I can’t find my way around anymore. At least not consciously. With all the one way streets and detours its difficult to plot a mental path from A to B. I just sorta drive in the general direction and rely on muscle memory to get there. There are various jetstreams coursing through Colombo and – in lieu of understanding them – I just drive. The traffic flow has its benefits I guess, but creating a livable city is not one of them. The roads can shunt you through Colombo, but it’s pretty useless for living in. To reach a location on Galle Road you have to plot your path just right so you find the right one-way street down and then end up on the right side of the street. Otherwise you will be lost to the carrion crows.
It’s possible, it’s just that my mind shuts off after about the third mental detour. I can’t imagine my trajectory without overheating my brain and having to sit down for a while. It used to be you drove in a straight line by whatever available roads. Now it’s a mental quiz I choose not to attend. You can survive Colombo for weeks entirely on lower brain.
On another random thought. I was wondering if the cops could wash my car when they pull it over, since we’re taking the time. I’d pay Rs. 300 towards the security forces, and it’s convenient.
Indi, we can either criticize and be sarcastic to the security forces for pulling us over, and taking time, and being inefficient, OR just live with it, and be thankful that at least these young guys are willing to stand out in the blistering heat and check our goddam vehicles for the safety of Colombo. For the safetey of our air conditioned offices.
Sigh. Bigger picture guys, bigger picture.
Too many people in Sri Lanka ‘just live with it’. There’s better ways to live
Agreed. :) I know it must be frustrating after living years abroad. but then again, we don’t ‘have’ to live here, but we’ve made the decision to, yes?
At least…our people aren’t starving. We have intellectual capital. We have resources. We have free health care. but then again, we have corruption, brain drain, refugees, an education system which is falling apart… And then AGAIN, there’s us. The fortunate ones, educated, making a buck and paying our taxes, so people can get free healthcare (like my grandma, who didn’t pay a cent when she was at the maharagama cancer ward with breast cancer, the conditions are appalling, but most people do not have a choice), even if it is mismanaged in certain instances.
yes I have to think twice about public transport, with concens of safety, but I did go in public transport for years, and when I saw mothers feeding their children inside a crowded broken down bus driven by a maniac bus driver, I know there’s a lot of wrong in this country. yes, things are pretty messed up. But ‘i’ have a safe home, food on the table and I give back to 12 years of free education by giving back to the economy.
Until I go abroad for my further education, I rather ‘make do’, working for a menial pay, doing community service and having a book in my car when the convoys stop traffic. Because it is ‘my’ decision to.
I didn’t realize you were talking about checkpoints. I thought you meant the one-way system. I frankly don’t find the VCPs much of a hassle. Fighting my ways past, trishaws, drunken cyclists and buses is a much bigger issue to me. Indi, the on-way system has been in place for almost two YEARS, and hasn’t changed much in that time. How long will it take for you to actually have a mental map of it. Most modern cities have complicated one way systems which are far harder to decipher than Colombo’s. In any German city (some of the most organized in Europe), if you haven’t a map, expect to spend a good amount of time driving aimlessly to find parking or an address. I think this post’s a bit whiny, machang!
got agree with mr blacker. nice pic bit of a whiny post. i actually think the traffic flow works – except when the very idiotic person in a convoy decides to stop everything for 10-30 mins. i live in the heart of the city and my traveling distance on the whole has increased by 10-15% for short distances but the time required has reduced by 10-30% at different times of the day – so the payoff in utility is worth it for me. i think the most telling is during the school rush hour – the system has worked very well at this time.
re checkpoints – i find the armed forces (army, airforce, navy) very professional to deal with and eons ahead of their predecessors prior to the CFA. i try to make sure i have my nic easily accessible and find i get thru these within 20-30 seconds at most. at night i switch on the inside lamp in the vehicle and switch off the headlights and have much the same experience. the police on the other hand are a bunch of “jokers” ( to quote the army commander) – i always get the impression they are looking for an infringement of the law and whether they can solicit something from you -the police checkpoints typically take 2-4 times longer than the armed forces checkpoints and i usually come away annoyed..maybe they would be better off washing your car. i do miss the guys at vihara mahadevi park who used to wash cars for rs 300
It’s more frustrating after living here just two years ago. There’s a lot less freedom, money and hope now
Less freedom – To do what? Get to barista? lol. Tell that to the poor people stuck in the middle of the forces and LTTE.
Less money – Of course. In a way I’m glad I’m working at the very most bottom of the corporate ladder. It kills me to see how people with minute salaries make do. Gee, they don’t even want to come on team outings because they have to save for wife and kids. It’s sad but eye opening, there are a lot of Sri Lankans who make me thankful for what I have.
and hope ? Now now…we can’t lose hope. We are Lankan after all. Even a 20 year odd conflict can’t pin us down. It’s what keeps us going even after the capital gets bombed. It’s what keeps us watching the news, reading Ada Derana smses, and keeping conversation alive at dinner parties. :)
Dee butting out for good now. Can take a horse to the water eh.. ;)
I feel for you man. I miss not being in Sri Lanka but I don’t miss the traffic.
We have less constitutional freedoms, especially for Tamil people. The most obvious constitutional freedoms we don’t have are the right to equality, freedom from arbitrary arrest, detention and punishment, freedom of speech, assembly, association, movement (Fundamental Rights).
The former two are important because that’s what checkpoints are about. They check if you’re Tamil and if you are they can detain you without any other cause. This is unconstitutional and not freedom, but it prevails under Emergency Law.
I’m trying to parse your argument on the money thing. It seems to be that you are aware that people are poor, and this makes things… emotionally rewarding for you? I think it might help people if we lessened the corruption, shrank the government and instituted some sane fiscal policy rather than just feeling bad for them and carrying on.
In sum, it’s not a significant legal or argumentative stretch to say that Sri Lankans are far less free. There’s also pretty clear numbers on inflation and cost of living that we have less money. Hope is more subjective, but it’s generally correlated with the other two.
You can sneer at Barista’s or people who’ve been abroad, but that anti-elitism is about as disconnected from reality as Sarah Palin. Knowing poor people doesn’t make for any better policy than being able to see Russia from your house. Yelling ‘terrorism’ does not justify all manner of abuses. The suffering in our country doesn’t mean that we should shut up and not question the people running the show (and profiting from it). I think it means we should speak out more.
exactly. So speak out. Write an article to the paper. Join an organisation. Have a petition. We need learnerd ppl like you to take a stand. Bloggin wont change the minds of masses or the govt.
1.the road system sucks when you really don’t want to waste your time on transport
2.feel for the armed forces and at the same time I am a anti-war believer. In SL or any other country. Treat people as human not for their race.
3. scared to portrait what i really believe in, as the recent history has indicators that we are NOT exactly free to talk
4.need to voice your belief? yes so desperately needed. As SL citizens are going for short term aims rather than a long term steady growth of country
5.how to speak out? Petitions, article and forming an organizations works? History of SL have shown what happened. Thousands of article were written. Millions have signed petitions, organizations? may be parties? All they do is have press conference.
We know the problem but none of us have a solution.
Or do we?
re traffic flow it works, but i miss the change of scenery, i.e. the view from the “other” way.
I have agree with Naz. The traffic is moving, Sri Lanka style. The roll of the dice checkpoints/road closures to me at least are all part of the 3rd world package. The majority of the minority that drives adjust their secret Colombo short cuts and keep driving. Y FM helps so does the air con. Most of the people in the buses have bigger problems than traffic which is how the politicians want it.
Checkpoints have been a part of scenery for most of the my generation and I guess the next. Before 911 I felt something was not right at 1st world airports till the uniforms and the machines guns turned up. Time to shrug another vut to du no? and turn to the cricket, arrack in hand.