gushing

Oh man. My last day at work is coming up this Friday. If I had thought about this day all the way back in the first week of work my face would have lit up like a damn Vesak pandol. However, now I don’t know what the hell to think! I know all this is possibly the usual idealization process one goes through when something comes to an end (a topic I have dealt with both implicitly and explicitly in previous posts) but I do feel intensely sad.

It’s the people I will miss. Definitely. It’s quite unbelievable that almost all the people in this firm are friendly and willing to really let their hair down (or hair up with some gel) and have a complete blast. Oh god. I think if there was ever a person to gush about Leo Burnett Solutions Sri Lanka it would be me. The brainwashing certainly worked!! If this is the effect firms like LB intend to have on their interns, then it completely worked on me. Right now, I feel like I am the biggest advocate for the firm.

It does seem appropriate to mention that I am not in the ideal position to actually comment on how good/bad LB is as a firm. It seems nice, but I’m only a lowly intern so how can I make a fully informed evaluation? Anyway, who said I needed to be objective to have an opinion? Yes, your right, NO ONE! I think it would be a lovely place to work or at the very least, hang with the people in the office!! There’s a quote in this book I was reading that says, advertising is the rock n’roll of the business world! I know I messed up the quote someway but u betta have got the point!

I think the reason why I feel an intense sadness is coz my need for affiliation is not being fulfilled. There’s a huge history behind the lives and relationships of the people working at LB and life’s just gonna continue as per normal after I leave, so where do I stand? Have I made an impact on ANYONE’S life? I feel as I have made good friends in the 2 months I’ve worked here but is it reciprocated? Does it matter? Do I have to know? I know ignorance is bliss but…but.. I mean should all this analysis even happen as long as I have enjoyed myself? A friend told me sometime back that I should stop trying to please everyone coz I am the only one who will end up hurt and disappointed but I am not trying to please EVERYONE. It’s just the people I care about that matter, i.e. my friends. Oh man, in other words, I just want to be loved. Yeah, yeah, I’ve said it again and to some extent I’m not ashamed to say it!

You see what a pointless argument this is? It’s downright annoying. I don’t want to feel like this. I want to be secure. I want to know that I have enhanced someone’s life in some little way. Maybe that’s egotistic (egoistic?) of me but flattery gets you everywhere don’t you think? Ha ha. Trivializing things helps. But if you trivialize things (things you have built up before) that others deem trivial anyway, does that redeem yourself in their eyes? This is all convoluted! My questions never have any sure-shot answers do you realize?

I end this post as confused as ever.

choice dependency

Last night I got locked in my room. I had just changed into my house clothes after coming back from work when I tried the door and it refused to open. We have had similar problems like this before so I thought with a little pushing the door would just fly open. That was not to be unfortunately because it was only after 50 minutes of frustration that the key-cutter, Yusuf, came over and mutilated our lock so much that the door just popped open. Never have I been so relieved to see the rest of my house!

It just goes to show that when we do not have the choice to do anything else we immediately feel our present circumstances are crap. I mean the room itself is a perfect place to chill since it has everything I need in it (except food). My books, laptop, music, water, air-conditioner are all encapsulated in that tiny little room. But just because I was locked in there, I really, really needed to get out. It was strange. We are a bunch of malcontents because the grass is truly greener on the other side, but eventually it’s never green enough. I could have waited in that room for hours on end and not have had the slightest urge to get out but this craving, this addiction for the outside came over me and I got a bit freaked out. I think my claustrophobia was just a subset of some fundamental truth about who we are and we exist in this world. Having the choice to do something else is the key to my peace of mind but that doesn’t mean those choices are amazing or even remotely accessible.

I also got to thinking about how very dependent we are on the most mundane things in life. I mean the fricking lock fell apart and I couldn’t get out for 50 minutes. Oh sure, sure, not a big deal at all but what if no one had been at home to open the door for key-cutter? Serious shit lah. On similar lines, take the telephone. If your phone is out of order, you can’t call your grocery store for your daily order, you can’t connect to the internet, you can’t call the key-cutter when you want them. It’s all about being inconvenienced; we just can’t take it. Imagine, if we somehow apparated into the 14^th century and had to travel on horseback for 22 days to see a priest so he could see a medicine man? Or tell someone his wife was sleeping with someone else?

It’s so hot. I can’t take it.

impulsion/compulsion

24^th July 2005
18:55 hours

I have just come back from a trip to Ginigathena in the hills of Sri Lanka. I am dog tired but I need to get this down before my memories fade and my emotions become diluted. I know I am going against an oath I gave at the moment we parted (which was never to repeat, re-enact or write anything to anyone other than our group about what happened on the trip), but I don’t really care since the only people who read my blog are either not connected with the people I went with or people I went with on the trip.

Well so anyway let me start. My work colleague calls me into her office on Friday morning and tells me that they are leaving on a trip right after work on that day and asks me whether I would like to come along. I thought about it and since I am leaving work in less than a week, I said okay, even though I knew my mother was very angry about me going. I go home after work, change and pack and come back to the office. I hang with my two ‘homies’ until we set off.

I was in a vehicle with a guy called Ranga who was driving, Mehnaz, Mat and Shyala. At that time I didn’t know, but I found out on the way that there were 13 of us altogether who were going. This seems like a good time to say the names. Karyll’s a person who works at LB and she is, I think, the funniest person alive. Her humour is very dead-pan and I just lap up every joke of hers with an awful-sounding laugh. She’s the one who organized the whole trip and every bit of the trip was enhanced by her presence. A clink-clink to her. She also realized that she knew my sister in primary school and her reaction went like this, ‘OMG FUCK A DUCK…. YOUR GINA’S LITTLE BROTHER????’ Petrina is also from LB and she is Karyll’s very good friend. She and her boyfriend Shohan are very nice people and great company. She is also very good looking. He he. Shohan’s supposed to be a complete sport; he apparently will fit in anywhere with anyone and I can believe that. Then there was Shehara, the pierced chick in previous posts and fellow cigarette-break taker. Sala (a.k.a Magic box), Brandon (a.k.a flamboyant one), Eshara (a.k.a Aussie-mate) were all there too. Sala and Brandon both work at J. Walter Thompson, a rival advertising agency. Eshara is Shehara’s (tongue twisted already?) cousin and is getting married in December. They are all very good company. Then there is Mehnaz who also works at LB and has been ever since its establishment in Sri Lanka 6 years ago. His friend Ranga, a quiet guy into producing music and a complete gadget freak. He has an Acer Ferrari laptop, a Nokia palmtop/phone and a gadget that emits a laser attached to his windscreen to detect a Police speed detector from a distance of almost 1km so that he can slow down and pass by without a hitch. Amazing. Very nice guy. There was also Nicolas, a French intern just recently joined for about six months. He just about showed his ass to everyone around 4 times during the trip and he had a good time even though he is very quiet. Then comes Shyala (a.k.a angel-eyes) who is very sweet and a genuinely nice person. She has this peculiar habit of arguing with you that starts off quite explosively. Fortunately for her, we enjoy these outbursts and I, for one will tease her about this till I go back which again, fortunately for her is only about a week away. Sob. Last but not least is my boss, Mat. Mat is also a peculiar creature. He is very outdoorsy which can be QUITE tiresome if you are a city-boy like me coz we have vastly differing opinions about EVERYTHING in life, but it is nice to have a little debate in your life. Being a very intense person he doesn’t talk much but he has an interesting views on life and when he does talk, you know it’s going to make you laugh or grind your teeth in frustration because when trees fall in the forest, irrespective of whether you were there or not, they MAKE A NOISE!!!!

Anyway when we arrived at our bungalow it was about 10pm. It was an awesome place. The house was situated on a small hill and it was surrounded on one side by a tea estate and on the other just a forest. In the backdrop there were hills with swirls of mist at their summits. The mist was just swirling about and coming down to our level at times and then retreating. Very peaceful and nice. We could even see the white-water rapids in the distance. There were papaw trees in which hornbills sat and pecked at the ripe fruit. In addition to papaw trees, there were rambutan, mangosteen and even jambu trees on the premises of the bungalow. The place had a natural water pool in which water from the wells get filtered into the pool. It was gorgeous. It was absolute heaven to sit on the porch, drinking tea in the morning and potent liquids at night and letting the feel of the place just wash over you.

The drinking started at around 11pm after a spot of dinner. The music played while all of us sat around drinking and shooting the shit around till around 4.30am. Brandon and Sala sang vulgar songs for us and Karyll provided the accompanying instruments (two plastic bottles of Pepsi and Sprite) with regular spurts of ‘Ah-Ah’. It was thoroughly entertaining. In my drunken state I made regular trips to the room where Shy and Mat were and had conversations with them insisting vigorously that I was not that drunk and I would be able to remember everything about the conversation the next morning. As you can see, I did. Smugness. :p

Later on in the morning, I was woken up by Mat at 7fuckingAM. Nicolas, Shyala, Mat, Shohan and I drove to the reservoir close by to take photographs and just chill. We had tea in a small joint built on a tree and since we were not satisfied by our adventures decided to drive around more to see what more we could do. Shohan then stops over at a place which has a board saying ‘this was the place where ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’ was filmed’. Obviously we had to check it out. Like smart arses, however, we decided not to use the usual path, instead opting for a less-used path. We took a raft/ferry of sorts over the river to the other side and trekked a pretty long path down to a lake. You won’t believe this but even though the film was made here, there is no indication whatsoever to say that Hollywood has touched this place with its magic Oscar winning wand. You know why? Coz the Bridge was blown up in the movie. So the Bridge has to be there only in spirit for those who decide to come there to see it. Especially those who use the less-used path. So, we trek and trek and trek and finally we come to the river which can only be accessed if you walk around 15 metres down some rocks. I thought it looked like any normal thing until Nicolas tried to surf down these slippery rocks. He tried it but he immediately slipped down on his butt and on his butt he skidded down 10 metres at least. All of us just cracked up. That image is seared in my mind. They say what goes around, comes around and the next moment I fell down hard on my ass. I got up and fell again. Finally I slowly slid down to the sandy beach. I dreaded going back up again but my boss helped me up and even though I felt quite inadequate, I was very, very grateful. Still it was fun to come there and I have no regrets. Also one can’t forget the leeches. The area was infested with these blood-sucking bastards and each of us got at least one bite on our legs and elsewhere in much darker places. These creatures roll themselves into almost an invisible ball on the ground. When you step on them, they uncoil themselves and latch onto the furrows on your shoe. They make their way slow and steady up the shoe to your legs and then latch themselves on your flesh and just keep on sucking blood until (1). You discover it and pull it off by rubbing salt on it (2). You discover it and burn it off with a cigarette lighter (3). You discover it and decide to pull it out whereby which their teeth get left behind making you a primary target for infection (4) You do not discover it and it sucks up to its fill and falls off which leaves you a little bloody since it takes extra long for the wound to clot up and (5) You do not discover it and it sucks your blood until it explodes and you are left stained by the blood which has just been sucked out of your bloodstream. And very rarely, according to a newspaper report seen only by Karyll, the leech crawls up your vagina (if you have one) and lays its eggs there and you bleed profusely till you die of infection if you are not operated on immediately.

In the afternoon, this time all of us decide to venture out for another adventure. We pack a picnic and set out to see the Aberdeen waterfalls which are about an hour away. After we get to the place, we park our vehicles and start walking ourselves to the waterfall. This time, there were more people around and it was quite fun to walk down these paths with occasional hysterical screams from Petrina, Eshara and Brandon about attacking leeches. However, Karyll couldn’t do it coz her knees were just about to give way so myself, Petrina and Brandon decide to wait with her and not go to the waterfall. I was quite glad to get out of it coz I’m not a very confident person and I feel my lack of confidence just slows the group down and I’d rather let down myself than the group. So I stayed behind. It was quite fun to chat with these three and we walked back to the vehicles to wait for the rest of the group. We talked about blow jobs, sex in strange situations and how fucking annoying the leeches were until they came back 2 frickking hours later!!! Anyway, the drive back was VERY enjoyable as I placed by butt on the door of the car and hoisted myself outside and held on to the roof the car. It was really exhilarating to feel the wind blow through my hair and the sting of the cold on my cheeks. We bought more beer and cigarettes on the way back to our bungalow.

All of rested awhile before getting into some action again. Myself, Shyala, Karyll and Mat had a good talk before being called for drinks at 9pm. It was as usual a talk about sex, noisy sex, Burgher life and Harry Potter. Over rum and cokes we played ‘I Never’ and we found out some interesting things about various different people. Some of the stuff that ‘came out’ were related to bondage, sex with fruits, gay kisses, pissing in the pool and having fantasies about teachers. As you can see, the subject never strays too far from sex. Sex is the universal language as we soon found out in the next game which was ‘Truth, Dare or Kiss’. Again, without mentioning names, some of the stuff we did were as follows: miming masturbation and going down techniques, running naked, kissing nipples, licking ears and noses etc etc. Unbelievable. After a round of ghost stories, stalker stories and creepy stories we all retire to our beds at the very early hour of 1.30am.

Miraculously we all got to sleep till 9am hence explaining the lack of a hangover. We then shoot the shit a little longer over a cup of tea and a cigarette. Myself and Shehara decide to go for a walk to the natural pool and she dares me to get in. I strip down to my boxers and jump (well walk) in. It was freezing cold and quite enjoyable. The pool was 14 feet in the deep end and since it was un-chlorinated it felt strangely invigorating. I was one with nature. Ha Ha. A whole load of people get jealous of me and Shehara swimming and they too decide to get in. Turns out to be a hell of a lot of fun!

All of us then decide to have our breakfasted which consisted of a sausage-tomato-onion-sauce mix, coconut roti, baked beans and butter. Turns out to be an absolutely amazing breakfast. I don’t know whether this is all exaggeration but I did feel a sense of pleasure washing over me while I was eating. I distinctly remember it!!!

After breakfast, Karyll regaled Mat, Shy and I (and random people who walked in from time to time) with stories about her illustrious Burgher life and both of us were captivated. Unfortunately, we then had to pack and come home. Before leaving the place we took a whole load of group photographs and got into our cars and began our journey back. I sound like some foreigner but you know what, I am! I mean why won’t anyone believe I am a Caucasian white male?

Le Sígh. La Sób. Good memories. Few regrets. Just the way I like it. The trip was an entire package of good experiences and I am prepared to ignore the fact that I over-smoked, was a bit constipated and finally realized that I am capable of loving a person. Anyway, small price to pay to hang with such a classic bunch of people.

V.good.

PS. I have just realized how fucked up my tense usage is in this post. Oh shit, I just realized that the tense usage has been fucked up in the past few posts too. Please forgive the bad grammar.

digression?

I have a feeling that BBC will continue airing special reports on the London Bombings until another bomb goes off in their (London’s, not the BBC’s) damn subways. Obviously it is a great disaster in which 50+ people died, but come on now, we all know this is an atrocious incident carried out by the most evil perpetrators of our time but this kind of thing happens all the time! All of a sudden, this is being compared to the 9/11 events, which I guess, in principle, is justified, but we have come too far since then, and all we could think of when Blair gave his speech in the House of Lords was, oh shit, here comes another war on ‘terror’.

It doesn’t seem worthwhile for people like us also to keep repeating the injustice of the London Bombings in the world media especially considering how little attention (and action) the bombings at the Bank of Ceylon got in January of 1996. We just have to accept that all politicians are hypocrites and if they’re not faced with the problem first-hand (and sometimes even then), they will never understand and empathise with what they’re so-called diplomatic partners and friends are facing on the other side of the globe. If we don’t play a vital role in their own economic development we will never capture the attention we seek in actively resolving a problem that was so pervasive in the 80’s and 90’s in Sri Lanka. Luckily for us, the terrorist problem, although always looming, is slightly less threatening to the lives of Sri Lankans these days but we don’t owe anything to the U.S or the U.K for this state of affairs.

Perhaps our thanks should go to both the LTTE and the government for inflicting upon the population of Sri Lanka chain after chain of terror that has corroded the mettle of both parties to such an extent that pursuing an uncompromising stance is just too inhuman and cruel. It’s true isn’t it? All these years, individuals all over the island have been rejecting the call for war and finally the realization is sinking in that who the fuck really wants to lose their parents, children, family and friends for something that is so useless fighting for? Idealistic as this might seem, why can’t we just live on equal terms? Perhaps I am too removed from the core of things to actually comment but it seems simple enough to me. You won’t have to give anything of yourself away just to make someone stand on the same platform (pedestal) as you. You really won’t. It just takes some humility and a hell of a lot less insecurity.

I am very laissez faire about these things and I certainly do not feel strongly about the above topic but I am truly an objective person and I see no trouble in giving all the people around us the same rights as anyone. I wouldn’t mind a Tamil getting his due; neither will I have any trouble seeing a woman getting hers. Oh I know how rubbish all this might sound but yeah, that is my viewpoint. It’s nothing more, nothing less than just my humble (??) viewpoint.

It’s just my call to the world out there to be a little more sensible. And don’t get me started certain factions of the clergy. Oh wait, let me get a little started on the topic. Our clergy is littered with people who extol the virtues of Buddhism but apart from the superficial labels of Buddhism, such as the orange robes and the sacred looks they give us, where are the truly Buddhist actions of non-violence and understanding? It’s just hideous, sacrilegious activity wrapped up in robes that are fast losing the respect and credibility that they used to give. Hopefully someone will understand that is just some ploy to fly over and above the radar. And DO something about it.

I feel entirely empty as I finish off this post. It’s terribly useless of me to talk because that is all people do. The apathy one feels when talking about a political issue is classic because one does not contribute anything to anything. Perhaps your sense of smugness increases but there is nothing to show for it at the end of the day. It’s so useless that I don’t even know how to complete this post with a decent ending. So this seems to be an appropriate place to just stop.

melting pot

What is more frustrating than having a hangover at work, muscles hurting from doing weights for the first time, mum having a nervous and mental breakdown at home, no money and no work at work?

Nothing. Absolutely Nothing. I have got over it.

The cause of the hangover was going to Glow for a party that was ‘by invitation only’. I thought since there was an official party organized at Glow there would be something different happening. But no, it was the same thing. The same ol’ cliques and the same old affectations.

Don’t get me wrong here, I partake in all these affectations too but I do not derive fun from them. I think its some part of me that switches onto auto-pilot because these cliques and these affectations were what I used to look up to when I was in school living my life, quite happily (or rather, as it turns out, not so happily), as the class-geek.

I just about had a good time because I was soaking up the drinks as usual (explaining the head-torture the morning after) and my friend Ishani and I had about two good dances on the floor before strolling off into a world where politics engulfed her and left me… not really stranded but bereft of any faith I had in her. Things like this do not affect me but I hate hearing some bit of good sense about 3 minutes before an unpardonable lack of judgment. Especially when this bit of good sense comes out so easily and so well-oiled to make me think that.. ahh… yes.. I know exactly what goes in your life because you have told me all about it. It’s not that I am hurt because I don’t get told things about her personal affairs but it’s this mentality that my questions will go un-answered until she feels comfortable about telling me stuff. I understand and empathize with this all the way but the problem I have is that she only reaches this comfort zone when she is willing to rant out morsels of the problem, conveniently ignoring the fact that she has never told me what exactly the problem was.

Anyway, none of you will understand the above but I needed to get that out of my system and articulate mentally what I really thought about it.

Lifting weights has got to be the most liberating thing in the world. NOT. A friend once told me that when he did weights it felt awful but after you did them, you felt awesome because the blood rushed into your limbs and sometimes even made you horny. SO, I expected that kind of effect when I did weights but sadly that was not to be. If I could have managed an erection it would have only been through several doses of Viagra! I felt sick, tired and completely drained out. As soon as I stretched my arm, it cramped. As soon as I scratched my back, my hand would refuse to go beyond the small of my back. It was crazy. But it’s been 7 days since I started this post so the memories of the pain have faded remarkably and I am planning on going to the gym today.

Mum’s nervous and mental breakdown? It’s a long, sad story and I really don’t feel like going into on my blog for everyone to see.

No work at work? The end of last week was kind of slow because all my superiors got caught up with their own big projects and the interns were basically free to do anything they liked. This is not as fun as it sounds because if I am not doing anything at work, I’d rather be home in bed watching a movie, instead of chilling in the office (which is kind of fun but…but… u know… it’s a different kind of fun that is derived. Almost like fun burning at a lower-frequency… more or less like we’re trying our best with the situation at hand).

Anyway, like I said, that post was made seven days ago so different things have happened since then. Well not really, since work is still relatively boring, because myself and a French intern have been put in charge of some small projects and he has not turned up to work today. So the work I have done so far just has to be compiled with his (not possible today). Anyway, because I am going back home early today (coz of some bank/accommodation work) I am just chilling for the moment.

As you might have realized from the present tense I use in the above sentences, this blog post is materializing from the creative recesses of my mind which is currently inside of a body that has just to come to the office. That is right, I am blogging from work!!!!! Cool? Or not? Hmmm. I don’t know. I’d rather be doing work.

Ahh yes, the different things that have happened over the past week are:

#1. Movie night @ office. Kind of cool coz they screened Star Wars: The Attack of the Sith. There was popcorn, spicy mixture, savoury biscuits, orange-juice, Vodka and rum. FACT: Physical presence of intoxicating liquids does not equate to actual consumption. The movie was not good. I did not like any part of the movie except perhaps the special effects which were to some extent tainted by the stupidity of machines that only beeped (are WE supposed to understand that is something we should just not understand?) and god-awful dialogue.

#2. Food-Poisoning. Woke up on Sunday feeling quite bad. Felt the acid rolling about in my system. I felt like little ‘cute’ ulcers were popping up in my stomach and festering because the acid was just rolling onto them. Then I puked. And the puke just kept on coming. And then I purged.. and purged.. and purged… and… you get the picture. Not a very good day. By night I was wishing that work never existed but I did go to work…. Yay… how fucking disciplined I have become. No really, it is not such a great thing for me to show up to work when I was sick coz so many other people do it all the time in much sicker, more stressful situations. It’s just one of those things you got to accept and stop being a spoilt brat about.

I’m not at work any more. This blog post is taking ages to write. I am at home now, waiting till the water heats up enough to give me a soothing shower after a good work out at the gym. My version of a good work out is, I am sure, not even close to what other, much fitter people consider a reasonable work out but what the fuck, if I feel I got a good work out, then I did!

These internal battles have got to stop. But what the fuck, this is my blog and I can fight with anyone I feel I like! Ok? Ok? Bring it on bitch! Touché.

Hmmm.

Anyway, I just got to know that my appeal for on-campus accommodation was successful! Yay! I am so happy that I don’t have to move out to some lonely ol’single room somewhere a few bus stops out of campus. Seriously, the heartlands of Singapore depress me no end. Sure, if I have friends living with me, then I could stand it coz u know, there will be good company and alcohol etc. but if I have to live alone then I shall just brood myself into some pitiful catatonic state. I am a bit of a snob. I am a very material person and I really do want to live in some fancy-shmantzy place in Orchard or something… yeah yeah… wishful thinking but a guy’s got to dream right?

The bad news about me living on campus is that I have to live with somebody. Ergh. Yeah, I have to share a double room. SUXXXXXXXXXXX. FUXXXX. Seriously, shit! My porn habits are atrocious! And if I can’t masturbate when I feel like, I will die. I seriously will. I can’t go hiding my erections again!!!!! I can’t!!!!! argh!!!!!!!!!

Hopefully my roommate is some exchange student who will be out all the time and will give me privacy… yay! But he could be some pitiful nerdy boy (read: Chinese) who never leaves the room unless for coffee or a piss or to take out some library books. Oh god, these negative thoughts have got to stop. Hopefully, there is a silver lining in all this. I mean a silver lining beyond not living out of campus. Yeah, yeah, I’m an ungrateful arse. But what to do lah?

Anyway, I got to go shower. Dinner at 9pm at The Pavilion with some friends I have not met in some time. I think it will be very boring but it could just turn out to be quite fun. These things have a way of being so much fun when you have such low expectations. Don’t you think me having low expectations from FRIENDS is a bit screwed up? I mean I should like really depend on them and stuff right? But I think I’m better off this way coz then I don’t get disappointed too much when things don’t go my way. Anyway, high expectations never did anything good for anyone. I have spent the last 8 years having such high expectations and in that process living those 8 years in some state or version of hurt about something or someone. So I am learning not to be like that coz it just hurts everything around you. Some people perceive you as indifferent but like I said, life’s too short for you to be worried about what everyone thinks about.

I am a hypocrite. I also love to write.

Hokay? :p

P.S Back in office again and ready to go. We did not go to The Pavilion last night. We went to La Rambla. It was cool. The esquillade was vveryyyy tasty. Had coffee, had cigarettes and came home. Peaceful night.

relak lah! formerly known as secret shag

First things first…. If you are Singaporean and you have not noticed the uproar about Sarong Party Girl, you should crawl back into the cave you have been living in and feed on your ignorant soul. That is a bit harsh coz who really cares anyway?

Needless to say, I do care and I must give my two cents worth to this argument. Sarong Party Girl’s blog is one of the most interesting ones I have ever read. She is definitely out there doing her thing and basically living her life. Her blog personality at least is very, very direct and that in itself is commendable. I don’t agree with her philosophy in life and she is very offensive at times, but this is her blog and even if she has to some extent tailored her posts to catch the attention of her audience, who hasn’t? We should leave her to her own devices and move on.

Plus, she is also very, very young and tries to paint herself as a Carrie Bradshaw type of person. But if you have seen some of the posts she has put up in the last month, you get glimpses of how confused and directionless she is beneath the cock-sure veneer she tries to project through her writing. Give her a break. She’s not a super-human. What she is, is an opinionated, progressive kind of girl trying to make it in a world that embraces differences. Compromises have had to be made and if her ‘compromise’ has been to shed her conventions and be someone that causes people to turn their heads and look at her, it’s a compromise that has suited her well. Her recent fame is testament to that.

In my personal opinion, her blog has lost some of its lustre because now everyone reads it and no doubt, her expressions will be influenced by this new kind of attention she’s getting. It’s already happening. She has a comment section now.

***********************************************************************************
Enough about her, more about me, me, me. I don’t have leisure time anymore. Sure there are loads of hours in a day when I don’t have to do work but it’s never leisure time if u know what I mean. It’s like, ok, so there are 8 hours left before I sleep, so I should eat, relax, check mail, read a bit, go for a drive and maybe a cigarette and then come back and sleep. So basically what I am trying to say is that everything is planned. Even over the weekend, the mentality is such that we have to do as much as we can before work starts on Monday. It’s still fun, but it’s a bit exhausting at times and it will take some adjusting to.

However, if you go out of Colombo, everything changes and you can do as much you can and still feel content. Absolute bliss. A few of my newly found friends and I went down-south to the sun-smooched beaches this past weekend. Let me introduce them to you: Pierced chick, Flamboyant, Aussie-mate, Angel-eyes, Magic-box. We drank: arrack, wine and rum. We smoked: cigarettes and weeeeeed. We swam: pool and beach. We danced: room, club and synchronized in the pool. We ate: bbq, sri lankan food, continental breakfast and we slepttttt. It was by far the most fun trip I have ever taken. These guys, I hardly know them, were so understanding, non-judgmental and fun I was just blown away. Literally. Well not literally. Damn!!! Usually I feel glad when I get home but since the whole experience was just amazing I was kinda sad to get home.

Anyways, cheers to them for making my life just a bit better with their company and the endless supply of ze candiez.
Until next time, au revoir.

the worries

I really wanted to post twice today. I don’t know why but I feel I am neglecting my blog these days.

The last week was quite fun actually. I like work. I hate getting up for it but once I am there I enjoy what I do, even if it means calling up people and coaxing them to give u a videotaped interview. A lot of people are averse to the idea of being filmed on camera which comes as sort of a pleasant surprise because one finds out that people are not as superficial and camera-hungry as we think they are. I find it’s such a pleasure to meet humble people because you can learn so much from them. I do not profess to have learnt a lot from humble people but I know it’s made me not complain about life’s circumstances as much as I used to.

Anyway, I do not find it surprising at all that people don’t want to be filmed because I know I would hate it. One never realizes how hideous one’s voice is unless it is taped and played over for one to hear. I heard my voice on one of the interviews and I cringed so badly that the audio-visual guy gave me a big smirk. I take solace in the fact that people are quite used to my voice and because I am not, I should be the only one to actually profess distaste for it.

Going back to the subject of liking what I do, I feel that I am quite suited to this position. I love research, I am reasonably creative and I find its quite fun to give presentations especially if it is well researched and thought-over. I believe I need some experience on how to handle the stress of the job but I am confident I will fit in quite soon. However, I am not too sure about whether this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. If you are a marketer, there is only a small promotional ladder. I mean the possibilities are pretty vast but if your natural environment is planning with the client and starting from scratch, then jobs at the top of the ladder are not likely to offer you this and you might get bored of a management job. The money’s a good substitute but still…you know what I mean.

When I examine this issue under even more harsh lighting, I feel that I will never be deliriously happy in a corporate job. My passion’s always been to write, this blog being a by-product of this passion. Unfortunately I have never indulged my passions because I come from a conservative Sindhi family and doing anything non-business related is frowned upon as impractical and disaster. Families exhibit toxic love in these instances where they sabotage your every move just to move you in the direction they want you to move in. Luckily for me, I liked business subjects and I have no regrets in doing my studies in them but that does not mean I shouldn’t be able to pursue what I really want. There’s nothing stopping me except my own fear of failing miserably at it but I think I can wait until I have established myself reasonably in a world where wearing formal clothes in the day are a maxim.

Another thing that’s worrying me all the time is that I worry all the time. My friend once told me that I need to make myself happy first and not to try to make life easier for others, in other words, not to be a doormat. I find myself stuck, really desperately stuck where I worry that I am not making people happy. I worry and I worry until I feel sick to the stomach that nobody’s going to have a good time, or I should throw myself in the middle of a fight between two people I care about so as to stop the fighting. It sucks. My happiness is irrevocably tied in with other people’s happiness. Other people’s lives impose on me in the sense that my life is probably made up of diverse set of other people lives and I can’t live my life happily if one of those lives I am made up of is unhappy!!!! And yet, I come across as a selfish prick. Sometimes decisions have to be made and I make them and some people are left happy and some are not but because everyone is so used to getting their own point of view considered, BECAUSE I PAY ATTENTION TO EVERYONE’S OPINION, once their opinion is overruled, who gets to feel the brunt of the hostility? Lucky guess anyone?

I must sleep now… good night fuckers.

The Politicization of the Sacred

Song: Old Habits Die Hard- OST Alfie
Ambience: Harsh lighting
Emotional State: Seeking silver lining
Physical State: Groggy. Horny? Hmm…one and the same thing? Hmmm

We all know relationships suck. What we don’t know is how much they suck when you are trying to pursue one in Colombo. First of all, that’s all there is. Relationships that is. Dating does NOT exist. If a guy asks a girl out, then that means both the girl and the guy have known for quite sometime that mutual feelings exist and that once the first date is set up, they become each other’s special (without hyphen)friends. It is just so typical of how it works in Colombo. I am sure that this exists elsewhere in the world but I am just trying to observe a few things about the society I live in.

Let me analyze further coz it makes me feel really clever. I make a couple of very damning statements in the above paragraph. Let us take them one by one.

“the girl and the guy have known for quite sometime that mutual feeling exist”

We have to make a primary assumption here. One party, let us say the boy, develops feelings first. Then he divulges this piece of information to his best friend. The boy and his best friend will brainstorm on strategies on how to get to know this girl better and FIND OUT whether this girl COULD POSSIBLY like them back. Harking back to Grade 8? Wait… there’s more.

So eventually the girl finds out and, let us assume, that she does feel kinda positive towards this guy. The girl will deign to drop hints about her true feelings, not on the boy itself, but very possibly some third party affiliated with the boy’s friend contingent.

Why does this brainstorming session happen? Is it because the guy is too cowardly to ask the girl out directly or is it some kind of skill the guy has developed over the years? We are all afraid of rejection because it makes us feel so small and inconsequential. It is quite natural to find out more about how the other side feels before unlocking your emotional floodgates. It just makes more sense because NO ONE likes to be rejected. Cowardice in this case can be quite excusable.

But still, not every boy can be a coward right? I mean the laws of probability tell us that this is something not quite possible right? Sure there are only a few boys who go up to a girl and ask their hand in courtship without considering the consequences but this is something very, very, very rare. So what is the other explanation?

I am afraid that the answer finds itself in the form of a Colombo girl. If a guy does by chance ask her out, she will reject him outright regardless of whether she likes him or not. It’s this mental block they have that if they do agree to go out with this guy, she is just too easy. She must abstain, she must be pure, she must have a white sheet the morning after. It’s the art of persuasion which they like but so often verges on the ugly because both guy and girl play games to such an extent to end in a state of confusion and hurt. What other choice does the guy have but to find out more, more, more?

“Dating does NOT exist”

The above rant, does somehow explain this statement. I mean after investing sooo many resources on finding out what the other side thinks who would want something casual? It’s as if the whole time they were sneaking looks at each other, playing games, finding out about his/her life, gossiping about him/her they were actually dating.

It’s fucked up as they come. The games these people play do not exclude them from the laws of relationships. I mean that although a whole load of energy gets spent on useless speculation and information gathering, it does not mean the relationship will be any more successful than one which develops out of a casual dating experience.

In fact, speaking from personal, vicarious experience, the relationship equivalent of no-man’s land plays havoc on any chance there is for a relationship to even develop, much less last for a decent amount of time. Boy and girl go back and forth and someone always gets hurt. Whatever happened to romantic dates, all-night conversations, all-day smses and that flush in the cheeks? Something tells me that it all exists, but in Colombo, other things such as ego, pride and mutual distrust come in the way. The situation’s changing slowly but mental blocks this prevalent are difficult to do away with.

Sad.

everything's fantastic...in retrospect

RESULTS!

It’s been a fucking experience the past 11 days. It really has. I’ve just about experienced every emotion in that period of time. Oh well, not really, but definitely a diverse range. Let’s start at the beginning. The 31st of May.

Results day dawned, like always, without a whimper, except perhaps the usual shout out going out to Allah from the Mosque that is close to our house. I woke up, had my lunch and decided I should meet Ash for coffee. Before meeting her I knew I would need some cigarettes considering my heart was starting to beat a bit faster with the thought of results coming out and the thought of drinking coffee AND smoking cigarettes. It really does feel good. I’m not some SATC sell-out. I am, I am. Sigh.

Well then, by the time I got to the place where she was lunching with a friend they had got fed up with the ambience so we decided to go somewhere else. We decided, minus the friend, to go Ash’s penthouse poolside. Ah…the luxury. We pseudo-sunned ourselves while having our beverages and talked about the various happenings in our life. It was kinda fun. Ashanie is one crude girl when she wants to be. Anyway the hilarity of it all wore off when at 5.15pm I realized that results had been out for FIFTEEN whole minutes. We rushed upstairs logged on and checked my results. Oh it was a bit nerve wracking. I got pretty decent-average grades so it was very anti-climatic. I mean if they had been very bad, I would have been pretty shocked and sad and very possibly I could have cried and if they had been excellent, I know I would have been jumping around. Good grades always give me a super high. So my results were:

Human Resource Management: A-
South Asia: People, Culture and Development: A
Asia the Modern World: B+
Service Marketing: B

I’m a bit disappointed with my grades but I know I shouldn’t be coz I really was pretty distracted last semester and to get these results is positively great but you know, the eternal hope always shines bright even in the dimmest of circumstances. So after much deliberation I pick the “content” emotion amongst many.

THE FUCKED-UPNESS OF SRI LANKAN BUSINESS

My workplace called me and told me that my first day of work would be the 2nd of June. So after spending a sleepless night I woke up at the un-godly hour of 7.30am and got dressed hyperactively in my official best. By the way, the sleeplessness of the previous night was not due to nervousness but coz I am sooo used to sleeping at 4am that the shock of sleeping at 11.45pm was just too much for my system to accept.

Anyway, I tiptoe in the office at exactly 9am and the receptionist tells me to sit down on the comfortable couches. Leo Burnett Solutions does not fit into the stereotypical hot shot firm very possibly located in one of those skyscraper buildings or takes up a monolithic building looking very modern etc. In fact, the office is built into an old Victorian-style house with a compound for parking cars at the front. The front of the building is made of glass which opens into the reception area. This area is not air conditioned. There are huge industrial fans blowing on either side of the reception and there are tiny chimes hanging from the ceiling which are forever tinkling. There are cool coppery ash trays located everywhere in the building. So all in all, the whole interior takes on a very rustic appearance.

Anyway, I formed a very, very positive impression of the place because not only did the place fit my bill for a cool place but the people walking in seemed very friendly and laid-back. My superior, Murtaza, a.k.a Matt, greets me and tells me that he is expecting me but his superior has not briefed him on what exactly I am going to do. He takes me to our superiors, so to speak and Mr. Michael Holsinger basically apologizes to me about how disorganized they are and tells me to come back on the 6th of June. He says this without the slightest indication of how very humiliating and embarrassing this going to be for ME so I tiptoe out again seething with anger. I know I need THEM more than they need ME but..but.. yeah.. it hurt my pride like hell. I have heard sooo many good things about Michael that I did not really want to thing bad about him but I am human after all.

I get home and my mother surprisingly does not laugh and is glad to have me back so she can fuss around me. I make a mental note that I will make use these next few days of holiday fully and with no guilt so I just jump into the sack and fall asleep for the next 4 hours. Ha ha.

But Sri Lankan business has a long way to go.

FIRST WEEK @ LEO BURNETT SOLUTIONS, SRI LANKA

So the much awaited Monday comes along and I make a conscious effort I shall be all relaxed and cool so as to make a favourable impression on everyone. Ha. I try my best never to kiss ass, but I didn’t know what to expect.

I didn’t have to kiss any ass because EVERYONE was very cool to me. I got my own desk in the Brand Planning and Client Servicing Department. This is the biggest department in the firm along with the Creative Department. Basically what this department does is that it meets up with the clients who want to launch an advertising campaign and then gets all the details from them. They then conduct the necessary research of the target consumers and use various resources to come up with a vague idea of what the campaign will look like.

For example, if GAP came to LBS and told them to launch a print campaign, LBS would then conduct research and find out that the 14-26 old age group would be the most viable and that magazines such as Cleo, Vogue, Playboy and GQ would be most effective. The department also has responsibility for coming with the creative idea before passing the job onto the Creative Department. What this means is that it tries to provide as much as relevant information to the creative department so as to inspire them. For example, if the brand planning department finds out that most men in the 14-26 age group are also avid PlayStation fans, and if they think that it’s a relevant characteristic of their personality, in the sense that it’s an indication of how competitive, childish they are and if they think it’s something that the creative department can use to come up with an ad, they inform them of this in what is called a creative brief or memo. The creative department can usually overrule what the brand planning department tells them to do but since they are so very busy they usually follow the train of thought that originates with our department.

This kind of thing excites me because I love doing research and finding out exactly who the consumer is and I also love being able to contribute creative ideas about interesting aspects of the consumer’s personality. My first job was based on launching a website for a Fashion Knitwear company branch in Sri Lanka but headquartered in Germany. I had to write a report on how they could communicate the existence of this website to the stakeholders as well as potential clients and employees as well as to attract repeated usage. It was quite a small thing to do but I managed to conduct some research and wrote a 3 page report on it. My superior, Matt liked it quite a bit and decided that it was good enough to send to the client directly with minimal correction. This bit of praise really helped me out because I was finding it very hard not to fall asleep because I have never been called on to be attentive for 8-9 hours straight.

My second project was to analyze a bit of research done by LBS for one of their clients who want to re-launch their product which is a brand of milk powder for mother’s and kids. I had to look at this research and conduct my own primary research to come up with new, innovative ideas of how to launch the milk powder. Since milk is such a routine and boring product and also that advertisements usually show the same thing (mum’s calling their kids in to drink milk) it was something of a challenge. We (another intern and I) had a very tight boundary to work within because we couldn’t go way out there coz the target audience is still relatively unsophisticated.

We collected our research by going out to a mall to ask mother-like figures questions. This was surprisingly quite a pleasant thing to do because mostly all the people we asked were very friendly and helpful. Anyway, our final product was not a report but what is called a ‘Concept Board’ in the advertising fraternity. A concept board is basically a collage of pictures which when collectively viewed give you a clear idea of who your target audience is. In the sense if you were to advertise, for example a Football match, a concept board would show pictures of something that would clearly explain who your target audience was; therefore pictures of beer, chips, a couch, a few porn magazines would tell you exactly what the alpha-male was interested in.

So at the end we collected pictures of tea parties, recipes, soap opera ads, romance novel covers, working mother stuff, telephones etc. It wasn’t anything too new or anything but I hope that my creative brief will impress them more than our concept board.

I come home everyday around 6pm totally shagged which is the only bitch in the whole experience (and getting up early) but I suppose I will get used to it. I hope so coz I need a social life.

THE CANNES FILM FESTIVAL AND ADVERTISING?

My first week at this amazing firm came to an end last night when they had an office gathering/party. I didn’t know this but the Cannes Film Festival, in addition to screening films also screens the best television advertisements for that year. So what LBS usually does is that they acquire the entire reel of the 50 ads they show at Cannes and screens it for their employees and their biggest clients in order to inspire them and also just to meet up and mingle. These ads were amazing and really, they were fucking inspirational. The ‘Intelligent Shoe’ ad by Adidas was one of them and McDonalds came up with some great ones too. Basically they provided each of us with a form with the list of advertisements. We have to mark out what we think are the 20 best advertisements so that when the results are announced next week, the scores of each form are tallied up and the three highest scores get some prizes which include a holiday at some beach resort, a mobile phone, a bottle of liquor and some other shite. Fun!

There was a dress code for this party too. We all had to wear something red and they painted our faces with red and white paint to make us look like warriors. I don’t know exactly why but it was great fun. There was a bar too! Free drinks! The long island iced teas were gross and I got drunk on two of them but of course that didn’t stop me. I hung with Matt and this girl called Shehara in the creative department. She is very cool. Piercings everywhere! Rock on! And oh yes, Matt, is 24 years old and is an awesome, awesome guy. I am very happy to have him as my boss. And Michael, the guy I very briefly hated, is very funny and lets you smoke with him on his rounds around the office.

After that met up with friends at Clancy’s and got drunk on arrack, B&H and beer. Came home at 2.45am.

Early night. Yawn

Song playing: Wonderwall- Ryan Adams
Movie about to be played: Osama
Food about to be eaten: Apple

I’ve got a date tomorrow! Yay!

interpret this!

Day: 29th May
Time: 10.25pm

I’ve been having really weird dreams lately. Most of my friends would know by now that I am very prone to having bizarre dreams but as of the past few days, my dreams have notched up to what even I would call extremely extraordinary.

I find that simple fact usually is proof enough to illustrate the above.

Dream #1: Dreamt I was a ‘Polka-Dot Managing Executive’ of Party-Party Entertainment Co. I was in charge of managing the distribution of Polka-Dots before the party and other technical details that included the size, colour and ‘vibrating frequency’ of each Polka-Dot.

Comment: I have no idea where the Polka-Dot thang came from but the vibrating frequency thing is definitely an O.C thing.

Dream #2: Dreamt I was Rama crossing over to Sri Lanka on the stone path built in the ocean. Was accompanied by Sita (!!!), Durga and Pooja. Also Hanuman was flying overhead and wiping the sweat on his head with this hairy tail.

Comment: Why in hell was I going to Sri Lanka when Sita was with me? Durga and Pooja are not Goddesses, but in fact, are two very hot sisters who live in Colombo. They are pretty popular and the elder sister, Durga, owns one of the finest waffle places in Colombo. Hanuman and his sweaty tail? Don’t ask me!

Dream #3: Dreamt I was amongst some really beautiful Russian men and women sitting in one of their castles in Moscow, you know one of those groovy ones with the minarets et al. I was drinking shot after shot of neat Vodka and it was burning down my throat but I was enjoying it all. Then the dream gets fuzzy and the next thing I remember is sitting outside the house eating snow and my tears freezing in my eyes and me going blind.

Comment: A very normal one for me. Although it wasn’t a dream really; no one likes going blind! Duh. But I do remember reading that this happens quite often in Russia.

Dream #4: Dreamt that I was on a carousel and I was thrown off and landed on the sets of the Oprah Winfrey show. She was interviewing Karan Johar and Simi Garewal and I was this fly on the wall, vowing to be on the show one day.

Comment: Sigh. A tell-tale sign of overdosing on Star World?

Dream #5: Dreamt I was popping acid at Zouk. Anonymous sex. Earth-shattering, ear-pounding, soul-shuddering, limb-shivering ejaculation.


No comment.

agatha wasn't lying.. and neither was star plus

Real life is every bit as treacherous and sinister as all those movies and television programs make it out to be. Why do I say this, considering that I am relatively untouched by scandal, treachery, and betrayal? I have actually been caught up in one or two ‘scandals’ that were blown way out of proportion but they never really paralleled the mother or all inventions, pun intended, the television. Anyway, my life is so not the point here.

There has been a murder in the Sindhi community. My mother is acquainted with the lady who died. Apparently, the victim’s sister in law had been poisoning her with god-knows-what (arsenic, perhaps?) for a long time. She had been losing weight and people had finally noticed that she was practically wasting away. On the day of the victim’s daughter’s birthday, the sister in law had forced the poor lady to drink a cup of coffee (or tea; details get mixed up) so that she could attend the daughter’s birthday. At the party, the lady had fainted and by the time the ambulance came she was dead. An autopsy was done and there strong traces of some unpronounceable poison in her blood.

Well, this is slightly complicated. Apparently, the sister in law was sleeping with the victim’s husband. Let me make this relationship clearer to you.

Victim married Husband1 whose brother is Husband 2 who is married to Killer.

So according to the sources, which are almost always undeniably correct, the victim had seen her husband and the sister in law in action and she had been got rid off before she had told Husband2.

Exciting right? I find there are major loopholes in this particular bit of speculation/distorted fact.

*Why the slow death process then? Maybe it was just the rumour of the slow death and whoever tried to kill her wanted to do it one shot.
*Why was the sister in law arrested and not the husband? Maybe she is at fault because she made the cup of coffee but surely, the husband might have been involved? I find it difficult to believe that the sister in law was doing this alone. It is possible however.
*Couldn’t she have killed herself? I mean, if the victim had just seen her husband getting it on with the sister in law, then suicide surely can’t be ruled out of the equation?
*Why the stupidity of killing her through poison? I mean Husband2 would definitely know NOW that his wife was a slut and his brother was a bastard right? Maybe the administration of the dose was overshot by way too much.

There is only one thing to be sure of at this point of time, a lady died of an overdose of poison. It sounds so stupid when you say overdose because, why would you take poison recreationally? I mean even if it is 1millilitre or less, isn’t that an overdose to? Whatever, I must stop now because I am very aware of how bimbotic I sound. Aww shucks.

My mother told me this story with the requisite amounts of sympathy for the victim and the family (the non-killers at least) but she didn’t really emote fright or shock or anything what I felt. I asked her why.

Mum: Oh these things are so common.
Me: WHAT? On Star Plus maybe!
Mum: Please, where do you think Ekta (??!!) gets her ideas from? REAL LIFE! Don’t be dumb, open your eyes.
Me: Aiyo! What rubbish! Don’t talk lies
Mum: Don’t believe me!! How do you think Chandra died? Her aunt took her to the terrace and stabbed her
Me: omigod

I heard about this story. Chandra was this 14 year girl who got stabbed by her aunt because everyone thinks the aunt was mad or the girl had seen her doing something which she shouldn’t have been doing. Probably a man or three.

Can you believe it? We are in the Sindhi community and where I do realize this does not in any circumstance give us an exception over the rule, the rule being that crime exists everywhere, I did not expect at all for it to be so close to home. I do have a bit more respect for the now not-so-hysterical-and-overacted programs my mum watches every night.

I really am a prude to be shocked at what should be a very mundane and everyday thing. Disgrace befalls me.

I’m wondering if I can bring up this argument to fight an arranged marriage proposal that might come my way. I’ll be like, ‘ma, please, don’t want. Look at what happened to victim and killer sister in law!!’ I’d rather not you know considering that the killer-sister in law marriage might be one of the few Sindhi marriages that were NOT arranged. Then I would really be screwed but why am I even talking about arranged marriage? I’ve got bigger problems than that!!

But anyway, I hope by next week I won’t be talking about murders at the vicarage and little Belgian men walking about my street.

get out the champagne peoplez!!!

I am at the moment very giddy over the results of American Idol. Call me a loser I don’t care but CARRIE won! Yay! Bo was completely awesome too. In fact, the entire group of finalists this year was absolutely fantastic. It was very evident in the medley these guys did with their supposed idols… Carrie sounded sooo good with that unknown group! And Constantine, Jessica Sierra and Nadia reminded me how very offended we were when they were kicked out!!! Constantine especially! Carrie and Constantine in the finals was such a good prospect but Bo really did step it up! And oh yeah, fuck off, I still think Anwar is great!!!!!

CARRIE WON!!! YAY!

Ok, forgive me for this post! I had to do it! I’m sure not many people will know what the fuck I am talking about anyway!

Kansas Cow Indeed!!!$#%$#%

Song playin: I believe- Fantasia (i swear i did not plan it this way)

provincialities

Date: 26th May
Time: 12.54am

Song playing: Sober- Tool (omg)

GO CARRIE!

I know, I know, it’s been sooo long since I last updated. What to do, what to do, I am sooo busy. That’s pure cock! I’ve been doing nothing except being lulled into some sort of complacency that consists of HBO, Star Movies, AXN, Star World and even the damn Discovery channel! Since my sister is away having a ball of a time in Bangalore and Chennai, there is no need to vacate her room at 5.30pm which is about the time she comes home after work and tells me to fuck off.

Ah well, so I’ve just been doing nothing except watch TV. There is no truth in the age old saying ‘an idle mind is the devil’s workshop’ because cable TV has negated the need to be idle. Therefore idleness is just about effectively close to being obsolete. This means, that we are slowly becoming drones; machines that will perform only the most routine tasks such as cleaning oneself and making the obligatory trip to the repair shop, which since we are humans consists of making content our soul’s need for human contact and medicine. Speaking outside of the useless, convoluted world that I live in, that basically means, I wake up, clean myself and watch TV but from time to time venture outside with friends and make trips to the pharmacy on errands since I am still human and benevolent enough to keep my family well stocked with medicines and by implication, alive.

But let me touch on the highlights of the last few days. After Nadeeka’s birthday dinner, Sunday was a day in which we all recuperated and flushed out all the toxins that had, so miraculously, accumulated in our systems. I just laid about, like a beached whale on my couch, reading away to glory. I finished The Spell and started on Chetan Bhagat’s book on life at IIT, ‘Five Point Someone’. The story is about 3 students at IIT, who are the ‘best’ of friends and who come to pact that renounces studies in favour of enjoying the best days of their lives, which to them is being seriously screwed up by the brutal IIT system. The story’s amusing enough but people, come on, let us stop bitching about NUS. Compared to IIT, life at NUS is like being at a fucking spa. Of course, I have never been to a spa, but that is so not the point.

Monday was a national holiday because of Vesak. Now in Colombo, it was the day prior to Vesak so that means it is classified as a holiday. I love Vesak. It’s a time when all of Colombo comes out in their cars, trucks, bicycles and even on foot to witness the gorgeously and intricate lanterns that are put on display. I took some nice blurred photographs of lanterns in the dark and the effect is quite stunning even though it screams amateurish. I took my little cousin out to see the lanterns put on display by HSBC to raise money for children in need. HSBC is just opposite my house so we crossed the road and I got busy clicking away and completely forgot my cousin who was trying to get herself killed by the oncoming cars. Stupid me! My heart was in my throat when I bought her home. I honestly felt sick but you know me, I was all happy again in five minutes.

My 17 year old servant- please keep your judgments to yourself, like you look at age before employing a domestic!- decides she wants to view the spectacles of Vesak this year. She tells my mum that her mum is picking her up and taking her about the town to do this very thing. My mum’s heart melts, or much more likely, nods dumbly at her request while watching Kyun Ki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, and lets her go. Well by 3am she hadn’t turned up so she sighed and went back to sleep. The next day, the mum turns up the next day demanding to see her daughter. Sickening realization sets in and we, er, realize that the fucking imp has run away. I warn my mother about setting an appointment with the gynaecologist when and if she turns up. That didn’t bode very well unfortunately and I was told to screw off and not interfere in such matters but I know my mum was worried about how she was going to cope with a pregnant servant. I mean how would she wash the bathrooms? Ha Ha Ha. I suggested she might have to pay her extra since she was, you know, expecting. I added that she might have a grandchild on her hands and for moment, she looked very alarmed, as if in her distracted state I was implying that I had got someone preggers but then she saw I was referring to her beloved maid and she told me in so many words to get the fuck away from her.

Ah the reinvigorating powers of provincialities… I could get used to this (not).

Today, I went out with my cousins. Pooja is 18 years old and she is depressed because her Advanced Level examinations are going on and their destroying her social life. She regales me with stories about the politics that go on in her class- evil twin sisters, snitching, prefect election politics, ‘unfair’ punishments due to using nail polish and sporting short skirts etc. I am very intrigued. Dinesh, her 15 year old brother puts me to shame with his driving skills and thinks he is some macho man because he uses the words ‘dick’, ‘pussy’, ‘fuck’. I sagely nod and come up with beatific smiles to show I am above all this, but I do in fact, find real interest in them because I see myself in them. Of course, they are sooo much more posh and want iPods instead if Nokia 3310 phones. In fact, the punk already has an iPod! Envy never gets you anywhere if you don’t have the money. :
We went bowling. I won of course. Usage of beatific smile once more. I got a score of 123. Really, that has been my average for some time now. I must up it somehow. Ahh but my bowling partner and best friend, Shawn, is in fucking England now so the zest of the game has evaporated without his asinine antics and embarrassing shows on the alleys. After consuming an entire portion of fries, devilled sausages and Pepsi we decide we have ventured out enough for the day and it was time to head home to catch the American Idol finale. Sigh. I love Idol. Will miss it lor.

Right then, Buhary comes over to watch the finale and we just chill for awhile. After bitching about the contestants we go out for a drive so that I could finally smoke in peace. We park next to the railway tracks and I am fine with smoking under the road lights but he decides we need to be more adventurous. Therefore, we cross over the railway tracks and I smoke in an area which is entirely dark, breezy, and full of creepy men milling about. Amidst jokes about being raped, Buhary contemplates going bathing in the sea. I freak out, stub out my cigarette and run to my car! This is a guy who likes asking the ugliest prostitutes for their charges because he finds hilarity in such things. Another example is, shouting at men who are pissing on some random wall so they get scared and spray their stream all over the place. Great. Although I hesitate, I admit it was fucking hilarious. Then dropped off Buhary and went to pick up Nadeeka for coffee. Chatted, drank coffee, ate cheesecake and came home carefully so that mum wouldn’t pick up smoke smells.

Recommendation of the Day: watch Nip/Tuck. It… Is… Awesome!

heady times

Date: 22nd May
Time: 1.47am

Song playing: You are my everything- Mary J. Blige

It seems that I have acquired a taste for the finer things in life. I realize that I have become one of the people I hate with a vengeance i.e. a snob. I think that the moralistic hate was a poor disguise for the true, unadulterated emotion underneath: envy. Thou shalt not covet. Oh but I do covet. Every fibre of my body reverberates with the bitter boredom of my life. Natural I think? Or not? Whatever.

The past few days have been incredibly social. I always knew myself to be a veritable social butterfly flitting from buttercup to buttercup sucking up the sweet nectar and heady fumes of any party but, I’ve never entered high society. This weekend I did, although it did not start off that way.

I was shopping with sister on Thursday when a Sindhi friend of ours invited us to a barbecue he was having at his house on Friday. I thought it might be fun as I would get to meet a few Sindhis (Sindhi youth are much cooler than I imagined, but I still feel a bit uneasy around my own kind) and get to know them better. Maybe I would take a great liking to them and would develop a Sindhi clique! My sister and mother would be sooo glad. They always complain that I am some English putthar. Anyways, I get there and there is free booze. Grrreeat. So I hung about a bit there, met some non-Sindhis who were very cool and got their numbers. Maybe, if my suspicions are right, something might work out there?

I had to leave early to meet some friends for drinks. Get to the place really, really late only in time for two tequilas, but I was already riding the crest of four really hard Bacardi cokes so I had no problem with having missed out on the golden opportunities that a bottle of tequila offers. After getting done there headed off to the club to meet a different set of friends. My dearest school friends. All TWO of them. Unfortunately, they were tired and they went back home at 1.30am. Shock! I was left intentionally stranded. God forbid I go home just as the night is starting. I call Shiny and she’s at Tantra! Yay! Tantra is a cool, open air place on the 4th floor and it’s cool because people just stand there talking with each other and slowly getting themselves drunk on a very functional kind of drivel. Snobberies, snobberies.

Hooked up with Ash and her boyfriend at Tantra and head off to the Library. This is where I just about pass through the doors of a very elite kind of society. The boyfriend is filthy rich. Mozzie. Big business, big networks, the works. The Library by the way is another club. It was empty but sitting around and nursing a drink was something I couldn’t complain about because you know, the drink was absolutely gorgeous and free. After getting through the ‘chore’ of what Ash said was an obligation to entertain a few guests, off we went to My Kind of Place, another club. The place was pumping with good music and it was a jolt to my system to see such good looking people milling around. Ang-Moh’s galore! French, Spanish etc. So the boyfriend orders, I think, everything on the damn wine list. Like some impoverished, old, Victorian aunt I mooch off this new found generosity. I was a bit uncomfortable at first, but Ash’s sweet coaxings and some 8 glasses of champagne & arrack have a way of devastating inhibitions. This is where everything got glittery and glamorous as I got progressively wasted. I actually also started some 5-6 conversations with people I didn’t know and was like I said, talking drivel but enjoying every moment of it. There was this girl, a look-alike of Annie from Sunset Beach (or Miranda from Bold and the Beautiful) who I imagined was checking me out which only added fuel to the fires of my risqué attachment to everything rich and prolific.

See what I mean, I don’t like myself right now. Actually I do. Like myself.

I get home, completely off my face and mum is awake. Shit. She obviously guesses that I’m pretty much drunk but she just scolds me to go to sleep after a cursory conversation:

Medusa: You’ve been drinking
Me: Yeah
Medusa: Why do you do this to me? *notice how she says ‘me’ as if the liquor that I consume makes her drunk
Me: Yeah. What to do.
Medusa: You are the cause of all my illnesses: wheeze, ‘flu, cough, sore throat, everything bloody your fault
Me: Goodnight. I’m going to piss.

I wake up and feel, inevitably, fucked up but mum seems to be cool so my fears of being sent to military school or even worse, getting my allowance revoked are allayed. She also plies me with grapes (claiming it is really good after ‘a night at the discotheque’), curd, aspirin and a solemn lecture about the evils of drinking. However, I am not fooled by this cool-ness, though I am grateful for it. My mom made faint threats which I shall ignore until the next time I am off my face and imagining the worst kind of reaction in my compromised, mountainous (as opposed to mole-hill, ha ha) state.

Speaking of social graces and impoverished aunts, while I was getting over the terrible after-effects I managed to watch Vanity Fair. Now this movie got very bad reviews but I actually liked it. A lot. I haven’t read the book so obviously I had nothing to compare against but as a movie it’s pretty decent though nowhere as near to Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding. A-.

Lazily dressed up for Nadeeka’s birthday dinner. Myself, Shavanka, Ishani, Iro, Afzal, Muffu and the birthday girl went to a place called Tulips owned by one of Sri Lanka’s premier gay man who doubles as a transvestite. He is huge, that is to say fat and he displays photographs of himself in drag all over the restaurant. All his waiters are gay too. Surprise Surprise! He is dating the owner of the firm I going to work for as an intern. Little titbits of information that one hears if one goes out reasonably frequently.

The food was good, the place very nicely decorated and the cake we got for the birthday girl was abso-fucking-lutely delicious. Some chocolate brandy thang. After dinner we go for coffee and come home. Coffee surprisingly turned out to be the most social part of the evening because we kept on bumping into people we knew and hugging and kissing and bitching with them. Nadeeka is 22! Go baby! She got Davidhoff’s Echo Women from Afzal, a mug from Ishani (the same one I have, only with an N inscribed on it) and aromatherapy incense and a chain from me.

And now here I am blogging about how much I like being a snob. You could call me a wannabe snob. Maybe this is the elusive downward spiral. Or maybe it was only this weekend. Maybe what I experienced was still in the lower rungs of the social ladder. I shall now relegate myself to doing very unexciting things, like going for drives and watching movies and talking on the phone.

Dahlings!

glitterati

Date: 19th May
Time: 1.53am

I have just come back from a typically Sindhi wedding. I mentioned in a previous post of mine about a Mehendi- well this was the subsequent wedding.

It was held at the Holiday Inn and my sister and I walk in pretty late while the wedding ceremony is going on. The wedding ceremony is supposed to be conducted in a place that signifies something about the vows these two people are making for the rest of their lives, i.e. a temple etc but instead it is held in one of the most profane environments of all, a hotel ballroom. At least it wasn’t in a club or something. The ceremony was being conducted at the extreme right of the ballroom with its makeshift stage and inevitable rudimentary fireplace and a priest who sweats profusely but yet is able to monotone his praises to the Wedding Gods while smiling his grime sheathed teeth to the cameras clicking away photographs which will fill at least forty useless albums.

I was just thinking, if Wedding Gods do exist, then their mortal, or rather; immortal enemies would be the Divorce Devils. Their respective counterparts would probably be the Birth Goddesses and the Abortion Demons. And I suppose, the Miscarriage deity would probably side with the God or the Devil depending on the woman’s personality. If she was a good soul and she had a miscarriage, then God would have caused it to prevent future pain, like if the child turned out to be retarded or just dumbfuck jerk. If she was a plain bitch, the demon would have caused the miscarriage in the 8th month, to punish both the bitch and the child (after all it is a Demon). Hmmm…Interesting.

The ballroom was gorgeously decorated. While the ceremony was going on, we all had to enter the hall and take our seats graciously and with hushed respect for the he-who-sweats-profusely-attention-whore and of course the couple. At each table, there’s a sleek candle burning which throws off a very subdued glare that flickers sexily on the cutlery and on everybody’s glasses. We all also get a glass of juice served in a champagne glass as soon as we are seated. It is quite disappointingly only juice, but rightfully so considering the hall is filled with old ladies who might have all kinds of coronaries and aneurysms if they took a sip of the Devil’s liquid. Of course some of these cunning ladies might down quite a few alcoholic drinks before crying foul, you know, just for the sake of proprietary and for the plain fun of good ol’bitching.

Additionally, the ballroom had these beautiful chandeliers which are a trademark of the Holiday Inn. The twinkling, ostentatious chandeliers lent a lot of glamour to the whole thing. It was really nice sitting there, me in a pin-striped suit with a white shirt (no tie), my sister in a 25 year old vintage black, sequiny saree, at a table full of strangers but laden with a beautifully intricate lace table cloth with a gold border. You can’t help but notice these things sometimes.

Dinner was predictably Indian fare. After the obligatory Congratulations shout out by DJ Curzon, we took to the buffet table like, well, Sindhis. I felt like slapping an old man as he pretended to be lost and wedged in front of me in the line. I couldn’t of course you know, because too many people were watching. The food was, in this case, unpredictably quite good. At my cousin’s wedding two years back, at the Taj Samudra, a whole contingent of guests who travelled all the way from the Caribbean, fell sick after eating the buffet at the Mehendi. So embarrassing for us!! This girl’s tongue actually turned black after the incident. Luckily it passed within a day and she was all ready to soak up the free alcohol at the wedding a few days later.

Getting back to this wedding and of course the alcohol, the bar was unfortunately situated very near to a close group of relatives who were paying a lot of attention on my movements, like they knew I was going for the alcohol. In an imagined world I see all my uncles clapping high-five when they saw their son/nephews going towards the bar. They would say stuff like, ‘Oh thank god, I thought he was going to be, you know, chee, I don’t know how to say this, a non-drinking sissy’. That day will never come because Sindhi husbands are very much controlled by their ball-squeezing tough ass bitches that’ve been brought up on entire lectures on the dangers of drink. Sensible women. NOT.

But resourceful as I am I got a friend to sneak me a Bacardi Coke. It was sooo fucking strong. It was absolute bliss lah. Quickly gulped it down but I saw a few of my uncles give me disapproving looks. Tsk tsk. I still think they probably express disapproval because they’re so jealous since we have become so cocky and so secretly-public with our furtive drinking habits whereas they had to plan in advance some big day in which they could drink and be off their faces. Damn, I wasn’t even driving, I should have drunk more. In fact, at that fateful Mehendi mentioned above, I WAS driving but I still swigged away around eight Bacardi Cokes. It was only later that I was informed that I was supposed to take my mum, my sister, my aunt and my grandmother home. I handled it quite well but I’d rather not take the risk again. There is a certain something about having 70-80 bottles of wine, champagne, Bacardi, vodka, gin and whisky at your beck and call that makes you take risks!!

Anyway, let me comment on the people. As we all have heard a million times, Sindhi’s are very, very conscious about how they look in public. Therefore it was not surprising to see the glitterati out in full force. There were diamonds, amethysts, opals, emeralds and sapphires all glowing fiercely on the mostly wrinkled necks of middle to old aged women. The sarees were sometimes flawless, sometimes gaudy, sometimes elegant, sometimes looking like shit. The men were mostly dressed in expensive looking suits and it was sooo refreshing to see that a lot of my peers were being original and wearing uniquely coloured ties with nicely coloured shirts. My favourite combination was where the guy was wearing an orange shirt with a suede black tie. Very sleek.

The best part of all this is that even though the riches were quite obviously flowing effortlessly around the ballroom, it was NOT a high-profile wedding. The Joneses are always on the minds of wedding planners.

Seriously though, the wedding was faintly exciting as I got to see some people who I haven’t met in AGES. It was also quite scary to see the pretentiousness of it all but fuck it, it’s just up to us to have fun. I did have fun! I checked out people indiscriminately and imagined myself doing un-godly things on the stage when everyone had left. I also socialized and it was refreshing to have one or two intellectual conversations in the midst of the equally refreshing eight or nine bimbotic ones.

And then we left. We took our parting gifts of wedding cake and liquor chocolates and drove home. Absolutely sober. Damn.

Song of the moment: Try- Nelly Furtado

imma relationship wrecker plus.. overview of life

Date: 15th March
Time: 11:39pm

By mid week of my first few days in Colombo I was already dreading the weekend. I mean if the weekdays had been so boring, what would the weekend be like? I know people go out more on the weekend and therefore it should be more fun than weekdays, but in Colombo, especially during the day, people just like to rest and do nothing. I don’t mind that because I am definitely not a morning (or afternoon) person but being at home was going to be extra worse. My mother usually watches TV for pretty much the entire day so this takes up her time very well. However, during the weekend, the prime time soaps she absolutely adores don’t show which enables her to pay more attention to her children. So in our small little house, small only because I don’t have my own room, her attention becomes a gross invasion of non-existent privacy. I love my mum, but this becomes too much when my sister too, stays in bed the entire day enjoying her weekend. Usually, I can escape to my sister’s room but when she is there, its not so much escape but falling into another deeper, darker trap.

I exaggerate but do feel sorry for me.

Anyway, like always, my dread was unwarranted. I know my last post, which was posted in the wee hours of Saturday, should have bought up to date on the events of Friday but well, it didn’t. Ha Ha. So let me just go right ahead.

I went out for dinner with my school friends on Friday night. We were actually supposed to go clubbing but the object of my friend’s overly amorphous affection cancelled out last minute, so her brethren of ‘best’ friends had to understand the unworthiness of going out without him and therefore cancelling the entire plan seemed like the best thing.

On we proceeded to get some good ol’ Sri Lankan prepared Chinese food at ‘Flower Drum’. It was all in all a pretty good evening as far as company was concerned but I found out some pretty interesting stuff too.

Just before going for dinner I dropped into my infatuated friend’s house for a bit of catching up. She told me that the guy who was interested in her aeons ago (incidentally he’s also part of our clique and was joining us for dinner later) actually hates me. I was like ‘huh’? So apparently, the reason he hates me is because I used to call her up even when I knew he had a massive crush on her.

Now she is my best friend and being the good soul I was, I encouraged her to go out with him. In fact, in those early days, most of my phone conversations with her used to centre around him and about her conflicted feelings for him. So imagine my shock that he used to think that I was calling her because I had feelings for her!! How absurd!! He still feels that I was the one who kept them apart because I was too much of a selfish bastard to give him a try. I can understand the jealousy he might have felt because she and I used to hang around a lot but I guess he didn’t really understand the concept of a best friend. The prick doesn’t realize that it was HIM that turned her off in the first place. How dare he suggest I am a relationship (or lack thereof) breaker!! I realize that I’m giving myself too much credit but his bitching has gone beyond our immediate social circle and I am just itching to give him a piece of my mind.
Also he feels that the comfort zone I share with her is way too inappropriate. He keeps on advising her about how I have an ulterior motive if I for example give her a random hug or a random spank on her ass. Ha ha. If only he knew me better he would realize that I spank a lot of people’s asses and even though I know I am a slut, there is no way in hell that I could sleep with ALL the people I’ve spanked before! Seriously if this is not attempting to tarnish one’s name I don’t know what is. Fucking hypocritical religious bastard!!

I’m not pissed with him, I’m quite indifferent to it because honestly, his opinion matters the least to me. I actually enjoyed being in the same room with him and observing his reactions when I intentionally spanked his ex-almost-lover’s ass and flirted with her indiscriminately. It’s all very immature and childish but fun as hell! I swear he’s such a stupid dick.

Saturday was a relaxing day as well. Just did nothing the entire day but watch cable and just stew in my own environment. Environment, what a politically correct, un-crude word… In the night, my mum and I went to Navaratnam for dinner. It’s an Indian restaurant at the Taj Samudra hotel. It was a very good dinner although we over-ordered and consequently ate toooo much. To all the Mallu’s I know, the Coconut Pepper Chicken was awesome. It was listed in the menu as one of Kerala’s finest dishes so I thought, hey why not try it. It was pretty good shite!!!

After dinner I dropped dearest momma home and took a trishaw to the nearest cigarette shop to buy myself a pack of Marlboro Lights- my first in almost 10 days! Then I met up with some of my NUS friends for drinks at a country club of sorts. We drank there for a while and ended up at a club around 1am. It was a good night; the music and company were brilliant. I think I might have strained my neck a bit too much but it’s all good. Nadeeka thought the waiter hit on me! Of course I didn’t realize it. I was quite drunk when I got home but after a quick spray of deodorant, wash of face, brush of teeth/tongue I was good to face the Gorgon Medusa….i.e. Mother. But luckily she was dead to the world so I just slipped into bed and fell asleep.

Sunday was relatively dead. I read a bit and went with Bu to Nads’s place. We ended up chatting and bitching for almost 2 hours. Kinda fun lah! After that came home, dropped mum and sis off at a Mehendi party and came home to embrace an empty house for the first time since I’ve been back. I watched bits and pieces of The Forgotten and chatted on the phone. I also, treated myself to a bit of alone time. Hee Hee.

I’ve just about run out of steam to type out anything more so I shall sign off now okilah?

Song of the moment: The Lonely Shepherd- Zamfir

sarongs, parties, girls

Date: 14th March
Time: 12.10am

Song of the moment: Freed from Desire- Gala

Sarong Party Girls or SPG’s, as we fondly (contemptuously) call them are a certain breed of Singaporean Chinese girls who exclusively date Caucasian men. I don’t know the exact roots of the word but could it have anything to do with Chinese girls waving their sarongs shyly (slyly?) at Caucasian men at parties? Too obvious? Furthermore, Chinese girls do not even wear sarongs…! Hmmm… But anyway, this is way off the point, as usual.

The first time I was out at Carnegies- infamously known among the Indian and Sri Lankan contingents at NUS as the place to get free entry, ladies-night-free-champagne and $5 vodka’s- my friend brought to my attention the activities of some pretty decent looking Chinese chicks. These girls were seriously strutting their stuff in front of 40-something sweaty, hairy and beery British men. The effect was almost comical as they alternated between looking aloof and performing some hysterical dance move more suited to the Lil’Kim’s of the world. Well my friend told me that these girls wanted to get with the ang-mohs (singlish term for Caucasian men). I was quite indifferent to this but my friend pulled me aside and whispered in my ear that in Singapore these girls were all over the place. He even said there was a term that applied to these women. And voila! That is how I found about SPG’s! By the way, just in case you have been living under a rock these past few months, Carnegies has now closed down. Sad times….. A moment of silence please.

In my opening paragraph I mentioned that I fondly look upon them. Before I get to explain why, let me explain why I used to look upon SPG’s with utter disdain. Well, apart from the general perception among Singaporeans about the despicability of SPG’s, my own opinion about them wasn’t so harsh, but nevertheless quite bad. I used to equate these women with being whores and used to wonder why they would so aggressively pursue a white man. I mean we all have our ‘types’ but to actually have a species by the name of SPG, these women have to have been doing something more . You don’t exactly get Indian women being branded as Saree-Prayer Girls or Big-Dong Worshippers, so why particularly Chinese women? Ignore the lame joke.

These are all questions I don’t have the answers to. The answers could probably lie in the over-hype of SPG’s- maybe it isn’t so prevalent-, maybe it lies in popular culture, where the white man is eternally the rescuer of the exotic and petite Chinese maiden. Perhaps the attraction lies in biological fact. Maybe white men really, truly have better endowed bodies (and Asian women have tighter than tight bodies). Maybe, maybe, maybe but that is not the point. My point is that my whole perspective has changed on discovering a particular girl’s blog who unabashedly calls herself a Sarong Party Girl. If you look to the right of my screen, she is forever immortalized in a link that will transport you to a world of titillating delight.

After reading the musings of her life, I have changed my perception of SPG’s. I do not now regard them as the scum of the earth. I realize it’s absolutely NONE of my business to judge a SPG. I’m not going to justify my current opinion but I am however going to ask you to go read her blog as soon as possible.
I just read her blog, laugh at it, appreciate it, express shock and sorrow at it and generally just enjoy it. Reading her blog has definitely become part of a routine that does not fail to interest me.

So cheers to the sarong party girls of our world that just put it out there. Fuck the world. Fuck your enemies. Fuck You. Fuck. Enjoy!

Take a peek into her life. I highly recommend it. I do not sometimes believe all what she says but she certainly knows how to spice up her blog. Some of you might make the connection between this girl’s blog and the life and times of the girls in SATC but instead of questioning the blog as pretentious garbage, just think of the possibilities if we could actually treat Singapore as the New York City of the East.

Woo hoo!

ftv,eye candy, sex in film 101

Date: 12th May
Time: 10.15pm


Discovery of the Moment: Fashion Television

Shite! We used to never get a clear reception on Fashion Television, FTV from now on, but due to some vague error made at our cable operator’s office, we now have crystal clear reception! It’s like a 24 hour feast for the eyes. Ok not 24 hours, but definitely at least 2-3 hours per day. I wake up today and since I was bored out of my mind I lend myself to channel surfing for a bit. HBO was showing some trashy horror flick with bad actors with even worse hairstyles. Star Movies was showing some 1970’s flick which of course I had no interest in because I like to see known faces. AXN was screening a particularly exciting episode of Amazing Race but like I said, I prefer to watch known faces and since I haven’t followed the latest season of the Race, I honestly don’t know who the bitchy or nice or lesbian or anorexic or overly-black couples are. Star Sports was showing the French Open with Juan Carlos Ferrero and Marat Safin on Centre Court at Roland Garros. Pretty damn electric the atmosphere was but after a while I got too sad to see Safin losing, so I changed the channel. And lo and behold, FTV switches on and I am hooked for the next 2 hours. They kept introducing these new models and I just couldn’t take my eyes off them. Sigh. I know now that I want to go to France this year for Christmas. Le sigh. Imagine, frolicking about the vineyards and squishing grapes underfoot and making sweet, exquisite love beside the fireplace? Dayem.

Speaking of amorous scenes, why is it that in every movie we see, there are only sexy, picture perfect, romantic scenes? Why is every romantic scene sensually and sexually idealized? I mean, if a love scene is not made incredibly hot, it is almost always because it’s not a love scene, but a rape or a sexual abuse scene. It’s always the case!!! Why is it never real? In real life the romance exists but it shares a comfortable resting place with the sweat and smell of everyday human existence. Is it very hard to imagine Diane Lane and Viggo Mortenson waking up and making a big effort not to smell each other’s breaths? We’ve seen such scenes before, but they’re always comic scenes, mostly between teenagers, with not a touch of romance.

You might argue that the inclusion of these ‘foul’ visuals might cause a scene to cease being romantic, but come now, we’ve all had relationships where sex and comfort zones have very easily co-existed, so why cringe at ‘real’ romance on screen? Maybe it’s because we look to the movies to provide an idealized world, but then how then can you explain our fascination with movies such as Saving Private Ryan, Silence of the Lambs and Hotel Rwanda? I think we, the audience can handle anything, even if it destroys the HOT (say it like your constipated) myth of sex.

With the sex we see on screen, it is hardly a wonder why generation upon generation keep growing up obsessed by sex. Romance is sex. Sex is romance. There is no room for romance to exist without sex. We look for sex, crave for it, masturbate over it, and commit crimes for it but then one day realization strikes.

That is why, when we end up in relationships, sex is seemingly less important. I stress the word ‘less’ because sex IS important, but just not AS important as intimacy or trust or…love. Sex is way overrated.

So what point am I trying to make here? I’m just trying to say that the movies idealize sex too much. They must make it more realistic. There is no doubt that films are probably one of the primary sources of influence on the youth of possibly every country. That is why, the portrayal of relationships and sex itself revolving around highly sexually charged idealized terms might not really be a good thing.

You must understand that I am not against showing sex on screen (hardly!) but I just think that portraying sex the way they do in most films just raises expectations beyond what sex can actually offer which is just pure release and momentary exhilaration. I shudder to think what I’m advocating here and I hope future generations don’t grow up completely devoid of a sex life but it would be nice to see sex being portrayed in a more realistic light. I mean sex can be hot, sensual, heart-stoppingly passionate but it can also be relaxed, comfortable, boring and obligatory. There needs to be an exploitation of all possible combinations. The 4 basic ones are:

Relationship-Hot Sex (sometimes portrayed, but quite rare don’t you think?)
No Relationship- Hot Sex (the only kind that has any place in most movies)
Relationship- Cold (or no) Sex
No Relationship- Cold (or no) Sex (ha ha, a ‘friendly’ movie perhaps?)

Sigh. If only I had the patience I would actually go back and articulate the mess that is above but I hope the general point is (relatively) clear. The general point, for reiteration’s sake, is:

1. In movies, sex shouldn’t always be passionate. Must be more realistic
2. In movies, and very interconnected with the above, sex, especially between two people in some kind of a relationship, shouldn’t be just about the sex.

Of course, if the storyline orders the stereotypical portrayal of sex, then so be it. However, an attitude change something along the lines of not viewing sex as some trick to get people to watch more intently and frequently is probably a good thing as it will enable Hollywood to churn out better informed films that are realistic and intelligent, i.e. not a porno.

Arghh.

P.S. Let this not discourage you. You are SURE of finding that perfect person who will arouse you emotionally, intellectually and sexually. But remember this person is also quite likely to piss you off, hurt you, drive you up the wall with their density and leave you craving for some hot lovin’. Muhuhaha.

Also, let me assure you, I am not a cynic. I’m a hopeless romantic but nevertheless quite objective which basically means that I try to ignore everything I write.