I say, the Electric Peacock Festival is today. They’re organizing a very cool live music event in Mount Lavinia with actual international DJ Roger Sanchez and bands like the Duke Spirit and Trophy Wife. Plus Sri Lanka/British BBC DJ Nihal. It should be extra cool, though it is also rather expensive at Rs. 6,500. These are actual international acts though, and not saccharine like Sean Paul or pickled like Englebert Humperdink (the usual acts we get). I’ve written about the show at The Sunday Leader, all that’s changed is that it’s no longer in Negombo it’s in Mount Lavinia, so essentially in Colombo. It should be pretty cool and it starts tonight at 6:30 PM, going on till the morning. There’s more info on their website.

Amitabh Bhachan was in town. I was loitering by the wall, listening to conversations. ‘We do full body piercings, with jewelry, for free,’ one woman said. ‘VIP, VIP,’ said a man. Then the Big B was ushered out of a door two feet from me, looking shorter than I’d imagined. Then back to loitering. Some ‘celebrities’ at the event included Anarkalli, Jeevan Kumaratunga, Harry Jayawardena, Lakshman Hulugalle and Namal Rajapaksa. This I gleaned from loitering outside the VIP room. Amitabh was the big star by far, and his speech turned out to be interesting. His experience is basically the airport and the Cinnamon Grand. He seemed to like it though. ‘We’ve been so close yet never had the chance to enjoy the beauty of this wondrous land,’ he said. That’s nice.

I am not a big food fan. It makes me poop, which I find disconcerting. That said, one has to eat, and few things make me grumpier than a bad meal. Sri Lanka is a good place for Chinese food, that is, one particular variety of Chinese food. The best places are those where the Chinese themselves go. Like Min Han. Min Han is a nondescript restaurant down Deanstone Place, off Duplication Road. It has eight tables with green and white tablecloth, a few with gas cylinders underneath, white walls, fake wood floors, fake flowers and fake Chinese art. I’ve heard that there may be a brothel upstairs but this doesn’t affect the food.

Colombo is full of adult film theaters. We went to one on a lark. The Olympia is just under an overpass at the end of Darley Road. It’s a large theatre, mostly empty. They were showing “The Key”, advertised with three completely unrelated posters and a bit of boob. Normally only the names are postered around town, “I Love You Julie”, “Love Story 2010″, “The Nurse”, etc. I’ve always seen the ads but never went. So we went. It was just as funny as I thought it would be. We actually laughed so much that some patrons left after 15 minutes, though perhaps that’s normal.

I’m at the coconut stand, drinking tea, watching reality TV. I like neither caffeine nor king coconut, we’re just here to watch the girls. It’s a peculiar corner. There is a pile of coconuts and a shack. Pregnant goats eat the garbage and kids serve you drinks. This is nondescript, I daresay, but the place is surrounded by foreign women. Me and a friend are sitting there, just watching the show.

Bangalore is a developed, wealthy city with beautiful people. Yet there is no nightlife. Everything closes at 11:30 and most people are in bed around then. I have gone out with friends and the bars really do close. People sometimes go to house parties, but the energy tends to dissipate and the cops break them up if you play too much music.

There’s this place called Kenko where little fish give you a pedicure. They literally crowd around and nibble off the dirt and dry skin. When you first dip in there it feels really weird like, well, fish are nibbling your feet. Then it feels kinda cool. I coulda put my head in there, but another friend couldn’t stay still or stop giggling for ten minutes. It’s a hundred rupees, in Bangalore.

I had to go to the loo and I found The Art Of Travel by Alain De Botton, it has worked out quite serendipitously. The first chapter is called ‘On Anticipation’. He quotes an old Dutchman saying ‘I must have been suffering from some mental aberration to have rejected the visions of my obedient imagination and to have believed like any old ninny that it was necessary, interesting and useful to travel abroad.’ So he unpacked his bags and stayed home.

This year has seen the first really positive stories about Sri Lanka, in the western media. For my whole life there’s always been an asterisk after Sri Lanka. ‘Oh, you’re from Sri Lanka. I’ve heard it’s great, but…’ and then you get into the war and the intractable situation and it sucks. It’s been like dating a beautiful girl with an ax in her head. The amount of times I’ve had that war conversation is legion and it’s not like we ever figured anything out. I’d rather talk about the beaches, or my family. Now we can.

A brief solar eclipse will pass through Jaffna this Friday. Taking the bus up there to check it out. Jaffna is the new destination, full of political candidates and all and sundry. I have never been and for much of my life considered it off limits. This is a place with LTTE memorials, where last election the LTTE forced a boycott. But now the road is open and, god willing, Jaffna can take its place as a kick-ass city in the world. I am excited for the 10 minutes of eclipse, and also to see Jaffna for the first time.