Do Gods have off days and other such queries

I have always wondered whether God(s) has/ve off days. I have used the uncertainty plural so that anyone with any religious non/belief can grapple with this profound question without feeling left out. It in itself is a very simple question. If I had asked myself this when I was sixteen I would have answered with 'God has no man-like properties. He is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient.' Bam! End of story.

Umm... but now, this is a difficult question to answer. The world has taught me diplomacy. It has influenced me in such a way that I take a moment or too to actually phrase my answer, in fear of offending the person who is posing the question. This is very unfortunate because a simple yes or no answer would suffice to this question, because at the end of the day this is way less of a question than the eternal 'Rajni or Kamal', 'Lara or Sachin', 'Federer or Nadal' types of queries. (The answer to all three questions are worthy of many hours of argument) But let me not trivialize this issue.

I ask in all earnestness. The 'thing' is I think in a way which leads me to ask such questions. Yes, I ask a lot of questions, from a lot of people. At least I used to till I discovered Google and Wikipedia. But even now these splendid repositories of knowledge and algorithms cannot provide me with satisfactory answers.

Some of the questions I ask are plain weird, especially from people: One such question I surprise people with is "Will you feel sad when I die?". I know, very stupid question, right. Most of the people stumble, blush, look away and some actually say 'yes'. The reason why I ask this question is because I have a list, a list which has the names of people who I feel will cry when I die. By the way, the list is 219 names long.

Another point I learnt a long time ago is that when it comes to questions related to matters of the heart (not vascular, but metaphorically) it is a good idea to know the answer that you are going to get before posing the question. I know it sounds self-defeating, if you know the answer why ask the question in the first place, but I almost always follow the principle. I have heard this theory helps lawyers too. So if you know a person who thinks Nadal is a better player, then if you are a Federer fan, please avoid asking him who is the greater player. That way you will end up saving time, so that you may write blog posts like these.

Joy in Mundanity

I was having a beast of a day. Seriously, everyone was screwing with my patience when it was clearly not in the mood for it. I was finding that one and half years of research work might be let down by a petty, ruler wielding administrative staff. I could put it right by spending my normal monthly subsistence money on it, but asking that from a grad student in a foreign country is too much, just too much. Not that I did not have the money, but as a financial expert would say; the three most important things for survival in a capitalist economy is cash flow, cash flow and cash flow. That much of an economic shock would be catastrophic for my future plans, and I was stubborn. But I digress now.

I broke down. I completely broke down. I just plonked back on my seat and sat there without knowing what to do. Then I figured that I might as well make myself a cup of coffee. The thought of making coffee lessened my anxiety. I filled water in my hot water boiler and switched it on. Took my white, two-handled conically shaped coffee mug and the spoon and rinsed them. Opened the coffee bottle and measured out three fourths teaspoon of instant coffee powder (I have a way of measuring out three fourths) and let it fall into the mug. Then as the water reached boiling point, raised the boiler from its casing and tipped and let the hot water flow into the mug. Stirred it until the coffee powder fully dissolved and mingled and the whole concoction became dark brown. Opened the sugar container and measured out one and half teaspoons of sugar into it. Stirred the mug until the sugar dissolved as well. Rinsed the spoon and kept it on the table. Brought the mug to the table and took in the aroma of the coffee brew. By now, my anxiety had completely dissolved along with the sugar and coffee powder. By immersing myself in the seemingly mundane task of making coffee I had detached myself from stress and fear of being let down. I had completely diverted my concentration to something which required it and hence had become less strung out.

We often malign the mundane tasks in our lives, seldom noticing the near-cathartic experiences they might provide us in times of great stress. Be it taking a morning walk in the park, to making ourselves a cup of tea, they have the power to single out our consciousness from being bothered by a seemingly knotty problem. Yet a lot of people are opting out of these mundanities. If we do so, we are foregoing the right to enjoy the mundanity for what it is; a breather to get away for a few minutes from those very things that are making us give it up. For now, I believe there is absolute joy in mundanity. Don't let anything take it away from you.

Colour me, colour you

I have always wondered what it would be like to think in terms of colours. It has been a fascination since adolescence. To see a scenario or a mental picture of something and then to demarcate a colour for it. Its a very interesting experiment, trust me. 


Sometimes on a Saturday evening, here in Thailand, whilst walking along the 'shady grove' (the name I have given to a stretch of road adjoining the football field in my faculty) life seems to be a happy 'cream' colour. A Saturday spent tying up the loose ends gives a feeling of content nothing can disturb, nothing. 


On a Monday early morning, whilst waiting for the shuttle bus, time seems to be painting a portrait in cobweb-by gray, dull and not sharply defined. The same morning, the cup of coffee I have seems to be a teeming 'lively earthy brown', almost like the muddy rain waters, which give sustenance to the parched earth. 


A busy day is like 'copper sulphate blue', very nice to see, but the usefulness right about stops there. A lazy day is more like a 'burgundy', dark... yet soothing in its own right. 


I like the 'dark gray' the gathering of storm clouds brings about. Reminds me of the musty smells of the public library in Colombo, which is in turn associated with pure, unadulterated joy. I always tell my friends an evening spent drinking coffee, reading a 'good' book is metallic silver for me, the feeling of consanguinity  and contentment. 


Sometimes I feel 'dark blue', where my ego has been hurt, and I feel anger setting on. Then the 'dark blue' often turns 'boiling red', reaching a fever pitch when I say something that I would eventually regret. When looking back at the times I have lost my temper, which is normally during my 'peachy pink' times, a sense of shame takes over.


The colours I wear reflect my moods: full black when I am feeling a sense of something 'not so good' about to happen (bottle green-y feeling perhaps), splash of colour when my perspective on life is 'neutral yellow' (not bad, not good), brown when I am feeling especially 'fresh-y red'.

With friends like these...

I have been meaning to get back to work. But personally I need to write this blog about a group of friends I have. Especially since one of them integral members is leaving the country to go in search of greener pastures. (OK, one idiom done for the blog post, I promise no more cliches here) I underwent four years of .. um.. I don't know I can put this in a way so that I don't offend anyone, but let me try, underwent four years of mild torture to get my Bachelors in Engineering. It was tough for me. I was underwhelmed and overwhelmed at the same time, which if you are wondering, feels really bad. There was euphoria one moment and then abject failure the other. It was like a bungling sequence of REALLY bad movies, one after the other.

In those four years of Raskolnikovian (he of 'Crime and Punishment' fame) life the only considerably good thing I did was become friends with the 'group of friends' I am going to talk about in this post.

Now before I go on I need to tell you something about myself in those four years. In the best of times I have a cheery view of life, laced with a touch of cynicism, but my oh my at bad times everything looks bleak to me. I am the eternal pessimist, and along with that sometimes I get paranoid. I also have bi-polar tendencies, where I have childish enthusiasm for something and the next moment it's gone replaced with absolute derision for the same thing. Yes, I know I am making myself look a very difficult person to get along with, in truth I am a little bit like that.

So, the second year of my four years, I became friends with these human beings. Three of them were in the same department as me so all the study sessions were goofy, fun and agony at the same time. Then I met their mutual friends in other two separate departments, two 'nerdy' (so guys, you know who you are) who also accepted me into the 'clique'. Along the mad scramble to earn 'credits' and pass exams, I still managed to have fun, thanks to them. Whenever I took myself seriously (which I do ALL the time) they were there to remind me to take a proverbial "chill pill". They have visited my home, met my parents and sibling, eaten 'home food'. One guy's mother's food is the next best in Colombo, almost in par with my Mum's. We shared lunch packets, harangued each other for birthday treats, and all other treats (:D). We have gone to the beach together, KFC and Queens weren't spared of our presence and all through this they put up with grumbling, chronic bad moods and the mood swings, kudos to them.

Then the pinnacle of it all came to be in the year 2009. Some 'bright' (I think it's you M, you know who you are, own up now!) person decided that we need to go on a trip and that trip needed to be to the second highest mountain peak in Sri Lanka, Sivanolipaatha Malai or Sri Pada. At the beginning  I personally thought that this was not going to be... Come on, me pulling myself through seven hours of climbing up and then another gruelling seven hours getting down. ROFL.

Come one fine Saturday I was finding myself in the Galle to Fort mini-bus going towards the Fort Railway station to catch the train to go to Hatton. Yes, we were going on the trip to climb that mountain. By the way, one small anecdote, if I may be permitted. I was not supposed to be travelling alone in the mini-bus. I was actually supposed to wait for someone in a bus halt closer to my home, get into the same bus as he was travelling, but I being I, decided that the bus that I chose to get into was the one my friend was travelling in. (Sorry A!) So yeah anyway, I got to the railway station without any untoward incident, and then I actually enjoyed the train ride as it was filled with card-playing, isso vadai eating camaraderie. Then, the friend who is leaving to greener pastures, let's call him S, told me during a quiet moment, "Sujo, we have to climb up, all of us have to climb up, there will be no leaving anyone behind". I replied "Um. yeah. Supposing I can't make it, you are welcome to leave me behind and go". For that S, "No, everyone has to get to the top".

The same night, we left the house we were staying in (it was my father's friend's place) and left to undertake the most physically challenging thing I have done in my entire life to date. We had come prepared in terms of all the stuff we will needed. There were three girls and four guys in the travelling party, so all the guys shared the loads amongst them. Some times the girls too shared the loads, but the only person who did not do any sharing of the load was me. I was grumbling, panting and making all sorts of complaints along the way. Now looking back, I do not know how they put up with me. If I had been me, I would have left myself somewhere along the wayside and gone along. But yet my friends did not utter a simgle word of reproach or regret at me having accompanied them. The only time I stopped complaining was when I had a shot of coffee. Then for the next ten minutes life was rosy and all, and then again I would start. Seriously guys and girls, thank you very much for putting up with me.

This post is not just for that time, for all the times my friends had put up with me. I know it must have been difficult. Thank you. It is much appreciated.

Zero

Zero. 


My high school maths teacher taught me that the single most important invention or discovery by either the Indians or the ancient Arabs (the jury is still out on this one) was the discovery of zero. He also went on to say that zero was like God. It meant that man had understood something that he could not see (effectively having zero of something meant not having any of that) In essence, man was closer to codifying calculus, economics and all those by-products of mathematics. 


Zero means a lot of things in my life too. The number of times I have watched Brian Lara bat live, number of consecutive pay cheques I have taken home, the number of Valentine's Days I have celebrated with my significant other, the number of times I did NOT enjoy a hot cup of coffee or a Jeffrey Archer book. Actually far too many to list in its entirety here. But some of the most significant instances that is of pertinence now are very saddening.


Zero.


The number of times the Sri Lankan Government has apologised to the people in the North of this country. 


Zero.


The number of times the LTTE apologised for the Kathankudy Massacre.


Zero.


The number of times the LTTE apologised to the Muslims who were asked to evacuate the North in 1990.


Zero.


The number of times both sides apologised for the so called "collateral damage" in their bitter war.

End of the World, as I know it

A part of me died when Brian Lara retired. From my childhood, since asking my Dad "Who is that short guy who thinks he can outhit Desmond Haynes" to when lapping up every single delivery he ever faced in the 2001 Sri Lanka series, I have grown up, whence he has inspired everything I did. Hell, I even started taking my G. C. E. Advanced Levels seriously after he hit *that* 400 n. o. against England in 2004. I remember years with his personal milestones. I remember numbers because of some his phenomenal scores (for e. g. 375, 153* and 400*). His batting always involved some amount of risk, and risks always thrilled me. There was nothing more I wanted in this world than to see him bat live, in person. Alas, that did not happen.

Another person who evokes the same sort of sentiment in me is Roger Federer. From feeling sorry for Sampras in the 2001 Wimbledon and then to appreciating the fact that the baton of Tennis "Godness" has indeed been passed safely to this ponytailed, head-banded Swiss player was important. He played, what am I saying, plays with metronomic precision. Something to do with him being a Swiss, they say. I don't understand, never having been to Switzerland, little, always neutral Switzerland. The joke is that when Fed and Stan Wawrinka (Swiss No. 2) play, the games take only one and half minutes each because they play so fast, with minimum of fuss. Federer does not emote. Hell, he rarely sweats. When you imagine Nadal, you see the sweat stained shirt sticking to his ripped body. When you imagine Federer, you can feel the hawk like gaze but nothing about the sweat.

OK I am rambling.

The point is Federer is in terminal decline as well. I should have seen it when the 14th Grand Slam title, which should have been but which wasn't (Australian Open 2009) happened and the tears which flowed so freely should have confirmed it. But the 14th came later, at a venue which had been his nemesis (Roland Garros) and all was well. For the time being, he had arrested the tide of decline, and the eventual Wimbledon title (15th) brought about euphoria. Then he lost to someone whom I consider as the Face of Future Tennis (Juan Martin Del Potro) in the US Open of the same year. Alarm bells rang, albeit at a soft volume. Then came Sweet Sixteen, a number I have come to cherish because of Federer and from then on, the Number 17 seems to signify everything magical, and unattainable. The whole world is holding its breath for Sachin's 100th 100, but I for one, am longing for 17. I know that he can't play forever like the way he has played before, yet I bluff, and my brain refuses to move on. The question is will I get the chance to at least see Federer play in person.

Very soon the bastions who held up my world with their atlas like strengths will be gone from my everyday life. Life will go on, but the World I knew, the World I had grown up in, would have been changed forever as well.

Sigh.

Living in a strange land

Sometimes I feel I do not belong, which is justified because I do not belong. Believe me, I don't. I don't have fair skin, nor the lithe body. I don't smile easily, at least not when I am confronted with a guy who seems to not understand you even with a gun to his head. I am not akin to breakout of foolish laughter, sheepish grins. In fact sometimes I find smiling so tedious, I feel like hiding my face rather than being obliged to smile.

I don't talk rapturously, do not eat like I have the whole day to spend with that particular food, wield a fork and spoon with the kind etiquette that is religiously demanded. I tell you all this to persuade you that I do not belong. I come from a nation which demands the sort of practice from its young which makes it easier for them to win any rat-race, and be equipped in dealing with any sort of test-system. My most productive years were spent understanding how gears and mechanical drives work. I take more warmth from a nice book and a cup of hot coffee, rather than in a chilled drink and a 'smart' phone. I do not see the need to get up every morning and make it a requirement to style my hair. I do not need to apply cosmetics to even feel confident enough to face up to the world. I do not conform to the norms set in front of me of a girl of 'that' particular age. I do not have a partner, and two more lined up in case the 'one' does not work out. I don't spend money on expansive telecom packages. I save diligently, spend even more diligently.

The pressure to conform is startlingly too much. You are expected to lower your standards, if the 'normal' is lower than your exacting ones. Not that I have a problem against people who have lower standards than me, but at the same time I cannot take it if they have a problem with people who have higher standards than them. Yes, I am talking in 'me' and 'them' language. Divisive, I know. The sort of thing which will get you ostracised before you can pronounce 'ostracised'. But, the thing is, I really do not care. I am not here to make friends, neither am I here to conform to your standards. They say, for all the talk of wolves living in packs, the individual wolf is, essentially, a loner. And you will never find a hawk in a school (I use this word, for lack of a better word).