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…

My Baby

…squirrel.

We’ve had pets before. For a week or so at the most. They usually run away or die or are eaten by a snake. So you can guess I’ve never been an ‘animal’ person.

Or so I thought… It turns out I’m pretty good with animals. The amazing revelation was made when I was introduced to Tsunade (yes, I’m a Naruto fan!). My bro found the baby squirrel in the house and for the past three days he and I have been feeding and taking care of  her.

She’s a fury bundle of joy! She’s got silky soft fur and she’s so damn cute!

The best part is, she can be scampering around in her box but the moment I pick her up and place her on my hand, she falls asleep.

On the first day she would first curl up into a ball in the palm of my hand and doze off. A day or two later, she would just clonk off sprawled along my wrist or anywhere I place her.

Of course, as my mom was quick to point out, we don’t really have the time for pets, so today the gardener took her away.

I’ll miss her. But I don’t feel bad… we really don’t have time for pets.

Of Snakes and Achcharu

“You know you are Sri Lankan when…”

• You use banana leaves instead of plates, to eat rice and curry
• Catching malaria is like catching a cold. (make that dengue)
• When you see guys in Nugegoda walkin comfortably on the street holding hands and wearing flourescent shirts and yellow BATA slip-ons..And hey! no one looks at them twice!!

(and the list goes on)

Spot on, isn’t it? I stumbled on this list while facebooking. It was actually quite a fun read but one line got me really chuckling, No.8- You have encountered, been pursued or bitten by a snake. If you don’t live in Colombo you should be able to identify with that.

Living about a 45 min drive from Colombo, towards the Wattala end but more inland (paddy field area), I’ve had quite a few encounters with these slithering reptiles.

One of my earliest memories of a run in with a snake is of when I was 8 years. My sister (10 years) and I had a usual routine of riding our bicycles to the kade at the main road to buy a packet of Maliban Marie biscuits and Chocolate biscuits (they cost Rs. 13 back then, now they’re more than double the price at Rs. 38! Bleeding inflation). We’d then raced back home, plant ourselves in front on the TV in time for the 4pm MTV run of cartoons and devour the biscuits while under the spell of the ThunderCats or G.I Joe. Of course there was a process to eating the biscuits- the Chocolate ones would be split apart and the cream in the middle eaten first, while each Marie biscuits was dipped wholly in a jar of Nutella.

But I digress! Back to the snake… My sister and I had decided to try out another kade that was apparently closer to home. This was unfamiliar territory to us, so we figured it’d be a safe bet to foot it. Half way there we came to a narrow grassy lane. My sister was ambling head of me, and lost deep in thought she unknowing walked right over the snake. I, the more observant of us, spotted the snake and called after her to watch where she stepped but she had already made it across.

After a quick inspection it was agreed that the thick black snake was a ‘garandiya’ (popular in area and was said to have killed a cow and workman). My sister suggested I return home and that she would fetch the biscuits herself. I however, wasn’t about to abandon her in an unknown area, so I hopped over the snake and made it across minus snake fangs in my flesh.

That was the first of many times I’ve skipped over a garandiya. Another type of snake I’ve encountered includes cobras. I haven’t hopped over any of them, but I’ve had several slither pass me. Snakes really are docile animals. If you don’t agitate them, they won’t harm you.

On the subject of cobras, as kids whenever we found the skin they shed we’d try to figure out how old they were by counting the scales along the width.

Yeah, we were crazy outdoorsy children. We could usually be found terrorizing grasshoppers/ ladybirds by trapping them in the cups of our palms or climbing up some tree in the garden, and we have quite a few trees. Our fairly large garden has all sorts of trees- mango trees, amberella, cinnamon, a large tamarind tree with thick woody vines that we used to swing on, clump of bamboo trees, araliya, 40 ft high Indian willows, rambutan, jambu, jack, coconut, all sorts of guava trees, huge caju tree, ‘artha’ (sour sop), damson, kohomba, banana trees, a kithul tree and some others.

We used climb up the mango and amberella trees, and pick fruits for achcharu. Most mornings, if I had the time I’d take a stroll around the garden, figure out what I was in the mood for- passion fruit, lemon, narang, guava or any other fruit and make a fresh juice to go with breakfast (I still do this).

My siblings and I were also experts at making swings. We’d turn the shed upside downin search of two long pieces of quire rope and a plank. We’d sprint over to the mango tree- the one with the horizontal branch, tie a weight on the end of the ropes and fling them over, tie each end together and slide the plank in. And presto! Instant swing!

We even had a tree house. One of the previous gardeners built it on the hefty caju tree. He also made a ladder from one of the bamboo trees and nailed it to the bark, so we could reach the tree house which was was pretty high off the ground. The tree house was a good escape but I preferred climbing the up on the roof of the shed. Between the roof and the tank was a shady nook, perfect for some quiet reading.

Climbing trees, hopping over snakes, building swings, hunting for grasshoppers and scaling walls came with their share of cuts oozing blood, bruises and mild poisoning, but heck, it was all good and I can say I had a pretty decent childhood!

Fiendish Creature

At my home! Well in the bare patch of land facing my house. There’s a force field that keeps it from entering the garden, sort of like a tether that tugs on it if it goes wild.

The creature skulks in the darkness of the night, cowering from the moon light and only moving about by leaping from shadow to shadow. It’s  outside every night but returning home this evening I was startled by the evil spirit.

Driving up the dark road to my house, we had just reached the boundry where the bare land begins. Out of the corner of my eye I could see a vague shape with glowing luminous eyes caught in the dimmer part of headlights of the car. I breathed out ‘WHAT THE…?” while turning to face the creature and saw…

Alright, not quite. But close…

This is what I what I saw… for real (different angle though and the pic was taken with flash so it’s not as creepy).

Just look at that sickly creature! You can see its ribs and its legs are spindly. That’s just not right! That pony is the living dead, I tell you!

Road kill

If there’s one thing that fascinates me the most it would have to be road kill.

I can’t but help steal a second glance when I see a lifeless maimed animal on the road. It’s actually quite interesting trying to figure out how the ill-fated creature met its grisly demise!

The most recent road kill spotted-

I usually zone out during my morning drive to college… lost in thought, I pay little attention to the world outside of my mind. This particular Monday however, I was nibbling on my sandwich absolutely amused by the sight of a cockroach scuttling out of the helmet of a motorist and clinging for its dear life on top. I tired to imagine how the (what I presumed to be) terrified roach might have felt at that very moment……

The wind in my antennae. My bug eyes the size of BUTTONS as they dry up. My multiple hearts pounding fiercely against my chitinous exoskeleton, that it almost sounds like one continuous beat. The past three days, my entire life, flashing before my eyes…

[There I go again... deviating from the topic!]

The motorist, positively oblivious to the large arthropod a top he’s head, disappeared into dense traffic. And it was then that I caught a glimpse of an unusual mass beside the tarred road. Hoping it was road kill, I craned my neck to get a better look as we drew closer.

A pariah dog! I was a tad disappointed though… it wasn’t as ghastly as I would have liked it to have been. It was bloated up like a beach ball, and large patches of its fur were missing revealing the off-whitish skin. It was soaking wet but all in one piece.

As I finished off my sandwich, I tried to make a conjecture as to how mutt met its untimely end…

My ‘would-prefer-it-to-have-been’ surmise-

Zapped by an extraterrestrial molecular-altering laser beam, its dermis became sponge like. And it began to absorb rain droplets, water from puddles and even moisture from the atmosphere. And before the mongrel could realise that it could no longer squeeze through the bars of that-road-separator-fency-thing, in a twisted osmotic effect its organs swell and burst- BOOM! SPLOSH! The end.

Probable surmise-

The cur had probably been eating old boots (and by that I mean anything indigestible) in the garbage, which usually leads to the puffer-fish effect in stray dogs, a common sight. And the night before as it casually wobbled across the road, blissfully unaware that in a matter of minutes it was going to meet its maker, a vehicle came speeding right towards it. A sudden adrenaline rush spurred it to shimmy faster, gasping for breath. But that inch forward that it was able to manage was just not enough… and WHAM! Not that it would have made a difference anyway… Even if it had made it across it would most probably have died of a heart attack.

Will blog about my fav road kill later… absolutely gruesome and rather uncanny too…