Mrs Murieal Fernando’s Cabin - Where Winners are born

I set my eyes by-passing a palm tree on the ship that was receding into the horizon.  I was sitting on a plastic chair, a big one, generously arranged by Mrs. Murieal, the owner of the cabin.  This is a cottage with palm leave roof on Mount Lavinya Beach.   It has a verandah with beach sand as floor, and a few cubicles, face open to the sea providing absolute (well almost) privacy if one, I meant a couple, want.

Mrs. Murieal was sitting in a similar comfortable chair reading an English newspaper.  She sits like a matriarch, there were three young men waiting for her call or instructions.  She fielded one of them to attend to my needs – I needed Arrack, which is not available.  No worries, a phone call arranges the delivery of the Arrack bottle.  She is willing for a brief chat, and I reveal to her that I am from Jaffna, but working in in Delhi.  All is well.

As I sipped my way into abyss, I could not help watching her customers. 

A tall white man walks in after a dip, he was wearing undies- which cover his genitals, but a good art of his ass was exposed.  He is wearing a flip-flopper (we used to call it a sandal), and a baseball cap.  As soon as he gets in a chair and a short table was arranged, one of the young men brings him a brand new note book.  He checks an old note book and starts to write.  Possibly he is writing a journal.  He was there for about half an hour and then left.  Before he left, he instructed that one of his friend is coming.

Another middle age white man came, he was wearing proper swimmers, flip floppers, baseball cap, and he sit and waits.  Then come three young boys to meet him.  They speak to him in broken English, the man checks their age, I heard one saying seventeen.  The man orders coca cola, boys felt treated well, then all walk into the sea, to have fun?!  I could not help thinking that the man is a pedophile; and come to think of it, both were.

This is happening in front of Mrs. Murieal, and she is oblivious to her surrounds and keeping busy reading her newspapers.

Now comes a SL man with his friends and a son.  He gives Mrs. Muriel a big hug, calls her Mom, and introduces his son, of twenty or so years.  I continue my travel to abyss, when I hear him saying, this must be a Tamil gentleman sitting in front.  I straightened myself, turned the chair towards him and said, yes.  Conversation continued, I said the same thing about myself to this man, he said he too is a Tamil from Nallur, a nephew of GG Ponnambalam, had a heart attack, had a by-pass, he is 62, married to a Sinhalese lady, he used to be a sailor, the son wants to play club cricket, and he is trying out in Sri Lanka.   Then he invited me for a drink at his hotel room, I politely declined, and then he left. 

Why am I reflecting on these people?  What do they all have in common? 

All three are from the west, and I think by any standards, all a bunch of losers in the west.  They have a few dollars which convert into a lot of LKR.  So, with that, in Mrs Muriell’s cabin, they are winners.  That’s the magic a thatched roof cabin in SL has!

Religious Madness

We all know that there many cruelties justified in the name of God.  Israelis can subhumanise the Palestinians, Taliban can shoot a young girl wants to be educated.  These are incidents catch peoples' attention.  But then there are many, no one knows about.

This happened to me in 2004 in Oman.  I took my daughter of three years to a barber who got mad at my request that I expected him to cut a female child's hair.  This illiterate man scolded me in Bengali, and I had no idea why he was upset about.  Then, there were a few more Bengali stared at me as if I have committed a sin.  I left the saloon.  That was the safest thing for me and my daughter.

Till now, I haven't figured out why, but I am assuming that they were mad at me because I have offended their religious sensitivities during Ramadan month.  If that's the case, they may have pleased their God, but I am sure mine felt sorry for them, and advised me that I should forgive them.

Today is Duserra, the day Goddess Durga defeated Mahimasura, the demon king.  That is for most Hindus, but for a significant part of them it is the day Lord Rama defeated another demon King, Ravana.  Today I went to a part of Delhi, which celebrates Goddes Durga.  Last year I went to another part of Delhi, which celebrated Rama.  Huge effigies of Ravana were lit up with electronically controlled fireworks, which also followed by huge fireworks to end the celebration.

This time I witnessed, as a part of the celebration, Durga statues of various sizes were brought in by devotees to the banks of River Yamuna, and then the idols were drowned in water.  Pilgrims then chant praises to Durga and went home.  Literally thousands of statues would have been brought and drowned by the end of the day.  I saw a dozen of them within 15 minutes.

A digressive tale about Angel Yamuna.  Yamuna and her two relatives - Angels Saraswati and Ganga - had a quarrel, and were banished to earth to become rivers.  They were cursed that they should wash away sins of sinners.  Sarawati, had a lighter sentence, that she will not be seen by anyone.  So, she is considerd an 'underground river'.  All three were to meet at 'Triveni Sangam', near Allahabad, and then flow into the Bay of Bengal.  There too, they were required to wash the sins of a king, whose location was not known.  So, Ganges got divided into many small rivulets, before it discharges into the Bay.

Now back to Yamuna.  I am not sure if it was due to the curse or not, near Delhi, it is just a sewer.  Everything from 21 million Delhiwalas drain into this.  Its filthy, smelly and unhygienic.  Yet, the devotees drown their idols, swim in it, and have fun splashing water at each other.

Drowing of statues and all other organic wastes with it will increase the BOD, eutrophise the river. 

What a madness in the name of GOD!.

Stay away from MMIA Lagos

Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos, Nigeria, is a place to be avoided, if you can.  I just came through that, and I will try my best to avoid this in future.  I was checked 12 times from the time I arrived at the airport till the plane departed.  Here's the sequence of checks.

1. My luggage was checked
2. My passport and visas were checked
3. My passport was scanned
4. I checked in and got my boarding passes.
5. I got through the emigration
6. I got through a metal detector
7. I was frisked
8. My boarding pass was checked
9. My visas were checked
10. I was frisked again
11. When I was about to sit on my seat, someone was waiting to check my passport again.

Thank God that was the end of it.  Nigeria is notorious for various frauds, scams and crime, and yes, they have to be vigilante.  What they are not is being professional about it.

I am going to avoid this airport in future, and I advise that you too.

One Birth Multiple Deaths

I am a Hindu by birth.  Like almost everyone in the world I did not choose my religion, I was born into it.  Many do not understand this, so, they talk about why their religion is better, and others' are not.

I never spent time learning about Hinduism either.  I studied this as a subject at school till year 10 (or year 8), mostly about miracles GOD has performed, and memorise slogans and verses which praised the GOD and sought a favour from Him.  Till now I believe in God, and the only way I could pray is by reciting verses I learnt.  Although I had been to Churches, and Budhist temples, I am comfortable in a Hindu temple.

Although often I felt the need to learn about my religion, it was never on top of my priority list.  Once I found Rig Veda at an airport shop, bought it, but could not go beyond a few pages.  It was HEAVY stuff.  Then I found another book on Hinduism, which had one liners per page about Hindusim, and that was much easier to comprehend.  Two things I remember from that book, (1) A sin is an act that I commit, against my own conscious, and (2) when we leave, we leave our name alone.

I wanted to write about the second one here.  In my case I have left five countries, three educational institutions, and three jobs.  I would have interacted with thousands, neighbors, teachers, students, colleagues, and they all will remember me in many different ways.  When their memory of me fade, I will die, whether I am physically dead or not.  I will have thousands of deaths.  The person who lost his job because of me, will remember me as an evil, and the guy who got promoted based on my recommendation, will remember me with respect.  The first one will never admit that he lost his job because of his poor performance.

So, even well after my death, I will be remembered by a few, but for a long time.  It could be my grand kid.  I hope the last person to remember me, remembers something positive about me!

Good Afternoon on my 58th

I turned 58 today.  Went to a Temple nearby, essentially thanked God for what He has provided me over the years, had my breakfast, and then wanted to do something that I wanted to do.  I decided to take the train from Colombo and travel to Galle along the caost of Sri Lanka.  That was not a smart decison to travel by train.  I have forgotten what SL train voyage could be.  Although I had a second class ticket, there were no seats when I got in.  I stood for an hour, then sat for an hour and reached Hikkaduwa, a popular beach, not just for the tourists, but for the locals as well.

As I walked along the coastal street, a sign displaying 'Co-op Beer Garden and Restraurant' caught my attention.  A cooperative beer garden?  Isn't that some thing unusual?  I decided to go in.  The walkway led me to the beach, and there were hundreds of people, all local.  Almost all possible seats were taken, people enjoying a swim, a drink and then of course the songs.

I caught the attention of a waiter, and asked for a seat.  He was not sure what to do, then brought a table, a table cloth and a chair, and arranged a makeshift seat under a Teak tree.  That was good.  The humidity demanded that I must have a beer, I ordered one, start to gulp, and then looked around.

Among the groups which were partying there was a group of about 20-25, almost every other person looked Autistic.  No one was bothering them and they were not shy either.  They walked about where ever they wanted to go, ordered whatever they wanted, ate, and sang.  Just like anyone else.  I reflected on my childhood days in Jaffna, when kids with autism were avoided, sometimes teased in cruel manner, and mostly left on their own.  What I was witnessing was a sign of the society's maturity.

As I pondered over what I was watching, a man from the group, plus or minus a few years to my age, he did not look autistic, went past me.  We made eye contact, and he said Good Afternoon with a smile. 

Yes it was indeed a GOOD AFTERNOON, so, I humbly acknowledged and wished him the same.

Zewdu The Waiter

I spent the last eight days in Addis Ababa, stayed in a hostel on-campus.  Zewdu is a waiter at the cafetaria, always with a waistcoat matching his pants, well knotted tie, chef's cap, and a name badge.  He must had been trained by someone western to dress up.

I think his memory is like a sieve.  Nothing stays there.  He will ask what I will have for breakfast, I will say fried eggs, he will take two steps, and forget about it, and loiter.  Then I will call him again, he will attend to me politely, hands held back, standing smart and he will take my order again.  Then you know what happens.  Initially it was a bit annoying, but, then I got used to it.

At times he will come to me voluntarily, and ask if I need anything.  If I say nothing, then he will protest by saying, remember, we are your family here and you must allow me to take care of you.  It was nice.  I saw him saying the same to many people.  He wanted to be hospitable.

One day, I called him, 'Zewdu', and he liked my pronounciation and the tone.  It had a bit of friendship and authority.  He stopped and smiled.  Then he said that my pronounciation was perfect.  He then went on to say, that Zewdu means a Crown in his tribal language.  He was born at the time when a King was crowned.  It must be Halie Salazzie.  His father worked at the palace at that time of his birth, and named him, CROWN (Zewdu).

It was at the workshop dinner, he taught me how to drink.  I ordered a glass of wine, he came with a bottle of beer, and a glass of wine.  I told him that I did not want the beer, for that he said, drink the beer first, that's for thirst, then drink the wine with the food for digestion.  He had it all worked out. I obliged.

I will not remember the food at the cafetaria, it was boring, but will remember Zewdu.

Back to Blogger fromAddis

I haven't been blogging, not that I did not have something memorable to write, but was busy, sick or lazy.  Today, I am in Addis Ababa, and I have time (TV in the room is not working).

As we landed, it was around 6 AM, the landscape looked very neatly laid.  Its a hill country, and I did not see any soil conservation measures to check erosion.  But it looked nice.  Moral is just because things looks good, things are not OK.

There is only one word to describe the weather here, beautiful.  The driver said its a bit warm here, he was warning about temperatures reaching mid 20s.

I am staying at the ILRI campus.  This is another sister institute within CGIAR.  I have been to similar campuses of IRRI, CIMMYT and ICRISAT.  They are all good, well  maintained, and a real professional working environment.  IWMI's one is not great, but not bad.  I can only envy the visionaries who have set up such beautiful campuses for the benefit of the poor.

I remember reading that people from the horn of Africa are the most beautiful, and I have to agree with that statement.  They look nice, rarely overweight, dressed neatly, AND, they look beautiful.

I haven't been around today, slept, replied to emails, met some office colleagues.  But I must make use of the weekend to see Addis/Ethiopia.