Happy belated women's day!

The World women's day whizzed past us with many a vivid fb status updates, pizza offers, girls nights out and what not. The buy one get one free pizza offer for women's day was the one that amused me the most. However, hats off to Pizza Hut for at least caring enough that the women in this country are fed sufficiently even if it is for just one day :D

An incident which occurred on the women's day itself set my mind in motion. Although a Lady *snobby pout* I am a Lady minus her own personal carriage and chauffeur and therefore, I am required to utlize the public transport services quite frequently. Therefore, I should say that I am quite well versed in kicking, punching, castrating (haven't yet gotten around to it, but quite looking forward to it) individuals with severe mental problems who like groping women up and down and exposing their wobbly bits in public. However, on this particular day, a tiny-minded individual with severe mommy issues happened to try his luck, apparently with the wrong girl and the lady, possessing quite a temper, happened to twist his slimy fingers to their breaking point, without even the courtesy of looking back in to the face of the kind young man who lent his fingers to be twisted like modeling clay. She did it oh-so-casually that it shocked and bewildered the perv, even though he did keep muttering curses under his breath with a fearful glance every now and then. I dare say that I enjoyed myself very much. It felt good. 

Times are such that a woman cannot walk down the street, take a bus, travel alone without being groped, starred at, addressed in obscenities by puny insects who call themselves male. And we have dimwitted diplomats going around the world preaching about our "culture" giving birth to "well disciplined" men who respect and protect women. We speak of gender equality and men are often seen raising their eyebrows and smirking with expressions which spell 'bloody feminists" when a woman speaks out for her race, on behalf of freedom and liberation of the female kind. Well, one does not have to be bra-burning, stark raving mad in order to address the many issues that a woman living in this apparently "cultured and well disciplined" society have to bear up with. Men who smirk and raise their eyebrows when speaking of women's rights do not get groped by strange people (I have a feeling that they would enjoy it very much if they do get groped), they don't get starred at, they don't get leered at, they don't get called a "bitch" or "slut" for speaking out one's mind or for dressing in whatever way that he prefers to be dressed in. For God's sake, a man can walk in to a public place in the world's most ridiculous pair of flowered shorts, wearing his socks over his ears, sporting the most horrendous head of hair that has been colored a blazing orange and he will not even be noticed let alone commented upon! How is this fair?!?!         

Despite the claim that the woman in this society is given her rightful place, only a woman living in this society with both her feet planted firmly on the ground would know the truth as it is. Driving for a woman is as hectic and harassing as using the public modes of transport with thousands of perverts who will be starring down your neckline, groping you up and down, leaning against you, undressing you with their eyes. All sorts of jerks will swerve their vehicles towards you, cut in quite abruptly in front of you and when the two vehicles collide, they will try to use their physical strength to frighten and intimidate you in to paying them a compensation. When that does not work, they will try to demean and challenge your intelligence with "what do you know about the world? You are a woman" kind of attitude. I like to surprise these jerks at times with my "limited female viewpoint" of the world and it feels good to see how most of these spineless things scowl and shut their cake holes without further displaying their ignorance.

I have often seen women getting harassed in the public and I have seen them bearing it all up in silence. I have seen friends getting harassed and yet when I try to speak out for them, I have been held back by my friends themselves because "we are women" and because "we don't want any trouble". I had often tried to retort and reason with them but then I see the fear in their eyes and I hold myself back, placing a reassuring pat on their arms. Ladies, before you start venting about equality of the genders and all the riff-raff I'd say we fight for one of our most basic rights, the right to go about our day without being harassed, groped or raped on the way to office, home or school. No amount of banning pornography sites, taking down "inappropriate" cutouts or blurring out scenes from movies even when a lady's dress is slightly lifted by the wind (Honestly, watching a movie on a local TV channel is like trying to count the tiles on a bathroom wall through a  shower curtain but that's another story) However, don't y'all think that all the time spent and the trouble taken for censoring movies and teledramas, taking down of billboards and etc would be better spent if all that energy is directed towards making the society a safer and a more liberated space for a woman to move about in? But then again, must the authorities do everything? Ladies, it is YOUR silence that encourages these ballless bastards, it is on YOUR fear that they feed on. Time to embed a stiletto heel or two on a leering and jeering face that makes lewd comments or mutters obscenities in your ears, I'd say.

There are two types of women in the world. The Eves who are made from Adam's rib who are meant to be sweet, gentle and subordinate and then there are Liliths who were meant to be Adam's equal, made from the same stuff, only muddier and sturdier stuff than what Adam was made of. But what I believe is that there is a Lilith and an Eve in each and every woman and that it is a woman's experience, circumstances and conditions to which she is exposed that determines whether Lilith or Eve emerges each time. So ladies, invoke Lilith for strength and protection and cherish Eve for gentleness and forgiveness because it is this rare combination of unrelenting tenacity and unparalleled gentleness which makes a woman incomparable to any man who gropes, touches, stares, mutters obscenities or simply remains inactive while he knows that women are being harassed, molested and subjected to all sorts of injustices all over the world.

Phew.....now that its all been said, happy belated women's day everyone! :)

Wake up call

Life has been whizzing past so rapidly for the past couple of weeks or so. I have been wandering around, eating, sleeping, working, zombie-like, hardly knowing what I am doing, hardly conscious of what needs to be done, apart from the daily dose of work that desperately awaits completion before the day is done. And today, I woke up, only for a while. I suspect that I am still awake, strangely. But tomorrow, I shall sleep walk again.

It just struck me that we might as well be rodents, running around in a wheel, chasing after a piece of cheese that is hung above us, taunting, tempting, seducing and we trample the wheel, not knowing why, but knowing only that we HAVE to do so, perhaps because the wheel is there and other rodents are doing the same maybe? Perhaps because other more nosy rodents come up to you and question you if you do not trample the wheel? Maybe. Of course, earning a living is important in a country where buying a loaf of bread to feed one's family requires the selling of one's own body organs as well as the neighbor's and etc and the importance of a career path is very well understood in a society where "I do not have an idea about getting a job yet" rises many a Sri Lankan "sooo's" and "tsks" and a whole series of disapproving looks directed at the ground which screams "what a pathetic looser" in bold capitals right to the face. But still, with the careers blooming, social statuses flourishing and brandished like lightsabers from Star Wars universe and us working our rear ends off to just to make the ends meet, when do we get to 'live'? Does 'living' suddenly metamorphose in to work, work, work and work (a more 'important sounding word for this pathetic state would be known as a 'career path' ) suddenly once we reach our adult age?

And what exactly do I mean by 'living' you ask. Of course, I too am quite clueless of what 'living' is exactly (regardless of the philosophical image of a hermit like creature with floor length hair and overgrown beard, isolated cabin in the middle of the woods, scribbling away at one scrap of paper after another from dusk to noon and etc or images of youth shooting drugs and doing booze till they squirm about in their own vomit, half naked, hyperactive women brandishing deranged smiles across their faces jumping up and down on a trampoline and etc that you tend to get in your head) However, I do question this rat race we are running, this constant need of achieving something great and once we achieve that finally, the need to achieve something great-ER. It never ends.

What happens when we achieve the greatest thing there is to achieve? What happens when we have reached the summit of the mountain of social and financial hierarchy? What happens after we have gotten the most beautiful and the most exquisite of all jewelry that there is? What happens after we have gotten the best set of wheels that money can buy or the best collection of cloths that one can ever own? We only wear one piece of clothing at a time, only a few pieces of jewelry at a time, we only drive one vehicle at a time. However, after one has achieved all that, then what? Where do we go from there?

I have been feeling like a computer programmed zombie who operates according to the whims and fancies of some other malicious force lately. I want to wake up, I NEED to wake up more than anything else. But sometimes, falling in to routine, following the herd without questioning, without doubting seems like a good, feasible and a very much uncomplex solution to a lot of problems I have seen. Thinking too much, saying too much have gotten me in to so much of trouble after which I trained myself not to think much, not to seek much, not to ask much, specially things that I do not want to hear or know, things that would hurt me deeply if only I heard, if only I knew. But I want to wake up now. I want to know. I want to question. I want to feel that I am here for a reason other than to run round and round on a hamster wheel.

I am in no position to preach about the absurdity of the insatiable quality of human nature or such as I myself is in a position of conflict. What I need to do now is to wake up from this half-asleep state and look around with unglazed eyes. I do not know where it will get me or what it will do, but right now, I know that I need to hold on to something real, I need to feel alive which I have not felt in a very long time.

I think I'l just shut up now. Sigh.........

Lotus Pond crisis

The State Drama Festival commenced several days ago and is held, as usual, at John De Silva Theater from 6.30 PM onwards these days. After much waiting, Lady Grouchalot managed to drag along a rather reluctant Darling (in his defense, who became very much interested afterwards) as well and headed there to indulge in a few mighty doses of live and pulsing theater after a while.

The very first day that it was announced that the State Drama Festival was going to be held at the John de Silva as usual, the very first question the Lady had in mind was, what ever happened to that colossal 'Lotus pond' of ours which inaugerated itself with a flash, kaboom and a humongous bang a couple of weeks earlier?

Lady Grouchalot who had always been an ardent fan of the theater had always been rather saddened by the everyday tragedies that the dramatists and playwrights of the country go through just to get a play on stage and keep it running. She had seen how crestfallen artists become at seeing the measely turn up in theaters whereas the majority of the public would sit at home, slobbering all over the powder puff soap opera starlets flashing their absurdly made up faces almost offensively laden with layers and layers of make up ( enough to make Marilyn Manson cringe ), wondering what outrageously bold move these whimsy puppets of bubble villa would make next (OMG, Paba has constipation! What will she do next?? Will Shehan leave her because she's farts too much??? Subha broke a goddamned nail while running away with Jatila, escaping from Chamara who has been carrying on with Sujatha who has had far too much to drink last night and had made out with Jatila's grandfather, etc, etc..... )  .  Therefore, the Lady was overjoyed when she first heard the commencement of building an international standardized theater right here at the heart of Colombo and looked forward to an illuminated future for the talent laden theater folk of the country who have showcased so much of potential and yet, no means of unleashing it out of sheer lack of facilities resulting from the unsightly stepmother treatment of the authorities towards the venerable theater that has been around ever since the beginning of civilization itself. However, the Lady's hopes had been shattered rather cold heartedly. Seeing the almost obscenely priced venue charges that was published just a while ago, I wonder how many people burst out laughing out of sheer disbelief.

So....the 'Nelum Pokuna' unsheathed its petals (btw, I find the name to be quite hilarious) and lends itself to the able and the partial while the poor dramatists strive to do their best, making do with what they've got in the dilapidated dressing rooms with broken taps and non-moving ceiling fans. However, the ever loyal theater fan would not mind flicking a few beads of sweat while watching a true piece of art that has been worked over and over again over cups of plain tea and shared tea buns.

Nelum Pokuna will feature foreign artists who are forced a microphone in to their hands to "sing a song" while in transit here in Sri Lanka *smirk*  while local talent rots away in corners, portraying the tragedy of a nation that venerates hip-hop wanna-be Iraj-ists as the ultimate ambassadors of Sri Lankan music. We already have plenty of places to hold mass scale musical shows featuring the Supersunshiney gang and the ra (s)pping dimwits who are not even capable of properly lip syncing to prerecorded music, don't we? How about we give the good ol genuine theater that has been abandoned for a significant amount of time a chance for a change?

The ordinary artist is not a millionaire (Well, at least not the ones that havn't yet succumbed to the shitacious politics cloud that hangs upon our heads anyway). Therefore, one wouldn't just happen to have 3-5 lacks lying around to spend on outrageously priced venues and the ordinary theater goer wouldn't just happen to have thousands of rupees lying around to attend these shows of which the tickets would have to be priced around Rs 5000-1000 just to cover the venue cost.

However, the State Drama Festival is going very well, without Lotus ponds for the artists to swim in, I dare say. At the end of the show, the crowd trickled out one by one out of the non-air conditioned hall on to a yard illuminated by the glaring lights of the Nelum pokuna which loomed imperiously overhead. And yet, still dazed by the amazing show of talent which dazzled inside that non-air conditioned theater of the ordinary people, I don't think the people even noticed the condescending glare of the Nelum Pokuna which loomed over all of us in the horizon, begging for attention and a genuine doze of the 'real' art to get it up and revving, pulsing with life.

Weekend!!!

Don't you just LOVE that indescribable feeling of freedom that you experience at the end of a working week? It's like the weekend just stretches right ahead of you and you are under no obligation to work. You can just stretch your limbs and be a lazy ass couch potato without feeling an iota of guilt about it and its just SUCH a fabulous feeling. I'm feelin' the weekend baby!

Work can be quite tiring. You just sit there, starring at the computer screen as if the fate of the human race depended on it, eyes aching, brain twisting to all kinds of pretzel shapes as you analyze one foreign subject (which you have perhaps never heard before) after another, rephrasing, rewriting, twisting, churning, fabricating words, phrases and whole effing sentences, head throbbing, anxious to finish it all off............. At the end of the day, after you have completed your work and you're just heaving that long awaited sigh of relief, if somebody just comes along and screams at you for not doing this, not looking in to that (things that were the last things on your overtly overcrowded mind actually), not even giving the shadow of a thought to how incredibly tired you might be, you just end up feeling sad. Really, really sad.

Not complaining about work actually, I quite enjoy writing. Anyhow, the week is done and the Lady is feeling less Grouchy because the weekend is back baby! After lying on my butt for a whole 4 years at university, working for a living feels quite strange. Specially since I've always been a lazy bum for as long as I can remember :D

Its 3.56 AM and I still don't want to sleep. The weekend feels too precious to waste away sleeping and my brain tells me to savor every second of it while it lasts. And sleeping is just not a part of this super bonanza of freedom. Strange.

Should get a couple of winks now or else I'l be snoozing till my butt shines in all its glory in the full blast of the noon sun. Have some errands to run tomorrow as well. Sigh............There ain't no rest for the wicked, some wise man (men) have once said. I know, I do realize that I've been abandoning the Grouch blog and my poetry lately, but then, c'est la vie. Sigh...................So much to write, so little time :(

This, that and everything

This is a long over due post and I'm putting it down today. Do I dare type away when I have million other things piling up on that horrendous to-do list of mine? Yes, I dooooooooo!!

Anyways, walking down the streets in my neighborhood can be quite an experience. You'd think that half the male population in the country have never seen the likes of a woman before. And you'd think that the situation might improve in a while and that a better day would dawn tomorrow when a woman may walk down a street without being hindered by gaping men, stalking cars and flashing nitwits with minuscule weenies.

But no, it doesn't.

Women are to be the quiet and submissive type who should NOT, under any circumstance, speak unless spoken to and should not under any circumstance, speak out even if one is being screamed at on daily basis. If she has a complaint, the woman is supposed to put it across in such a way that it would not enrage others, more specifically, not enrage the men. And if a certain woman does not fit in to that meek little, controllable category, she is 'un-womaned' by those around her, branded, called names and cast aside. The sacred femininity that maketh a woman is taken away bit by bit, ounce by ounce until you are left a sexless stick without an identity, feeling like a sugar cane that has been well chewed and spat back out. Apparently, rebelling, speaking out and arguing is a macho thing to which the men folk have exclusive rights to. The women have to bear up with everything and also, apparently, patience is a virtue that is exclusively reserved for the women folk to practice. That's what our elders have always taught us, as little girls, as young women stepping in to adulthood. People just have this tendency to like tame animals I suppose. In an age of instant, two minute noodles, we are the kind of people who prefer visiting the zoo rather than taking the risk of going out in to the jungle to see. Tame animals are more easier to manage and thereby, more convenient to have around. But doesn't it get boring at times? I do wonder sometimes.

Which is exactly why the spineless pervs in buses, streets and markets have their own convivial ball of a time harassing women in public. Confront them and you would see them wriggling back to their perspective dirt holes after a lame comeback or two. Sigh........ there really is no sexual discrimination going on in the world, only discrimination against those who dare speak out against things that just don't seem right. But of course, in a world like ours, in order to keep one's head safe upon one's shoulders, its wise to act dumb, deaf and blind at all times. Diplomacy, my friend, is everything these days. But then again, even diplomacy isn't shield enough to protect one from speeding bullets fired off of a drunkard's gun. Sigh.....pathetic.

I remember using my fingers to count when I was small and I'd get quite confused after passing fifteen or so and often wished that I had about hundred fingers which would help me count without getting confused. Well, apparently, some ex-Commissioners General of exams still use their fingers to solve sums and sometimes, even to calculate the Z-scores of A/L students! I had NO idea! :O Well, the whole process didn't really work out and whole country blames the poor guy for effing up the whole lot but me, knowing how difficult it is to count with one's fingers, would blame the makings of the human body for not giving us enough fingers to count with. Sigh...............if only he had hundred fingers to count with, he wouldn't have gotten so confused. But such...............is life...................

Me hungry now after all the rambling, complaining, grouching around. Midnight snack anyone? Yes, ma'am! :D

Just one of those days.............

Just one of those days I guess. Things upset me very easily me thinks and I wish that it ain't so sometimes. But they say you've got to feel to be human and yet, being human sucks sometimes.

Not really sure what I'm doing, although there is a hell of a lot that needs to be done. One moment you can be so up high and the next, your are crawling on the ground, clutching at dear life. Words have a way of becoming splinters of glass sometimes.

Ever felt the weight of the world on your shoulders? Its like the sadness of the world is plotting on drowning me sometimes. The sadness of the dog, tied up next door, a whole day without food, the sadness of my parents aging, the sicknesses, the pain, the sadness of the boy at the supermarket counter who stacks bags and smiles innocently, the sadness of the pale girl with a shaved head on the bus smiling at me in between her pills that her mother forces down her throat , the sadness of the puppy who I HAD to watch dying because of the stupid, money-minded Vet who refused to treat him, the sadness of the girl at the KFC counter, watching a family, wondering what life is like for them, wondering about a life that she never had and never will have, sadness of past hurts, moments when I could have been more attentive but I wasn't, times that I could have been nicer to people but I wasn't all coming back in one big, black, cold mollycoddle and engulfing me, quite uninvited. Why is there so much sadness in the world? And more importantly, why does it all come back to haunt ME of all people?

I am not Mother Theresa, I'm not noble enough to dedicate my life for the betterment of the human or the animal kind, I'm way too selfish for that. I am not Virgin Mary either, I make horrible mistakes and regret them later on. But I do feel. I do feel the sadness, the suffering and I do wish that I don't feel them sometimes. Because nobody seems to understand. Nobody understands the intensity of these emotions and the helpless feeling that comes along with it. Nobody really cares enough to understand.

I'm being weird, according to most social conventions and I'd probably be gaslighted as being ''crazy'' or "dramatic" too. And NO, I'm not PMS'ing either. I feel lost. And vulnerable too sometimes. And I don't like to admit it either most of the time. Am I being arrogant, too proud and snobby in not admitting the vulnerability, the helplessness, the loss? Probably, yes. Because maybe I know no other way.

December :)

Its that time of the year again. The season of taking one hour to travel down a road which normally takes 15mins to travel, the season of glittering lights and shimmering tinsel, shit-pissed drivers grinding their teeth and screaming holy psalms at whoever dared cross their path, the season of merry jingles and sprightly tunes, elves, pixies and reindeer springing at you from supermarket isles scaring the chilly powder and pasta shells out of you and all over the just-mopped tiles while the lady with the mopping basket glares at you while you sheepishly melt under her blistering stare................ And oh yeah, seems like pot-bellied men with cotton wool hanging ridiculously off their chins seem to be in vogue too this season. Once you deck them in red and white that is.

All characteristic sarcasm aside, the Lady Grouch is enjoying all the festivities. Its a whole all-you-can-eat buffet for the senses out there. The sights, the sounds, the smells........ah the joy!  

Yes, the Lady has been silent what with her being employed now and all (yes, I write for a living now, yipee!) but still, making a living out of writing has its pros AND cons, the best example being the silence that this complaint blog has suffered lately and all. But it sure feels good to be able to do what one is passionate about and I don't think that's a chance that everybody gets.

Back to the Grouch-a-topic, I am left wondering whether Christmas suddenly came and pounced on the unsuspecting public and started ripping their cloths off their backs that they suddenly feel the irrepressible urge to clamber all over each other in desperate cloth shopping sprees, knocking off teeth, breaking noses while snot flies in slow motion, mingled with sweat and blood, necks gone all awry, while starring at upside-down price tags for too long, etc.

I mean, everybody knew that Christmas is due on the 25th of December, right? Its not like Santa popped out of the calender and screamed Merry Xmas in the middle of June right? I mean, what the Rudolf is all the mad rush about? Well, the hustle and bustle and the racket is all very nice, but its not so peachy when one is late and needs to get some place like flying-comet fast.

All in all, its quite endearing to see a shopping cart full of shiny tinsel and other little trinkets, a full blown chicken (cz Turkey is so darn expensive here), plastic mistletoe and holly sprigs, a bottle or two of Elephant ginger beer and a good old bottle of old Arrack adorning the shopping list. Good ol Christmas, Sri Lankan style.

Went ahead and bought a few strands of tinsel myself. Although we do not celebrate Christmas as Buddhists, I remember looking forward to decorating a "Christmas tree" when Brother Dearest and I were mere munchkins. Mother Dearest would fetch a potted plant from the garden, let us unpack the big cardboard box of Christmas decorations and watch us go loca with the tinsel strands, the little golden bells, the silvery globes, the dainty little angels, etc. I still remember the beautiful smell that came out of that box, mingled with the delicious baking smells from the kitchen, because my mother always believed that every happy occasion, how relevant or irrelevant it may be for us, should be celebrated and experienced at its fullest. And I share the sentiment. So this year around, few strands of tinsel, just to honor that memory and also because tinsel, those shiny sparkly, glitzy things remind me of all the good things in life. Not to mention the Lady G's attempt to put some minced pies and probably a Christmas pudding on the menu. Mmmmmmm................

Sri Lankan Christmas where the Santa gratefully walks in through the front door ( thanking the God Almighty that there are no chimneys in Sri Lanka, except the tiny ventilating pipes from the wood stoves in certain kitchens through which nobody half sane would expect an old pot-bellied man to wriggle through) and shop assistants plastering cotton wool snow all over their shop windows while fanning themselves in the December heat. There indeed, is no place like home :)