a long way down

sri lankan politicians are a pretty depressed lot these days. with the ruling party nominating mahinda rajapakse for president and anura bandaranaike ( no joke) as prime minister the possibility of a snap general election and the scheduled (date debated) presidential election means that politicians now have to commence the laborious task of pleasing the people. absolute bloody nuisance, men.

already, we are hearing pleasing noises about salary increases, removal of taxes on fuel and so on. this time around there is also all those handsome donations from overseas for tsunami aid, which can now be disbursed to the favored few. the papers are beginning to fill up with ad’s on how much government has done for the people and it is amazing how much can be written about so little. it a wee bit like that emperor chappie in the old story. actually, in his case, he had very little to be embarrassed about, if you get my drift.

i just completed an interview with a smart young girl. recently married. graduate. obtained a secondary professional qualification. reading for another. upwardly mobile and all that jazz - and with absolutely no intention of staying in sri lanka for more than two more years. i asked her why.

those of us ( she said) who want a better life for ourselves and our families, and are prepared to work for it, seem to be in a minority. nothing works. we have no system to fall back on. law and order is non existent. the independence of the judiciary is questionable. politicians are totally corrupt and in for what they can make. no one seems genuinely concerned about the peace process. there is no future here.

but (i asked), what makes you think it’s any better elsewhere. or that you will not be exchanging one set of problems with another?

maybe ( she said) but at least elsewhere i can take comfort in the fact that i and my family have a real chance at individual freedom and the pursuit of happiness. in sri lanka happiness depends on your political muscle and nothing else.

all of which makes for a very depressing start to my weekend. outside, it’s one of those bright and sunny blue sky mornings in colombo. i swear i can even hear birds twittering. sorry. no. it’s just the ups alarms going off. the power has just died on us.

more mayhem

news wires are reporting a series of explosions in the egyptian red sea resort of sharm el-shekh. over 50 reported dead. life and belief has never been more fragile.

what's wrong with the world, mamma?

changing lanes

the killing in london is chilling and a sign that the times they are a-changing.

i an referring here to the shooting by armed police of the guy who ran into the tube. details are sketchy but listening to an eyewitness account on bbc last night it seems that cops stood over the fallen guy and then pumped 5 bullets into the back of his head. one expert commentator glibly stated that terrorism is a modern phenomenon and therefore needed modern responses. right.

in america, in the aftermath of 9/11, the americans did far more damage to themselves than the terrorists themselves. take the patriotic act, gunantanamo bay, the invasion of iraq and the reasons given for it and so on. consequent to 9/11, i seem to remember some u s general say that the geneva convention does not apply to america. these are all modern responses. right.

britain might go the same way. given the fact that they have been hit from the inside there is bound to be curbing of rights and freedoms, taken for granted up to now. the problem with these responses is where exactly does one draw the line? this is not to say that terrorism should go unopposed. it should be opposed and opposed strongly. but what of the root causes of it? where in all the actions and reactions of the western world is an attempt made to understand and address the causes of terrorism?

in countries like sri lanka where western concepts of freedom and democracy are fragile at best of times, we used to look to america and britain as the holders of the flame. what we would like to be when we grew up. now we see that, when the chips are down, they are just as likely to resort to third world tyranny as any in the third world.

“come gather 'round people
wherever you roam
and admit that the waters
around you have grown
and accept it that soon
you'll be drenched to the bone.
if your time to you
is worth savin'
then you better start swimmin'
or you'll sink like a stone
for the times they are a-changin'”

- the times they are a changin’ – bob dylan

...and the band played on.

“the situation here is very tense, machang” said bala when i spoke to him last night. he was on the beach in trincomalee having a booze with some pals.

“cannot be very tense if you are having a night on the town”, i answered not very kindly.

the supreme court petitioned by the jvp and others had just ruled that key sections of the agreement between the government and the ltte were unconstitutional, effectively negating the agreement. meanwhile tit for tat reprisal killings and shooting continue between the government and the ltte in the trincomalee area.

“what to do, men? can’t sit at home with a long face waiting for a bullet, no? cowards die many time times, brave only once.”

this from a guy who once darted into a liquor bar in the middle of a race riot downed half a bottle of old arrack in minutes and then escaped death by joining the mob, was perhaps valid.

“nawe gilunoth, band chune?” i asked innocently but accurately in a sri lankan context.

“ya man! there is a rumor that the chief justice is coming to trinco with the jvp to fight the ltte. must get then for a drink on the beach. everything will be ok and back to normal. don’t worry. need another bottle, machang. gotta go.”

he hung up.

one thing about us sri lankans is our amazing ability to imagine super nova brightness in the black holes we create for ourselves every now and then.

my affair with elephants

stop me if you heard this one before, gentle reader, but it bears repeating. it happened again.

(not so) many moons ago in an enchanting city up in the mountains of sri lanka ( kandy, to the rest of you yahoos) a women was in labour in an old dingy hospital. it was just after midnight and down below the lights of the city sparkled like diamonds on black velvet. the illuminated streets were rivers of light as the annual pageant wound its way through a milling and noisy crowd. there were dancers and acrobats. there were regally dressed up dudes and there were scores of saffron robed priests. there were chappies twirling flying things in the air and snapping ropes. fire eaters and flame throwers stalked the throng. the air was reverberating with the constant beating of drums. and then there were the103 gaily dressed elephants.

one of the beasts steps on a burning ember and all hell break loose. at that precise moment up in the hospital, with a yell quite similar to the one i now give at our karaoke renditions of ‘my way’, i arrived. my cousins, bored with the events in the hospital, had sneaked out to watch the perahara. the enraged elephant deciding that enough was enough headed home. unfortunately, in doing so, she ( i am sure of the gender) decided to take the shortest route, which was through the crowds. my cousins watched aghast as the beast trumpeted past them at full throttle. eight died.

some years later i was working in trincomalee and i used to make a monthly trip to colombo on my trusted yamaha rs 125 ( torque induction, please note). back then, the strip of roadway through most of kantalai and all of habarana was through thick jungle. early one morning at a series of bends just off kantalai known as the yakka wanguwa (devil’s corner – and so it was for david, faizul and ronnie some time later) an elephant charged me from out of the gloom. the rs is a motorcycle that does not move very fast but that morning it took off like a bat out of hell. i can still picture the beast in my right hand mirror, trunk raised and kicking up the dust as it burnt up the road behind me.

a few years later i was in wellawaya with the whites. i think the junior makeens were also there when one evening we drove down to handapanagala to watch elephants. you have to park the vehicles at a particular point and walk along a thin strip of land between the tank and the forest to a clearing where the giant beasts come down to the water. there were about 20 elephants gently grazing near the waters edge when we arrived. suddenly, from behind us, another group of the animals came out of the trees and approached the water. we were surrounded.

there was a rocky outcrop nearby and we ( children included) all scrambled on top. some idiot started taking photographs. clicks and flashes. without warning two huge elephants detached from each of the herds and sprinted towards us. the ground and rock shook. or maybe it was just me. you could feel their anger and enragement. they stomped the ground kicking up clouds of dust, circling the rock, threatening us. petrified, we were stuck there for a long time while night fell. it was only after the last of the herd had ambled back into the jungle that the two toughs decided to leave us alone and disappeared grumpily into the night. the trek back to the vehicles was interesting.

then there was the time that i was driving a visiting ozzie cousin to kandy. there was this massive tusker walking peacefully on the opposite side of road with it’s mahout. my cousin wanted a photograph, so we stopped and got out of the car. the elephant immediately crossed the road, approached us and started to butt the car. the mahout struggled to gain control. my cousin clicked away.

there was yala where together with the whites we are charged by a lone elephant. later that evening my sister and i had a close encounter with an elephant who was, of all things, taking a stroll on the beach. but the best was yet to come.

two years ago we had one of those long weekends sri lanka is famous for. together with family we were holidaying in rakwana. one morning, we decided to drive down to the udawalawe game reserve which sprawls just beside the massive udawalawe tank. hiring an open top jeep we drove into the bush to watch some game. this particular park has mostly elephants and i of all people should have known better. hardly 10 minutes into the drive (we were doing a fair clip) on a dry and dusty dirt track we came round a sharp s bend smack bang into the middle of a group of elephants. in the blink of an eye, five of the pachyderms from a standing graze, charged the jeep. the vehicle stalled.

with the angry animals almost on the vehicle, the driver flapped the door of the jeep a number of times, rapidly. the tracker stuck his head out and yelled something nasty. they stopped, centimeters from the buffer of the vehicle, kicking sand in our faces. in the rear of the jeep women and children were whispering group prayers. the men were being very macho and silent but trembling quietly nonetheless. to the right of the vehicle was a water hole where a number of calves were gamboling.

the five hooligans stood shoulder to shoulder right in front of the vehicle and didn’t move. so, we stayed put. some time later, to general consternation of those in the jeep, another large group of elephants ambled down from the line of trees ringing the spot were we were, silently and single file. at one point someone counted that we are in the middle of a throng of 67 elephants of various sizes and shapes. it was a long wait until they all moved off into the jungle. last to go were the five bouncers, kicking more sand in our faces and swinging their heads sharply but nonchalantly from side to side.

a couple of months ago together with some more visiting ozzie cousins we did a safari into the jungles of habarana. we watched a small herd of elephants gently grazing and nursing their young. a couple of the females looked at me and appeared a wee bit disturbed. they kicked up some sand and made a few mock charges. but it was all very polite and not very serious. with nightfall we hit the main habarana trinco road and headed back to our little hotel for the night when quite without provocation, out of the bush, trumpeting like satchimo a totally enraged she elephant charged the jeep. i was being very macho and hanging out of the back of the vehicle at the time. the driver panicked and in trying to change gears almost stalled the vehicle ( yeah, yeah. déjà vu!). by this time the enraged lady was doing about 35 mph burning up the tarmac and blowing hot air all over me. the tracker shouted something not very polite and the lady subsided. inside the vehicle assorted prayers were once again being recited.

a couple of weekends ago found me back again at udawalawe. yeah, i am a sucker for punishment. more cousins from oz. i should have known.

almost at the entrance to the park itself we come on a massive lone elephant. the driver stopped the jeep almost alongside the animal. inside the vehicle, he was having a loud conversation with the tracker about the latest political situation. those of us hanging on at the back could see that the huge animal was not amused. it approached the jeep slowly. the driver shut up. it walked inches away from the vehicle, disdainfully tossing it’s head in the air and strolled off into the bush. i breathed a sigh of relief.

we spent a good three hours inside the park watching isolated elephants and other small groups of the animals. there were also deer some with magnificent antlers, buffalo, a variety of birds, wild boar, a couple of vans chock-a-block with people and so on. the tracker said that leopard had been sighted but we did not see any. or perhaps they had no interest in me. right at the end, we came across a group of around 12 elephants having a picnic around a waterhole.

the driver decided that we needed a closer look at the idyllic scene and moved the vehicle in closer to the group for a look. one of the young bucks in the herd decided that this was an affront to her womenhood, sorry, elephant hood, stiffened her little tail and charged the jeep at full speed, trumpeting lustily. the driver fired the engine. the jeep backfired noisily, belching black clouds of smoke. the elephant skidded to a stop, quite startled at this surprising development. it turned tail and retreated hastily back into the herd.

maybe the elephants in sri lanka have a “seejoeymustcharge” gene. maybe it’s a female thing (they were mostly, but admittedly not all, female). i am hopeful that the last encounter is a sign that my karma is getting the better of these encounters. on the other hand you are just as likely to learn that i have been flattened by one. which, might please some.

terrorism

an insurance definition of terrorism reads as follows;

“any act including, but not limited to, the use of force or violence and/or threat thereof of any person or group(s) of persons whether acting alone or on behalf of, or in connection with, any organisation(s) or government(s) committed for political, religions, ideological or similar purposes, including the intention to influence any government and/or to put the public or any section of the public in fear.”

complicated. the great gull would not have been amused. the key word is right at the end.

fear.

it succeeds because we fear to fly.

no limits!

“The shimmering stopped. Jonathan Seagull had vanished into empty air.

After a time, Fletcher Gull dragged himself into the sky and faced a
brand-new group of students, eager for their first lesson.

"To begin with " he said heavily, "you've got to understand that a
seagull is an unlimited idea of freedom, an image of the Great Gull, and
your whole body, from wingtip to wingtip, is nothing more than your
thought itself."

The young gulls looked at him quizzically. Hey, man, they thought,
this doesn't sound like a rule for a loop.

Fletcher sighed and started over. "Hm. Ah... very well," he said, and
eyed them critically. "Let's begin with Level Flight." And saying that, he
understood all at once that his friend had quite honestly been no more
divine than Fletcher himself.

No limits, Jonathan? he thought. Well, then, the time's not distant
when I'm going to appear out of thin air on your beach, and show you a
thing or two about flying!

And though he tried to look properly severe for his students,
Fletcher Seagull suddenly saw them all as they really were, just for a
moment, and he more than liked, he loved what he saw. No limits, Jonathan?
he thought, and he smiled. His race to learn had begun.”


Richard Bach – Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1973)

generation x - a groovy kinda space

hey man! i mean, wow! what do you say about a generation who thought that love meant never having to say you’re sorry and peace meant running naked in public? or that a country named ceylon should now be known as the socialist democratic republic of sri lanka? or that elephant sized trousers and tie-dyed shirts were chic? the previous decades had been all about the man. the 60’s had vietnam, the 50’s korea, the 40’s the big II. the 70’s were about us dudes wanting control and change with peace signs and long hair. and grass (and for us in sri lanka, manioc)! it was, like, a new reality, man!

back then, there was this psychedelic wall poster which said “today is the first day in the rest of your life!” . ye gods and little fishes, so they were!

the decade, man, started with changes. rhodesia severed it’s last tie with the british crown and declared itself a racially segregated republic. the man poured troops into cambodia and killed four students protesting the war in vietnam at the kent state university. it was some heavy energy, man. paul mccartney announced the break up of the beatles after the release of “let it be”. a book about a preppy love story was a massive best seller. the chicks got tough, man, with germaine greer’s “the female eunuch”. in ceylon, a new government was installed promptly followed by our own youth revolt against the establishment sans flowers and smiley faces. we had queues and ration cards. apollo 13 limped home with a busted gas tank and simon & garfunkel’s “bridge over troubled waters” was, like, top of the charts. naturally hendrix and joplin died. jesus christ superstar debuted at the west end whilst a movie about a shark munching on the inhabitants of a small american town was a smash hit. groovy, like, you know!

oh! man, yes! there were wars and massacres! israel and egypt fought. america’s digression in vietnam continued until the middle of the decade and then left pol pot in charge of cambodia. africa was becoming a hot bed of nationalist fervor. the legendary raid on entebbe was staged. in jonestown, guyana, jim jones managed to persuade 900 to follow him to that pie in the sky. the slaying of eleven israeli athletes at the olympic games in munich eclipsed mark spitz’s 7 swimming golds. the godfather and the exorcist added to the vibes. it was, like, a bad trip – a conflict, man, of color. you know?

but, then again, jonathan livingston seagull a book about a spiritual seagull, tuned in to all the right vibrations. over the next few years china was seated in the un whilst in america the anti war movement gathered momentum. opec ruled. the pinnacle of establishment, the president of the united states of america was forced to reign insisting that he was not a crook. yeah, baby! music rocked, man, with deep purple, elton john, pink floyd, queen and led zeppelin. there were negative vibes. remember “high on the campus” and “okie from muskogee” ? a song about a pet rat named “ben” even got an afro haired little boy to the top of the charts. it was too heavy man! saturday night fever grooved the middle decade. we had the first micro chip, dude, and a group of universities in the usa connecting to each other via computer in what was the precursor to the www. at the movies it was all spaced out with “star wars”, “close encounters” and “alien”. in sri lanka, those perera brothers formed “the gypsies”.

later on there was more vibes. three popes within a nine week period was, like, infra dig ! strategic arms limitation treaties and the nuclear non proliferation pacts marked the thawing of relations between old enemies. it was chill out time, man. elvis left the building. pol pot collapsed in cambodia. in sri Lanka, a new government swept in and opened economic doors much to the relief of people in queues. earl mountbatten was blown up by the ira. in iran, the shah fled and ayatollah khomeini seized power and the american embassy. there was a leak in the nuclear reactor at three mile island and in britain, margaret thatcher was elected prime minister. evita debuted on broadway while in colombo color tv was introduced. on the 27th of december 1979 the soviet union invaded afghanistan and somewhere in northern sri lanka, among the wild flowers, a young land surveyor was doing some heavy thinking.

it was, man, a far out, psychedelic time. you dig?