Shattered car window by Aartyhr. My camera melted in an unrelated incident
Woke up at some hour not exactly clear where I were. My friend brought me a water and Panadol and told me to get out of her house. Go downstairs past the rents and stand in the sunlight doorway, looking despondently at my socks. I’m not wearing shoes. Walk past the rents again, find my sapaths and walk onto Flower Road. I have met them twice in similar shameful circumstances. Last time I said my name and serial number and literally ran away. Not at all marriageable. Walk for a while. Curse the sunlight. Cannot find car. There are no parked cars. There are a lot of moving cars. This is shaping up to be a proper proper day. Ax the meter maid and she takes me to the security guard so they can both laugh at me. There are signs now but there were no signs at night. Great. Cinnamon Gardens police it is.
Get out of the Trishaw and try to find the door to the police endroit. There is a bureau of Organized Crime or something oddly named, like that Ministry of Corruption and Bribery. That’s not me. Dude, there’s my car. Go inside and talk to guy who is aware of car but seems to have no protocol for this kinda thing. He, like, finishes and I’m like OK. Go get in the car and insert key. Car won’t start. Mmmmmm. And all my stuff is gone. There is shattered glass all over the backseat. I am in trouble. I call my little sister.
I didn’t piece this together till later cause my brain was very very angry with me but apparently the Bomb Squad DJs shattered my little back window, opened the car, impounded all my sheet and towed the car. Flower Road is a high security something or rather now. Or always was, but how the shit would I know. Right now I’m sitting in the car wondering wtf is wrong with me. I am the opposite of hungry.
My sister is telling me to put some pants on and come to dinner. I’ll be back in a minute. Indian food. Great.
So, I get back in the policier and ask money where my stuff is and he opens some dossier with the number and asks me some questions and walks me outside to talk to with 14 other people. The one thing that confuses me about the Police Station is that there are literally 18,000 officers there but it takes forever to get anything done. What they are doing I know not. The gang of fourteen knows nothing, except one guy who’s cute but looks a little vicious. Some guys walk over to das car, open hood and plug my battery back in. The guy is holding one end of the connection and asking me to start the car. I find this odd, but this is a country where respectable adults stick pens in electrical sockets. The car starts. Money takes the keys and tells me to wait. I lean back and try to figure out if I’m hungover or still drunk. I can’t listen to music. It’s hot.
This other cop comes up and tells me to come over, but there is absolutely nothing happening and I go back cause I wanna sit down. Then he comes again and something is sorta happening. They give me a bill for Rs 3000 for breaking my window and towing the car. OK. I have the casheesh so that’s settled. Talk to the prosperous Officer In Charge and then some things and some things and they tell me to sit down and wait. I am happy to sit. For ever. I look at the numbers on their uniforms. 54039, 30009, 25650 (or something). There are so many fucking cops. This is going nowhere until a policier with no number and some medals sits down. He’s a lovely man and I speak broken Sinhala and sorta follow what he’s saying and he says ‘pauw’ and asks me how old I am and if I’m married and stuff. I’m an idiot but I have an honest face and some people seem to like me. He’s a sweet guy, very kind face. He tells them to get me out of there and then they start doing stuff. I have been sitting next to a big wooden chest for like half and hour. They open the chest and give me my belongings. Urgh. Then the guy fills out the report and I sign it and another thing and I sign it and I’m like can I go and they’re like you can go. Say bye. The Public Relations officer happened to be there and he walks me out. He saw my card and asks if I can help him get press for stuff. I ask if they use computers and he kinda scratches his head. Okay. I say I’d love to.
Amma’s tells me shit happens but it seems to extra happen to me. I can’t drive her car anymore. For a while. Dunno. I ate some kiribath and watched TV and movies for 8 hours straight. Cleaned the car and cut my finger. Sucked the blood and I think I ingested some glass.
This life is a tyranny of small things. It looks solid but it shatters into discrete little pieces. One car, four wheels, three gadgets, one laptop, four chargers, four USB cables, five keys, one glasses, one National ID, one driver’s license, two money cards, three two linen pants, two national shirts, 32 teeth, five fingers and ten toes. Ten fingers. If any of these things breaks or goes missing it puts a fork in my day. And they do. The tyranny of small things.
You’ve just had a Jihad Mendoza moment. I hope Manolo was worth the trouble.
Brainy fellows these cops.
When we last have car bombs? Or ever have car bombs?
And was it parked close to where some real damage could have been done?
And did they use minimum force? Did they break open the smallest window?
hey indi…
have been following ur blog for sometime.i appreciated very much the very early posts of ur blog.they were very intuitive and u seemed like a good guy with a clear head in his shoulders.since the last 3 months or so,there s a drastic difference in ur posts.they seem to emphasise ur drinking and the actions u ve taken under those circumstances. u ve seem to have put ur moralistic behaviour in the back seat.i mean not generally, but those posts gave a sense of irresponsibility and recklessness as result of crazy drinkng habits and ur posts have lacked the depth they had when u just got back to sri lanka and before.
this is in no way aimed at insulting u or trying to be judgemental…it was just a general feeling i got coz i ve been reading ur blog for sometime and i thought i d let u know in case u didnt realise…
sorry to hear abt the car…
happy blogging..
kE
Shit scene man. It sucks when stuff happens to one’s vehicle. Hope damage to the car is minimum and you got everything back. Thank your lucky stars for being able to sort out the stuff in one day and one visit to the shed. Oh and hope the lay was well worth it too.
Smallest window, no lay just friend, and yes I realize. It’s know it’s not good but that’s where I am right now.
Indi my man….if you didn’t get laid it certainly wasn’t worth the trouble. Opportunity cost man. Sheeesh. Now it’s even a bit pathetic. kEt – nicely said. I agree completely, about the degneration of the Indi. But this is what Sri Lanka does to you. Sigh. But he’s great fun.
indi – i know you’re a goose but stay out of trouble – seriously you need your head checked – the cops in SL are not for messing with & stop signing police statements – y0u don’t know what you are signing
Oh Fack.
Nice to know that there’s the bomb squad to think about when making that 3am decision on drunk driving.
Still think I made the right call. You were calling me “Akki” and sending scary texts to married men.
For what it’s worth, I love that you’ve chilled out and the juvenile pandit in you has been laid to rest. You weren’t intuitive, you were judgemental. You weren’t a good guy with a clear head in his shoulders (excellent sentence, excellent) you just were not getting any :) It’s not your fault that you have the tolerance of a small furry animal.
PS – You left your moralistic behaviour in the back seat? Sheesh, no wonder your car was taken away by the bomb squad.
I can see the headlines – Indi, peacnik, ltte lovin broken Sinhala speaking suicide boming alcho found dead near blown up bus with cameras and videotapes
And there will be a sworn statement that says that you intended to do this.
As for “sending scary texts to married men” – what the ?????
You know I think you are a complete idiot but truly what is this about?
Uh? You made that decision? I was wondering. Came from a press conference with free booze, hence the low tolerance oi. The married man understands, I went out with him and wifey today. Why are you so mean to me Akki? I’m really a sweet boy
That’s too much to handle – go easy on the heavy stuff – watch out for dirty cops everywhere!
Yes M – give him some.
The boy does quite well for himself, sop. Does not need the sympathy shag.
More than we can say you for, you narrow minded, shit talking sob. Maybe if you left blogging to the bloggers and got out once in awhile, you’d realise that not everything revolves around sex, amongst those who actually have it.
Oooooooooooh……
Maybe should have thought about turing your wheels around and parking on the otherside of the street. A moment of negotiating the exchange of cigarettes, getting into a threewheeler and next days work on the mind completely forgot about your car. Sorry! mate!
Made for a good story though…
Oh, come on! Indi has a drinking problem like I have a drinking problem. Personally, I agree with M. Sri Lanka’s chilled him out. He’s much better now. He was always interesting, but now he doesn’t insist on having conversations on the extent of Sri Lankan society’s similarity to 14th Centutry feudal England while I’m at a party having a spliff and talking about the consistency of my last poo.