Jumbory and Jaffna =)

A disturbing fact, as always calls our attention. This was one such scenario. Between the insistence by my dad and a reluctance from my part, I was tagged along to the annual Jumbory (all schools get together and camp on the same grounds), held at Nalanda College (for you information I have never being there and I never wanted to either). As I walked through the school grounds I still was reluctant, for I was sure it was bound to get boring.

But just like on thousand other previous occasions parents prove you wrong. Once I got my camera out everything else started to look brighter (I know it sounds like a line from a cheesy love scene). My GRUDGE against the human race, for bringing me here, dissolved. The hustle and the bustle of camp preparations (350 scouts to be exact), the echoing chatter of the outpour of eager parents, scout uniforms, all seemed appealing.

As my mother dragged me to the far corners of the ground where camps are built, I saw the detail in to which they have gone to create their domain. Unfortunately everyone stank (as boys usually do, scout boys especially now), so I had a slim chance getting close to them enough to have a civilized conversation. Despite that, I wondered around tent to tent, to see my mother dearest deep in conversation with some senior scouts from Kalmune and Jaffna.

The interesting fact though wasn't them, but the inquisitive boys who came following us thereafter, asking "what did you ask them?" We were bit taken aback like "who the hell are you to ask us that? Nevertheless mother replied calmly. Soon we were having a full blown conversation. Funny though I should call it so, considering the fact that the boys had limited knowledge of English and we, having a below limited knowledge of Tamil.

The beautiful fact was the energy that reflected in their eyes, the eagerness was overwhelming.
They were using all three languages to communicate with us. Something’s they said though was thoroughly disappointing. Three boys, Dushyanthan, Darshan and Creedy (Cool name huh?), painted a picture about the conditions in Jaffna better than all the local newspapers put together. The SL Army considers all Tamils as LTTE, thus treating them brutally so. These boys, Creedy especially seen people being shot at for no credible reason. I, being 19, am yet to witness that. Dushyanthan said "No offense, but most Sinhalese thinks that all Tamils are LTTE, the SLA abuses us with that mind set".

He recalled a scenario once, when he and his friend going home late after Festival, they were stopped by a army soldier. He asked for the NIC, Dushyanthan showed, but when asked for the school ID, he didn’t have. Slap! The friend didn’t have the NIC so -SLAP!
Do they deserve this? But there's more, anyone seen out on the road past six o' clock, is pointed the gun and threatened to go home. This only boils the anger within people even more.

I wonder if our privileged citizens residing in Colombo have dealt with such situations, if they have, well then it’s definitely a handful. I remember at a recent gathering someone said she felt that her privacy is violated when the police pry through her belongings at check points. They open her lipstick. Fine lipstick! These guys have guns pointed at them. It left her drained and disappointed to even feel the Independence Day spirit, they don’t have independence. More than to her, she feels for other people who have to endure this treatment.
What are we complaining about?!!

Up north their actions are stifled and controlled, we complain that we feel caged, suppressed. To them our life is sweet sweet freedom. Dushyanthan wishes to live in Colombo no matter what. The drive he has to get out of his rut was sounded from his expressions. Between the broken English and broken Tamil, I found out that despite the atrocities of war, their parents wish to live in Jaffna, and that Diaspora wish to return to their homeland. They wish that north will be reinstated and people could live there like we do in Colombo.

The parting with them was marked with the words they chorused "Hope we meet again". I hope so because I want to see how their life has changed for the better.

They say, I Write

What I read or hear, Straight comes here.

1. Straight out, no beating around the bush,typical you. Though unlike Mohini,who lurks around bushes. (a spontaneous line, wrote it on Mohini's blog)
   
   
2. KISS-Keep It Short and Sweet ( On top of MILF and TIT?)
   
   
3. Please stay out of trouble. People are generally idiots, and it doesn't pay to be recklessly mean to them and tell them to stick it where the sun don't shine. That's my job. So don't fight... (my wild imagination got the worst of it for " stick it")
   
   
4. Fire Ram, Hare ram,Send him home to his farm, Cos that Poofter lost his charm(this is Poofter's line, I love the rhyme, it got me crying..with laughter!)

5. Wimal Weerawansa gets Mwah! from Umma And war against the media continues (this is two different headings put together, the meaning completely changed..twisted!)
   

Poofter..Who else!

Thirteen Things about Poofter

1. "Crows there, it's like in World War Two, pooping everywhere above our heads.We have to dodge them and run with our buckets!"

2. "You eat Poori with Chapathi no?"

3. Hid under the table on Friday night during the air raid, scared that the little ghost boy from Grudge will consume him!

4. Jerkface is sitting on Ramzi's Ding Dong

5. Jerkface is sitting on Ding Dong's ping pong!

6. Is a Momma, still pending, triplets coming up( currently satisfying his endless cravings)

7. -Puree Poori Marie Curie-
   
   
8. Has a hot brother...

9. Has the same phone as I

10. Is a Poofter!

11. Screaming his head off while watching Grudge and simultaneously juggling rolls of paper( in fear) while watching it.

12. Fed up of "Slumdog",yet watching it, enduring the verbal pressure by SomeOne

13. Triplets dead, screaming had a negative effect..sad sad situation, but relieving to know that men are not going to have babies!
    

Why do we Write Essays?!

We write essays because someone told us to as an assignment, to meet deadlines, to get paid for, for passion, to put ideas in to writing, to empty the mind, to word a mind boggling thought, to prove a point, argue, appeal, advocate- the list never ends and add to that I don’t know all the occasions that a person may pick up a pen and write something or type letters on a key board. Isn’t it that we are always writing something? I believe that vast majority of the world population does some kind of writing at least every 24 hours. Write an email or text message, sign a check, and write on walls, writing could be done anytime, anywhere. I will make a note here, when I said writing on walls, world as evolved such that there are two kinds – the tangible walls in buildings and around them, where people take great pleasure scribbling on; two the walls on Facebook accounts where people do something similar to the former.

Exception for illiterate people, but even them if they pick up a stick and streak a picture on the sand, I will consider that as an attempt to write. This is because writing is a way of expression; you read a sentence from which you get an idea, a concept, a story, a point of view, information. Well I don’t think this list is going to end either. I find it ironic that there are illiterate people or even a literacy rate, because the 195 countries in the world have created approximately 6912 living languages. So does this imply that there is a population that couldn’t learn at least one of these 6912? Isn’t it humiliating that out of 6912 most people know only one or two? And we, who had been using one language all our lives still haven’t, mastered the style of it?

Here is an interesting fact. Papua New Guinea has the highest linguistic diversity, having approximately 830 for 5.4 million people, which is about one language for every 6500 residents. I hope that everyone is literate there, at least. It is reported that there are238 languages in United States, of which 162 are still living. We can see why the US hasn’t declared English as its official language. It would set of rallies and protests big enough to make the headlines.

Writing is the second source of communication besides speaking, except for the mute or deaf where the priority differs. So if some kind of biological or chemical manipulation mutes a population the only source of communication will be writing. I don’t necessarily hope that will happen, but it will provoke people to write more often. As for me I blab on paper as much as I blab when I meet people. I realize that typing a text message of 30 words is much an essay as writing an essay of 600 words. No one set limits to it, so somewhere in this world a person typing a text apologizing for his absence, is actually writing an essay. If it was me typing the text I could never stop because once I start writing I can go on and on and on.