Shit happens

I woke up, rested, having slept like a baby for 8 straight hours. I pinched my arm, didn’t really know if I was still dreaming, so I walked over to the glass door and looked out. They were still there: The view over the gardens, the beach and the ocean. The wind was a little stronger this morning; the palms were swaying, their branches making a rustling sound, and I could hear the heavy breaking of the waves. In the still early hours of the morning, the catamarans out on the water were filled to the brim with fishermen, their sails now tautly extended, making good headway towards whatever catch of the day they were hoping for, fish or tourists. I smiled.

Sitting down at the breakfast table, in the outdoor restaurant overlooking it all, I couldn’t stop smiling. Couldn’t believe I was actually here, couldn’t really care if people took me for a constantly grinning lunatic, just having been released from the mental ward. Fortunately the Sri Lankans are a smiling people, so who knows, maybe I am just naturally blending in.

Sam was also all smiles when I by appointment met him in the reception. He was the sole local representative for all the umpteen tour operators in the area. And I was the sole person at this morning’s information meeting. So I made the most of it, and by the time I was finished with him I had drained both a bunch of information and the strength out of the poor man. He was a pleasant guy though, and was a good sport about it, particularly when I promised I after the weekend will make one of the day trips he was offering. ...

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Tuk-tuk, awaiting the 7 generations...

Sri Lanka Arrival

.....The lady scrutinizing my passport was dressed in the same beautiful kind of sari the rest of the all smiling female airport personnel were wearing, but in stark contrast to the others, she was stone faced. There was not a hint of a smile, she was looking so sourly at my papers that for a while there I was positive I would be sent right back to Doha, Kualalumpur or some other place I had no immediate wish to go. Pondering these glum prospects I looked up on the wall behind her where a huge sign read: Import of illegal drugs is under the death penalty! No less! (my comment) I couldn’t help thinking how befitting a background the sign was for this mean looking lady. After keeping me, I think she was actually enjoying it, in the dark for what seemed to be an eternity, she eventually handed the papers back to me without looking at me or uttering a single word. “Eeeeh…”, I ventured, “is everything ok?”. She gave me a royal wave with her hand in the general direction of the baggage claim area, which I took for a “yes”, and scurried away before she had the chance to 

change her mind.

I again asked a poor soul to lift my literally stone heavy suitcase on to my trolley and went off to look for an ATM machine. As I did so, it occurred to me that on this trip I was possibly leaving an array of people now prone to life long back problems in my wake…

Excerpt from Sri Lanka Arrival. To read more go to Sri Lanka Arrival

Parenthood

A well-known TV series set in a hospital environment has for long been cherished by the two girls of the house. My own first encounter with the program happened accidentally one evening a couple of years ago when I dropped down in the sofa next to the girls (both then well into their teens) to see what they were so intently watching. It turned out that that particular episode evolved around nothing but, it seemed to me, a  gore of blood, dismembered body parts, people pierced by and literally stuck together with a pole, in such a way that one of them would, if luck prevailed, survive and the other one surely die when the pole was removed. The medical crew’s dilemma was who should live and who would have to go. I was shocked, stupefied, nauseated, definitely cast out of my comfort zone, to say the least ….by the horror of it all. I begged the kids to turn off the tv, for their sake and for mine. They looked at me in mild surprise, overbearingly, as with a child not before having been exposed to the realities of life. I didn’t have to, they assured me, but they would definitely continue watching, intrigued by and absorbed in the dramas (there were more than one going on at the same time, the focus with irregular intervals cleverly and with uncanny timing, shifting back and forth between them all). And after all, they said, it was only a TV series, i.e. fiction.

read more Parenthood cont.

The Devil is in the Details

The little technicalities, 

the tiny trivialities

the unimportant bagatelle

may joy and inspiration quell

Unfriendly words 

persistent nerds

can make you frown

may weigh you down

A broken dish

will make you mad

a dead, old fish

oh, my, so sad!

No peace of mind

is there to find;

that you are bad 

is not a fad

The world is black

your thoughts are blue

all virtues lack

your doom is due

Now,

Chuck every trifle!

and don't let you stifle

your life is your own

with soul, skin and bone

Shake off the past

go have a blast

forgive yourself

fly like an elf

Go dream a dream

blow off some steam

lay crazy plans

walk with a prance

What is in stall

for each and all

we do not know

But light a glow

within your heart

and make a start

on your own way

to Mandalay*

*...Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,

Where there aren't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a thirst;
For the temple-bells are callin', an' it's there that I would be —

By the old Moulmein Pagoda, looking lazy at the sea..."  Kipling

Timeout

My system, has asked for a time out

For reasons quite manifold

I certainly hope it’s a short bout

Right now it is leaving me “cold”

My writing, my love and my passion J

Will have to be put on hold

I hope you will wait with compassion

For stories that long to be told

Now, promise me you will be smarter

When bodily signs do appear

With them it is stupid to barter

Their message is simple and clear:

Go play with your friends, take a breather

Embrace every soul that you meet

Take detours both hither and dither

Then go home and put up your feet

It may take a while, maybe longer

To untangle “cable” and “wire”

But somehow we will emerge stronger

To do all our heart may aspire!

Positively (in all connotations of the word) shocked by BBC News

A while ago I read Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. I was fascinated by the book, the author and the country which he so vividly described, India. The former convict relates a story that is as revealing about his own life and the complex nature of his character, as of the many faceted and in many ways incomprehensibly diversified country, home to 1.2 billion people.

One of the most intriguing passages of the book is about his time living in the slums of Bombay, describing how people, regardless of ethnic, religious and other differences, look out for each other.

One particular event gives an account of a firestorm, threatening both people and the ramshackle sheds in which they reside. The description of how some individuals take charge, organize the necessary steps to put the fire out and to rescue people, disregarding the peril they put themselves in, is captivating. It sounds almost too selfless, too altruistic to be true, in a loosely organized society, where people are deprived of almost all the basics that we consider fundamental to “civilized” life and behavior; education, steady jobs, health care…

And then, yesterday, on BBC news, I heard about a fire in a Calcutta hospital...


Read more at Positively shocked...

Plans

Today I had a plan. Or a to-do-list. I often make lists. Usually, just before I go to bed I jot down things that reealy need to be done and things I’d like to have accomplished, but don’t grow stale if they wait another day. More often than not, therefore, the list comprises things that didn’t get done the previous day. It is strange, though, how things work, or don’t work out.

 Some days I have lists stretching from now to eternity, and I know I have a snowball in Hell’s chance of having it all dealt with by the end of the day. And then, miraculously, everything gets ticked off, one by one. People in public offices pick up their phone after one ring. That special item I need to get hold of, preferably before yesterday, is in stock, at the first store I call. The presumed complicated, and therefore dreaded, text I need to finish just pop out of my head and hits the paper before I even have time to think. And before I am able stop, I am already well into a new one. The challenging meeting scheduled to last two hours, covers its agenda in 30 minutes. The always reoccurring dilemma, what to have for dinner-riddle, solves itself when I craftily disguise yesterday’s leftovers with a garnish of vegetables, garlic, red pepper and ginger. A scam that also saves me a shopping trip! And then, voila, everything is done, ship shape, dealt with.

And then, there are the other days. Like the one today. The list did not look too frightening, nothing particularly complicated, nothing untoward. Should be like a piece of the sugarfree, but delicious raspberry cake I made the other day, a day like the ones described above. And from then on, everything went wrong, downhill, down the drain, not according to my precious plan:

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