nyt

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

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

But anyway.

schtuff

At first I was afraid, I was petrified.

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

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

embassy

What the hell is going on in Beirut?

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

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

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

emoting

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

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

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

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

moving

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

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

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

I don't know what happened at the end.

team sri lanka!

spot the wallaby!

bits

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

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

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

goal, man

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

champagne

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

london cab

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

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

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

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

back

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

curl up and dye

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

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

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

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

footie

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

tears

So I came across a post about No More Tears Sister the documentary about a Tamil woman fighting for her rights against a movement she once embraced and she had this to say which was strong and sad and true: "One day some gun will silence me. And it will not be held by an outsider — but by a son — born in the womb of this very society — from a woman with whom my history is shared."

shtuff

Dinner last night at the Gallery Cafe with cousins and mothers and people who I'd grown up with and never realized I missed until they were gone. The food was excellent, copious amounts of red wine, fresh seer fish, coconut risottos, black pork curry, brinjal pahi, tender lemongrass and ginger chicken, spaghetti with pan-fried mullet and pine nuts complete with dessert of jaggery creme brulee and a lovely cold, chocolate panna cotta. Food glorious food as the Oliver Twistian lyrics go. Did anyone ever know I played Mrs. Bedwin in a school production of Oliver Twist in Sydney and I had to sing in a plaintive song "Where is love? Where is love? Is it over there, in the window pane or something like that. Little did I know that like more than 15 years later I would still be singing that same damn song. I remember other bits of Australia too, how I ran for election as school captain and had to threaten/coerce my baby sister into corralling the third grade to vote for me (I was in the fifth grade). (I won the election btw). She told me ten years later that though the third grade voted for me, she herself did not coz she hated me! hahaha. I find this diabolically funny.

gate foundation

Just found out that Warren Buffett is going to donate the bulk of his personal fortune to the Gates Foundation (after Gates himself stepped down from his executive/technologist role at Microsoft to pursue his philanthropic career). This would further catapult the Gates Foundation as the largest NGO in the world. Although its role is primarily as a funding organization and not as an implementing agency, nevertheless, the size of its grant pool has considerable ramifications for the global NGO sector. The sheer doubling in the size of global aid worldwide will lead to further problems of accountability and transparency in the sector, no matter Amnesty's newly released charter on accountability. Scaleability is the next issue. Watch this space

bits and pieces

A suicide bomb attack in the suburbs of Colombo today. High-ranking military commander dead, along with 5 other passers-by. I wonder who they were. This coupled with the attempted assassination last month of the Army Commander, also in Colombo, is illustrative of the new LTTE tactics in the face of the EU ban, the Oslo Communique and the presence of other perhaps paramilitary-funded anti-LTTE forces. In any event, it is certain that this is a provocative attack designed to generate a military response from the government (perhaps even a declaration of war from the govt.) which in turn would result in a massive, totalistic response from the LTTE. The moment that the govt. responds, if and when, with decisive force, the LTTE can tell the international community that they had no choice but to also respond with a military option.

It was a long weekend, where a cousin-in-law got baptized at a 200 year old church in Kynsey Road, built by the British, with long arching ceilings and Christ hanging forlornly off his perpetual cross, where I had a full facial, a foot massage and pedicure, eyebrows threaded (PAIN!), a lesson in sari draping, some intensive waxing, all for the insanely low sum of USD 40! It would cost a good USD 150 elsewhere, all this, at least. Also a weekend where a best friend turned 26, where another good friend wedded at the Fullerton with white columns and cornices, and where my mother flew into town for the weekend. Also a weekend, where because my internet was down, and my phone was not working, I finished watching Season 2 of 24. That's a good 36 hours of 24 watching in a WEEK!

This is an interesting and accurate comment on NGOs in Sri Lanka (in response to the measures taken by the govt, perhaps prompted by a leftist party resenting NGOs, in order to promote greater transparency amongst NGOS here and also to TAX the income received in grants by NGOs).

"NGOs in Sri Lanka often mimic the very parochialism they seek to transform in government. Clamouring for donor aid, scarce human resources, a paucity of genuine innovation and ideas, inflated egos and personal vendettas, Sri Lanka’s NGO sector is rife with problems that none can deny and is not generally one big happy family.
.... NGOs need to mature into institutions that are better able to work together and share resources. This maturity is vital in light of the vital role NGOs play in the peace process in Sri Lanka – as hubs of information, research, advocacy and civic engagements in support of justice, reconciliation and peace. At the same time, and with equal emphasis, a peace process demands NGOs to respond to voices opposed to the peace process, claim a large degree of public support and state that NGOs, as entities not democratically elected into power, lack the legitimacy to represent the views of various peoples"

going to london

I am going to London in less than a week! I can't believe it! I picked up the ticket today and had to take a moment to really look at it, to really believe that I was actually going to go home, at least for a short while. And the way that my Boston tickets are configured, I'll get to go to London again on the way to Boston and back, so that makes it 3 times in the next six months that I'm going to hit London. HALLELUJAH!

Do you have any idea what this means? I just sent out the schedule to CLOSE friends. That would be Sumathy, Arjun, Lewis, Radovan, Stephane, Raheman, Sofia, Ling, Krishan, Shanil, Akhil, Shaman, Lisa, Przemek, Salvatore, Julie, Imran, John and Bella. Do you know how many friends I have here? I mean people who I can call up and say let's head out for a coffee? The massive total of TWO!! I had a freaking life in London. And too bad I only realized it when I lost it!

I can't fucking wait. And yet, I have never and will never regret the decision to leave.

itty bitties 2

hiatus

So I managed to watch 24 episodes (17 hours of viewing time) of Season One of 24, which to be quite honest, I have not managed to catch in the last five years since it debuted, in three days. That's some hardcore viewing folks, averaging approximately six hours a day after work starting at 9pm. I'm bleary and tired but it was worth it. Sadly, now I have to get Season 2 ASAP peeps. I can't believe it was Nina!

Moving on. What else has happened during the last three days? I'm not sure, I can't remember. All I know is that I'll be in London next week (HALLE-FREAKING-LUJAH) and about to be a bridesmaid. Which means that approximately in the next week, I need to find a tailor and give them blouse material and the works. Sigh. And find beige shoes. And learn how to tie a sari (crikey).

I had some positive thoughts two days ago, but I can't remember what they were. This is not to say that I'm swimming in negativity at the moment, merely that there is a hiatus at the moment.