I am truly LOCAL!

I was never a bright kid at school, always average, fat and a failure in Maths, but a few things from my school life I will never forget, so I put down 20 things.

For those who went to international schools, you might not get this, sorry! I am truly LOCAL!

1.       Ann, Taro, Muru , Geetha , Saman are some names I will never name my children after.

2.       An Areca-nut doll is the best thing I played with.

3.       The desert I was prude to know that I can make was a pink “poll – toffee” and pulped fruit salad.

4.       “Biscuit and Tea” I still find it hard to say it

5.       My Maths book was bigger than the “word of God” – so I prayed on it, and never studied it! :)

6.       “Radiant way” is a must!

7.       I still remember – sing, sing, sing, sing mother sing, mother can sing……..

8.       My spine is still not fixed after carrying those heavy books to school.

9.       If the play “dear departed” is ever staged in Sri Lanka I don’t think anyone will ever go for it! ( I had it with that play)

10.   Cutting a shoe flower in to two was my biggest scientific observation.

11.   The best example that my teacher was able to come up with to teach me about Re- production was a FLOWER! Errrr!!!

12.   Sex education is something I never learned.

13.   “Miss Can I please use the wash room please” this was taught to all in my class, if we had to use the luu, we had to say this, why do these teachers want to know what we do in the toilet.

14.   Blue and white – I will never combine this even in a fashionable need.

15.   History was always too old, for me to understand

16.   The biggest trip that I had  to make was to the Museum,

17.   Ann, Taro, Muru , Geetha , Saman  never heard these names after grad 4.

18.   Shakespeare Drama Competition was the coolest thing to be a part of.

19.   Giving that absent letter was always a task.

20.   Most of what I learnt at school never came in use.

Weddings in Sri Lanka

Weddings in Sri Lanka is something many out there should experience! its always something fun to look at! this is just a few that i put together! 

1. Bride is unrecognizable, under the make up

2. Groom has to wait for a long time, as the going away change takes more time than the first night

3. You will hear “Rambari”

4. Bride’s mother is also unrecognizable

5. When the band takes a break and the DJ takes over, that split second you will hear a lot of forks and spoons hitting against the plate

6. There is always oo drunk to this one man who is too drunk to know where he is…

7. There are more photographers than people.

8. You will hear stories about “How bad the food was”

9. Many will sure miss the church or the Poruwa ceremony, and will on time for the buffet

10. The page boy and the flower girl is always a disaster

11. Some family member will state “aiyo have you put on weight?”

12. Batter prawn will be served to the fullest on another plate..

13.  The band member will talk a bit too much…

14. The wedding cake is always frownd upon, saying either it’s too small or it has less fruits

15. Half the people don’t know the other half

16. No one follows the seating arrangements

17. You always have a crying baby

18. sarees are important

19. Food is always over served and wasted

20. you always have a granny who will kiss you 100 times saying, “you look just like your mom/dad” Jur mom/dad” J

Am I a Tamil?

F

or me the word “peace” begins in one’s heart. Peace is when you forget who you are, what you are made of, what you believe in, what society wants you to belong to, and start thinking of yourself as a Sri Lankan. Peace starts when you become the person who forgets your beginnings and makes every day a beginning to share, live, enjoy and conquer. “There is no way to peace, peace is the way.” And I believe in this for many reasons.

I came in to this world with a lot of luck and love, not knowing how it was to struggle to have a meal, not knowing how it was to work to earn one’s money. Everything, to me, was served on a gold plate with the frills of wealth, class and status adorning it. Our house stood on the grounds of Shillalai in Jaffna for many hundred years. A huge family, a grand history and a lot of pride to show to the world. But on one single day, everything changed. On the beautiful day of August 21st 1992, when I was six years old, our garden filled up with “leaflets” from the sky! They read, “You have a matter of hours to leave everything you have and run to save your lives.”

The shock was too hard on my dad; he left us in more pain and took shelter with God above on the 1st of March 1993. Life now was a puzzle, and this puzzle had only three pieces, my mother, my sister and me! We had still not put it all together – having to leave behind wealth enough to feed a nation and come to Colombo with one bag in our hands – this taught us the hard side to life.

So as a Tamil, to whom/or to what should I direct my anger? Who should I fight with? Who can give me my dad back, or who can reverse the tears that my mum shed? The answer is no one. No one is to blame. It is fate that our country had to experience such a blood-sucking war for the past 30 years, and you and I are victims of it in some way or other.

Today I swim in the sea of media, where smiles are not genuine, a compliment might not be true, and where time is so unpredictable. I fell in to this soup by accident, and I am enjoying how it’s feeding me. I forget who I am, but I remember who got me here, they are all Sri Lankans, and it’s a pleasure to know that I, too, am seen as one.

Everyone has a very sad story in their lives that makes them strong. Mine gave me the strength to change, to change and make a change, at least start the change so that many will follow.

So forget who you are, see yourself as a member of a great family called ‘Sri Lankans’. I am not exactly the well- read individual with many degrees backing my name; but my degree is on life and it qualified me to get through hard times, and today everyone is a friend to me, and I look out for the humanness in each of them. Life is beautiful, people make it beautiful. So don’t let the tears of the past obstruct what you can do to make a better tomorrow.

“If you wish to experience peace, provide peace for another.”