Aunties on rainy days

Why do we love Sri Lankans? Better yet, why do I love my fellow weird countrymen/women? The thought popped into my head this Friday, as I sat stretching on my mat at yoga class. Now, the class is primarily populated by people who very accurately fit the description 'aunty' -- middle-aged, child-bearing, slight busy-body-ish ladies who drive to class in posh vehicles that I ogle jealously at as I disembark from my tuk-tuk carriage :) They vary in age from possibly early-30s to mid-70s I would say, and are a sweet and completely inoffensive bunch that smiles dotingly on me when I walk into the capacious hall looking and feeling like the youngest in the group. They also strike up conversations with me about 'what are you doing', as aunties are wont to do. To our fun bunch a recent addition has been a foreign lady of unknown origin, whom I gather is called Theresa, and is very nice. The aunties love her, and while stretching out into Adhomukhaweerasan, I catch pieces of conversation that go along the lines of, "now you must learn to speak Sinhala, Theresa" and "give me is denna, da, da, like you would say 'the'."

Now this T had been absent from the past few classes, but this last Friday, a gloomy morning in Colombo, I saw her flitting across the yoga hall, yelling hello to the aunties. As I sat on my mat and watched, beaming, the aunties descended on this T like a pack of benevolent vultures, genuinely thrilled to see this woman, kissing her and hugging and all the works. Now, I don't know if the aunties knew her from elsewhere, or if yoga class is their only point of meeting, but I thought to myself that this is one reason why Sri Lankans are so freaking awesome -- that warmth was unchecked and sincere and the garrulous aunties represented, for me at that moment, the clanking societal mechanism that I often find myself criticising. With the wind whistling outside, I sat there on my mat grinning to myself and thinking that despite being a messed up group of small-islanders, we're a cheery lot, and when we're not busy poking our noses into everybody else's business and trying to generally screw each other over, there's no better group of people you'd rather call family, and homefolk.

Am also feeling very charitable towards my fellow woman/man because of the T20 World Cup victory. I could have kissed all the random strangers partying on the roads of Colombo that glorious Sunday night, and I'm pretty sure they would have kissed me back.

So, for now at least, I am a happy Sri Lankan.