in this sunny isle of mine, our government is kind enough to bestore upon us as many holidays as we can handle. and thats just a glorious thing.. for one thing.. when its too hot, the temperature tends to dull your brain and make you are lethargic. so what do you not feel like doing then? work. definietely. i mean in some arab countries, when the temperature crosses 40 or 50c they stop work. anyway.. that not really the reason we get so much holidays - its actually to do with the fact that this is such a beautiful isle.. so who would want to be stuck in some concrete structure working!?!? so yeah.. they let us all out to go enjoy the sun sand and sea. well.. ok.. so probably not, but that should be a valid reason. maybe it has more to do witht he fact that the basic islander does not get enough vacation.. i mean we get only 14 days.. and our income earning ability is low.. so we cant really afford a 30day holiday.. so we get 14, and the rest distributed through out the year, and this way we get to run off on short trips all over the isle! isnt it wonderful?
anyway.. i wanted to start writing about 2 things... one is to do with me being quarter elven.. and the other is on a trip i recently went on. which shall i talk about? ... ... ...
next time. shall do. its too beautiful outside to be typing away.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Your blurb reminded me of something Jaqueline Fernadez (Miss Sri Lanka, who's doing quite well in Miss Universeville by the way) said about her country...her utopian descriptions of an island paradise were followed by one particular statement that struck me. She said that you could hardly tell there was a 20 year old civil conflict in the country. After my initial smugness eased a little, her line actually got me thinking...
ReplyDeleteIt's quite amazing how most parts of Sri Lanka actually manage to remain quite untouched(undisturbed) by the war...It's no wonder that a humanitarian aid worker friend of mine always said that Sri Lanka was the 5star of the conflict affected areas in the world...life seems to go on regardless, just the way it always has
It also got me thinking that it might be precisely this coping ability that the country, its general geography and availability of resources that prevents people from making a stand and saying “enough is enough”. The war just isn't life threatening enough, resources continue to be available and fuck ups by the government and the various other authorities do not harm the people quite enough for us to make a united stand against all the authoritarian nonsense. Even during the height of the war people did not starve, development did happen to certain degree and life truly did go on for those not directly in the line of fire…
Yes you’re right Sri Lanka is just too beautiful a place, too small a place for anyone to actually work, so we find excuses. Whether it’s this reluctance to work or the apathy towards the conflict…guess it’s all to do with the good old hackneyed island mentality! We’re a happy people, no matter what happens life goes on because the island always manages to save our asses.
Ouch!
ReplyDeleteThank u very much… u just stepped on my rose tinted glasses! Hallo.. if I wanted my face smacked in reality I read the newspapers and send my comments there. I think I can also feel the beginning of a ..what was it u called it – spring something migraine! Yup… let me have it! That’s all I need on top of the heat and the grim world all around.
Well see its not that I don’t agree with u.. I do. We are not really directly affected by the war… even when a bombing occurred within the city… it was such a mundane thing. Yup a lot of discussion…, but other than that… from a civilian point of view… nothing changes. Even if u were affected, we still pick up the pieces and move on. We don’t do anything about anything in this country.
Eh… I think it’s the heat.
I mean if u really want to talk about the grim reality of certain aspects of living within the isle, there’s so much, u can list it alphabetically. Its not like we arnt affected by the war, I have personally lost someone to it - quite gruesomely, the regular ‘so-n-so’ is… atleast in terms of money/ heavy taxing. We are also harassed by idiot corrupt politicians, our municipalities don’t even have a system for disposing garbage, our potholes are rarely surrounded by roads, our public transport system is hilarious, but do we complain… yes. Do we do anything about it… no.
It’s the mentality. I still think it’s the heat tho. But its possible its because the regular ‘so-n-so’ understands that we are not united as people, if we stand up alone – you get targeted, and even when we unitedly give voice to our needs… nothing happens. The upper echelon and the idiot politician is busy filling their pockets and raping the country. Do we care… yes. Can we do anything about it… I don’t think so. U see all these horrible exposes in the papers about so many million missing blah blah blah… do any of the authorities feel responsible to address these allegations? Nope.
Take neighboring India, something like that happens, there are mass strikes, people get thrown in jail, ministers resign – people have power there. Do u realize that since its slightly further from the equator, they get respites from the heat.. I think that’s when all the action occurs!
I don’t know.. I don’t know why there isn’t more patriotism in the isle or why civil society is not strong enough.
Heat is a possibility u have to admit.
It’s the same with the war. I don’t agree with it being called a civil war. It is not. U and I are not fighting against each other. Whether certain factions are representative of certain ethnic/ geographic communities… I don’t know. Maybe not. So that’s how, we still continue with our lives… because we as communities are not involved. We are only affected. There is so much depth to this subject… it’s a whole site by its self.
Is their a movement that can be started that can be effective in counteracting all the grim realities – at least the small stuff ?