RageforLight

Back from Home - incomplete

2012-01-31T10:00:00.000-08:00

The air and the cold is unfamiliar

upon my return.

The sameness of the houses

And the dull colours

Remind me of my first trip to England

The bikes takes turns slowly and awkwardly

In my hands

For a brief moment I wonder what side
I should ride on

my face hurts with the cold

all is dark and sharp and angular

There has been no gradual fade from warm to cold,

from soft, muggy air to harsh and clear

Only a jarring change

(I prefer in-betweens, and slow fades

like how Christian Spain fades into

what used to be Muslim Spain and then to

Morocco, across the sea)

I try to remember Colombo,

the stickiness of sweat

between my fingers

in a film across my face

The trip home

(is it home? Is it not home? What is

home?) (As I say it the question seems like a cliche

Doesn’t stop it being true.)

feels like a blur of memories

even when I was there I

had trouble grasping onto things

events happening so fast, so chaotic, so

without control

that I couldn't get a grip,

couldn't

take a photograph

in my mind

put things into any logical order

couldn't even place things into neat boxes of wrong and right.

(The lake in the Haagse bosges is still beautiful

The frost has frozen the mud into a non-splashy stillness)

The Colombo lifestyle beckons seductively,

insidious?

so many people, so poor,

so at one's beck and call

an environment that can be tempered with

airconditioners, doormen who open doors, people to

pack one's grocery bags, push one's elevator buttons

drivers to drive, (I recall looking at the way I was dressed, and looking at the way A was dressed,

how new my clothes were, how tattered his clothes were)

cooks to cook

More importantly, back home, there are

colours

to see, smells to smell

(although, this early winter morning

in the hague as I head to work, as steam or smoke

rises slowly

from a building, and the light is soft

there is a spare, gentle beauty in everything

including the skeletons of trees

and the delicate sun

The smell of manure slowly makes its way

through the cold, still air

There is bauty to be seen and felt and

had in many places, I guess)

my parents are to the right of me and to the left

of me, below me and above me

I try to grasp moments

of communication, of common ground
the conversations we had, the three of us
sitting in a solemn circle on the balcony,
(Appa tells me to be careful when I enter
because the parrots are feeding)
in the growing dark,
me slapping away mosquitoes, real and
imagined with one of appa's handkerchiefs
that I took off a rack

Appa tells me

how he had been brought down to Ragama

as a child

How his family came from Malaysia

the travels of his grand uncle

[censored]

ammi talks of how she and appa met, how her parents reacted, at first,
how they ende up in the same office,
just out of law college,

[censored]

Ammi is so apprehensive

about my impending

departure

About me being a ghost

That there is almost nothing that I can say

to help

Only inanities

Often I feel as if I have nothing to share
or maybe no time to share

no space for it in my head or theirs

(a small earthmover sieves rubbish out of a canal, I

wonder about the man operating it,

how did his day begin? what time did it begin? What did he have for breakfast? Did he

have coffee?

is it a woman?)

The nostaligia and
displacement
(or at least the searing
edge of it)
will last only a few days
After which I will
re-submerge
into routine
the teeth in the wind will drive away all memory
of heat and dust and moisture
(Although sometimes in the hague I
feel like I am suspended
in unreality, an
elaborate set, a
move that I do not belong
in, a world that
cannot see me
where I hide
from contact)

Road

2012-01-05T21:02:00.000-08:00

An old woman

with unruly graying hair cradles

a bundle of wood,
long and twisted.

Telephone poles lie abandoned,
covered in weeds.

Boy swinginging a stick, a

worn towel wrapped
around his thin shoulders

like a shawl. A

little girl with a flowered skirt

pauses as she heads into a temple,

gazes at our bus.

Roof-tiles
in the old-fashioned

arched style,
troughs and peaks of

asymmetrical
aging curves.

The roads begin to wind
as we climb. Steep
side lanes
cut into the hillside and
disappear
into the trees.

Old man in white,
jowls bunched under moustache.

Half-made earthen steps
weave along the road

stony, wild.

Two dogs wrestle in the grass.

Roadside stalls
on the kadugannawa climb
have dangling
harsh bright
florescent lights.

The hillside falls away
below
The bus ahead is crowded,
passengers struggling for
space and grip, I
feel uncomfortable, watching them
from our comfy seats.

Curtains are neatly tied
in the window
of a wooden shack.

Old poster fading on a tree trunk,

bright signs

stuck in paddy fields.

A tree like a crouching witch

with branches
like gnarled hands.

Bundles of rope
trussed neatly
in a row in a shop verandah.

Squad of orderly milk cans

in the back of a truck.
Black dog

resting his snout on cement floor.

In the back of a lorry, a

boy sits
on crates of empties,

hands clasping the necks

of two bottles

Unhusked corn in piles.

A Jackfruit tree emerges

from the thatched roof

of a small hut

(glimpse of trunk
within).

Someone has used sticks and branches

to weigh down the tagaram roof

of a stall.

Jackfruit split

with ripeness, or a heavy fall,

innards barely visible.

Old fertilizer bags lie abandoned.

Men sitting on tree trunks
on the back of a
truck, one young

and talkative, another

old with white hair.

A child peeks

over the seat of a motorbike.

Vehicle graveyard,
out front a trailer lies tractor-
less, filled
with rusted junk.

Round scar
of a fallen limb on the bole of a tree

We eat at a place called Saruketha (fertile
paddy field)

I like the name,
although the devilled
cuttlefish is bland,

“mee kiri kamu!” (lets eat
buffalo curd!) on a sign

“Bulath vitak!” (betel leaf
bunches!)
on another.

Schoolgirls in pigtails.
Graying hair of a
man on a bicycle.

A bed on the verandah of a

wattle and daub house

has a red sheet.

Fragments of a poster on a tree.

A tuk tuk driver leans back, foot near handle,

texting on his mobile.

White chest hair on a middle aged man,
his sarong tied high
on his belly.

Breadfruit leaves
turn yellow
on the ground.

House near the rail-tracks, walls
discolored
by time and dirt.

A bamboo grove,
young leaves spiky
and wild.

Old leaves
gather in clumps
on corrugated roofs.

Fuselage of an old van

near a garage. An

old woman

re-ties her waist-cloth.

watching the road.

Idle whip of a cow’s tail.
A thatched roof on stilts protects
an orderly pile of bricks,
there must be a kiln nearby. A
stray dog watches
the buses go by,
Drying clothes weigh a line into an awkward curve
Houses painted a fading lime green
and dusty pink.

A man sits by a pile of unhusked corn, his

blackened pot
ready for customers.

Another pot,
covered.

smoke rising.

AH

2011-12-02T07:42:00.001-08:00

His lanky gauntness is omnipresent. Careworn grey trousers hanging loosely off his thin legs. So tall and so spare he could have been made out of wood. Hooked Roman nose and missing teeth. An emperor who grew up stuck inside the chicken coop of the mind. He works with the energy of a demon (climbing, chopping, fixing, digging...) and the precision of a machine, one of those people for whom every knife-stroke, every step lands perfectly. He has a cognitive sharpness that almost cuts, deployed often to track which cars and buses and vans he overtook. Daily he launches foul-mouthed illogical rants about politics, politicians, war and the cost of living.

When I was a kid, before “tuition class” or stuck in traffic along the grimy length of the airport road he used to tell me things...

Like when in his village, there had been a dead body. Decomposed. He had helped carry the cadaver, the skin coming off in his hands. Had taken a small piece of bone, given it to a drunken man at a tavern and told him it was dried fish. Told him to eat it.

About a soldier who had been assigned to use heavy machinery in a field, a motor hoe or something. How he had been using it illegally in another place to make some money, and how the heavy claw of the machine had fallen back on him. Crushing him. AH and other soldiers had taken him to hospital. His head on AH's lap. Before he died he told AH that he was sad about his family, that he was thinking of his family.

And about his days driving a toddy lorry. I pictured one of the lumbering, ancient, rumbling, panting wooden-backed monsters that ply the roads from the coast to the hills up and down. When they went to pick up the toddy one day, he drank so much he couldn’t reverse the lorry out of its parking spot. Showed me with his hands him repeatedly trying to put the lorry in gear. I pictured one of those tall gear shafts like the ones you see in TATA buses

He used to offer me plantains and mangoes and jackfruit. The mangoes would occasionally still bear the black debris from the cut of a sooty knife. Proffer them with an aggression and insistence that bordered on harassment, that may have been amusing, interesting in an old woman but almost a physical affront coming from a man. Words used like loose bullets uncontrolled. Occasionally taunting. Waiting for you to rise to the bait.

Back when he lived in Dummalasuriya we went down to AH’s house. Bathed in the river. AH in makeshift swimming trunks fashioned out of a knotted banyan-vest. Drank toddy out of a large one-and-a-half litre plastic coke bottle, till we were laughing uncontrollably. While my father lay content in an armchair on the verandah. His wife made curried squid, tiny, digit-sized morsels speared with iratu (the stalks of coconut leaves) and a pollos (young jackfruit) curry, so thick with coconut milk that the chunks disintegrated in my mouth like blocks of savoury cream.

Some years later, when she got aches and pains in her knees, AH used to complain that when they were getting married, nobody told him. That she’d get aches and pains in her knees.

Clingendael

2011-11-07T09:58:00.000-08:00

The wind has turned into an unruly monster

Shaking the trees, whipping

the bushes

I stall, occasionally,

like a seagull.

The sun is out,

glinting at the side of my spectacles

attracting brightly coloured

clothes, strollers,

babies

The light blurs my eyelashes

as I look up.

The light green of leaves

is turning an orange-

brown

Long Days

2011-11-04T00:21:00.000-07:00

Back then
behind the bedrooms,
in the house-sized cut in the hill
that rose up to where the plant nursery was
there was a bed of strawberries
not the giants you get in the West
but small ones, wild and imperfect.
At dinner I used to like to crack open chicken bones
or chew the soft drum-stick ends and suck out
the thick savoury marrow.
Sometimes we used to get fresh cow’s milk
from the Cow Baas down the hill
It tasted so different from the powdered version,
especially if you let it cool,
and the filmy skin grew thick and tangible
on the surface.
Underneath its wooden floors
Hatton bungalow is criss-crossed by a series of deep drains
As a small child I’ve gotten into them and thought
maybe I could creep through.
Mysterious pipes from the bungalow,
emerge in the guava grove
heading down towards the lake
Tall sepia walls, whose corners disappear into darkness,
floor cold to the touch of slipper-less feet.
Musty smell of store-rooms.
Warped wood in the pantry floor.
From the children’s bedroom
there is also access through a missing ceiling board
into an attic-like space .
My mother used to write stories
about a pack of mice who used to live in the Lata Pata (junk) room
behind the cook’s bedroom
The Lata Pata room was always a place of mystery
full of random things
We used to spread talcum powder
on the floor of the lobby
until our feet slid and we would “skate”.
We never did manage to furnish Hatton house
they way it once must have been
but the sitting room was warm and
the shelves full of books
One day my parents
called-in a priest to look at the house
he followed the swinging of a cross
on a string
and dug up a small silver foot
washed it in a basin
within it my family says
were the ashes of human remains
it was a “Hooniyama”
Something placed there to ensure no person who set eyes on that bungalow
would get to purchase it
my mother says they bought the house without visiting it
and maybe that's why they got to buy it.
(Hatton was the reason we could not flee when the riots happened
all my parents savings were tied up in it)
I often wondered about this incident
How much of it is true
I remember vaguely
the image of the priest in his white smock
and the washing of the little metal foot
in a basin of water.
I used to walk down the stone steps in front,
next to the gnarled cypress tree
to the half moon shaped lawn
unruly grass
little anthills popping up everywhere on the periphery
stand at the edge and gaze over the greenness of the lake.
When tea is planted in estates
hills have furrows cut into them
burrowing all the way to the bottom
down which water can escape
slicing through ring-shaped ditches circling the hills
When I was a boy playing cops and robbers,
we used to scrabble through the twigs
until we found something vaguely pistol-shaped.
hide in the ditches, slide down the furrows.
I discovered
that the way to not get caught, shot
is not to move at all
to lie quietly in a ditch
and look at the sky
through the leaves
of tea bushes.
At night, after a day of playing
we used to bathe in hot water
triggering the wrath of a hundred maana-
grass scratches
combat-injuries sustained
during hours playing
on the hillsides
In the smooth tea bushes that look like curly hair from far away
The rasping serrated leaves
of maana bushes
on unplanted hills.
The slopes ranging down
from Hatton bungalow
to the lake
to the right of the crescent-shaped lawn
had guava trees terrace after terrace.
We used to spend hours on those trees
our bare soles
rubbing shiny spots of familiarity on the knobbly tree trunks
choosing just the right guava fruit
not too soggy after rain (they taste watery then)
not too soft and ripe
because they might have gone bad.
Occasionally we’d build a tree house
planks slotted into clefts in the larger guava trees
I used to be fascinated by the idea
of building something autonomous, that you could live in
somewhere to eat, safe from the rain
it felt like an earthy, tactile magic
And bonfires. We had bonfires
We used to thrust knobbly potatoes into the embers
and the ash covered wood
sometimes wrapped in foil, sometimes not
they would come out burned, blackened,
mostly inedible

There is a picture of me and Shehan on holiday in Hatton
we are chewing on sausages
stuck on sticks

It reminds me of those long days
full of play

Finchley

2010-05-15T01:34:00.000-07:00

He has big sad eyes that light up when we get the harness out for a walk (he wheezes if you use a normal collar) and look mournful when he is being ignored. His oversize paws and ears fly everywhere, except when he naps on his towel (faded, it reads “Polo bear, designed by Ralph Lauren”). He has no fear reflex. Licks anyone. Reminds me of a Luis Aragon piece, where he describes his youth “… qui mettaient sur tout leur doux bruit d’ailes” - brushing against everything with the soft sound of its wings. I don’t ever recall being that innocent and unscarred.

On walks, he sniffs industriously at every major dog-landmark (bushes, pillars, aging dog-poop…). Explores the boles and bulging contours of tree trunks. Stops stock-still at the sight of big, brown Clingendael geese. The geese argue loudly, like my old neighbours in Colombo. Probably about the same things. Pigeons take-off en-masse at the sight of us. He stares at cows sleeping near the old bunker of Arthur Seyss-Inquart, the Nazi Reichskommissar for the Netherlands during the 40’s.

When I work in the study, he lies nearby, chewing meditatively on favourite toy no. 2 (a piece of blue knotted cloth) or giving his genitals the once-over. His paws are usually damp from a walk, or from getting too excited at the water bowl. (he drinks in loud gulps – snout deep in the bowl). Every once in a while he lets out a deep sigh. I make sighing sounds, to keep him company.

A streak of white extends up Finchley’s handsome black forehead, widening out in a gentle triangle at the top, as if drawn by a paintbrush. His stomach fur is long and thick. Paw-pads wide and worn, as if he was a forest animal. The sun coming in through the study window silvers the hair on my forearms, and highlights the contrasts in his fur. I see my reflection in the metal of the table lamp. I look sleepy and unshaven.

Explico Algunas Cosas

2009-11-07T23:41:00.000-08:00

I like having books in random places. In the bathroom, there’s a picture book by Leunig, a big matt-khaki book on Arabic literature, my lonely planet guide to Africa and pieces by a few African women writing in French:

Marie Claire Dati, in Jubilation, writing about women who are like fruit, Femme mandarine, femme jus de fruit, a savannah, a spring, bamboo, colours… and in Je Déchire – I tear out - she tears out the pages of Africa with rainbow eggs that have angel flesh, an ongle de genie – fingernail of a genie, where her grandma was born on septic banana leaves, where her grandma, squatting, dropped the larme rouge de la fécondité – red tear of fecundity.

Tanella Boni writes of 'Bidonvilles' - shanty towns, where 'liberte' enchainee' to the marrow, with a banana tree that dreams, 'sous-hommes' - sub-humans, who shove and struggle to live. In Grains de Sable - grains of sand, images swim, women living, like dolls or toys, birth to death, 'sur l'estomac d'un nom d'homme' - on the stomach of the name of a man (father, husband). Like a flea. In 'Il n'ya b pas de parole heureuse' - there are no happy words, god created her woman's skin as un instrument de musique, unedited. In Gorée, ile baobab, she writes of slave ports, of stone walls that still remember cries and prayers. The 'porte du continent', memories of barbarity across the 'peau de mer' - the skin of the sea.

There's a woman whose name I love, she's called Werewere Liking, she wrote Est-ce bete! - isn't this silly! - sketching her body, 'contours et ligns elastiques' and curves, hollows, 'comme un jeu de songo' - like a songo game board - warmth, dampness, Une bouche qui remue - a mouth that moves, stiff fingers 'comme des mille-pattes sous le petrole', millipedes in kerosene.

Sans papiers (Dominique Aguessy), about immigrants drowned, perhaps on their way to the promised land. Ombres confisquées – confiscated shadows, au rhythm de traverses – in the rhythm of the crossings. Born of a nightmare told by a smuggler. All the drowned look the same, she says. Sans visage, sans nom, sans mémoire.

I flip the pages… ecstasy of a woman in orgasm. Petit mort. Beads around her waist. Poems by women who could not be traced after they wrote. A voice like a single string guitar.... Women for sale in the 'Marchand de femmes (Aminata Athie), where a woman is a heater, air conditioner, seed, talisman, jewel, body, cowry. Objet de premiere nécessité.

In 'Burkina Blues' Angele Bassole-Ouedraogo, sings of street children sleeping in makeshift beds, all over the Ouagadougou market, who quémander leur quotidien - beg for their daily meal, on the highways of Abidjan…but people want her to write that tout est beau...

La souffrance des enfants de la rue she will paint, she rages, on the walls of their chateaux. Pour into their luxury gardens, La misére de méres - the misery of mothers. Reminds me of ol Pablo in Explico Algunas Cosas: people ask why doesn’t he write lilacs and leaves and dreams and volcanoes?

Venid a ver la sangre por las calles! He howls. Come and see the blood on the streets!

venid a ver
la sangre por las calles

Syngué Sabour, Beijing Coma

2009-09-08T10:16:00.000-07:00

Near Pathe cinema, on a side street going into Chinatown, there's a place called Eazie. Inside the walls are pictures of a city with Chinese signs. You get to chose 5 types of vegetable. I chose two types of mushrooms, onion, sprouts and tofu. Stir-fried in Thai sauce and poured onto fried rice. There’re chairs on the sidewalk, so I sit outside. I always start with chopsticks, lose patience halfway through and switch to the plastic fork.

I’m reading a book called Syngué Sabour. About an Afghan fighter (Taleban?) who's paralyzed (comatose? Never very clear on this, his eyes are open but you never know whether he sees anything) after getting shot and is taken care of by his wife. It’s mostly his wife talking to him, telling him stories, in a small rectangular room with curtains with pictures of migratory birds. The book is full of rhythm, like a poem, and time is measured by the breaths he takes.

I read Syngué Sabour in the tram and the train. I read it most times that I get the chance, except in the bathroom, where I have “the beats: from Kerouac to Kesey, an Illustrated Journey through the Beat Generation”. (with pictures).

The odd thing is that recently, I also read Beijing Coma, about a Tiananmen Square protest organizer who’s in a coma after being shot in the head. His thoughts, his memories, detailed descriptions of what’s happening to his body. His mother. The bird that visits his room.

Both about people who are paralyzed, and peoples who are paralyzed.

Café Surfing

2009-08-17T09:26:00.000-07:00

I like sitting in cafés. I know the menu of the bookstore café by heart, especially the unusual bits. There’s NO STRESS! (orange juice, carrot, ginger and a shot of royal jelly) and Energy (fruit juice, organic yoghurt, lecithin and bran). (wtf is lecithin?). There’s also the cinnamon-and-raisin-bagel-with-walnut-and-honey-cream-cheese.

But today, I haven’t made it to the bookstore yet. I’m at Dendy, near the square where they have the Sunday antique market under the trees. On the pavement outside, watching people go by. Bright summer clothes. A man in faded check pants with his two daughters. The older one holds a flower. Mischievous half-smile on the slightly chubby younger one. She runs her hand along the silver backs of the chairs, one after the other. Almost does the same to my shoe, which sticks out at chair height, but catches herself and staggers-off happily.

A craggy-faced man sits next to me, sipping no-nonsense plain coffee from a medium size cup. I picture him thinking dour thoughts, like Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino, mocking my café latte. Craggy face turns out to be not alone. His visitor is a woman in crutches. Her clothes are expensive but too young & shiny for her. Not the woman I pictured for craggy face. They leave.

There’s a shop across the street, Blooming Art. I wonder whether it’s a shop for paintings about flowers. Lot of flowers, only one painting, so I’m probably wrong. Above, on the second floor, there are plumes behind the window. Greeny yellow and faded orange. They look like the feathers that burlesque dancers wear, or the wavy things you see on coral reefs.

Odd noise, like a horse wearing metal coco-nut shells for shoes… a bride and groom come around the corner on a silver and white Vespa, tin-cans tied to the back. She’s wearing the lacy head-dress thing that brides wear. I’m worried for a moment, because she’s brown-skinned. I’m always nervous when brown people do something weird, hoping that people won’t laugh at them and so at me. Ever the brown sahib. Two middle-aged women (they took craggy-face’s chair) laugh, but it’s not a condescending laugh. I relax. Flip open my trusty lappy. With the scratched copper cover and the thumb marks on the screen...

Helping IDPs - Ongoing Projects

2009-06-09T00:43:00.000-07:00

http://rebuildlanka.wordpress.com/projects/

Anthem

2009-06-06T01:59:00.000-07:00

The war is over

Blogs, newspapers, my
Gmail inbox
alive with

Bravado

Only patriots and traitors
now.

Ripe
jackfruit juice, sound of tabla music smell
feel of milk rice wattalappan
after breaking
fast, sound
of Tamil guttural
to my ears but full
of memories
my fathers friends
of trips
in the rickety old van
with the loose seat through
tea estates. Big
chariots wheeled deities in a
Kovil with the hundred (thousand?) steps in
Hatton town. I was
in a Sinhala version of Macbeth
once I liked the way my worlds mixed
came together in an island the bard had never
heard of...
Like the wooden
stage of the Lionel Wendt
the soil in Madinnagoda
is full of the past. Warm
between my toes
Through my fingers. Young priest
in the Wattala temple
didn’t shave too often chewed
betel his sermons
in our living room…
In college my team-mate prayed
prostrate Mecca-wards 3
times a day, memories
of my father struggling
to explain children’s stories
in Sinhalese,
my mother
treating an injured
man on Hatton estate
Dettol, gauze &
broken Tamil

I’m angry

Trying
to hold on
to dreams of rainbow
nation (s?) fusion, compli-
-cation, inter-
racial
marriages… hybrid
island
at a cross-roads, time
to forge, (iron's-
hot), grab this
chance for a melting pot, enough
monoliths, scarred lathe!
enough tin-pot-
monarchy-math,
time to play
with our United-Colours-of-Benetton-
clay, mix-match-
make hay
before the sun fades
to a mono-chrome mono-
tone 'with-us-
or-against-
us'

There's
no disloyalty
in refracting light,
no necessary
treachery
in devolving might,
no need wipeout-(by-
white-van) lives
because they turned-on
a flashlight on
the maggots in the machinery
of state

Seamus Heaney wrote a poem
once, about a Republic of
Conscience, whitens
my knuckles
yearning for a
benign Babel, a
home an anthem public
offices of many
tongues
Songs…

See

I'm listening
to Outlandish
they
sing Hip-hop,
from Morocco-Paki-
stan-Hondu-
ras-Den-
mark
they
are Muslim-Catho-
lic. The lyrics
wash over me.
RacismpovertyH-
IV, a
hint-of-a-
-possibility
raises Goosebumps. I
wonder

what if

A Tamil
and a Sinhalese
bought an exercise book. One
with lines and a little square
on the cover
which said 40 pages.
like those
we used
for tuition classes
after school.
wrote songs. Beautiful
songs.
jammed
together into the wee-
hours, T-
shirts saturated
with the sweat
of creation.

scribbling

If their
Instruments were to mi-
ngle and
the beats
entwine

would girls
still
be told to marry "OUR
people"?

Would
history books
and poli-
-tical
crooks

still
spout
Aryan-
-Dravidian-
-Yin-
Yang
sh*t?

Would people
still sing
of bombs exploding
so
proud-
-ly? Would an airbrushed
Dutugemunu
return
to the movies?

If the hybrid melody

Was heard by a
roomful of
kids

mebbe
mebbe!

they'd take the colours
smells, letters, the
different feels
of
different types
of sand

ENERGIZED

to the light
of a lamp
(no
rubber stamp!)
round-which Meroo
fly

as
the
bass
tremors the
air, memory
darkening the stare,
of those who
sit

in a circle on the floor
who

SYNTHESIZE

take the chances take the
Stances that my
generation
Failed
To take.

Can you? (can you!)
Can you

Feel the beat?

Mallemolen

2009-05-21T02:29:00.000-07:00

In the spring, we moved into a tiny house on a street named Mallemolen ('crazy mill') named after a mill that (milled?) there till 1693. Mallemolen is a cul de sac. You turned off the main street and suddenly disappeared into a jumble of old houses with small gardens and ivy-hung, whitewashed walls.

There’s a decent kitchen, so I’m more inclined to cook. When I’m hungry, sometimes I read about Thai food. Red curry, yellow curry (vague memories of chanting 'red lorry yellow lorry') green curry, massaman, tom ka...the smell of lemon grass... Sometimes, when cooking, I feed the craving for spice by scooping seeds of green chillies into stir-fried tuna. Later, as we eat, watching re-runs of Midsomer Murders, (aging laptop balanced on a shoe box on the bed), the chillie bites through savoury shreds of fish. (The first time I made shrimp Thai red curry I shaped a hill of white rice in the middle of the plate, turned it into a minaret with a cone of pateh bean sambal. Spooned the glutinous shrimp in a half-circle round the hill. my flatmate photographed it, with a silver fork laid alongside)

I'd wake up every day to the sound of seagulls. Dull light streaming through the blind of the skylight. The bathroom is in the attic. Has an aluminium floor with a herringbone design. The shower head looked vaguely like an old fashioned telephone. There’s a skylight as well. Sometimes, when I shower, I see a bird circling, way above. And a chimney. Shaving mirror on an extendable metal arm. On holiday mornings I listen to the kettle boiling-up the morning tea and picture the croissants in our tiny fridge, waiting to be eaten with honey from Clingendael park. The label tells you which bush the bees fed on. Metallic clinks of spoon against china. The tv switches on. Animal Cops. News. ('A cell phone video captures justice, Taliban Style.')

We bought a white couch with a comfy, worn look. I like lying on it and watching the garden, people, the huge orange cat from next door, who looks perpetually concerned. (Once, when we returned late at night, he was in a solemn conference with Percival, the black rabbit, who is also our neighbour.) Another cat, (black, with a small moustache of spotted white fur, bushy tail) likes to perch on a stump in the fence. When we cook, he arches on the window sill. Peers in curiously. Rushes in whenever the door is open, runs upstairs and disappears under the bed. Strange chap.

Outside, there’s a small iron table, three chairs, flowerpots, and an old fashioned garbage can. When it’s sunny, I like to sit in the garden. Read Coetzee ('Disgrace'). (I'm trying to read it in French so half of it is guess-work. It's a dry, Japanese-garden of a book. Bleak as an office desk). Feet on another chair. Listen to rustling in the hedge. Bees. Mug of tea (sweet, with condensed milk) on the window ledge.

Lonely Planet Guide to Africa

2009-04-11T02:00:00.000-07:00

At the top of the wooden rack next to the bath, the extra soap (tiny stones of olive soap, bought at Dille & Kamille and never used) and toilet paper with the picture of the puppy (my favourite) and the shower-gel sit in a square white IKEA basket.
They’re crushed beneath the weight of the 30th Anniversary Edition of the The Lonely Planet Guide to Africa.

I tell myself I should read it in some sort of organized fashion. Start with the Swahili-speaking places in the East? Or with South Africa because of the townships and Table Mountain and Wilbur Smith?

Often, I get stuck reading the bio-blurbs about the writers. They have amazing lives. And names like Firestone and Clammer and Ham…

Or I read the Itineraries. One hour and twenty minutes before work, 30 minutes before I have to knot my tie, I mouth words to myself, like “Nampula” and “Quirimbas Archipelago”…. Picture Arab-African houses of stone…and dhows…and obscure books of explorers, anti-slavery activists that I could read so that I could re-trace the steps of the author….S would busily take pictures of rooftops and eaves of houses. Squeak sleepily on trains. Mebbe there’d be night trains. (I love night trains).

We could start from Maputo, at the bottom of Mozambique. (mebbe during ZIFF festival, for the afrojazz and hiphop and food and films…)

(In the American bookstore there is a book called Africa Art Now. Its big and almost 40 euros. Every Saturday after studying at the café, I drop in and read a little bit. There’s an artist from Mozambique in it. He collects guns left over from the civil war and works them into art.)

Then head to Beira…see the ruins of Sofala (an old gold-trading port) and Ilha do Mocambique, the island from where the Portuguese ran their chunk of East Africa. There are two towns. Ones Makuti, (reed), the other, stone. The book says that north of there, “…you’ll start to hear the lilt of the Swahili language with its mixture of African, Arabic and Portuguese words…” . We could take a dhow from Mocimboa da Praia to Mtwara in the South of Tanzania.

The take an overnight boat to Dar es Salaam. See buildings from the German occupation and where Mobutu came to meet Kabila….

And then to Zanzibar and Mombasa and Lamu….

ADD prompted by the sounds of people waking up… I begin to flip quicker…past Botswana’s Okvango Delta…Mali’s Dogon country…the mud mosque of Djenne, Timbuktu, the film festival in Ouagadougou…

I have to shower now.

The off-white (once-fluffy)towel hangs off the shower-curtain rail, accusing.

Office

2009-04-08T02:43:00.000-07:00

I like the office early in the morning, or on weekends. Its like an abandoned spaceship with flat blue-grey carpeting, thin white walls and shredders that eat paper and CDs.

Behind me there's a faded, water-smudged painting, dedicated "to Sumwun, love Nora". Nora is my ex-boss's daughter. She was around 5 when she drew that. Precocious kid. She could never figure out my name.

For a long time, I had a card on my computer from my sister which said "Happy Birthday Monkey's Uncle"! (she calls her son Monkey. He calls me Munkle. Christ we're weird.).

In my drawer I have a stash of instant Cappucino and Weiner Melange. I'm a coffee nerd. as in, sometimes, I read about coffee on wikipedia. So I know that a Latte Machiato is a lot of milk "marked" with a dash of coffee. I know an Espresso Machiato is an Espresso "marked" with a bit of milk. I know that a Ristretto is not necessarily twice as strong as an Espresso. I like to watch coffee powder pour out of a sachet into my green mug with the Chinese squiggles. I even own a (single shot) Moka, inherited from an Italian flatmate. She wrote out how to use it on blue exercise paper ("instructions for dummies"), and stuck it on the back of the stove the night before she left.

There's a map on the wall. I like maps. I like knowing where places are. I wish there was a giant world map in our apartment. I would point out Turkey to visiting friends and we'd talk about how it faces Central Asia and the Middle East and Europe. Sometimes I wish Istanbul was the biggest city in the world so I could work there but still explore another country every month or so.

I listen to music on YouTube as I work. I have the most extensive YouTube playlists in existence. I have "Upper" lists and "Downer" lists, one called "No Pigeonhole" (much of this is Cat Empire, the closest songs have come to poetry for me after the Counting Crows). Sometimes I type to ryhthm. Nodding, eyes focused, feeling like a train carrying a bongo drum going over a bridge...

MIA, Baile Funk and HIV

2008-05-16T15:08:00.000-07:00

I've listened to a lot of M.I.A. Argued about her writing with friends, ref to her randomly in my own writing. Love how she's eclectic and fearless and borrows from everything. mixes everything up. I've major issues with her lyrics and videos though. But all that'll feature in another post. Reason I mention her today: one of her influences is Baile Funk - music of the shanty towns of Brazil.

Baile Funk and Techno Braga ("Kitsch Techno" - played in the Brazilian state Para) are forms of Brazilian music that are not available in stores - they're distributed exclusively through street vendors. and this is part of a revolution in the way music is made and passed around - involving a radical approach to intellectual property. I heard Ronaldo Lemos talk about this recently. and it got me thinking about how something similar could be done for ARV drugs - HIV medication.

(Out of time. Aaarg. Will post the second half soon)

Freshly Ground (Part II)

2008-05-12T12:50:00.000-07:00

In a recent post I wrote about afro-fusion. I think one reason I like this sort of music (or any fusion, basically) is because it involves mixing bits and pieces of different cultures and worldviews - hybrid music

Similar thing: while listening to Alex Ross (music critic at the New Yorker) talk at google headquarters, I heard him play an excerpt composed by Osvaldo Golijov. The piece was called "Tancas serradas a muru" from a longer work named "Ayre". At the gut level, I liked it because it wasn't like the classical music I was used to - had Dawn Upshaw witch-cackling - makes me feel a little nuts listening to it.

At a different level, I liked it because Golijov was trying to borrow from the sounds of Moorish Spain: The idea of a Spain under Islamic rule (relatively broadminded rule - Moorish Cordoba had 70 libraries in the city, around the same as the number of branches of the public library in NY today - and the Islam of the time involved "Itihad"- critical thinking) fascinates me. The idea that an Argentine Jewish composer (who also relies on his own ethnic heritage) would rely on this sort of source, I think, rocks.

Rosling, TED, and the White Man's Burden

2008-05-09T10:42:00.000-07:00

Saw two presentations on development and the artificiality of the labels "Developed" and "Developing", by Hans Rosling - one at TED 2006 and one at TED 2007. Great presence, great sense of humour, absolutely amazing graphics using Trendalyzer, developed by the Gapminder Foundation (inspired by "mind the gap"). I've never been a fan of a heavy focus on quality of presentation when arguing something in public, but the way Rosling brought development issues to life is forcing me to re-evaluate that bias.

Anyway, both presentations focused on the multi-faceted nature of development, and the fact that most countries have unique features which make a broad categorization into developed and developing very deceptive.

Interesting corollary - Rosling argues that, if you take into account how long traditional "developed" countries took to get to their level of development, several countries in the past couple of decades have rocketed up the HDI. (He didn't say the HDI, but the factors he sketched seemed similar).

Was good to listen to Rosling, especially since I had recently listened to William Easterly, famous for writing "The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good". Not a cheerful guy, Easterly.

His arguments, when examined in detail, are sound. Basically, he says the Aid project (globally) won't work if it is a) the only approach b) a top down approach c) if you don't discriminate between initiatives that work and that don't work. He says development projects need CIAO (Customer feedback, Incentives, Accountability, Outcomes) - all of which are lacking in the current planned-at-macro-level environment. All ideas I agree with. Easterly is not an aid-skeptic. Only the title of his book is. Maybe his publicist chose the title.

He doesn't like the Millenium Development Goals, tends to be a little rude about Jeff Sachs, even ruder about Bono, and is allergic to the UN.

What bugs me about Easterly is
(a) I like U2. One should not speak ill of members of U2. Only Bill Bailey should be allowed to speak ill of U2 (I like Bill Bailey more than U2)
(b) Despite his fine-print being sound, Easterly tends to speak in sweeping generalizations which are not helpful (e.g. his dismissal of the UN). Even his choice of title for the book feels unhealthy - describing aid-for-development as the burden of the west is not a great way to motivate an interdependant and constructive approach to development. Regardless of the pros and cons of Kipling's poetry, describing the West as "White" = aarg. (aarg arrg).
c) He doesn't realize the value of ideas as a catalyst for mobilization: He's right about the fact that some of the Millenium Development Goals are dangerously faffy and that there is no one accountable for achieving them, but he doesn't seem to see their value as rallying points.

All this being said, I wish Sachs would also work-in a bigger CIAO element (as well as a bottom-up element) into his writing, and ease up on the grandiose statements before random Google.org audiences.

Anyway, point of the post:

watch Rosling's TED performances. They rock.

Freshly Ground

2008-05-08T14:56:00.000-07:00

Listening to Freshly Ground. They play what wiki calls Afro-fusion - mixing traditional South African music with blues/jazz. I'm beginning like a lot of this sort of fusion - sort of a middle ground between imitating another culture wholesale and being parochial. Tshila (Ugandan songwriter/poet/singer) is the same - heard her sing Namboozo and Scientific Love. Amazing.

I like how they're dealing with their colonial baggage - not whining about it, but not losing identity - synthesizing. Tshila talks about this.

(Oops. Got a call. Will finish later)

SAMAs

2008-05-05T18:48:00.000-07:00

Just discovered the South African Music Awards (SAMAs). Features several musicians that I like - like Vusi Mahlasela. His songs feature on the soundtrack of Tsotsi. Also played at TED recently - briliant version of Thula Mama. He's amazingly free and almost uncontrolled in his singing - something I like in musicians and writers. Also, he was an apartheid activist (another thing I like in musicians and writers :-)) - dedicated Thula Mama to his grandmother who protected him from apartheid era police.

Will dig around the SAMAs more and mebbe post on other people I come across. Just started listening to Simphiwe Dana. More soon...

Twitter not so hot

2008-05-04T13:40:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to use Twitter as a specialized news-source, like an RSS feed off of IRIN or AllAfrica.com. Annoyingly, none of the UN or humanitarian agencies seem to have started using the service effectively. Bugger. Will keep hunting.

Google.org course on poverty and development

2008-05-03T07:08:00.000-07:00

I found the the Google.org course on poverty and development on the home page of the Stanford Center for Social Innovation . All the lectures are posted on youtube. The course is pitched for business people who are new to development issues, but its still great. I liked the case studies on the successes and failures of development assistance, and the final sum-up lecture at the end. There's also a good discussion of Pro Mujer, a microfinance initiative in South America modeled on the Grameen bank started by Muhammad Yunus.

Wish I could find a similar online resource on post-conflict peace-building.

Re-starting RageforLight

2008-05-03T06:40:00.000-07:00

Decided to get blogging again. Not much time for it, so mostly, I'll cross- post off of writeclique - but only (future) pieces which are vaguely activist - along with a brief discussion mebbe.

I've also added a twitter widget to the blog. Hoping it'll serve some useful purpose. Not sure what that purpose is though :-)

Battlefield Hearth

2007-06-10T15:18:00.000-07:00

Saw a couple of good films recently: One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, Memoirs of a Geisha, and the Virgin Suicides. One of the reasons I liked them so much, (apart from the great direction, especially by Sofia Coppola in the Virgin Suicides) is the recurrent theme of oppression. The oppression in Cuckoos Nest is the one I’m more familiar with: oppressive institutions (in this case a mental asylum) run by people with too much power and insufficient checks, and maybe not enough knowledge. This is the kind of oppression you learn to fight through constitutional/administrative law/human rights law. Memoirs was a bit the same: the institutionalized exploitation of women, through some form of indentured labour, like the original plantation workers in the hills of Sri Lanka.

The Virgin Suicides is about a type of exploitation that’s newer to me, that I'm just beginning to learn about: oppression within the family. I feel more comfortable in dealing with oppression in public/sorta public institutions. It’s a battleground that I’m more familiar with. Familiar with the weapons used. Some types of oppression in families are much more nuanced. Harder to fight, mebbe. The girls in Virgin Suicides were shut off from society, but I don’t know whether the parents broke any laws (except for pulling them out of school, perhaps). And yet the girls killed themselves, and perhaps others do too.

The closest I’ve come to understanding (at an abstract level) is when reading about the artificialness of the public/private divide in jurisprudence/legal theory: The law regulates things that go on in the public sphere. It doesn’t regulate what goes on in private, in family matters. Even when such family matters involve deep imbalances of power…to the point where those who are oppressed think it’s their role in life to be oppressed.

Dada

2007-04-05T08:02:00.000-07:00

Saw the Last King of Scotland a few weeks back. Forest Whittaker, playing Idi Amin, was brilliant. I had seen a documentary with original footage of Amin, and Whittaker managed to have the same mixture of maniacal-comical charisma. I wonder whether they added the white Scottish doctor to help western audiences identify with the situation. That’d be sad. The Last King reminded me of how valuable democratic space is, even the modicum available in Sri Lanka. It’s easy to take the machinery used to fight abuse of power (courts, enforceable rights, free media…) for granted, but life without it is sick, fearful and without dignity.

I feel a little uncomfortable with people who are very very confident about life. For some reason it makes me think that they haven’t yet seen how the world can burn you. No matter how well adjusted/clever/powerful you are there’s always the chance that you will one day be helpless, naked and screaming in the mud. Like the many victims of Amin’s regime. The best we can do is to fight for and protect the safeguards we are entitled to, and have some humility.

Tales of the Tower Block

2007-02-23T03:11:00.000-08:00

Saw the Soweto Kinch Trio yesterday. They were playing numbers from “A Life in the Day of B19 – Tales of the Tower Block”. The first thing that struck me was how much they sounded like Spearhead. They mix hip hop, jazz and funk (though mebbe Spearhead has more funk) (then again, I’m not sure whether what I mean by funk is actually funk), they experiment and they do socially conscious music.

Kinch, the lead singer, grew up in Handsworth (B19 is a postcode), which apparently is to Birmingham what Wanathamulla is to Colombo, or what Hollandspoor is to Den Haag. This flavours the music, though I don’t know Kinch well enough to know whether it’s a gimmick. The songs I heard/remembered were “So” and another where the chorus goes something like “its all about the monee”. “So” is about the pretentiousness of musicians. About the bragging/swanking/general pretentiousness about millions of albums sold and shiny SUVs. It reminded me of arguments I used to have with Joke. I like old, angry hip hop, where lyrics rage about arrests, hunger and lack of opportunity, not about how many diamonds you’ve stuck in your teeth. Joke used to say though that each artist sings about what they know, the old crowd about poverty, because they were poor, and the new crowd about being rich, because they’re rich.

I still think you can talk about emancipation, even if you’re not dying from the lack of it yourself. I liked Kinch because he seems to be a rich kid who’s not spoilt. Will listen to Tales of the Tower Block and write some more soon.

The Song I Sing in the Shower is My National Anthem.

2007-01-21T11:19:00.000-08:00

Read a great piece on BBC by Mehretab Mekonnen Belay. In case its deleted, I'll paste the most interesting bit below:

"I have created my own country...It lies between the heart and the mind with no territorial claim and I feel the whole planet is my home." "...the clothes I wear are my national flag; the song I sing in the shower is my national anthem..."

This is almost exactly what I feel like. Growing up in Sri Lanka, you develop a healthy fear of group identity, and nationalism in general. Because it tends to blow people up, bomb their villages, torture their brothers and make others starve. So I like it when people steer clear of pigeonholing themselves. This doesn’t mean abandoning everything. It means wanting to pick and choose life-options and making your own life. If you want, it means you can be a hybrid.

You can listen to We Go Make Am, Danfo Driver, random Jamaican riddims, grunge mixed with Irish jigs, watch films by Von Trier, Vithanage, Kurosawa, wear Ugandan clothing, speak Sinhalese, English, mebbe a bit of Yoruba, dance meringue, bachata, read Chinua Achebe, Gunasekere, Uzodinma Iweala…and synthesize books and songs and movements and freedom struggles, economies and constitutions out of this variety of experience…

…and perhaps end up killing less people because they have funny sounding surnames or pray to some other random deity.

Art, Vaclav Havel and Richard De Zoysa

2007-01-19T03:07:00.000-08:00

Jokerman, in a comment to a previous post, asked for a post on the meaning of art. Hmmm. Felt a bit iffy writing about that sort of thing, due to a previously adopted resolution to avoid being abstract/impractical/generally faffing about. Then decided the post doesn’t have to be like that. I’d say anything synthesized through a creative process has the potential for being discussed as art. (Admittedly the definition sounds dangerously dodgy and would make, say, a space shuttle or a toilet seat potentially art. Well why not yer?)

Which brings me to Vaclav Havel. Why? Because he was a poet/playwright who led dissidents in former Czechoslovakia against an oppressive regime, won, and became president through a non-violent “Velvet revolution”. It also brings me to Richard De Zoysa, who was a bit similar, but lived in Sri Lanka. They found his body in the sea, in Moratuwa. He had been shot in the head and the throat, his jaw fractured.

What I mean is, Art can be pretty much anything, but the Art that rocks, for me, is the type that makes people change the world.

More soon.

From the Republic of Conscience

2007-01-15T09:56:00.000-08:00

... is one of my all time favourite poems. It's about the suffering of immigrants, abuse of power, universal citizenship and written (by Seamus Heaney) without an iota of hopelessness. It reminds me (don't laugh) of an Eminem song about reform in the US. I won't link to the Eminem song because I don't agree with all the sentiments in it.

Anyways, both works are about reform, Heaney using a mix of sadness, hope and anger, and Eminem using just anger. Like I said in a previous post, I like artists who make great art which is also great advocacy. When I was younger I used to think thats the only kind of art that should exist. Hmmmm.

Crash

2007-01-10T23:27:00.000-08:00

Wrote the following comment on "Crash" on the IMDB site, years ago :

Crash was the best film I have seen in a long while. Like "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", this is a film which has Hollywood actors, but still manages to have a great deal of depth. Instead of the black and white, two dimensional nature of most attempts at tackling racism, Haggis does a beautiful job of showing how complex racism and discrimination is, and how misunderstanding causes terrible hurt and waste. The link between fear and racism is explored well. And all this without any tinge of "documentary"ness. Unlike one-sided displays of racism towards one group of people, which usually provoke righteous but shallow indignation, Crash provokes an almost helpless anger at how messed up the world is.

Will add current musings in a bit...

And Krystyna Says

2007-01-10T08:46:00.000-08:00

Decided to post Krystyna’s response to a previous post about abortion:

"HA HA have you ever thought that maybe your obsession arises out of a freudian type jealousy or sense of loss due to the fact that, being without a womb, you will never be able to have a baby? I think that would make a good poem :-) we will have to watch that movie again in 2007, I think there is a lot more I could learn from a second viewing. "

The movie she’s referring to is Saved in which, among many other things, a teenager becomes pregnant, and has a baby, and lives happily ever after.

For my witty riposte, watch this space… :-)

One Big Damn Puzzler

2007-01-07T02:24:00.000-08:00

I read One Big Damn Puzzler by John Harding a while back. Its about an American lawyer who visits a south Pacific island, to obtain reparation for the locals who were injured by landmines laid by the army. Part of the book is about the impact of external ideas on the culture of the inhabitants of the island, and the conflict between those who want the old ways to continue and those who want them replaced.

This morning Fadzai told me that in Victoria falls, a fake "tradition" exists where people dress up as "warriors" and sing, for the benefit of the tourists. This reminded me of a temple in Bentota (Sri Lanka), that I saw several years ago. The place was a spruced-up (Pimped?) version of a buddhist temple, with numerous figures and statutes and very brightly coloured paintings. I remember thinking that this must be for the benefit of tourists, since none of it accorded with what I was accustomed to seeing in a Sri Lankan buddhist temple.

I was derisive about this back then, but less sure now. All culture is a construct. Practices form for some reason, and then this reason is sometimes forgotten, and then people do it anyway, and its venerated as our rich heritage etc etc. On this basis, mebbe there's nothing that can be called "authentic", and so, nothing that should be looked down upon as "fake".

Junior Gong

2007-01-04T02:20:00.000-08:00

Damian Marley falls into my favourite genre of musician, being socially conscious while still making great music. Songs like Stand a Chance are angry and activist without being self-rightous, soppy or sounding bloody awful. Damian has a Counting Crows-like way of shoving a book's worth of text into a song, but stays structured and rhymy (just made that up). I don't subscribe to the jah-worship in Rasta culture, but the burning anger for change is an almost-chemical high.

Spearhead, with Michael Franti also do great activist music. Will write something on it soon... Meanwhile, All the Freaky People is one of my favourite Spearhead songs. Positive is another great Spearhead number. Its about HIV.

The Music in My Head

2007-01-04T01:16:00.000-08:00

Bought "The Music in my Head". Liked the cover because of the title (its the kind of title I'd like to have used, for something). The author fills the book with "African" music facts. I like that sort of thing (e.g. Loved "High Fidelity" the movie made off of Nick Hornby's book, because of the music trivia). The book explores his (platonic) relationship with a musician. This is interesting because although the main character has an elitist take on "Africa" in general, his relationship with the musician ties him into the local picture. This occasionally pulls him out of the bubble within which most expat people write about developing countries. Don't have the book with me now, but will add to the post when I dig it up again...

Interesting Book on Suicide Attacks

2007-01-04T01:13:00.000-08:00

Started reading "The Stragic Logic of Suicide Terrorism" (Yer, not an encouraging title). The reviews weren't particularly intelligent, but Pape (the author) makes an interesting argument: that suicide attacks generally emerge from nationalist causes, where there is occupation (or virtual occupation), where the majority religion of the occupying power differs from the majority religion of the occupied people. He contrasts this with normal suicides which arise out of alienation etc. He also discounts brainwashing as the cause. Unusually in this field, he recognizes that most suicide attacks are not a product of Islamic fundamentalism (Most have taken place in Sri Lanka). However, despite this recognition, the bulk of the case study section is on Al-kaeda etc.

I tend to agree, but think a) Pape is too conclusive b) I suspect his stats aren't as perfect as his language indicates c) I'd replace religion with with ethnicity in his theory

Prasanna Vithanage

2007-01-02T02:01:00.000-08:00

http://www.vithanage.com/html/pv_about.html

Vithanage is an interesting director, who has made (at least) two films on the Sri Lankan conflict. I saw "Purahanda Kaluwara" (English title "Death on A Full Moon Day") which was about how a father deals with his (soldier) son's death. The war is present just around the edges of the film, nothing full frontal, but this heighten's the impact. Will write more about it after seeing it again.

He also directed "Ira Madiyama" (English title "August Sun"). According to the DVD cover, its about three sets of people affected by the conflict (a Muslim boy looking for his dog, a woman looking for her husband, and a soldier). Will edit this post after seeing the film...

Fadzai's customary ego boost

2006-12-30T03:49:00.000-08:00

Fadzai had glowing praise for RageforLight:

"1. saw the blog thing. A bit pretentious if you ask me... So this is the 'work'
you will be doing till midnight? Its all becoming clear. "

"Mirage" - Bandula Chandraratna

2006-12-29T04:28:00.000-08:00

Just read "Mirage" by Bandula Chandraratna. About a hospital labourer in Saudi Arabia. Great writing. He uses very short sentences but manages to bring in so much imagery it doesn't feel stark at all. The closing was like the tail end of a Sri Lankan ODI innings (swift), mebbe Chandraratna got bored with writing. Still, I'd say it's the best book I've read in a while. Saudi food, eating rituals, marriage rituals, city and village life, the role of the Mutawah (all from a working class perspective) are sketched damn good. There's no obvious attempt to persue an agenda or be propagandist, which adds to the beauty on the page without necessarily losing out on political impact.

Kurulu Pihatu

2006-12-27T18:24:00.000-08:00

Saw "Kurulu Pihatu" ("Bird Feather's") at the Regal y'day. Pretty Bad. Even Jackson Anthony was contrived and played a very "Kopi Kade" (Shallow Sri Lankan teledrama) drunkard. The script didn't give him much of a chance, anyways. The main character, a child who is abandoned by both parents (apparently Jackson Anthony's son, in real life) could probably be a good actor but was trapped in a long suffering Oliver-like role which makes him almost as annoying as Harry Potter (ok, mebbe a little less). Although objectively pretty bad, the film made me angry again about poverty, and the way families tick.

The Regal itself was probably a grand old place, and now looks run-down (Like Colombo Fort in general). Had a feeling of history, sort of like the feeling you get when on stage at the Lionel Wendt.

Love this poem...though Krystyna will think I'm obsessed...

2006-12-18T23:21:00.000-08:00

http://www.writeclique.net/work.php?ID=760

Blarg

2006-12-18T20:52:00.000-08:00

Just set this up. Hmmm. Wonder whether this'll be a waste of time.