The Hindu’s R.K. Radhakrishnan has a rather workaday article in Frontline until the end: “[The Indian Tamil MPs] carried back a fact that is not palatable in Tamil Nadu: that Tamil in Sri Lanka is a language; nothing more, nothing less. Tamils are not a race in Sri Lanka.” I’m not sure I’d put it that way, but like DBS Jeyaraj saying Sri Lankan Tamils are the 4th ethnicity in Sri Lanka, it makes a bit o sense.

In his post marking the 36th birth anniversary of the LTTE, DBS Jeyaraj said something striking – “Today the battered and shattered Sri Lankan Tamils reduced in numbers to being the fourth largest ethnicity in the Island are slowly struggling to pick up the pieces and get on with life.” I think what he’s saying here is that the races in Sri Lanka would now be Sinhalese, Muslims, Indian (Estate) Tamils, and then Sri Lankan Tamils. Which sounds crazy, but it may be true.

The Sri Lankan flag is not an aesthetic triumph, but neither am I. I like it anyways. In this (random) graded review of flags Sri Lanka got 41/100 with demerits for weapons, bad colors, graven images and being too busy. Which I think is fair, but again, I like it anyways. It’s a flag, it’s our flag. I have one in the house in case there’s a big cricket match or something. What’s news is that a Tamil leader made news by simply holding the flag at all.

I hope you’re enjoying the Vesak weekend, celebrating the Buddha’s birth, enlightenment and death. I went to a calm and beautiful temple, took one of the new city buses downtown and walked around the Beira Lake. It hasn’t been a huge Vesak thus far, but the streets are packed with cheery and friendly people, lining up for dansal (free food and drink) and piled into the back of pick-up trucks and Dimo battas, to see the lights. Sri Lankan Buddhism is fundamentally a positive and beautiful thing. It’s nice to see it in the light.

April and May aren’t months full of holidays, they’re holiday months. In case you haven’t noticed, my blogging frequency has dropped dramatically. Every day just feels like a holiday, with occasional surfing for paperwork. Which is kinda the way it is. Avurudu breakishness has just worn off and now it’s Vesak, a long weekend for the full moon. I think that’s the end of it, but during these hot harvest months, there really isn’t a whole lot going on.

I went to get some milk today for my cereal. It was Rs. 155 for a liter of Ambewela (which I bought) and Rs. 165 for 250g of Rathi powdered milk. I mention this only because milk is the latest flash point in Sri Lanka’s ongoing consumer trauma. Just a few days ago, local farmers were so pissed at low profitability that they were pouring milk down the Hatton streets, even bathing in it. In response, the government has raised taxes on (imported) milk powder by 15%. The end result, however, is one more higher priced consumer good.

Recently, certain people protested outside a mosque in Dambulla, under the false aegis of Buddhism. They are, of course, deeper in attachment to transient identity than Buddhist practice would encourage. My friend Navin Weeraratne recently went to Dambulla to get some pics and talk to people, and he tells a great story on Facebook. I’ve included a few pics and his captions here. Each image is clickable back to the original Facebook page.

I was heading towards Dematagoda and I saw some Muslims protesting down the street. Apparently they were joining a bigger group around Town Hall. I don’t think the mob evicition of a mosque in Dambulla is a good thing at all, and it’s got to hurt. Whatever’s said and done, to accost someone while worshipping is pretty terrible. I mean, you don’t do that. The government seems to think that moving the mosque solves the problem, but it doesn’t.

Today me and Isura will be presenting at Refresh Colombo. The title of the presentation is ‘digital democracy’, which is usually a vague and pointless subject. What we’ll be talking about is a specific idea, built upon existing work that Isura has been doing with Sarvodaya. I should emphasize that this is an idea and what we’ll present is not so much as a presentation as a request for support. I have no slides and this blog post is my notes.

I’ve had some terrible experiences getting Indian visas. Now that it’s privatized, the process is a lot better. The policy is a lot more stupid (have to wait two months between visits), but the process is much faster, more efficient, and less offensive to God and man.