red Kerchief

Too damn hilarious! :o)

You know how you see something hilarious and think, damn, why didn't I bring my camera? Well, this friend of mine had her camera and captured these on the doors of the Ladies and Gents bathrooms in (I believe) Amsterdam :o) Apparently, a friend who was with her was embarrassed she chose to photograph this, but as she later told me, "but how often do you see things like that???" (That quote's in pink cos she's a pink sort of person :o)

The Ladies:

The Gents:

Just too damn funny!

Both photos: Viola Lobert

Note for Viola: Thank yoouuuu for letting me put these up here! :o) Remembering that you're a "pink sort of person" made me miss you more now!! :'o( xox

Do I really want to be a lawyer?!?

Next Tuesday I sit for (hopefully) my final exam and so this is probably not the time to question the point of the last four years…yet, now that I’m almost at the end, I do question it. I wanted to read and write, write and read all my life, yet law was tempting and when it knocked, I gave in and bid it welcome. And now that I have to decide on a career path and find a job, I really do wonder at it. At the choice I made. And more at the choice I might have let slip past.

There’s a path before you, a path that ends at a cliff, a path you have not walked before. Once you start walking it, you know there can be no returning, not to what you leave behind. So you make a decision to walk, you find someone who makes the sunshine a little bit brighter around you and put one foot in front of the other.

You take their hand and walk, the sweet scent of the world wafting around you. Little stones prick the soft soles, boulders lie across the path, flowers bloom prettily while thorns run down their green stalks. You choose to walk around the boulders, furtively wipe the blood off your fingers and ignore the pricks of pain for if you did not, that path would be walked alone. Alone, in the dark of night when pain is unseen, in the monsoons when tears invisible.

At the end of the path lies the cliff, with the ocean below, yet out of sight. And you don’t know if the waves roll in softly or thunder against the rock. You don’t know if the water is warm and light-dappled or icy and deep. Without the safety of knowing, you need to jump. For you said you would. You took a foot off that cliff, that promising hand in your clammy one, and know now it’s too late to refuse. Too late to run to the footsteps you now suddenly hear behind you. The foot prints you had not stopped to examine before. But it’s too late to run back now for you have committed yourself too much.

If a drowning man clutches at straws, a falling man grabs at anything that floats past. And when you take that jump, what else do you hang on to but optimism? But optimism can be reality’s worst nightmare for it creates hope. It’s the softly fading rainbow of the man losing sight. It makes you search the vacant air for a stray parachute. It keeps the water warm, the sand soft below. And hope never dies. Not till the icy water numbs the pain and you lie on the rocks below, your head splintered, unseeing eyes staring at the empty blue of the sky arching above. Only then, only then, will hope die its silently shattered death.

But who’s to say the parachute will not come?

Now back to the studying...ack!

Hope on the Edge

When you’re a kid, there’s this game some adults play with you. They hold out a fist to you and ask you to guess what they hold within. So you guess – a chocolate! a marble! And some adults give you whatever it is they brought. But there were others. Others who made you peel back their fingers, one by one, till you can see the treasure they hold, till you can grasp it within your own small fist.

Life is like this I think. A fist held out to you, fingers to be peeled back one by one. Yet the difference is you’re no longer a child. You hope for the chocolate, the coloured marble, but somewhere in the back of your mind you know there could be something nasty, something sick. Yet, since hope is a funny thing, you peel back the fingers anyway.

Some are fast enough to find a glittery treasure within a few minutes, whilst others spend their whole life without once catching sight of anything beautiful. Some catch sight of a pretty shade and grasp it only to find that the colour fades too soon. Some peel back the fingers to find that the fist held nothing at all.

However, there are lucky ones among us. The ones who find the marble. The marble with the stripe of colours held tight within the glass. In this marble of life, that stripe is a Mobius strip – one-sided, one edged. Bits of it we walk the right way up, bits of upside down, but all of it on the same path. There’s only one very small challenge in walking through this colourfully marbled world. Whether one breaks into dance on the right-way-up bits or gets too dizzy on the upside-down bits, we need to stay away from the edge.

For beyond that edge, hope does not exist. And fists will never be extended again.

Doggone love..will it work out?

I was going through some photos I had and came across these.. thought I'll put them up here with the story behind them..

At home, we have this dude called Chico, also known as Dingiri Appo. He's a blonde lab/ alsatian and has almost nothing upstairs (this was the way he was born, apparently). He doesn't know he's a dog, and thinks he's human (I think). He used to have gender issues and couldn't decide if he should pee like a boy or a girl and for a long time did it both ways, depending on the mood. I'm not sure if he has resolved these issues since I haven't seen him in a few months! He also insists that we include him in anything and everything we do - including the "family discussions". For eg, when a few of us pounce on a topic and sit around talking, wherever he may be, Dingiri Appo, aka Chico, comes running in, heaves himself onto his chair (to which ownership has been claimed by force) and sits there with a face expression which says okay-you-can-start-talking-now-that-I'm-here-and-all. This is a classic example:

This particular photo though was taken by Turtle earlier this year, during one of Dingiri Appo's mad fits (which he has right after a bath) hence the kinda themichcha kukula look around the neck!

Anyways, earlier this year, Dingiri Appo was on a desperate girlfriend search. He developed a thing for a girl doggy who was quite, quite unacceptable to the family. So after many attempts to convince him of her unsuitability, it was decided that we must introduce him to someone more suitable. So, answering an ad in Kelaniya for a "free to good home" girl dog, we went and fetched her for Dingiri. This potential-girlfriend is called Timmy (yes, after the Famous Five Timmy - we didn't choose the name, the previous owners did) and her most beautiful feature is that she has white whiskers on the right side of her face and black whiskers on the left like so:

Is it any wonder it was love at first sight for Dingiri Appo? (sometimes he's so arrested by her, he even forgets to pick up his empty-plastic-bottle-toy and run around like a mad thing):

But

, perhaps we got the nakatha, etc wrong, for she rejected him outright at the time. Poor Dings! Now, however, I've been told, they are friends and take their siesta, etc, together like so:

So in conclusion, fingers crossed, here's hoping that she'll come around in time and they'll live happily ever after as dog man and wife.

(All pics courtesy of the

Turtle)

Today ;o(

Borrowed a car from a friend cos I needed to get some chores done (which could not be done on the bus!)..and I should have known something bad was gonna happen cos the entrance to the highway was closed and had to start my journey reversing more than 500 meters down the road to get to the next street since my street is one way.. Anyway, so on the way passed two dead birds and was starting to kinda wonder wtf was going on today when two streets before the destination, took a wrong turn, crashed into truck (an 8 wheeler!!) and got myself well and truly wedged between the engine bit and the loonnnggg bit that carries things (and I can't be bothered looking up what those bits are called so shall just call 'em "bits").

Did I die? No. But there was enough crunching to make me think I probably was dead even though a voice in my head kept sayin omg,omg,omg,omg over and over again ;o( A dude passing by stopped and drove me around the corner to a nearby petrol shed seeing as I was hardly managing to stay on my feet, nevermind get myself behind the wheel again. After this kindly stranger left, after making me promise that I will call a friend to pick me up, I proceeded to sit in the petrol shed for 45 minutes shaking..with that damned voice STILL going omg, omg, omg,omg..

I've been driving for the last 8 years and have never even come close to hitting something (nothing spectacular enough to remember at least), on Sri Lankan mad roads too mind, and then have to fucking wedge myself in a truck here on these neat wide roads a couple of weeks before I leave the country!! Arrgghh.

After all that drama I get home to a neat note left by the housemate which says that the internet at home won't be reconnected till at least mid mext week. Which means I'm going to have to live with this bloody omg-ing voice for the next 4 or 5 days without any other distraction, by the end of which I will surely be a raving lunatic.

Shit.Shit.SHIT.

A crazy day in a crazy country

You know it's time to get out of this mad country when you wake up to glorious sunshine..

..followed by rain..

..followed by hail..

..bits of ice everywhere..

..bits of ice on the grass..

..and then blue skies once again..

..a multi-season day in the middle of Spring..

..that's Melbourne for you!

Who is "mad" - me or she??

Last week I visited a friend who introduced me to her grandmother who was apparently "not quite right". She certainly seemed all right to me, but apparently she wasn't. Since I didn't know the grandaughter too well, I couldn't really question her, so while coffee was being made, I talked to the "not quite right" grandma. Or rather, she talked to me.

The news was on and there was a man talking about the failure of the war in Iraq, to which the grandma listened quite patiently beofre suddenly sayin - we don't realize that everything we do, we do only for ourself. Even when we help someone, we help them only because it gives us the satsifaction of having done some good. And only God does things for others without looking for personal happiness. Not exactly how I see the war in Iraq (!!) or God for that matter, so was this what made her "not quite right"?

No, 'course not cos when the chick came back with coffee she decided to show me just how "not quite right" her grandma was. She proceeded to ask her grandmother a series of questions. What year is this? After much thought the answer came back - 1982. How old was she? 55 (she was actually 79). How old was the granddaughter? 'you graduated last year. 24' (correct). Where did she live? An address so far out in the suburbs I had not heard of the place (though they actually lived very close to the city). Where was grandpa? Glancing at the clock on the wall, 'at work' (he had died about 20 years ago I think) and so on.

Throughout this questioning, this chick found these answers hilarious. And the questions got wackier till I told her I didn't find it funny. I don't know what exactly the grandma had for she remembered some things quite correctly and other things so very incorrectly..but what disconcerted me was not the errors the grandma made, but the fact that this girl I had thought was quite "normal" was so entertained by her grandmother's "madness". Wasn't that a much worse madness than whatever the old lady had?? And is the fact that I find the girl "mad" and not at all hilarious mean that I myself is afflicted with some sort of "madness"?

Why is it that we are so quick to see madness in others but not in ourselves? Why is it that we must always point to that mad person and not to this mad person in the mirror? Is it because if we start seeing our own madness, we can never surface from the dark labyrinth we are dragged into? Is it because we start seeing people in the dark alleyways that hitherto ran empty in solitude within us? Maybe it's because when we start seeing those that hover in the twilight of our hearts, we expect others to see them and we want others to see them. When they cannot, we are disappointed. Maybe it is to shield ourselves, from this disappointment, from that feeling of utter aloneness we feel when we realize that we are alone among those ghosts within us, that we refuse to see the madness within us and are quite happy to pass judgment on others.

Ho hum..what boredom can do to one..

I've been accused, that I've not posted for a while on this thing, by my one-member fan club (yes, it's still only one ;o( ..but then again, how many members does a manshark fan club need anyway?!)

I've spent about 5 days at home now and it's driving me stark raving mad. I see why people are asked to go out and meet other people..it keeps the madness at bay for li'l while at least. BUT omg, what I realized when I did go out yday. Since I started this blog I now think of myself as Manshark..in the third person!! Omg, omg, omg..

Firstly, yday I was at lunch with a friend and, referring to my headache, I said "poor li'l manshark's head" (!!!) and he's like "WHAT?!?" Arrgghh..almost stabbed myself with the butter knife...(btw, there was this schizophrenic dude who actually committed suicide by stabbing himself with a butter knife..Okay, you didn't need to know that as interesting as it is, but I just realized that the direction my thoughts were progressing in may not be too safe in the long run..mmh).

Secondly, I have now started thinking in the third person too..such as..manshark is hungry, etc..which is doubly wierd since I never referred to meself in the third person aloud or inside my head even before the advent of manshark..What the?!?

Thirdly, I'm convinced this is a contagious disease I've caught from that sexy-boot-wearing-Turtle, who by the way, has promised to get me some of 'em very nice elmo socks (ernie would do too) for my next b'day (to keep away the maduruwas and such in Lanka)..so reminder for Turtle..you now have 139 days..I suggest you forget all that reading and uni and things and get out there asap..

Fourthly, apologies to those who've been reading this blog like it's a so-very-important-doc to fool the boss..but I'm fast running out of anymore mind-boggling, jaw-breaking things to say here so I reckon I'll wrap this up..

Fifthly, if you do, however, need to still pretend to keep reading, then stare very hard and intently at the pic of the flame on my profile bit on the right..if you're doing it right you will see the flame wavering..enjoy!

*Manshark runs off muttering to herself*

Do NOT try this at home!!

One of the first blog posts I ever read (no idea whose) was about how the older (Sri Lankan) generation has given us a shitty li'lcountry with a lot of shitty problems and now we, the new generation, are going to have to deal with the end result of all that crap. Now I was e-mailed this li'l experiment early this mornin which I thought might just be relevant:

What you Need:

- 1 cage

- 1 banana

- Some stairs

- A water hose

- Lots of monkeys (at least 10)

What to Do:

Set up the cage with the banana hanging inside and the stairs placed under the said banana. Next send in five of the monkeys. Now be patient (and have the hose ready). Soon one of the monkeys will move away from the group and start to climb the stairs to get to the banana. As soon as this happens spray water at all the monkeys (and thereby detering the adventurous monkey as well). In a while more, another monkey will try to go for the banana - repeat as above and douse them monkeys with water. Let a couple more of the monkeys go for the banana and repeat process. Soon enough, when a monkey tries to go for the banana, the rest of the monkeys will attack it to stop it even if you don't spray water on them cos they expect the water anyway. Now comes the interesting bit.

Take a monkey out of the cage and replace it with another (who does not know this process obviously). Now this new monkey will try to go for the banana. And the poor monkeys in there who still remember the water will attack the new dude to stop it. This will happen everytime he tries to go for the banana. Then take a second monkey out of the cage and replace it with a new one. New one will go for banana, others will attack..including the first new one who has no idea why he's attacking - he just knows he must stop this new dude cos all the other monkeys think so. Then take a third monkey out and replace him. This third one will be attacked by 2 monkeys who have no idea why they're attacking him and 2 old ones who remember the water. Then a fourth one - he will be attacked by 3 monkeys who've no idea why and one old monkey who remembers. Then replace the final one. This will be attacked by the other four (= all) monkeys - though none of them really have any idea why exactly they're trying to stop him. So there's no more need for water cos none of the monkeys will go near the banana again without being attacked by the others.

What to Think:

Why is this? Cos that's the way things were done, and that's the way things should continue to be done.

What to Question:

Now, can we really blame the old monkeys who remembered and not the new monkeys who fell in line?

However, seeing as I don't know just how intelligent monkeys generally are, I can't say how far they're capable of any independent thinking really.

Top 5ive things I hate...

...about living in the land down under. I’m only writing this to give you poor souls a break from all the politics, mayhem and what not. At least that’s all you need to know. (Note to Manshark: this is for reminding you things you might forget if Sri Lanka were to start driving you mad someday in the near future).

So, the Top 5ive things I hate about living in the land down under:

1. When the sky goes all blue and rains down blinding sunshine and I, like the fool that I am, run out (and still miss the damned bus!) without a jacket and freeze my butt off since the cold wind won the contest over the sun

2. People who have no respect for running mansharks and beep their horns and scare the living day lights out of me

3. Crazy tram drivers who ding-ding-ding! at running mansharks and scare whatever remains of the living day lights (what are living day lights? The number of ‘light’ of days one lives? So does that mean manshark shall now only live at night?)

4. Vicious, lunatic magpies

5. People who run over possums and leave their carcasses (the possum's, not suicide-ed people's) in the middle of the road (okay, I'm not asking for a sob-fest burial here, but at least leave 'em on the road side so the rest of the possum-brood won't possibly get run over looking for mum)

6. (Hyper) footy crowd at Richmond station on Sat arvo – no, the stink of beer is just not attractive

7. People who say ‘she’ll be right mate’ instead of giving me a hug when I tell them I have failed my exams

8. Big, neat roads with polite drivers that make driving such a bore. Now, in Sri Lanka, it’s a bit different, y’see. First, when you manage to nudge your way on to the main road from the itty bitty lane you were on, there’s the exhilaration of your first triumph of the journey. Then comes the mad go, stop, go, STOP!! (fucking three-wheeler full of grinning dimwits), go, stop, shit that dimwit-full three wheeler is after me, go, go, GO!!, stop, apologize to the biker you almost ran over (yes, it’s always the non-bikes that are at fault), go, stop, etc. Then comes the best feeling of all when you reach your destination: knowing you achieved, albeit verging on near insanity now, all that you set out to achieve and have gone the full distance of the journey you set out to travel. THAT feeling is just not there in the land down under.

9. People who find tiny people mansharks cute for they not only selfishly withhold (much deserved) hugs, they also selfishly don’t understand how much time it takes to try to get a good foothold just so I can at least see the bloody exam paper that’s on that abnormally high desk from the abnormally low chair

10. Lack of humidity – when my hair doesn’t go crazy people mistake me for a normal sane person manshark and tell me normal sane things about their normal sane lives which are just too normally, sanely boring. Well, except maybe "Bob" who lives on swanston street and once told me he knew I was one of ‘em the minute I stopped to listen to his crazy li’l songs (I actually stopped to pet the lab who lives with him, but why burst his bubble?) Besides, "Bob" hates chocolate so I don’t need to share my choc waffle with him while I listen to the stories 'bout people he’d met who have fires in their head ("Bob"'s been places you've never dreamed nightmared of!)

I know I said “5ive” above, but once I got started, there were just so darn many…Why did I not get my one-way ticket outta here earlier??

Go give your mom a hug! ;o)

A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie...

- Tenneva Jordan

Now go give your mom a hug!!

I gotta wait two more months!! :'- (

Painting: "Mother and Children"

Future of Sri Lankan Elephants: the wild or the sheltered?

I was watching a tv prog today about Sri Lankan Elephants. And what did I learn from it? I really don’t know for it left me asking more questions at the end than I had at the beginning. Especially since I’d just heard that SB Dissanayake had requested Ranil W to appoint him as the Assistant Leader of the UNP. Kinda funny ain’t it? Me ! Me! Did I say Me?

Anyways, to get to the Elephant story:

Elephants in Sri Lanka are respected and held in high-esteem. One man (in the tv prog) even went as far as to say that if there are no elephants, there is no country. However this sentimental view is not wholly shared by villagers who can’t sleep at night for fear of elephant attacks. They don’t see the elephant through the rosy hue that others do. For them, it’s not about the “elephants”. It’s about the one elephant that terrorizes them every night. The Wild Elephant.

The Wild Elephant, the one that is unloved for his uncouth ways. He does not fit in with the elephants that are respected at all those dignified Perahera’s. So what do the people think should be done to him? Killed? No, no, a village woman says. Elephants need not be killed. Just this wild uncouth one must be removed so that they can get on with their lives in peace.

A conservationist later talks of the problems brought about by elephant orphanages – they were meant to be (and still are) institutions which care/d for orphaned elephants. However, the elephants within those gates have doubled and tripled over the years and none of them can now be released into the wild for they were born “in captivity” and could not survive “in the wild.” What a conundrum this is. But then again, nevermind elephants, even men with the best of intentions, born in captivity and shelter, can't really and truly survive in the wild these days can they?

There was more in the prog about people and elephant migration and several what-to-do's that were not all that interesting, hence shall not be repeated here.

But, now I’m left trying to answer questions I had not thought of before.

At the end of the day, which ones are the best?

Those born in shelter who knows not the ways of the world?

OR

Those born in the wild who knows not common decency and self-respect?

Elephant and Baby - Wasgamuwa Park (Dec 2004)

Pregnant men and such..

So. I was browsing thru the website of Lee Mingwei - the man who is pregnant.

What bothers me most about this issue is that there a lot of people out there who think men were never meant to have babies and therefore must not. How does this reasoning work though in this day and age when we put so much money and effort into finding ways and means of prolonging life and comforting bodies that don't wish to go on?

There are those who think Peter Singer is the devil's incarnation for his views on euthanasia - for all life is special and no one has a right to decide to take it by will and anyone who believes otherwise is damned. Peter Singer is a blog post by itself (which I will get to at a date in the near future cos yes, I'm a big fan!), but why I thought of him now is cos he says some "lives" are not worth living and the (huge) opposition to that statement say oh, but they are so very worth living. Then my question in this context is, is life so very special only when it is brought about by those things with which we are famailiar with or taught as "right"?

There's the (very common) religious argument against men having babies - cos it's against what God/ Bible said. Perhaps, but I can't really answer that question seeing as I don't know enough about God/ Bible to say what He said or didn't say. So I'll leave that as it may and go on to the other) argument that I can not understand.

This protest runs along these lines (got off the comments on the website): "..wondering why you would want to mess with human life? If males were meant to have children they would have been able too have them. If a man wants a child he can adopt there are enough poor children in the world already with out a home that need one. Leave the human body they way it is suppose to be. Don't mess with it..."

Firstly, does this mean then that we must not research and find new medicines/ procedures, etc? Or maybe even, throw all those medical researchers, doctors, nurses and medicines (yes, even the panadols!) into a bottomless pit so they will stop "messing with human life" so we can all die of disease seeing as the body was meant to be prone to disease and hence we must leave it be? But even if I were to be less extreme, this attitude still throws out IVF and other such procedures cos some men/ women have bodies that are not "meant" to produce children. Wtf?!?

Secondly, should we also perhaps ban any more women from having children seeing as there are so many poor children in the world already without a home? At least till all the homeless children are adopted? Would not that be the "moral" and "ethical" thing to do ?

Of course there is some hope for (possible future) pregnant men for there are men who actually think it would be a beautiful enough experience if it could be done successfully. But I wonder how many Lankan men would be threatened by share this thought? Boys?? Men??

On a serious note though, what I'm curious about is (and on which I couldn't find info during my cursory reading of the website)>> "Oral doses of female hormones were administered to Mr. Lee to make him receptive to the pregnancy."

(1). Would this be the same as hormones taken by men who undergo gender changes?
(2). After the birth of the baby (fingers crossed), would the man still be a "male" hormonally?
(3) Is "hormonally" a valid word?!? ;o)

Anyway, at the end of the day, the common reaction seems to be - men shouldn't have babies cos it's "wrong" or just plain unconventional and therefore must not be attempted. At some point in history, wasn't a woman choosing to ride her man thought to be unconventional (not to mention sinful!) too? Do men regret this "unconvenionality" now? Do they still believe 'missionary' is the best way?

the Only way?

Lee Mingwei's site here.

With my own two hands..

I can change the world
With my own two hands
Make a better place
With my own two hands
Make a kinder place
With my own two hands
With my own,
With my own two hands

I can reach out to you
With my own two hands
With my own,
With my own two hands

I can hold you
With my own two hands
I can comfort you
With my own two hands
But you got to use

Use your own two hands
Use your own
Use your own two hands

With our own
With our own two hands

With My Own Two Hands - Ben Harper (Diamonds on the Inside)

Here it is!!

I do believe I said I was going to do a review of The Banana Tree Crisis months ago!! And how time has flown since then! But I shall get to it in exactly 2 weeks (after exams) I promise!

BUT

..since I wouldn't want you to hold your breath or anything till then, here is a much better (than I could ever write!) review of The Banana Tree Crisis which appeared in last Sunday's (15 Oct) The Nation newspaper by KNO Dharmadasa!

This can also be accessed here!

..to whom if I were to speak, I would not understand.

And 'tis DONE! Finished the damned thesis mid-day yday!! I did dearly want to do a jig of celebration but since my feet felt like lead thought I'd sleep it off first, do the jig second - and I wake up 13 hours later now and both my feet and head feel like lead. Is that normal???

Anyways, checked out Turtles Blog (as per usual) and decided to steal a few of her pics (as per usual).

This one (which I stole) I will put up here, cos it represents my life right now (and I suspect for the next couple of months to come):

A tangle of roads, heading towards a bend around which I cannot yet see; some look green and luscious, others bare and wanting, but all surrounded by daunting, daunting hills. If I had expected bright yellow signposts along the way, it seems there would be none. And coming from around the bend is a lonely man, to whom if I were to speak, I would not understand. I would not understand.

Sigh.

Let us Celebrate Our...

Military Victories!

One small (very small) regret is these boys' mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, wives, girlfriends, sons, daugters won't be able to join in the celebrations. Or listen to all those victory speeches.

But that's okay I guess, Cos apparently we can win this war (oh no, don't say that! GOSL defence really is so strong now it can weed out every LTTE-er. There IS no such thing as driving factions underground to turn up stronger). C'mon MR! Let's do this!

I can tell my kids, look what we left for you...your country...oh, sorry, does it look like rubble to you? So what? At least I got to be proud.

I got to listen to all those victory speeches. I got to celebrate.

Life was good then.

Dogs can sniff out cancer!

Yes they can. That's what a few years' worth of research has shown. Cos science relies so heavily on machines and their data analyses, scientists, doctors and cancer research foundations obviously raise their noses at such unbelievable notions based on mere anecdotal evidence.

However, generally when there is some anecdotal evidence, cancer research and other such foundations fund labs and researchers to find tangible evidence. In this case though, no such funding was forthcoming. So for more than a decade there's been only anecdotal evidence. But about 5/ 6 years ago (I think) a researcher published his findings that dogs can sniff out bladder cancer. Problem with the study? The dogs sniffed it out only something like 45% of the time. That's not good enough. However, the research was conducted to prove a principle - dogs can be trained to sniff out (at least some forms of) cancer.

Since then there's been other studies on dogs' ability to sniff out breast, prostate and lung cancer. The success rate has been astonishing. An article that was to be published in March this year in Integrative Cancer Therapies did this study: 5 household dogs were trained over 3 weeks to sniff out breast or lung cancer by sniffing breath tests of patients. The study found that dogs can sniff out breast or lung cancer with an accuracy level of 88-97%.

A tv prog called Can Dogs Smell Cancer? (SBS) shows a research team in California (I think) that leaves a breath test done on a lung cancer patient FIVE years ago (which was since then left in a non-airtight container in a garage all these years) with some breath tests of non-cancer patients and the trained dog sniffs it out!! Something no machine on earth can yet do!

A sceptical oncologist from the UK Cancer Council who was interviewed (on the same prog) said ONE BIG problem would be that patients would not trust and/or rely on a dog sniffing out cancer.

Considering that right now it's doctors who "sniff out" the cash cancer (in terms of suspecting something to be cancer or sth like that to order the relevant tests) why not dogs? Esp considering we use dogs to sniff things out in other life/death situtations in this terrorism-filled days? Besides, a lot of doctors today are people who seem to forget their oath and moral codes at will. For eg, when my grandma was really sick the doctors, after keeping her in hospital for over 2 weeks said they wanted to do a bone marrow exam on her. Based on what evidence? Well, cos they couldn't find anything wrong with the patient, but the patient was too weak to get out of bed or even open her eyes. So the doctor suspected a form of bone cancer (since my great-grandma might have had had it from the symptoms my uncle recalls). So my mom asks what the good doctor was planning - long term. Well, comes the answer, it's likely that if we find cancer, it'll be quite advanced now so we'll have to treat it with chemo. But considering the age of the patient (86), it's unlikely she'll survive chemo. Right. So again, WHY are we doing this test? Certainly not in the name of 'curing' the patient. At least, not in this particular case. This is only ONE of my personal experiences with doctors who use patients as their very own guinea pigs/ research projects. You don't want to hear the rest. Or the experiences of other people I know.

And anyways why should doctors/ researchers be so afraid of encouraging the use of dogs in early cancer detection? Isn't timing everything in cancer?!? And doctors will have their fair go anyway cos dogs only "detect" - they don't "cure" or "treat."

If I had to choose between trusting a dog or a doctor to detect the possibility of cancer in my body, give me a dog anytime! At least I know it's not thinking "what other tests can I order that'll bring in the $$?" and/or "how many more times can I ask this patient to come back to see ME, the expensive "specialist"?"

Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god

My thesis is due in five days! 5! Five! FIVE!!!!!!

Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god

OH MY GOD

I can either

1. Sit dow and Just Do It

OR

2. Find a thick rope and hang myself

Option 2 is tempting, but I must resist. I mean, what would everyone do without moi?? (ie, once the celebrations die down)

(Don't you dare answer that!!)

To rant a blog or to blog a rant? That is the title.

A 30C day was forecast, hence off I went about my chores in a skirt and rubber slippers. BUT I forgot that winter had made my feet dry and soft and used-to-socks. Hence 15 minutes into the walk there was a blister on each foot.

Having limped the last 20 minutes to my destination tragic realization hit me- I needed to walk back all that way home again! No can do.

So I walk into a pharmacy to buy bandaids.The lady behind the counter very politely tells me that bandaids don't come in ones or twos but in 25 bandaid packs. Err..excuse me, lady, I have two blisters, not twenty-five. And apparently the pharmacy also doesn't take Eftpos for purchases under $10 and there was no ATM in sight. I pray and hope tmrw's newspapers will report that a lady pharmacist was found dead from having mysteriously acquired 25 on blisters on each foot.

And for all of you who saw me limping home (a green-skirted manshark, that is) thank you very much for offering me a ride. I hope you die of blisters someday soon too.

For all of you who stopped me to ask if I had a blister, and cluck your

tongue in sympathy - that did not help. A bandaid might have.

And to the Russian-accented dude who sympathised with my limping around the dvd store just before proceeding to tell me 'I think you are gorgeous' (as if there was such a thing as an ugly manshark!) - go fuck yourself. Next time you so much as look at me, I'll have you shot (mafia links are easy to acquire around here).

And while I'm on this rant, let me also tell you all the things I found annoying during my (slow) walk home: every fucking song on my i-pod (it'd now be at the bottom of a river had I found one), the sound of housekeys jiggling around in my bag (why do I have so many keys when there's only one door to my house?), people who don't pick up their dogs' shit off the pavements (have you tried manoeuvring - how the fuck do you spell that word?!? - around such piles with blistered-feet?), Magpies protecting their young in trees who swoop down at you for walking under (well, excuse me for living!), supermarkets that run out of chocolate wafers (no, vanilla will not fucking do), and finally when I find a million e-mails waiting for me at home from people who send millions of friend requests/ messages to my Hi 5 (one of these days, I'm gonna shut down that site and all you losers are gonna have to find yourselves a job!).

Aaaaarrrrgggghhhh.

Pretty Proud Doggy!

While Turtle stalks dogs across New York city, I stalk dogs in my neighbourhood. Esp the blonde droopy-eared tailess cocker spaniel next door. Don't balme me, she totally encourages it - sitting out on the porch till whatever time I decide to come home and say hello - even if it rains . After then only will she will scratch at the door (of its owners) to be let in. Very, very lovable.

Now there is this other doggy, Bella, owned by my other neighbours who is just too cute for words (Bella, not the neighbours). BUT my god, her pride!! When I talk to her, she looks the other way - how rude. If I hide and watch her (no, I'm no lunatic, this is perfectly normal behaviour according to Psychotics Anonymous) she actually starts craning her neck looking around - but only till she sees me watching her. Then she promptly turns her face away with this I-wasn't-looking-for-you expression on her face. How much ruder can you get.

So today, I was sitting on the back steps having my dinner (it was 32C - way too hot when you live in a house - without a fan - that was sealed up for winter) and spied Bella SPYING on ME while sitting with her back turned to me!! The damn cheek!! So of course I did what any normal person in my place would do - I set up my camera to try to capture the out-of-the-corner-of-her-eyes looks she was shooting me while I pretended to ignore her. After a dozen or so blurred bad ones here's the best one I got:

The flash goes off, and what do you know, she turns out to be a poser!! And proceeds to very obligingly sit quite prettily while I snapped away, not once looking away. Aint't she pretty??

This is one chick who puts that kohl pencil to good use! lol

Why am I writing this? Cos exams are on in a week & hence am procrastinating (as per usual).

Isn't the real question, why are you reading this?

Movie "Anjalika" IMO!! ;o)

This post will be about the Sri Lankan film 'Anjalika' - so those not interested, you can bugger off now.

It was screened here down under last weekend & not being too big a fan of very commercial movies, I was in a dilemma - to go or not to go. Those who'd already watched it fell into two broad groups: "Ooohhh!! It's goooorrrrrgggeeeeoooouuusssss!" or "the story/plot isn't much but the photography, etc is beautiful." Hence what could I do but resort to (v.v.v.bad!) reviews of the film! One review in the Observer narrated the entire story for 2/3rds of the article before gushing on about that fantastic performances of not only ALL actors/ actresses concerned, but even of the editor, music director, make-up artist, art director AND production manager who "have done justice to their assigned jobs." A Daily News review carried much of the same gushing praise. Righto.

BUT another review in The Observer left me in shock. The writer had clearly not understood that his job was to review the bloody film - and not make personal attacks on the actors. This review included asking Channa Perera to get beauty advice from his "beautician wife" and advice to Anarkali that acting "means a lot more than just showing off skin" and "cleavage." To think there are editors out there who feel justified publishing such utter rubbish.

Anyway, so off I went to watch the masterpiece. This is my take:

I quite liked the screenplay (by Channa Perera and Mahesh Sathsara Maddumaarachchi) cos it was quite well-written and the humour was actually funny without resorting to the under the belt type. The plot/ storyline I guess was keeping with this genre of film - complete with a twist at the end that was so twisted it was quite unreal (and did kinda come apart). However, the nature of the story required such a dramatic twist to keep with the 'happily ever after' end and I guess if one looks for a realistic end, then one cannot always expect the 'happily ever after' and so I will keep an open mind and accept the ending in the context of the genre!

The actors. Firstly, the main lead, Pooja, was simply brilliant. That's all there is to say about her. But the other female lead, Anarkali, quite tragic cos she just cannot seem to express any emotion. While her character in this movie actually gave her some room to bring out any talents she may possess - she unfortunately failed utterly - even her crying struck a false note. At the opposite end of the line is Sanath Gunatilleke - grossly over-acting as usual. One would have thought he was playing Macbeth on a stage! I don't understand how this man still gets employed. In contrast is the performances of the smaller roles - those of Anjalika's parents and NARADA (!!) himself! Very, very commendable. ;o)

I left Channa Perera's performance for last cos I found it the most diasppointing - not cos he wasn't good - he was - but cos he fell far short of his potential I thought he had (has?). The love scenes were fine, but the emotional scenes after Anjalika's death that were so disappointing!! His grief was just not heart-breaking. TPerhaps this was due to some rude interruptions to these potentially 'emotion-stirring scenes.' At the peak moment of grief after Anjalika's dead, the camera zooms in on the bloated, eyes-popping-out, flesh-melted-off face of the corpse. Any emotion one might have felt is very quickly turned in to a silent scream of horror. Then later there is a beautiful song (set in Malaysia), with a very "grief-stricken" Channa and while he's battling this grief (and you're kinda starting to feel sorry for him) he sees the Anjalika-look-alike in a temple and subsequently breaks into a very jarring rap/ Iraj-Ranindu song in some sort of club - coloured lights in the background, misty smoke, leather-clad. WTF?? I just did not get that. I haven't seen Channa in anything else (except for a occassional glimpse on a tv drama my mom was watching when I walked past), but I do remember him from a TV drama (maybe 10 years or so ago?) where he played a character called something like "podi aiya" - the brother of some sort of disabled boy. His character was stubborn, at times cruel, in it and he pulled it off well enough to have run the risk of getting shot on the street. So he has (at least had) potential. Unfortunately none of that passion or depth of feeling came thru in this movie. A good place to have brought it in was perhaps some silent crying when his love interest died - but this moment was passed up instead for a scream of "Annnjjjaaalllliiiiikkkaaaa!" resonating over the misty hilltops. ;o(

All in all, while my above comments may sound quite harsh, the film wasn't too bad and very far and above the crap the SL commercial film industry has churned out in the past. The photography was beautiful though I found some of it a bit contrived (but then again, perhaps this is in keeping with the genre).

If I ever meet this Channa Perera dude (who was also the director), and I could make one recommendation to him (cos of course the world always listens to moi!), it is this: he'd do well to stay away from these "popular" actor-types like Sanath and Anarkali whose only talent seems to be to magnify the talents of their colleagues in contrast to their own!

Finally, if anyone were to ask me if they should go watch the movie Anjalika/Anjelika, what would I say? Definitely go see it cos it made me realize that, whatever its shortcomings may be, there is hope for the Sri Lankan film industry!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is a post script to the above post. From some of the comments this post got I might have been misunderstood. I AM IN NO WAY SAYING DON'T WATCH THIS MOVIE. The above is merely some of the things I liked and things that could be built upon. I don't see the point of praising a movie (or anything else for that matter) just in the name of "encouraging" cos that's being blind to the things that could be improved.

Like I said in my last comment, PEOPLE SHOULD GO OUT AND WATCH THIS MOVIE cos at the end of the day, this movie is very far ahead of a lot of SL movies at the moment. Therefore, other directors would need to meet this sort of standard to stay in the industry with some credibility. Channa Perera has lots of potential and I don't need to say that cos it's pretty obvious. Even more talent would be to learn from this movie's weaknesses and give us another movie of even higher standard. At the risk of sounding corny, I have faith he'll get get there at some point! ;o)

One thing I forgot to say though, when the movie finished ppl I was with walked out saying "oh, what a beautiful country we've left behind, nae?" and I thought "you, you, you!! cos I'm going BACK in 2 months! YIPPIE - DO -DAY!!" ;o) he he he

"Protesters" "protest"

This is so bloody hilarious I absolutely had to post it! ;o)

So the Govt and the LTTE have once again agreed on talks. The JVP is once again getting their knickers (or is bloomers the right word?) about 'foreign intervention' and what not. Nothing new. What's so funny though?

This: there were protests outside the Norwegian embassy with protesters carrying banners saying things like "Hands off Sri Lanka", "We must defeat the LTTE" and "Don't divide power."

"But protesters said they had been bussed in by the Marxist JVP party and were unsure why they were there.

'Our political party informed us to come here,' said 48-year-old farmer Hiram Ariyadasa from north-central Sri Lanka, holding a banner that read "Hands off Sri Lanka".

'I don't know what it says. I don't know why I'm here,' he added, before JVP handlers ordered journalists to stop talking to demonstrators." (See this report on AlertNet)

Well, nothing new again I guess.

Excuse me while I go fall off my chair...he he he