COLOMBO SCOPE 2014 - " Making History"

Eat M &M’s, sleep, and pray, sit, yawn, travel or groan may be. Cross boarders, enjoy the foreign cuisine, enjoy some exotic sex with a stranger, have encounters, meetings, make love and break affairs, learn life lessons, sob, empathize and even talk and sniff. No matter where we are, in which part of the world we live in , what race we are , what  sex or age , our actions are more likely the same that revolves around the world. But there is one thing that make every society unique and to talk proud of themselves. It’s the culture.

Today many of us at various junctures in life migrate to other countries. We are born to one country but we make living in another home. These cross political, social, cultural and economic aspects have created complex identities. We belong here and there. Different geographies that are mapped have created different adaption methods. What devises a country? Is it the religion, the ethnicity, the customs or the language spoken?  How about those outsiders who make home in other countries? Where do we really belong? Do we really inherit the lifestyle of a particular country or do we carry beliefs of some specific nation?

 The roots of origin are baffling, confusing and complex. More likely we share diverse styles of living, sharing, eating and dressing. This year’s COLOMBO SCOPE will bring “HOMELANDS” featuring the art, paintings, sculptures and photographs demonstrating  the contemporary cultures .Perhaps this will be a  landmark event  in remembering the traditional customs  , national or international  it may be and an opportunity to learn and practice cultures for the younger generations who miss it.

History is never to be forgotten. The present is a gift of the past. History voices the ancestors and the rich heritage of any nation. Colombo Scope will make “MAKE HISTORY” this year. They are ready to take spectators to the lives of people hundreds and hundreds of years ago. It will be the chance for the audience to take a glimpse of the ancient lifestyle, to interpret the differences of the olden days and the digital era and above all life lessons to be carried further via the older ancestors.

Colombo Scope 2014 will re discover the forgotten music, the traditional dances, folk dances and the cuisine of the bygone era. The writers from the nation and beyond will get together to debate and follow discussions to ponder on their thoughts about the modern society and how life was centuries back.

It’s time for all of us to get prepared to see the old and seldom views. It’s time to make a fantasy journey to an unknown past yet heard and familiar.

Come; take a look at Colombo Scope!  Enter the busy city woven with its sophisticated Colombo Port and the harbor and the Lotus Lounge of the Grand Oriental Hotel to witness the evening festivals. Learn the past and discover the future.

Read more

SAWASDEE THAILAND

( Written while in Chaiyo District , Ang Thong Province , Thailand  on the 21st Jan 2014)

It was my second time in a Boeing, the UL 886. I wasn’t quite excited unlike for the very first time I traveled in the airplane. Yet a window seat will never fail to amaze me when flying in the air. Why? I get to see many things. Different kinds of landscapes when the plane takes off. I believe there is always something beautiful to be discovered out at the window. The sun rise and the sun sets are my favorite. The gigantic mountains, meandering lakes, buzzing cities with its sophisticated highway and subway networks woven into society is amazing.

 But this time I couldn’t work out much to capture the early sunrise in Thailand. I was too lazy, perhaps sleepy and jet lagged! The early morning in Siam wasn’t beautiful. It was the 16th of January. Even at 6 .15 in the morning there was a dim dusk moving. The sky featured in yellow, daisy like mixed with crimson. The paint was somewhat subdued. It didn’t ease me. I thought it will rain.

Airplanes have made travel easier. In three and a half hours time I was at the Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, finding my way to the foreign arrival queue.

After two days of my stay in Bangkok for a volunteer teacher preparation camp, I got to know from one of my friends that it is winter in Thailand now. So the gloomy sky I saw the day I arrived was a reason for winter. Even the cold that crept inside my clothes, the bitter wind that cut through my skin making me shiver constantly was another evidence of winter in Thailand. But there was something exceptional. No snow to be seen. Not even the rain or ice rain! Until dusk it was sunny. So far I have known that Thailand is super hot. Were the books wrong? Or was I wrong? What I knew of Thailand was even less than a thin strip of ribbon. Lately I knew that there is winter and the endless showers that fall from July to September which brings deadly floods at times.

People looked weird here. I realized that they were staring at me many a times I passed different faces. None of them bothered to utter a word. There was something incredibly odd. I discerned that the important notes from history occurred. They were rendered meaningless in the beginning. “Land of smiles” is just a word that I came across my Grade 11 History book. Thais smiled, smiled and smiled. They were supposedly happy-go-lucky people. The past years of the kingdom have been the most interesting. The political chaos and the social upheavals have resulted in mismanagement of the country. But still they’ll be smiling. Perhaps they are clueless about things. They just smile.

The more deeper and darker, behind the streets of Pattaya and the Pantong beaches is a Disneyland for pedophiles. Every inch of the pavement is dedicated to the sex toy trade. For all one knows, it’s a multi-million dollar sex – sale industry. It was quite obnoxious and yucky! Sex is usual but the sex trade was a flucky picture for me.

There is more to calculate, to hear, to feel and to experiment through the windows of the little room that I own from my host family. The stuffed pavements with poker players, the vendors selling fried cockroaches, flies and even fireflies. The raw footpaths surrounded by dry leaves in rural Thailand , the rock bands  and the brown eyes of the Thai bar girls in city hunting down to lay all night in thirst for lust . Nights never to be forgotten. Alone in Sins.

More to come in another 35 days,

Sawasdee Thailand!

Read more

එලඳ වරුණ නාරිලතාවයී ..

( Written in early 2010)

සේද වළා අතරින් 

නැගෙනා ලා හිරු කැන් 

නුබ සරසන්නී ..

බඹරිඳු හඬ අතරින්

පල බර අතු පතරින්

මුදු හඬ ආවායි ..

මදහස පාමින් බඳ 

තාලෙට තබමින් පය 

එළඳ නටන්නී ..

නීල වරල සමගින් 

පින්බර නෙත් දෙපලින් 

මියුරුලතාවයි ..

ගිගිරි වලලු සමගින් 

ඉඟ සුඟ නලවාමින්

නිතර රඟන්නී ..

දුටු සත පිනවමින් 

ගෝමර හැඩ පාමින් 

තොස වඩ වන්නී ..

සබඳ අසනු 

එලඳ වරුණ 

නාරිලතාවයී ..

Read more

PLANS, PLANNED AND UNPLANNED DAYS

“Anwar, you beauty! Wonderful strokes at a stretch, five sixes for the over. He does that really well. He reads the game carefully. Pakistan needs him now  ...” A midst the papare sounds, the loud whistles and the noisy applauses of the live cricket match that came out of the television, I faintly heard my phone vibrating far on the table. It was a viber call. Interestingly the number was too long. It had more than 10 digits. Quite pleased with the general education lessons, I knew +69 was the country code for Australia. The phone rang twice but I didn’t bother to answer because the call was unknown. The fourth, I picked up the phone . It said “hello” and she wanted to assure if it was me whom she was calling to. The voice wasn’t familiar. I said “yes ! yes!” twice in a crooked voice. Sooner I knew it was one of mates, whom I met in the sixth grade. There is nothing much of her I remember because that encounter, in year 2003 was the first and the last of our meetings.

My friend explained me that she got my phone number from another friend of hers, whom I know well. I was frankly happy to talk with her. I felt downright for her having remembered of me. Until then I didn’t know that she had left school to do London A/L’s.  She is now a second year student in the University of Melbourne, studying for her Bachelors in Accounts and Finance Management.

We had a few words exchanged. She was quite eager to know what I was doing too. She briefed me the life in Australia, her studies and the part time work she had been doing for some time. But there was something disturbing in the conversation as we moved. She suddenly asked me  about my plans for the New Year. I paused for a moment. It reminded me of legitimately life improving New Year’s resolutions that I came across a dog’s diary I’ve read. Those resolutions read as follows –

1. To eat more that make you feel good
2. Run outside and yell more
3. Greet everything
4. Be nice to nice people
5. Fart without shame
6. Worry less about things you can’t eat and play with
7. Take care of your genitals
8. Pick fights with shoes and pillows
9. Be less scared of telephones and strangers

I shamelessly accepted that I have no such plans even when a dog does! It’s only exams and nothing else to get prepared with brand newly for me. I felt “I am old”, not new. New years are different than it was.

Back then when I was schooling there was so much of getting ready for the New Year. New books, new uniforms, new classrooms, new teachers and sometimes new friends. Then more determined to work better than the previous year or may be to achieve better grades in subjects than before. A fresh start was something long awaited. But now the “New year” seems just a name. There is no such preparation. I’ll be still using the same old lecture notes, the torn and ragged module papers, the same lecture halls, the same lecturers followed by the first year final exams on the very first day of the coming year.

There’s one thing for sure though.

There will be days lived and loved, disappointments and achievements, praise and criticism which will be new undeterred by old notes, old modules and the old lecturers.

New year resolutions are quite common among people today, especially the West. Resolutions tend to come in two ways. Either to do something good or to kick some bad habit. Some people are obsessed with making resolutions. I’m quite amazed as to what’s so significant about resolutions. Is it a must? Do you know any person who has lived up to his resolutions made at the beginning of an year? I could hardly count on such. I have observed that many who make resolutions at the beginning end up failing to do them or else they forget their plans in the middle of their journey.

I’m not discouraging those who make resolutions. Don’t get me wrong. Resolutions are good to rate yourself and make oneself transformed in better ways. Yet the timing is irrelevant I think. It shouldn’t be necessarily in late December or early January. Plans or goals can be set at any time. Anytime of the year is good for self-improvement.

How satisfied are you in 2013?

2013 was an unplanned year for me, filled with many unexpected confrontations, good or bad they may be. This has been the kind of life I’ve been living so far. It will be the same with 2014 and the rest of the years. As for me, I will consider each day as an opportunity for something new to be tried and live happily unplanned, random and adventitious.

It’s good to meet with haphazards and learn something worldly in life rather than to slip resolutions once made as you make a step further day by day.

Read more

“KNOW THE WATER IS SWEET BUT BLOOD IS THICKER”

It was a Saturday morning. I was called out by one of my best friends for a spend the day.  Appachchi promised to drop me at my friend’s house. We were travelling in the car. Unlike the other days, there was something strange inside the car. It was the radio channel!  Perhaps the usual Sinhala classics were switched to English. But the ones I heard were all modern.

What if I'm far from home? Oh Brother, I will hear you call

What if I lose it all? Oh Sister, I will help you out! 

Oh! If the sky comes falling down!

For you there’s nothing in this world I wouldn't do

My ears picked up these lines. The song was nice. I badly wanted to hear it again. The music was endearing.  The song just led me picture myself with my sister. Me and my sister, I do not say that we are very close. Perhaps she is eight years younger to me. We are in touch with each other at times, yet it’s not an easy relationship. There was a time where I came off the phone or may be my study table quite worried and dissatisfied very often.  It was fun for her to annoy me and stir up my emotions in front of relations, friends or whoever it may be.

Before the family got populated, all food, the clothes, the fun and even foreign travel only belonged to me, just one person. When my sister, Aroshi arrived; space was made for her, things changed.  I eventually started sharing the room with her, gradually my stories, the books I read and even frocks and t shirts which were stuffed inside the cupboard and never worn! We had bad days. We fought as much as we could, got ourselves hurt but healed at the same time. It’s the same even now. There are times I don’t approve her as “my own sister” in my mind for the constant rivalry between us. I did love her despite fights. They were just love; we did not consider the reason as to why and how we loved each other being kids. I remember the days cuddling her, making her sleep and playing inside her cot when she was little. They are the evidence of the love we had and a love confirmed till the last when everything fell away.

I am 21 now and I realize that she has become my creator and my history. She has taught me to give a lot, for giving has become a usual habit in me. Especially that giving is “giving all” and that there is no take back .She has tutored me that anger and hatred is bad. The more I get bad tempered, all my work get flipped. So I always work to avoid such vexation. By and by she has devised self-control within me and patience to bear all annoyances. One thing that counts more of all her teaching is that love is not always predicted and one is   not guaranteed of being loved in return.  One should not be necessarily loved to be loved back again. There can be enough and more times she criticizes me.  Many times of aversion. She may not share chocolates or books or stories with me as I do. I’ll be the forever “dumb retard” of hers, but there will be nothing that I wouldn't do for her to keep her safe and happy.

After all she is a universal teacher that promises a life last long.

Avicii, a Swedish singer made me think of all these until I reached my friend’s house. The official song of Avicii named “Hey brother” is a write up dedicated for those who died from the Vietnam War. There are pictures and clips of the Vietnam War interspersed in the video. The video goes on and on depicting the day to day life shared by a much older boy and a little one, like playing basketball, walking along the railway tracks, riding bicycles and family celebrations. At the end it is revealed that the elder brother is in fact his father who died in a war and the boy was reliving his father’s life from a memory box. The song illustrated true brotherhood, companions in battle and danger and companions for life beyond grave.

Today many singers focus mostly on the love life in many of their songs. They forget the family and siblings. Family and siblings are those with whom we experience love in first hand in our lives and carry it further unconsciously to our adult lives. They are important because they craft values within us and most importantly construct a way of life to be lived. Avicii repeats that “blood is thicker than water”. Today’s friends can be tomorrows’ backstabbers .Sometimes we realize later in life that family and siblings would always reach down to help when nobody is out there to help. They do not mind how much you've been naughty to them because they treasure the bond.

Therefore we gotta believe in love, we gotta believe in one another. A day that happens we would discover that every relationship needs constant sustenance and mutual respect. There is no exception for sisters and brothers too.

Read more

A WORLD WITHOUT STRANGERS

I have seen many things, heard many things, touched things and some untouched but have kept trying to touch. There is a world that’s completely unknown to me. Many adventures and lessons to learn are yet to come. But something is confusing. Is it that certain societies are strange to us or is it that we are not known to people? At times I feel that we know the world but it’s just that we have not attempted to reach the lives of people. We are bound by walls. We call some poor, some rich, some young, some old, some capable and incapable and one good and another bad. Yet, interestingly we are all devised with the same heart’s structure, the same brain cartilages, kidneys and the livers. The difference is that in some  may have messed up livers. Some with  hearts without veins. Human action and thoughts are the same. Some liberal, some with bobbled attitudes or very traditional. Some can be  quite aggressive or too generous or stonehearted may be. World is diverse. There are people who only look for the beauty and some who only see the ugly in the world. Among them there is this rare composition who would love to read lines in between both beauty and ugliness. Should one only look for the sweetness in life?  What does bitterness define then? We need both.  That’s what devises a complete man.

Pic By Thilina Brown Dilshan

Many people in the society have walled themselves. They are driven by prejudices.  These prejudices lie in two ways – ignorance and fear. The normal human response towards any person is “pre judgmental”.  We prejudice each other with a limited knowledge, especially if their behavior, or living conditions or the thoughts are different.  On the other hand some people refuse to change their attitudes thinking that they will lose their privilege. People are almost into operating some set standards and keep worshipping and believing them instead of living for what they think is right and wrong. Stereotyping is increasing day by day. People are creating social scripts in their heads about others and the roles that they believe they should play in this socially constructed world.

People don’t like to spend time or may be talk with someone who is lower in status than them. They consider it a dishonor.  People discriminate the rich for falling in love with the poor or the very younger being friends with the very older. Some restrict associating people all because they come from bad surroundings or may be because they’ve overheard bad of them. What can the status, the richness, the poverty or age  do?  We will not take these things with us to graves.  There is nothing called good or bad in people or that they are moral or immoral. We are born human, so we are bound to make errors and bound to think different. One shouldn’t be restricted of whom they would like to associate. One cannot be told of how they should act in society.  We are not perfect to judge others. What is important is to look good in everybody you meet and respect their journey.

We, being ordinary and well off at the least, may not like to deal with “mudukku” (shanties) people. We tend to identify those who come from “mudukkus “and brothels as immoral and corrupted. Even in our times there are people who disfavor homosexuals and P’s or P type (A Sinhala slang) seeing them as absurd or psychotic. Gays and lesbians are not shocking pictures. They’ve been existing since long time. They are a result of certain genetic and environmental factors and nothing to think delirious about them.

I’m not a rich traveler but is Thilina Aiya. He often makes journeys to places by train. “It was 4.30 in the evening. The train was packed with passengers, almost bent to one side” Thilina Aiya said. He has been on his way to Colombo from Panadura. He had been enjoying the sun set through the window, he said. The train has stopped suddenly due to “No Signal” when he saw some kids outside and has made a comic face at them and there it goes the reaction captured by him in a photograph.

The picture may talk a lot but there is something striking. All of us have our own stories on this earth. We all have a position in this world. It’s just that we don’t want to hear another person just because they are poor, immoral, homosexual or racially prejudiced. Everyone may not be good, but there is something good in everyone. Never judge people because every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. Judging and criticism will not make the human learn anything new, but would define one’s folly.

I think that there is nothing in the world so inspiring and satisfying to meet people and to explore moments with them, no matter their age, their color, the gender or whether they are good or bad.  There is always something good to know or something unknown to be known behind every smile just as for these little buddies. Even a second spent with somebody unknown will turn to be a known the moment we share portions of each other’s lives. It’s truly enlightening and moving.

So it’s your choice to decide …to unwall yourself or not to...

(Inspired by the photography of Thilina Dilshan Samarawickrama)

Read more

ARE APPLES SMARTER THAN JELLYBEAN OR BETTER THAN GINGERBREAD ?

The Gadol baage or half-a-brick is hardly seen today.  Indeed, those of the younger generation might not know what the term means.  They might be shocked to know that it was used to refer to mobile phones, on account of size and shape. 

Those times where everything was too big to hold is over. Even the world is contacting to the point that today we call it a “global village” because somebody in the USA can visit Asia within a matter of hours or someone flying thousands of miles high in an airplane could let his family know he is fine with just a few fingertip movements. All we need is a few microchips with transmission lines. In other words technology builds closer connections and faster data sharing.  In the same way, those humongous gadgets have now transformed into tiny mobiles, highly techie with a few electronic components.

Two decades ago, mobiles were not only rare, but they were called ‘Celltels’, short for ‘cellular telephone’.  It was a luxury item.  Today, seeing somebody who looks a bit crazy, shaking his body and wagging her hair with a pair of earplugs fixed on ears, who may be skyping or listening to music is so common around bus stops, supermarkets, shopping malls or anywhere else, the word ‘crazy’ might not seem appropriate.

Today there are approximately 5 billion mobile phones with over.08 billion smartphone users.  Apple and Android are the most popular in the smartphone market.

Why Smartphones, though?

As the word ‘smart’ indicates, these gadgets know everything or seem to. They will let you install apps of your choice so you can google the entire earth.  They allow web browsing, mobile gaming, and social-networking across the world via Facebook, Twitter and Google+ and email.  Most of all, they come with high quality cameras so you can shoot and share with friends and family in an instant unlike in a traditional mobile phone.

There’s the flip side though.  For many smartphone users they become a piece of junk if and when it takes a longer time to download videos to navigate GPS or tweet pictures. Touch screens may not work at times. Smartphones are quite vulnerable to software attacks and piracy.  Such realities might very well make users think of their old Nokia phones with nostalgia and even switch back to them.

Varied technologies and sophisticated designs create new ‘needs’.  A Chinese couple, it was reported, actually sold their child to buy a smartphone.  That’s obviously an extreme example, but these developments are certainly forcing people to re-assess their value system. 

The popular smartphones work with a few speedy and attractive operating systems like Apple, Jelly Bean, Ice Cream Sandwich and Gingerbread. These systems may differ when comes to performance yet offer equally good benefits.  Perhaps a phone is only as smart as its user.  Or dumb. 

Published on the 15th of December 2013, in The Nation

Read more