OCCUPATIONAL HAZARDS OF BEING..........ME.......IN SRI LANKA

Since I m leaving this place tonight, its only fair that one of my posts is dedicated to some of the experiences here. Ok first up, this is a MINDBLOWINGLY BEAUTIFUL country. It is like a more modern version of Goa actually. And the people are THE NICEST ive ever met. I swear to you, they go out of the way to be nice and helpful man....its damn cool. However there exists that one perennial problem, which goes by the name LTTE , which makes this a wierd place at times. So here are somethings that can happen to you (which basically means theyve happened to me).........

1) The first journey from the airport can be very disconcerting. You have the sea near the road, palm trees and other trees................and armymen with uniforms which blend with the vegetation. In fact, the camouflage can be so good that if you dont focus (and youve woken up at 4 am for the past 2 days), you can find yourself believing for a moment, that the trees have black faces painted on them and talk to each other.......and then you laugh at yourself and feel stupid.

2) You come out of a mall, and there will be a poor old crippled beggar. You move on coz youre so used to it in India. Then that guy calls out and argues in sophisticated english as to exactly why you should give him the money. After a few minutes, you realise that you come off as the beggar coz you arent willing to part with Rs.10, so you just give in and put some money in that gloating blackguard's pocket, feeling stupid (oh ya, he doesnt have a bowl, he tells you to put the money in his shirt pocket)

3) You are just walking around 2 km from your house (which is only abt 10 minutes from the president's house, so it is actually a prime locality), and you come across an armyman shooting at somebody or something (and that somebody or something is shooting back). No time to see who it is, you just run, praying that youre not hit by a bullet, and that you dont wet yourself, at the same time, and then coming home and feeling like an utter pussy. Hey, bullets sound much louder in real life from a sub machine gun, than they show it to be in the movies.

4) You happen to be coming out of a mall, happy coz you ve just seen a movie. And then an armyman appears and talks in Sinhala. You talk in tamil, then english. He recognises that you arent a local........and then asks where youre from. "India". "Ok sir, can I see your passport". Then you politely explain that no sane person will walk all around the place with his passport, and then he starts arguing with you. You have enough and you say "Teri maa ka bhonsda" and pray that he doesnt know hindi (he doesnt), n then tell him to come home to see it. He looks for a few minutes and then walks away staring suspiciously. Geez, do i look like a terrorist????? I mean which self -respecting terrorist walk around in the mall in 3 quarters, a loose t-shirt and slippers????? where does he expect the gun is, up my ass?????? sunovabitch.

5) You spend the evening of your own birthday, in the birthday party of a 6-yr old kid, and teach him how to use the remote control of a car he got as a gift. And then, next week, you go to Bentota with the same family (which is Pakistani btw). There being no space in the car, that 6-yr old prick sits on your lap.....to-and-fro......which is 6 HOURS. And he has no respect for the fact that youre human....he wriggles, lies down, moves around, trying to find a position where he can sleep off in. He manages, and then you spend an hour preventing him from falling sideways and crashing his head (much against your own free will). If that wasnt enough...he pulls u into the sea with him coz he is scared, and you end up protecting him from the waves. (The good thing abt that trip was that i was allowed to drive for a while.......and that car was a NISSAN CROSSBOW.....muahahahahaha)

6) Family hosts a party. Noone drinks at home (with a possible exception of me), yet dad buys booze for his friends. So the fridge has 12 bottles of bear, 2 litres of vodka, n 1 litre of whisky.........with your mom going mad about it. And then you end up taking care of a bunch of sodding, raving, drunk motherfuckers.......who are all your dad's age .(which means you cant abuse them, man that was awful).

7) Most embaressingly, if you look like me, your dad's friends confirm whether youre really his son.......coz you look TOO SRI LANKAN.......damn you Lasith Malinga !!!!!!!!!!!! (oh and you tend to take drastic measures to prevent that, like going bald.......:D)

There are some other random incidents that can happen to you......however, im really not in a mood to type much more. Plus its getting late.....I have to go to the Indo-sri lanka cricket press conference in 10 minutes, which means i might get to meet the players........muahahahahaa................adios suckas.