Wednesday, May 31, 2006
annoyed
So things are entering a lull. Good. I can be lull-ed for a while. Until tomorrow afternoon when a fundraiser enters town and the fun(d) will commence. Sunday is our awards ceremony for the Girl's scholarships, in the hill country. Expect cued, mass-weeping like those Christian cult worshippers. I'm in a strange, isolated mood of sorts- attempted the GMAT out of sheer boredom and was duly rewarded with an awe-inducing score of 570. Needless to say, this will NOT cut any ice with the Admit Gods so I had better buck the fuck up. I'm annoyed at the moment with Sri Lanka. An author was killed in an (inadvertent? can they ever be inadvertent? isn't all war inadvertent?) random landmine explosion and everyone is mourning. I shall have to check his literature out. I plan to cook today, which I haven't done in approximately, oh, 3 months. I also started reading Cry, the Beloved Country and am wading through Underworld and I'm just annoyed in general with life and a pastel mint-green sari that I will have to wear as a bridesmaid. Annoyed annoyed annoyed.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Peace
Peace: The Difficult Yet Necessary Path
By Jayadeva Uyangoda
A large-scale break out of hostilities between the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE seems to be now inevitable. As things stand right now, the decision by the European Union on the question of listing the LTTE as a terrorist entity is crucial in shaping the agenda of events in the next few weeks to come.
Mr. Erik Solheim, the Norwegian Minister in charge of Sri Lanka’s peace process, has given expression to an increasing sense of pessimism felt by the international actors, concerning the prospects for Sri Lanka. He spent two days, May 25 and 26, in Colombo, along with the special peace envoy, Mr. Jon Hanssen-Bauer. Then on May 27, he flew to New Delhi to consult the Indian government. As AFP reported on that day, he has said in New Delhi that Sri Lanka “could be heading back to all-out war.”
Solheim has also commented that Sri Lanka’s peace process was “more difficult” than he thought. These are indeed strong words coming from a man who knows the mind of both the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE. One may also note that Solheim as wells the Norwegian diplomats have always been very cautious in making public statements about the failures in their peace-making task in Sri Lanka.
Banning
Meanwhile, the proposed banning of the LTTE by the EU is most likely to be a defining event in the conflict. It will certainly force the LTTE into a period of isolation and in turn to a behavior of isolationism. Both the international community and the government appear to work on the assumption that the LTTE leadership might become flexible in response to a coordinated campaign of international isolation. It would be interesting to see how this strategy works. Tigers might be less likely to be flexible under conditions which they see as coercion. This is a major policy dilemma for any government in dealing with the LTTE.
In the coming phase of isolation and isolationism, the LTTE might be tempted to act unilaterally. There are already warnings of such unilateralism. In an extreme scenario, the LTTE can withdraw from all their international engagements, including the dialogue with the SLMM and the Norwegian facilitator. Such an action will amount to withdrawing from the CFA, without actually saying it in writing. The LTTE leaders probably think that by such action they would be able to turn the tables on the government as well as the international community.
Show Down
Meanwhile, it appears that both the government and the LTTE are willing to risk a major military show down. If the war breaks out, it will create immense destruction to both sides. The tragedy is that the two sides know it, but take little concrete action to arrest the sliding back to war. Such is the way things happen in this age of unreason.
What will eventually happen after a mutually destructive war between the government and the LTTE? One distant possibility is the realization of what many Sinhalese patriotic forces are opposing at present, namely the entry of the UN peacekeeping troops to separate the two warring sides from fighting. Those who oppose such a development seem to behave in a manner that will actually create conditions for it. The unkind dialectic of politics is that one often gets outcomes one does not want. If the JVP leadership is really committed to preventing an eventual UN intervention, the best course of action is to prevent a large-scale war from breaking out. But their thinking appears to be based on the assumption that in a full-scale war, there will be a real chance to defeat the LTTE militarily. As this thinking goes, an external military intervention to separate the two warring sides will only prevent such a favorable outcome.
Mutual Bleeding
The second, more realistic possibility is that after a lot of bleeding, the two sides, tired and exhausted of war and violence, might ask the international community to come and mediate in the conflict. This scenario of mutual bleeding will interestingly create a new strategic equilibrium between the government and the LTTE on an ‘I lose-you also lose’ framework. This would be an original contribution that the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE would be making to the theories of conflict resolution: A lose-lose outcome is as important in defining conflict dynamics as is a win-win outcome.
This is where Sri Lanka has to learn lesson from Nepal. A country that does not boast of its achievements as we Sri Lankans do, Nepal has shown a tremendous example of a low-cost path to political change and reform. There is a low-cost path to conflict management in Sri Lanka. It is the path of political engagement. Return to political engagement is not only a low-cost path to peace. It is also the most humane and rational option.
Window of Opportunity
The reported statements made by President Rajapakse insisting that he does not consider war as an option can constitute a new, though narrow, window of opportunity for re-opening the path to political engagement. But the effects of these statements need to be further strengthened by elaborating a broad framework statement for a new process of political engagement between the government and the LTTE.
This ‘framework statement’ can have three main components. It should fist re-iterate the government’s assurance to fully implement the CFA as well as the commitments made in Geneva in February this year. By making this point, President should invite the LTTE’s reciprocity. Secondly, the framework statement should propose broadening of the scope of political engagement, from talks on the CFA and de-escalation to political negotiations suspended in 2003. Thirdly, it should propose a political-constitutional framework for ethnic conflict resolution, conceived in terms of extensive regional autonomy.
Time, indeed, is running out for Sri Lanka. More than ever, the fate of Sri Lanka depends on the decisions made by one person, Sri Lanka’s head of state. One can only hope that President Rajapakse has the strength to continue to defy the counsel given to him by some of his advisors and allies for a military solution, and without delay inaugurate a new phase of political engagement with the LTTE. This is difficult, but necessary. Even if does not work fully, it is a path worth taking.
By Jayadeva Uyangoda
A large-scale break out of hostilities between the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE seems to be now inevitable. As things stand right now, the decision by the European Union on the question of listing the LTTE as a terrorist entity is crucial in shaping the agenda of events in the next few weeks to come.
Mr. Erik Solheim, the Norwegian Minister in charge of Sri Lanka’s peace process, has given expression to an increasing sense of pessimism felt by the international actors, concerning the prospects for Sri Lanka. He spent two days, May 25 and 26, in Colombo, along with the special peace envoy, Mr. Jon Hanssen-Bauer. Then on May 27, he flew to New Delhi to consult the Indian government. As AFP reported on that day, he has said in New Delhi that Sri Lanka “could be heading back to all-out war.”
Solheim has also commented that Sri Lanka’s peace process was “more difficult” than he thought. These are indeed strong words coming from a man who knows the mind of both the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE. One may also note that Solheim as wells the Norwegian diplomats have always been very cautious in making public statements about the failures in their peace-making task in Sri Lanka.
Banning
Meanwhile, the proposed banning of the LTTE by the EU is most likely to be a defining event in the conflict. It will certainly force the LTTE into a period of isolation and in turn to a behavior of isolationism. Both the international community and the government appear to work on the assumption that the LTTE leadership might become flexible in response to a coordinated campaign of international isolation. It would be interesting to see how this strategy works. Tigers might be less likely to be flexible under conditions which they see as coercion. This is a major policy dilemma for any government in dealing with the LTTE.
In the coming phase of isolation and isolationism, the LTTE might be tempted to act unilaterally. There are already warnings of such unilateralism. In an extreme scenario, the LTTE can withdraw from all their international engagements, including the dialogue with the SLMM and the Norwegian facilitator. Such an action will amount to withdrawing from the CFA, without actually saying it in writing. The LTTE leaders probably think that by such action they would be able to turn the tables on the government as well as the international community.
Show Down
Meanwhile, it appears that both the government and the LTTE are willing to risk a major military show down. If the war breaks out, it will create immense destruction to both sides. The tragedy is that the two sides know it, but take little concrete action to arrest the sliding back to war. Such is the way things happen in this age of unreason.
What will eventually happen after a mutually destructive war between the government and the LTTE? One distant possibility is the realization of what many Sinhalese patriotic forces are opposing at present, namely the entry of the UN peacekeeping troops to separate the two warring sides from fighting. Those who oppose such a development seem to behave in a manner that will actually create conditions for it. The unkind dialectic of politics is that one often gets outcomes one does not want. If the JVP leadership is really committed to preventing an eventual UN intervention, the best course of action is to prevent a large-scale war from breaking out. But their thinking appears to be based on the assumption that in a full-scale war, there will be a real chance to defeat the LTTE militarily. As this thinking goes, an external military intervention to separate the two warring sides will only prevent such a favorable outcome.
Mutual Bleeding
The second, more realistic possibility is that after a lot of bleeding, the two sides, tired and exhausted of war and violence, might ask the international community to come and mediate in the conflict. This scenario of mutual bleeding will interestingly create a new strategic equilibrium between the government and the LTTE on an ‘I lose-you also lose’ framework. This would be an original contribution that the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE would be making to the theories of conflict resolution: A lose-lose outcome is as important in defining conflict dynamics as is a win-win outcome.
This is where Sri Lanka has to learn lesson from Nepal. A country that does not boast of its achievements as we Sri Lankans do, Nepal has shown a tremendous example of a low-cost path to political change and reform. There is a low-cost path to conflict management in Sri Lanka. It is the path of political engagement. Return to political engagement is not only a low-cost path to peace. It is also the most humane and rational option.
Window of Opportunity
The reported statements made by President Rajapakse insisting that he does not consider war as an option can constitute a new, though narrow, window of opportunity for re-opening the path to political engagement. But the effects of these statements need to be further strengthened by elaborating a broad framework statement for a new process of political engagement between the government and the LTTE.
This ‘framework statement’ can have three main components. It should fist re-iterate the government’s assurance to fully implement the CFA as well as the commitments made in Geneva in February this year. By making this point, President should invite the LTTE’s reciprocity. Secondly, the framework statement should propose broadening of the scope of political engagement, from talks on the CFA and de-escalation to political negotiations suspended in 2003. Thirdly, it should propose a political-constitutional framework for ethnic conflict resolution, conceived in terms of extensive regional autonomy.
Time, indeed, is running out for Sri Lanka. More than ever, the fate of Sri Lanka depends on the decisions made by one person, Sri Lanka’s head of state. One can only hope that President Rajapakse has the strength to continue to defy the counsel given to him by some of his advisors and allies for a military solution, and without delay inaugurate a new phase of political engagement with the LTTE. This is difficult, but necessary. Even if does not work fully, it is a path worth taking.
caste-away
Have I told you about the ancient house where my office is quartered? It's a sprawling, old-style Sri Lankan house with open courtyards and high ceilings, made out of stone and brick, and in the garden, butterflies flit, hyacinths and red lilies bloom, and fruit falls from the neighbouring mango and sarsarapilla tree. (The papaya tree for some reason, stubbornly refuses to bear fruit). The house was built in the 30s, and the inside fittings, antique frosted glass and the like, reflect that. None of the cheap stuff. (Although of course the plumbing and electrical fittings could do with a hand!).
Anyway I was talking to the proprietor today, an old Muslim man who hails from the Eastern province, who is quite a character in himself. His heart, he says, belongs to the rice padi fields of the East, but his head is in Colombo, where his wife and children are. He said that in 1983, during Black July, with the worst of the communal riots when Sinhalese mobs were prowling the streets of Colombo, armed with scythes and chopping up those suspected of being Tamil (to be fair the Tamils did that too, but it is widely agreed that one side was more culpable than the other. This event is also a landmark symbol in the Tigers' quest for freedom, such has it penetrated the national consciousness). Anyway, during that month, the owner (Muslims were left largely alone) hid 4 Tamil families here, in this very house for weeks, in one of the back rooms, locked and refused access to by mobs. And then when it was finally safe, he took them to the refugee camps that had been set up.
The strange thing he said was that while they were in the house, as refugees, they all lived, ate and slept together. In the camp however, the same social stratification governing normal life, began to take hold. People segregated themselves according to religion, caste and origin of birth (northerners held themselves apart from the easterners and likewise). And in Sri Lanka, that was the impediment to true democracy.
Anyway I was talking to the proprietor today, an old Muslim man who hails from the Eastern province, who is quite a character in himself. His heart, he says, belongs to the rice padi fields of the East, but his head is in Colombo, where his wife and children are. He said that in 1983, during Black July, with the worst of the communal riots when Sinhalese mobs were prowling the streets of Colombo, armed with scythes and chopping up those suspected of being Tamil (to be fair the Tamils did that too, but it is widely agreed that one side was more culpable than the other. This event is also a landmark symbol in the Tigers' quest for freedom, such has it penetrated the national consciousness). Anyway, during that month, the owner (Muslims were left largely alone) hid 4 Tamil families here, in this very house for weeks, in one of the back rooms, locked and refused access to by mobs. And then when it was finally safe, he took them to the refugee camps that had been set up.
The strange thing he said was that while they were in the house, as refugees, they all lived, ate and slept together. In the camp however, the same social stratification governing normal life, began to take hold. People segregated themselves according to religion, caste and origin of birth (northerners held themselves apart from the easterners and likewise). And in Sri Lanka, that was the impediment to true democracy.
Friday, May 26, 2006
felled
I have been felled by a prawn, laid low by the devastating damage that a bad prawn can do, weakened.
Nevertheless, I plod on. Have managed to finish Step Across the Line by Salman Rushdie, in between bouts of wracking pain where my stomach tried to eat itself, and between hours spent in the stalls. So it may have coloured my perception of this work, but let it be said that he attempts (unsuccessfully I think) to eviscerate Naipaul and Coetzee (both Nobel laureates, which of course Rushdie is not) saying that Coetzee's characters lack humanity (which is their strength, in that they are human, and express emotion through action and not through diarrhea) and that Naipaul is a bigot (which to be fair, many Indian writers have in not-so-many-words accused him of being). Which is somewhat beside the point really. Naipaul in turn, eviscerates India, in two of his nonfiction books, India: A Wounded Civilization and India: An Area of Darkness , cf. titles being descriptive of content in this case. However Rushdie does manage to hit a few highlights of his own, particularly in his specialty of 'cultural commingling', of the writer as traveller, as migrant.
Particularly Rushdie is most insightful when he writes about Frontier. The existence of the frontier, whether it is America expanding West, India rebelling against her Raj, whether it is Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations most forcibly expressed in the war between Islam and modernity, changes the imagination. The perception in itself, of there being an as-yet-unseen frontier, changes the perception of what is possible. The frontier exists between what is known and what is not. In that sense, quite obviously, crossing the frontier, stepping across that line, creates an increase in the sense of self, (as Rushdie says). Whether that increase in dimension is good or bad is not yet immediately known, but more is capable. Of course there have been attempted frontier-crossings that have failed, and not everyone can cross it, but for those who do, it represents an increase in human possibility and for that, everyone should be encouraged to step across the line.
Nevertheless, I plod on. Have managed to finish Step Across the Line by Salman Rushdie, in between bouts of wracking pain where my stomach tried to eat itself, and between hours spent in the stalls. So it may have coloured my perception of this work, but let it be said that he attempts (unsuccessfully I think) to eviscerate Naipaul and Coetzee (both Nobel laureates, which of course Rushdie is not) saying that Coetzee's characters lack humanity (which is their strength, in that they are human, and express emotion through action and not through diarrhea) and that Naipaul is a bigot (which to be fair, many Indian writers have in not-so-many-words accused him of being). Which is somewhat beside the point really. Naipaul in turn, eviscerates India, in two of his nonfiction books, India: A Wounded Civilization and India: An Area of Darkness , cf. titles being descriptive of content in this case. However Rushdie does manage to hit a few highlights of his own, particularly in his specialty of 'cultural commingling', of the writer as traveller, as migrant.
Particularly Rushdie is most insightful when he writes about Frontier. The existence of the frontier, whether it is America expanding West, India rebelling against her Raj, whether it is Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations most forcibly expressed in the war between Islam and modernity, changes the imagination. The perception in itself, of there being an as-yet-unseen frontier, changes the perception of what is possible. The frontier exists between what is known and what is not. In that sense, quite obviously, crossing the frontier, stepping across that line, creates an increase in the sense of self, (as Rushdie says). Whether that increase in dimension is good or bad is not yet immediately known, but more is capable. Of course there have been attempted frontier-crossings that have failed, and not everyone can cross it, but for those who do, it represents an increase in human possibility and for that, everyone should be encouraged to step across the line.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
never let me go
So I was catching an auto to work today, standing on the main road under the burning sun, next to a steaming heap of rubbish with mongrel, mangy dogs prowling its circumference, when a car stops in front of me, and the driver checks me out and says, get in darling.
I wanted to clobber him over the head, but I just gave him the nastiest look, and said "get lost" and walked off.
And yet, even in the awful auto that I managed to flag down, as I was weaving past pedestrians, cows, dogs and blind women, head-on into incoming traffic, swerving wildly to avoid buses and trucks, I wondered, how could I ever let this go? and that title from Ishiguro kept coming back, as it has been of late. Oh darling, never let me go.
I wanted to clobber him over the head, but I just gave him the nastiest look, and said "get lost" and walked off.
And yet, even in the awful auto that I managed to flag down, as I was weaving past pedestrians, cows, dogs and blind women, head-on into incoming traffic, swerving wildly to avoid buses and trucks, I wondered, how could I ever let this go? and that title from Ishiguro kept coming back, as it has been of late. Oh darling, never let me go.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
airplane sleep
I was flying in today, in the airplane, huddled up in a corner, sleeping, with my face smashed endearingly against the middle seat rest. And a hunky airline steward from Sri Lankan Airlines touched me on my arm, and looked into my sleep-drugged eyes, and spoke in the softest tone, and said "can I get you something to eat? A glass of water even? You haven't had anything the whole flight" and I sleepily smiled up at him and was about to respond, when I realized it wasn't a dream and he was real and I said no thanks and went back to sleep, comforted. I slept the sleep of the safe, even if it was only for five hours and it was sweet, and bitter, and never to be had again.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
on daatje
So I was googling Michael Ondaatje (as I often do, what can I say, I have OCD) and I found out that his new book (as yet untitled) is finished and due to be published NEXT YEAR!! Crikey. I'm insane with anxiety and impatience waiting for it.
I have read and re-read Anil's Ghost and the English Patient many times and I marvel at the fact that I was drawn to Ondaatje before Sri Lanka began. And now when I go back to his poetry, from The Cinnamon Peeler's Wife to Elimination Dance (below), always, the originality, the immediacy, the warmth, the passion, leaps off the page and reminds me it has nothing and everything to do with the common point of origin, the nostalgia for a Sri Lanka before....
Elimination Dance
by Michael Ondaatje
"Nothing I'd read had prepared me for a body this unfair" JOHN NEWLOVE
"Till we are roten, kan we not be rypen" GEOFFREY CHAUCER
Those who are allergic to the sea
Those who have resisted depravity
Men who shave off beards in stages, pausing to take photographs
American rock stars who wear Toronto Maple Leaf hockey sweaters
Those who (while visiting a foreign country) have lost the end of a Q tip in their ear and have been unable to explain their problem
Gentlemen who have placed a microphone beside a naked woman's stomach after lunch and later, after slowing down the sound considerably, have sold these noises on the open market as whale songs
All actors and poets who spit into the first row while they perform
Men who fear to use an electric lawn-mower feeling they could drowse off and be dragged by it into a swimming pool
Any dinner guest who has consumed the host's missing contact lens along with the dessert
Any person who has had the following dream. You are in a subway station of a major city. At the far end you see a coffee machine. You put in two coins. The Holy Grail drops down. Then blood pours into the chalice
Any person who has lost a urine sample in the mail
All those belle-lettrists who feel that should have been 'an urine sample'
Anyone who has had to step into an elevator with all of the Irish Rovers
Those who have filled in a bilingual and confidential pig survey from Statistics Canada. (Une enquete sur les porcs, strictement confidentielle)
Those who have written to the age old brotherhood of Rosicrucians for a free copy of their book The Mastery of Life in order to release the inner conciousness and to experience (in the privacy of the home) momentary flights of the soul
Those who have accidentally stapled themselves
Anyone who has been penetrated by a mountie
Any university professor who has danced with a life-sized cardboard cut-out of Jean Genet
Those who have unintentionally locked themselves within a sleeping bag at a camping goods store
Any woman whose i.u.d. has set off an alarm system at the airport
Those who, after a swim, find the sensation of water dribbling out of their ears erotic
Men who have never touched a whippet
Women who gave up the accordion because of pinched breasts
Those who have pissed out of the back of moving trucks
Those who have woken to find the wet footprints of a peacock across their kitchen floor
Anyone whose knees have been ruined as a result of performing sexual acts in elevators
Those who have so much as contemplated the possibility of creeping up to one's enemy with two Bic lighters, pressing simultaneously the butane switches - one into each nostril - and so gassing him to death
Literary critics who have swum the Hellespont
Anyone who has been hired as a 'professional beater' and frightened grouse in the direction of the Queen Mother
Any lover who has gone into a flower shop on Valentine's day and asked for clitoris when he meant clematis
Those who have come across their own telephone numbers underneath terse insults or compliments in the washroom of the Bay Street Bus Terminal
Those who have used the following techniques of seduction: -small talk at a falconry convention -entering a spa town disguised as Ford Madox Ford -making erotic rotations of the pelvis, backstage, during the storm scene of King Lear -underlining suggestive phrases in the prefaces of Joseph Conrad
Anyone who has testified as a character witness for a dog in a court of law
Any writer who has been photographed for the jacket of a book in one of the following poses: sitting in the back of a 1956 Dodge with two roosters; in a tuxedo with the Sydney Opera House in the distance; study ing the vanishing point on a jar of Dutch Cleanser; against a gravestone with dramatic back lighting; with a false nose on; in the vicinity of Macchu Pichu; or sitting in a study and looking intensely at one's own book
The person who borrowed my Martin Beck thriller, read it in a sauna which melted the glue off the spine so the pages drifted to the floor, stapled them together and returned the book, thinking I wouldn't notice
Any person who has burst into tears at the Liquor Control Board
Anyone with pain
I have read and re-read Anil's Ghost and the English Patient many times and I marvel at the fact that I was drawn to Ondaatje before Sri Lanka began. And now when I go back to his poetry, from The Cinnamon Peeler's Wife to Elimination Dance (below), always, the originality, the immediacy, the warmth, the passion, leaps off the page and reminds me it has nothing and everything to do with the common point of origin, the nostalgia for a Sri Lanka before....
Elimination Dance
by Michael Ondaatje
"Nothing I'd read had prepared me for a body this unfair" JOHN NEWLOVE
"Till we are roten, kan we not be rypen" GEOFFREY CHAUCER
Those who are allergic to the sea
Those who have resisted depravity
Men who shave off beards in stages, pausing to take photographs
American rock stars who wear Toronto Maple Leaf hockey sweaters
Those who (while visiting a foreign country) have lost the end of a Q tip in their ear and have been unable to explain their problem
Gentlemen who have placed a microphone beside a naked woman's stomach after lunch and later, after slowing down the sound considerably, have sold these noises on the open market as whale songs
All actors and poets who spit into the first row while they perform
Men who fear to use an electric lawn-mower feeling they could drowse off and be dragged by it into a swimming pool
Any dinner guest who has consumed the host's missing contact lens along with the dessert
Any person who has had the following dream. You are in a subway station of a major city. At the far end you see a coffee machine. You put in two coins. The Holy Grail drops down. Then blood pours into the chalice
Any person who has lost a urine sample in the mail
All those belle-lettrists who feel that should have been 'an urine sample'
Anyone who has had to step into an elevator with all of the Irish Rovers
Those who have filled in a bilingual and confidential pig survey from Statistics Canada. (Une enquete sur les porcs, strictement confidentielle)
Those who have written to the age old brotherhood of Rosicrucians for a free copy of their book The Mastery of Life in order to release the inner conciousness and to experience (in the privacy of the home) momentary flights of the soul
Those who have accidentally stapled themselves
Anyone who has been penetrated by a mountie
Any university professor who has danced with a life-sized cardboard cut-out of Jean Genet
Those who have unintentionally locked themselves within a sleeping bag at a camping goods store
Any woman whose i.u.d. has set off an alarm system at the airport
Those who, after a swim, find the sensation of water dribbling out of their ears erotic
Men who have never touched a whippet
Women who gave up the accordion because of pinched breasts
Those who have pissed out of the back of moving trucks
Those who have woken to find the wet footprints of a peacock across their kitchen floor
Anyone whose knees have been ruined as a result of performing sexual acts in elevators
Those who have so much as contemplated the possibility of creeping up to one's enemy with two Bic lighters, pressing simultaneously the butane switches - one into each nostril - and so gassing him to death
Literary critics who have swum the Hellespont
Anyone who has been hired as a 'professional beater' and frightened grouse in the direction of the Queen Mother
Any lover who has gone into a flower shop on Valentine's day and asked for clitoris when he meant clematis
Those who have come across their own telephone numbers underneath terse insults or compliments in the washroom of the Bay Street Bus Terminal
Those who have used the following techniques of seduction: -small talk at a falconry convention -entering a spa town disguised as Ford Madox Ford -making erotic rotations of the pelvis, backstage, during the storm scene of King Lear -underlining suggestive phrases in the prefaces of Joseph Conrad
Anyone who has testified as a character witness for a dog in a court of law
Any writer who has been photographed for the jacket of a book in one of the following poses: sitting in the back of a 1956 Dodge with two roosters; in a tuxedo with the Sydney Opera House in the distance; study ing the vanishing point on a jar of Dutch Cleanser; against a gravestone with dramatic back lighting; with a false nose on; in the vicinity of Macchu Pichu; or sitting in a study and looking intensely at one's own book
The person who borrowed my Martin Beck thriller, read it in a sauna which melted the glue off the spine so the pages drifted to the floor, stapled them together and returned the book, thinking I wouldn't notice
Any person who has burst into tears at the Liquor Control Board
Anyone with pain
Saturday, May 20, 2006
perf art
Went last night in Colombo to a 'performance art' session, where mediocre artists 'performed' mediocre poetry. It was one hour of my life that I would never get back. Needlessly theatrical, completely unsubtle, without any substance or depth, it was the kind of thing that would never make it past an audition for anything elsewhere. It was also sad because this 'represented' homegrown Sri Lankan talent. I have nothing against the people behind the production, but there is so much that is rich and original to exploit in both Sinhala and Tamil literature, and instead, this derivative, derisive free-verse bathetic performance was held up as an example of 'local' art. One can be anglicized, anglophonic even, but unlike India, Sri Lanka has very few authors writing in the English language about Sri Lanka. Sigh. One piece in particular was aggressively sexual, which again, is fine if it is meant to promote the virtues of sexual choice in a repressive society, but this was pointlessly sexual. Given the proliferation of issues in Sri Lanka today, ethnicity, religion, conflict, the tension between modernization and the nostalgia for a rural past, there was enough to be inspired by, or construct art around. Instead, this , which represents the avant-garde movement in Sri Lanka, was what we got, gibberish about midnight blue versaces and tits and adultery. Utter tripe. And yes, I am angry and not objective. I'm angry because there is enough to dramatize, to highlight, to generate social awareness about. I'm also glad because I realized again, where my identity fell, that though I was diaspora, English-educated, I could not identify with this so-called social elite that I was a part of.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
groupie!
Okay. Reading the below post, it sounds as though I'm an insane political groupie. A junkie even. I am though. I've drunk the Kool-Aid and leapt onto the bandwagon. Choo choo. Let the future bring what it may. But I talked to him about the possibility of some alliance, with me personally through my years at grad school and he was likewise excited about the prospect and I'm fawning now and I should stop.
and then there are days like today
Its like being elected president, on this platform of promise and hope and coming into office with idealism and a grand vision of how one will implement change, save the world, renew, rejuvenate. And then just like getting bogged the fuck down during the presidency. Having to push through bills that are compromises, farcical pork-pie legislation. And then realising that your constituents are disaffected,unmoved. Then coming to the end of the Presidency and looking back at the legacy you've left, the successes, the failures, the compromises. Older, wiser, sadder. And then in the last 100 days, counting down. Vowing to do as much as possible to set in stone irrevocable, positive change.
That's how I feel right now. I'm in the last 100 days. The countdown begins. I had started this term of office with such energy, vision, hope. The ensuing months saw me bogged down in a haze of bureaucracy, battling against the inertia of local culture to inject dynamism, capacity-building on every single level, unable to work in the areas of most need due to legal complications and donor complications, battered on every side. Days when nothing seemed to work and my entire tenure just seemed like a long timespan of futility. And then days like today, when I knew, for a brief shining moment, that this country had entered my blood (and broken my heart time and time again) and that I never wanted to leave, and that my work here was far from over.
Today I had a meeting with a politician that is tipped to take over the leadership of the main opposition to the current coalition government. We are doing a large amount of work with his local NGO, through a financial intermediary. It was the first time I met him. For the record, his father was the President of Sri Lanka when he was brutally assassinated by a suicide bomber, a 12 year old Tamil boy in his own house, amongst his retinue of servants. A boy who had been with him since he was five years old. I can’t even imagine the betrayal, the sadness, the alteration of a nation’s destiny and a family’s tragedy when such a thing happens. This is what one calls the national arc of narrative. All the post-colonies have it, transition, confusion, the emergence of a broken national identity, the internecine strife in the subcontinent, the poverty, the struggle for definition. The religious turmoil, the political fundamentalists, the socialists, the conservatives, all fighting to own the national narrative. In countries like India, the Nehru dynasty captures and loses it time and time again, and that family is wedded to the concept of India no matter what, from the moment Jawaharlal Nehru said at the stroke of midnight that that was when the soul of a nation ‘finds utterance’ . The concept of Sri Lanka is just as alien, a national identity as difficult to form, and the assassination of P* is a vital moment in Sri Lankan history.
And to meet the man who was aboy when it happened, like JFK Jr in the pictures when Kennedy was shot, to have him not mind that I was Tamil. To talk equally and hopefully about development, poverty, need. To see a glimmer of hope that there were at least some politicians in the country like this, politicians that were able to transcend class perceptions, intelligent politicians that could maybe unite the country one day, or change its destiny, was extraordinary. The man had charisma too, a hard-charging, hard-working, ambitious, young, educated politician with a hope of winning both the elite urban vote and the rural vote, with a hope of bridging the segregated parts of Sri Lanka. It almost made me want to sign up for UNP and come back here next year campaigning for them. It made me realize that my work was far from over. And the way the meeting ended was funny because he was talking about Lee Kuan Yew and Singapore of all things! And how it was necessary to rule at times with an iron fist. And I countered and said, “but an iron fist in a velvet glove” and he paused and stopped and looked at me. I could see he was surprised and he said that is a good line, did thatcher say it? And I said Churchill, actually. (it turns out both of us were right)
And as I left, he said “we should get together more often”. And I turned back and said “definitely”. And we walked out, free, happy, thinking about the future and the nation and wanting to be involved. A man who can inspire such thoughts, is an extraordinary man indeed. And I thought, this is it, this is my job, this is what makes it worthwhile, to be able to work with people like this, reaching the poorest of the poor, having my destiny intertwined with Sri Lanka’s. Grandiose? Perhaps.
(a little later)
OHMYGOD he just called me. The son I mean. Personally. To talk. We talked personally for half an hour. And I offered my services. To him at any time. I mean, you know. Not that kind of services! . This has been a very strange day. I’m going to stop now.
That's how I feel right now. I'm in the last 100 days. The countdown begins. I had started this term of office with such energy, vision, hope. The ensuing months saw me bogged down in a haze of bureaucracy, battling against the inertia of local culture to inject dynamism, capacity-building on every single level, unable to work in the areas of most need due to legal complications and donor complications, battered on every side. Days when nothing seemed to work and my entire tenure just seemed like a long timespan of futility. And then days like today, when I knew, for a brief shining moment, that this country had entered my blood (and broken my heart time and time again) and that I never wanted to leave, and that my work here was far from over.
Today I had a meeting with a politician that is tipped to take over the leadership of the main opposition to the current coalition government. We are doing a large amount of work with his local NGO, through a financial intermediary. It was the first time I met him. For the record, his father was the President of Sri Lanka when he was brutally assassinated by a suicide bomber, a 12 year old Tamil boy in his own house, amongst his retinue of servants. A boy who had been with him since he was five years old. I can’t even imagine the betrayal, the sadness, the alteration of a nation’s destiny and a family’s tragedy when such a thing happens. This is what one calls the national arc of narrative. All the post-colonies have it, transition, confusion, the emergence of a broken national identity, the internecine strife in the subcontinent, the poverty, the struggle for definition. The religious turmoil, the political fundamentalists, the socialists, the conservatives, all fighting to own the national narrative. In countries like India, the Nehru dynasty captures and loses it time and time again, and that family is wedded to the concept of India no matter what, from the moment Jawaharlal Nehru said at the stroke of midnight that that was when the soul of a nation ‘finds utterance’ . The concept of Sri Lanka is just as alien, a national identity as difficult to form, and the assassination of P* is a vital moment in Sri Lankan history.
And to meet the man who was aboy when it happened, like JFK Jr in the pictures when Kennedy was shot, to have him not mind that I was Tamil. To talk equally and hopefully about development, poverty, need. To see a glimmer of hope that there were at least some politicians in the country like this, politicians that were able to transcend class perceptions, intelligent politicians that could maybe unite the country one day, or change its destiny, was extraordinary. The man had charisma too, a hard-charging, hard-working, ambitious, young, educated politician with a hope of winning both the elite urban vote and the rural vote, with a hope of bridging the segregated parts of Sri Lanka. It almost made me want to sign up for UNP and come back here next year campaigning for them. It made me realize that my work was far from over. And the way the meeting ended was funny because he was talking about Lee Kuan Yew and Singapore of all things! And how it was necessary to rule at times with an iron fist. And I countered and said, “but an iron fist in a velvet glove” and he paused and stopped and looked at me. I could see he was surprised and he said that is a good line, did thatcher say it? And I said Churchill, actually. (it turns out both of us were right)
And as I left, he said “we should get together more often”. And I turned back and said “definitely”. And we walked out, free, happy, thinking about the future and the nation and wanting to be involved. A man who can inspire such thoughts, is an extraordinary man indeed. And I thought, this is it, this is my job, this is what makes it worthwhile, to be able to work with people like this, reaching the poorest of the poor, having my destiny intertwined with Sri Lanka’s. Grandiose? Perhaps.
(a little later)
OHMYGOD he just called me. The son I mean. Personally. To talk. We talked personally for half an hour. And I offered my services. To him at any time. I mean, you know. Not that kind of services! . This has been a very strange day. I’m going to stop now.
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
a dead bird
It all started with a dead bird falling, plummeting out of the sky to land at her feet. From then on, everything was downhill.
Spent the day at the lawyers yesterday in a bizarre tangle. The law in this country is so fucking ridiculous. No wonder we’re still mired in the dark ages. Jurisdiction capacities are given to people who have no legal background and who adjudicate on the basis of emotion. As a result, even if one has a watertight legal case, it counts for naught (syk).
Spent the day pep-talking and rallying up morale. Leadership is bloody hard. I want to send a note to her, saying : enjoy your blood-money, bitch. But of course I will remain a professional to the very end.
Yet, there is a glimmer of hope, that we can put all this behind us, soon enough and move forward, and deal with the larger problems that is our job. I look forward to that day. I have learnt a lot in the last two days about people who talk about ethics, but in the end, come groveling for money instead. I have lost my faith in someone who I thought was above the materialistic fray.
Never-mind.
Am reading Step Across the Line by Salman Rushdie. It is surprisingly good for someone whom I have hitherto regarded as a pseudo-intellectual. There are some passages that I find quite relevant, specifically the concept of ‘respect’. Rushdie talks about how we live in such extreme political correctness, that we have to give ‘respect’ to those who preach messages of hate etc. Respect does not mean that the critical faculty cannot be exercised, that one cannot disagree, disavow, shame, tear down. He also talks about the writer as a moralist, as one of the few purveyors of truth left in a spinning world. It is the duty of the writer to a) discover and b) stand up for truth. But so few writers recognize this moral imperative, merely existing as tape-recorders, observers of trite encounters. Also talks about how few writers have the will or ability to tackle the larger topics, to write about national arcs of narratives.
Spent the day at the lawyers yesterday in a bizarre tangle. The law in this country is so fucking ridiculous. No wonder we’re still mired in the dark ages. Jurisdiction capacities are given to people who have no legal background and who adjudicate on the basis of emotion. As a result, even if one has a watertight legal case, it counts for naught (syk).
Spent the day pep-talking and rallying up morale. Leadership is bloody hard. I want to send a note to her, saying : enjoy your blood-money, bitch. But of course I will remain a professional to the very end.
Yet, there is a glimmer of hope, that we can put all this behind us, soon enough and move forward, and deal with the larger problems that is our job. I look forward to that day. I have learnt a lot in the last two days about people who talk about ethics, but in the end, come groveling for money instead. I have lost my faith in someone who I thought was above the materialistic fray.
Never-mind.
Am reading Step Across the Line by Salman Rushdie. It is surprisingly good for someone whom I have hitherto regarded as a pseudo-intellectual. There are some passages that I find quite relevant, specifically the concept of ‘respect’. Rushdie talks about how we live in such extreme political correctness, that we have to give ‘respect’ to those who preach messages of hate etc. Respect does not mean that the critical faculty cannot be exercised, that one cannot disagree, disavow, shame, tear down. He also talks about the writer as a moralist, as one of the few purveyors of truth left in a spinning world. It is the duty of the writer to a) discover and b) stand up for truth. But so few writers recognize this moral imperative, merely existing as tape-recorders, observers of trite encounters. Also talks about how few writers have the will or ability to tackle the larger topics, to write about national arcs of narratives.
Friday, May 12, 2006
change
I have decided to apply to business school as part of the concurrent degree program, which means that if I get in, then it shall mean 2 and not 3 years of study and living on the East Coast. Horrors. Let's see what that brings, but in the interim it shall mean completing at least 7 essay questions and of course, the dreaded GMAT satisfactorily which all points to the next few months of rather hard work and WHY! oh WHY can't I just disappear somewhere and take a break? And if I don't get in then I shall feel lousy. Sigh.
A naval bombing off Point Pedro (where we have 13 schools) has led to aerial carpet bombing of civilian suburbs in Kilinochchi which luckily was forewarned to some extent. Now begins the inexorable descent into perpetual no-war no-peace. Buckle up.
On a side note, the finance/admin manager went into the Immigration Department to request a resident visa for me and was asked by the clerk "what gift did he bring her". A good slap should have been the answer. Jeez-us.
A naval bombing off Point Pedro (where we have 13 schools) has led to aerial carpet bombing of civilian suburbs in Kilinochchi which luckily was forewarned to some extent. Now begins the inexorable descent into perpetual no-war no-peace. Buckle up.
On a side note, the finance/admin manager went into the Immigration Department to request a resident visa for me and was asked by the clerk "what gift did he bring her". A good slap should have been the answer. Jeez-us.
girls
We had gone up into the hills recently to launch a teenage girl support program, providing materials such as shoes, uniforms, books, pens, exercise copies, bags of rice, and more importantly things like tuition, training on gender, human rights, leadership, confidence, communication, and the like. Especially to deal with parents' (both mothers and fathers) alcoholism, domestic violence and sexual abuse.
We interviewed personally about 90 girls and their families over a three day period and it was a harrowing experience to say the least. Tears welled up at least 3 times even in me, to hear their difficulties, of parents who had worked in garment factories and had life threatening diseases due to exposure to chemicals but whom factory management had compensated with 300 dollars, of fathers who had put their children's hands on burning stoves to discipline them, of children who had to work to support the family, of sexual abuse. Of children who had to walk 2 hours to school one way without shoes up hillsides and mountains. Of being cold enough and having to forage for your own firewood. And still the Hindu festivals and religious devotion burns strong, fanatical perhaps. Trade Unions are also incredibly mobilized and powerful there.
Of course i understand why everyone bootlegs their own moonshine and drinks until the cows come home. Hell, i would do that for sure! And then the children grow up, are taken out of school at year 9 and used as child labour. Murders etc and violent crimes also abound in these remote hilltop communities, which are ill-policed due to difficulties of travelling etc. Most people live without electricity and piped water (in this day and age) and studying is the most difficult option, not the easiest. God. What a nightmare! I can't even imagine. And of course the perpetual guilt of others like me, in this profession. Forgotten by the rest of the country, the situation has remained the same in the plantation community for the last 50 years.
We interviewed personally about 90 girls and their families over a three day period and it was a harrowing experience to say the least. Tears welled up at least 3 times even in me, to hear their difficulties, of parents who had worked in garment factories and had life threatening diseases due to exposure to chemicals but whom factory management had compensated with 300 dollars, of fathers who had put their children's hands on burning stoves to discipline them, of children who had to work to support the family, of sexual abuse. Of children who had to walk 2 hours to school one way without shoes up hillsides and mountains. Of being cold enough and having to forage for your own firewood. And still the Hindu festivals and religious devotion burns strong, fanatical perhaps. Trade Unions are also incredibly mobilized and powerful there.
Of course i understand why everyone bootlegs their own moonshine and drinks until the cows come home. Hell, i would do that for sure! And then the children grow up, are taken out of school at year 9 and used as child labour. Murders etc and violent crimes also abound in these remote hilltop communities, which are ill-policed due to difficulties of travelling etc. Most people live without electricity and piped water (in this day and age) and studying is the most difficult option, not the easiest. God. What a nightmare! I can't even imagine. And of course the perpetual guilt of others like me, in this profession. Forgotten by the rest of the country, the situation has remained the same in the plantation community for the last 50 years.
Monday, May 01, 2006
weekend blues
It's been a long, dreary, desperate weekend where I consumed singlehandedly a bottle (yes, that's right) of arrack and at least two packs of cigarettes. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I'm still recovering from the arrack. My body can't take such local abuse. We seem to be inching back to the limbo of no-war, no-peace. Work is really fucked up at the moment, all I seem to be doing is frantically fire-fighting and putting up with silly requests. I have all this pent up rage that is still waiting to be expressed. I want to hurl things at someone's head. Anger and hate destroy the person who is holding it instead of the object of hate. I know that and I still can't let go. I just want to disappear somewhere. For a long while.
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