Panekuddah beach,, near Batticaloa
I’m in a Batti hotel room. The walls are green, the door is pink. There are orange flowers on the table. By the table a beer sits, unsipped. On the bed a girl sleeps, untouched. There are no further meanings, no ways or means. This is where I am. There are colors and sounds, fried fish on the grill. I can see the stars from so brightly, I feel the heat like a visceral soup, the air conditioning like sorbet.
I have been trying to figure out what day it is for a while now. I cannot recollect. I go swimming, as often as possible. I can’t hear anything underwater, I cannot see. The light refracts into blue, the body cools into green. Swim down two feet and you disappear, the body chills, the mind recedes. There is nothing to perceive, to talk about. Only breath, or the lack thereof. Off Eravur there are no waves, so I just swim. I just swim. I’m 200 meters offshore, I go further. I feel fear. I retreat.
I’m driving down the Kallady bridge, blasting Young Jeezy or Justice, feeling perceptibly cool. But I’m not. It’s hot as sin. I’m in an exotic place but I perceive nothing beyond my iPod. The election is over and I think someone won. It doesn’t register that much.
The election is over and I think someone won. It doesn’t register that much.”, that sounds a tad disingenuous. Anyways, I like your writing. Infact, I envy you. sometime ago I thought of myself as a decent writer, well for a 18 year old at least. Alas, education has ruined my writing.:(
P.S: You also sound like you are having some sot of existential mid-life crisis.:)
OMG the UNP got RAPED again.
Poor UNP – it’s kinda hard to be on the receiving end. Poor Indi went to Batti to hang out with all the other journo’s and muscle in on the action but it was a fizzle because Dodo the election was a farce and half of Sri Lanka did not vote in it.
The Sri Lankan democracy is non-existent, that is the bottom line.
every one knows this was rigged! only 51% had voted. sad situation.
LOL did you get butt-raped by the electorate as well? You can always join Ranil and cry in the corner.
Better get busy mate… Unless dat untouched chick is ugly as sin, some other bugger is gonna drink dat beer n bang her silly while u feel sorry for urself dat u did too much drugs n can’t get it up
Tis the majority wants dat democracy is about. So even if it doesn’t mean tis da intelligent choice, tis still the majority choice dat wins- Otherwise it won’t be a democracy now would it?
Don’t be depressed; Go bang her before its too late
Hey Indi, I thought it was Pasikuddah. It is is, better watch out, I had the worst jellyfish attack at that place. Once I was in the water and suddenly whole area was covered by an army of Jellyfish.
Umph, is she on rag time? No problem, UNP too is bleeding the same!
Dying to go to Batticaloa again. Did you visit the lagoon? My only experience of my father’s hometown was a Christmas trip there with two carloads of relatives from Australia when I was about five years old. We stayed with a distant cousin. He brought us a bucket of fresh crabs everyday (the bucket was orange) and these were promptly curried and gobbled with hot samba rice at lunchtime. I also associate Batticaloa with my first hangover. We had to do the requisite Christmas visiting rounds and were laced with milk wine from at least five houses before my parents brought us children home. I collapsed into bed like a burlap sack, my head spinning. Have a small dread of milk wine to this day. The milkier the more deadly. :)
@magerata
Pasikuddah is a different place, this is the first turn off at the Eravur clock tower. Not sure I’m spelling it correctly
@snake,
“The Sri Lankan democracy is non-existent, that is the bottom line.”
Yes. That must be true because everyone on the ‘Internet’ is saying that.
Go check out the Roman Catholic mission at Manresa, and ask ’em why all the pedestals have no statues.
Thx man, I was wondering about the rocky beach too. Pasikuddah is a shallow even beach extending as far as one could wade, may be a kilometer, if I am not mistaken.
I will keep this place in mind.
Too bad Tamil terrorists ruined the city.
No dumbo, it’s because contrary to what you being the racist you are thinks, some of us Demala have very many good and fine Sinhala friends and relatives from all walks of life and THEY tell us what you clowns are doing to OUR country.
Just because you run around your sad little circles between a few sleazy resorts, the Barefoot farce of a cafe and Cinnamon Gardens … and you have access to the internet .. don’t mean that you speak for the whole of Sri Lanka. You don’t ok.
There are also a lot of Sinhalese people getting out of Sri Lanka, they’ve got a lot to say too.
You can allow Mahinda to keep paying some stupid American public relations company billions of dollars to keep giving himself a good name. At the end of the day, decent people everywhere from Tamil Nadu to South Africa to Wisonsin to Darwin know that it’s the fools like you that keep Mahinda in power.
You want to be a fence sitting arse-licking crawler for the rest of your life … fine. You’re already ugly on the outside, you’ll be uglier on the inside soon enough … and it will show!
So you are a just bitter little sod, typing furiously with third hand information. Ah, the arrogance of your ignorance.
Something to do with paedophilia no doubt.
Oh ye of little faith.
No, I don’t think so. I think you know that less than 20% of Sri Lankans want Mahinda in power and essentially this is not sustainable.
If you continue to vote for family poliltical dynasties you will continue to bankrupt your future.
Don’t worry about me or what you think is my “third hand” information and what you think is my ignorance. I’m certainly not going to tell you who I talk to and who I’m connected to!
Worry about yourself because when you’re old and grey and toothless you’ll know how much of your country you squandered and you will regret it.
@snake,
Thanks for proving democracy is non-existent in Sri Lanka.
“No, I don’t think so. I think you know that less than 20% of Sri Lankans want Mahinda in power and essentially this is not sustainable.”
So I guess i can add delusions of telepathy to your psyche profile. Talking to you is severely unproductive, it’s like talking to an grumpy old man after hip surgery.
One thing I will tell you though, if you don’t live it difficult to understand the sentiments of the people. About 6 months ago, I was a student at an american university. Back then I had sentiments very similar to yours, except for the righteous indignation and absolute conviction, but things changed after i came for my extended vacation between undergrad and PhD. Despite what you and I may think the rural majority supports Mahinda explicitly, and regrettably unconditionally.
Besides I think for better or for worse the development in this county, despite the blatant crookedness of it, is happening at the right places. For this country to develop the rural majority needs to get access to infrastructure and services. That for me is the bottom line.
Mahinda is no saint, I think it is regrettable how they handled the last stages of the war, but the way to remedy the wrongs done to the Tamil people is not to drag the whole issue in front of the Hague. The Buddhist nationalist sentiment of the Sinhalese has to disappear and Buddhists ‘hela uruma’ rhetoric has to be exposed for the lunacy it represents. More importantly reconciliation has to take place, not in terms demagoguery, but in terms of economic stimuli. I don’t think Mahinda will be the person to do this, he is too popular amongst the Sinhalese south. He has very little need of diluting his attention away from where he is most effective. This is tragic, but it is the reality. Whoever, is going to resolve the ethnic problem is not going to be a Rajapaksha.
Rigged? If only all the democracy-touting, Hikka-is-so-cool, Fonseka-arse-kissing, SL-is-so-goday, I-wanna-study-in-the-UK dimwits would get their backsides outta bed and vote, maybe we’d know if it was rigged. Thing is, the majority of that 51% are rural people who actually support their choice enough to vote.
51% is a lie. The actual number is more like 62%. For an election where everyone, including the opposition, knew who was going to win, those numbers seem ok to me.
@Dodo,
You really should have your own blog!
Voter turnout of 50%+ in the most boring election in a generation is nothing to sneeze at.
Amerian presidents routinely get much less than 30% of the total vote but nobody questions his ability to lead the free world because of that.
National Voter Turnout in Federal Elections: 1960–2008
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html
^^ I would if I weren’t heading for grad school soon :)