water

I'm a day late and a dollar short. Graduate school looms ahead of me and I am not sure that I want to buy into it.

Anyhow. I watched Water last night. (As you can tell, this stationary lull in Colombo means catching up as much as I can with film).

To put it briefly, the film is about the state of widows in India, about how they are forced into prostitution for survival, exiled by their families, unable to create a life by themselves, all weighted down by the yoke of tradition and religion which venerates the most glaring of injustice at times. The film is set during the period of Gandhi's rise and has a last, lovely shot of him speaking on a railway platform about how he thought initially that God was truth, but realized that truth was god and exhorted his followers to follow their conscience.

I don't know what it feels like to have a conscience anymore. I don't know what it feels like to have a valid viewpoint. In this state of doubt, it is dangerous to go to graduate school where they fill absorptive minds with ideologies instead of skills, and fill graduates with pre-programmed visions of the world. It is the latter, Big Brother that I am so afraid of. Especially in the United States.

Anyhow. At this moment it does not feel particularly that I will amount to much. The way of mediocrity and the private sector shines bright and overpoweringly.

But then this, the epitaph on Raphael's tomb says too, that men are capable of transcending this world, of creating a bar against which all those that come after them will be judged too.

"This is Raphael's tomb, while he lived he made Mother Nature fear to be vanquished by him and, as he died, to die too".

spore

So another classic from Woody Allen whom I normally don't like but said 80% of life is just showing up which I reckon is quite true.

This is an ode to Singapore (since someone reminded me of old childhood days of being in RGS etc.). I have to say that my friends from Singapore are true-blue kick-ass, salt-of-the-earth, liberal-conservative rockstars. Which sort of really reflects on me. I mean, you know, they're like... caring and shit! and who the hell is caring in the modern world? Of course they're also deeply conflicted with lots of thwarted, burning ambition, but that just adds to their sex-appeal really. And they're really funny, in this weird, localized way, in a cola-snorting (not coke please) way and of course they're as wholesome as motherhood and apple pie too which makes me feel safe and secure that they're not going to leave me once they become like Ministers and shit.

Okay this was a really weird post. i'll stop now.

DVDs I bought yesterday: Sheltering Sky (the old one of the Paul Bowles novel with Debra Winger and John Malkovich! I can't believe that someone would pirate this and that there is Sri Lankan demand for this! Rock on Sri Lanka!), Nine Lives, Amores Perros (because I'm the loser who still hasn't seen it yet), Bunty aur Babli (because Abhishek Bachchan is hot), Just Friends, Duplex, Munich, Water (with John Abraham, the last in the Deepa Mehta trilogy must still see Earth with Aamir Khan and Nandita Das who I adore), Memoirs of a Geisha, and some more...

marr-ed

Got a really a rather lovely email from an old old friend. Old IS gold. Although that makes us sound rather ancient and maybe at the ripe old age of 25 we are on our way to the grave... sigh. Those memories of RGS. I remember once when we were in tuition class, and then the tuition teacher gave us some coke (at precisely 4pm he would wheel out the coke which predictably was the only thing we had been looking forward to in the whole class and of course there was never more than one glass precisely per person) and then she told us a joke and I started laughing and then coke snorted out of my nose and she cupped her hands to receive it! (So it wouldn't flow out and make a gigantic mess and earn the wrath of the tuition master) My sister was also in the same class and she was aghast at my antics, and said that Blood is NOT thicker than water and she would never do that to save my ass! That is true friendship peeps. A defining moment in my early childhood. Anyway it was awesome to hear she's doing really well!

So had an interesting conversation with my father last night which started out innocently enough discussing graduate school and whether I had filed acceptances or not (there's this old chestnut in my family of how once my sister accepted a University of Michigan offer a day late and the University refused her admission and therefore changed her whole life, which in retrospect it really didnt) ... and then came the rather forced casual stunner: So what am I to say when i get marriage proposals for you?

(WHATTT!!! I screeched. I am NOT interested in getting married. blah blah blah)

"There are people here who are more educated than you and know more than you and can see further down the line. Don't think you know everything. Marriage is important etc."/

" Just tell them I am not interested in getting married"

"You're not young anymore. You're an adult and you have certain responsibilities. It's time to fulfil them. I'm going to tell them that you are studying right now, but after you graduate this will NO longer be a joke"

I put the phone down, grumpily and suddenly feeling rather frightened.

woody

As Woody Allen said
The only thing standing between greatness and me, is me.

mfh

talking to a colleague about Milosevic and how he had a horribly abusive childhood which led to some pathology and the inability to realize the import of his crimes against humanity. About how in one telling incident, he organized a specially blackened helicopter to fly him to some opening ceremony (because in Serb mythology from two thousand years ago, the gods descended from out of the sky in a black chariot). Then moved onto various leaders' divine mandates from heaven and the cult of personality that they actively fostered.

talked also about opening a film studio which more and more is my dream. I now only have to find financing, learn how to handle sound and lighting (i can operate DV fine and edit too), get some grips and oh yeah some actors too and a worthwhile script and then I'll be on my way. In the meantime, I might go to school though and stick to the day job.

am pushing paper at the moment during an unusual hiatus in Colombo. I want to get out in the field again.

arrrr

Been obsessively googling rang de basanti. What would it take I wonder, to break into Bollywood big-time? I remember when I was in high school, making a bet with my best friend that I would pay her five dollars (or vice versa) if by the time I was 28, I didn't get married to my favourite actor, who was incidentally called Arjun (but in reality had some brahmin-assed name like Seenu or something pattikadu like that!).

Feeling lost in life. What would I like to do with my life? And do I have to keep walking a via dolorosa to get there? And what would make me happy? And would that be transient? arrgh. Must. Stop. Blathering. Like. A. Emotional. Junkie who's on a plateau right now because the latest fix of drama is still lagging. SIGH.

I want to meet Captain Jack Sparrow. Or Michael Corleone. Or Robert Redford in Spy Game. Or Ralph Fiennes in the English Patient. Or. Randolph Ash from Possession. Or the butler from Remains of the Day. Or Velu Nayakar. Or Arvind Samy from Thalapathy. Or Tony Leung from In the Mood for Love. Or Kevin Kline from French Kiss. Or of course.... Aamir Khan from Rang de Basanti.

rang de basanti

Just watched a really different Hindi film with an ensemble cast (which in itself is anathema to most Bollywood veterans), called Rang de Basanti, starring Aamir Khan, Alice Patten (daughter of Chris Patten), Siddharth, Soha Ali Khan (sister of Saif Ali Khan, graduate of Balliol and the venerable London School of Economics (M.Sc. in International Relations, natch) and really rather lovely), Atul Kulkarni, and Madhavan in a lovely cameo role. The film explores college boys encountering the darker side of Indian politics and the events that transpire after a certain precipitous moment. Filmmaking is lovely too, with real, washed colours coming onto the screen (and not the fake-o airbrushed usual Bollywood effect) and some lovely sepia flashes of the past. And it's the first Indian film I've seen with a British actress who seems even remotely plausible in her role (not even in Lagaan did that lady manage to pull it off). A genuinely emotional, provocative, deep meaning, good hearted film with an excellent, modern soundtrack. Love it!

monk-eying

An anecdote from the Anuradhapura monk who's a bit of a rockstar amongst people here. All sorts of politicians and leaders visit him, ostensibly to get his blessings but really for the positive media, fawning coverage that accompanies them on such visits as they prostrate themselves before the monk. Anyway he was telling our team about drug use in the area and the various locally-mixed chemical confections that produce certain hallucinations, sharpness of mind etc. all for a fraction of the price of Western drugs.

And then he was telling our team how a Minister (Boghalande who attended the Geneva peace talks) came to visit him and he was telling the Minister about Room to Read, who turn up in a broken down van (when we went to visit him, our van had sprung a leak, and our seat was broken: what can I say; cost efficiency) but do really good work unlike other NGOs who turn up in Pajeros that are fresh off the boat (literally) and hem and haw and don't do adequate needs assessments and the like... haha). Then he spoke about women and dieting and how he was counselling a woman over the phone and she collapsed and he rushed over and she told him the doctor had told her to lose one inch and so she had started not eating and then had collapsed and the monk had told her: at the point of collapse, what is the point of being one inch more or less thin or fat?? And then he was talking about being in London, on a bus, in front of a couple that was busy engaging in the 'industry of love' and that no one else was concerned, but he, being Sri Lankan and therefore possessed of an innate desire to interfere in other people's business kept turning back and then surreptitiously viewing the couple through the bus' rearview mirror! Hilarious! LOVE IT. Buddhist monks rock.

The manifesto of 12

THE MANIFESTO OF 12:

Together facing the new totalitarianism

After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new global totalitarian threat: Islamism.

We -- writers, journalists and public intellectuals -- call for resistance to religious totalitarianism.

Instead, we call for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values worldwide.
The necessity of these universal values has been revealed by events since the publication of the Muhammad drawings in European newspapers. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the arena of ideas. What we are witnessing is not a clash of civilizations, nor an antagonism of West versus East, but a global struggle between democrats and theocrats.

Like all totalitarianisms, Islamism is nurtured by fears and frustrations. The preachers of hate bet on these feelings in order to form battalions destined to impose a world of inequality. But we clearly and firmly state: nothing, not even despair, justifies the choice of obscurantism, totalitarianism and hatred.

Islamism is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present. Its success can only lead to a world of greater power imbalances: man’s domination of woman, the Islamists’ domination of all others.

To counter this, we must assure universal rights to oppressed people. For that reason, we reject “cultural relativism,” which consists of accepting that Muslim men and women should be deprived of their right to equality and freedom in the name of their cultural traditions.
We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of “Islamophobia,” an unfortunate concept that confuses criticism of Islamic practices with the stigmatization of Muslims themselves.

We plead for the universality of free expression, so that a critical spirit may be exercised on every continent, against every abuse and dogma.

We appeal to democrats and free spirits of all countries that our century should be one of enlightenment, not of obscurantism.

Signed,
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Chahla Chafiq , Caroline Fourest, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Irshad Manji , Mehdi Mozaffari, Maryam Namazie, Taslima Nasreen, Salman Rushdie, Antoine Sfeir, Philippe Val, Ibn Warraq

beyond here there be dragons.

Centuries ago men made maps of the oceans and whenever the sea extended beyond the reach of their knowledge they would draw a dragon and write here: beyond here there be dragons.

Well I feel like that now. The line segregating the known world and the unknown world must be crossed and I am screwing my courage to the sticking place to cross it, but still, there is this faint foreboding of apprehension, that beyond here, quite simply, there be dragons.

prolongue

Some very interesting news articles of late that I can't help but talk about. Normally I think that the state of newsprint globally is a dire one, but there are some exceptional articles of reporting that redeem the reporter and give credence and honour to the term 'newspaperman'. Unfortunately recently, it has been the English and American newspapers. I still think that the Economist, the FT, the Guardian, the New York Times and the Washington Post stand at the very vanguard of publishing. Some examples are today's article on UN reform by an ex-British Ambassador to the UN in the FT (on expanding the scope of secretary-general selection with a list of particularly commonsense reform action points), an article on Chief Justice Roberts' first dissenting opinion (and the remarkably candid antagonistic opinions from the majority), an article in yesterday's FT on the rise of China (titled Shock and Ore), talking about the very real consequences of Chinese outsourcing and growth in demand, and some articles on wine and food in the New York Times and the headlining article on Salon on the Hillary Juggernaut (with a very clever and intelligent advice letter to potential Democratic challengers) And also the astrologer's column in the Washington Post although I suspect I would get far more accurate readings from the Hindu newspapers locally).

There seems to be such a surfeit of things to do and possibilities. Wherever I go, I can't help but feel that I am never doing enough, never taking full advantage of the vast resources afforded to me, never reading as much as I should or writing as much as I should, never learning new languages, or keeping up with the old enough, never learning new musical talents (like carnatic music) or old dance traditions (bharatha natyam, roadkill when moving to Singapore), never learning how to cook wonderful, exotic dishes in keeping with sri lankan culinary traditions, never in touch enough with old friends and old passions, never being active in politics etc.etc.etc. The list is endless and very dispiriting if pondered upon long enough.

On watching a movie, as I had written to a friend and which brought back long ago memories...

My favourite form of escapism. That moment sitting in the darkness in the old Cathay cinemas having bunked school and wearing a t-shirt over the RGS pinafore, that moment just before the curtains opened and the screen glowed, seemed to me the moment most pregnant with possibilities, a moment where the best of life was about to happen, where expectations and reality coincided, where the past was forgotten and only new marvels languished in the wings, waiting to fly onto screen and become discovered, become corporeal.

on being

So I don't have dengue. What I do have is an intestinal bug but I am suitably drugged up right now and feeling incredibly drowsy and all I want to do is sleep which is NOT good. Went out last night to Shanmuga's with a friend from undergraduate days and chomped on masala dosais and channa masala which I haven't had in a long time and which was rather surprisingly good. What was even better was that it stayed in my stomach. Friend is involved in managing and sourcing energy projects in Sri Lanka and it was interesting to talk about what I had covered in MS a long time ago...Hydro it seems is the way forward. Also we talked about importing the 118 118 guys from Britain into Sri Lanka. I swear what Sri Lanka needs is some good advertizing and any brand can take off. The population is prone to jokes and jingoism so if anyone can come up with a catchy slogan, some decent quality product (like detergent: please can someone import Fairy liquid here?) then the market is yours for the taking.

From cary tennis at salon on picking an option amongst many at 23

"People who say, "Relax, just pick one, you've got plenty of time," may not remember 23 -- may not remember just how important the world is at 23, how limitless is the horizon, how fresh is the air, how ready the mind, how spirited the walk, how eager one is to begin. At 23 I rode the hippie bus from Manhattan to San Francisco and ended up in a falling-down Victorian on Fulton and Baker one floor up from a deadhead with bad teeth named Sunshine.
I thought I had it made."

ill bill

So woke up this morning to more paroxysms of retching violently and then hauled my sorry ass on the advice of a neighbour to a Muslim doctor in the far wilds of Pepiliyana. I was nearly faint with weakness having gone to the bathroom 12 times in the space of an hour. The hosue was calm and inviting; an oasis. It was not a practice as he was a private doctor and I was spared having to wait in line with raucous babies or with other similarly ill patients. Instead I sat in a walled garden where butterflies flitted among pink lilies and I waited. A bearded Muslim man came out, speaking full English and with all the uptodate tools and took the relevant measurements. Also practising in the ancient arts of ayurvedic medicine which uses traditional organic herbs and the like (that have been human-tested) to cure different diseases. He promises he can do something permanent about my asthma too. Turns out I have a nasty stomach virus and he was also concerned about dengue so I had to go to Durdans to get a blood test all the way in Colpetty. Durdans is a large, monolithic, luxurious (for Sri Lanka) private hospital. This is important because when I am sick, I do not want to use public health systems and I know that's horrible and I don't care. A nurse injected me, I didn't faint and I'm going back in a few hours to get the report. Am completely exhausted. But his touch was kind and gentle, just the way a doctor's should be.

the Bobester

Well this is to post a big thank you to the Bobester, my faithful stalwart, my Gibraltar. Who finally copped to it and realized it was my birthday and sent flowers and chocolate from London to Sri Lanka (see pics) with all the appropriate wordage. Dude, you can buy my love anytime! Without getting too soppy about it, though there are oceans and oceans and separate lives now, we'll always be friends. Cheers!


Well I couldn't sleep last night and was hit by severe stomach disorders which meant that I was retching alone into my bathroom at 3am. The worst thing about being sick is when it happens when you're alone and no one's there to soothe your forehead or make you tea. I remember my sister allus used to cry when she upchucked, not knowing why. But hey. Am feeling somewhat better now after lobster fettucine and jaggery ice-cream and lime juice from the Gallery Cafe so let's hope it stays down now....

partay

So I had like a PARTY last night but it was more like a small gathering of 7 people with food ordered and endless alcohol (and the good stuff, I’m talking Tanqueray and Black Label and some decent Cabs). Between five drinkers, we finished one entire bottle of Black Label whisky, 2 bottles of red wine and half a bottle of Tanqueray- staying true to Sri Lankan alcoholic statistics. Needless to say, there were dramatic side-effects for some of the recipients. However we had a guitar and the drums and we caused merry hell till 4am after which everyone fell asleep on the floor. Thank god I have decent neighbours. I had warned them before. And I hardly ever throw bashes at my house so it was good. I remember thinking in my state of inebriation: even when I wake up tomorrow, in the morning, the news shall still be true.

On competitiveness. I reckon I’m not competitive, well at least not particularly so, (I know some people who will howl with disbelief at that statement) but I think is that what I want is to be placed somewhere comfortably near the top. I do not have the drive or motivation to be first, but just good enough only and I could never tolerate being the bottom of the class, as I have been on occasion in my past (think J1).

francais

The French have got the answers, at least some of them, when it comes to aid intervention. Most French agencies believe in the real concepts of solidarity and humanitarian assistance as the foremost principles of aid intervention. The Americans and the British look on humanitarian assistance as secondary with all sorts of other motivations in mind, monetary and political. The French, to put it succintly, operate without AGENDA.

Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) remains as one of the foremost emergency medical aid agencies reaching high-intensity conflict zones and working in some of the most dangerous areas of the globes. If I was a doctor, that is the kind of doctor I would be. Or at least hope to be.

I'm at a crossroads of self-definition. The real heroes are these unsung aid workers, that work in remote countries, without the help of common languages or cultures, that work day and night to provide life-saving procedures, that are constantly exhausted in both body and spirit. Like as my CEO said, when someone in Rwanda falls unconscious into a coma and thinks he's about to die and wakes up alive to see a French doctor smiling at him, that is the stuff that heroes are made of. And it happens every day, all around us, as the rest of us continue with our humdrum lives.

I'd like to dedicate this to those aid workers, who have given up everything that is faithful and familiar, to exert themselves, to push the boundaries of what is their comfort zone, who give their life's work in the service of humanity, who exhaust themselves without end and without expectation of reward, who persevere despite seeing more in one the day than most of us would see in a lifetime, above all for believing in the best of mankind and not the worst. They are the truest heroes of the contemporary world.

dorothy

"England is the heart of a rabbit in the body of a lion" and that is why I love it so.

But I think that the Sayers passage I love most, the one that pays homage to an England of yore and not of today, the one that understands what kin, country, and order means is below

Harriet … smiled at the vicar. Whatever fantastic pictures she had from time to time conjured up of married life with Peter, none of them had ever included attendance at village concerts. But of course they would go. She understood now why it was that with all his masquing attitudes, all his cosmopolitan self-adaptations, all his odd spiritual reticence and escapes, he yet carried about with him that permanent atmosphere of security. He belonged to an ordered society, and this was it. More than any of the friends of her own world, he spoke the familiar language of her childhood. In London, anybody, at any moment, might do or become anything. But in a village - no matter what village - they were all immutably themselves; parson, organist, sweep, Duke's son and doctor's daughter, moving like chessmen upon their allotted squares. She was curiously excited. She thought, "I've married England."

I want to marry Sri Lanka.

bs

L'Oreal bought the Body Shop! I can't believe it? Even the Body Shop's faux-environmentalism is not proof against an enticing offer where each share was marked up by roughly 20%! What is the world coming to? Where have all the cowboys gone?

I was going to type something witty and urbane here like I usually do but my mind has drawn a blank. It is the end of a long and eventful week and today topped it off by a surprise cake entrance that was ordered by my sister at the other end of the world to celebrate recent news and the entire office and I demolished it within 15 minutes flat. Then a quick architect meeting who had worked with Geoffrey Bawa in his last days before he died and offered to give me a private tour of Bawa House and maybe one day Lunnungu as well (swear to myself that I shall see these before I go!).

I am still recovering from recent news. Other people may take it as a given when things like this happen to them, but I originate from humble beginnings. I couldn't sleep till 3 am yesterday and in a fit of madness I called the office responsible across the globe to check that INDEED IT WAS SO and it was.

I was thinking of my father's comments on each (to me and my sadly uneventful life) of the things that happened to me...
On calling him from the RJC hall the day I got my A level results: "Holy Shit".
On calling him from the bathroom at the workplace where I was before I got my internship confirmation: "How do you know its true? Are you sure you want to accept it?"
On calling him from home when he was driving when I got my first job: "What? What? aaah. Well you better go back and study, you're going to fail your final exams with the way you've been studying
On calling him recently on admission to graduate school: What? That's excellent! Sputtering ensues. How did you find out? ohhh by email. How do you know it's genuine?

Sigh. Lankans. Can't live with 'em, can't shoot 'em.

leave

So I am tired of moving around, constantly watching the conveyor belt at airports go round, round round, endlessly round. Everywhere I stay, I leave a piece of my heart behind. London took a big chunk, debilitating and I didn't think I would recover. Even Singapore has managed to carve a sliver for itself (things I like about Singapore: Lee Kuan Yew, public transport and RJC Literature S Paper). But this, this, leaving this, I fear may be the death blow. I am thinking of leaving and its 2:30am and I can't sleep because I don't know how to leave this country. It has claimed too large a piece of my heart, and try as I might, I can't seem to wrest it back.

go firmly to the window
and listen with deep emotion,
but not with the whining, the pleas of a coward;
listen - your final pleasure - to the voices,
to the exquisite music of that strange procession,
and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing.

because i'm a geek

International non-governmental organizations (INGOs) today are losing sight of their raison d’etre of humanitarian assistance. Captive to the donor community and to the global media that shapes public perception of their success, charities are driven by a set of targets that include the necessary but unfortunately insufficient condition of victim relief. Their intervention, if irresponsible, can dramatically alter the developmental trajectory of the recipient community, with grave implications. This essay will analyze the damaging effects of relief efforts by INGOs in humanitarian crises on host communities and propose recommendations. The focus is on the Sri Lankan post-tsunami environment.

The tsunami of Dec 26th, 2004 generated a torrent of global aid unprecedented in its size, heterogeneity and global media coverage received. Overnight INGOs grew to twice or thrice their previous magnitude. Expansion plans were drawn up in a week, staff hired the next week, and flown out to the disaster area the week after. The ensuing contingent of INGOs that invaded Sri Lanka was frequently inexperienced, subject to an extraordinary proliferation of mandates and under the spotlight of the attention-deficit driven Western media.

In addition, the political situation was tenuous. Prior to the tsunami, the country was teetering on the brink of a total breakdown of the ceasefire agreement. The relief agenda soon became hostage to election-year rhetoric and exploitation of the recovery efforts for political and monetary gain was rampant. Moreover, institutionalized corruption inherent in the government, its partisan approach to aid distribution and the lack of political will to create a viable independent institution with appropriate jurisdiction to oversee the recovery meant that public confidence in the government inexorably declined while ethnic tensions, already high, festered.

In such anarchic circumstances, instituting rapid high-profile action without the attendant political analysis, meaningful engagement of local capacities or refined understanding of the local culture is hazardous. Yet this is precisely what happened. Rigid budget schedules, initial media spotlights, and competition amongst INGOs prompted a rushed intervention on the basis of isolated diagnoses. Decision-making was entrusted to expatriate staff flown in with a superficial understanding of local politics and with a standard blueprint for relief and development. Massive construction was assumed hastily; schools, hospitals, housing and roads were commissioned without an accurate identification of beneficiaries and duplication was rife. More importantly, the political ramifications of the economic disparities caused by capitalizing certain ethnic communities at the expense of others was not acknowledged or ameliorated, causing further ethnic tensions manifested in violent assassinations and riots in the Northern and Eastern provinces.

The consequences were tragic but avoidable. The absence of a clear framework for recovery, the lack of an independent coordination mechanism for NGOs and the deficiency of government integrity and efficiency led to a dismal regulation of the quality, volume and distribution of aid.

Building a coalition of committed local civil society actors in program implementation can bring expertise and innovation to standard relief models as well as facilitate a mutually transformative dialogue and a refined understanding of situational politics. Another recommendation is to challenge communities to provide some resources of their own (e.g. land or labor in construction or relief delivery), thereby compelling local capacity building, community ownership, continuity of projects, and ultimately sustainable development. Educating donors on the complexity and necessarily longer time schedules of delivering efficient, empowering contextually appropriate relief is also essential, as is the realization that INGO accountability is to both donors and beneficiaries. However ultimately these are medium-term solutions that a) take time and thought, both elements denied to charities in crises facing a complex web of pressurizing operational and funding realities and b) do not answer the larger calamity of development and human security in Sri Lanka or other conflict-affected Third World nations.

If the local media could be strengthened to be nonpartisan, unfettered and intrepid, like its Indian counterpart, it could demand accountability and deter abuse. If the Aegean stables of the government bureaucracy could be rid of corruption and streamlined to focus on cost and time efficiency, overnight governmental revenues would grow, national productivity boosted, FDI attracted, infrastructure developed and a class of risk-taking entrepreneurs created. Higher living standards and an exposure to substantive democratic debate might also generate a trans-ethnic civil society with the critical mass to catalyze a peaceful, acceptable resolution to the current violent ethno-political problem. The road to sustainable, self-sufficient development would coalesce. Yet these are the thorny dilemmas that INGOs steer clear of, afraid of overstepping their mandates and wearing out their welcome.

The willful myopia, the inability to tell truth to power and the reluctance to engage with difficult questions of mandates and the limits of sovereignty must -- and can – change. What is in the balance is worth saving, an empowered local civil society supported by its global brothers and sisters, that can hold governments and populations accountable for their destructive practices, and that can bring capitalism and democracy to a developing country and generate political, economic and human security for all. It requires a revolution in current thinking but it is certainly not impossible.

hmm

So I am a step closer to becoming Josh Lyman from the West Wing. The question remains if I am a step closer to finding Josh Lyman from the West Wing to spend the rest of my life with! Hah. I know. I'm insane. My sister said " So does this mean you're going to be President of the United States and I had to say, "Regretfully no. The United States does not recognize the superiority of my birthplace, whose legitimacy is being contested over a 20 year civil war".

Just came back last night from the plantation sector, where we are also launching our girl's scholarship program. Met a bunch of women's groups and activists, specifically a well established NGO there that had published research on the sector and its unique problems of being labour associated with a very specific industry. Someone pointed out the other day that we are all of Indian origin, albeit settlers at different times, and why should the plantation sector population always be referred to as Tamils of Indian origin as opposed to the other Tamils in the country?

It is an interesting question.

And now I shall have to pick a policy area of concentration and I can't decide whether I want to concentrate on American electoral politics and campaign management or international development. Both have the potential to be singularly disillusioning.

warner

There's an article about Mark Warner on the Magazine at the New York Times. (Wish I knew how to link). He's being touted as the Anti-Hillary, in fact the choice to run against the incumbent, at least in the primaries. They'll have to announce by the end of next year their candidacy (or they could wait until Jan 2008 like Clinton and Wesley Clark)but fundraising suffers without the huge ramp-up as well as a lack of a national profile. Anyway, Mark Warner will NEVER win the nomination. Hillary has the nomination pretty much tied up- with a 10 year headstart on campaign finance (note that she and her husband are one of the VERY few politicians who now run in an race, whether senatorial, gubernatorial or presidential without being independently wealthy). Mark Warner, a Democratic Governor from red-state Virginia has a personal fortune of over 200 million. Go the little people! Even though Hillary is not really little. I agree that she needs a bruising primary so she'll go into the national elections ready, but Mark Warner is not the guy to put her through the wringer. He may go around brandishing his economic credentials, but 2008, like 2004 is going to be a social-issues election: such have the Republicans been successful in defining the agenda. Hillary is going to have a tough time in proving that she's not another shrill, angry, ticked off Democrat haranguing the stately Republicans like a terrier yapping at their heels (which is what they are already trying to paint her as, 2 years ahead of the primaries) but that she has real stature, policy stances and most importantly the means to BRING IT HOME. At the moment, its still too rocky to tell. I think 2008 is going to go to another Republican, but a Republican with crossover appeal, like McCain. I also don't personally think there is anything wrong with Republican values such as small government, fiscal conservatism, rugged individualism and live and let live with social policies. Hell, Hillary used to be a Republican nearly 40 years ago.

anyway. Watch this space. The race is about to begin. Right after the midterms this year.

chronicling

Came back from a trip up north, the first in three months and the first since the talks have begun. It went by in a flurry of site visits, building monitoring visits. Stationed our engineer from Moneragala up there for a couple of weeks to hasten the completion of some much overdue projects. Had some confrontations and staged some interventions. Hotter than Hades up there. Sweltered in a two-bit cinema to watch a two-bit Tamil film one afternoon because there was nothing else to do. Only Elephant House's pani cadju saved the day. The schools are coming up, but ever so slowly. On Monday back out to Maskeliya and the tea country which will be a welcome relief. Over the weekend, a close cousin announced an impending marriage and the festivities continued late into the night. Apparently I'm next and the subject of much ragging from aforementioned cousins. I. Am. Tired. and the pace doesn't look like it will let up. Must do more, but oh, am so tired. also was the weekend of the big match in Colombo, the infamous Royal Thomian, a three day binge-drinking fest. I didn't attend as I was not up to it: old boys haranguing women, getting drunk, getting into fights and occasionally watching a bit of cricket. Big match season in Jaffna too. Johnians were out in full force on hospital road with red t-shirts tied around their heads and drums and loudspeakers. One boy stood dressed in a dress, with oil-slick sunglasses, on a motorbike. Sigh.

building

This is a paean to Sri Lankan architecture.

Traditional Sri Lankan buildings are integrated into the environment like few other architectural traditions. Nearly every house I have been into in Colombo has an intimate relationship with nature, its environment and all are built as sanctuaries. A house I stepped into yesterday was like a forest monastery. Walled gardens and secluded stone pathways were built inside the house and the ceilings were thrown thirty feet high. Hanging vines crept down trees and twined into the floor. Every now and then as we turned a corner we came upon unexpected wrought-iron benches, stone bowls to catch water. The house itself was a fortress, completely walled but glass-fronted from floor to ceiling to catch the vistas of the indoor gardens that were open to the sky. Wide eaves ensured that rain would slip off easily. Everywhere there was wood and stone and glass, indistinguishable from the trees and the rain and the sky.

Sri Lankan architecture is a mix of its colonial heritage, from the Arab influences, to the Dutch traditions, the Portuguese, the Indian and of course the British. All culminate to produce something unique, something instantly identifiable as uniquely Sri Lanka. Wherever I settle down, I shall build my house, as an outpost of Sri Lanka.

God Abandons Antony

God Abandons Antony

At midnight, when suddenly you hear
an invisible procession going by
with exquisite music, voices,
don't mourn your luck that's failing now,
work gone wrong, your plans
all proving deceptive - don't mourn them uselessly:
as one long prepared, and full of courage,
say goodbye to her, to Alexandria who is leaving.
Above all, don't fool yourself, don't say
it was a dream, your ears deceived you:
don't degrade yourself with empty hopes like these.
As one long prepared, and full of courage,
as is right for you who were given this kind of city,
go firmly to the window
and listen with deep emotion,
but not with the whining, the pleas of a coward;
listen - your final pleasure - to the voices,
to the exquisite music of that strange procession,
and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing.

Constantine P. Cavafy

drink

So last night was a friend's birthday and we all trooped over to his house bearing imported liquor (Tanqueray, natch) only to be met by about 50 relatives and a priest! Formalities over with (birthday blessings etc.) we then proceeded to get very drunk. Someone busted out a guitar and drunks, and predictably, we descended into that oh-so-very Sri lankan ritual of singing when drunk. It was low-key, mellow and rather fun, especially when we broke into the 70s songs and all with some remarkable pitch and tone combinations.

Some interesting facts/urban legend:
a) Sri Lanka has the highest suicide rates
b) Sri Lanka has the highest liquor consumption rates (with an average of 200ml of pure alcohol per day! Statistics from the World Health Organization, as of 2002. Reportedly it's increased since the tsunami. This multiplies into 2.5 liters of beer per day or 1 litre of 40% vodka per DAY!!!! And this is an annual average and given the fact that about 60% of the population (about 80% of which are females and the rest of the males) do not consume alcohol at all, it can mean that the average alcohol-drinking male can consume up to 4.5 liters of beer PER DAY or 1.8 liters of straight vodka PER DAY.

(I was like, there is no way that would be true, because a) people can't afford it and b) we would all be dead if that was true but clearly I was wrong and this country has problems)
c) Sri Lanka has the highest number of holidays in the world. (The latter I can vouch for).

Now if you look at all these facts, you can see the same causal factor, or at the very least, some significant correlation. Do they drink because they're on holiday? Do they commit suicide because they are drunk? Do they drink/commit suicide because they're depressed (as a result of having too much time to think on holiday)?

People here drink a helluva lot though.

On another note, it's big-match season right now, with the Royal Thomian coming up this week. (It's a test match by the way, and all this time I thought it was an ODI, but then that would defeat the purpose of drinking as much as humanly possible with a legitimate excuse). Sigh.

sl, men.

Being in Colombo is utterly dispiriting. It's local election fever right now and parties here are so indiscriminate, painting symbols on roads etc. that it's downright frustrating. Couple that with rumours of increasing recruitment up north, and superficial agreements in Geneva, well do the math.

Never a dull moment in this job though. One thing I would like to remark here about the average Sri Lankan man is that they are all, exceptionally so, really badly looking to get laid. From auto drivers, to restaurant managers, to NGO personnel, to friends of friends, there's this overriding synapse in their brain when they see a woman that shuts down every other receptor. Only one thought rules their minds, and that is how to get laid, in every position imaginable, as often as possible.

Beware the Sri Lankan man who isn't honest about this intention, it means he's got a bigger game going on that normal. I shouldn't be so goddamned disillusioned about men here, but it is pathetic to see how many are so unapologetic about their behaviour, especially in Colombo. The concept of a relationship, the concept of respect for a female professional, the concept of partnership is just nonexistent.

(I guess I'm really frustrated right now because yet another random person got a hold of my mobile number which is printed on my business card for all and sundry and called me up and asked whether they could meet up. You can't meet the men you want to meet, and arrgh).

past, past

Isn’t it wonderful to discover the obscure, the forgotten, the sidelined creators and then one finds that though they are not part of the mainstream (thank god), yet they are still in their own ways, heads of a large movement. They are a counterpoint to pop culture. Which is in itself, sometimes, a reason to celebrate. Today’s focus is on Alberto Giacometti and specifically a painting of a small ship unmoored on a Swiss autumn night which I chanced upon approximately oh, eight years ago.

There’s something similar between phillip Pullman (dark materials trilogy) and ayn rand. I think its because of the whole overthrow-God plot and the same energetic way of writing, as though they were both striving upwards, for the best in man, the heroic.
I don’t know. I am probably babbling.

There’s so much to do and I wish I had the energy of ten men to keep going, keep exploring, keep working, keep creating. But last night I slept for 12 hours straight, embarrassing but true. I’d like to think that it’s because I use up so much energy during the day, but really it’s because I am soporifically lazy.

I miss taking the boat on the River Thames from Canary Wharf to the Savoy. Especially on cold winter evenings, as we pass the London bridge, the docked warship, the restaurants on the right bank, the massive modern FT building, along the grey, lamplit waters. And then getting off, huddled into one’s coat, loving the feeling of the galeforce wind cutting into your bones, up the ramp, crossing the Embankment and walking up into the Strand.

fyedye

I love it how most of my pictures have little to no relevance to my posting. These are two itty bitties studying to be monks and we are establishing libraries in their community centres, to be filled with BabySitter Club books and Star War novellas.

So. It’s Friday. I’m still posting like a maniac but hey. A member of the Eisenhower family will be visiting our projects. Also, excitingly, one of our projects is dedicated to gary sinise, (the human stain, forrest gump etc) so there is a real chance that he could visit Jaffna for the dedication ceremony and this will be the closest I shall ever get to Hollywood!

Had an interesting discussion on the ethics of publishing those cartoons in that Danish newspaper and how someone had visited Sacramento and was horrified to discover pieces of Buddha, in an art installation in the middle of the town. Also met someone else with 35 acres of land in Batticoloa and looking for people to fund housing.

There should have been something to record today but there isn’t, suffice to say that I finished the Fountainhead, with a totally revised opinion of it. It is a confused polemic against mediocrity at best, but has no philosophy or original thinking to expound.

the cinnamon peeler's wife

The Cinnamon Peeler

If I were a cinnamon peeler
I would ride your bed
and leave the yellow bark dust
on your pillow.

Your breasts and shoulders would reek
you could never walk through markets
without the profession of my fingers
floating over you. The blind would
stumble certain of whom they approached
though you might bathe
under the rain gutters, monsoon.

Here on the upper thigh
at this smooth pasture
neighbour to your hair
or the crease
that cuts your back. This ankle.
You will be known among strangers
as the cinnamon peeler's wife.

I could hardly glance at you
before marriage
never touch you
- your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers.
I buried my hands
in saffron, disguised them
over smoking tar,
helped the honey gatherers...

When we swam once
I touched you in the water
and our bodies remained free,
you could hold me and be blind of smell.
You climbed the bank and said

this is how you touch other women
the grass cutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter.
And you searched your arms
for the missing perfume

and knew

what good is it
to be the lime burner's daughter
left with no trace
as if not spoken to in the act of love
as if wounded without the pleasure of a scar.

You touched
your belly to my hands
in the dry air and said
I am the cinnamon
peeler's wife. Smell me.

Michael Ondaatje

some more itty bitties

the cow

A cow standing in front of our half-constructed school. And then some itty bitties who will attend our new preschool!

in the morning

So I got up this morning with verve and dynamism. The sun streamed in, I finished a few more chapters in my third re-reading of the Fountainhead; I set off to work clean and glistening and I thought to myself, right now, right this moment, brief as it may be, I am happy. I caught myself being happy and it was so rare. (of course it had dissipated with the onslaught of work by about 5pm, but nevertheless...)

Then I had lunch with a colleague and a friend, a Mennonite (the most interaction I've had with their ilk was watching Witness, primarily for the romance between Harrison Ford and the Amish woman). Although I don't think that anyone would ever mistake me for a peacebuilder, yet it was interesting to exchange ideas on vegetarianism, travel, Sai Baba and nonprofit work. I was invited to stay with them when I head to the US in the fall for graduate work and I appreciate the intention if nothing else.

Then back in the office, I had to make a recording for the phone. Now no matter who calls, for centuries onwards, my voice will never stop haunting this place and I have stamped my identity somewhat!

Then just work, work and more work. An interesting fact today I learnt: about 10% of government revenues are generated by tax on Ceylon Tobacco Company, the monopoly subsidiary of British American Tobacco.

a photo a day

(sunlight breaking through the clouds at a future school site in hatton)

A photo a day will keep the memories away.

So they say when I leave, my heart is going to cleave into two and my tears will line my path of exit. (What can I say, Sri Lankans!).

Came back from another visit to the South where a village is being rebuilt by a Texan Christian ministry (horror of horrors) and who need desperately a school. This is an interesting, if painful ethical/religious dilemma. As a nonprofit strongly committed to the secular ethos, one should be not be intolerant of any religion but tolerant of all. Yet tolerance, acceptance, embracing and devotion all mark different commitments. Though it is not an evangelizing organization, though it does not mandate like the Gideons, a Bible in every room, yet by consorting with the enemy if that, are we tainted by association? Will Christianity seep, insidiously through the wind that blows from Texas to Hikkaduwa? Will this organization reap converts by the dozen and ascend the stairway into heaven?

Secondly, if Christianity should seep purely by osmosis, who are we to stop an active choice? All we allow is the presence of Christianity. The choice as always is up to them. (This is an interesting Augustinian problem of choice in Christian platonism- both free will and determinism co-exist, God merely knows what choice you will make in advance, but that does not detract from your full opportunity of choice). I disagree in principle with organized religion. I believe any relationship with any god is a personal one. The congregation of people believing in the same conception of God is a negation of the individual human being by definition. Maybe I'm just being pompous. Certainly I believe Christianity thrives on guilt, a la Nietzsche. But it is also darkly, strangely appealing with its themes of sin, guilt, the individual, repentance and redemption.

Anyhow I digress. We stopped by the beach and ran into the surf with our socks off and our jeans rolled up and I stepped on a sea urchin and got a spine into my foot. It was the second time I'd been in the sea in the past year on work and the third time in the past year at all. The water was as turquoise as can be, till the very end of the horizon.

(I remember when I was in banking and we were driving to an offsite and we were passing fields of gold and I remarked to a colleague that it was beautiful where the corn met the sky and he retorted with, think you're a poet do ya? Well you work for MS).