Just a thought.

The world will be strewn with people you could not save.

All the country's a stage...

I went to watch a play today, and found myself thinking. The customary announcement "ladies and gentlemen, please stand for the national anthem." rang out and, like well-trained automatons, we rose. No one sang of course, who does that? The hall was dark, but everybody would hear and know that you care and that you're actually standing because of some sense of patriotism, and not because everyone else is doing it and you don't care enough not to.

As I listened to the well-done instrumental version of Sri Lanka Matha, almost literally twiddling my thumbs, the thought popped into my head that I had recently read some raging rhetoric on how language-biased our Sinhalese national anthem is, given that many Sri Lankans are not Sinhala-speakers. This hadn't really made an impression on me and I had instead felt sort of vaguely offended and pro a multilingual Sri Lanka Matha. 

That day, in the dark, I tried to imagine I was a Sri Lankan Tamil. Born speaking Tamil and surrounded by Sinhala-only renditions of everything ranging from administrative machinery to my own national anthem.

 Then I tried being a Muslim, born speaking that dialect of Tamil that Sri Lankan Moors speak. For a second, I felt vaguely uncomfortable, like something I didn't know existed within me had shifted. Then the moment broke and I thought to myself that if I were the sort of "tolerant Colombo Tamil" I know, I wouldn't have wasted a thought on it, I assumed.

The most startling realisation for me was that I didn't know, and couldn't quite imagine, what  it is like to be the other, Because as gung-ho as we all are about national integration and unity, mainstream Sinhala thought points at everyone "else" to be the "others". That is why, I think, even the thought of a multilingual national anthem seems mildly preposterous to many of us, and is casually shoo-shooed by most "tolerant Colombo Sinhalese".

...and all the men and women merely players.

I also realised that I didn't know why I was standing. I believe it was out of some love I feel for my country that I definitely wouldn't term "patriotism", but instead a sense of home that is unshakably bound with Sri Lanka.

For the rest, I wonder why they stood. I also experienced the passing thought that if I didn't want to stand up for the national anthem, for whatever reason, I should be able to do so. I felt though, that if I did, I would be looked at quite askance by all the tolerant folk filling up that darkened auditorium.

Bits and bobs

You know those times when you realise that you were wrong about fundamental things? It's a strange sensation. I think the mind takes time to adjust to it. Instead of acclimatizing and evolving ways by which it can deal with the situation, the brain goes in to overdrive. I don't know if it's always the case, but mine starts sprouting bits and bob of popular culture and oft-heard adages. 

"The best laid plans of mice and men..."..."I tried my best, but I guess my best wasn't good enough.."... "What doesn't kill you makes you stoooongerrr...", etc. 

It's like a constant cacophony inside your head, with things you always knew coming back to haunt you and tell you that you've gone and put your foot in it this time. The corny song verses are the worst, yurgh. They even come with the accompanying bars of music. After a point, you realise you need to tune out, or slowly go mad. 

Here’s to them

Of the long talks and the longer walks,

The gut-busting laughs and nasty on-dits,

The jokes that only they understood.

Here’s to love, the sort that surely must

Have engendered envy; the sort that

Sometimes is surprising is even allowed.

Here’s to happiness, sorrow, anger, lust;

Extremes, always, hardly tempered,

Hardly neutral.

Here’s to what was – here’s to what seemed

Eternal.

Here’s to the good times, the bad times, even the worst of times,

But always times,

Always tangible, like live wires, like electricity;

Never dull, never placid

Or painstakingly normal.

Things that make you question.

You can be in the middle of the most mundane, routine, regular day when an existential crisis hits you. Often, it's the strange, small things that make you question the validity of the life you live, or the work you do, the routine you have chosen to control you. This is all despite having made a conscious decision to adhere to that routine and disregard all the rhetoric on how you should give up your city job and chase your dreams all the way to Tuscany, on the back of a handsome, leather-jacket-clad stranger's bike :)

Small things, indeed, like a routine survey that questions if you feel content in the workplace and if it aligns with your long-term plans for life. Or like an in-the-middle-of-the-rush moment when you find yourself staring out of the windows of the city's tallest buildings, looking down at Colombo's twinkling lights and wondering how you ended up becoming something you had one day vowed you would never become.

Maybe "crisis" is too strong a word -- I think I'll stick to "wonderings," although, of course, that is not a word, per se :)

Thoughts over tea

Have been meeting some different types recently, due to some new developments in life. Quite a few of them work in NGOs and research organizations -- the horrors that well-heeled corporates shudder at. Low pay! Humanitarian aid! Run! :)

One of these is a tiny young woman who's currently involved in community rehabilitation in Jaffna. She sat across us at the table in that ragged canteen as we, a motley group of 20-somethings from weird and wonderful walks of life, discussed life, love and, well, boys, over hot tea and helapa. I freaking love helapa. She told us about her work in the North and about how words can barely express how beautiful the land is, and how interesting and open the people are. She's wiry and energetic and as she spoke with her hands flying and her eyes glittering (seriously), you could see how excited she was about it, how enthralled by the sheer awesomeness of the life she's living.

While a part of me was truly envious that you could be so in love with what you do, a part of me was fascinated -- what is it like to be so passionate about something? 

Fresh-faced

Still hope there
Still dreams allowed,
Seems a while since
That was a thing
To be.