transition

In a fit of post-partum? depression, I dined last night alone, on peanut butter brown bread sandwiches and half a bottle of red wine in my new light-blue hand-blown wine glasses that refracts the light in a thousand different ways. Existential questions crowded my mind. Where we are going, why I am incapable of a successful relationship, why is everyone getting married (another close friend folded, to be registered in three weeks), what is the point of being educated when a traditional Asian family only values marriageability and childbearing capability as a woman, in short, just exactly, what is the point of living as I was and am a complete failure in all these measures. I contemplated (in an academic manner) twisting the nearest breadknife in my throat, but the possiblity of post-life nothingness, in short, my lack of a devout life enables no real eternal future, stopped me dead (no pun intended). Yeat's poem reverberated in my head: A waste of breath, the years to come, a waste of breath, the years behind. Although I wasn't unhappy per se (okay, who was I kidding, I was deeply depressed), in the sense that I realized quite rationally that I was fortunate and lucky to have led my life compared to victims of violent crime for example, yet, I did not have the confidence that quite simply, I would ever get it right. Relationships offer a fleeting elusive (illusive/illusionary)surcease from the daily travails, but only for the first part, after which the sturm und drang ebbs and flows. Work is best described as bailing out a leaky boat with a thimble (no matter what we do it is not enough), coupled with the fact that I was recently told that this work does not validate me, and I am not good at the work that validates me, which leaves me exactly nowhere (or hell in a handbasket) to go. And if both love and work do not work then, what else is left? I felt old. Fought with my parents, stalked my boyfriend (ex), bore a stiff upper lip of not caring exactly what an old friend said, buried my head in bottles of red wine (two over the weekend), contemplated starting on the whisky, deterred only by the fact that it was locally produced and I would be in pain the next morning (i am also a wimp). It takes a lot of courage to live, it is not just a matter of breathing one breath after the next. Hamlet had it right. As did Camus (i think). The only real question is why is it worth living? And I don't really know anymore. I am not suicidal, nor is this an obscure cry for help in our post-modern web world. Its just that, I understand that I am of some value in this world, and have a network of people who value me for myself, but ultimately, my existence is not life or death for anyone and perhaps that's what matters.

And its only the first week of the new year over. Glorious.

because I will always be an idiot

i carry your heart by e.e. cummings

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet) i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

jaff

Just got back from Jaffna on a quick pitstop to check in with projects. Apparently the reason why a claymore mine was blown up, killing six soldiers and putting everyone in town on alert was ostensibly because three youths who were decorating a store for Heroes' Day, the day celebrating the martyrs of the LTTE movement, were shot by unknowns in Jaffna, thought to be army people in civilian clothes. The government themselves may be trying to precipitate a war. Ranil too has joined forces with the government. What I wouldn't give for some intelligent analysis of the situation.

One of our contacts is an LTTE political officer, who has now been retracted outside of government controlled areas and is in the 'uncleared' area. We also went into the house of one community president, who had photos of Prabhakaran and himself, in his living room, and who had lost a son to the war already. Another official said, when asked about the war, that this is another Eritrea, that this is another Vietnam. The power of propaganda should never be underestimated.

Those whom we spoke to outside of the movement also expressed their views that this time, the fight would be decisive and that the decision had been taken to incorporate a larger, administrative role for the TRO. Who knows how it shall all end. I am tired.

Another bomb in Jaffna this morning. Total hartal, banks, corporations everything is shut and apparently the army is picking people at random and interrogating them in Jaffna. The newspapers are talking about a declaration of war before the end of the year, and parties are urging the President to put Colombo and the South on a war footing. The situation is tense to say the least.

kabuk

and so it is. Just like she thought it would be. Life goes on... sings Damian Rice in The Blower's Daughter.

A rather eventful week, culminating in a trip to a recommended laywer, deep in the heart of Pettah along this single lane winding off from the Chinese pagoda-like Supreme Court and in which every lawyer worth his ambulance has put up a shingle.

Walked into a 200 year old house, later informed, being built of kabuk, a paste of soil and stones which is naturally formed in the hill country and which is cut into blocks using skilled labourers. The art of kabuk making has been lost to the ages and now cheap cement rules the roost. I was impressed only by his bookcase, groaning under the statutory weight of Sri Lankan law books, but also with biographies of Mandela and Prabhakaran, placed perhaps not so incongruently side by side. Explained to him the complexities of our 'little problem', confidentiality forbids me from putting it up on this site and railing against all manner of dishonest, fraudulent, selfish, exploitative contractors playing with the lives of children.

I got a earful (have not been chastised like that since grade school) about our irresponsibility in the whole matter, but left having fallen a little bit in love with the 65 year old dry legal wit from Cambridge, under the 4 m high 2oo year ceilings with ancient whirring fans. I wondered what this house had seen, the street was apparently where Premadasa was assassinated and how much the nation had changed.

We rounded off with saying, well great, let's correspond over email over what kind of services we may require from you and he said, Madam, do not use the word services. You will have my assistance, which is free, at any time. I went out the swinging door, and into the sun.

life eh!

"Life eh Lord Russell? What's it all about?" As the cabbie famously said to the philosopher. The English. You've gotta love them, for some odd reason, they're just so numbingly pithy, so absolutely right in this undogmatic, unpretentious, obvious way. God save the queen. I know I'm supposed to be suffering under the yoke of imperialism and that half the problems in Sri Lanka were born when the British left (strange how the leaving and not the staying, was the catalyst) but still I can't quite help the twinge of the heart when I read something uniquely British and profoundly familiar.


So. Watched season six of the west wing back to back and have concluded (for probably the tenth time in my life) that I want to be Josh Lyman and I want to be with Josh Lyman. Strange how this sentiment only grows in intensity over time. I can't quite reconcile British politics with the American verve and dynamism (and rottenness) in politics, but still. There's this moment with Toby, when he's trying to formulate a constitution for the Belarussians, and he's trying to explain democracy, separation of church and state, checks and balances and the executive powers and he gives up and says: You know, you'd be better off with a parliamentarian democracy. There are 30 constitutional democracies in the world and very few of them work. Or something like that. He tells the Prof, that, it takes more than hammering out a document, it takes a democratic population and a collective will to live by the law. He's like 8 guys, the delegation from Belarus, isn't going to bring democracy back to a post-Soviet nation. Then the professor goes: its 8 guys, but (he goes through their personal history, and all of them are activists that have been jailed for their protests etc.) there's Madison, Jefferson etc. etc.

Of course in England, its a different story but still. I'm rambling at the moment, I don't know why. Met a random from the Nonviolent Peace Force and looks like he has bigger problems than me, managing the mandates of 92 member organizations all of whom affect decision making.

So to all you readers out there (all three of you that is), here's to England, King and Country.

water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink

In addition to my particular flood story, Colombo itself was flooded. Cows stood knee-deep in water. Vehicles churned mud. Potholes and bylanes were deluged as items of rubbish and random pots and pans came floating by. Children in washtubs floated along the water, shrieking with delight while office workers and sari clad women hitched up their clothes undignifiedly and waddled through the water. Aaahh the joys of living in a third world country.

There is a movement in Colombo University called 'X'. It promotes the natural expression of free sex and conducts talks and seminars across Colombo and rural hubs. It is of course led by a bunch of young male professors, increasing the notches on their bedpost, as they 'spread' the word. As young, female rural undergraduates return to their hometowns after having spent 4 years in Colombo and under the influence of the X movement, their homecoming is wrought with sadness, and anger. The price that they fetch on the marriage market is of course dependent on their hymen. The thing that gets me mad is that these same professors pound the pulpit on T.V, gathering support for Rajapakse, on a return to rural traditional, Sinhala Buddhist values and denounce Ranil for being liberal and modernist and not representative of Sri Lanka.

yesterday, all my troubles

Let me tell you how my day is going. Its a holiday again, to celebrate the melon or something (tajikistan actually has a national holiday celebrating the damn melon).

The monsoons have come. My roof is leaking and my living room is flooded. The rains have unleashed a biblical horde of cockroaches. I have finished my last bottle of Mortein manning the barricades. The fort is under siege. I've inhaled more Mortein than all the cockroaches have (body count: 17! yes! I'm a lean, mean, killing machine) and as a result am hallucinating while I bail out my living room with a leaky bucket, battle the flu and rewrite the thirteenth draft of my personal statement. My boyfriend calls me during lunch (while I'm trying to write an essay explaining in detail how I'm going to save the world) with an angst-inducing conversation of how I am apparently too detached (me! What does he want? a parasite in his bloodstream?) in this sanity-defying twisted relationship that I am currently in. If I screw up this app process, I am going to be flying cargo planes full of rubber dogshit outta Hong Kong.

Yesterday I went to a Buddhist ashram in search of peace. While being actively ravaged by mosquitoes I attempted to meditate in an open garden under a bo tree. Sadly all I could think about was what to have for breakfast. On account of the elections and the rains, the shops have closed. I have no food. I have no Mortein. I have no oxygen. I have no life.

This is a call to arms. Go to the mattresses! I need some help. Over and out.

hacks

Post-election analyses and strategies are filtering in, from the man on the street, from academic intellectuals, from international election monitors and party faithfuls as well as the LTTE administration.

Rumours are floating around, some of which have more credibility than others. The assassination of the Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar approx four months ago is widely reputed to be a highly tactical maneouvre ridding the opposition of the only credible face to the international community. Mahinda Rajapakse would almost definitely have chosen as his Prime Minister the Foreign Minister, both taking an anti-terrorist stance. But Kadirgaman would have presented a credible face to the international community, and been a blow for the legitimacy of the LTTE. Rajapakse has the looks and demeanour of a thug, and will not be able to represent Sri Lanka adequately on the world stage.

It is interesting to note that this strategy was executed four months ago. It must have taken at least 2 months to plan. Meaning that exactly six months ago, the Tigers knew which presidential candidate they wanted to win (and thus would win), they would have been confident of their military capability since they had decided to actively pursue their separatist goals, and they took out the only credible leader of their opposition. Nobody could figure out why Kadirgamar was killed when he was killed. It seemed so random.

All this points to is an extremely visionary, highly strategic, ruthless, motivated and committed guerilla force. Compared to a shambolic presidential election and a mess of a coalition which will be unable to impose discipline on any peace strategy, it seems rather evident who has, for now, the upper hand. For better or for worse.

election

Mahinda Rajapakse, the hawkish leader of a coalition of an extremist Sinhala Marxist party (JVP) and himself the current prime minister belonging to the SLFP (Chandrika's party) has won in a closely contested presidential election (with 50.3% of the vote)

The election was swung by the boycott (in some cases the forced boycott as the LTTE actively discouraged Tamils from voting at the polls) of the 600,000 odd Tamils whose vote would have almost all been for Ranil Wickremasinghe (who lost by 200,000 odd votes, garnering 48.4% of the vote). The LTTE's strategic boycott is widely interpreted as an intention to actively pursue their separatist goals again, as voting for Ranil would have almost certainly meant the resumption of credible peace negotiations and a secular foreign policy.

The SLFP-JVP won through pro-Sinhala Buddhist and pro-Marxist (anti-market, anti-open economy, anti-foreign NGO) policies. The local stock market tanked about 7% initially following reports of the victory. The return of Sinhala nationalism and an insular economic policy has dire implications for the next 6-12 years. The close margin of victory means that neither party can abandon the coalition, which in turn means a hash of pork-barreled populist legislation for the coming years, pandering to the Southern rural electorate. It is a sad outcome furthermore, for the peace process seems to be in imminent danger of collapse.


It was positive to see that a critically large mass of the electorate do want pro-peace, pro-growth policies, even if it has not materialized. However it marks the definitive return of uncertainty, perhaps even a return to the 90s, with bombs in crowded bus stations and airports and schools, and perhaps even the fully-fledged outbreak of war again. Over and out.

et puis

Election tomorrow. Cynical and disillusioned about the whole thing: reckon one's as good as the other at this point. Had a reel of stories to spin, but a bit deflated at the moment after spending the day at the insanely bureaucratic and xenophobic Bureau of Immigration to get a visa extension. Ridiculous how none of the front-office staff speak any language other than Sinhala, yet deal with the predominantly foreign, and tamil visa extendors....

Went to the hill country over the weekend, stayed at the Grand in the illustrious company of (leading) presidential candidate Ranil Wickremasinghe. (Meaning, I saw his departing back, and that of his wife, who's widely rumoured to be lesbian, with a partner in the faculty of the Colombo University). Imagine the thrill as Pajeros with tinted windows roared around the sleepy town (with unnecessary fanfare) and undercover secret service men with poorly concealed weapons thronged the doorways and halls... A rally going on in the plantation country under the pouring rain, umbrellas wedged thickly over one another as foghorns blared deafening rhetoric. Driving back stopped again at the banks of the river in Kitulgala. Made a halfhearted stab at app essays, before falling into a coma. There are other things, but too tired right now.

nee how ma?

And so it is. Or goes The Blower's Daughter.

Another day, another dollar. A local corporation has adopted a school reconstruction project on the Southern coast where we are also helping, and we hitched a ride down with two executives this morning. One is a half Chinese, half Sinhalese guy in his mid-40s, who looks totally Japanese. Cognitively dissonant to hear fluent Sinhalese issuing from his lips, but just goes to show you how confused all us Sri Lankans are. Stopped by the Kalutara temple where we all donated money (one Hindu, one Christian, two Buddhists), but that's just Sri Lanka where any religious shrine is venerated. Unlike India, our wars have not been fought on the basis of religion, but of language and ethnicity. Discussion in the car revolved around the upcoming elections; one member was an ex-committee member of a prominent party and Secretary to a local Minister; his veins purportedly run 'green' the colour of the UNP nationalists. The other resignedly said: if UNP wins, I have better contacts there, so it'll be great, but i'm not going to vote as it doesn't matter anyway. (back to the paradox of voting). There is a big: you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours mentality operating here. A story of how one of them was driving along Marine Drive a few hours ago when suddenly a woman stopped in front of his car and he knocked her over. The car had tinted glasses and a mob soon began to form. He central-locked all the doors and took off to the nearest police station only to find that the area where the incident had occurred did not fall under the jurisdiction of Police Station A. So he visited Station B and then finally got to the right station C (where he knew some people and pulled some strings) and he filed a report. Sure enough, the next day the people were at his door, demanding money: USD 250. He refused, but agreed to pay them USD 100. Then he asked the policeman to act as witness to the receipt of the bill and to close the case on them. He threatened them with action in the courts saying if they went to court, they wouldn't get a penny since he was better resourced.

Maybe this is what it all boils down to.

wkned

Weekend spent leisurely fixing up DVD player to TV and watching in succession a series of B-style rom-coms, which were all predictably bad but nevertheless helped pass the time. Read academic journals on the dilemmas of humanitarian aid and all it was was sad, for the chaos it delineated had all happened before and will happen again. Must start writing app essays but somehow the urge left me and the balloon deflated. Crab and prawn curry and lobster pasta at the Gallery Cafe with tiramisu to end on Friday. This weekend back up to the hills. Finished reading A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry and although it's good, it isn't great. Somehow it seems to fail at the final step, at delivering the final pow. As a camera, though it is very good.

aid warriors

Eid Mubarak and our house owner came garbed in traditional attire, bearing gifts of ... vattalapam (YES!). Office emptied at 3 or 4pm as another week in Sri Lanka ends. Rains have begun in Colombo so the days and nights are noticeably cooler. Started reading some journalwork on international aid and the nexus between emergency relief, development and peace. The UN says development is peace. The Americans say leave Africa to Africans. The NGOs say, let's just relief. The funds and other resources that NGOs have are typically outsize in relation to their capacity for political analysis and manouevre. But aid is no longer a matter of possessing trucks and road maps. Instead it is a complex landscape of using aid as a development tool, creating sustainable methods of recovery and regeneration and empowering local communities to help themselves. The problems, as I am beginning to find out, are repetitive and unsolvable.

to vote or not to vote?

"Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one's government is not necessarily to secure freedom" von Hayek

Gearing up for the elections here. Talking to my next door neighbour in my ever widening informal poll about voting habits and preferences. Sri Lanka, like India is a highly politically aware and politicized country, no doubt a function of having a literate, active population with extreme anti-incumbent tendencies and volatile voting preferences as well as a poorly enforced election and political system rife with corruption and opportunism by all involved.

Curfews have normally been imposed on every single election day due to the outbursts of violence and rioting (and sometimes looting) that happens throughout the country. Families stay up through the night, even with small children, to herald a new dawn of political change that hardly ever materializes. Marches and rallies are conducted by blue-clad and green-clad (colours of the 2 dominant parties, UNP and SLFP) mobs, often accosting one another on the streets, subjecting each other to extreme verbal abuse. She grew up in a family that has traditionally voted for UNP while her husband has traditionally voted for SLFP. Not in the last election however, disgusted with the calibre of the candidates offered on the ballot pape, he crossed out all the candidates, wrote his name on the bottom, ticked it, dropped it in the ballot box and walked out. He tells his wife to think hard and vote, because their children's future is at stake. Anyone wants to bring up the paradox of voting? Take your theories and fly a kite.

You want to flake out?

Pick a number and take a hike buddy. Because this may just be as good as it gets.

hills

Spent the weekend up in the hills, amongst the tea plantations, where the weather was around 14 degrees and unbelievably pleasant. The drive was arduous, snaking up the hillside, on two land crazy bends, in the rain on potted roads in a dilapidated van. Made a stop at the Pinnewala Elephant orphanage and saw a lame elephant rescued from a border village, a leg blown off by a landmine. Talked about the problems of development in India, and of innovative programs, where street children are taught on railway platforms and finance workshops run by ex-investment bankers for women's savings groups in the Himalayas. Then the night spent in the hills, waking up in the morning to fir trees and pines and the scent of tea in the air. Walking amidst the golf courses and the bustling market town, reminiscent of Khurg, or Darjeeling or Ooty, or Kodaikanal. Reminiscent, remarkably, of Hyde Park. It was good for the soul and I forgot for a brief moment I was in Sri Lanka. Then driving back after the short stay, stopping at a random guesthouse and finding out it was the famous Kitulgala resthouse, on the banks of foaming rapids with a wooden swaying bridge which looked distinctly un-Sri Lankan and very Vietnamese, and then discovered that this was the river where, improbably, Bridge on the River Kwai was filmed!. How bizarre. Came out of the guesthouse to discover a Rolls and a Jag parked in the garage! Then the skies opened for the umpteenth time and we ran for cover.

back in the saddle

Just a week back and already it feels like a lifetime. I think this stint will be good. highlights include attending a gala reception at a five star hotel of an international NGO, which was started up in the 1950s as a recognized front for the CIA and the State Department for its Cold War activities in the Asia-Pacific region (and as a result has been banned from certain countries). Even now, this NGO trains local foreign service personnel and is involved in defence issues. Met the old trustee emeritus of this NGO, who talked to us about declassified information about American military movements in the Phillipines in the 50s and how he still influences the strategic direction of this NGO. Over 50% of their funding comes from the US govt, some reputedly from slush funds, although 10% is still voted on by Congress.

Then, went to a school opening ceremony in the South, in a resettled village by a Texan, with journalists and reporters. There was a poster welcoming me and my colleague by name, as well as our organization, and it was beautiful. I released a white dove into the sky, trembling (the dove), terrified, strangely feeling alive at that moment. There was an auspicious ceremony at the time, where the Buddha was installed in his shrine, and Rebs was telling me how she had transported him last night from Ambalangoda, in the back seat, with seat belts on.

We were driving along Galle Road past Weligama, and we came to secluded beach cove, and the three of us snatched a moment, the first time since I've come to Sri Lanka where we've just kicked off our shoes, ran into the waves with our clothes on and got half-drenched and felt so alive, with a storm brewing off the coast and the palm trees bending double in the wind. Getting back into the van, the driver started playing Eminem and as we drove past a Buddhist shrine, he switched it off for 2 minutes and then immediately switched it on as we passed it. Such reverence! A true devotee. And so it goes.

ipod

I've never been a lackey of capitalism, hostage to 'programmed' desires, but I have to admit; I am captivated by the ipod nano. I am a shameless convert to iApple. Welcome to iEarth. The next computer I buy is an ibook. Forget the rest.

In 1984, Apple came out with an ad (at the Superbowl), declared in 1995 as the best ad of the last 50 years and directed by Ridley Scott.

the third world

back from another developing country. The term 'Third World' or developing, is so illusory. The Human Development Index lists three bands, of development or progress. Sri Lanka for example, is ranked 93 of last, and India 127 of last. But yet, there are wide disparities in these two countries- consumer goods penetration is higher in India, road infrastructure is better in the capital cities, there is a better network of public transportation (railways and buses) across the country, there is a huge surge in upward class mobility due to the widespread cable tv penetration as well as the booming economy benefiting from outsourcing, there is a wider critical mass of educated English speaking workers unlike Sri Lanka. Yet, calculated on a 'per capita' basis, India lags far behind Sri Lanka.

In Bhutan, there is a 'happiness' index, to measure development.

Talking recently about the politics of foreign aid, and how aid is always conditional, though it may be years for those conditions to be articulated, demanded and met. Unconscious, whether it is imposing a 'value system' on those recipients, to conscious. And yet, there is one thing that makes the world go round and as I get older, i see it more and more, it is the almighty dollar and all that that implies. It is the currency of the world, whether in values, social issues or in economic might.