Antisocial Saturday

Saturday mornings, I usually wake up a misanthrope and remain steadfastly so till midday Saturday, only to slightly be able to tolerate a little human company during the weekend. Yesterday however has been an antisocial Saturday. Today a less so but it did take some effort on my part to socialize as life required me to do. Hope the mood won't last right throughout the week :/

Was sitting at a dinner party yesterday and was observing people,listening to what they had to say about everything from toothpaste to their kids' teachers to tap water to their families' eating patterns. I wondered if I could ever make that kind of small talk when my time comes to fill up all the awkward silences at dinner parties - discuss allergy causes for their children and fret about their pooping patterns, woe over the details of morning sickness (what they throw up, when they throw up, what makes them throw up, what made their sisters/mothers/sisters-in-law throw up, etc), which minister is sleeping with whom (other than their own wives of course), best remedies for wrinkles, solar power lamps and etc. I just can't imagine myself there. It was with some effort that I managed to politely nod my head at everything that they said without offending anyone. But then again, I had already zoned out and had that spaced out smile on my face that anyone who knew me would have understood.

Speaking of weekends, most weekends I just don't feel like being the 21st century civilized human being. Being civilized includes wearing cloths, combing hair, getting out of bed, conversing with people other than in unintelligible grunts, being in a good mood, smiling etc. After an entire week of being formal, civilized and prim and proper, the bonds need to loosen allowing room for the primal being inside to jump out and wreck some serious havoc. Unusual you say? Well, I'm not exactly the portrait of normalcy as it were.

Was at the neighborhood Avrudu Uthsawaya briefly when I realized quite suddenly that I want to be 10 years old again. There were a few little girls there around that age, roaming about so very carefree and I wanted to join in, grow a few feet shorter and a few years younger, wearing one of those cute little cotton frocks with a ribbon tied at the back, tugging at the hair carefully combed back into a ponytail, wearing brightly coloured flipflops and flicking my head all around, quite unaware of the tired looking grown up observing the scenario with wistful nostalgia. It was 'un moment eclaircissant' as it were, a sudden yearning that became so very clear, crystal clear, as clear as day as one would say.

But then again, I don't think I was a very happy 10 year old. That period of life was divided between two countries and two cultures, both of which were not very pleasant. I had a class teacher who made life an everyday torture chamber, a woman who obviously had issues of her own and liked to take it out on children that she taught. I for one was a child who never did my homework. I was a shy child who only opened up to those who really cared and who was otherwise a silent kid who liked dreaming away as much as she likes it even now. While other children in the class hastened to please the easily angered woman by waiting for her by the gate, carrying her bags, wishing her good morning etc, I just preferred to remain lost in a world of my own, not giving a shoelace about anything else. I suppose my silence scared and puzzled the woman and maybe I struck her as obnoxious.

The other half of that period was spent in Pakistan where I was an outsider and a woman. I don't think I was an attractive child being very much darker than them and a tad bit overweight and neither was I old enough to be considered a 'woman' to reap whatever little benefit that came with being one. But nevertheless I belonged to the female gender which entitled me to all the discrimination, the public harassment that came along with the curse of being a woman in such a country. I was groped twice at public places which utterly disgusted me although I did not know what it meant. At school, my class teacher, a Pakistani woman told me to cover my head (there was no law in school that requested me to do so as I was not a Muslim and it was an international school which supposedly supported freedom in thought, dress and etc) which I vehemently refused for which I was penalized. I was penalized for thinking freely for my school report says that I am too imaginative for my own good and that it would do well as a girl, to curb that imagination and enthusiasm a little bit in order to thrive well in the society as a respectable woman. In the school van, an older boy, a Pakistani, bullied me saying that I should be riding in the backseat because I am a girl and not be sitting in the front seat as I wanted to. I told him to go take a hike. But then my boldness cost me my social life. And once again I was a different child, silent, dreamy-eyed and preferred the company of soft rustling pages to living breathing human beings whose sole purpose in life seemed to be was to judge.

I guess what I really wanted was to live another 10 year old's life, not go back 15-16 years and live those years all over again. Oh well.........I'll always imagine what its like to be that, a cotton dress-clad girl child, lively and carefree, starring at the world full in the face, quite unaware of what's waiting in store for all that innocence, all that joy.

Becoming a bit of a killjoy, bearer of doom aren't I? I guess its the misanthrope speaking still. Sigh..................  


  

  

Avrudu sells/sales

The world seems to have gotten louder. Everybody seems to be talking all at once all of a sudden. Loud music blares out at you at every stop, vehicles honk louder, engines roar more intensely and I can barely hear myself think! Granted that it IS the Avrudu season after all, one can indeed say that the loudness is only justified. But was it this loud last Avrudu season too? I don't think so.

Looking at the streets and the rate at which the textile shops are filling up during these days, one starts to wonder if all these people have been naked all this time. Its like suddenly the need for new cloths is so great that they are climbing over one another to get to a yard of material as if to save their lives. However, 'tis the season of drying wallets and anxious faces, fumbling hands digging deep into "sale" boxes, angry women yanking and pulling pieces of cloths among each other as if their lives depended on it, impatient drivers, screeching of breaks and large "Sale" signs fluttering about in the breeze. Makes you wonder really, about the nuances of human nature and observing these things can be quite fun.

Speaking of shopping, happened to wander into a textile store during the weekend quite forgetting the fact that it is the season of the crazies, to find the place inundated with franticos running about, cradling armfuls of cloths and holding onto them for dear life. Dressing rooms & women I tell u.... Why they need open the door and model every single piece of clothing in the store for their bfs/men when there's a long queue waiting outside, fidgeting about till their turn in the dressing rooms I'l never understand! Is it the fact that these women cannot make a decision by themselves or do they just want to pose around for the man? Well, its not like the opinion of the men matters anyways, the woman always end up doing what they please while the men folk shuffle their feet behind them looking so forlorn, carrying armfuls/bagfuls of stuff that they are supposed to pay for at the end of the whole excruciating exercise. They look tortured, the poor souls. The only happy-looking men I found in the men's section of the store, enjoying the solitary experience, dabbling in a bit of retail therapy by themselves, far far away from the nagging female presence that irks the male existence somewhere else in the store.  

See, this is exactly why I prefer to do my own shopping, rather than drag around a bored looking male companion. The look of sheer pain on their faces pain me too *shudder*

Avrudu sells good this season. It passes from hand to hand in the form of coloured notes issues from the Central Bank of Sri Lanka and sells itself like a common prostitute over blaring speakers and thundering radio broadcasts. Its like a passing illness that causes the crowds to wander the streets like zombies and instead of brains, these zombies consume consumer goods and rather mercilessly too, very unceremoniously.

Oh well, the unbearable heat has subsided the tiniest bit. Let us see how it behaves over the coming couple of weeks. 

BBS please GAL!

I have tried for a very long time to turn a blind eye to this whole "let's hate the other races and point fingers at each other" scenario that's been going on lately, hoping that if I ignore it long enough without contributing to it, that people would soon tire of it. But seems not. Atrocities heighten day by day and my groucho-level goes up every time I spot some post or the other on a social media platform. 

The BBS (aka the Beastly Bullshit Squad) had successfully done their part it seems. In addition to wanting to ban halal, rip hijabs off Muslim women's heads (which the feminist in me secretly condones cz come on, these ladies have pretty faces that they should totally flaunt) and rebelling against contraception for Sinhala women, they have managed to successfully incite the ignorant (or rather bored) "Sinhala Buddhist" majority into a frenzied racist fury. One should only look at the various posts being shared on social media to gag in total disbelief at the sheer blatant animosity, the narrow mindedness of the majority that the shock and disgust just freezes you for a good few minutes. With a herd of brainless bullocks in this country to follow them, no wonder the BBS has such a large fan base, bawling "sadu sadu" at every idiotic stunt that they pull.  Seems that Lankans, better yet the "Sinhala Buddhist" majority are no better than Tamilnadu ignorants who go about brutally attacking innocent Sri Lankans under the slightest provocation.

This is not to say that there are certain Muslims and Tamil people who are as nitwitted as the Sinhala patriotic junkies hammering out BBS-inspired slogans, beating their chests, dangerously whipping their robes/sarongs/sarees/skirts and etc out there. It was just a while back that I was attending a workshop on building intercultural dialog that a Muslim young man, a local university student (I am assuming that one needs at least a tiny bit of intellect to get into a local uni) and an "educated" one at that declared and threatened that the Muslims will overtake Sri Lanka very soon during a peaceful discussion about how to advocate intercultural dialogue between the races for a peaceful future. He was rather aggressive about it and a few other Muslim members of the group joined him in the taunting while the rest of us looked on utterly shocked.

So yes, the truth is that there are extremists in every religion, in every race, in every sphere of life. After all, one is partial to one's own community, however impartial they claim themselves to be. But that does not, by all means, mean that one has to be aggressive, violent in the way in which one remains loyal.

But I am of the opinion that behind this latest racist craze are the authorities themselves, igniting issues with the aim of covering up much larger issues such as the corruption, the declining economy of the country, the seriously effed up education system and etc for which they themselves are to be blamed (Remember the coloured rains, the spaceships, the UN resolution drama, etc just when the fuel prices shot up?)  The general public too is custom-made-stupid for the authorities it seems. Now that the war is over, we have nothing to keep us entertained. Once the colourful rains are done and the spaceships have all left us earthlings in peace, there was simply no entertainment. So now we've resorted to finger pointing and hating. Its the latest trend now.

So the point being, one should not even think of tainting the name of Buddhism by such heinous acts, shameful words and soul crunching aggression. Buddhism is a beautiful philosophy and it does NOT need your bullshit to give off a bad impression to the rest of the world. The people in yellow robes (for I refuse to call them monks) who engage in such acts need to be arrested and properly punished for hiding behind this noble philosophy to engage in such lowly acts. Where in Buddhism is it stated that one should hate and despise other religions? Where in Buddhism is it stated that one should engage in aggressive acts against all those who bear different ideas than what you think? After all, how many of these goodness preaching know-it-alls actually are aware of the true core of Buddhism? How many of them actually even adhere, at least once in a blue moon, to the principles preached? And IF they adhere to those principles, will they go around throwing rotten eggs at unsuspecting females, would they go around vandalizing others' hard earned property, would they go around harassing individuals from other religions and most of all, would they go around harassing all others who dare challenge their views? And WHERE were these righteous knights, rather noble guardians of Buddhism when people were being harassed, brutally murdered for political reasons, money and etc? WHERE in the world were they when innocent women get raped and tortured, harassed in the public? Too busy picketing against the average Mala and Sumana trying hard to manage the number of mouths they have to feed with their meager income by purchasing the occasional contraception I suppose.

It was just recently that I stumbled upon a certain pseudo Sinhala Buddhist page that claimed with much ardour that we must put a stop to women wearing trousers in this country. The page had a regular generous flow of pictures featuring female backsides clad in denims. I wonder how "Sinhala Buddhist" they were feeling when they chased random females down the streets, taking so much pains to photograph their derriers.

So lets say they do manage to chase off all the Muslims, Tamils and even the Christians out of the country. What next? Who to pick on next? I'm sure they'l be flying at each other's throats next, the "Sinhala Buddhists" murdering each other over cast issues and whatnot.

So BBS Puh-leese GAL! (Get a Life!)!