Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da. Daily Mirror

I’ve been baby/house sitting for some friends that are out of town. So I find myself in the odd position of writing an absence note on account of a strike that never quite hit anything. What I have learned from children so far is 1. the words ‘charter’ and ‘bite’ 2. that there was an Indian baby born with a tail and worshiped as Hanuman 3. That there are millions of facts of this nature and 4. that being a parent in this country is no less absurd. Writing an absence note is one thing, never thought I’d be there. Another is that removing children from school and people from work is the preferred method to get attention, and that this has been done so much that it no longer works. I wonder about all the school and training the people in power now seem to have missed.

I hate strikes. It’s too damn hot in this country to stand around, for one. For two, they’re a godawful inconvenience for normal people while the VIPs still seem to do whatever they please. If someone would stage a flash mob to sound hundreds of horns when Gotabaya travels I’d be down for that. But rather than obstruct the helicoptered classes, we plop down in Lipton Circus or Kollupitiya, obstructing everyone. I wish there was some sort of strike which made traffic disappear, conspicuous by absence. I would be down for that.

But I digress. Despite this Lalkantha fellow saying that the strike was 70% successful (a horrid use of percentages), the strike has had exactly zero effect on anything in Colombo. Word on the SMS is that 90% of plantation workers have struck, which must have troubled the boll weevils mightily. In all, an awkward silence from the JVP, which used to empty the roads and leave burning humans on the side of the road as examples. Not that I long for the good old days when I was getting notes written for me, but I really do hope for a better future. Perhaps an opposition with opposable thumbs.

Posted on Friday, July 11th, 2008 in Colombo, Politics, Sri Lanka.