When Pidgin Gets Confusing

If you’ve grown up in Colombo the chances of you being monolingual are very rare. Surrounded by at least two ethnic groups, you’re bound to pick up a language that isn’t your mother tongue.

I do realise I’m stating the obvious, but the thought of Sri Lankans being linguists struck me like a brick to the head the other day. I was trying to speak to someone in Sinhala, and as usual I was frantically searching my brain for words that I blurt awkwardly- punctuating my sentences inordinately with fullstops, exclamation marks and question marks- and being pleonastic about it to boot . And in the bungling gush I threw in a Tamil word!

This caught me by surprise because Tamil isn’t one of the languages I grew up around. I hope I pick up on the language, I can add it to my collection of garbled languages.

Garbled because, while it’s all good and well, when you’re as mixed in ethnicities as I am you tend to learn too many languages that you get very confused at times.

I had to learn about 5 languages at the age of six. This was something my little brain couldn’t handle (what with all the different rules of grammar, alphabets and pronunciation, how could you blame me?). If my brain were a bowl of cereal, the languages I’ve learnt are the Froot Loops. In order to speak a language I’d have to locate Loops of the same colour and string them together.

Here’s how confused I am– I can count up to 5 in Sinhala, only to trail off from 6 to 10 in Arabic. While speaking in French or Malay I inadvertently toss in a few Sinhala words. Or the reverse, like just the other day I was trying to say ‘key’ in Sinhala and ended up saying ‘konchi’ which means ‘key’ in Malay.

Not to mention for the past three days I’ve been ransacking my mind for the Sinhala word for ‘monkey’ but all that comes to me is ‘monyet’, the Malay word for it. I’m too stubborn to ask anyone what the word is, because I know that I KNOW the word for monkey in Sinhala and I’m determined to pick it out of the recess of my mind that it’s lurking in!

But I guess all in all, most Sri Lankan’s are lucky. Coming from this cultural mallum, we’re either bilingual or polyglots. Unless you’re grasp of languages is sketchy like mine which can leave you frustratingly helpless at times! To the point where you misplace your National Identity Card, get served wrong orders and generally never get what you ask for.

Seen over the weekend…

A large turtle laying eggs on a shore at Tangalle, two ireful elephants bashing their skulls together just a few feet away that we could hear their craniums collide, shark infested waters and the famed chocolate rotti from the No.1 Rotti shop at Hikka.

Walk to the beach

Yeah, that was some holiday! But this post is more about food. Particularly, popular Lankan food that I am ashamed to say I had never tried till last weekend.

Starting off with that chocolate rotti. It wasn’t just eyeballed, it was tucked away where it rightfully belonged- in my tummy. I’d heard endless praising of the Hikka Rotti shop and I was determined to pop in and let my palate be the judge of these rottis that had been deemed food of the gods.

Rotti Heaven

On our way back from Tangalle, we stopped over at the No. 1 Rotti shop for a rather late lunch. Having wolfed down a prawn and cheese rotti followed by a chocolate and banana rotti topped with chocolate ice cream, I must say these rottis aren’t the typical stuff you get here in Colombo. I’d imagined something more parata-like, but while they’re fairly similar to paratas, these rottis aren’t as heavy and they’re a bit on the crispy side.

Light, crispy, moist and with ‘fillings’ of just about everything imaginable, you can bet I’m a fan!

Midnight Milo

We reached home around 7pm, but sister-2 and I had to drive back to Wellawatta at 10:30pm to pick up sister-1, from a friend’s place at 12am. So sis 2 and I drove along Wellawata in search of something to do… or eat (honestly, there’s no better way to kill time than tickling your taste buds with mouth watering delectables). Cruising along the road, we were once again struck with the stark realisation that Sri Lanka has no nightlife. The good people of Sri Lanka are paid a visit by the Sandman at 9pm.

All the shops were closed. All except for Pillawoos. A glimmer of light in the dusky street, we were drawn to it like fireflies to a light bulb. Parked outside the only drive-in restaurant in Colombo (correct me if I’m wrong), a friendly looking bloke dressed in shirt and sarong, moseyed over to our car and asked us for our order. We weren’t particularly hungry, so we asked for two iced Milos. Now, I’ve never really tried their Ice Milo before but from what I’d heard it was suppose to be unparalleled! It surpasses the homemade stuff your mum makes, or so I’d been told.

Taking a sip from the large glass of chocolate milk with what looked like a miniature iceberg floating on the top, I’d say it was only just alright. Call me what you will but that’s what I think of it!

It was however, expertly made teh-tarik style. Teh-tarik is how Malaysian street tea is made. ‘Tarik’ means to pull and of course ‘teh’ means tea, so it roughly translates into ‘pulled tea’. Prepared in this fashion you don’t find any malty chocolate bits in the drink.

Of course it doesn’t take you an hour and a half to drink a glass of milk, so once we were done we drove up to sister-1’s friend’s house, pushed the seats back and slept in the car. We were exhausted! It had been a long drive back from Tangalle!

Food aside, the only damper about the holiday is that I managed to get a funny sunburn. I wore my huge heavy duty sunglasses the whole time which has left my entire face burnt brown except for two large circles around my eyes…

I look like this now…

The Mad Scientist In Me Asks…

“How about we play around with DNA and actually create a superhuman being”?

Yes, it’s been contemplated widely, but then it’s never been possible with ‘ethics’ cropping its officious little head and turning the idea to stone. So I’ve been trying to think up an ethical way to bring superheroes out of the pages of comic books and have them walk/fly/crawl among us.

The way I see it, gene manipulation is the only way to go. Unlike the half-baked theory we’ve read in comic books in which most superheroes were either blessed/ cursed with their extraordinary powers after being exposed to radiation by some means.

Take Marvel’s friendly neighbourhood Spiderman who got his arachnid powers when a radioactive spider gored its pincers into his hand or Daredevil who was sauced with nuclear waste. Back here in the real world, mutations of this sort aren’t likely in the least.

Chances of radioactivity altering your entire genetic make-up instantly giving you the ability to shoot sticky webbing through your wrist, scale walls with protrusible hairs made up of steel-like keratin or gaining ‘spider-senses’, are as likely as you seeing Punisher pirouetting in a pink tutu (apologises for any mild trauma that description might have caused). And in the case of Daredevil, if you were deluged in nuclear waste, the reaction with your cells will have you sooner floating to heaven than kicking Kingpin butt with the use of your echolocation powers.

That rules out radioactivity mutating cells to give people abilities that defy nature. Which leaves us with GENE MANIPULATION!

Now the legendary method of genetic engineering requires identifying and isolating the gene you want switched- using restriction enzymes, and then filling the vacant spot with the new gene. Sounds simple? Far from it. And then there’s rejection of the new gene to worry about… But it’s been proved to work in the making of a Frankenstein chicken! Alright, not exactly “Frankenstein” although I’d like the bolt of lightning scenario, it’s a lot more dramatic. But the chicken did have its moment, as scientists waited with bated breath, purple in the face and about to pass out– for a tweet. No, it wasn’t a geeky chicken that was ’social network’ savvy, it was a chicken with the vocal chords of a quail.

What’s brilliant about this method is that the switch is made at a very early embryonic stage. So all we need is a few eggs and sperm (of which there’s plenty), have them fertilized and allow the embryos to develop in a laboratory. Of course this is a bit of a trial and error method and we’re going to have quite a few anomalous and abominable looking animals before we create a chimp that can defy gravity and whiz through the air…

And this is the bit where I can’t seem to think of a way around that hulking nemesis ‘ethics’. Standing rigid with folded arms in our way it’s going to be tough but just think, “what if”? What if we had our very own clone army with super powers?

Of course there are more obstacles that stand in our way. The next problem hurled at us, is what will these superpowers be?

Sadly, choice is limited. Taking into consideration the forces in the laws of physics that keep our good planet Earth from floating  aimlessly through the vast expanse of the cosmos, we are restricted to certain superpowers.

Here’s why (for convenience of reference let’s name our superhero Bandu), Bandu won’t be able to have Flash’s power to travel faster than the speed of light because E=m0/-1√v/c2!

According to a concept proposed by none other than the wire haired physicist, Einstein:

If an object is already travelling near the speed of light, it can’t move much faster, no matter how much energy it absorbs. Its momentum and energy continue to increase, but its speed approaches a constant value—the speed of light. This means that in relativity the momentum of an object cannot be a constant times the velocity, nor is the kinetic energy given by 1⁄2mv2.

So Bandu will just keep getting heavier as he runs a nice groove around the planet, deeper and deeper, until he finally hits magma! And Bandu is toast.

But what we can do is add on specific genes from other animals. Gills are a bit complex… but we could try. Webbed feet? Organutan arms? Think of the possibilities…

So if you’ve got any suggestions as to how this can be achieved ethically do feel free to share your ideas. I’ll be sure to credit you in my acceptance speech when I’m awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Disclaimer: No animals were harmed in the writing of this post. Mosquitoes, on the other hand, were shown no mercy.

Bloggers At Risk?

The government has finally gotten a whiff of what’s been cooking on the internet, and even though it’s trussed up in more important matters such as the GSP+, it’s managed to detangle a hand to wag a finger at bloggers.

Irresponsible websites which resort to distorting facts to create a rift between the government and ‘other’ parties would be black listed and publicized through the provisions available through the state media, the government information department said today quoting a Minister- dailymirror.lk reports.

The more stringent measures taken against Tissainayagam, than a mere blacklisting of his website, is evidence enough to show that the government has all the power to manipulate the law and slam you with 20 years of R.I for pointing out the faults of the ruling body.

New media has never been a threat to the government before what with development in Sri Lanka being at a fetal stage. You’d think websites and blogging shouldn’t really bother the government when considering anyone wanting to reach the masses would place the internet at the bottom of their list of ‘means of mass communication’.

So now that they’re keeping an eye on the internet, what should we expect next? Tapping of phone conversations? Perhaps the millions of people who will be unemployed once the EU withdraws the GSP+ can be recruited to monitor phone conversations.

If more websites or blogs are closed down we might just find ourselves relieving North Korea of being ranked the lowest on the ‘press freedom rank’ next year. Ranked by Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF), Sri Lanka has been place 162 out of 175 countries on the list, this year.

In 2005– before the current regime came into power, RSF had positioned Sri Lanka at 115 out of 167 countries. Now you don’t have to be a math whiz to notice that globally we’ve fallen in ranks over the past few years.

Not only have we dropped in ranks over the past few years but would you believe this year we’ve been sandwiched between Palestinian Regions and Saudi Arabia. Oh but that’s not the worst of it. No, the worst is that Pakistan is ahead of us placed in the 159 spot. That’s a bit of a damper considering I’d always thought of Pakistan as a country we could look at when things got bad down here and say “heck, at least we’re better off than them”!

Hooker on a Bus

Sunday evening 8pm, I got on a bus at Bamba and promptly planted myself on the only seat available. More people filed in after me and when it was considerably packed with people standing in the aisle, the bus groaned awake and rumbled up the road.

Less than five minutes later, typical of Sri Lankan public transport, the bus hauled in at another halt to allow more people to squeeze in. A few people scrambled in and weaved through sea of bodies. Just as the new commuters had become one with the mass inside the bus, packed like a can of SPAM, starting from the entrance the sea of people parted neatly to make a clear path for the last incomer. Half expecting to see Moses emerge, I was a bit disappointed when instead a petite woman strolled in with an air of nonchalance about her. At first glance my mind alerted “Oooooh a prostitute.”

I’ve never actually seen a sex worker before but from what I’ve been told and what I’ve read in books, she had all the signs of a prostitute. She was wearing a short, worn out, blue cotton dress printed with a huge floral pattern, the straps of her bra were hanging off her shoulders, and around her waist she had a tattered white belt that didn’t really serve any purpose considering she was wearing a dress.

She had also accessorised with lots of cheap jewellery- a thick bracelet of pink beads and dangling earrings of red and green beads. But what was strange was the bottom bits of plastic bottle caps that she had attached to her hair-band that held her mangled, frizzy brunette hair in a bundle. Although the most telling sign might have been the bright magenta lipstick that was smeared on her lips, either that or the fact that people were leaning way from her in such a way you’d think she were a leper.

What got me thinking twice about her being a prostitute was that she looked extremely old. Her dark skin was dry and wrinkled. Even her cheeks had heavy furrows of wrinkles that sagged down to her chin. I’d say she was in her 50’s, if I had to guess. But then again, maybe she’s much younger because being a sex worker must zap the life out of you.

She stationed herself beside the seat in front of me just as the bus grunted and began to move. The mother and daughter seated there were squirming in their seat and crouching away from her as if she had an invisible force field around her that repelled them.

I couldn’t help feeling bad that people were behaving the way they were. It’s just not right. So what if she is a sex worker? Who are we to judge her? She’s obviously got it tough as it is, she doesn’t need people reacting merely to her presence as if she were something foul that the cat had dragged in.

Just imagine being in her shoes. Imagine making a living of allowing men have their way with you and then whenever you step out into the street people scurry away from you or/and stare at you from a safe distance. Even the bus conductor used a rough tone with her. Treated like a pariah, being a prostitute must be the worst and most lonely way to earn a living.

As much as I wanted to observe her a bit more (I found the strange old woman to be quite fascinating), I didn’t want to add to the general discomfort she must have been feeling while all eyes were on her, I averted my sight onto the passing buildings across the road. Although I think she seemed rather accustomed to how the people around her were reacting. Like I said earlier, she had an air of nonchalance about her. She didn’t really care. She seemed forcedly oblivious to how people were reacting towards her. To me it looked as if she’d programmed herself to tune out everything around her. In fact she didn’t show any emotion whatsoever, it was like she was on autopilot.

But then about 10 minutes later, everyone had gotten over the initial shock of being in the bus with a sex worker and returned to spacing out, with the glazed zombie look in their eyes as they waited to reach home. All except for the pair crouched in the seat beside her. At this point the daughter, who was seated by the shutter had her arm around her mother, pulling her away from the little woman who was so tired, her head was bobbing as she was falling asleep while on her feet.

At the next bus halt the person beside me vacated his spot and shimmied his way off the bus. I shifted to the side and the little old woman slid into the space beside me and rested her head on the window. She smelt musty. I can’t quite describe the smell. But the best I can say is that it was a sort of stuffy, old, musty smell that hung around her.

I got a few curious looks, people seemed surprised that I didn’t mind her sitting next to me. But then I guess they were all just too tired and soon got bored of the whole thing. Except of course for the mother and daughter seated in front of me. They would repeatedly turn around like wind-up toys to gape at her and look at me with wide-eyed disbelief like I had done something scandalous.

I guess the whole experience for me was a wee bit of an eye-opener to the harsh reality of the world.

Besides that I’ve always been a bit disappointed that I’ve never had any eventful bus rides. So this easily makes it as the most interesting bus katha I have to share- the strange old hooker.