and again

We were talking about Sri Lanka today and the effects of culture on relationships.

The Westerners have a different style of breaking-up. We expect to be friends with the ex, after a decent mourning period, we expect continuity. We expect evaluation, joint post-mortems, some sort of reconciliation before the transformation of the relationship to friendship. We almost always expect friendship unless the break-up was bitter.

During the relationship we are careful. Wary of expressing what is not yet known, or not yet true. We demarcate, draw boundaries and lines of permissiveness. We operate according to the rules within our culture. He said "I love you" already? But he's not playing according to the rules! . To give too much too early is to risk rejection and failure. To express too much is a violation of privacy, violation of self. And we all know to have low expectations in the beginning. We bring baggage too, from all our past relationships (and the exes are still orbiting in our periphery, giving rise to the question, is the past ever past?) and we become more brittle with each passing relationship. We do not expect any relationship to be the final relationship, the odds are against it. We do not expect marriage; indeed we do not even know what marriage is, and view it with a faint sense of foreboding. The expected timeline of a relationship is a lot less than forever.

The locals do it differently.

At play is a confluence of tradition, culture and history. For the migrant Westerners, whose lives are marked by relocation, to come to a culture where a family's ancestors lived in the same square mile 300 years ago as today, is to experience 'deep culture'. Where the expectations and behaviours in relationships lead to marriage instantly, where the combination is evaluated pragmatically, with a view towards propagating children, where the element of the religious and matching horoscopes (and thus of a match preordained in heaven) rules. And 300 years hence, we are still overwhelmingly rural, with collective rural memories, with unconscious tribal expectations of unity and relationships. Love is not what is so important as is stability. And so every relationship begins with the expression of love, for there is no proper word in the local vernacular for the Western conception of love, but instead different words to distinguish different manifestations of affection, lust, romantic love, filial piety, and even love born out of duty. It is the latter that holds sway over the imagination here, the fulfilment of duty to parents (thus getting married to someone of their choice to propage the line), duty to one's wife and children, duty to God. And this carries over, with sometimes alarming effects into modern day love and relationships. One is ill-equipped to combine the two, to combine the almost wary, rational, equalizing, constantly-evaluated love of the Westerner/Modernist with the traditional, society-mandated love rooted in one-sided power relationships (based on traditional gender roles) of the Local.

And when East meets West, though never the twain should meet (wrote the Twain himself) then the consequences are disturbing especially in a country where gender roles are shifting. A local youth yesterday blew himself up with a hand grenade purchased from the black market, killing himself and critically injuring the girl with him (an ex girlfriend who had jilted him). Love suicides are very popular here (and to a certain extent are romanticized in local literature). It is fashionable to risk everything for love. And people who have multiple relationships are stigmatized (not held up as the benchmark as they are in the West and people who have sexual relationships are almost completely dishonored in the wider society. (People who have multiple sexual relationships are completely beyond the pale). There is a very confusing map to navigate for the young local male, who holds the most power. What he says dictates roles. The young local female can jilt him and move on, but at considerable risk to her reputation and to her chances of garnering another suitable young local male (since no one wants what someone else has already had). Notwithstanding that, amongst the Colombo elite, the rules of the West play, with the naked emotions of the East and if you don't know where you are, the combination can be heady.

Because the other thing, is that due to the giant collective trauma engendered by a 20 year war, people have come to accept loss far more readily. And live far more intensely. So they say I love you instantly and throw themselves into a relationship and when it doesn't work out, they walk cleanly away, meaning they make a clean break and cut off communication because they can deal with loss a lot better than the unsuspecting Westerner, caught in this bewildering emotional web. And it is astonishing because in the end, it is they, it is they who in fact experience greater total net pain than the Westerner, who is cautious with his affection, and who has not learned to let go.

petrol

It is a particularly irksome time to be in Sri Lanka at the moment. In addition to having foreign programs basically being de-incentivized on being shown on local tv (goodbye desperate housewives (tolerable) goodbye West Wing (not so much)), in addition to having a satellite provider decommissioned (rumours abound as to the underlying reasons but suffice it to sum it up with one word: 'politics') we now have no petrol.

This is shocking. The government has appointed a crony (former cricketer) to the post of co-chairman of national petroleum board Ceypetco. In response, the unions have gone on strike. Ceypetco had 8 fuel storage units when they went on strike. All 8 units have been depleted. The strike has been going on for 2 days and there is an impasse. Yesterday there were 3km queues at Colombo petrol sheds. Now, there's practically no traffic. Soon, we'll all be walking, in a throwback to the prehistoric days. F***ing ridiculous.

trade union

We are engaged in a trade-union dispute, my very first and I'm quite excited. It has been instructive in the tensions between classes, between corporations and labour, of the power of mobilization, why trade unions fill the vacuum of political representation amongst the poor, why they are always socialist in nature and the reasons why the much-vilified trade unions still exist and wield considerable power. The situation is as follows:

A partner-NGO in the much-mobilized plantation sector is responsible for securing land to build a school. The land must be given by the corporation owning the plantation. The corporation has refused to give the land to anyone other than another corporation-friendly NGO (whom we have severe reservations about working with). After months of negotiations between all four parties, the corporation held a board meeting (some members of the board were pro-worker friendly) last week and finally majority-ruled that there would be no deviation from this policy. Our partner NGOs have now enlisted the help of the trade unions of which pretty much every worker on this plantation is a member of (since the school will benefit the worker's families) and the whole jingbang is going on strike for the whole of the coming week in the hope to hold the corporation hostage to their desires. The corporation seems unbending and we're not sure how long the workers can hold out without their daily wage. Our NGO can't publicly take a stand because we'll be accused of using foreign influence to bear on the situation. But behind the scenes, we've been working the phones to the relevant government officials, to the corporation, and of course to our partner NGOs. Of course in none of this, is anyone a complete saint. But it's good to take on the Man. The only thing is, I'm pretty sure we'll lose.

nyt

So yeah. Our fearless leader was featured in the New York Times Sunday magazine this past Sunday. (From Today to the NYT, not bad) but unfortunately it was a hatchet job. The inside scoop is that the actual interview was pretty long but the interviewer condensed it into sensationalistic soundbytes and as a result, he sounds a bit of a clown. But never mind.

Why is it that some things are harder to get over than others, defying all rational explanation? Perhaps because of the lack of closure, the lack of finality. Why is it that some people can live their lives with no heed to the consequences of their actions, with no heed to responsibility? And their carelessness ends up destroying other people's lives, scattering ashes over the ruins of possibilities. Their inability to face the consequences of their actions, their running away, their cowardice can be more damaging than a bitter fight sometimes. Because the running away, lends no closure. No finality. And when you do finally gather up the pieces and move on, it's always as scarred.

But anyway.

schtuff

At first I was afraid, I was petrified.

Or so it goes. Back in Colombo after a quick trip to the hills to sort out some community land issues (two different groups were arguing in the vernacular over some land- I tried ineffectually to stage an intervention with me going: I think everybody needs to take a break and work towards a positive solution. They went furiously "No madam you don't understand". I decided to check out of the situation. It was all rather funny.

And something else too. I finished the third season of the OC and that draws an end to my procrastination over studying for the GMAT which is in approximately 9 days (crikey). I also have exactly 3 weeks and 3 weekends left. It is all getting a bit emotional.

embassy

What the hell is going on in Beirut?

I know the world has bigger problems than mine at the moment, but in the immortal words of Ally McBeal (god it seems so long ago), the reason why my problems are bigger than everyone else's are because they're mine.

And on that note, well here's a list of random shit. I am going via London to Boston (hallelujah) and all direct flights too which is a combination of lucky chance and my parents' munificence. (I wonder how long I can ride this cash cow?). Then my dad got stuck into me because my sister had some harebrained scheme of volunteering in Johannesburg in between jobs which is ridiculous because she will get raped and murdered no doubt (it's okay for me but not for my friends or kin!). Then I went to the US embassy today and despite not having a bank draft, or photos, managed to wheedle my way through (since it takes a month to give an appointment) and also sweet-talked the officer into waiving a 2 year home residency requirement on account of the fact that Australia is oversupplied with well-meaning public sector types and as a result, does not need me to return there to serve! I also met an Air Lanka cabin crew guy at the visa interviews process who gave me a detailed expose on the glamorous lives of lankan cabin crew. Then I walked away with the visa in hand which was a shocking end to my expectations of unnecessary bureaucracy and the like here!

I survived the day basically on 3 hours of sleep as I whined and droned to my sister half a world away while she proceeded to consultant-tize my love life (dismal) and I got stuck into her about how she's become a corporate drone and then she got into me about how emotional she was. So there was some 3am trans-Pacific sisterly bonding which was kinda sweet. And then was racing around today with everything else. I . Am. Exhausted.

emoting

There are some films, some dramas, some pieces of music, some books; shards of which you carry through your life. Re-experiencing these certain pieces of art is always emotional, for me, I'm always on the verge of tears, a knot of nausea begins in my stomach, I forget to breathe. I am not going to list them here, or even meander through a philosophical discussion on why it is so that certain art does that and not to others, but suffice it to say that it exists. (and that i shouldn't blog while I am listening to one of these songs).

As you can probably tell, I'm still feeling extremely, fragile and emotional. I raced through 17 episodes of the third season of the OC. (When the left is giving way, and the right is giving way, instead of attacking I resort to American television. Dire, I know). There's this song that keeps playing through it, and which I have come to resonate with, despite (or because of) all its cheap tackiness (and this is the Youth Group version, not the Rod Stewart one)
come on now, everybody sing, and.. "forever young, I want to be forever young"

let's dance in style
let's dance for a while
heaven can wait we're only watching the sky
hoping for the best but expecting the worst
are you gonna drop the bomb or not
let us die young or let us live forever
dont have the power but we never say never

the music's played by the mad men
forever young, i want to be forever young
do you really want to live forever, forever, forever
forever young, i want to be forever young

moving

Moving out can be very stressful indeed. People underestimate it, especially people like me, who leaves everything to the last possible minute and then races around to find the largest bag possible and sweeps everything from the cupboard into the bag in one smooth motion. But there are other little things, like when you ship shit overseas. I for one, when moving from London was felled by the appearance of a mouse, and called up my mother at 4am, sobbing because the mouse had peeked out at me.

Here's an encounter between my sister, who's at the end of the tether moving from San Francisco to Sydney literally around the world and across a dateline.

Doorbell rings, UPS man arrives
Sister: So these are my boxes. Could you please load these onto the car?
UPS LADY: (shaking her head) nah nah, I ain't carrying those! I can't lift those
Sister: But I called the UPS people and they said they would pick it up from my doorstep. That's why I'm paying you guys.
UPS Lady: But I'm a woman, and I can't lift those boxes. They're too damn heavy
Sister: But I'm a woman too, and I can't lift them and I have to get onto a flight in 12 hours.
UPS Lady: Well lady, you've got a problem. Under State Laws of California, I have rights and I do not have to pick those boxes up.
Sister: (Promptly bursts into tears).

I don't know what happened at the end.

team sri lanka!

spot the wallaby!

bits

Israelis blockading Lebanon and I have an email from a future classmate-to-be, detailing the reality of strikes and spending the night in bomb shelter and being unable to leave the country. Another future classmate-to-be writes of the Mumbai train explosions. Sri Lanka of course has its own conflict, less immediate, smaller-scale, but still absolute. We all paused for a moment today to think of the hatred that conflict spawns, of the inevitable vitriol against the Hezbollah, Israeli government, Pakistanis, Kashmiris, Sinhalese, Tamils. Will the hatred never end? Will only too few people ever have the courage to love?

I was talking to a close friend last night, over crab rolls and chilli cheese toast and iced coffee Sri-Lankan-style, who is in the field of peacebuilding/conflict transformation (violently opposed to the term conflict resolution, because resolution is a false concept, indicating the possibility of finality to a conflict which is never true). And she was saying, that it is forgiveness, reaching out, the act of love, which takes the most courage of all.

Am on a rampage through non-fiction at the moment, finished reading the superlative Alistair Cooke's Letters from America detailing 50 years of transatlantic radio dispatches, nearly finishing Imaginary Homelands which I managed to track down in a behemoth bookstore in London (and who says chainstore book-dumps don't have their benefits?) which is not quite as good as Step Across the Line which was more thoughtful and anyway I'm not the biggest fan of Rushdie at the best of times and also reading The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman and a book of BBC dispatches from Britain through the war. I never thought I could get into this stuff, but it is intensely fascinating, in the absence of motivation to read literature which is sometimes quite exhausting. Like the codebreaker nonfiction of Battle of the Wits which a dear friend gave to me on a birthday many many eons ago.

goal, man

I'm contemplating a return to the hallowed halls of Goldman, if only so that I can finance a lifestyle where I could fly all over the world and sup on prosciutto and melon. The catch-22 is of course that were I able to finance such a lifestyle, I would not actually be able to live such a lifestyle. So maybe what I'll do instead is to chuck in the towel on today, which has been one long, irksome waste of time dealing cantankerously with cantankerous people and generally being on a post-London blue, and skip out, go get the new season of 24 and other DVDs including X men, and have a long, late lunch with my ONLY friend in SL, at a lovely Western cafe, loading up on brownies and ice cream.

And I found this on dealbreaker.com which was quite simply hilarious.

(This part originally from a Bloomberg columnist): (Stories all about Goldman Sachs employees)

The diaries are penned, allegedly, by junior staffers around the world. So, pinch of salt at the ready, let's join the young masters and mistresses of the universe. Meet Amol, a vice president in Treasury. Amol says he's at his New York desk by 7:30 a.m. He must be a genius speed-reader. While I'm wading through invitations to boost my bedroom performance or help relieve deceased African dictators of their ill-gotten millions, it takes Amol just 15 minutes to sprint through his e-mails and check on the day's news.

Frankly, we think Amol is full of shit. An accurate representation of Amol's day would have started more like this version:

6:45 AM - Alarm goes off
7:00 AM - Get out of bed
7:10 AM - Drag my ass to the gym
8:30 AM - Drag my ass back to apartment
8:45 AM - Wake up sorry ass roommate
9:00 AM - Get to work, digest Page Six and Drudgereport
9:06 AM - Wonder if I will ever be on Page Six, and under what circumstances
9:12 AM - Receive call from irate landlord over noise
9:20 AM - Call sorry ass roommate, tell him to turn down stereo
9:30 AM - Ask myself repeatedly, "What'm I supposed to do? What'm I supposed to do?
"9:45 AM - Salvage faint glimmer of what I am supposed to do. Open LBO model from shared drive
10:30 AM - After working on LBO model for 45 minutes, realize this is the wrong one. Narrowly avoid taking over a perfectly innocent Muffin Company.
11:15 AM - Write email to ex girlfriend she is great, and I mean, I don't know yet...
12:30 PM - Break for lunch. Contemplate taking up a smoking habit. Can't find cigarette brand I identify with. Shelve idea.
1:15 PM - Bathroom break. Smuggle a novel into the John. Spend way too much time on job. Become neurotic as someone sits down in stall adjacent. Feel like prisoner on Russian gulag. Leave stall.
1:35 PM - On way out of bathroom, check self out in mirror. Practice various serious expressions in mirror. Throw shoulders back. Admire own tie.
3:00 PM - Lost time. Bang watch hands. They don't go back into place. Look around in awe. Can't figure it out.
3:45 PM - CNN.com. Re-evaluate plans to purchase gas mask.
4:15 PM - Decide against purchasing gas mask in favor of new Gucci loafers. With silver buckles this time.
5:00 PM - Mother calls. Send to Voicemail. Begin referring to mother as Sendtovoicemail.
5:30 PM - Call from client. Working.
6:45 PM - Order dinner. Debate the intricate differences between General Tso's Chicken and Sesame Chicken. There are none.
7:45 PM - Eat dinner, trawl television for Reality TV. Struggle to make witty jokes to impress coworkers.
8:15 PM - Probe nascent gut with hands. Am I getting fat? Can't remember what I used to look like. Can't make comparison. Will just have to wait and find out.
9:00 PM - Exeunt.

(and may I just say it's true. All my friends used to wonder where I got all the free time to make free international calls all over the world and read six newspapers a day).

champagne

So at the wedding there was champagne toasting and the best man popped open a bottle of champagne for the family. I want to be married! I want to pop open champagne, if only for the fact that after so many years, thankfully, it's finally fucking over.

london cab

Just to record for posterity this conversation with a cabman, thus continuing my lifelong love affair with London cabdrivers.

Partner descends from big black London cab, while handing me a green 5 dollar note, (from that movie, you know!), and cab drives off.

Cabbie: So you have a good night then, miss?
Me: (Sighing dramatically) Yeah, I guess so
Cabbie: Aww no love, what happened?
Me: This is what I love about London cabdrivers and miss! You don't want me to start telling you about my life story, I would bore you and myself senseless.
Cabbie: I'm a good listener love, and I've listened to them all.
Me: Have you ever been in love with someone for years and years, and ever wondered why it never happened? Was it because you had never been in love at all, or was it because it was never meant to be?
Cabbie: I was in love with someone for 20 years and I never told her. We married different people. I had two kids and she had one. Then, somewhere along the line, we both separated from our partners. It was never meant to be you see, with the Other then The One. And I met her recently, and we talked and exchanged numbers. I've been waiting for her to call me though. I can't quite work up the courage to call her. What if it all was such a dream? What if I had thought we had loved each other so long, and it turns out that I was the one carrying a torch?
Me: You should have called her. You should have told her that you love her, that you loved her. What use is there in keeping that burning love silent? At worst you'll be where you are right now. At best, who knows?
Him: I know. But somehow, that fear of it not being real, not even the fear of rejection, is too strong. It's like you isn't it love? You can't tell him.
Me: (Silent). (We draw up to my place).
Him: Let's make a pact then. Let's make a pact and say, we will not be afraid of love. We will not be afraid to tell them that we love them.
Me: Go on then. You're on. You have to tell her that you love her.
Him: I will. And you will too. (He turns the car around). Remember! Who dares, wins.

Of course, I still labour under some illusion/delusion that I was never in love at all. But I hope that wherever he is, he told her, that he loves her.

back

I'm back in the office after ten traumatic, exhilarating, sad, joyous, fun, blissful, conflicted days in London. I keep thinking that at some point the magic must end, that I can't keep going home. But I can, and that's what makes London so special. It's a fixed point in time, to which I have the magic powers to return to. I keep thinking that I should ditch the idea of school, stop moving around, find a nice boy in London to get married to, settle down and bear children in the 'burbs behind a white picket fence with a Jack Russell-like mongrel. But somehow the lure of adventure, of the unknown, of the fact that "Beware, for beyond here lie dragons" is irresistible. Perhaps, as Rushdie says, I am one of those inveterate, incorrigible frontier-crossers. It is always better and worse than imagined.But London was especially bittersweet and poignant seeing all my friends, having a best friend get married, walking down the aisle behind her bearing flowers in bloom in springtime in an old church, reading Yeats and Khalil Gibran on the invitation, wearing flowers in our hair and posing lackadaisically next to lakes and trees as the wind blew our saris wild. It was Sri Lanka from the 50s transposed and we never stopped laughing. Someone said that they should take a video the four bridesmaids laughing their heads off and rename it as a soft-porn flick "Bridesmaids gone wild". Had violent arguments on the tube with random French and Irishmen over the World Cup. Watched in frustration as Zidane's head of steel met Materazzi's middle, ostensibly for a remark calling Zidane a terrorist. Walked the streets of Kensington until the sun went down, talking endlessly, pausing on stoops straight out of a Woody Allen movie, existentially-so. And parts of me which I thought had been dead for ever so long started to bloom again, and under the weak , wan, life-giving British sun, I began to feel alive in a different way, in a way where all the despair and angst, pain and joy of Sri Lanka was far behind me and I came to be a child again, believing in love and life.

curl up and dye

Sometimes curling up into a ball and trying valiantly to stop breathing and thinking is the only way to combat memories of a drunken night out and of certain pasts. I actually just want to curl up and die. Or stop remembering, whichever is easier.

But it shouldn't have been that hard really. It was a good day though, started with lunch at St Paul's Cathedral (an old workplace of mine), then meandered to a visit to the British Museum with a friend to see the Michaelangelo etchings and the Elgin Marbles and then pancakes and then early drinks at 5pm on Charlotte Street at the Fig Tree and then dinner at Hakkasan, feasting on tea-smoked duck and fresh halibut and mint tea, and then severe drinking at the O bar in Soho, with mojito and tanquerays one after the other. Today, the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery (the former to see the Da Vinci that someone promised he would buy for me) and the latter to see the finalists in the British competition.

Made dinner for Rads and Mags on Monday because I had dreamt about cooking: made prosciutto and ripe melon drizzled over with single-source acacia honey, grilled, marinated red peppers, on the vine tomatoes and fresh buffalo mozzarella, white, glistening and still dripping, drizzled over with lemony olive oil, and then rice with basil,lemon, wine, chicken, honey, pepper , and then fresh strawberries and blueberries with cream that I whipped myself (!) altogether with a lovely Australian zinfandel, with hints of strawberry and melon. It was fantastic.

World Cup fever is still upon us. We sincerely hope that the French will not win.

footie

Landed in London four days ago amidst a hectic whirl of dining, and more importantly drinking! Endless pinot grigio and mojitos which are the order of the day. The first wedding ceremony went off excellently well, despite me waking up a full two hours before departure to tie the sari (my mother had faxed over instructions complete with graphics and arrows and together with 50 billion pins I was able to ensure that no accidents happened!). The day of the match was also the England-Portugal quarterfi and in between watching the hindu ceremony (bride resplendent in an orange and turquoise sari) we were popping off to the kitchen where an enterprising soul had set up a television and antenna and it was terrifically sad to see England lose on penalties. Among the chants of alai payuthey were echoing cries of anguish over each lost penalty. It was all rather hilarious. And then we were driving back through harlesden which I did not even know was a portuguese area and the traffic was held up for miles on a two lane inroad and the cause of it was a mob of Portuguese fans that literally mobbed each car. Our windscreen was plastered over with the Portuguese flags and there was much ado and seething and frustration. And then scrubbed up and out and over to watch Brazil-France which was equally disappointing. Oh, it is good to be back.