dude, where's the bucket?

déjà vu? you’re damn right.

the sri lankan parliament, tuesday, passed legislation imposing a hefty tax on foreign films and tv programs. no doubt our leaders want us to digest the fare local cinema and soap has on offer. the reasoning behind this bright move is varied.

firstly, there is the fact that fewer people are going to the cinema. secondly, lesser numbers seem to watch local programs on the idiot box. and this includes what passes for news and information in our part of the world ( orwell, would have nodded sagely). but this is not all. there is the insidious impact of foreign influences via film and the telly on what is called the culture of sri lanka. for good measure, there is also the negative impact such malevolence would have on the tender minds of the youth of the country.

good.

so now we can watch song and dance routines until the cows come home. we can learn to enjoy those ultra slow movement in the local soaps, the crass crudity that passes for comedy and the fact that any passing resemblance to entertainment will consist of 78% advertisements. news and information will of course consist only of what the government says it should be. as for culture, yeah, sri lanka will become the final bastion for inbred culture in the world, whilst it’s youth will become shinning examples of fortitude and “goodness”.

we’ve been through all of this stuff before, of course. whilst for most of the globe the 70’s were a fun time of extra large trousers and bright flowers, here in sri lanka we were in the throes of experiencing life in a well. no doubt people are nostalgic for those times.

far out, sri lanka. far out.

how to spot a sri lankan...!

everything you eat is savored with onions, chilies and is deviled .

you re-use gift wrappers, gift boxes, and of course aluminum foil.

you are standing next to the two largest size suitcases at the airport.
you arrive one or two hours late to a party, and ask if anyone’s arrived.
you peel the stamps off letters that the postal service missed to frank
…and then you recycle greeting cards.
your toilet has a plastic bowl and / or a little shower next to the commode.
all your children have pet names, which sound nowhere close to their real names.
you talk for an hour at the front door when leaving someone's house.
you load up the family car with as many people as possible.
you use plastic to cover anything new in your house whether it's the remote control, vcr, carpet or new couch.
you tell jokes about a strange guy named udarawana who must be a blond.
you live with your parents even if you are 40 years old (and they like it that way).
if she is NOT your daughter, you always take interest in knowing whose daughter has run away with whose son and feel its your duty to spread the word.
you only make long distance calls after 11 p.m.
if you don't live at home, when your parents call they ask if you've eaten, even if it's midnight.
when your parents meet other sri lankans for the first time and talk for a few minutes, you soon discover they are your relatives.
your parents don't realize phone connections to foreign countries have improved in the last two decades, and still scream at the top of their lungs while talking.
you have bed sheets on your sofas so as to keep them from getting dirty.
it's embarrassing if your wedding has less than 600 people.
you list your daughter as "fair and slim" in the matrimonial no matter what she looks like.
you think it a god given right to jump a queue
you slander the politicians even though you haven’t voted in decades.
you have really enjoyed reading this missive because you know some, or most of them, apply to you!

(based on an e mail doing the rounds sometime back)

potty aliens

the toilet at rr has been violently bombed. this is no joke. at precisely 02:02 am on the 6th of march 2006 ( please note the rows of two’s, sixes and zeros) , an object crashed through the roof of the said toilet with a resounding bang. at first i thought it was gas ( dinner had been heavy) but closer inspection revealed a hole in the toilet roof and on the floor a tiny blackened object, smoldering and glowing.

this is all a bit much. it is one thing to receive personal critiques from not so gentle readers by e mail, it is quite another matter entirely to be pelted with meteorites. i suspect that my previous post together with an earlier effort about cosmo in the toilet had something to do with the issue. i should respectfully point out that there now arises the question of the cost of the considerable repairs to the roof. who do i send it to?

it could be the americans with a misguided missile from baghdad. but the thing is clearly stone. it could, of course have been an irate neighbor but the object was also patently not a brick ( and i have admittedly dropped many of those in my checkered past to recognize one). it could have been a furious rock chucking girl friend but that particular spices has been extinct for a considerable period of time. and, there remained the matter of the smoldering ( no! i don’t smoke on the throne. how do you explain the hole in the roof and the bang, excuse me? on second thoughts forget i asked that question).

ergo. there must be, somewhere out there, a gaggle of aliens floating around and doing nothing but monitor postings on the mbb blog site. this lot have obviously been given the freedom of rowdy comment and tend to do so at the drop of a post. they are obviously discerning in that they do not like reader’s digest and prefer cosmo. however, it stands to reason that they be held accountable for such actions. therefore, i hereby submit a request for settlement of rs. 4,642/73 being cost of new asbestos sheets inclusive of cost of fixing. i thought of including something for pain of mind but guess that the little monsters have no concept of mind.

for the rest of you yahoos, if rr is flattened tonight by a flying saucer you know where to lodge my claim.

convertible currency

traveling overseas with the sri lankan rupee is akin to having one of those exotic african currencies. wads of the stuff disappear into an ultra slim folder of travelers cheques, the size of which would make the designers of cellular phones envious. my bank manager is, in addition, generally unhappy with the fact that erratic accumulation of positive numbers sitting pretty on the spread sheet on his screen suddenly reduces alarmingly to zero. he serves me orange barley in a glass and mutters darkly about the financial mayhem facing executive sri lanka. the chappie in the next cubicle sips tea from what appears to be a silver cup. a little later as i leave the bank with dire warnings of financial ruin ringing in my ears, sliver cup slips into a bmw whilst i hail a three wheeler.

in foreign countries, any attempt to do the simplest of things can send one on a rampaging guilt trip. a taxi ride would feed a large family for a week, a visit to a museum would pay for all cloths the family needs in a month, whilst dining at a restaurant converts into the equivalent of a decent prize at the national lottery. suggesting various things to do in the uk, the pot became quite exasperated with my constant query of “how much?”. in the end he took me for a walk through hyde park, buckingham palace and the british museum for free which quite suited by budget. however, at the end of the tour he insisted on going to madame toussards. the board at the entrance said gbp 40 for per adult. eighty bucks? that’s an annual scholarship. whilst i studied an interesting poster on mel gibson, the pot paid.

restaurants are a different matter entirely. generally one is taken along with other relatives and / or family members of the host and the bills are always something out of elm street. nothing less than a trip to singapore. one hopes that the waiter will do the done thing and place the little folder with the dreaded bill sticking out closer to the host and that the said host would then do the done thing and say “no! no! let me take this”, but these are too many variables and the situation is prone to the financial crisis my bank manager, no doubt, has nightmares over.

the m’s took me one night to dinner at the cn tower in toronto. at 1815 feet it is billed as the tallest building in the world but it is really a massive transmission mast with a fancy revolving restaurant three quarter way up the bloody thing. just to get in cost 250 bucks for all of us and i could hear my bank manager groan. but, the m’s kindly paid. the view was probably similar to that shuttle astronauts get as they commute to space but as we headed to the giddy horizon restaurant for a meal and my hip pocket felt airy. from the menu, i noted that the cost of lobster would have kept a politician back home happy for a week and therefore chose the cheese sandwich. the scenery was slowly rotating but whether from the thought of the bill or the 360 degree restaurant was uncertain. the waiter approached with the bill. m did something quite unexpected. he stood up and walked away to the men’s. string theory and alternate universes flashed through the mind.

ms. m, noticing my consternation, gently informed me that the bill was taken care as the restaurant owner was known to the family. if i had known that i would have had the lobster.

(inspired by an article in an old copy of readers digest left in the toilet)