Trip back the memory lane

Went to see one of my old teachers, the one who introduced me to the English language and pushed me past all the complex grammatical and vocabulary labyrinths as if it were a mere bicycle ride. I don't ever recall stumbling. She made it look and seem like a breeze.

Rachael Dominique Margaret Pathirana is her name. She is ageless. To this day, I cannot really place how old she really is. She is as beautiful as she always was with the spirit of a young girl, clad in her customary dainty frocks and ornate jewelry. I suppose being with children made you look and feel young.

We practically spent our lives in that class. From Grade 2 right up to O/Ls we were there, 2 times a week for 4hrs each day. And we were hooked. I think it takes up a special kind of talent and quite a good deal of that special kind of love to sustain children's interest like that. She has a very big heart. The ones who grew up in her shade, learning from her is as same to her as her own kids and her own grand kids.

She keeps all the keepsakes from all her students. Today she unearthed a piece of my poetry that she had discovered among the pages of a book I had given to her to correct when I was in Grade 5. To this day, I had not known she had it. I suppose these things are her treasures.

Her voice is musical. She had always had a sing-a-song voice, so sweet and so liquidy in the ear. We used to have sing-alongs at Christmas and she used to sing with us always, her strong sweet voice rising above our young and coarse ones. She had a tinkling kind of laugh too, one that would ring above anyone else's. She still has all that. Not much had changed.

That beautiful picture of the Christ still hangs on the wall as it used to. I remember gazing on it listlessly for hours and hours while searching for the correct answer during exams, that odd moment of blankness and etc. I had always been taken up by the sheer, almost ephemeral beauty of it. It is just as it had always been. Only its frame is new. The old gilt frame is now replaced by a gold one.

She is a devout catholic married to a Buddhist. Sometimes we would see pictures of Lord Buddha among her rosaries and statues of the saints. It was a fine melange of religious artifacts up there on her desk. A curious thing her desk was. Always cluttered with books, pens and pencils and the most interesting looking items scattered about, along with that little brass bell that she liked to ring from time to time in class.

The long benches and the desks that we sat at still stands. Only they had been painted a posh black. But I'm sure if I looked close enough, I would still be able to see our childhood scribbles and pencil tip carvings there. She had banned correcting fluids in the class back then. And all because we wouldn't stop doodling on the desks with those things.

She still calls me her little beauty. She cannot believe how much I've grown and how I have become a woman in my own right. She asks me how many hearts I have broken already. I laugh.

Those were beautiful times. Christmas was always special as we would visit her place with gifts. She would serve us homemade Christmas cake and the piano would be played either by her or by her daughter Jeewani akki. There would be a lot of laughter, a lot of celebration. However, after her husband passed away a couple of years ago, things never did seem the same. She only used to go to Mass on Sundays. Now she goes to Mass on Fridays and Sundays both.

She raised a beautiful and a strong willed daughter. Jeewani akki tutored me on English Literature for my O/Ls. I remember always looking forward to those classes. The conversations were always very interesting as she treated us as adults and not as kids. She was a university student with a vibrant personality back then and I remember being quite mesmerized by her wit and sizzle for life. I haven't met her much since she got married and I wonder what she is like now. Nevertheless, I suppose I was a fortunate child who has had the opportunity to mingle with strong female personalities right throughout my life.

I could go on but I just realized that it is late and that I must sleep. Its so very cosy the manner in which the mind stores up these memories, images, smells, sights and sounds. However, things have changed very much. She is all alone what with her husband here no more, her daughter abroad and her son having his own family, having not much time to attend to her needs. Yet in my mind memories are all intact as if nothing has changed. In my mind we are all in grade 5, fighting over each other to win a red star, trying hard not to get any black marks on our records for talking too much or creating trouble in class. It was beautiful. Those golden afternoons laughing and passing notes in class, standing in line to get our work corrected and rejoicing when we get a V.V Good next to the big, red tick mark lashed out right across the page.

Burping for attention

Just when you think that you can no longer be surprised by the behavior of the Sri Lankan male, they surprise you again. Sri Lanka is filled with this curious species who seem to be on a lifelong mission to shock and surprise you on a daily basis. This particular specimen was met on a Sunday afternoon at a roadside cafe. Seated in the cafe facing the main road visible through the glass facade of the shop, I could see a man staring inside the cafe as if the people inside have just converted themselves into huge headed aliens and started dancing the samba. After a while he comes inside, orders some food and sits himself down at the neibouring table. Now I don't want to sound like a snob or a prude but the range of sounds that he made for that short period of time as he went through his food were just unbelievable. This could have been simply disregarded if not for the atrocious burping that started right afterwards which makes you wonder if indeed a human being is capable of burping such a lot. That's when we realized that he was burping and slurping to get our attention.

Now the cure for such attention whores had always been indifference and although my face muscles contracted and formed themselves in a painful grimace once or twice, I managed to look straight ahead while the man kept on burping and making repulsive smacking sounds with his mouth. We got up to go at which this curious specimen of a man too scarabled to his feet in a hurry and rushed out from his table, leaving more than half of his food still left on the table. Needless to say he followed us right out, slurping and burping. The sound was positively sickening.

The weekend itself was a smooth one. Went to the theater with Daddy Dearest just like the old times, found tickets for Evita and good seats too which was very lucky because they were the only seats left in the house by that afternoon. Now Daddy Dearest had always been my partner in theater as we share the same near-hysterical love for drama and with Mommy Dearest not being too keen on the art, I had always managed to drag him away with me whenever I set my mind upon watching a play. The Darling has always been a reluctant Theater goer and therefore, Daddy Dearest willingly filled in for the spot to keep me company for the evening. We had already checked for tickets on Saturday. They were all gone except for the balcony ones.

The play was good, it was a long time since I had last seen one of Jerome's plays. However, I did feel that the play in itself was a teeny bit crowded with too much information. Nevertheless, it was an afternoon very well spent.

Watched "Karma" on Saturday and spent the rest of the day in blissful joblessness, wandering around the whole of Colombo with a bunch of equally happy-go-lucky companions. Speaking of Karma, it was ok and I am glad that I watched it. However, I do feel that despite the astounding amount of awards and nominations that it had received, it could have omitted certain scenes and information here and there. Seemed a wee bit crowded in there, would have been nice if it were "cleaner". The idea was powerful enough, it could have been presented in a more striking manner. Oh well..............

I broke my mug of 2 years! Its funny how attached I've grown to that mug, seeing as it was an inanimate object. Nevertheless it had been my friend and companion through good times and the bad and it had always been there, that rounded weighty presence keeping me company through countless sleepless nights, nights of utter hysteria, blissful dreaming or hour upon hour of studying. Daddy Dearest had always referred to it as 'the Barrel', referring obviously to its shape and size and it had indeed been big and cosy just the way I liked it. That pudgy heaviness had always comforted me, holding my tea and coffee throughout the years. It had warmed me when I needed the warmth when everybody else had walked away. It was the only companion that I could tolerate on peaceful rainy evenings with the balcony windows thrown open or those difficult times when nothing seemed right. My mug always held the correct kind of comfort for trying times. That mug had a sense of humor. Nothing else would do, nothing else would ever take its place. R I P Mug. There can never be anymuggy like u :'(

Rain, Oh Beloved Rain.................

I know most people like rainy nights so that they could curl up and sleep. I on the contrary, feel more alive when it rains. I like to stay up and listen to the rain. Rain is fascinating, it has a music of its own. I like the sound of the rain on the roof, I like to hear it falling down on the leaves of the tress outside. I love the fluttering curtains in the loud blast of wind that somehow manage to get in through the windows. I love how the rain manages to block all sound out and invade your ears, almost forcefully with its powerful and earthy presence. I love how it would rush up on you and slowly wither away gently, like a wilting flower, yet with the promise to bloom again.

I love the rumbling thunder, the way it sometimes rattles the doors and windows, making the glass tinkle in that pretty way. I like the electric flashes of light from the heavens that appear and disappear again like a dream suddenly and unexpectedly just like it came. I like how after a flash of light you always expect a loud rumble from up above and how sometimes it never comes. I like the unpredictability of it all. Sometimes you just get a little too tired of the predictable formality of the world.  

I like it how rain manages to intensify some smells while drowning out others. For me, rain smells clean, it smells of new unpolished wood, yet to see the likes of varnish and other synthetic things. It smells pure and tranquil like a secluded world, still untouched by vulgarities of the outside. I have never smelt the "smell of wet earth" as many have described it. The closest I've ever felt of it is a mixture of trampled grass and rotting kitchen waste that faintly smelled of puss that oozes out of infested wounds and I cannot say that I like it very much. 

Another thing I love is hot tea or coffee on a rainy day and a big mug of it at that, no fooling around about the quantity of it. I love the almost scalding feel of it in my hands, I love its liquid warmth as it travels down the throat and radiates its warmth like a cosy blanket right across the skin. I simply love the smell of hot tea or coffee with the smell of the rain, mollycoddling in its fumes in an armchair, feet up just like I'm doing now. 

I also love the after-rain sounds. The never ending croaks of the frogs in the garden pond, the soft breathing, heaving sound of the trees, adjusting themselves after the downpour. I like the feel of the departing rain, its like a painful yet necessary act to preserve the beauty of the moment forever. That pain is beautiful, beautifully exquisite. 

I suppose I'm in a never ending courtship with the rain. And unlike any mortal relationship, the romance will never fizzle out.   

Typical tropical afternoon

Its one of those afternoons that make you breathless by the sheer naked beauty of it. One of those hot, slightly sweaty yet nevertheless golden ones that you usually spend out in the garden, with a large jug of homemade lemonade, fanning yourself against that inescapable tropical heat. The sun beams are extra golden today and the world seem to be rejoicing for God knows what reason. Am I drunk you ask? Yes, I guess I am, drunk with life, with the beauty surrounding me, this incredibly homey feeling of which I shall never get enough. Just thought that instead of grumbling about how incredibly sucky life is, this post is to celebrate life and afternoons like this that make you feel like a character in a romantic novel. Its a typical tropical afternoon and I wouldn't have it any other way.

There's music streaming in from the radio and the sound of unseen boys playing in the adjacent playground. Apart from that, everything else is peaceful. Sometimes, the leaves of the mango tree in the yard shine in the soft glare of the sun and other times, they slowly move to cast shadows and sun beams alternately across the lawn. It smells green and woody out there  a mixture of trees and burning wood somewhere in the distance. The light breeze that rustles the tree leaves is quite insufficient to quell the heat but nevertheless, that soothing cool fingers brushing a stubborn strand of hair off your forehead is a welcome intervention. Its an afternoon worthy of celebration, worthy of a post and here I am, drunk in it all and rambling on, grouchy no more!

Grumble, Grumble.............

Its just abominable how incredibly lazy I've become, but I suppose the laziness is just a part of my reluctance to pick up the wad of notes and attempt to beat in some international law and comparative political systems into this kicking and screaming brain of mine. And its amazing how so very important the frivolous task of cleaning out your bureau drawers (they've survived throughout the years with all the crap inside them just fine) or how very inspired you become to write that never ending novel of yours, all very much out of the blue of course.

The fact of the matter is that I am not a quitter. I feel guilty quitting, no matter how hard it is and no matter how impossible something may seem, I still keep at it, even if it is excruciatingly painful and even though I grumble all the way. That in fact, is my vice. As a result, I am studying away, cursing the very inventors of this wretched subject, cursing the institution  and in fact, cursing every Tom, Dick and Siripala responsible for this immaculate mess that I am in and still sitting down and trying to knock in some extraterrestrial knowledge into this brain of mine which seemed to have shrunk radically during the utter waste-of-time excursions of the past 4-5 months. I haven't been to a SINGLE class for the past 5 months (as a result of the said good-for-nothing occupation) and now I am expected to sit for an exam with the help of a few scribbled notes photocopied from a friend! The past 4-5 months had passed in a daze, a sort of a daydream and here I am suddenly startled with the knowledge that I have to face an exam on things that I am completely alien to. How could it POSSIBLY any more perfect!

However, the past two weeks had been God's gift to me. I read voraciously,  I wrote, rather typed like a woman possessed, I cooked and baked and reveled in the delicious baking aromas that send golden beams of homeliness radiating through a house and felt the soft gooey textures of dough as I mixed, folded and kneaded various breads which were things that I have never had had time to do (and missed doing) in a very long time. My doggies were overjoyed to pounce on me, bite and lick me all over while yelping happily as they used to and my dear, dear parents, The Darling, well, the time spent with them is definitely priced above everything else. Life is indeed beautiful if you did not have exams breathing down your neck.

Two students involved in FUTA died in a motorbike accident. Some say they were killed and there seems to be enough evidence to support that while the son of a certain minister has been declared to be qualified to hold the post of the Minister of Education post once he comes back from a one month (one week?) course in the USA. That is actually very true because any flea brained, uneducated moron is qualified to become the Education Minister of our country at the rate of which it is going. I feel lucky to have gotten out of the uni when I did. We seem to be the last batch ever to get out of a local uni, unperturbed. I am completely, utterly and blissfully politically ignorant but even those of us like me to whom this filthy game of politics is as elusive as that ephemeral rainbow at the other end of the world, the atrocities that go on in the country has become all too evident.

Thinking back on the death of the two students, its heartbreaking. Being a battered victim of that repulsive joke they call as university politics myself, we are well aware how certain political parties take advantage of the naivete of the students, specially those of who come from rural areas. They influence these poor students to rebel, picket and to harass innocent students in that abominable practice referred to as the rag who will in turn brainwash the coming generations the same way that they have been treated. Not that university administration is in anyway helpful. Over the years, we came to realize that walled up within those air conditioned offices of the university were the hell's very best in flesh, screeching banshees who will willingly tear out your intestines and bloodthirsty demons who will rip out your throat if a poor meek student dare ask a question. Its a vicious circle nevertheless. However, those who don't convert to the ridiculous system carried out within the majority student circle (which usually consists of terrifying newcomers to death, picking fights with other student groups, etc) will be harassed for the rest of their miserable university lives and be forced to live amongst various insults and torture,  burning a pint or two of blood daily, exchanging burning words and twisting frowns with the fooled and delusional on a daily basis. Young minds are infinitely malleable and these filthy rotten scoundrels of politics know it very well. While these innocent creatures trapped within a colourful illusion lead in the front trenches of a bloody battle, taking every single blow, ruining their future and their education, the real leaders of this chaos seated amongst plush cushions behind the scenes in comfortable rooms, claim for themselves prestigious positions and other mercenary benefits. All the students will get are sleepless nights, bruises and wounds, fatal cuts, complete and utter ruin of their education on which their parents had spent the money they never had, sorrow to their loved ones and in this case, even death.

While all this is true and right, a human life is worth much much more than all the riches that a politician can horde in his entire life time. So if anyone really is responsible for these deaths, they deserve an extremely slow, prolonged maggot infested death with their eyes searing in a cauldron of hot oil. The country is rapidly going to the dogs with its authorities sucking out its very bone marrow like soulless parasites. Its citizens are now showing their true evil and selfish inherent nature me thinks, induced by the extreme conditions that they are put through each day in their lives. Sri Lanka is a beautiful country which does not deserve this abuse. It is a land with whole shiploads of potential which once upon a time was chockful of helpful, genuine people, a species that seem to be extinct these days. Smiles are rare in this country now while frowns and painful grimaces are in plenty, muddying the streets and sullying the souls of those who pass by. And thus the tragedy ensues .......

Is it just me or has the world suddenly turned hostile?

Been wondering what's been happening to the country lately. Grandfathers are raping their granddaughters, sons are murdering their own families, women are setting live dogs on fire not to mention the blatant atrocities of politicians who either think that the people are too stupid to notice or they no longer care whether anyone notices or not, because they are so sure of the absolute power they possess. And then they go and gloat about it on media too at which you gasp and say "The nerve!." But that is about ALL that we ever do!

In other countries, such people are put in straight jackets and locked up in asylums or branded as psychopaths, sociopaths, lunatics or just plain delusional. Here in our island haven, they end up in comfy seats across the Diyawanna or sailing upwards, murdering a helpless few along the corporate ladder while perching comfortably on the top and crapping on whoever that has the misfortune to land underneath. While success is all very well and much commended on, why become such obvious A holes in the process is my problem. 

The country seems to me of late, a gnawing ball of tight and painful blackness of which the intensity grows each day. I am beginning to wonder whether it is the fact that our country is too small that we feel it more or if indeed the people have become so unspeakably evil over the years. Just a couple of years ago, lending a helping hand to a total stranger or getting help from a complete stranger while out in public is a completely normal thing while now, you feel extremely grateful just because someone held the door open for you. The normal thing now would be that someone slams a door shut in your face while your arms are full of goods with no way of opening the door. A visit to a public place would affirm the fact that the people are always angry or are always in a bad mood and is in constant competition with one another, whether it is in the supermarket queue or casually browsing through books in a bookstore. Walking down the streets alone has become a chore what with vehicles trying to run over the pedestrians and other smaller vehicles on the way. Or you see a driver or two poking their heads out and dispensing quite generous amounts of explicit words all around.  

Is it because our tropical climate heats up the blood too much that everybody is constantly in a perpetual sweltering flurry? Is it because that the prevailing economic and social conditions have forced the people to become so selfish and hard-hearted that the nuances of humanity has long since been washed off them? Is it that people have finally stopped fighting the inherent selfishness and savagery of the human being (as stated by  Thomas Hobbes the negative dude) and decide to be their true selves? Is the end near, can the Mayans be right when they predicted the end of the world or is a zombie apocalypse on the rise except the zombies will be human beings themselves when they end up eating their own? Or is it simply because I think wayyyyyy too much than I should? 

SCATTERED- Available at stores now :)

So the launch happened and it went quite well too. Just as I expected: perfectly serene ambiance, good music, good company and mellow lighting. Perfect.

Now people keep on asking, why Barefoot? Why go endorse in the typical 'Colombian', sarong-wearing, mantra-chanting, wanna-be artsy hippie culture? Yes I'm aware of the many labels and tags that the place comes with but I have never been one to care for such labels or tags. As long as it falls within my budget range and is convenient for me, I'm cool with that. I don't have big ideologies, I'm flexible and I make do with whatever I have whenever I have it. I've discovered that it is much easier to survive when that is the case.

And Barefoot was MORE than just convenient for me. The staff was very friendly and cooperative and the ambiance was just what I wanted. The pricing fell well within my budget range too. So I had no complaints. I'm a simple kid :)

Anyways, the response to the books have been quite tremendous. Those who have read the book have commented copiously on the content and I am very, very happy about the fact that the collection has managed to reach out to many in a very personal way and that is exactly what I had wanted too. Absolutely touched with what people have to say about the collection. To place the cherry on top of the cake, just today I was informed that all the books that I had left at the Barefoot bookshop, the only place where the books had been available at the very beginning had been sold out and that they need a new stock. Needless to say I was astonished. Must give them a refill tomorrow.

Writing a book is easy, publishing is quite hard, a launch is harder and when all is said, written, designed and done it seems that selling the books is the hardest of all. Bookshops are avoiding poetry collections like the plague and I can't understand why. However, the Barefoot bookshop turned out to be the only ones who embraced the books without a fuss while the rest had to be convinced and cajoled into it. As a result of my sheer perseverance, Scattered will be available in all leading bookshop within the coming week.

Dropped off some copies at Vijitha Yapa as well and it should be available within a few days at their outlets. Copies are already available at the Sadeepa Bookshop, Wisdom bookshop and at Sooriya Bookshop, Maradana. Have to make a personal appearance at Sarasavi to get some books in there as well. The only thing lacking is the time :(

However, Scattered will definitely be available at the International Book Fair starting on the 18th, so you can get it there as well, of course at the Sooriya Bookshop, Vijitha Yapa and Sarasavi outlets. Hopefully, you'l find it there :)

So yes, read my humble collection and please let me know what you think. Your comments would mean the world to me. If you cannot reach any of these shops, please mail me at jayani.senanayake@hotmail.com and I will only be happy to get a copy across to you!