2009-06-19

Treadmill vs Chicken Kurma and Sex

Been extremely busy. Missed out on a few important things – like Mak’s art exhibition. Amazed at her imagination and talent, but it raised just one question in my mind: aren’t we all a skinny bunch? I mean slim n trim, in a sort of ‘healthy’ way? Except for the fat, dead guy that is.

I’m glad even the old dudes like yours truly and RD are still good-looking. I mean no pot bellies or anything. If only you know how hard it is to burn 400 calories on a treadmill... keeping fit becomes a major headache when one crosses the big three zero, especially when one is confined to an office job. Four hundred calories is like a plate of Chicken Kurma you get at the Elite Restaurant. To put things in perspective, it’s takes five hours of intense sex to burn that much of fat. Come to think of it, I like chicken kurma, and I love sex – only foreseeable problem is the “five hour” factor...

Nevertheless.

Stayed away from the Lankan blogsphere for just a while, and see what they have done. Jerry ditches Blogspot, migrates to Wordpress. Traitor.

Chavie sports a new look. Now that he has the driving license, I guess he could consider stop running. Black isn’t black, it’s psychedelic. At least the title. And the new-found three-wheel fella is quite entertaining. Thanks Dee for the discovery.

DD is third world? Totally new look or is it some kind of a trick I wonder.

But, I’m most puzzled by my inability to create a link to Gadget Girl’s blog. Just noticed that it has switched from GG to VVG – and no more purple socks on my blogroll. I guess GG and VVG are one and the same person – there had been far too many cases of mistaken identity in the recent past in the blogsphere, I don’t want to jump to conclusions just yet.

The weeds, turds and trolls seem to have died and gone to hell. And there is relative calm for the time being.

Now that I have caught up with most of the posts that I’ve missed, it’s time to get ready to watch the T20. Sri Lanka and Pakistan deserve to be in the final – they need to wrap up the game that ended up in a military helicopter ride.

2009-06-09

Well Done, Sanga!

“Wham... Bam... See You Ma’am...” said the BBC Sports Presenter. Sri Lanka’s newly appointed Cricket Captain Kumar Sangakkara assumes duties in style – with a handsome win over the reigning World Champions, Australia, which saw the kangaroos pack their bags long before they were due. Sri Lanka beats Australia by 6 wickets at World Twenty20 Championship at Trent Bridge.

Sweet revenge – and I am delighted. Beating Australia is as good as winning the cup; the Aussies haven’t been very nice to us in the game and on the pitch for a long time.

“It was a great performance, the key when you play Australia is to believe you can win. We’ve got a great squad of players that believed in winning against Australia and we did it. The plan to was to stifle them with the spinners. Our next target is winning against the West Indies. Dilshan is inventive, attacking and got a lot of runs for Delhi in the IPL. He has realised how good he can be over the last one year. We can’t be complacent – and look to continue winning.” says Sanga at the end of the game.

Ponting comments on the disappointing kangaroo display: “Disappointing to go out of the tournament in straight sets. Can’t explain a reason for it. You make too many mistakes in this game and better players will make you pay. We knew we had to play their spinners well but they got the better of us today.They deserved to win the game, we have got to move on from this and start preparing for the Ashes, but bitterly disappointed in going out.”

2009-06-07

Thambi’s Only Daughter...

Chilling out after work, watching VIVA Polska, and this song catches my attention:



Baila music, from the other side of the planet – from Brazil. But the lyrics could easily be substituted with the famous big match/paparé song “Thé pan saadayi thambi kadey...” and this becomes one of our own.

An extremely popular song in the clubs, Rap Das Armas (Rap of Weapons) is banned in Brazil – it is not being played on Radio; but hit the No 1 Spot in Music Charts in Netherlands, says Wikipedia.

2009-06-03

So, what is freedom?

Once upon a time in my life, every Thursday evening I used to leave the office before sunset, head off to the “Agency” and start the evening with a nice bottle of Montes Red with my booze-buddy, ES. Most of the time, it was the two of us bitching about the week gone by, and occasionally the rest of the clan would join us by the time we reach the bottom of the second bottle.

Between the end of the second bottle and Jack Daniels at Cyclone – where we ended up at wee hours in the morning – we would usually embark on conversations that took us from Romania and Turkey, to conquering the world. On the days that Ramsey was around, two of us would contemplate our retirement. Retiring to the beautiful island paradise that is Sri Lanka, and retiring to a lovely little beach resort somewhere on the beautiful coast along Unawatuna. An aspiring chef, pursuing his lifelong ambition and yours truly living on the beach for the love of the sea. Where did the wives and the kids fit in this grand scheme was not a concern – once you are well marinated in full-bodied grape juice from South America, life was a lot less complicated.

Time at the Agency was our moment of freedom. Our imagination took flights of fancy, we were free as birds, humming and brimming with ideas.

We were free. There were no balls-and-chains to tie us down. We’ve found our freedom and we were plotting and planning the impending, very long “island vacation.” We were dreaming of the beach-side joint where we sat and boasted about our globe-trotting days and how we managed to retire before grey-hair, to the most unsuspecting Turkish brunettes on holiday. Yes, we were planning to tap the Turkish market for local tourism.

Then, one day, just before we got the ball rolling, there was a huge Christmas wave that swept across the Indian Ocean, right from the island of Java to Madagascar. It was much bigger than our dream, and it washed away our plan, along with a few thousands of people who stood between.

The Asian Tsunami shattered our dream, and it added more pain to my already ruined married life. I moved back home to Sri Lanka, my paradise isle, soon afterwards.

I felt free, at last. I felt free, physically and mentally. The divorce contributed to the latter, and the former came with the territory.

I found freedom. I found independence. I was free from the stress and the hassles of life.


But then, what is freedom?

Is it liberty? Is it independence? Is it being “free-of” troubles and burdens? Is it just a wonderful philosophy that fails to manifest to our own satisfaction?

Whichever it is, freedom is relative, and it’s a topic that can go on forever.


In Saudi Arabia, the outsiders like us think the women are deprived of their freedom. In an already “closed” society, the women have no right even to step out of the door without the consent of the “one in charge” of the household. Even then, she would be in a ninja-suit, with a chaperone by her side who monitors every move she makes. Most Saudi men and the handful of Saudi women I know tend to find no fault with this system – even though some of them are educated in the West and are “exposed” to the other cultures and their ways of life.

Ignorance is bliss, they say.

While discovering this unique land, we were often welcomed and entertained by quite a few very hospitable Saudi nationals. Squatting in their meeting halls (majlis) we chatted at length on various topics and we discovered that their perception of freedom is very different from ours. Not surprisingly.

Once, we met a certain gentleman who likes to believe that he is a modern Saudi. He is someone who spends his summer holidays in Sharm Al Sheikh in Egypt or in Beirut, Lebanon.

We asked him if his wife also gets to take a summer break too.

Insha allah, for sure...” he says with a big grin on his face.
“Great. You two must be enjoying your trips to Egypt and Lebanon..?”
“No way..!” he says.
We look at each other’s puzzled faces for a brief moment.
“So she doesn’t travel with you then?”
“That’s haram.” (= taboo) says our host with a definitive voice. Exposing their women to the evils of society such as night-clubs, music, women in bikinis is naturally “unsuitable” for their culture.
“Ok, so where does she go for her summer holiday?”
“Oh, I send her to her uncle in Riyadh”

The man spends his summer-break in Beirut (where the population boasts of eight females per every single male) and the woman is sent to her uncle, few miles down the road.

We promptly change the topic.

“I mean, unlike other traditional Saudi gentlemen, you seem to be a quite liberal” my friend says.
“Yep...” nods our host.
(We can talk to the guy about his wife – which is surprising. And we are impressed.)

“So your wife is more independent than the other women then?”
“Oh yes, she has all the freedom in the world...” he says.
“All the freedom in the world?” Vivid images of “free” Saudi women without their chaperones flash before my eyes for a nano second.
“She has all the freedom in the world... to do whatever I ask her to do..!”
comes the answer, and I hear triumphant drum-rolls in my head.

Like I said, freedom is very, very relative.


Image: “Liberty Leading the People” – Delacroix, Eugène Ferdinand Victor (1798–1863)

2009-06-01

Reading a Blog: Tarantino Style

Monday evening, chilling at home. While catching up with the Lankan blogshepere, I find a rather strangely-titled post in Kalusudda’s blog. “Cruel Story of Youth (Seishun Zankoku Monogatari)” it reads.

Click, click and I’m reading the comments. You know there are moments when one’s choice to read a blog or not depends on the length of the post? I was living one such moment. So I start with the comments and begin reading the post, down-up.

The last paragraph, first.

Then the one before. And the one before that.

Soon, I was reading the entire post ‘down-up’ and found myself enjoying the ‘suspense’ in the chaotic order. Like a Tarantino movie.

And... it worked. The post made perfect sense.