Colombo has a perahera (elephant, fire and awesome parade). Well everywhere has a perahera, but Gangarama Temple in the city has a boss one. Briefly interrupted by war, the colorful Podi Hamduruwo has brought it back in style. I attended for the first time and it was pretty awesome, and well organized. The Kandy Perahera is a bit of an endurance event, but this one was more modern.

For Sri Lankan Independence Day we travelled in the armpits and elbows of our countrymen to the rural south, where we slept in the fields. I wouldn’t call it a vacation, but it was definitely an experience.

I recently got a physical book in the mail. It cost me twice as much as the Kindle version and took three weeks longer to arrive (I live in Sri Lanka), but I bought it anyways. Why?

The city has posted signs asking people to use garbage cans, without actually installing garbage cans. While education is important, it should be linked to possible execution. Right now these signs just hang out there, being purely theoretical. While I appreciate the effort, I’m still walking around with popsicle sticks in my pockets.

I finally walked into the Colombo Public Library. It’s about as bad as I imagined it. The periodicals room is OK, it has all the newspapers and you can stand around reading them. Not too much else that’s new. It’s mainly the selection of books that’s depressing. I did a random walk around and the newest book I could find was from 2006. There was some non-fiction about the Chinese economy in the 80s. The fiction was even worse.

A lot of progressive values are the default if you’re poor. Eating less meat, not using cars, consuming less electricity, buying local food. While someone in Brooklyn will pay exorbitant amounts (and attention) to bicycle to work, eat organic food and minimize their carbon footprint, this is what a poor Sri Lankan does by default.

Many Sri Lankans have two names, as do most Sri Lankan roads. My name is Indrajit, but everybody calls me Indi, or Jit. The Galle Road is either the Galle Road or the Colombo road, depending on which way you’re going. The Colombo Plan Road – along the coast – is still called Marine Drive. It’s a beautiful stretch.

I was walking yesterday and the neighborhood smelled (much) worse than usual. Get to the corner and there is this horrendous waterfall into the gutter, spewing black acrid waste. The guy on the corner (video here) said it was from waste water from the Sri Jayawardenapura Hospital (which is rather far away). It smells and looks horrendous. By the time I got back it had slowed to a trickle, but really.

Cities are like women. They’re only yours at night. Colombo’s a classy city. The upper class has cars and the lower class doesn’t. It’s like knights and horses really. As such, the nightspots I know tend to be car based, drive thrus. Street food. At night the only stuff you see are the casinos, the karaoke bars, the Juliana Hotel.

I walk around a lot, trying to get home. Along the way, I see a lot of homeless people. At the Rosmead Place petrol station there are at least six people every night. At Vihara Maha Devi Park, people essentially live and wash their clothes. When the city sleeps, people sleep on it, on the streets, behind boards, in lean-tos, under awnings, wrapped in burlap bags like sacks of potatoes.