In Loving Memory

No, this isn’t an obituary to my blog, though considering the level of inactivity this year, I suppose you could declare it brain dead.

Did that metaphor make sense? No? Good. I’ve still got it.

But yes, I’ve been just a bit stressed for time these days, especially now that my training is done and I’m officially on permanent status. My restricted time on the internet is spent either reading blogs, sports news or chatting with people in time zones that really mess with my sleep cycle, none of which inspire a blog post.

And then I went to church.

It was one of the weekends that I was at home, and as usual I was busy trying to cram in all the things that I missed out during the week, i.e. dongle-free internet, movies, home cooked food, and driving (I really, really miss driving!). However, in an attempt to infuse my short weekend stay with more ‘family time’, my parents decided that I should come with them for a memorial service. You know what they say; nothing brings the family together like a corpse.

So I swing by, reluctantly, while pondering the appropriate ‘game face’ to put on while at a memorial service. Not too sad (it’s not the funeral) and not too relaxed (you’re supposed to miss the man). It was the 1 year death anniversary of a family acquaintance, an old planter that used to come to our church, and as I sat in the pews reading the order of the service, I realized that this was actually the first time I had attended a memorial service.

It was rather awkward for me personally, watching this little parade of children and grandchildren telling the assembly how much they miss this man. It seemed unnecessary to me; surely this would be better suited for a more private and personal gathering. However, the best was definitely saved for last, when the widow and the pastor got up to tell what a fantastic, god-fearing, church-loving man he was. How they could do so with a straight face, heaven only knows. They might as well have told me he was the antichrist's secretary.

After ensuring I had indeed heard this right, I started to wonder how people could be so forgiving of those that have passed before us. It’s almost as if insults are forgiven by the time the body hits the floor, debts are forgiven by the time of the homily and extra-marital affairs and murder are forgiven by the time the sand starts piling up on the casket.

So is it only in death that we activate our ‘human spirit’? Do we have to wait till our last breath has come and gone to see compassion, concern and selective amnesia in our fellow man? I’m reminded of Mark Twain’s “Tom Sawyer”, when he and his friends staged their own funeral to milk the sympathy that they knew would be overflowing for them, despite them being a public nuisance.

When I was very young, I didn’t see much of my father as he worked late, and so my five year old brain devised a way to ‘check’ how much I missed him. I would imagine him dying, or imagine hearing of his death, and then if I felt immensely sad about it, then I knew that I really did care and I really did miss him.

Silly, stupid, terrible – and yet, perhaps apt.

Bottom line: make sure you tell your friends all the things you hate about them right now! You never know when they may drop dead and put you in the unenviable position of having to lie through your teeth at church.

The Vendetta Against Valentines Day

Valentines Day. Just saying the words brings up a look of slight revulsion in most people's countenance. Valentines day is about as appreciated as the musical talent of the Jonas Brothers or Megan Fox's Golum-ish thumbs. The Twittersphere is rather full of V-day bashing, and no doubt as I type this post there are couples being assaulted and set fire to in India, Hallmark card shops being stoned and loud angry men marching in the streets denouncing 'Western' influences on their great country and vowing to make India a land without any form of expressions of love; unless of course it's in the form of two people running around trees and bushes in various locations around the world. (For more details, click here to read a full detailed report about why Valentine's Day is evil). No doubt, our local riot and protest 'organisers' will catch on to this spectacular idea and try in the near future to emulate their Indian counterparts in an attempt to rid this great land of 'Western' influence, while driving Western cars, dressing in Western clothes and buying Western appliances.

But I digress.

Yes, it's Valentines day, but it seems rather ironic that there is so little love for this day which celebrates love, especially among people my age. Why all the hating? Girls especially seem to be offended by Valentine's Day, saying it is unnecessary and commercialised and pointless. Most of them are single though, but I'm sure that has nothing to do with it. Apparently due to media pressure they are made to feel alien if they do not have a date for Valentines Day, but really that's like accusing Chuck Norris for promoting exercise equipment that makes men feel inadequate about their bodies. And who on Earth would accuse Chuck Norris of anything?!

The men in general that I have observed do grumble a little bit about having to step up to the plate and make this one day special for their girlfriends, lovers or whatevers, but otherwise are not too affected by it. By now we've gotten somewhat used to every other day of the year being meant for something or the other. Pick a random date and you'll probably find it's World Panda Day or International Day of Remembrance for Bambi's Mother (everyone makes Bambi eyes at each other and scampers away at the sound of loud noises).

As for me, well, I've had some disastrous Valentine's Days in my life. I was telling one particular high school incident to someone last night and she literally covered her face in horror. (Yes, it was that bad. Not her face, my story. Err.) And yet, I'm really not that affected by this. In fact, I find myself rather happy for the people out there who are willing to take the time to make one day especially great for the people they love. Sure there are the odd couples here and there that make you want to yell "GET A ROOM! AND A LIFE!! AND SOME PRACTICE COS WHAT THE @$%! ARE YOU TRYING TO DO TO HER?!" - but all in all I don't mind seeing the sea of red in shops, malls and restaurants, nor do I hate on the people that actually enjoy this opportunity to openly express themselves in ways that might have been considered corny or over the top any other day of the year.


So to all the haters - just calm the heck down. Don't make me come over there and force you into diapers at arrow-point.


Happy Valentine's Day!

Life And Basketball

(Sort of continued from here)

I vividly remember the nights playing basketball in college. The sweat, the lights, and the heat emanating from my body mixed with the cool night breeze that blew across the floor of our outdoor court. Most of the time we played in the evenings from 530pm till about 8pm, but I often found myself on the court either before or after this period, usually due to some personal issue that was weighing on my mind.

You see to me, being on the court was always therapeutic. When I was angry, alone, frustrated or depressed, stepping on the court never failed to fix my mood. Those of you that know me or have been reading this blog should know by now that I have a passion for basketball that borders on obsession. Perhaps that was why some of my best and worst memories from college all involved the court in some way; the highs being reflected in soaring through defenders for a basket, the lows in the taste of blood after hitting the merciless concrete floor. But it wasn’t just the triumphs and failures of my sports life that were affiliated with the court; even my personal struggles were somehow intertwined with it. Often I have paused at the court when walking back towards my hostel after a lonely day and smiled as I watched some kids playing under lights, just chucking the ball around and falling over each other in laughter. Other times I’ve waited there for a special someone to meet me for a nice late dinner, nervously checking to see if I was presentable or not.

To me, basketball and life are very similar. I was never very good at the game, despite my passionate love for it. I have thrown up many ‘Hail Marys’ from beyond the three-point line, missed tonnes of assignments on defence due to lack of concentration, made terrible decisions in transition and watched several of my not-so-clever passes being intercepted by the opposing defence. Yet such is the game that there is always a way to redeem yourself somehow. I’ve played in tournaments filled with personal failure that still ended with a performance that saved the team, mainly because the opposing team didn’t think I could play due to my lack of scoring, and so, much to my great pleasure, left me relatively unguarded through the finals while I hit mid-range jumper after mid-range jumper. ‘Player of the game’? Why thank you very much.

Life is not too different either, for despite my love of life and everything that it symbolises, I have proven to be rather bad at living it. I’ve made so many wrong decisions, foolish choices and missed opportunities due to my lack of focus and direction. It seems that my 25 years on this earth has done nothing to remedy that.

Yes, life is a lot like basketball, but it isn’t; the difference being that this life isn’t a game. Second chances are hard to come by, and the odd ones that do come our way are very few and far between. Plus, how many times have we buckled at an opportunity to make things right simply because we couldn’t face what was wrong in the first place?

So here I am, looking back at things that I wish I could change, things I wish I could do over and make up for, and I realise that as much as I want that, perhaps I would have more luck lacing up my sneakers and looking for my jersey.

Garbage Time

*'Garbage Time' is a phrase used in basketball, which is used to describe the time towards the end of a game when the margin between the teams is so great, the remaining minutes in the game are inconsequential. Some players use this time to 'stuff' their stat sheets, scoring easy points while the opposing defences slack off.*


I haven't properly blogged in a long time, and I lay the blame firmly on my absolutely cursed luck with regards to the Internet. At work the Internet is restricted, and when I stay in Colombo at my uncle's, I can't come online often because he doesn't even have a connection, so I have to go across the street to his in-laws to check mail. Someone say awkward.

To solve this dilemma, I go and get a dongle, setup a package, and I’m all set for wireless Internet. Only problem is that despite having a Dialog tower literally 200m away from my house, I don’t get a good enough signal to even watch Youtube, thanks to some heavy foliage around our house. In fact all I get is the laboriously slow EDGE signal which means you're more likely to be hit in the head by a flying water buffalo than have a Skype conversation with someone.

Hence, I've decided to put together some random snippets of my rather happening life over the last month or so, just to fill in till I get back to my normal writing. I was very tempted to write an election related post, but I'm sure the blogosphere is already 'ringing' (pinging?) with arguments both praising and denouncing the results, so I'll just leave it to them and settle for more trivial topics.



The Demon Cat


During one of our back-to-back-to-back parties which we've had over the last couple of weeks (to keep with tradition of course), we had an unexpected guest in the form of a jet black straight-outta-Harry-Potter cat. While a few people fed the cat some scraps from dinner (and certain others planned on getting it drunk) there were others who were extremely freaked out by this slinking bearer of bad luck. We were almost done convincing these people that superstitions of the sort were totally ridiculous when the cat, which had upto that point been playfully rubbing itself against people's ankles like any normal house cat, decided to turn 'jungle cat' and promptly bit someone.

Several cries of murder later, we took the guy to the hospital and what ensued was a thorough anti-rabies course that would convince most animal lovers to change their mind instantly. However, despite finding out later that the cat had only bitten him because he had unknowingly stepped on it in the dark, the only conclusion that was reached after this incident was that the cat was possessed. I kid you not, 'possessed'! Apparently paranormal activity was quite common in our housing scheme, with several inhabitants adding their own bits to the already rather elaborate 'ghost stories' and some even refusing to stay in certain houses which were considered more 'haunted' than the rest.

Morale of the story: animal cruelty only applies if the victim is not related to the spirit world; else please make sure you have some ectoplasm nearby. Else, well, 'who you gonna call'?

Facebook Drama

The problem with social networking is that it inevitably emulates the issues and problems of real-world society. St.Fallen wrote a very interesting post regarding a conversation that he encountered on Facebook, but what I observed was on a slightly different line. One of the strangest things that I've noticed about Facebook is it's privacy settings. It seems like every month they introduce more settings to control who sees what on your profile, or how public your information really is.

But doesn't that go against the very principle of a social networking site? Isn't the sole purpose of such a site to, well, 'socialize'?

By creating these little groups on Facebook, we only encourage the type of internet misdemeanours that we hear about all the time. You see, if we didn't have any of these security settings and groupings, we'd be forced to upload pictures and information that we were actually ok with sharing. What has happened now is a culture where we upload things that not everyone should be seeing, yet we hide behind the security settings and barriers of Facebook to protect us from the consequences of our disclosure. Yet, more often than not, something goes wrong somewhere and those scandalous pictures of you and that random boy you were grinding with turn up on in your boyfriend's inbox. Surprise, surprise, boo hoo, hate to say I told you so.

Loo Logistics

There should be rules and regulations to prevent that awkward exchange of greeting when you bump into someone in the loo. Too often I run into a colleague just as he's zipping up or I'm - err - zipping down. Then we're forced to either nod and make some sound of acknowledgement, or we just ignore them completely which is just awkward. Then there's the moment when we're both at the sink washing up and trying to make polite conversation, yet have you noticed how strange any conversation is when you're having it in a bathroom?

He: Hey there.

Me: Hi.

He: So, [says something work related]

[sound of flush in the background]

Me: Err, yeah, I'll get right on it. ["I just got work delegated to me in the toilet. Kill me now."]

or

Me: Hi.

He: Hey man!! What's going on? How are you?? [Holds out hand to shake]

Me: ...

[silence]

[sound of flush in the background]

[He silently withrdraws hand]

[Things are never the same again]

I could go on and on.

Hence I hereby decree: for the sake of male friendships around the world, there shall be no communication, no words exchanged, no eye contact or contact of any kind between parties in or around a 10metre radius of a men's bathroom.

The Darkside has spoken!

Soul Song

I'm playing a song tonight on my keyboard.

I wish you could hear it.

It is a song of heart and hopelessness. It is a song of loss and loneliness. It has a tune that is not mine, with words that don't rhyme.

It speaks of a heart that can't feel and of wounds that won't heal.

It is the song of my soul. It's beyond my control.



It's been a long day, and the only tune that comes to my fingers is this terribly sad, haunting melody that insists on being played. I wonder what it means. All I know is that it soothes me, in a strange and cold way.

Forgive the disjointed post. Like I said, it's been a long day.