Love in the Age of World Domination

The Messy Business of Life

This has got to be the longest time between posts on this blog. I am sure the irony is not lost on anyone that the last post was titled 'a slacker's guide'. I have now officially broken my own record for ultimate slacker-ness - and this time its in something I love to do. Writing. Thats like me slacking on sleeping or eating cookies.

Its been a hell of a two months.

I just returned to Washington after a month away for work to Indonesia and Malaysia, and then Sri Lanka for vacation. Although I was super-stressed before going, the work part of the trip turned out to be awesome, in particular the Big UN climate conference down in Bali - 10,000 people, zillions of side events, crazy media circus, amazing resorts and beaches. The actual negotiations in the plenary were fascinating, although, not being used to UN processes, found them a tad strange, and not convinced its the way to solve complex problems. I have never been a fan of far-removed top down approaches to problem solving.. although I can see why in the case of climate change this may be the only way to go.

As for Lanka, it was exactly as it is every year. Too hot, too party-crazed, and too many vehicles on the sum total of 4 roads that is Colombo. Not the most zen place for a relaxed vacation but its got its usual charms: midnight mass where an incoherent non-English speaking priest read out a pre-written sermon while we giggled, got bitten by mosquitoes, and watched the strapless and  backless fashions; Christmas day lunch replete with pork curry and 'wattalappan' and uncle M's umpteenth stories from 1932; followed by a few days at a beach resort. Basically you can square it all off in 5 days. 

But now about what happened before I left town in Dec. In a one sentence nutshell I found myself in the starring role of a very bad Mexican teledrama.. or one of those romantic comedies gone awry. I promise I will write That Story one day soon, but for now suffice to say that it involved two men, one proposal, one new boyfriend, one soul mate, and massive doses of high stakes drama that played out over the course of five weeks, which left all three protagonists drained and in much need of space and time..  hence my trip to the East came at an opportune moment.

Part of the reason I couldn't bring myself to write in the last months is that so many crazy things were happening all at once, and my emotions were so all over the place that I didn't know what to chose to write about, or if to write at all. Eventually the choice was made for me by my own hesitation- I wrote nothing. That seemed less fake in a way than writing light-heartedly about random stuff while staying silent on the most important thing that was happening.

And every day, there was a new twist, some major new development in the story.  And little lazy slacker me- there's only so much I can cope with at once. For God sake I can only drink one cup of tea at a time. And I can definitely only love one person at a time. Loving two very amazing beautiful people - doing right by them, treating each kindly and with equanimity, having to think every action and every word through and through, it took a toll on this old goat. I mean, people, I am no spring chicken. My heart is all bruised and battered, I have never felt so pulled in so many directions, so caught between a rock and a hard place no matter which way I turned.

I have thought about whether I really want to tell this story. But given that this blog is dedicated to writing about love and the like, its not like I can get away without writing about some of it at least. So I will. Just not today.
 

Lankan M.I.A: She's All That

"let me share this awesome sound I have found with you."

So M.I.A. was supposed to record her new album, Kala, in New York with Timbaland but had trouble getting a US work visa. So she changed plans and went all around the world recording and synthesizing every bit of  sound she found into one big album. And Kala is the result. Named after her mom this time (Arular, the previous album, was named after her dad- linked to the LTTE).

And it looks like everybody loves it, from the Rolling Stones to the New York Times, which raves that "the issues she raises are far more complex and discomfiting than pop’s usual calls for peace and recycling." And given the dearth of outspoken young female stars, she’s a rarity."  Go M.I.A.!

Washington Post: "It's M.I.A.'s world-music revolution, and we're just dancing to it. Didgeridoo and all."

The Fader: "Every song has a layer of some other country on it. It’s like making a big old marble cake with lots of different countries and influences."

Vulture: "Kala is a delirious, dance-inducing amalgamation of Sri Lankan folk music, Bollywood caricature, and didgeridoo flatulence. In short: It's awesome."

Pitchfork: M.I.A. Confronts the Haters

popmatters: "The most obvious (and perhaps only) unifying factor is M.I.A.'s own disaffected voice and her constant wide-eyed wonder." 

M.I.A's myspace page.

3 Months on Earth

Dear Ayushi girl,

Happy 3 months on the planet!

And aren't you a fiery little beauty? You've definitely got the famous Fernando hair, and as I hear, the super-sociable Jha temperament.

  So, what was it like taking your first plane trip, and what do you think of Cool-ombo and your new home? I imagine a little too hot for you, and a bit craaaaaaaazy, what with monsoon floods and WW2 style air raids at night. I know! What were your parents thinking 'retiring' there?? I think its something to do with the 1 staff to 1 family member ratio of having a maid, driver, and nanny to look after you three.

What do you think of grandpa and grandma Fernando?  As you will learn GM is very protective and very "on-top-of-everything". Absolutely nothing escapes her radar screen and monitoring.  If your poo is a shade darker she will notice and she will bug your dad about it until he 'fixes' it.   As for GP, I heard that you giggle incessantly when you see him - now whats up with that? Are you laughing with him or at him? We wanna know because when your dad and I were kids we were kinda scared of him. So whats your secret A-girl??

I heard you enjoyed the world cup cricket and rooted for the awesome Lankans! Yeah don't let your mommy take you over to the dark side on that one. I also heard that you are not much of a sleeper at night. Welcome to Bat World! Night time is our time! Don't let anyone make you feel bad for being different! Besides you are only 3 months - its totally your right to stay up all night if you want to - and its not like your parents have jobs to go to the next day anyway. 

Well A-girl I hope to catch you soon on skype or IM - last week's webchat was awesome! Hey btw I loved that print dress you were wearing. Polka dots are all the rage now!!

I miss you terribly, love you,

-Hira Didi

Child Soldier or Just a Short Guy?

Few minutes ago I was forwarded this headline screaming
Sri Lanka army is accused of recruiting child soldiers for rebel group.

I think to myself hmmm.. that picture looks familiar. And then it hits me: its the same picture taken by M on holiday in Jan 2006 - not of some dude fighting a war in the Northern jungles, but of a security guard outside the Odel Department Store in Colombo.

And World, please note: This is NOT a child-soldier, just a short Sri Lankan guy. Here's the original pic.

  Update 16 Nov: They wised up and changed the picture

Lanka Love dot com

How does the internet know my age and my ethnicity? How does it know what I might be thinking?

I have so much spam in my hotmail in-box, but its uncanny how targeted the stuff is. A message from ThirtyPlusSingles proclaims loudly: "Are you single and over 30?  Tired of online dating sites filled with nothing but FAKE profiles?  Meet *REAL* people!"  The couple featured in the picture are "mature professionals" in a warm loving embrace. All I can see is that the man has grey hair, and even in the soft light he looks 40-plus. DEPRESSING. 

Then there's the one from AsianSingles where for $29.99 a month only one has unlimited access to their database, which is searchable for thousands of Asian singles in DC.

Never mind that they got the wrong kind of "Asian". Although really, in this day and age, it is surprising that educated professionals in the world's cosmopolitan centres - ie. the types who typically are open-minded enough to use these dating site - would then be narrow-minded about their 'ethnocentric' choices.  Or maybe, as the concept of finding love online goes mainstream, its been adopted by the most conservative segments of society, and is no different to conventional marriage brokering services (where factors such as race and religion are key).

So...  lets imagine for a minute that I was one of those people stuck on marrying someone who, like me, is Sri Lankan and Catholic, and lets say I was adamant about limiting myself to that minuscule sub-sub-sub-sub set of the population.. here are my choices from www.lankalove.com:

• I am Asiri, working as an Accountant. non-smoker, teetotaller, listning and caring. Searching for a bride, with simple life style from a respectable family. Dowry not required. Please reply with horoscope and family details
• Srilal, I am a chef working in galle district. lookinga good girl who like to live together with my perent and to helping my business with good undestanding
• I am Kumara from Kolonnawa, I am working at a largest media organisation in country in a recognized post. I am looking for a girl to marry, she musn't be too much beautiful just girl who match me mentally and physically. So if there any gilrl interest on me lets exchange our views for better relationship.
• Jagath: I'm working in Colombo and like to meet some nice girls after oofice for chat and for a cofee at Crescat. do you like to meet me?

And of course the best for last from Hemajith:

• I'm Colombo area. but now I out f country. I like to joing with some educated nice girl for love forever. First we should understand about us, then only we can go to make love. Frist I invited to make good friendship with me.If you like send me mail.

Well - who should I pick?? So spoiled for choice!!

Variety vs Same

The holiday was good - but its even better to be home. I think its middle-age. One wants one's things: my big bouncy bed, my bathroom, sinking my feet into the warm fur of the bath mat as I step out of the shower, picking up the 'ol tall-skim-no-foam-latte from Starbucks and half drinking it half spilling it on the 20 minute walk into work, while I listen to Hank Williams Jr. (who else:) on my ipod and turn into the crispy cold but sunny weather. Scorpio my Nigerian cab driver shouts a hello from across the street, and I plan that I will have a cream cheese and salmon bagel for lunch and sushi for dinner.   

Its the choice, the variety, the freedom, but most of all the comfort of known things, trusted entities, no surprises.

The Natives are Restless

The latest Odel (department store) slogan says "Sri Lanka - No Place Like it". The thing is there are lots of places like it. Pretty much any middle income developing country with a per capita income of $500 pa. The social structure, moral values, and family traditions of SL today are not unlike those of Europe in the mid 20^th century. Closeted, class conscious, tribal. But now add rapidly developing and confused. Rice & curry or McDonalds? Arranged marriage or civilised dating? Designer sarees or designer jeans?

I sense a war that wasn't there before. No not that one. A war of cultures, of right and wrong. As change occurs rapidly, and with economic prosperity comes social change, all that is abhored as "western" and "corrupt" is openingly happening here too, and within "good respectable families" no less: divorce, affairs, single parent homes, casual relationships, sex, drugs, its all here. And the Lankans seem to be comfortable saying "life happens to us too".

The Good Life Starts Here

Just landed in Sri Lanka after an atrocious two day trip that included a 12-hr layover in London. But every cloud has a silver lining. I got to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner with one of my closest friends from LSE days, and even enjoyed a surprise cup of coffee with another mutual friend of ours who just at that moment happened to be transitting though Heathrow on her way to the US.

Its Christmas eve in SL - so just time for a shower and then off to my aunt X's for the traditional Christmas eve dinner and marathon family gift exchange session. This will be followed by a mosquito-bitten hot and humid midnight mass where my uncle Y will insist on sitting in the front pew and snoring right through the whole mass. Then a spot of sleep, followed by a gluttonous food-coma inducing Christmas lunch at my other aunt Z's. Then its off to a string of parties, weddings, and 1950s-style “dinner dances” that will culminate with the big new years eve bash.

This set up has not changed in the last 20 odd years. Just like the bad traffic and the salacious gossip of the chattering classes. But as Mali says, in Colombo, it doesn't matter if its peace or war, tsunami or drought, marriage or funeral, “the show must go on”.

Its good to be here.

The Things You Leave Behind

I didn't know there were elections in SL let alone who won. It would be less embarrassing for me if this could be attributed to my usual fishbowlesque cluelessness, but it can't. For I knew everything else that was going on in the world: Paris burning, Bush's trip to China, even the latest Paris Hilton drama. But the goings on the Isle of Paradise I missed.

I could pretend that I follow whats going on in Sri Lanka. I could feign interest... But that would be a lie. The short and brutal of it is that its just been too long. 22 years to be exactly. Two thirds of my life to be precise have been spent outside Sri Lanka. With the passage of time some things are forgotten, overwritten...and new things are learnt. Its in the natural course of things. Besides, for better or for worse, I had a set of parents who are resolutely not cut from the proverbial immigrant cloth-  insisting on eating curry, arranging their kids'' marriages, vehemently imposing the moral superiority of values back home decades after they've left that home.

Its not that I am not proud of my heritage; its just that I don’t see the superiority of it over any other, as time passes being Sri Lankan, or Singhalese, or Catholic are not my defining features. They are not even my best.

There are some memories of my birth country that will be cherished forever: sitting on my grandfather's (my single most favorite person in all my 10 years of memories of Sri Lanka) lap as he reads me my first English story books. Wearing my starched white uniform with this little red buckle and going to school, piano lessons and winning little prizes, family trips to wildlife reserves and beaches, powers cuts and candle light, monsoon rains and floods, watching old re-runs of Knight Rider and Charley's Angels with Mali. But today it is just another place for a family vacation, a sunny beach holiday in the middle of winter, a quaint old place away from home.. but its not home.

Tsunami Update

Warning: explicit content.

From Dilanka Seimon [mailto: dilanka3@hotmail.com]
Sent: Wed 1/12/2005 7:30 PM
The most hopeless days were the first three days after the 26^th. No one knew what hit them. There were dead people everywhere. Thousand of people were trying to find their relatives. Roads were destroyed limiting access. The government failed to get the situation under control and the most disappointing were the aid agencies who failed to step up to the plate in the beginning. In those first traumatic 72hrs it was private companies and ad hoc groups who organized themselves and did what they could as quickly as possible. The situation was worse by Wednesday. Dead bodies were hanging from trees and piling up by the roadside. In some north eastern areas no one even knew what was happening as whole towns were just washed away and there was no one to tell the stories.

I was able to visit camps from the Western parts of the country to the second-worst effected Southern part. I got involved with a great group of people who did an amazing job: a group of foreigners living in Sri Lanka and several Sri Lankans living abroad who first started volunteering at the Sri Lankan Red Cross the Monday after the disaster but by Tuesday realized that nothing much was getting done there. They then formed their own group called IMPAKT, as just a group of people wanting to help.Turned out to be a unique mix of people with the contacts and efficiency of the first world combined with local knowledge, language and expertise. With no official mandate, they just made it their mission to help where it was most needed, bypassing the bureaucracy and delays that befell the more established agencies. Thanks to their contacts, resources,and efficient execution they were able to send truck loads of supplies to the southern part of the country and also airlift goods to the Eastern part within one day of forming the group. BBC covered their efforts by Jan 4th.

Within IMPAKT, I worked with a team of 5 that supplied goods along the southern and western coast of Sri Lanka. While supplying goods to the refugee camps we taught them how to organize themselves as a camp and were able to develop a data base of the several camps, which helped us better organize our distribution. As the weeks progressed, the group got bigger, and with a substantial amount of funds coming in, decided to register as an NGO. IMPAKT is now concentrating on the next step, which is to help improve the conditions in the camps. There are some camps with 1500 people, only two toilets, and no clean drinking water. IMPAKT has designed and already built a prototype of a set of 4 toilets with a common sewerage system at an estimated cost of $600 per set and a building time of 3 days. They also plan to build tube wells, estimated at $110, which will provide drinking water to the camps. This is not only a solution to a short term sanitary problem in the camps, but there are also long term benefits of adding toilets to churches, temples and mosques, places where a majority of the camps are located.

What this space for updates...

More Tsunami

From vitusfernando@yahoo.com

Sent 01/11/2005 10:52 AM

It is 9.30pm. Just got back from Kalutara. Not much of Kalutara exists now (click on satellite image). Utter devastaion at Katukurnda. 249 houses in the village destroyed. 276 families living with friends or in four makeshift camps. Pathetic and miserable. It will be a long time before life returns to normal for these people. Some of them I went to school with..

Tragedy and Tears

Our warm family holiday in Amsterdam shifted seamlessly into a nightmare in Sri Lanka just 24 hours after we'd been to Christmas Mass and opened our presents. What started off on the morning of the 26th of December as 130 dead became 1000 before the end of the day and today is almost 50,000 and still counting....   

What a tragedy. By the grace of God all our immediate family and friends who still live in Sri Lanka are ALL ok, but we know of so many who have lost their homes and all their possessions.

Its been a rough couple of weeks. In London, we just huddled up together watching over and over again the same tragic depressing scenes on TV. Normally we are there this time of year, and normally, 26th Dec is the day we travel to the beach resorts down south to get away from Colombo for a few of days of relaxation between xmas and new years. This time last year I came back from SL and wrote this chirrpy little piece. Now that seems like a another century. 

Everyone we know in London/Geneva/USA is packing boxes and boxes of all kinds of supplies, medicine, clothes, babyfood etc.. and arranging for shipments to be sent to SL. The whole country is like a funeral ... literally. A few days ago there was a mass funeral for 20,000 of the dead. Can one even begin to comprehend that kind of loss of life..