Speechless

My trusty notebook of silence

I've lost my voice.

Not in the romantic, poetical sense, but quite literally.

I can't make a sound. I can try and squeeze out some cracked syllable but even that makes my throat feel like there's a fork pressing into it.

Courtesy of the winter flu, thank you very much.

It's been a bit nightmarish. I can't ask the lecturer questions in class, I can't swear when I spill something on the floor, I can't shout out to the rickshaw driver from across the road, I can't call somebody I see down the corridor. I was closing a chest today and the lid fell shut on my fingers - I couldn't even scream!

Lots of flailing your arms around involved when you're forced to be silent. *Flail* when you're angry. *Flail* when you want food. *Flail* hey hey look over here I'm trying to tell you somet- too late, they didn't hear you, they're walking away (likely, fleeing from the strange girl flailing wildly at them).

First world problems.

The perk is that the housemates are treating me like a proper invalid, so they cooked me an amazing dinner and even mixed me up some homely medicine (ginger and honey - ew).

I have to say I'm starting to get used to it, this silence stuff is starting to grow on me. I have a little notebook I carry around, each page has something important that I'm likely to say (the last time this happened, I had cue cards): 'Hey man', 'Have you seen my earphones?', 'I'm studying right now', 'ASSHOLE', 'Is this a clove?', 'HA HA HA', etc. I have emergency messages scribbled on my palms as well. An acquaintance at the canteen exclaimed, 'Hey why is shifani so quiet today?' - so, excited to make use of my new emergency-messages prepared for the occasion, I shot up my right palm at her which was to read I LOST MY VOICE. She read it and frowned at me and abruptly walked off to the library. I looked at my palm; it was a message I'd left for myself: REMEMBER TO BUY ONIONS -- shit, wrong hand. Goddammit, this is going to take some practice. 

Dear Mr President (Remembering All Your Crime)

Mr President is not just one man but a timeless ghost that possesses a new body every Sri Lankan election. 

The Sri Lankan Media is sick of your bullshit - sick is an understatement. We are tired. And we are angry.

The Media is not an exclusive group if you ask me, but it is the People ourselves. If one wants to speak one's mind and be heard, he or she has the freedom of doing so in the papers, on the radio, on TV, of conversing with the entire nation, and eliciting a response. The Media is a powerful, and many say the most powerful, vehicle of modern humanity's expression and democracy.

And so, Mr President, when you and your people (yes, your people, who are an exclusive and elite tightly-knit self-serving band who live on the other side of us over here) suppress the Media -- when you killed Lasantha Wickrematunge, when you abducted and set on fire Nadesapillai Vidyarthan, when you abducted and severely assaulted Keith Noyahr, when you imprisoned Jayaprakash Sittampalam, when you hacked to death Paranirupasingham Devakumar, when you shot: Selvarajah Rajivarnam, Relangi Selvarajah and her husband, Dharmeratnam Sivaram, Aiyathurai (Nellai) Nadesan, Rohana Kumara, Richard de Zoysa, K. Navaratnam, Wimal Surendra, Sathasivam Sivashanmugamoorthy -- and this is only a small fraction of the list and not even counting the massive exodus of journalists out of the country -- you are not only assaulting, humiliating, and butchering the Media - you are butchering your People. When you violate the Media, when you confiscate their liberty - you are doing the same to your People. 

Even if you deny everything, against all the fingers pointed at you, because you are the Maharajah of this New Monarchist nation and you can say 'I didn't do it' and get away with it -- even if that is your only defense, why then has your Government not had the decency to even address these murders beyond your standard transparent lie 'my best team is on the case' (I mean you managed to end a 25 year civil war, you would think finding a journalist's murderer would be a cake walk)? Just as though these countless murders of human beings can be swatted away like insignificant bothersome little flies by your mighty hands.

Do you remember those names of the journalists who have 'disappeared' or whose bodies have been left to float in the river? Does it ring a little bell in your head when you see one of their names printed somewhere? Of course I don't expect that you killed or abducted any of them yourself, of course not, such vulgarities are beneath the glory of any true King living in the lap of power and affluence. You have the men of your Court to do all that, the henchman who detect threats to your Autocratic Rule, and 'fix the problem' without you having to deal with any of the nitty gritties. But still, one has to wonder if the King ever spares a moment to think of the hundreds of beheadings that would not have been possible if not for his rule.

I don't know why I am even bothering with these questions, because you are not an idiot, you already know exactly what's what and why. So the point of this is not to scream at you and demand a semblance of humanity from 'Your Honourable Excellency' -- because that would be futile -- but my point is to ask you, do you really, truly believe you can some day overpower the Media by simply going on in this way?

That some day, every one, every single Sri Lankan, will say 'The President is always right, and anyone who thinks he is not, is a traitor'? That one day, not one single Sri Lankan will even mentally contemplate the idea of protest? That you can some day root out all rebellion, all forms of dissent, all modes of individual thought that is opposing to yours? Are you really that deluded?

I just want to tell you that you can kill and kill and kill, and it will be horrible and people will mourn and you may as usual be untouchable on your Red Throne in the White Palace -- but you can never, ever stop the People from dissenting. You can never stop people from speaking their minds. It is never going to happen. You can murder thousands, you can send hundreds fleeing out of the country -- but there will always, always be more, to voice the truth in newspapers, on radios, on television, on the internet - the truth, that will many a time call you out for the things you do, time and time again. So I ask of you to prepare yourself. Your kingdom who is now like a dog that has been beaten for far too long is one day going to turn around and bite, because as with every tyrannical King of the Dark Ages of history, your regime, your oppression against the Media, that is the People, will inevitably come to an end -- either by nature - or by force. 

Insy winsy spider, climbing up the spout...

Look what I found in the sink today. Cool huh?
Click on it to get a better view.

A Memorable Eid: Of Fence-Jumping, Secret-Psychopaths & Russian Dancers

My posse of beloved Sri Lankans-in-India has increased in number this year. In addition to gutterflower, there's now also the pterodactyl and the pterodactyl's roommate (who's actually Mauritian, but let's not be pedantic). We meet up for the occasional festive flail, such as that of Eid, and so we decided on an Eid picnic this year! Yay. 

We had bags full of Lays chips, bottles of soda, Oreos, pasta, chocolate cake and some random Indian pie that the pterodactyl found somewhere. We collected all our picnic-gear and headed to Central Park. Apparently, today - and this we found out only on arriving there - there was going to be a grand show at the Park courtesy of the Moscow Performing Arts group -- and it was free for all. Needless to say, there was a 10-mile queue lined up at the entrance of the park. We walked for a few minutes and still didn't find the end of that line. We had 2 options: 1. Stand in the queue and have our picnic AN HOUR LATER, when the pasta and the biscuits are all cold and pooey. 

And 2. 'Let's jump over the fence'. 

The pterodactyl is a super-cautious creature, who though is utterly eccentric (dressed up as Terry Pratchett's Death for her college costume-party), never does anything on just pure impulse. She looked at me and said NO. WAY. 

Ten minutes later, I was on top of the fence. Once I got on top of it, I realized I hadn't exactly... thought it through beyond that point. So I was standing there, precariously, awkwardly, on this spikey fence of death, my legs dangling around, trying not to get impaled. People were passing by and going like 'dafuq is this?' and the pterodactyl was just... This calls for a Paint illustration.

I finally got to the other side after a few awkward minutes of almost-getting-impaled-in-the-butt. Then I was like, okay now that I'm on this side, you have no choice but to jump too. This is a common technique of persuasion (creative blackmail, if you will) I utilize in situations where the opposition refuses to comply. So ptero and her roommate managed to jump over as well, while we used my bag as a buffer between the fence-jumper's butt and the spikes of death, to prevent aforementioned almost-impaled-in-the-butt scenario. I still can't believe we convinced the pterodactyl to jump over spikes of death. She claims it was because some bald man walking by had laughed at her while she was struggling on top of the fence, pissing her off and making her want to jump over and GET THE LAST LAUGH (yes, someone has issues). 

Naturally, all this was proceeded by much collective 'omg I'm such a badass' fist-pumping and such. We called gutterflower up who was running late and told her but she was like 'god, that's the scary thing that you guys said you did?!' and she did not appreciate our badassery. I was all, you had to be there, man. It was like Vlad the Impaler meets Mission Impossible. 

While picnicking on the lovely grass at sunset, suddenly a stranger appeared to my right. He looked at ptero and said 'May I ask you a question, from a distance?' We were like, wut. 

'May I ask you a question, from a distance?' he repeated. He was Indian, looked about in his mid to late twenties. I'd heard horror stories about flashers, so I looked away just in case. 

We nodded hesitantly. Then he was all, 'Where are you guys from?' Sri Lanka. 'Oh where in Sri Lanka?' Colombo. Then he sat down. He sat down next to us, in our circle on the grass. 

Weird. 

He started talking about how he liked to learn about new and different cultures. Asked about Sri Lankan politics. Asked what ethnicity were we a part of. Etc etc. Then he said 'I saw you guys jump over the fence' (that was 20 minutes ago, has this guy been watching us?! - Ptero was asking me with a stare). I was like 'Are you a cop? You're a witness, we're going to have to kill you'. He laughed because he thought I was joking. The fellow was well spoken and looked decent. But it was 6pm, in Central Park, Delhi (a city reputed for highest number of crimes against women in India), we were three girls - and here was this random dude who came out of nowhere and sat next to us to ask us random questions about our lives. Ptero, as I said, is very cautious, so she kept silent most of the time, casting furtive glances at me and at the pie. Her roommate was just dodging his questions ('Where in the Maldives are you from?' -- 'Oh the Maldives are so tiny, it doesn't matter where.'). I was just munching on my chips and wondering if he was a rapist.

When gutterflower sat down, I was like 'hey man, eid mubarak... this is... a random dude who just sat next to us'. She was all, uh okay. The four of us tried to talk about normal things, trying hard not to feel totally uncomfortable about the random stranger who wouldn't leave. We tried pointing out how weird it was that he had randomly come up to us, we tried creating long awkward silences to give him the hint -- but he just kept sitting there. 

I check my phone. gutterflower has texted me while sitting next to me: 'WHO IS THIS GUY YOU GUYS HAVE PICKED UP.' I reply: 'DO U THINK HE'S A SECRET RAPIST?' She replies, 'HE SEEMS NICE BUT THIS IS SO STRANGE.'

After some more awkward silence, someone finally goes, 'We should probably head off to the Moscow concert over there'. And we nod and I say 'Well it was nice meeting you' to the strange dude, which is code for 'BYE!' And we ran off. Poor guy. Probably just doesn't have any friends. Or he was a secret-psychopath who was going to chloroform us after befriending us. 

The Moscow Performing Arts were awesome to watch. Russian dancers, jugglers, circus people - pure entertainment. They were like those little screw-up-dolls in the music boxes, with almost battery-charged energy and flawless choreography. 'The Butterfly and the Beetle' was the most memorable performance - featuring a woman on 10-foot-tall stilts who looked like a huge butterfly with wings blowing in the wind. 

Headed home then, listening to my new playlist of The Black Seeds, getting my reggae on in the subway train and making old Indian aunties give me the stink-eye. All in all, another great Eid. Eid mubarak, everybody! 

The [Anti]Social Butterfly

Tools used: watercolours, Faber Castell size 0

Liam Neeson vs. The Big Bad Muslims

I love Liam Neeson. Ever since Taken, he has become Hollywood's Rajinikanth.

A still from Taken 2 and totally not a picture of Rajinikanth edited using Paint

And personally, I enjoyed Taken. It was no artistic masterpiece, but it was undoubtedly entertaining. The horror of a teenage girl getting kidnapped and sold to a brothel was just right, and no one can say they don't enjoy watching Liam beat up a bunch of bad guys, Chuck Norris style.

So, Taken 2 - Remember all those bad guys Liam killed in Taken to save his daughter? Well, in Taken 2, the families of these dead bad guys are super pissed off at Liam, and are going to kill him and his family as payback.

We're first introduced to the families of the dead bad guys, standing over the dead bad guys' graves in Albania -- and they're reciting, and they say 'Aameen' -- before totally going 'omg i kill u liam neeson!!11111111' in strong Middle Eastern accents. Sigh. Yes. The bad guys who want to kill Liam Neeson and his family, are Muslims. Brace yourselves.

The movie shifts between the nation of baddies, Istanbul, and land of the free and just, Los Angeles, America. Liam and his family are holidaying in Istanbul, and the Big Bad Muslims go there too, to kill them all. They kidnap Liam and his ex-wife while the daughter hides in the closet. Liam calls his daughter up on his tiny secret phone while imprisoned at a 'secret location', and tells her to get his grenades from his closet and throw it all over Istanbul -- Liam listens to the sounds of the bombs going off and estimates how far away she is from him. Meanwhile, the audience giggles at the comical irony because this teenage white girl is bombing a Muslim country willy-nilly.

Then, because Liam Neeson is Liam Neeson, he manages to direct his daughter to him, using only the sound of grenades and a map of Istanbul that his daughter is looking at. Liam then kicks the gas-vent in his prison cell causing it to smoke up - and he's like, 'My vent is sending out white smoke - do you see it?' The daughter turns around and she's like, 'yep'. Finding secret locations is easy as pie. She runs to the vent and drops a gun down the shaft for her dad. Although Istanbul is full of vents that are known for venting smoke, at this moment in time, Liam's is the only one doing so in the whole city, thus making it possible for his daughter to locate him by merely prancing around outside for a few minutes.

Anyway, Liam has a gun. Shit's gonna get real. He goes around shooting all the baddies, blah blah. Meanwhile, the bad guys are meeting up and going 'Assalamalaikum' and carrying out their plans to kill the American family like the Big Bad Muslims they are. Although they are aware that in Taken Liam managed to locate the jillion baddies in a country of 12 million people, and then kill them all -- these silly Muslims still fail at basic Security precautions, and Liam once again, just waltzes into all their secret hideouts and annihilates them. Like a hundred baddies will shoot at Liam, repeatedly, from all sides, but he never gets hit. He shoots once, with his revolver, and they drop like flies. Rajinikanth could not have done it better.

Lots of camera shots of mosques in Istanbul, the Azaan being recited, Burka-clad women walking around and giving Liam's daughter the stink-eye (because although in reality barely 20% of Turkish women even wear the headscarf today much less the burka, reality is too mainstream for this director). Anyway, long story short, Liam kills all the baddies, and saves his ex-wife (the teary-eyed reunion is classic Tamil movie stuff, more so than the fight scenes), and safely leaves his daughter at the US Embassy in Istanbul -- the safe haven from the evils of the nation of Big Bad Muslims.

Finally he is in a showdown with the Biggest Baddest Muslim, this crazy old guy whose son used to kidnap and sell foreign girls like Liam's daughter (before Liam totally kicked his butt). Liam is like, man, because I'm awesome and also believe in all-American freedom, I'll give you a chance to live if you agree to leave me and my family alone. And this guy is like, k. Then Liam turns around and the bad guy's like HAHA I LIEDDD and is about to kill Liam, but Liam's like, STFU and grabs the bad guy's face. The bad guy dies. I'm not sure what that was about. Face-grip of death or something. Mad skillz.

The scene shifts back to LA, lalala jazzy music, sunny skies, happy people - heaven compared to the dirty yellowed streets, ominous Burka ladies and unshaven gunmen of Istanbul. They all sit around and have ice cream. The end. You know, as a Muslim maybe I should have taken a moment to be offended by all the ridiculously obvious anti-Muslim imagery in Taken 2, but honestly, I was too busy laughing. 

Lesson #22

I like to think that we grow a little every year (not up in my case, cuz who am I kidding?), that we learn things we didn't know the previous year. And I think this year I've learnt that - getting what you want? You know, the whole go-after-what-you-want-if-you-wanna-be-happy thing? - is overrated. Sometimes you just don't get what you want. And that's okay. Because most of the time, you don't need what you think you want, to be happy. Sometimes seeing other people happy instead can be enough. And healthier even. 

In other news, winter is coming (cue Game of Thrones theme track). I laid down on the terrace this evening and I could feel it. This means cold morning breeze, white mist ghosts in the street, fancy jackets. Icy tap water. Warm plate of Maggi noodles on a freezing afternoon. Boots. Never getting out from under the quilt. Fuzzy sweaters. Yeah. It's going to be nice.

Yay for winter gloves.