It was past midnight, and three of us middle-aged women, (yes, I suppose I can definitely call myself one), were working on a translation, Sinhala to English. The word was ‘ranketi’.
My mind scurries back about 25 years in time. Emotions are hard to keep down when it’s past midnight, so I blabber it out. I don’t quite intend to be heard by anyone.
“The word reminds me of a story I heard as a kid. It was in this audio cassette called Kathandara and there was one story in it about a mother bird that mistakenly kills her little one, and then she sings this unforgettable song..”
Mee pup ladimi – daru noladimi
Ranketi putha ko ko
Nadya jumps. “Gosh, I was thinking of the same thing.”
So there. One word. One memory. One emotion. I have only known her for a few months.
“I have never met anyone who knew this cassette” says Nadya.
I don’t recall knowing anyone who grew up listening to it either. The audio tape is called ‘Kathandara by Upali Attanayaka’. If you have kids, I highly recommend it.
We recall the tales told in it, and the emotions associated with it. Suddenly there’s a bridge between us.
Common memory. Shared experience. Kindred spirit.
I need to find a better word than ‘nostalgic’ to describe the feeling.
The next day, in between translations, we waste a lot of time youtubing ‘Dosthara Hondahitha’, a cartoon we grew up on.
The next day, we find out that Titus Thotawatta has passed away; the man who brought us, Dosthara Hondahitha, Pissu Poosa, Haa Haa Hari Haawa, Surangana Katha Karaliya, Situwara Monte Cristo, Manuthapaya,Oshin, Rasara and forever true to the very words Nothing’s forgotten; Nothing’s ever forgotten’ the greatest ever, Robin of Sherwood.
Ruwa recalls the moment when Robin of Loxley shoots his final arrow. For a fantasy moment, in which she relives that memory, she actually draws the arrow in space. We all know that drawing. We have all drawn that arrow as kids. We’ve all played Robin Hood. We’ve all worshipped Michael Praed and Jason Connery.
Those were the days before reality TV swamped the channels; with people-dying-to-become-idols made themselves idiots in front of the camera, and the viewers actually called that entertainment.
Of course, I didn’t quite know words like cinematography, or scriptwriting or casting. But Sherwood is still evergreen in my memory. I still recall the mist rolling over the river bank, the light seeping through the branches, the curly beauty of Marion’s hair. (Judy Trott, ah, she’s the best Marion ever!) And the haunting sound tracks of Clanned. The unforgettable words…
Now is here, Here is now…
(Hey, that’s what I try to live by now!)
Robin: “I’ve lost my aim!”
Herne: “Then aim again.”
Robin: “To what purpose? To what end?”
Herne: “There is no end and no beginning. It is enough to aim.”
Isn’t that mindblowing?
And decades later, I still want to know the words. I would still take time to search, so those celtic whisperings become real words.
With the sun right through,
Departed into darkness,
I need someone too;
The fantasy and you
Now is here, Here is now
Na na na na
You inspire
Peace of heart
Na na na na
With the words like air
The destiny we share
Is a dream come true
The fantasy and you
Is it the best TV series ever, or am I just nostalgic?
I really want to know. So I google and youtube. (The few things of worth the world introduced after I grew up!)
It’s the same the world over. The HTV series Robin of Sherwood, 1984-1986, was what the kids in the 1980s grew up on. And all of them think it’s the greatest ever. It actually is one of the best takes ever on the legends of Robin. Mysteriously, that work of art set the standards for a generation. The Music by Clanned, the irreplacability Marion… ( Googling, I found out that Lady Marion, actually ended up marrying the camera operator of the series Gary Spratling, in case you, like me, are glad to know.) And it was also one of the few TV series that actually did away with it’s lead and successfully replaced it. Even when most girls in my class loved Praed as Robin, I loved Jason Connery in the role. It was absolute magic.
Every once in a while, great people come together and make great art. And it is remembered forever. Robin Hood is superbly written, superbly casted, superbly directed and acted, superbly cinematographed, superbly laced with the most haunting music ever, that nothing about it is forgotten.
And other great people dub them, subtitle them and take them to different audiences across the boerlines. People like Richard Carpenter, writer of Robin of Sherwood, Titus Totawatta, our Ti Mama and Upali Attanayaka of the ‘Kathandara cassette eka’ are people whose work is never forgotten. Because their art transcend barriers. They bring people together.
They have made us who we are, not by the virtue of memories, but by what they have contributed to our personalities. In the end, we are, what we remember to be. In sociological terms (ahem…cough…cough…) this is our cultural history. Our memory is the books we grew up reading, the cartoons we grew up watching, the songs, the films, the TV series we got hooked onto. If you are upto it, read Umberto Eco’s ‘The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana’. He definitely says it better than I do.
These words and images are the poetry and the mystery of our lives. And thirty years later, or more, they make us recognize another human being, as kindred.
I remember a popular T-shirt we used to wear back in my college days in Delhi.
I WAS BORN INTELLIGENT. EDUCATION RUINED ME.
I am not sure if I am qualified to pass any statements about university education in Sri Lanka. I schooled here entirely. If it wasn’t for the few theatre projects that saved me, I might have hated the experience. I remember finishing O/Level and searching for a school that offered Sociology. After much heartbreak I found that Sociology is not taught at school level in Sri Lanka. In India they teach it in secondary school, I heard. Then I remember trying to find a school in which I could take English and Sinhala together for the exam. Only one school I visited in my school hunt offered the combination and that’s where I ended up.
No wonder Sri Lanka has not many bi-linguals.
Even then, at a stage when I hadn’t discovered Ken Robinson, Joanna Macy or Rabindranath Tagore, I knew there was something wrong with our system. I didn’t know the statistics that I know about it now. But it was enough to have gone through it. And actually, I had been one of the lucky ones to have survived the system pretty decently. So when I finished A/Levels I had made up my mind that higher education has to be somewhere else.
So I entirely missed the Sri Lankan university experience. Not because I didn’t get enough to get in. My scores, for some unfathomable reason (maybe my lucky stars, maybe fluke) was dazzling. Never again would I do so well in an exam but that A/Levels in 1999. I scored enough for Law Fac.
Maybe there were other reasons as well. I just wanted to be my own woman and life in Sri Lanka for a woman, is not that free. But I clearly recall that Sri Lankan universities did not appear very appealing to me.
But now, I sort of look back and wish I too had first hand knowledge of ‘Antare’. I cannot regret it since, it is not such a nice experience to exchange with my experience of undergraduate studies in Delhi. No way. But still.
The other day I watched this play by Academic Players “Janellen paninada?” It was a fantastic depiction of life in a campus. Love and Politics. And betrayal, of course, which is painful in both cases. It depicted so well, the student politics. It’s the kind of play that every university should organise a discussion around.
We know how suppressive how our red brothers have been in universities. And the current crisis that has come up has thrown the commoner in a conundrum. The leadership training and positive thinking orientation course is supposed to stop the students from getting brainwashed by red bros. Is it premature conjecture to assume it can only be a replacement of brainwash? The papers are full of articles and cartoons. And I think this one sums up what I would waste many words to explain:
The other day a colleague told me that the UNESCO standard for average allocation from GDP for education is 6% and now we are down to 2. For more read http://www.tisrilanka.org/?p=5113
Year before last, 50% of students who sat for O/L had failed maths and 60% failed in English.
I also hear that this amount is less than the budget of a particular stretch of rail track which will only cut down 6 minutes of the travel time between its locations. And of course, I don’t even have to speculate the allocations that must be going for other sectors such as security and defence. I mean, security, now, is important than our future right?
I admit, the fact that GDP allocation is higher may not speak much for a the quality of an education system. Cuba spends a whopping 19% on education. I have to educate myself further if it’s any better than ours and how.
My main point is perhaps slightly different. And nothing novel. It’s the competition and the lack of creative and analytical thinking that bums me. I admit, it is something not only a problem to Sri Lanka. To cut a long story short, I post this video. One of my all-time favourites by Sir Ken Robinson.
The Chinese missed this animal – the patriot in their zodiac. And the lion. But they got the monkey and the rabbit and the horse.They got the tiger,too. But let’s not talk about that! Slightly disturbing though, because we are so fond of the Chinese.
If the Chinese had the patriot in their zodiac it would be an animal with many avatars. It would be more potent than the dragon, with human and beastly manifestations.
The avatar we see most these days is an animal with claws and fangs. In its human form it could be armed with swords or bionettes. It may or may not have a tail or stripes, but it has a heart wont to provocation and irrational fear, suspicion and jealousy. This patriot suffers from inferiority and superiority complexes simultaneously.
I confess, I too have been under the shadow of the patriot. In my younger days, I have given in to the wonton joy of patriotic jingoism. The odd thing is that I have never felt it for Sri Lanka. Don’t kill me now. The truth is I am glad I never felt that sort of patriotism for Sri Lanka.
Hey, hold on, you are saying now. If it wasn’t for Sri Lanka, then where? To cut a long story short, I’d say India. I can clearly recall the exact moment when I felt that raw cheap feeling. I was at Wagha, the border between India and Pakistan. At six o’clock every morning and evening, there’s a parade. A performance.
It’s worth checking out.
So I have been part of that mass euphoria. I have screamed Hindustan Zindabad! I am guilty of patriotism for a place that is not even my country of birth.
But I am glad to say that it was the only moment. I lived through the Gujarat massacre, albeit at a safe distance. It was an unnerving experience. And when I saw the mobs, I immediately recalled the mobs at the Wagha border. I knew I had felt it myself.
So I know how it feels like. It’s a sort of reckless blindness. A feeling so powerful due to the mass of people around you who are feeling equally blind and reckless and destructive. anything is possible in these moments. You can mock, hate, humiliate, de-robe the other. You can rape and kill.
So I am not here to talk like a saint who never sinned. Patriotism is an overwhelming feeling. I know it. But fortunately, I grew up. I travelled and I saw. When I read about how women were raped in Gujarat, I was so shocked I wanted to leave India. I couldn’t believe that I had loved India more than my own country at times. It was depressing.
Gihan got it right when he drew this cartoon on our independence day. Flags. Aren’t they all just fake? Didn’t Roy once say that governments use flags to shrink-wrap people’s brains?
There was a period in my life when I belonged to Sweden. Heart and Soul. Most Swedish homes display their national flag in their garden and it’s there throughout the year, unlike ours that come out on independence day, after a war or cricket victory. The flags are there throughout. But I have never seen a Swede given into cheap patriotic jingoism. At least not among my friends. As I travelled around I saw a more or less equal society. I saw men and women on an equal footing. I saw respect for the state. I saw intolerance to the slightest injustice. I saw city squares with rock bands singing for the rights of the migrants.
The Swedes love their country. They love their state. We used to joke in our South Asia study class that a Swedish woman trusts her state than her husband. And that is the truth. No Swedish woman has to tolerate an abusive husband. No Swedish kid has to take a beating from parents. the state is the safety net for all citizens to fall back on. No wonder the Swedes love their country. If it wasn’t for that harsh winter I would have never left the place.
So this is the other avatar of patriotism. And I believe it is present not only in the cold Scandinavia but in also in our warm tropical quarters. I have seen it in India too. When I sing the Indian national anthem, I feel my heart filling up with many vibrant colours. When it calls out for the Punjabi, Sindhi, Gujarati, Marati, Dravidian, Oriya and Bengali people, I feel I am also somehow included. The island i come from could be just another one the Indian states. When India gained independence, they decided to scrap the national anthem under the British Raj “Vandai Mataram” and adopted Tagore’s ‘Jana Ghana Mana’. The reason was that Tagore’s lyrics, originally written in highly Sanskritized Bengali, was far more inclusive than Vandai Mataram. (Weerawansa lied when he said the Indian national anthem is in Hindi! Click here to read more!)
The Indian national anthem can include even a foreigner like me. I know the words by heart. When the fiasco about our own national anthem came up, I wished someone would highlight how India, despite all its failures, managed to build national identity that transcended its narrow ethnic barriers.
The truth is that a country just doesn’t belong to a government. The government belongs to the people. And people can come from and belong to many lands.
Is that possible, you ask me. Is it possible to belong to more than one country? Can someone write national anthems for two countries? Is it possible to love more than one person within a lifetime? Is it possible for our national flag to be made in China? I can give you clear-cut truthful answers to all.
Yes, it is all possible!
Tagore wrote national anthems for India and Bangladesh. He proposed internationalism in place of nationalism. There’s a chapter in Amartya Sen’s book The Argumentative Indian called Tagore and his India that I propose you read. It’s about how India went about creating a national identity that included all. Not that this Tagorian tradition is unrivalled in India, but it is still strong.
For instance, look at our performance in ICC Opening Ceremony yesterday. What are we projecting to the world as a nation? And when are we going to get over this obsession on ‘Sinha Seyyawa’. When are we going to find the human form of love for our country?
Just check out the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games and see how India depicts itself in “The Indian Train sequence”
Yes, it is as Bollywoodish and funky as Bhathiya Santhush dreams to be, but it also depicts India as it is. It is the show of the common man. It depicts the coolies, the bicycle man, the politicians seeking votes, the women balancing water pots…the colour and beauty of the common Indian.
Here’s creativity for our artists!
We should be proud of our land, not because of the harbours and auditoriums the chinese build for us. Or because of the fabricated history we claim as ours taught in our schools. We should be proud of who we are, a people who come from everywhere, and belong too, to many places.
So please, let’s get over this lion and silly patriotism. Stop repeating history in this warped fashion. Check your sources, and you’ll find that it is not history but myth.
Let’s find a new way to articulate who we are as we are. Let’s find a way to love our country in a human way.
And its not only upto the politicians. It is up to singers and cartoonists and writers and simple folks like you and me.
Returned to Bolgoda to translate ‘No Return’ with Rajitha, Shyam and Gihan. It was a small bungalow on the edge of a lake with lotus and water-lily fringed banks. In fact, the very first entry of this blog came from my previous visit there, when I captured ‘Just another Lotus from Lake Bolgoda‘.
And this time, I got some more. It’s almost unbelievable that such beauty could bloom and fade within a day, and keep blooming and fading everyday, in hundreds. It is almost unbelievable that world can hold such beauty, in such simple things.
I woke up early in the morning and walked to the edge of the lake. The mist was just lifting off the waters, revealing the blooms to the Good-Morning-kisses from a rising sun. Again, I cannot believe, that this beauty repeats every dawn. Just how much do we miss each day, in our crazy-busy line-up of meetings and events and projects and pomp?
As if being there surrounded by all this blissful beauty wasn’t enough, I was also blessed with the delightful company of three gentlemen. Men that I am only getting to know, I must admit, but with whom I completely felt at home. Men who did not remind me that I am a woman, someone different from them. I could only feel how much I am like them, passionate about politics and plays, sentimental and soul-searching, light-hearted and at ease. The conversation flowed freely in the true spirit of camaraderie: Rajitha talkative and almost innocent in his honesty; Shyam quiet and deep like the serene lake before us, with the eyes of a wanderer and the smile of a heart-broken; and Gihan, boyish and gentle and happy.
Three Gentle Men.
I felt rewarded more than I deserve.
As I was sipping a brandy in the evening with them, sharing music we loved, I suddenly realised that this is what the Buddha called ‘Kalyana Mittatta’ (beautiful friendship). Ananda, one of Buddha’s best disciples once suggested that kalyana mittatta is the partial realisation of the Goal of the Noble Path. The Buddha replied: ‘Not so. Beautiful friendship is the Goal and the Consummation of the Noble Path’ (Samyukta Nikaya 1.88) The Buddha believed that when human beings care for each other in kalyana mittata they would need neither the gods nor earthly potentates to protect them.
Coming back to Colombo, moving again with the usual crowd, waking up to news on the radio and dailies, driving to work in the traffic jam, I realise this is exactly what we miss so much in our lives. Simple sharing and caring. In all our relationships, be they parents, siblings, lovers, bosses, servants, colleagues and friends. (I would even add strangers.) How much do we genuinely share and care in these relationships and how much of it is obligation, ownership, convenience, exploitation, subordination, possession, choicelessness or simply dead habit?
By no means do I imply that it is simple. Relationships are indeed an intricate mix of all these things. Maybe I am a bit of an Incurable Romantic to expect otherwise. I have no idea, maybe it is difficult for a husband and wife to be good friends. Beautiful friends. Maybe it is difficult to be a kalyana mitraya to your brother or sister or mother or father or your boss. But I don’t see why we shouldn’t give it a try!
I chose to be in the company of these three men over an official obligation. I enjoyed every single moment of being with them and working with them and talking with them and listening with them. It’s what I have missed, having rolled over the world for more than the first half of my twenties like a gypsy, friends with whom I can connect to at a deeper level. Friends who I can support creatively and who can inspire creativity in me in return.Friends whom I don’t have to leave behind and email from the other side of the globe to keep in touch.
Drunk with the beauty of Bolgoda and each others company, we were debating if Sri Lanka is actually the most beautiful country in the world. I don’t remember us coming to an agreement. But I firmly believe that if our people find joy in caring and sharing, in kalyana mittatta instead of benevolent dictatorship (that our Buddhist clergy advocates so contrary to what the Buddha said), it stands a good chance of becoming the most beautiful island in the world.
Last Wednesday evening, after a tiring day, my soul needed a bit of art-therapy. Jumped into a tuk-tuk and got myself to John de Silva where the final round of State Drama Festival was taking place. Colombo Colombo, a play by Indika Ferdinando was on. There were many who liked it and disliked it and naturally I wanted to form my own opinion.
I walked into a full-house and found a seat on the row before the last. I must say, my heart balloons up every time I see such a crowd at a theatre. Somehow, I feel like it’s a personal achievement. (I confess, I have no connections to anyone in Colombo Colombo or the State Drama Panel.) But still, I am proud to see a full house. And I’m a lucky woman to have witnessed crowded theatres here in capitol Colombo as well as in remote Thambuththegama. Hope is an amazing thing, when you can actually feel it. Even amidst the terrible heat, with no fans working in John de Silva and people fanning themselves, with what ever they could shake the air around them. I repeat, Hope is an amazing thing.
I switched my mobile phones to silent mode before the play began.
And so the play began. And perhaps it went on for 20 minutes, I couldn’t say. The rain started pouring down from heaven right on to the tin roof of John de Silva. The wind started blowing the black blinds up and the lightning outside fused with the stage lights and suddenly transported the audience to some sort of horror-flick. Amidst thunder and lightning the crew battled on the stage for a few more minutes, their voices completely drowned out and the disappointment so bitter on their faces. I could see how desperate Indika Ferdinando was when he finally got on stage and called off the play.
After calling a cab, I found my way to Sunil at the front row. He was mournful. Indeed he has told me before that this has happened several times. State drama fes usually takes place this time of the year during the monsoon season and this happens all the time. Apparently, the first day of this year’s festival got cancelled, since the lights weren’t up on time. Rumour has it that the president of the drama panel asked the casts of the short plays to perform under fluorescent lights. I hope it’s only a rumour.
“This is the state-of-our-art” Sunil shook his head. I gave a pat on his shoulder. He seemed heart-broken. He has been saying the same thing for the last 20 years. What would I feel if what I have fought for, for 20 years end fruitlessly, as on an evening like this. I felt miserably sorry for the cast of Colombo Colombo (despite the fact that they could hardly grip me in the first 20 minutes of the performance). I felt sorry for Sunil. I felt sorry for Tilak, who wasn’t there that day, but had told me how it used to rain right on the stage at John de Silva some time back. Those who know, know how he walked out of Art Council sometime back.
I felt sorry for all artists and individuals who had fought hard to right the system.
I waded my way into the cab and the cab waded its way out of Colombo after three hours and many moments of near drowning.
The next day they said it’s the hardest downpour we’ve had after 18 years, as if it’s some kind of an excuse. The truth is it doesn’t take a storm to drown Colombo. And it is only another testimony among a zillion how we lack governance and state structures that puts the welfare of people first.
Yesterday evening, I was at this forum that discussed the role of civil society in post-war context. There was the opinion that the space was shrinking. There was the counter-opinion that we don’t demand space. There was the counter-counter opinion that there was no space to demand for space. Someone I respect said that we had over-estimated the role of civil society, that the concept did not exist in 1940s and still there was much better activism among people at the time. A representative from the donor community said civil society was drowning in its own juices. Whatever!
I love dialogue. And I loved this one. But I still cannot understand why we do not discuss the obvious. Which, in fact is the problem. (Maybe no one wants to state the obvious, thinking its a stupid thing to do.) Since I didn’t mind being taken for stupid, I finally said it.
Of course, civil society is more than our odd motley of NGOs, but to focus on them, I do not think the structures and the culture of our NGOs are any different to the government or any other institutional structures we have in the country. They are equally festered with nepotism and power-politics. They are as bureaucratic and unprofessional. Since they are dependent on mainly foreign donors, they are less accountable to the people they serve, though they may write the sort of reports the donors want in their filing cabinets. (Oh, c’mon, do you really believe they read it?) I’ve never heard of German civil society organisations receiving funds from, China or France. The objectives they pursue are indeed very German, as they should be.
Besides, how can NGOs respond to a changing context? Their projects are either 1 year, 2 year or 3 year ‘quick-fix’ formula. They have done their context analysis, defined their objectives and outcomes and outputs and indicators and means of verification of measurable impact and then they go about ticking the list. How can they respond to a changing context? How can they respond to human need?
As professionals engaged in development, why do we not discuss the fact that the whole aid industry by itself is another industry in a functional capitalist order? As much as we advocate changing the structures of the governments we criticise, should we not advocate changes within our own structures and organisations to become more democratic and transparent entities answerable to people, not only to where the funds come from?
For a long time, I’ve been wondering how to go about changing the system. What is a system really? Where is this system? Isn’t a system something we live in? But does not the system live inside us? Inside out head? For instance, if the call of the day is to suck up and shut up, if this is a part of the system we want to change, how do we go about changing it?
I’d say it starts with me. Myself, speaking up. Standing my ground. Fighting for something I believe is right passionately. I don’t want to give it lofty labels like ‘deshanuragaya‘; it is simply part of professional integrity that most of us lack, including our civil society activists. If we just do our job right, I mean, really think through it and do it, and do it because it is the right thing, the needed thing to do that moment and do it creatively, and not because it is an obligation, I feel things could be different. From the Art Council to the Met Department to the RDA to the rest. Then, plays wouldn’t have to be called off in the middle and Colombo wouldn’t flood every monsoon season and people loose lives drowning in potholes in Colombo 7.
We crib there’s no space, but why can’t we write an article to a paper, or a blog about something we feel passionate about, rather than write an obligatory report? I see this happening all the time in my office. Just senseless, obligatory reports, reports, reports that doesn’t convince anybody!
I know you are laughing at me. All poppy-cock! It’s not practical.
No, I think it is practical. Because I just made that choice right now. And instead of writing a report that nobody would read, I write this. And I am sure that SOMEBODY would read it. And here. I’ve created a space for myself to express.
I know, maybe it is risky. I’m told that chinese IT guys are devising blog surveillance mechanisms. But then, not only soldiers are required to be brave, ne?
If it’s hard to right the system, write over the system.
When I dream
It is hard to deem
This memory
Isn’t entirely mine
Or it isn’t me in that frame
Propped up on her bed against the pillows
The lampshade on the side table
Blushing walls almost turquoise green
The whiff of sea and freedom on her cheek
You loved to breathe in
Nana, tell me a story!
And she looks at you sideways
Blowing a perfect ring of smoke
(That flick of her cigarette
The flair we’d love to gain)
I would have reached out
And tried to hold that thinning ring
In my cupped hands
Like now you try to hold her in your mind
The child would have asked her
Nana, if you cry for someone, in a dream,
Does it count?
If I mistook someone else
For you, in a dream, does it count?
We’ve woken up
Having loved and lost
To the pained residues of cigarette haze
Scattered ash
In a tray
It’s another day
And we try again
To hold
With our hands cupped
Before it fades away
I walked till my toes ached, in the Museuminsel (Museum Island) in Berlin. Couldn’t cover all the five museums; I managed Pergamon Museum and rushed through Altes Museum.
I’m not quite sure what hooks me to ancient sites and museums when I step into such sites. It almost gives me a trance. Maybe it’s this realisation that I am testing the limits of my capacity to abosorb what history in its enteirity has to offer. Wherever it is, Kajuraho or Polonnaruwa or this time, the Museumisel which is the closest I’ve been to the anceint history of the Mid-West, I’m carried away in a torrent of sensations I haven’t yet found a proper way to capture or record to recall later. Simply put, it gives me a high.
Pergamon Museum confused me as much as it did astound me. It houses a collection from Turkey. Life size reconstructions of Pergamon Altar and Market complex. How is it possible to transport a chunk of history across the globe to a European city? Is it ethical? If Polonnaruwa was taken away from me and put in a Museum in London, how would I feel? Perhaps, one might say, it would be better off there; better preserved and all. But how could you strip a site out of context?
Pergamon was an ancient Greek city in 2nd century BC, now modern Turkey. The audio guide informed me the Pergamon Altar depicting the Battle of the Gods and Gaints and the market complex are masterpieces of Hellenistic Art and Architecture. I haven’t done Greece, so I don’t have a comparison to draw but the stuff is breathtaking. My colleague Sunil tells me that the best bronze Tara found in Sri Lanka is in London. And he feels it’s better off there. I’m not against sharing my heritage with the world…indeed, it is not merely mine. And as long as it is in a place and serves to bring people together than to provide them with narratives to justify wars, I’m happy. However, I want history to belong to the community, to the ordinary people. Not only to those who can afford high culture. And that’s the sad part about Colonial archeology. As much as it did open a door closed in pre-modern colonies to their history, something the colonies would have taken ages to discover themselves perhaps, it also stripped them from easy access to them. I could afford the 8 euros, and since I belong to the ‘professionally privileged’ category that gives me the freedom to move between places like Berlin and Galen-bindunu-wewa, for all the official reasons in the world, I could afford it. But if I am a poor Turkish sheperd -boy living in the vicinity of Bergama or ancient Pergamon, would I be able to see it?
So these are the gates of the market place, brought to Berlin in after the excavations in 1878. For more on the Pergamon Museum visit:
Athena in a flowing garment. Below, the bust of a youth that I cannot recall the name of
Tablets with Greek lettering.
Another bust…again, I’ve lost the name and context…
And a striking figurehead…
The next wing of the Pergamon museum took me to Uruk, Babylonia. This is called the Ishtar Gate.
Sumerian art…
On stone tablets…
The Altes Museum had a breathtaking array of sculptors, easily the best collection I have seen in my life. The life-like men and women, with supple arms and taught bellies spoke of eternal youth.
I’m not going to waste words on this. So I’ll just share the photographs and savour that moment, all over again, when I walked among the Greek Gods…
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I have more, of course, but perhaps, this is enough for the day!
So it’s Berlin 2010. It’s the fall. The maples are caught in the Autumn fire. The sun mellowed down and sentimental. My German colleagues tell me I’ve brought the sun with me, since it’s out again after weeks of rain and meek weather.
And this time, as I was walking through the clean streets, with polite traffic, across city squares with guitarists and lovers and children engrossed with their ice-creams, I felt truly peaceful inside. Unlike last summer, I wasn’t haunted by a heartbreak or an unresovled past in Europe. No guilty feelings. Just me and the summer. I admit, every moment did include a parallel moment, in which I was sharing that moment with G. It was magical. But still, I was not homesick or lovesick, and I was truly present in the moment, fully awake and conscious and absorbing what Berlin had to offer. What a GREAT feeling!
So, the first thing I step into, right after the airport, is a taxi, with a driver who fled Baghdad 30 years ago, for political reasons which he doesn’t want to share with me. But ofcourse, he’s mad about Hindi films. He’s seen Arzoo and Ai Milan Ki Bela. He loves Sholay. And Vaijayanthi Mala is his favourite.
Tumse mohobethain…he crooned as he drove, overenthusiastic to find an audience who knew the same songs. And knew what they meant, as well.
Thanks to globalisation, I was thoroughly entertained all the way to Movenpick Hotel.
And I recollect the same feeling I had, coming to Europe the first time in my life. Just getting out of the train in to the city square, and strangely feeling at home. Surprise! Surprise!
Sunday afternoon; Alexander Platz with Kristin. I take the subway, and momentarily held by this subway singer…
And another one in Alexaner Platz…
Ask me what I appreciate most about the European cities…yes, there are many things a typical tropical woman could appreciate, but what strikes me most is this ‘Love is in the air’ mood. You know the lovers, walking hand in hand, kissing in public, cuddling in the sun and all. (ya, it’s a couple kissing in the background!) It’s this freedom to love, and to express love in public. And I can’t help remembering how wonderful it was to be in love in summer europe, and how dismal it is now, by comparison, to be in love in my tropical isle sometimes…
To generalise, if I may take the liberty to, our men are a bit paralysed in this department. I mean, they are fantastic in bed. They can compete there, at an international level, in terms of technical perfection of the art. But in the art of affection…oh dear…I wish I had never experienced love in Europe now that I have to live with this permanent Rebecca syndrome. I don’t wish to look down on the men in my country. I’m a tropical woman. I want to love one of my own kind. But I couldn’t escape globalisation. So I had to go through all these experiences. And I can’t help these philosophical observations! It’s not criticism, so if you are a tropical man reading this, don’t take it personal.
OK, you’ll say it’s not our culture to display affection in public. But then, do our men display affection in private? Or do they just do it because they are expected to. Some times I feel they do, simply because it’s what our sentimental women kind want. Something just to get over with. Like an obligation.
Life is an obligation. To be faithful to your wife, to love your mother, to fight for your country!
Ha! Ha! Ha! That’s my only reaction!
Of course, I am not saying all our men are like this. I have indeed met a few wonderfully affectionate men in Sri Lanka. But overall, when I listen to my friends and observe the world around me, I feel that our society has crippled our men, hip upwards, I mean. They are denied the right to express themselves. They are denied the right to feel, to be emotional. And I often find them uneasy, when a bit of affection is expressed in public.
I don’t know why people only talk about liberating the woman in this part of the world, because the men, oh them poor souls, they so need to be liberated themselves. Being a man and being human must be difficult, come to think of it.
In Sri Lanka when a bit of affection is displayed in public, the public scoffs right back at it. It’s considered ugly, uncultured and vulgar. What’s ugly, uncultured and vulgar about a man loving a woman, and expressing that in public? I don’t get it. I think it’s at the core of the sexual frustration and violence of this society – the big secret everybody knows but nobody talks about. Without allowing the men to be human, to be affectionate, we will never liberate our women. (That’s my ‘loud and clear’ to the feminists!) It’s not just enough to talk about sexual harassment in public transport, you see – something I have never experienced in Europe and experience daily in Sri Lanka.
I mean, it’s simple right?
High degree of sexual freedom, acceptance of affection, flexible gender roles – low levels of sexual frustration, harassment and violence (summer Berlin or Sweden, to quote an example I know better)
Low degree of sexual freedom, acceptance of affection, strict Victorian mores and gender roles – high level of sexual frustration, harassment and violence (our tropical paradise)
And I don’t know how to change this society around me; or to liberate a man, (or myself for that matter), but I know I can love. Not in a possessive way – not to hunt a man down and put him in chains of lifetime bondage (aka marriage) but in a way that redeems. In a way that supports both individuals to grow, to explore, to be more affectionate beings, not just unto themselves, but to others as well. One could also do all these things within a marriage, or without it. The choice is personal.
I feel this is the key to the politeness, the gentleness, the ‘culturedness’ that I sense in the European public life. Now don’t call me a post-colonial Eurocentric rootless bastard of globalisation. I’m just expressing my opinion. I’m entitled to one.
So to get back to Berlin – Tacheles. I want to talk about Tacheles. It’s this run down building which belonged to East Berlin before. Now, the area is transformed. The Big Bad Banks have come in. So have Gucci and Prada. And the government wants to pull down Tacheles because it’s an eyesore in the middle of a chic commercial district.
And the artists resist!!!!!!!!! The very next day there was a peaceful public demonstration, not devoid of music and dance.
So the call to rally goes:
To enforce art piece Tacheles
We save the creative centre of Berlin – We build a city
The pillage of Berlin by banks, investors and neo-liberal pseudo-politicians must stop!!!
Performance-Demonstration
Monday 20th September 2010
And they’ve been successful in resisting the demolishing of the building since the 1990s.
For more on Tacheles go to the Wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunsthaus_Tacheles
and then walking through the graffiti covered walls, exuding an anti-capitalist verve, I come across this great poster shop. The work is bold and gripping. (Btw, that’s Kristin in the photo thanks to whom I visited Tacheles)
So why do I feel like this is another important element missing in Colombo. Just the space to have ‘honest straightforward talk, purpose’ (that’s the meaning of the yiddish word ‘tacheles’). Now where’s that space in Colombo, or anywhere in Sri Lanka? Ours is a society of stifled emotion, come to think of it. There is no space to come together and to have a dialogue. No public space for people to meet and talk (leave alone kissing!). In Colombo, the Galle Face Greene is the only ‘public space’ and in the evenings no wonder it is overcrowded. And still, it is NOT a public place. Because, people don’t come there to meet new people and to have a chat, they just come there with their families to fly kites! It’s just an escape from the four walls of an urban home. Nothing more.
So, our civil society – sorry, but there is no ‘society’ in that sense. It’s only a collective of individuals, families and organisations, struggling in their own small worlds. And that lonely struggle embitter them. No wonder, when there is no space, like or unlike Tachales, to bring people together to share things that are common. And our pseudo coffee houses like Commons (which has nothing in common with the common of our country), or Barefoot which has nobody who ever had to go barefoot, offer no ‘public space’. In fact, they form status hierarchies that the middle class has to struggle to access, in order to be ‘cultured’. (Btw, this also makes me a pseudo-intellectual, because I also grace these places despite my criticism.)
So in that sense, we need to pay attention to these words like ‘civil society’ and ‘public space’, because I am not sure that we have these in the true sense of the word.
So, no wonder we are crippled, not only in terms of showing affection in public but also resisting power in public. There’s no culture of peaceful public protest. And our protests, forgive me for being brutal here, but they are soooo boring. And sometimes even sponsored by organisations (like the one I work for, so I am not innocent here, you see!) I mean I do have a soft corner for some genuine individuals who repeatedly take to the streets and I do respect them sincerely. But the truth is it is not in our ‘culture’ to protest peacefully.
We deny the issues till they brim over the top and every 10 year cycle we have a violent revolution or a guerilla war of some sort that can only be countered by terror and suppression only.
And the only way I see out is to work systematically to build these ‘public space’ to be affectionate, to create, to express and to protest!
Ok, this is getting too long. And beginning to sound like a sermon, so I’ll have to skip the rest of the travelogue, in which I visit Fusion Street, a creative organisation working with marginalised and immigrant kids in Berlin, the visit to the New National Gallery of Modern Art, the Pergamon Mueseum…maybe some other day…
At Colombo duty-free I bought a Bailys, a Semmilon Chardonnay, a Chivas Rose and a French Brandy. They are all locked up in my grand ma’s closet right now, which is full of duty-free spirits! You see, my family culture is not one that encourages drinking. Like my mom asks ‘who on earth are you going to go drinking with?’
So you see, if I want to promote dialogue, I can start at home!
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