The Young And The Jobless

I have often complained about the youth of today, with they're jaded outlook on life and their fascination with anime cartoons (seriously, what the heck?!). They have terrible taste in clothes, music, and I'm not even going to start about education. When it comes to school, they're either dropping out of it or shooting it up.

But thanks to my latest epiphany (which I blogged about here) I decided that perhaps I was being too harsh. I am a strong believer in giving people the benefit of the doubt, so I thought why not go the extra mile and give these little maggots the benefit of the doubt too? (And if any of said 'maggots' are reading this, I hope you know I mean it in the best possible way.) After all, if my teenage years were not forever shrouded in a haze of self-induced amnesia, I might recall perhaps a few incidents where I acted in a sort of 'maggot-ish' way too.

So here I am with my brand new outlook on life, feeling like I'm protecting the ozone or feeding the homeless (or something). It is a strange feeling, not being condescending to the mag - ahem, I mean, the bast - ahem, that is, the li'l runts ('runts' is a step up, ok?). Thankfully though, this didn't last long.


You may or may not know this, but Kandy is a bit - how shall I put this - 'behind the times' (I shall now give you a few seconds to recover from this startling revelation). To those that refuse to believe this outrageous statement, just recently we opened our FIRST mall. Alright, I'll give you a few days to recover from that little bomb. Yes, we now have the Kandy City Centre, or KCC for our abbreviation-addicted masses. All in all it does look rather impressive with its all glass interiors and the 'kandyan-styling' yada yada, but like all things in Kandy it is taking time in picking up, and at the moment the only thing worth visiting is Keels and the a/c offices of the People's Bank.


So I was more than a little surprised to walk in one evening with the family to find a large group of teenagers seated on the ground near one of the blocked off escalators (that goes to a floor with nothing on it). It was all a bit freaky to be honest: it reminded me of a scene from some B-grade horror flick I saw where the characters stumble onto some ghost town filled with people that just stare out of their windows before hurriedly shutting them with a bang. "What the heck are they doing??", I wondered. I mean, there are no benches or ledges for people to sit on in KCC, so they were all just sitting on the ground. All they needed was a banner saying "JUSTICE FOR STAIRWELLS" and I'd have assumed they were protesting against the use of escalators.


As I stood outside observing these huddled masses, I came to the conclusion that they weren't doing anything at all. They were just 'hanging out'.


Yes, I know how that statement must have come across. I am no alien, and even on the darkside it is perfectly acceptable to lounge about doing absolutely nothing. If I remember right, most of my semesters in college were spent in similar fashion, before the final month of exams of course. However, whenever I 'hung out', I was always with a group and we were always doing something, even if it was as trivial as sipping coffee at Coffee Day or chatting at the courts. Even in Colombo, there are loads of popular hangouts like Majestic City, ODEL e.t.c., but people are rarely ever staring into space with drool dripping down the corner of their mouths. For crying out loud, go window shopping or something! Don't just sit and stare at your reflections in the empty shop windows!


Freaked me out completely. I guess it just goes to show the extent to which a lack of purpose and complete utter joblessness can drive you to.


The thing is, a few more months of my idle state and you'll probably find ME there....!