Belly dancing monkeys, blazing lights, sneezing one's head off & Wesak

I saw a belly dancing monkey on the Wesak day.

And Wesak is so bloody noisy this time. 

Wesak has come to be a regular commotion of vehicle honking, annoying voices reciting ridiculous pseudo-Buddhist kavi (honestly, they are atrocious), silencerless motorbikes whirring about like irritating mosquitoes, the same old Mohideen Beg songs repeated over and over again till they are stuck in your head like a bad joke gone sour, dansal opening hullabaloo, wolf whistles, those tiny little bells of kadala carts drowning out the peaceful sound of pirith chanting somewhere in the distance. While all the fun and the general air of festivity is all very well, Wesak seems no longer the beautifully serene deal it used to be.

May winds bring the season a sense of breezy tranquility, rustling the many frills of Wesak lanterns, lovingly and carefully crafted by nimble hands. I have always associated Wesak with the smell of freshly bought oil paper for making lanterns, new store-bought lanterns or what we call buckets, coconut oil, the waffery smell of wires you get when untangling strings of multicolored fairy lights which always remind me of colorful butter icing on birthday cakes. Altogether, a happy, cheerful smell. But I can't smell Wesak this time because of this God-awful cold! :(

Wesak for different people mean different things. For children, it is the season of dazzling blinking lights, ice cream and kadala off street carts and hours and hours of endless fun sightseeing. For vendors, its their chance to clear out their white cloths stocks before they turn yellow, dress their best dummies in white and show off their best white attire on sale. For polititians, its their chance to remind the public of their presence by sponsoring Pandols (or getting someone else to sponsor for them but ensuring its their name on the sponsor list) also making sure their names are announced every 2 minutes, opening dansals (once again making sure their names are announced every 2 mins). Wesak for teenagers is the time to observe other teenagers of the opposite sex, a potential dating ground, a potential ground for getting some innocent flirting done while coyly catching each others' eyes, exchanging shy smiles. Wesak for perverts is ultimate groping paradise. Among the throngs of crowds, its a good excuse to push oneself on women and feel them up and down to their hearts' content. Wesak for jobless morons is the ultimate whistling and commenting ground, a free space to throw water balloons, hurl bucketfuls of water at unsuspecting ladies roaming the streets with the aim of getting some innocent Wesak sightseeing done. Bizarre really........

Ah yes, the belly dancing monkey.........

On the day of Wesak we went on our usual Wesak parole. Not a fully fledged Wesak seeing excursion, just out and about the town. It was then that I saw it. Amidst a group of animals singing and playing instruments (all mechanical ones of course, just one of these rather curious, out of context Wesak-time presentations that people seem to conjure up out of thin air) this mechanical monkey just stood there, belly dancing to the tune of essentially Buddhist songs. The hips gyrated from side to side like one of a skilled belly dancer and let me tell you, it was just plain weird. Way too weird, even for me.

Also, looking at social media these days, it seems that the biggest problem in the country right now is the killing of cows and adopting of stray dogs. Also for many, the killing of dogs in some country far far away (say Alaska, or Mongolia, or Timbuktu, or the North Pole for God's sake) seems like a cause worthy of posting disturbing pictures online and fighting teeth to teeth with whoever dared to challenge their views online. Such a nation of Facebook heroes we have become. Quoting from a personal favorite of one of Darling's Tweets "So everybody cares about dogs and cows. Shaa!", leaves me wondering, what about humans? Ayyo Sri Lanka!

Anyways, Wesak has come and gone. All in all, not the greatest Wesak. That incredible calming sense that descends with the season seems to have been lost in translation somewhere. Sadly.

Tuk tuk revelations

The tuk driver asked me whether we should go through Borella. I told him to take me from a route that avoids the usual city nonsense. And he did.

So we wound through narrow streets lined with modest houses of wood and tin facades, rubble and human bodies. Children played in railway tracks while groups of women, young and old huddled together in groups and starred at the distance in communal unison. Some were crouched on the ground while some perched on cheap plastic chairs that had probably never seen better days. Poverty was evident in this area but the smell of delicious cooking permeated through the air. Nothing fancy - just a flavorsome kiri hodi and some other condiments maybe to be had with rice or perhaps string hoppers. Men waited alongside tiny boutiques selling fruits and vegetables - not a lot, a few beli fruits, some scrawny looking mangoes and papayas, a few bunches of bananas either too small or too ripe to sell.
Most houses had no doors but had curtains on the windows. Girl children in dainty cotton frocks with hair neatly combed back into pony tails or pigtails either crouched on the ground along side their mothers or sat in the laps of aunties and grandmothers and either chattered or stared intently at the elders' faces obviously fascinated. Harsh fluorescent lights inside these houses gave out a cheerful homeliness that would have in another place seemed impossible. In the half light of the evening rapidly heralding the night their faces glowed with a satisfied indolence. I wondered what it would feel like to live amidst such beautiful solidarity. I wondered what the mothers told their girl children as they sent them to wash, tied ribbons in their hair and rubbed talcum powder on their faces. There was a sense of belonging there, a feeling of wholesomeness, a warmth that is unlikely in the solitary lives we lead in our own communities today.

These people were neither slum dwellers nor belonged to the average middle class. They were neatly and properly dressed, the children's faces were washed, their hair combed like that of an average middle class child. They wore sensible cloths like the average middle class but had an air of comfortable relaxation and contentment about them that the average middle class does not have. They had clean cloths and clean manners, clean houses and clean faces. Yet they had no fancy jewellery and I'm sure nor any considerable savings to call their own.

Was anyone even aware that there was such a class? Oh who says that we need to class and grade everything anyway? No need to put things and people in boxes, globes, circles and triangles. We are no longer toddlers.   

And then we fell on to the main road again. A couple was arguing inside a car. A man was yawning behind the wheel. A girl clutched the steering wheel in terror while a bus suddenly swerved in her path and nearly hit her. A woman sighed and looked at her watch in a bus. A youngster was poking around in her smartphone. A young man had his bluetooth on and was on a call. For a moment I imagined him to be talking to himself and I smiled to myself.

The Baseline is such a drab road to travel along. The usual honking, the usual brake lights of vehicles starring at you with their drunken red eyes. The usual air of impatience and annoyance. Unlike the other side of the city - so full of life and warmth. And not the scorching heat of roaring engines coughing out toxic fumes choking your insides, throttling what's left of life inside with their sheer mechanical indifference.

Bridesmaid business

According to my to-be sis-in-law’s sister, the beauty of being a bridesmaid is that you get to experience all the excitement of getting married without actually having to undergo all the responsibilities that come along with it. According to her it’s a no brainer, since you only have to dress as the bride instructs you to dress, without having to worry about how you look on that day. In plain simple words, if you look like the bride of Frankenstein on that day (or worse, bridesmaid of Frankenstein’s Bride), it will all be the bride’s fault not yours. Which is something I do not agree with.

People who know me know that I am not the frilly-attired flower-bearing, cake serving smiley type who perpetually emanates bundles of sugary sweet bridal joy. Hence I am so not your ideal bridesmaidsy type. I have been lucky so far to have been spared of this torture since I am taller than most my friends (I come from a family of long limbs for which I am grateful) and haven’t yet been made the coat rack on which all frilly things that the bride likes hang. The logic is that the bridesmaids should be much shorter than the bride. The aim is apparently, to make the bride stand out by making her escorts look ugly. The intention - not to let one of the lesser beings, the bridesmaids steal the show which I find repulsively degrading as well as personally insulting.

But now, my time has come to become a one of those servile less-prettier-than-the-bride faces. Unfortunately, my brother’s bride-to-be happens to be an inch or so taller than me and therefore, either out of pure sisterly affection or out of obligation, she has insisted that I be one of her bridesmaids. Parents strongly advised against turning down her request (which I was very much tempted to do) and as a result, here I am, one of the frilly lot, letting some strange woman measure me up and down, turn me this way and that, scrutinize my every nook, curve and dimple. This is the first time that my body assets are being so candidly discussed, debated over, agreed upon among one another and I don’t think I like it very much. 

Dancing practices are in full sway (oh I do love the way the dudes move to the music like back-sprained coconut trees) and the household is in uproar, preparing this, that and everything. A man had asked Rs 65,000/- just to teach the wedding dance (Its funny how the word "wedding" instantly raises the price on everything noh?) A saree jacket that only takes around Rs1000/- to stitch goes up to Rs 15,000/-, makeup which is just 1800 becomes 1,00,000 and etc. So as a result, I end up the tutor and them, my faithful students. And I get paid nought :/

Evenings are hot, sticky and energy draining which makes it conducive to neither dancing nor doubling over with laughter at the dance-challenged people. Weddings can be fun I guess, though I am dreading the inch thick makeup, bottles of hairspray emptied over my poor hair and the stifling, suffocating dresses that I am convinced were invented as torture instruments for misbehaving women back in the day.

Await more bridesmaidsy posts. Oh I’m sure there’ll be plenty more where that came from.  

   

Train rides and haunted bungalows!

The three-day trip to Badulla last week deserves a post of its own. If the excitement of the train ride wasn't enough, the haunted bungalow and all the tales heard within it is a spine-tingling thriller which is a tale in itself!

Well we got to ride in the engine room of the train, side by side with the engine driver which was an unforgettable experience. We got to ride through 14 tunnels and let me tell you, riding in the engine room, that is a whole different experience. The engine driver too was a cool fellow who had loads of stories to share, having worked in the railway for 30 odd years. Apparently he has seen 50 deaths during his tenure with him behind the wheel....err..the engine. Some lie in the track and walk away when the train gets near, having changed their minds. Some jump in unexpectedly and those are the ones who really do mean business when it comes to committing suicide.   

We lodged at this old estate bungalow at Passara, a lovely colonial building of over 100 years old. The place was humongous and still preserved the old age charm, replete with grand colonial items (old fashioned furniture, clawed-footed bathtubs, chunky metal Shanks bathroom fittings and etc) with large airy rooms, long windows and your typical Appo (the Sri Lankan version of the head butler) in the white sarong, white shirt and the black belt. The bungalow had three living rooms which we were informed were the rooms where visitors were received according to their importance. Back in the colonial days, the lower officers were received in the small living room closest to the entrance, while the higher ranking officers were received in the slightly larger room next to the former mentioned. The governor and persons of similar stature were received in the much larger, innermost living room and we were told that in days of the past, members of English Royalty had graced that very location. It was almost like time travelling, the many tales that the appo had to tell once we got friendly with him, the setting itself creating a blissful hallucinatory effect on the mind.

And then there's the resident ghost/ghosts. Apparently in one of the rooms, a girl had been murdered once upon a time. So now she roams the bungalow during night and if a woman happens to sleep in the room that she had been murdered, she gets strangled whereas if a man happens to sleep there, he gets pulled off the bed. This is the estate superintendent's quarters and he happens to be a friend of my father and his wife and children too had experienced several inexplicable phenomena while staying there. His wife, the daughter of my father's best friend swears that one night she had been strangled in bed and that she felt a presence leaving her side as she woke. Her elder son, a boy of seven years swears that he saw a womanly figure passing in front of him and crawling under his father's desk. The children had woken up screaming on several occasions while the superintendent has not apparently seen anything. But while he was there, several people , good friends of his have stayed in the room and they each has experienced the ghost in different ways. (A girl had been strangled, two drunk men have sworn that there was a third person in the room with them, a Police DIG who has been there to investigate a murder case has been pulled off the bed, several people who had absolutely no idea about the story could not fall asleep in that room however much they had tried and etc) It was all very fascinating. Until the superintendent's 3 year old daughter said something that raised everybody's hairs.

This little girl who had initially been quite shy became very friendly with me later on. We were all sitting outside chattering nonsense about this and that when the little girl who had been sitting close to me chattering about her toys suddenly told me (mind that we were not discussing ghosts at this point and neither was she anywhere around when we were discussing ghosts) that "that woman" comes sometimes at night and she gets scared. I was wondering what woman she was talking about since the only woman in the household is her mother. Then I asked what she looked like and she told me "that dark woman with hair like yours who occasionally comes. Even aiyya is afraid of her" indicating her 7 year old brother. This managed to let a teeny bit of actual fear into everybody's blood.

The Appo too had the most interesting stories. At first he remained absolutely silent but once we got friendly, he became chatty. Having worked at the same bungalow for more than 40 years, he claims to not having slept a single night there without scattering a line of holy ash over the doorway and the window. He claims that spirits cannot cross these lines. The several times he had to sleep outside in the corridor (when superintendents' wives and children get creeped out, they request him to be at hand) he had felt someone step over him and walk away while when looking back, he had seen a dark shadow of a woman passing. Taking into account that the Appo is a dignified fellow who does not usually talk much, you do tend to believe him. He is faithful and loyal as told to us by my father's friend under whom Appo had served for many years.    

The most hair raising incident happened when my father's old colleagues dropped in for dinner that day. Now my father used to work in Badulla for more than 3 years and he was given quarters at this charming old colonial bungalow as well located a little away from the Badulla town. He has lived there alone for more than 3 years with just the watcher guy and the cook for company (they had their quarters away from the house so practically my father lived in the house alone) and even I when visiting for holidays had stayed there for days all alone. One of the people who visited for dinner is the one who who holds my father's position now and he too has been given quarters at the same place. An incident that he reluctantly came up with (as he is not a believer in ghosts) is that one day as he walked in through the front door of the house, he felt something strange. Hair was raising at the back of his neck and as he looked to the side, a foreigner who was sitting on the sofa got up and walked away. Let me tell you, hearing that about a place where you used to stay alone, sleep alone is not fun at all.               

And then I remembered everything. Although I haven't actually seen anything, I, a heavy sleeper, had always had difficulty sleeping at that place. I was never very comfortable at night and one night, while visitors were occupying my room which was larger, instead of staying in my parent's room as suggested, I asked for another smaller room (to which I was inexplicably drawn to) to be set up for myself as I was writing my final year thesis at the moment and needed a room for myself. This room had large windows, a whole row of windows in fact and I threw several blankets over them when the feeling of being watched became unbearable, thinking that the watcher may just be peeping in from outside. That room in particular was uncomfortable while I had never really felt at ease in any rooms that I had slept in at that house.

And then there's this tale about the white cobra that the caretaker keeps seeing creeping into the house that we often carelessly waved off. Oh well............

Planters' bungalows often have the most fascinating tales. Having been inhabited by many over the years and also owing to the dramatic lives that these planters had led anyways, these houses are bound to have some sentiments echoing within the walls anyway. Anyhow, I am sure that if I stayed there for at least a week, I would have collected enough material to write 2-3 novels as the number of ghost stories, first hand encounters with the supernatural and etc is stupendous. Come to think of it, I think I can pull off at least one novel out of all this!

Speaking of novels, mine is developing rather slowly. Tempted to leave that aside and start on a horror story but I just wouldn't know where to start! Oh well, lets see. "Scattered" sales are good surprisingly for a poetry collection and I am getting positive feedback and well as constructive criticism for which I am grateful. Most comments I get is that they would like to see another poetry collection soon. Let's see. Time to write is rare indeed!