indi.ca

On a boat

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Anything called a Millionaire’s Glamour party is likely to contain neither millionaires nor glamor. I obviously should have known, but I thought that title was a joke until I saw it on the ticket. By then it was too late. Indeed, it was just the same Colombo crowd, doing circles around the port. If that’s not a metaphor for Colombo nightlife, I don’t know what is. It was like being at R&B, except on a boat. And you can’t leave. Needless to say, this was horrible.

I initially thought the boat experience would be something like this YouTube video. It’s not. There were no burgers, no dolphins, no mermaids. The boat wasn’t even really moving. It was more like being on a really shitty island that played Bon Jovi all the time. Wait a minute…

Fear And Loathing In A Parking Lot

I’m in the Clancy’s parking lot, waiting for the bus. I suspect this is not how glamorous millionaires roll. The men are wearing their best dress shirts. Which are bad. The women are sporting clingy polyester dresses, straightened hair and vacant stares. I thought the crowd would be transcendentally mediocre, but they’re just mediocre. The only standout is a grandfatherly queen in what looks like head-to-toe satin, earrings and three wallet chains. I call him Pimp Juice. Everyone else is dreadfully normal. I am dreadfully sober.

Port

We drive into the port. The Navy guys look perplexed. I am perplexed. What to do. It was nice to see the Port. I have a bad relationship with the Ports Authority and it’s unlikely that I’d ever get in otherwise. You enter under the legs of a quadruped stupa, hovering above the road. The docks are lined with these huge cranes that lift and stack containers like legos. I could sit there and watch them work all day. Everything possible must be therein, shuffled and sorted like packets of data. Even at night the giant cranes move up and down, dinosaurs on rails. Indeed, watching them was about all one could do.

The boat was a Jetliner, quite large really. It was painted with the Sri Lanka Tourism logo and read ‘Visit Sri Lanka In 2011’. Why not 2010 I don’t know. Perhaps we’re setting our sights low. This Jetliner is a repurposed navy boat which once ferried 3,000 servicemen. It’s really quite big and comfortable. There’s a huge dining room, large decks and I suppose berths below. Since the war ended they’ve made it available for events, like this one. A ship, perhaps, was overkill. They could have just floated a platform out into the water and spun it around a few times. That was basically the tour.

Doing Doughnuts In A Jetliner

Aside from getting us into the port and onto the boat, very little had been planned. They served a glass of cheap champagne and then ran out of glasses. There was one guy at the bar below and he would periodically disappear into the back to do something (cry?). There was no semblance of service and one guy just grabbed a bottle and drank half of it. My friend just wanted water, but that request was met with a blank stare and revulsion.

We went upstairs. There in the club room or whatever I ran into a friend and some business owners and Minister’s sons and stuff. This was not a significant improvement. We went outside to get some air. It was nice to see the port, but little did I know that would be all that we’d see. Eventually the boat started moving, but it just sorta spun in circles. And saw some container ships. And then went back to the dock.

Container ship in the port

It was retarded. I was really hungry. All those girls in polyester cocktail dresses reminded me of the endless canapes we were promised. Instead, I was endlessly bored. There was no food except some fried flesh and chili that seemed in short supply. It was midnight already and we never left the port.

Where Cynicism Fails

The experience wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t even that amusingly bad. It was just dull. The people were odd but not especially laughable, they were just the usual people with whom you have vapid five minute conversations about work, constantly looking over each others shoulders. The girls were attractive from across the deck but when you got close you could see the makeup and the limited awareness. It’s all a mask. I know I can’t make more than two minutes of conversation here.

So I’m sitting around with another writer friend talking about how, precisely, this sucks. But there’s really only so much to cover. We’ve covered our hunger, thirst, boredom and general malaise. We’ve felt superior to everyone else, debunked our own superiority complex and emerged as both superior and humble. We’ve made fun of the men, the women, and made witty if strained metaphorical comparisons to A) the state of the nation B) Colombo and C) man’s futile existence.

At some point one can no longer distance themselves from the suck. You’re making cynical comments, but you’re really just treading water. The suck draws you in, the suck becomes you. I spent hours and 3,000 Rupees (!) to get on this boat. Now I just want to get off. As much as I make fun of the situation, I’m obviously the patsy here. We disembark and go to Pilawoos and eat kottu. FML.