Stop and Smell the Gandapaana

 Published in LMD Living - May 2016

“I can’t remember when I last had the luxury of time to read more than a page of a book, and that too, only on the toilet seat” a colleague recently shuddered. A valid and ponder-worthy insight to life today.  The rising cost of living has also raised blood pressures considerably in what was once a lazy little island that could teach the Mexicans a thing or two on the art of the 24-hour siesta. The urban jungles of Sri Lanka have in recent times turned into something of a mental asylum for bees. We are yet to reach the suicidal stress levels of the Indians or Chinese, but it certainly looks like we’re on our way there.  Conversations between aunties that were previously centred on the price of pumpkins have now evolved into the lack of time to go and buy said pumpkins. Uncles are becoming more and more frequent visitors at the cardiologist’s clinic because the source of their coronaries are no longer only their daughters, but also the stresses of keeping up with the day-to-day pace of life.  Given the booming business of self-help books and stress therapy Youtube videos out there, it seems the whole world is suffering a massive existential crisis and needs all the motivation it can get.  

Where did we go so wrong? The insipid inspirational memes are quite right – we’re all slaving away to earn the ability to afford a life we have no time to lead. If you think about it (providing you actually have the time to think about it)… at some point of our lives, we forgot the point of life. We sit at our monochromatic cubicles, slurping up copious amounts of coffee designed to keep us positive until it’s time to clock off, wishing for the utopian day when we could be living the Pinterest life. We cower to the system that breathes over our shoulders like a disapproving grandmother and before too long, ‘someday’ becomes a mere catchphrase that never sees the light of reality and you’re left wheezing on your deathbed, wondering where the time went.

It may be too much of an ask to completely rehash life just like that and go on that world tour like you’ve always wanted, but perhaps it’s time we considered listening to the Deepak Chopras of the universe, and adopted a few tiny changes to our daily ritual, that could in turn make our day slightly more interesting than the pimple on our management’s backside that we hate to kiss but still do, for the sake of that monthly pay packet.  Maybe if we actively seek to de-stress even for a few minutes as a mandatory chore for the day, it could eventually lead to a semblance of much-needed bliss that doesn’t cost an overworked arm and leg. To make the transition easier, here are three tried and tested tricks you could take up:

1.       Spend an extra five minutes on the loo. Admit it, unless you’ve got serious infections in your underparts, you’ve never felt more serene than when seated on your own private throne. Just increase the time limit, ignore whoever is banging on the door, and sing ‘Let it Go’ while you’re at it.

2.       Stop and smell the Gandapaana. Gardens are a beautiful thing. If you don’t have one, break into your neighbour’s or find a random patch of green and imagine you’re Maria in the Sound of Music. Fresh grass feels amazing, when not riddled with dog poo, and can give you just the peace you need.

3.       Get a pet. Dogs, cats, hamsters, chickens… whatever works for you. Cuddling an animal, providing it’s not a scorpion, has an uncanny knack for making you feel more relaxed than your spouse ever did.

There you go; your DIY starter kit to less stress and hopefully more reasons to smile through the rat race. You’re welcome.

Grammar Nazi

Picture the scenario. The setting – a sweltering tuition class packed to the brim with students, like prawns in Negombo fishing nets. 

Enter lanky, lazy boy whose mother has forced him to be here but forgot to make sure he wears a belt. Five minutes later, enter giggly girl latched onto the arms of other girls who are equally giggly.  

Boy sees girl. 

Girl sees boy.

Boy and girl fall madly and immaturely in deep infatuation. 

A network operation worthy of the KGB is soon put into action, with mutual friends getting in on the scheme to do some background research in order to procure girl’s number for boy. On finding out that he wishes to make contact, her heart thumps in excitement and a grand overture of romantic orchestral music begins playing in her head. Coy looks are sneaked in each other’s directions as the girl’s phone beeps in a text message that she has difficulty opening on account of her shaking hands.

Hi gurl u luk so Qt wil u b my GF? Mt me @ da bus halt l8tr babee.

The music screeches to an abrupt halt as her face and fake eyelashes drop. The boy has just revealed himself to be an utter moron, incapable of constructing a proper sentence. Herein endeth all future potential for courtship or his success in life.

At least, that’s how this writer hopes the story goes. There is no excuse for bad spelling and lack of grammatical eloquence when it comes to the art of wooing. The first step to making a good impression- stop murdering the Queen.  

To call the new-fangled language of the youth ‘irksome’ is an understatement.  It is frustrating.... ludicrous... discombobulating (At this point, any persons below 30 reading this article would have turned the page, proving the point) at best and agonizing to read.  When did Sri Lanka’s grandiose status of highest literacy level in Asia reduce to such use of rubbish? What’s even more tragic is that the media celebrates the trend (rather, the speedy descent of intelligence) by adding fuel to the fire. A recent scan through social media resulted in a throbbing headache, thanks to the number of ‘lol’s,  ‘Kewl’s and ‘baybeh’s floating around in web space. Popular memes sporting lines like ‘Y U NO DO DAT’ or ‘I can haz ur nomz?’ just take that headache all the way to the intestinal region. Facebook should be renamed Facepalm. Twitter now showcases more twits than tweets. The only positive result in continuing this way without correction is that when Armageddon comes and the aliens invade, at least we’ll all be speaking the same language. 

The younger the generation, the lesser the inclination seems to be to type a word longer than three characters at most. Today’s children seem to believe that punctuation is the name of a vaccine and syntax the latest clothing material. Grammar would be what you call your mother’s mother.

Methinks official punishment on a national scale is befitting for the misuse of the English language. Flog them all, and if they don’t know what the word flog means, flog them some more. Put them in prisons with wall-to-wall blackboards and make them write elaborate sentences a thousand times over.  Those violating the rules of English on social media should be flagged as ‘textual predators’ and shunned in public.

“Don’t be such an archaic prude”, a teenager chortles when lectured on incorrect spelling.  Apart from points for knowing the word archaic, all he will get is a slap in reply should he continue his case, but he prevails. “Chill, aunty… its SMS lingo. Put that umbrella down.” 

No, it is NOT any sort of lingo.  It is vulgar and disrespectful to the beauty of a 2500 year-old language, to distort it to a bunch of meaningless phonetics just because your immature fingers are in a hurry to go play a game instead of making the effort to craft your correspondence. So this umbrella will STAY poised to attack unless the effort is made. 

Totes. Got dat?

Plates, Pubs and Pigs.

It irks me that Belgian food is not given its due hallelujah in this country. I assume it’s because not enough Belgians want to leave the motherland and bring recipes here, since they’re too busy with their national sport - eating. If there’s one thing the Belgians do right, its cuisine. The land that invented the French fry (did you know?) manages to serve up a ménage à trois of French, German and Italian flavours melded together into a distinctly fabulous taste of its own.  

As always, my interaction with food comes packaged with drama and I have memories attached to every meal I had during my stay in Belgium. Once, I was starving at lunchtime after a very long day, when my hostess announced she would be serving Endives (pronounces ‘ondeev’). ‘Endives!’ I thought excitedly. What a gloriously exotic name for a dish I imagined would be filled with sizzling goodness. She held up a large plate and my tummy groaned in anticipation. She set it down and my mouth groaned instead.

An onion.  

A single, large, penile-shaped, lettuce-y onion. 

I looked up at her in askance; perhaps she had missed something? She beamed back, interpreting my stare for amazement.  Sighing, I ate my onion, which, by the way, tasted better than I’d expected. 

If lunch was a dismal start then dinner was overkill. I showed off my complete incompetency in French by ordering something pronounced ‘Jhombone’ off the menu at a pub.  The waiter did a double take and looked at me suspiciously. “Pour vous, mademoiselle?” Was that a tinge of surprise I noted in his voice? “Oui” I sniffed, for it was the only word I knew. Minutes later he pushed out a slab of wood atop which sat an entire leg of pork larger than my barstool. My heart sank at the fact that I would now have to eat this monstrosity, since in Belgium leaving food on your plate is considered an insult. given that it all happened  quite a few years before my conscience high-kicked me into the struggling vegetarian I am today, I channelled my inner Obelix and set about eating what, frightening dimensions aside, was truly and utterly delicious. Amazingly, I managed to eat every bit, even if it did take me two hours and left me looking like the enormous pig whose leg I’d just consumed.  

One occasion had me trapped in a loo for over an hour, a trauma which the highly apologetic hostess tried to placate with a dish of frogs legs and snail that just sent me back to the toilet once I’d found out what it was. Another time I was served a fantastic lobster whose claw, thanks to my limited cutlery skills, ended up on my hostess’s head. A visit to a brewery had me, the ignorant, tasting a rackful of 15 beer varieties and singing bawdy limericks at the top of my voice on the streets of Brussels. Thank heaven the lyrics were in my mother tongue and not theirs, else I'd have been propositioned.

From meats to mussels and cheeses to chips, Belgian food is designed to turn you into a glutton. Try it out.  Just make sure you know French first.

One Foot in the Grave and other in Jimmy Choo

 Published in LMD Living - February 2016

Flip through any women’s’ publication today and you can’t help but be regaled with advertisements on the latest fad in cosmetology. Nose lifts, facelifts, tucks, implants… the thin line between enhancement and absurd is being surgically erased. At the rate the business is increasing in Sri Lanka, you’d think the country was teeming with the ugliest women in world.  If you shamelessly scrutinize the photographs in those high-society mags, half of Colombo seems to be using cosmetic surgery. Especially the rich over-40 ladies in denial. Almost every single one of them looks pinched and puckered to resemble a Picasso, or should that be Pollack, all with the identical lemon-sucking expression on their frozen faces, their waistlines tweaked like Barbie dolls and chests fluffed up like chickens in corsets. Those who cannot afford the nips ‘n’ tucks opt for an armoury of make-up instead, to unsuccessfully hide the flaws with enough facepaint to overwhelm a mime artist.

It isn’t even to impress the boys (naaki uncles still insist on referring to themselves as boys, you see). No no  no… all this superficial preening is purely to have one up on the fellow aunties. The minute Mrs. Social Butterfly sees an invitation to her school re-union, she’s scuttling at breakneck speed to the Zumba class, followed by a visit to her favourite salon, for a makeover and ego-massage courtesy of the dramaqueen that is her stylist. She will have her eyebrows plucked until she looks permanently surprised, her flabulous body scrubbed, waxed and stuffed into a dress 5 sizes too tight and her carbuncled feet squeezed into branded shoes. It doesn’t matter that she falls flat on her face with every step, as long as her batchmates recognize the brand.

If you walk into a Colombo nightclub, you might as well take a pair of dark glasses with you, to shield your eyes from the dazzling display of denial on the dance-floor. If the over-plumped lips and ‘bruise’ eye make-up is not disturbing enough, then the fake hair extensions certainly will be. Dear God, there is even a show of cleavage, dangling just above the knees. Have you seen an aged aunty dance to a rave beat?  That ‘booty’ will jerk scandalously in different directions, trying to keep up with the young nubile teenage ones around it, right up to the point where aunty suffers a heart attack from exertion, around the second verse of the song. And yet, she will go on, determined not to be seen as older and weaker.  

In all reality, the weakness doesn’t come with age, but with the fundamentalist approach towards reducing weight. The GM diet, paleo diets, liquid diets, breatharian diets… there is no end to the madness and she will try it all as she chases after the waistline that ran away years ago. The Michelin tyre that’s nicely settled around her mid region does not stop her from putting on her sexiest pair of leopard tights (shield your eyes, people) and posing around like Beyoncé’s great grandmother. Those tights are often paired with elongated talons, painted red on wrinkled fingers sporting the largest bling ring she can find.  A gift from the latest toy boy old enough to be her son,  that her husband doesn’t know about.

She certainly cuts the memorable figure, this modern, hybrid female representation of the privileged mid-life crisis.  Where did that lovely, radiant and homely aunty with rosy cheeks and a freshly baked pie in her arms go, and who is this human blue cheese in her stead?  

You have to hand it to her … Grandma Barbie displays an admirable zest for life and the confidence of a gorilla in heat. In a country that frowns on a woman’s right to be whom she wants to be, these superficial ladies are taking up arms in the form of fake designer handbags and making a statement. Never surrender, never retreat, never be age-appropriate. Who can argue with her search for eternal youth?  Certainly not the plastic surgeons.

Those guys are making a killing.

She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain

A getaway was long overdue. Google and tripadvisor were raped for budget-friendly ideas and visions of serenity ensued; sipping tea on a hilltop and enjoying  much-needed rest over a good book.  This trip would feature peace, tranquillity and endless sleep, lulled by the soft winds of the emerald hills, waited on by some culinary genius of an Appu at a plush boutique hideaway.

“I’m going on a holiday to the hills, who wants to join me?” said the Whatsapp message to friends, to which immediate positive replies were received. “Yes, let’s! Shall we hike on Knuckles?”

Wait, what? Hike on Knuckles? As in, walk one’s toes off in leech-infested mud and grime and weather the monsoon madness? Who is their right minds would want to do something so vile when they could be toastily nesting in a cloud of quilts next to a fireplace instead? There was no way in hell that this holiday would be ruined by a hike.

“Ok”.

Sometimes, we holiday planners are wimps when it comes to being decisive. If hiking was the only way to have company, then it would have to happen. Perhaps after about 15 minutes of a brisk walk amongst the tea bushes we could go back to basking in the dream holiday. And so bags were packed, leech socks procured (you wouldn’t believe how Godsent these are) and we were off, singing ‘the hills are aliiiiive’ in the car, all the way to a budget bungalow at the foot of the Knuckles range (the boutique hotel prices, it turned out, had to remain filed under ‘dream’).

“I have a something special planned” announced the trip’s adventurous itinerary planner, along the way. How apt a description for the detour she had in store, at the end of a ride deep into no man’s land. It began with a suspended bridge over Bambarakiri ella that seemed to have been taken straight out of a movie, followed by being literally ‘blown away’ atop the breathtaking Mini World’s End, and ended with perhaps the most phenomenal waterfall experience at the magical Sera Ella. If creeping behind the fall itself and being mesmerized by the cascading sheet of water wasn’t treat enough, swimming in the pristine waters below it just took the day to Fantasy Island levels. Perhaps the hike to come would not be as bad as assumed, if this was the kind of delight on offer. Trepidation turned to happy hope.

The next day, we set off in the wee hours for the rocky range, picking our guide up on the way- a tiny sprite of a man named Raja who looked like he couldn’t say boo to a goose and carried nothing but a worryingly evil-looking knife, as opposed to the rest of the group all kitted out like they were auditioning for Survivor. In no time at all, the charm of the previous day’s activities vanished. A hike on the Knuckles range is anything but a walk in the park, especially if one is a middle-aged cat lady who has never seen the inside of a gym. After 7 hours of climbing up slippery rocks at the pace of a snail’s grandmother, screaming filth at the mobs of leeches that appeared out of nowhere with every step, 2 and a half hours of being left behind in the heart of the forest next to leopard kill while the rest climbed on to the peak (because yours truly busted her knee) and earning tree-frog like Raja’s disdain, the hike was complete and legs wobbling like jellyfish. But dare I say the achievement felt glorious, and the views along the way spectacular. A truly spiritual encounter, in more ways than one.

The holiday had turned into something very different to what was originally anticipated, but a memorable one nonetheless. However next time, tea and quilts it is, without leeches.