Long December (Or Good Riddance 2012)

Well, here we are again. The end of yet another year. I had such grand plans for my year ending post, but I thought I'd save that for a first of 2013 post instead.

I suppose I should reflect on the year and all, right? Well, it's been a terrible year for blogging - I've posted the least number of posts this year since I started this blog. I shall attribute this to less time in front of the computer and more time actually doing things, and I'd only be half lying. It's been a pretty good year on the music front though, what with the Colombo Music Festival, my introduction to the Melomanic Sessions in January, and the recently concluded "Final Wishlist". When it comes to music, there are few better teachers than experience, and I've had a lot of hard lessons this year. Some good shows at Melo, a few good performances at the Music Festival, and a lot of bombs that have me still shaking my head. Still, I'm so glad for all the opportunities I've had to perform and I hope 2013 brings even more my way.

It's hard for me to write about the personal front. It's been challenging, and I have made mistakes more often than I have succeeded, but isn't that life in general? I've watched the people I love let me down, and I in turn have let down the people that love me, and at the end of the day all we can do is try to forgive, try to heal, try to live with the things that have been said to us or by us. Our hearts keep beating, our lungs keep breathing, and time calls out from ahead of us asking if we're coming or not. Is it easy? No. But mixed in among all the bad, there is a lot of good, and sometimes that's enough to make peace with the rest of it.

My brother moved to Switzerland for his higher studies, and I miss him terribly. I wish he had been here to watch my sing; he has always been an honest critic. Christmas was tough without him, but apparently he was working on Christmas so I suppose we got the better end of that deal. Looking forward to seeing him in 2013.

All in all, 2012 was memorable, for both good and not-so-good reasons, and if anything is 'memorable' then I suppose it was worth it, wasn't it?

So here's to a new year, with more of the new and less of the old. May you, dear readers, always journey forwards and onwards to brighter, better things.

To sign off, let me add a few songs to this post. The first is a video of one of my solos at the "Final Wishlist" programme 3 weeks ago. The second is a rush job, hastily edited cover made with my hoarse vocals and zero editing. Not something I would normally do, but I just wanted to get it out there.

Happy New Year everyone!

G

To All You Rapists

The woman and a male friend, who have not been identified, were traveling in a public bus in the Indian capital, New Delhi, after watching a film on the evening of Dec. 16 when they were attacked by six men who raped her. They also beat the couple and inserted an iron rod into her body resulting in severe organ damage. Both of them were then stripped and thrown off the bus, according to police.

(Source:  TIME World)

I haven't blogged in a long time, but this was enough to spur me to break my silence.

I'm getting really tired of hearing the same old arguments in connection with abuse against women and sexual assault. I'm sick of hearing about her underage drinking, about her partying, about her drug use, about her tiny skirts, about her many sexual partners, about how it wasn't "legitimate rape".

So listen up, priests, ministers, policemen, bus drivers, layman and even some of you women - you can sit and debate - debate - the so-called ethics and 'moral code' regarding men and women's attire and behaviour. You can debate lifestyles, you can debate all of these things.

But there is no argument in heaven or earth, no argument from any religious text, no argument from any corner, no conceivable scenario that justifies or excuses a man from sticking anything, be it his dick or a metal rod, into a woman's vagina. By even trying to do so, you are joining the side of the rapist. You are siding with the RAPISTS!! DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT??

Got it? Good.

It has to freakin' stop. Now. 

p.s: Dear Indians; you are quick to set fire to things when cricketers fail you. Please, use this opportunity, this media spotlight, this worldwide outrage to unleash your pyrotechnics and end this lackadaisical, nonchalant, turn-a-blind-eye type of attitude towards your mothers, your sisters, your daughters. For the love of God women, please make it stop.

A Final Wishlist: A Christmas Programme Making A Difference

The last few weeks have been extremely busy for me, involving training programmes, lots of travelling, and lots and lots of singing. Yes, 'tis the season to be jolly, and what better way to get in the festive mood than Christmas carols and tunes?

 

Besides the usual church carol services, I've been lucky enough to be asked to do a couple of songs for Music.Inc's latest production titled "A Final Wishlist" , directed by Shannon Jacob.  If you’ve been to their shows before, you’ll know that they put up great musical and stage performances, and always in aid of a worthy cause. This time, their final show is in aid of EMERGE LANKA, a foundation that undertakes for the care and rehabilitation of girls that have been the victims of rape, incest and other forms of sexual assault, and are waiting for their respective court cases to be settled. These girls are between the ages of 10 and 18, and these court cases can sometimes drag on for years and years. During this time, the attacker is free, while the girls are kept in shelters, isolated from outside contact, and shunned from their families.

Emerge Lanka works in co-ordination with these shelters, providing basic education, counselling, financial knowledge, life skills and sex education to these girls until they are released, at which time they will then be equipped to handle being reintroduced to the world without the support of friends or family.

Music.Inc will be staging two shows on the 12th and 13th of December at the British School Auditorium, from 730pm onwards. The tickets will be priced at Rs. 1000, 750 and 500 have been sold out! However, there may be a few balcony tickets available on a first come first served basis, so do try to come as early as possible if you're coming and you might get lucky! The team from Music.Inc have spent some time with the girls from Emerge, and have gotten them to write up a 'wishlist' comprising up to 5 items of what they really want this Christmas season. The money raised from this programme will go towards making those wishes come true, including a small mini-carnival for the girls; something that they would never be able to participate in in their current confines.

If you've not able to make it, here is a small sample for you:

Hope to see you guys there! I may be biased in my opinion, but trust me when I say: I've never been to a show like this before. I sincerely hope you make it, and join in on making someones wishes come true this festive season.

 

Notes On A Funeral

Recently I attended the funeral of a colleague's father. He had been battling throat cancer and succumbed after around 6-8 months of treatment. He was in his 70's, and I think his passing was somewhat expected given his frail condition. I got the call on Sunday that he had finally succumbed, and we went with the rest of the office crew for the funeral at his house.

I've not been to too many funerals, and the few I have been to have been traditional Christian funerals, at churches etc. Perhaps this colours my opinions a little bit, but whatever the case may be, I thought of jotting a few points down.

1. The first thing I noticed was how there were very few people actually 'grieving'. As we entered the funeral home, there were no idle people around. The family members were busy arranging food and drinks, while the rest of the 'visitors' simply sat outside catching up with each other in the hastily erected tent. Even our colleague showed little or no emotion that this was in fact his father's funeral, instead spending most of his time making sure the generator was okay and chatting with a few of his relatives and work friends. Now, I perfectly understand that people deal with grief in different ways, yet I still felt a little unsettled at this lack of emotion at the proceedings.

2. While the family at least were somewhat sombre, the rest of the people who had turned up at the funeral showed little concern that this was a funeral, loudly guffawing and joking with each other, completely oblivious that they were standing roughly 20 feet from a dead body. I was really embarrassed by this; how can people be so callous over the death of a loved one? Sure you may not have known the man personally but still, some form of decorum should be present. Just because they've seated outside in this tent, the gang goes into party mood. If there was booze around, they would probably have burst into song.

3. The Buddhist monks arrived, and while my poor Sinhala and ignorance to most Buddhist customs prevent me from commenting more on the part they played, I was rather surprised when they left abruptly in the middle of the proceedings. Just as soon as a someone got up to speak about the deceased man, they three monks simply nodded at our colleague and got into their waiting trishaw. I found this rather strange, but again this may be the custom that I am unaware of. Yet, if we are asking a religious figure to attend our funeral, isn't it sort of a given that we want them there for the whole ceremony? I would be very surprised if a Christian priest simply read a few verses and left in the middle of the funeral, leaving the family to handle the rest of the proceedings, and as far as I know, most faiths would have a similar expectation.

4. While I know that a funeral of a loved one is certainly memorable, I don't know why in the world anyone would want to take photographs during it! There was one relative, armed with a point & shoot, who took several pictures throughout the evening. I'm talking about the coffin, the deceased, the people, the priests, the priests and the coffin, and then the hearse, the coffin again as it was carried to the graveyard, the grave stone, the coffin as it was lowered, the coffin as it was buried. It was ridiculous, having this serious and difficult time being punctuated with camera flashes and the digital beeps every time he went back and forth to see if he got the coffin in just the right light. If anyone did that at a funeral of my loved one, there would be an extra body to bury. I'm sure he uploaded them on Facebook that same night.

5. Our company makes a point of sending an email to the entire workforce if a relative of an employee passes away, including providing transport to and from the funeral. I always found this surprisingly considerate, given our 'corporate' label, but I have since noticed that this trend of announcing and providing transport for everyone's funerals has made the whole idea a bit of an 'event'. You hear people asking each other if they're going for this one or not, as if there is some form of merit gained by attending the most number of funerals in a year. Is this what has led to my previous points regarding the levity of the attendees? I'm unsure, but it's something to ponder on.

The Natalie and Nadiya Anderson Fiasco

 

 

It was a firestorm of the shortest duration, but if you spend as much time as I do on the internet you pick up things pretty quickly. Recently, a YouTube clip from the show "Amazing Race" went (slightly) viral among Sri Lankans, as it featured a 3 minute interview with two Sri Lankans who were taking part in the latest season of the show. Natalie and Nadiya Anderson are twin sisters who, from what we have since gathered, were born and brought up in Sri Lanka but are American citizens who completed their secondary and tertiary education there.

The video clip has since been removed or made private, presumably from the barrage of negative comments it has since received, so I'll try to reconstruct it from memory.

The clip was basically a short on-location interview between the show's hosts and the two girls who had just won a challenge. They appear exhausted and tired, yet jubilant after completing whatever task had been set for them. The clip starts with the host asking them what they felt about the challenge and their reaction to winning it. They respond rather enthusiastically saying how they get to experience things from "the other side", and how because they are from a "privileged" family they are not exposed to this so-called 'other side' often, and what an eye-opener this was. The word "privileged" is tossed around a little bit more, as the girls painstakingly try to show they are embracing this new "street life" despite their obvious affluence.

Now, here's where things get awkward. Somehow, in their giddiness, they mention how proud their many "servants" would be of them if they could see them now. "Servants?", the host asks, not so innocently, and the girls gladly oblige, reiterating that their "servants" would be ecstatic that the girls are seeing into their world, so to speak. The host then asks (again not so innnocently) how many servants they have, and the girls answer "many", or something of the sort. If memory serves, they go on to mention that they have one for cleaning, and one for cooking, before noticing (for the first time) that the hosts are not so amused with these tales.

By this time, one of the twins seems to have caught on that they have made a colossal blunder, and she starts to try to explain that in Sri Lanka, it is quite common for people to have - yes, she says it again - servants, and then once again mentions that they are after all from a 'privileged' family, and it is the accepted norm. The girls, in an attempt to make light of the situation, then go on to tell a story of their beloved driver Premasiri, who has been in their employ since he was 14 years old. This draws an exclamation from the host, who says, "You've had a driver since he was 14 years old, before he was old enough to get a license??". The girls, again, still laughing and giggling but not as much as earlier, try to joke about it and one of them started with "Well in Sri Lanka you don't need.. " before the other sister cuts in, trying to show that they treat him like one of their own, since they've known him since he was so young.

The presenter allows for a slight pause, letting the awkward silence stretch out for a few seconds, before saying (only half-jokingly) "I don't think I should be giving you girls a millions dollars."

 

 

The girls finally catch on to where this interview has gone, and immediately get on the defensive, boldly claiming that "oh, we don't want the money, because half of it we plan on giving to our parents anyway and the other half we're donating to charity", and one sister then rather bluntly states that she works for a non-profit in Sri Lanka, alongside her mother, and that the money doesn't matter. Sadly, the damage has already been done, and when the presenter asks why they're taking part and they answer a) "to prove we can do it" and b) "to represent the 'brownie girls' of South Asia woohoo!", things couldn't have gotten worse.

The interview ends on a tame note asking if they had boyfriends waiting for them back home, to which one sister answered yes while thankfully avoiding mentioning anything about his social status or domestic help.

---

Most have ridiculed the two girls in the video, though their reasons have been varied. I personally could barely watch the video after the millionth mention of their vast array of servants, and Premasiri's child labour situation didn't help. What bothered me the most however was their complete ignorance of the politically correct way to talk about domestic help and maids. Yes, Sri Lankans do use hired help often in their households, but mentioning it in such a callous and offhand way in front of a camera crew is just unforgivable. These are not uneducated, socially awkward girls; they are self-professed "privileged" adults, exposed to both Western and local culture. Thanks to 3 minutes with them however, CBS happily captioned the video "Twins Natalie and Nadiya share with Phil how comfortable life is for them in Sri Lanka", making it sound like child labour is something every affluent Sri Lankan makes use of. The twins obvious back-tracking, with the "non-profit" employment thrown in, only made things worse for them, and no doubt made for good TV.

It seems that the YouTube video received a slew of insults, rude comments and verbal abuse before being taken down. I don't condone the insults, (and I definitely don't consider them a "national embarrassment", like this prominent news site does - ridiculous) but I do however understand the anger, or at least where it is coming from; Sri Lanka gets enough (but probably deserved) bad press internationally without having to have two giddy girls unknowingly making a mockery of the social situation at home.

 

One blogger has written a spirited defence of the twins (whom she knows personally), but while I commend her for standing up for her friends I feel she is letting that friendship cloud her judgement. I'm sure the girls are lovely, friendly, good-natured adults, but that doesn't excuse being really, really ignorant. If this were any other country, they would be releasing statements to the media clarifying their statements and apologising, but I sincerely doubt they'll do that here. Instead, they'll have to suffer in silence knowing that for a brief few hours, they were exactly who they said they were - privileged, spoilt children who hadn't seen anything outside of their little bubble, and now that they have, are still unable to comprehend it.

 

The fact that their online bio for the show states that they liken each other to Kim and Khloe Kardashian now appears rather poignant.

 

Welcome to the internet, Natalie and Nadiya. Actually, welcome to social etiquette 101. Take the punches, learn from it, and move on.

EDIT:

After reading this post with a more cool head, I realise that I may have been too harsh and not explained my thinking clearly. I get that these kind of bloopers can happen when you're in front of a camera, and no doubt the girls were only trying to express how they were enjoying themselves. They just did it in an appallingly inappropriate way. I hadn't read the comments on the clip before it was taken down, but I fear that it is highly likely they were as ridiculous and over-the-top as the Groundview status update I linked earlier in the post. I feel sorry for them having to go through that, but I hope they learned from it, and I wish them the best.