I

I am flawed ,

lapsed ,

error-made 

and not first class.

I'm the one 

who is color - driven 

and sensible 

the one who fall,

get bruised ,

cut,

bleed and cry,

forve easily.

I may be careless -

out of nothing,

I may be the most disgusting 

piece of thing for you ,

a disarray of grief.

I am not perfect 

and not anybody's eka pun sanda. 

I am no beautiful 

not color washed

or the one that glitters 

like tharu piri ahasa. 

I hurt
I ridicule

and yet

I think of you in every way.

I am a figure ,

the most sickened for you some days

but soft ,

in your heart

I'd like to think.

Read more

Size

Taken from   https://www.facebook.com/hiranya.malwatta.pics?fref=photo (  Hiranya Malwatte Pictures)

Is a measure for measure

a number

its about dimensions and

dimension-ing.

It is the scale or footage

the relative of something

a thing’s overall magnitude

or how big is something

or how large they are.

And yet,

one cannot

in terms of size

of width or height

or of volume

can appraise Dhamma

the delicate it is ,

this matter of dukha

and

dukha nathi kireema.

(Inspired by Hiranya Malwatte's photography)

Read more

I

I love you as much as your finger – tip , so tender

I love you like the crystal moon so softer than the cloud

I love you like fire that flares gold on your body

I love you like a ship that carries me to those isles of yours.

I love you in colors that don’t exist

I love you in everything named and not named

I love you like bluebells , chocolates and white hills

I love you like stars that pulse up-

when your heart beat meets mine

I love you in rhythm and song,

and in aromas known and unknown

I love you like the sun that solstice,

and equinox burning like your hot heart

I love you in every word you drip on my skin

I love you as your wet body wedges between my wet body-

and rain kisses like raining kittens.

Read more

Heavenly things of Thummulla

Around Thummulla
passing the watarawuma
is a line composed and ribboned
with Mara
on either sides.
And a little ahead
towards Rajakeeya Mawatha 
is a green dark silk-
a sunless forest
against the main road architectonics
that pours over you.

And wanting more
its breath of wind and caress
each time  the feet drifts
from a Mara gaha 
to another,

the repeated pleasures
of these heavenly things.


It's a place I know
that shelters and will shelter,
a pacifier and pacifies.

Its a place of desires,
encounter  and love-note.

Its a place that is
crepuscular
when everything else is bright.
And it is the only place
that chills
meanwhile everything else  burns
to the steaming skies
on the  Thummulla road

that I can think of.

Read more

Ways of holding

So I have always held you in my heart..

I hold you the way a desert walker draws constellations

From Ursa major to Orion

Finding the Polaris

In astronomy of deserts.

placing pebbles 

on a serape

a not so straight line 

in a pattern

saying 'these are the heavens'

to love's preferred residencies.

I hold you the way a boatman calculates movement

of  the red needle of a compass

for curve point and turning ways

to find its super highway

to  the lesser known residences.

I hold you  the way the jambu staunch

drops   shyly down

when the first light  canoodles

removing the  dew drop tears.

I hold you the way  the summer birds dive

through every summer

so careless and playful

in their infancy

I hold you  through the text of a news paper article

I hold you  through   lines of poetry

I hold you through picture and gaze

I hold you through a laptop screen

I hold you in memory ,

in countenance and word.

Read more

Mountains are cool to climb

In Colombo you don’t find mountains. If you happen to live in a hilly area like Kandy or Bandarawela or NuwaraEliya, there are mountains enough and more than needed. When you look out of a window, beyond houses and curved roads perhaps, you will see mountains one after another spreading out. Carefully placed. Beautifully patterned. And they come in different colors too. Some are green. Some look brown, dark or light.  In fact if a mountain burns they turn into ash color.


If you are visiting a friend in the hills or travelling to such a place, you will realize that you are driving up a mountain.  Driving up a hill isn’t easy. A driver should not be very fast in a mountainous road. He should be competent to take control over speed and direction in winding mountains. He / She shouldn’t hug the center line of the road. If you are the center line and a center hugging vehicles comes from the opposite direction, they may over react and cause accident. So whoever gearing up or even driving down a mountain should be patient and watchful. Mountains are creepy. Climbing can be scary. Have you ever wondered if a vehicle fell off the mountain when taking a curve or approaching the crest of the hill?  Have you ever thought how life is and was for those living up on hills?  How those people in mountainous cities and those with no vehicles get to the market or  school or to  hospital, you have thought? How would it be when it is too cold up there? How do they warm themselves?

www.groundpounder.org

Living up on a hill top is not easy as much as driving or climbing up. Think of a mountain you have climbed. Not by vehicle, but by foot. Some of you would  have never climbed a mountain. Some would have had the urge to climb but was afraid to do so. They know however the view up there is fantastic. It is something like you want to become a Marketer, and you know Marketing is going to be interesting though you don’t want to become one. You tend to think the way up to become a Marketer is hard .




When climbing a mountain your final stop is the hill top or its peak. And it is always important to decide which route you are going to take. If you take a careful look there are infinite numbers of routes to the top. Which path will you take? Are you going to take the one that many have done before and the one that is easy to follow? Or a secluded route?  A route less traveled can make a difference.  Your view can be different from others. Your adventures are different to another who climbs the same mountain.



You will take off gently. But as you climb up the trail gets harder, naturally. Your legs and lungs may hurt. They might even cry out stop.  Some of you may turn back and give up. Because you think you will never see the end. But some will dare the risk to climb up.


Life is like a mountain. There are ups and downs. When you go up, the way is steep and tiring. But there is one moment when your breath returns normal. The aching muscles are gone and lungs are no longer burning. That is when you reach the top. It is cool to be on top of a mountain.  It is cool to get wrapped by the cold winds that sweep away mountains. It is cool to see how everything down there looks  minuscule. It is cool to see the cloud movement, so clear and close. It is cool to see how birds dive so fast. It is even cooler to lie down a bit and fall a sleep.

Read more

Shall we move on from ‘Katin bathalakola hituweema' and look for some action?

Are you all talk and no action?
Pic source : Internet

We are made and colored by karmic DNA. DNA is unique from one to another. An indicator for identification. So does the flower and tree. Even countries are made of DNA. They have their own way of doing things. They have their own ways of beautifying the country. And these countries have certain aspects that are divine  for them. Yes.Only for them .You’d not find them anywhere.  I tend to think.

This country is a chocolate box. It is filled with different kinds of chocolates. Some made of nuts. Filled with almonds. Some with caramel. Some come with an orange filling. A coconut filling. Some are bitter. Some may not taste good at all. So may historians .And so many interpretations. Foil –wrapped. Carefully kept. Fragments of somebody’s imagination. Picked or formed, this way and that. They illustrate pretty pictures. Some are utterly horrible.  And we take them along with us. Talk about them. Again and again. For decades and generations.  Until they are spoiled and spoiled. Sick and sickening.   

This country is a serendipity. This country is made of triumph and defeat. This country is made of a cup of tea from the hills’ tea leaf, dance of a devil dancer, tumouring hands of a potter and the water lapping in Iranamadu. Innately beautiful. This country is a melting pot of all religions. This is a country made of the drones of pirith and church hymns. It is also made of  kovil’s poosari and prayers of Allah.

This country is made of curiosity. I have found. We are excited about things that happen around us. We want to know who stole Appuhami’s wattakka the night before. Who is the girlfriend of Lalitha’s big boy. Why are they too late to marry. Or why Herath divorced when he has such a sweet wife. Naturally, this country  worries  about others. And they have forgotten to save some time to think of themselves and improve life.

This country is too this, too that. Not enough this, not enough that.

And we’d add to that list. This country knows to talk. We know to talk of all possibilities and impossibilities. We know well to discuss what should be done and what should not to be done. Without practice.

We are thrilled by an amazing culture that reached perfection 2000 years ago. Which now hangs over us. The sheer presence of it has only made us to brag about how we did things. We are overjoyed by seeing ancient architecture. Like Embekke carvings and Dandumonara for example. Like Sigiriya and its mystic water technology for example.  Like the ponds and ancient pools in Anuradhapura for example. But we have failed to go beyond theDandumonara and the magnificent rock.  We haven’t acted enough to enrich the glorious past with new achievements. We are living in a remembered history. That is thousands of years ago. We have been sitting on our asses and talking about things to be done. Since that day the  kings and queens left us. We are in 2015. Have we done anything new? Ask for yourself.

A few days old Sivaloganathan Vithya was raped and killed. Rape stories are not new to us. Many Vithyas were raped and killed over the years. And each day that happened we grieved.  When Vithya died there was collective grieving. Some protested along roads. Some lit candles commemorating her death. We have discussed and have been discussing ways to stop such criminal acts. But nothing has stopped rape. We are still discussing .Sadly we don’t feel ashamed for what we do.

There is all talk and no trousers. Governments talk. Authorities talk. Politicians talk. They all talk about doing big things. But none has the courage to put into practice what has been talked. We got to realize this. Protests and candles won’t work. Protests happen and they are forgotten the next day. Candles are lit, but they die with wind. They are not going to be long term solutions.

We’ve got two choices. Either we should move on from katin bathalakola hituweema (since we have been doing it always) and look for some action. Or else sit and grieve over the deaths to come. What would you like?

Read more

A Sunday thought

All day desires swim in.

Swiftly. To the heart.

Without notice, no handwriting of pre warning.

Sidelong coquetry

under the big banyan trees,

next to Colombo Archives.

‘Alinganaya’- an embrace,

in intoxication,

Madness, in blood rush.

He’s got hungry 

as his burning heart rests on her breasts

his teeth tightened with hers,

mouth full, tongues- cross’d.

A kiss in oblivion. Tender. Hot.

In the sun-less road.

Caught by her shifting white skirt

buries his shaven face into her skirt

so she could feel the prickles of his stubble,

through the cotton. Trembles.

The gentle peck

of his hardened stalk 

on her muff,

they calculate movements

of ragas of longing 

second by second.

Read more

You don't like Fruitcake?

Pic source - Internet

Ruvin De Silva, a Facebook friend. Director. Ruvin staged his second drama at British School Auditorium a few days back. This is not about how successful he was in making the drama. I’d be honest. I couldn't watch it. Ruvin’s Fruitcake is and was different. But his Fruitcake got me to think of  all these. I transcribed. 

Cake making   is not easy.  A recipe will give you the easiest instructions. But that comes out with a lot of care. And hard work too. Only those who make will know the art of nozzling. It takes a great deal of practice.You have to know the right angle required. The right amount of pressure to nozzle. You got to know about the moving speed and direction. Because they will take you through different patterns. Cake makers are made of wearing hands. They are committed. Persistent. And watchful.

Yes. Cake eating days are happy days. Cakes come with birthdays. Everybody comes to cut the cake. Everyone wants a piece of cake. They eagerly wait until they are been served with one. Cake days were a fiesta –like-thing for us, in School. The entire grade flocked at the birthday girl’s class. Whether she was a friend or not didn’t matter for cake. Everyone wished her and the birthday girl did not forget to treat them with cake. When that did not work someone who knew the cake giver got cake for others.  They were shared in 10s and 15s. Sharing is caring. Cake or whatnot. Cake has   taught us to share and make another happy.

Two Mondays ago a friend and I have been thinking of a birthday surprise for another friend. We had been running through names of all kinds of cake. Walked into different cake shops to see what would look good for her. Dissecting a cake from another is difficult. Everything looks pretty. They may be of different size or different flavor. But they can be equally tasty. Having jumped from brightly –colored ribbon cake to vanilla and chocolate stuff, we were too hungry deciding what to buy. And ended up with red velvets. Yikes!

For now let’s forget the chocolate cake, vanilla cake, lemon cake, fudge and others. How about some fruitcake?

Fruitcake is also known as Christmas cake in other parts of the world. Often made during Christmas. Not an all-time favorite. However, Fruitcake story starts from Egypt. Ancient Egyptians made fruitcake for their departed loved ones to carry with them to the afterlife. The dense cake and preserved fruits have been thought to withstand the journey, while the riches of nuts and fruits meant to be the wealth of consumers. Fruit cake contains candied fruit, dried fruit, fruit rind, nuts, spices and some sort of liquor or brandy. Dried fruits don’t taste good. So many of you might not like. I like it when raisins and cashews (nut megs) hit my teeth. It gives a good taste though.

Fruitcake is criticized. A lot. Offended. Who on earth eats it? One might think. It doesn’t taste like cake! Some complain.

But during Easter and Christmas Fruitcake is advertised everywhere. In large numbers. Fruitcake is nicely wrapped. Some think it’s nice to gift, therefore. Some might re -gift them. But they will never talk ill of those fruitcake givers. Instead they are thanked. And some might have a little piece of fruitcake as dessert after a dinner party.

There are things you may not like in life, but tolerate. Like Fruitcake for some people. Life isn’t straight. It’s not smooth. There is joy and sorrow. Both. Fruitcake is strange. It makes you feel sweet at times and then bitter another time. Life is bumpy like fruitcake. You are meant to endure the rigors of the journey. You’ll find dried dates, rinds, nuts and raisins here and there. They’ll wait until you get caught to them. And you then know how they taste like .If you don’t like dried fruits, the next time you eat them you’ll take a good look, find where the dried fruits are and avoid them. Great. Sometimes you need to fall into the pit to know how it looks like. Think.  Getting along with new friends or a new boss can be hard. New ideas or new systems can be difficult to digest at once. But taking a bite by bite of it you will find it easy.  It’s like getting used to a newly made fruitcake, you have not eaten before.

So here’s what. Fruitcake is not bad.Just that there are  some fruit to bake . Have them once in a while. You will know how life can get bitter. Despite all the chocolate and vanilla. 

Read more