(un) rest in peace

Source: Tamilnet

The parliament resumed its sittings Tuesday morning at about 9:30 a.m. and after the conclusion of normal business of the House, Mr.Wimal Weerwanse, the Propaganda Secretary of the Sinhala nationalist JVP, with the permission of the Speaker made a special statement on the Kebbitigollawa blast.

Weerawanse charged that the LTTE was for the Kebbitigollawa massacre of Sinhala civilians including children and women. He appealed to the Sri Lankan government to ban the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka.

Thereafter he requested that the House should observe one minute silence for those killed in the Kebbitigollawa blast, sources said.

At that stage TNA parliamentarians Mr.N.Raviraj, Mr.S.Gajendran and Mr.Ariyanethran walked into the well of the house protesting against for not observing silence for Tamil civilians killed elsewhere in the North East.

That drew heated arguments between JVP and TNA parliamentarians. JVP parliamentarians Mr.Wimal Weerwanse and Mr.Nihal Galapathi rushed to the well of the house and pushed back the TNA parliamentarians to their seat.

Mr.T.Maheswaran, a Tamil UNP parliamentarian also entered the fray at one stage in support of the TNA parliamentarians.

Both groups thereafter engaged in fisticuffs and the Sergeant-at-Arms failed to restore order by bringing the two parties under control.

As the situation went out of control, the Speaker adjourned the sittings till 10.30 a.m.

random

A friend of mine has a great post on RGS and literature class, I only wish I could or knew how to link to it. It's actually rather hilarious. One sad thing was that the girl who was mentioned in the post, is no longer alive. I remembered her, briefly, as an extraordinarily intelligent, passionate girl, who was always the subject of discussion. I also remember her as extremely lonely.

I just finished watching a film adaptation of the Chekhovian play "Three Sisters". It was really not bad. Incredibly sad however, how the abuse of childhood, or the experiences in childhood come to shape an adult, their insecurities, their obnoxiousness, their loneliness. If only we learnt how to overcome what happened when we were young. Why don't they teach us that in school? Teach us to face the future with love and honesty?

roomers

So it's confirmed! I'm going to be living in a 4 room mate house for the next year at least, and possibly more. This, after having lived alone for the last three years. I can't believe I've lived alone for the last three years. The last two years of living alone though, in Sri Lanka has been the worst and I am very glad that I will be living with some company. Even if they turn out to be drug-abusing schizoids who have never read Ondaatje, I will suck it up.

Hora!

Today, being very hungover from last night's excesses and chiefly Rocklands Dry Gin, I was rudely awakened by a text message “We’ve been robbed. Get to the office asap”.
Showered and dressed, (the rapid response jumbling the cuttlefish and gin, making me nauseous) hailed an auto and told him to step on the gas, fearing the worst. Came to the office at the ungodly hour of 8:30am to find that the rest were at the police station filing the case and trying to get some brass down onto the scene.

We were not allowed to go into the office until the police arrived at the crime scene. So the staff sat outside on the terra cotta porch, waiting for the Force to turn up. We have computers (insured) and petty cash (uninsured) and that’s about it (we’re a freaking NGO for god’s sakes). Sum total of cash lost, : USD 150 (relatively big money in Sri Lanka). I know this day already is going to be one long, bureaucratic mess. Colleague informs me that Chief Inspector at local police station looks like Aamir Khan. I hang around, in the futile hope of salvaging something from the day.

The police turn up 4 hours later in a jeep (no doubt after their morning tea when they finally decide to attend to the day’s work) and the Chief Inspector descends, booted foot on the ground (EXACTLY like in the tamil movies). (Let the record reflect that there is no way he could even be a distant relative of The Khan). He parades around importantly, opening drawers, posturing, postulating. Turns out it was an inside job (which any fool could see since the ‘hora’(thief) zeroed in straight on the drawer where the petty cash was stored and jimmied the lock, leaving all our valuable computer equipment untouched. He had also broken open one of the back doors too to enter, since the front doors were impenetrable when locked. Had left one perfect muddied footprint. Also apparently had dinner at the office before he did his job since there was a food pack on the ground. The Nerve!

Chief Inspector straightens his shirt and slicks back his hair upon seeing me. Sidekick (head bowed, back bent) follows him like an eager puppy, not daring to look at me. The Sergeant of course. I half-expect Goundamani to come bounding from another door, but it's not a movie set, it’s just another day for the Dehiwala Police Force.

The crime scene is cordoned off and we’re not allowed to go into the office until the fingerprinting experts (from the CID and not the police force) turn up. They come of course after a leisurely lunch, by which time it has been five hours since the discovery and since I came in. (Notable sightings, a wild parrot in our guava-fruit tree).

I’m broiling in the heat,being bitten alive and ready to commit bloody murder. Oh, and by the way we had an interview today and I had to take the hapless candidate to the nearest Pizza Hut. Turns out he’s the chairman of a national board and wants to change jobs because everything is so damn political and uneducated louts with letters of appointment from the minister are in charge. (I could go on but I won’t).

Staff and I have an intense political discussion, about Marxism and its role in developing countries. Also about censorship. There's a Sinhala film with some nudity that's been rated as Adults Only but someone's written to the President and being the cultural lodestone, he's vetoed and banned it. The Da Vinci Code is banned here in Sri Lanka by the way.

Three fingerprint experts turn up, one to put the powder, one to dust, one to photograph (How many policmen does it take to change a lightbulb? One to change the lightbulb, one to tell him how to change the lightbulb, one to file the report). They dust everything in sight, covering probably 50% of the 2000 square foot office, including areas where the hora would have no plausible reason to go to. Turns out that the hora has used the girls bathroom.

The frenzied dusting turns up one pristine fingerprint. Everyone’s excited at the breakthrough and much photographing is done of said fingerprint. Turns out later that it was one of our staff’s fingerprints . Excitement dies down. I watch flies copulating. We all have lunch on the steps, washing our hands and feet with the garden hose. It feels wonderfully communal and I have the ever-frequent thought: how will I possibly leave?

Finally after what seems like a lifetime (during which we exchange jokes; here’s a classic. What does the man who wants to lead the best life do? He gets his salary from America, his woman from India, his car and equipment from Germany and his food from China. What does the man who is consigned to the worst life get? He gets his salary from India, his woman from America, his car and equipment from China and his food from Germany (HAHAHA)), they’re done fingerprinting and taking records of the footprints. We’re all fingerprinted too. It’s kind of exciting, but in the ‘watching paint dry’ way. The fingerprint experts pack up a mountain load of shit (despite only using talcum powder I think and camel-hair brushes). One of the littler boys who help us pack books says he’s terrified to stay alone tonight. We found a barefoot print too, so turns out there was two of them.

Finally, with half an hour left till close of business, we’re allowed back into the office. The internet promptly dies and the electricity goes off. A perfect end to a perfect day. So everyone packs up and heads home, exhausted from having done absolutely fuck-all. I asked them, doesn't this get your goat? To waste this much time? To wait and wait ? In unison they said "This is Sri Lanka".

Fanaa

Where do I start? The day before yesterday, the boys and I were going mad with the routine of neverending work and home and decided to bust out and go and watch Fanaa; a new Bollywood movie starring the ever-improving Aamir Khan and the incandescent Kajol (redebuting after 5 years). It was an oddly sweet, sad movie about independence, violence and love and a lot of it resonated with me. There were two moments when I felt that Aamir Khan had nailed his acting, and it was perfect (and I rarely see those moments in Indian cinema). One was when he was half-dead, struggling through the snow, knocks on the door of the nearest house, sees her, and there was this look of horror, longing and love that was pitch-perfect. The other moment was when after he accidentally kills her father, goes into the Colonel’s house and transmits his message and then he sees the Colonel at the doorway, having listened to his message, and Aamir Khan looks so tired, and so defeated because he knows what he has to do and does not want to do it.

Then the boys and I went to watch the Tunisia-Something or Other match at a nearby bar and knocked back the gins and cuttlefish and talked about life and love (or more accurately love failure). There is so much hidden tragedy in the office, in everyone’s lives and we skate over it, bury it, recessed. One colleague remembers the 83 riots and his house being burned down, and having to hide in a neighbouring cellar for two days. One colleague’s brother was shot and killed by an accidental gunshot from a policeman in pursuit of an unrelated thief (and I thought things like that only happened in Mouna Raagam). One colleague had to sell jackfruit from the trees for 50 cents to make it through his university degree and now has a girlfriend who is suicidal. One colleague never got to go to university because of the war and the limited intakes. One colleague’s father left to go abroad and never came back. One colleague’s husband abuses her and she is having an affair. One colleague is an ex-child soldier and has nightmares to this day.Why, why all these hidden human tragedies, reflective of a nation’s larger, forgotten, recessed tragedies?

Anuradhapura

Am listening to Khoon Chala from Rang de Basanti. I don't know why films like that, Swades, Fanaa, resonate. Because I think it highlights that there is so much wrong with the immediate world that we inhabit. And I'm not talking about the larger problems of world peace. I'm talking about the very specific problems of the subcontinent.

Today there was a large bomb explosion, killing 64 people, wounding 75 others. Retaliation swiftly followed in the form of aerial bombing of LTTE controlled areas. The explosion site was , as usual, where we do a lot of our work. The pundits are yapping about the definite, inexorable return to war. After 3 brief years of a better-than-nothing peace, it is inexpressibly sad.

I was never a peacenik. But, as Gandhi says, "When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it – always."

the way it used to be

An anonymous letter to a newspaper in Colombo, that I came across accidentally and which expresses more than all the pundits pontificating.

'The way it used to be'

The gram sellers at Galle Face Green sold their 'kadala gottu' topped with 'isso wade' for twenty-five cents.

The movie goers at Savoy cinema came out; Couples went to Aleric's for ice cream and families miserly budgeted for Chinese fried rice at Golden Gate.

Gunawardena opened batting for the Tamil Union and Sunderlingam kept wickets for the Sinhalese Sports Club.

This was once nostalgic Sri Lanka on easy street sans the raging war and the terrible turmoil;

The 'Yal Devi' took the Madhu pilgrims and the 'Ruhunu Kumari' carried the Kataragama clan. Marawila fishermen fished at Mullaitivu with the monsoon change and Lever's and Reckitt's Sales Reps sold toothpaste in Jaffna and drank 'Tal Raa' whilst bathing in the Keeramalai Tank. The Vel Cart used to come down Wellawatte and the waiters worked double time at the Sarasvathi Lodge.

The differences were there from the North to the South, but who cared?
Nobody killed anyone. There was life, simple and in peace.

Bala Tampoe took the CMU out on strike every year and the Parliament changed colours every five years with mythological promises.

That was acceptable.

The queues got long at the CWE to buy "Jumping Fish" and the bread prices leap like high jumpers. Those were our big problems.

The smiles were there too, affordable to the all and sundry, beat shows and big matches, sports meets and school carnivals, all within a ten-rupee budget.

Fashion-wise, the pinnacle was the CR-Havies match at Longdon Place; the Suzettes and Claudettes were there, dazzling in mini skirts, making their best attempts to get partnered to go to the Coconut Grove and jingo and jive to the Jetliners. Some made it to Akasa Kade too, to eat egg hoppers and hold hands and become more naughty whilst pretending to be watching the ship lights at the Colombo harbour.

There was peace; it was a long long time ago. That was before the Morris Minor taxis changed their English alphabet number plates.

Then came the carnage. Who's to blame? Don't waste time, that's kicking the moon and corralling clouds.

We all know better. We are all to be blamed, some for cheering and others for their silence. It has always been 'our soldiers' - but it is their war.

The guns are silent now and the talks go on and hope seeps slow like a weed-clogged wave. If the gods are kind, we'll have peace. Let it lie there.

North and East must be separate 'Don't give this', 'cant' have that', 'autonomy? What nonsense?"

Such passionate phrases below from borrowed patriotism.
'
My son has to study', 'No no, not to join the Air Force', 'Army?

Are you mad?' The same voices add the contradictions.

'We must continue to fight at any cost'.

Brave words, quite cheap too when rights and wrongs are just "whys" sprouting out from empty opinions on even emptier forums.

Try telling all that to mothers who buried their sons or children who pray for their missing fathers. Voice it to a legless 'Boy' from Velvettiturai or a sightless soldier from Devundara. Or may be to a lover who lights a candle for some forgotten fighter buried under swollen earth, too poor even for a memorial.

What does it matter to which side they belonged?

They paid the price, we didn't. They shed the tears, we didn't.

Let us then wish, nay, that's not enough, let us pray, to all the Gods in creation for "The way it used to be" to return.

Or... let us be silent. We owe that much to those who died nameless

goatherd

twilight

"As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness."
- William O'Douglas

The game is afoot

The game is afoot!

Feeling extraordinarily alive at the moment. We are on a search for old, forgotten Tamil literature to publish again, to rejuvenate real literacy and cultural connectedness among the children of today! It's truly surprising how Tamil children in Sri Lanka have no idea of their cultural or historical heritage. Some say that it is because of the Burning of the Jaffna Library (akin to the destruction of the Alexandria Library) and that it erased a nation's consciousness, never to be revived since the new Tamil Marxist-Fascist ideology turns away from religion and culture on the basis that it is divisive . The old library had ancient scripts that were written on ola leaves amongst other rarities and was burnt in the Siege of Jaffna (Eelam War 2 I think). It reminds me of a quote from Ondaatje in the English patient that "libraries burn" and Heinrich Heine's "Wherever they burn books, they will also, in the end, burn human beings".

Anyhow, since then, (and also due to what some say is the lesser emphasis placed by the government curriculum on Tamil medium literature) the poems, folklore etc have been dying out. And a Sinhalese colleague and I are on a mission, as part of our NGO's programs to discover these lost treasures and publish them! Now this is the sort of work I love and which I shall dedicate myself to in my remaining 5o days. And maybe it is a labour of love by us to a nation too, an act of piety by him as he said.

First came calls to my father's generation and conversations on the poems of their day. I was lectured on the Tolkaapiyam, the Cilampathirakam, how Kannagi burnt the city of Madurai in her rage at her lost lover, how Rama was an incarnation of Vishnu who also turned up on the battlefield of the Kurukshetra to deliver the Bhagavad Gita to a lost Arjun. Then came the homilies and the proverbs and the poetry of the Indian Tamil freedo-fighters for independence against the British like Bharathiyar. Then after that, came the Ceylonese pulavars (poets) one, who was the first to translate the Bible into Tamil and the others who more recently have expressed the collective desire for a free nation.

We started off the physical search by prowling Wellawatte Tamil bookshops, holes-in-the-wall with 70 year old proprietors turning crisp under the sun. They in turn led us to old translators (where I made the astonishing discovery that Marquez's works like Love in the Time of Cholera and One Hundred Years of Solitude are translated into Tamil and Sinhala and enjoy a wide readership here! How surprising!).

Who led us to one in particular, who had studied under some famous Tamil professors and knew of a man called "Google Krishnaswamy" who had apparently the second largest collection of Tamil literature in the Island after the Jaffna Library. Once, as the story goes, Queen Elizabeth herself requested an old biography of an Englishman from Ceylon and the government scoured the island and only Google Krishnaswamy had it and he was able to "fish it out of his recollection" (verbatim from the translator) where the book was in his massive, uncatalogued collection and send it to her and she replied with a note of thanks!. (Hence the nickname 'Google' Isn't it funny how the old and the new meld and even amongst non-Anglophones google thrives).

He died six months ago and his collection passed to his daughter who is rumoured to live in Wellawatte and now we will lie in wait for the Postman of Wellawatte who makes his rounds before 8am in the morning as he is the only one who knows in the neighbourhood where this Daughter of Google Krishnaswamy might live. We have also sent moles, old translators invigorated by such a cause, to loiter the streets of Wellawatte and accost random individuals to see whether they know where she lives. And this is how the lost memories of a nation, are found, rediscovered.

argh

I need my head examined. Sometimes, frequently I think, I'm such a disaster when it comes to people that I'm really better off not going there at all. Sometimes I commit the most diabolical swerves off the trodden path that I just need my head examined.

Nevertheless. The interviews are continuing and I have met a large and interesting cross-section of Sri Lankan society. I was told today that I am too young to be making these decisions, by a candidate nonetheless! I was also told that we need to work in the plantation sector because the people there are slaves and don't know anything beyond a teabush! I was also told that by one candidate that he is a member of the fan club of the current Miss Sri Lanka. I was , in short, told a bewildering array of very bizarre pieces of information by people who are LOOKING for a JOB for Chrissakes!

Jesus. And I can't get my computer to vomit out the CD drive so I'm ANNOYED.And I have like the GMAT and stuff to prepare for which is NOT going well. Arrghgh. SOMEBODY KILL ME NOW. Actually a lobotomy will do just fine.

Finishing reading "A Cause Untrue" by David Blacker, a Sri Lankan thriller about the Sinhalese Special Forces and the Tamil Tigers. All I can say, is that the sex scenes are pretty decent.

jag

Lucy Kellaway writes about being asked “Are you alright” by a colleague and to her horror bursting into tears immediately. It brings to mind a very pathetic episode by yours truly at MS, when I was so tired and stressed at work, that the moment I was to have a meeting with a superior, and she asked me “what’s wrong” and I started crying! It was in her office and no one else was there but still. It was most unprofessional, but she was a good British sort, a Hildabeast (literally from St Hilda’s at Oxford) and had seen it all and she said “there, there, have a good cry then”. So I cried for a little more and then blew my nose on her handkerchief and on we went as though nothing had happened. It was most illustrious of what a good manager should be like, at least for me and I have never forgotten her magnanimity since.

enough

Enough. If I am to be alone, then so be it. It would not be right to get married out of fear, which is the option I have been thinking about. I would make two people unhappy. And no doubt the right person will come along for him, if not for me. But better to be alone, than to be married out of fear. And so, I shall concentrate on what I shall do, for even if nothing else will exist, then at least I shall have that.

A Skin Diary

I can't remember where I found this excerpt, but I did so think it was rather strange and hearkening back to a truth before all our oh-so-tiring civilization. Rather Phillip Pullman-like I must say, if he ever wrote adult fiction, oh what it could be. And I like that below, from the Indian Ocean, came the myth of the captive woman for it is true of Asia and its female children.

The Seven Seas
By John Fuller

The first symbol of life
enclosed by its masters was the
Mediterranean which celebrated rule and scale,
and the myth of the waiting woman

And the second symbol was
the Baltic, from which the
masters fled, fearing to be
lured into its deeps. The
terrified tribes brought with
them a new myth, of the fatal woman.

From the Arctic, where the
lights stained the air like
radiant hair and the gnawed
bone rocked on the threshold,
came the myth of the devouring woman.

From the Antarctic, where
straight lines are uncertain
and the only regularity is
darkness,
came the myth of the invisible woman.

A sea which is a true sea
will come up to its coasts
like an inquisitive animal,
lured by the fragrance and
by the weeping:
from the Indian Ocean
came the myth of the captive woman.

Where the wind blows
strongest there will be
voyages, and where there
are voyages there will be
partings: from the Atlantic
came the myth of the unfaithful woman.

And then when the clouds
roll back and the sky is a
perfect shell, when the line
is fulfilled in the circle, and
horizon confirms that the
only land is now contained
by sea, the light and the life
negotiate in the Pacific
the myth of the desirable woman.

So for a man the woman is a
home that will always be
there, the place he has come
from and will eventually go to.
For him, the interim is exile.
The story of his life is
the adventure of categories,
the licensing of names,
the geography of his exile.

publishing

Have been having conversations with future room maters-to be and I must say that I am pleased with the way everything is progressing. They seem grounded, down to earth and with a lot of the same interests as me, chiefly literature, social entrepreneurship and of course policy and politics. The moving is going to suck though. I’m going to have to pack up my shit here, ship it to the States and then go back to Singapore and pack up some more shit and ship it to the States and have a break and then do this all before, god, August 29th or something. Somebody KILL ME NOW!

Occasionally it seems like the next two to three years seem kind of positive. I mean I know they will be, its just occasionally I wonder what I’m giving up everything here for. The cleaving is already beginning to happen as my exit date nears. And we STILL haven’t found anyone to take over, notwithstanding ex-Cabinet Ministers of Education applying. (It would be hilarious if that candidate took over! At one point in time, he’s also been the Ambassador of Japan and the Ambassador of Korea). On the other hand, my CEO and founder’s book recently came out (only advanced reader’s editions available thankfully, it hasn’t hit bookstores yet). I make a cameo appearance and it’s rather hilarious because he’s got every single fact wrong about me. Sigh. Also finished reading Monkfish Moon by Romesh Gunasekera. It’s not bad, but not great. Sigh. Why don’t we have great English-language writers like India does? It’s not like we don’t have enough to write about. And an interesting fact that I came across recently, English-language published-abroad authors like Ondaatje and Gunasekera don't have a large following in-country in Sri Lanka because their books retail at US prices. Locally-published authors however have the benefit of reaching a wide in-country audience, however the standard for local publishing is abysmally low due to the near-total absence of local editors. Sigh.

classical

I’m in Colombo for a bit now, so I’m using the eventimes, by my lonesome to catch up on film as a) I will not be able to afford to do so in Boston, and b) will not have the time to do either.

I watched the film “Ordinary People” with Timothy Hutton, who was naught but a boy in Robert Redford’s debut directorial venture, for which he won an Oscar. (He was rather excellent in the film, but execrable now) The film was prosaic, but real, and a sturdy effort in examining one family’s sadness at losing their older boy. But it was unique in that the entire film was set to one soundtrack, and movements from that soundtrack would be played and it lent a weight and sadness to the movie that otherwise might have listed to one side. The soundtrack was Pachelbel’s Canon.

And set me off on a discovery of classical music. That and Ave Maria from the West Wing when Josh talks about his sister dying. (Note to self: must find Brothers in Arms, the piece that the Season 2 finale is set to). And now I’m swimming in discoveries of Bach, by far and away the most capable of crossing the bridge between the human and the divine, Beethoven, Schubert, and a few others. And sometimes, when I’m at my most depressed, it is classical music that has helped fill the void of a break-up, of the end of a path.

Went to a party last night. Spent most of the night reminiscing about how my tenure was soon going to end. And how could I leave?

gandhi

I watched Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi again last night. This makes it probably the 12th time I’ve seen it. When I was a kid, my parents, like lots of subcontinental types, were obsessed with hammering the Gandhi story into their children’s consciousness. I think it was because of the values of discipline and truth that he stood for (which my father thought we obviously needed a drubbing in). The film itself rather exalts Gandhi, without going really into the depth of what made him so complicated, difficult to live with (can you imagine being his wife and having your husband take a vow of celibacy- he was also widely recognized as a bad father) and also of leaving a rather complicated legacy behind (of a divided India). The film glosses over the horrors of Partition (where over a million people died in the largest cross-border exchange ever known to man) and cannot make up its mind whether it was a result of the divide and conquer tactics by the British or the own, parochial power-hungry interests of Jinnah and Nehru. The film too paints Nehru in a one-dimensionally rosy light . And it also doesn’t examine how Untouchability and the repression of women has not ended in India, despite Gandhi’s best efforts and his statement that these are the two kinds of slavery in India. Nevertheless, in 1948, India had 350 million people, not the billion that it has today. And it is remarkable that the birth of a nation has not produced more bloodshed than it has. But still. As the Amritsar Massacre pre-independence by the British has shown, it was nonetheless tragic.

However following on the South African theme below, the film was illuminating for showing how Gandhi was successful in repealing anti-Indian legislation in South Africa (then a British colony) and how his principles of ahimsa, nonviolent noncooperation was born through his struggles there. It is also interesting that the Indians in South Africa have managed to carve out since a separate identity for themselves (either or not as a result of his efforts), as neither black nor white but somewhere in between , with all the requisite privileges.

Oh, I do so desperately want to write and make film and create and produce. It seems such an impossibly far away dream and I seem to be on another path entirely and I wonder when everything will coalesce, and I am both professionally and personally stable.

cocktails

Went to a US embassy cocktail party yesterday (that was dubiously hosted by some garment industry types). Only went because one of the invitees had expressed some interest in our work. We ended up meeting the US ambassador and other CIA-types who wanted us to launch into the Maldives . Urgh. These people make me ill with their blinkered foreign policy statements on Sri Lanka (the US embassy has really come down hard with a lot of bigoted polemic against the LTTE). I'm not saying that their intention is wrong, but they should follow what Roosevelt I think said and that is to tread softly and carry a large stick. But it was mildly diverting nonetheless and we escaped afterwards for a lovely dinner of tempura prawns and crushed blue crab and tanqueray and tonics galore. Some interesting thoughts on the CSR initiative were offered (garment workers are notoriously ill-treated although conditions are improving in the sector). Textiles are the biggest import to the US.

poe

The First Rule Of Sinhalese Architecture
By Michael Ondaatje

Never build three doors
in a straight line.
A devil might rush
through them
deep into your house,
into your life.

because

Because a close friend said that the Ondaatje poem had left a funny feeling in her , that lasted all day. Viva good literature! Death to drivel!

Because I always wanted to talk about Anil's Ghost and indeed propose to re-read it for the fifth time today. (I never understand people who say that they cannot re-read a novel, who gain about 90% of the book in the first reading). How can anyone love a book then? I find it truly incomprehensible.

Because I found another Indian literary blog today that celebrates Ondaatje amongst others. Because he has never written a false note, incoherent though as it may be. Because he is an excavator, first and foremost. Because his writing yields most after intensive study and can never be read without drowning.

Because Aldous Huxley, once, long ago saw Sri Lanka as a model for utopia and not the dystopia that it has become. Because no one else records Sri Lanka as Ondaatje does. Because I saw him and fell in love with a voice. Because I want to, and don't want to, live at this pitch for the rest of my life and then, drop dead.