The face-cover, also known as the Niqab in Arabic, has been the subject of so much controversial talk world-over, first gaining fame for heated discussion in Middle Eastern countries. Is it oppressive? Is it a matter of freedom of choice? Is it necessary at all? Blah blah blah blah. Having been brought up till most of my teenage years around practising Muslims, I have come across many women who donned the Niqab.

Some of them did it on grounds of a personal decision, on basis of the general Islamic belief that men and women should simplify and dress-down, to such an extent of minimal physical adornment, in order to detach from the material world (which is a common theme in almost all religions and philosophies that preach detachment, ref. the bald monk in simple robes).  And some were just told to by their parents or do it because of their cultural setting without knowing why they do or how not to.

Islam in itself, according to a majority of scholars, does not declare it an obligation on women to cover their faces, although some pious women of the Prophet’s time did and so it’s looked upon as an admirable commitment by many religious people.

What do we think the Niqab is?

So let’s just examine what the Niqab really means in today’s context shall we? The media’s coverage of it through pictures and videos taken of women in Middle Eastern countries, has been — let’s not sugar coat it — extremely negative, bordering on sinister. It has, like the Hijab (the covering of the head), become ‘symbolic’ of a patriarchal type of oppression against women, as stories of men forcing their wives and daughters to cover themselves against their will have been sprung onto our eyes and into our ears through television and newspapers. Women in sombre blue Burkas (an entirely shapeless garment with barely any defining seams inclusive of a face-cover) crowd in a street corner in Afghanistan (supposedly) in a photograph captured by a British journalist. Captions under such pictures paint the mood of the moment an ominous and pitiful colour; ‘do these women know freedom?’ says a comment below the picture. And so, as a rule of classical-conditioning in the human brain, it becomes a natural assumption that a woman covered up either in Hijab/Niqab/Burka (mostly the latter two), is a victim. Pictures in the media of (some, not all) powerful and successful women, in little clothes, staring fiercely at the camera on the cover of a magazine, proudly presenting their physical beauty, in an era where physical beauty has become of such importance — has also helped with labeling negatively the image of a woman who covers her face.

‘Why would anyone cover their face?’

This is a question that plagues most people who are often completely outside Islamic and conservative spheres. Why would anyone do it? You can’t see the person’s face, I don’t know who I’m talking to, it’s unnatural. Different people may do it for different reasons, and even though I wouldn’t cover my face because I don’t feel strongly about it and it would definitely be at odds with my lifestyle — I believe that any women who chooses to wear the Niqab only has to justify it with a ‘because I want to.’ If we claim to be a progressive universal society of humans who are all for personal freedom and individuality, and we allow some people to wear teeny weeny polka dot bikinis, some to wear shiny ugly clothes that are a crime to fashion, and others to wear whatever they want, why not a woman to wear a piece of cloth on her face if she feels like it?

But let’s get real

I feel like it is, however, asking too much, to expect average society (except in an Islamic country) to suddenly just be OK with women walking around with covered faces. As time and places have shown, people stare, people ask questions, people are puzzled about it — I know, because one of my closest friends covers her face in public. She is extremely pretty, intelligent, creative, confident, has a mind of her own and is great fun socially – and in today’s context, when covered-lady has become almost synonymous for Middle Eastern victim of oppression and flirty-lady-in-short-skirt has become a positive connotation, she feels at odds with things sometimes. The reality is that there are some people who, for some reason, downright disapprove — I’m not even speculating here, I’ve heard people say they just can’t accept it. The reality is that you cannot expect miraculous open-mindedness from people; the reality is that most people out there will feel sorry for or feel uncomfortable around a stranger who appears with her face covered; the reality is that many of them have already made up their mind up about you and your life before you even spoke a word. You have been judged.

It’s ironic, said my friend, that some people walk around saying they are oh so very liberal and open-minded and preach no judgment for all, but when they see me, with a simple cloth standing over my face, I am almost immediately subconsciously categorized into a little folder before I can provide the first impression.

This is however somewhat of a generalization, there are some people out there who don’t care what you wear and are fair enough not to have preconceived notions shaped by the media’s classical conditioning. But I’m very sure it’s a small number compared to those who do.

What the Niqab really is

In fact, and not in historical symbolical terms, the Niqab is a piece of cloth, often black in colour, often worn along with a long loose dress. It is a piece of cloth attached around the face either with a knot or velcro. It is a thin light piece of cloth, she can still breathe and see from behind it because there’s usually a slit for the eyes, it does not obstruct her view in any way, no it is not going to interfere with her driving skills, and yes it is a little warm than without it but barely really because she’s used to it, it isn’t uncomfortable. In a majority of cases at least in Sri Lanka today, it is worn because the person wearing it wants to. On wearing the Niqab, the woman does not suddenly become a different creature – she’s still under there. It’s just cloth. It isn’t some diabolical transmogrifying device, and there are others who are much more deserving of your disapproval such as that fat hairy guy in the short-shorts and that school teacher whose skirt barely covers her posterior and that man with the nazi swastika on his tshirt.

She still has ideas, a voice of her own, she can still see you staring at her in wonder and she feels self-conscious and uncomfortable, she can still hear you call her ‘ninja’ and laugh at her, she still has feelings, she still gets hurt when your child points and says ‘bakkamoona’ and you don’t even correct the child, she has a laugh, she has aspirations, she has opinions. She has interests, she has family and friends, she’s just another person, except with different clothes on her body. Yes, it definitely seems ‘unnatural’ in today’s general context to see a potentially vivacious and confident woman in public with a black cloth concealing her face, but get over it. I’d like to think we live in a world that has the mental capacity to look beyond the cover of a book; when writing for the rights of women, which at the time in 19th century England, seemed a rather ‘unnatural’ thing to do, J. S. Mill said it best: So true is it that unnatural generally means only uncustomary, and that everything which is usual appears natural.

Ever since I can remember, me and female friends of mine have had weird boys texting us or calling us or FB-ing us in hopes that it would result in us holding hands and running in slow motion across a green  meadow in proper Tamil movie fashion (needless to say, such attempts have ended in painful-to-watch failure). Now most ordinary boys and people who don’t live in Sri Lanka, and those who just have never heard of such a phenomenon, will assume that my story about boys virtually stalking me is my implication that I am just that irresistible; though this may in fact be true, it is definitely not why these weird boys do what they do.

Ask most girls, especially school girls, in Sri Lanka. I don’t know whether it’s a Muslim thing or a particular cultural thing? It probably isn’t. It probably is just this massive indiscriminate attack by Raging Godayas. They’re everywhere, man. They are very persevering. They may seem nervous, but are immensely optimistic creatures as evidenced by their conviction that they actually stand a chance. And they don’t have a type. Oh except for some of them, who are very calculating about race and religion — example, the Muslim variety of Raging Godayas will be very specific about stalking Muslim females, because, you see, after texting and calling a bunch of times he will ask her to marry her and so assuming she says yes to a complete stranger who has the additional charm of being creepy – her being of the same community will just make things run smoother when the wedding comes around.

Where do they come from? Well in school, I have this suspicion that the creepies were cousin brothers of people in school – because we used to write our numbers down in our friends’ ‘autograph books’ at the end of the academic year, and they probably got access afterwards. Why do I say cousin brothers? I don’t know, cousin brothers are dodgy like that.
After school, it’s a bit of a mystery. A lot of girls get harassed by these guys through ‘Facebook’ and its lameass distant relative ‘hi5.’ If you’re the average guy or have never heard of this, you probably think I’m exaggerating. Because people don’t really talk about this so much. But I’m not, believe me.

Most often than not, the Raging Godaya won’t even know what you look like. They get your number/email/socialnetworkID from – hell if I know where – and will randomly contact you and start up a very non-subtle conversation that will baffle your MAIND. When I was about 15, this guy kept calling and was all ‘oh I is liking yous’ and I was just all, bitch please. Just a handful of annoying phonecalls in, he says he likes me so much that he wants to ‘marry’ me. However keep in mind, he has never met me in his life or doesn’t know me in person even remotely and has never had even a phone convo that didn’t involve me telling him to get psychiatric help. He gives me the story of his life and shit and just to make him go away I pick on his age and say, you’re way too old anyway (he was 23 or something.. pedo anyone?). And then he, very seriously — I kid you not — quotes an Islamic story of the Prophet who married his wife Khadjija despite their huge age gap. Seriously? I yelled at him for being such a hysterical moron and hung up so he could go cry into his palms.

TWO WORDS: CLINICALLY INSANE.

Friends of mine have similar stories — of weirdo strangers calling and literally professing their undying devotion, and often of someone or the other texting and online-inboxing, perpetually, albeit in really, really bad grammar. So in addition to this being irritating on the general grounds of ridiculousness, it was extra maddening on grounds of me being a grammar-nazi.
Classic Raging Godaya pick-up line: U R VERY BEAUTY
How does he know I am ‘very beauty’? My profile picture is Patrick the starfish devouring a Krabby Patty!
Another overused one: u r frm dehiwela? can u pls be my frnd / letz b frndz / can i friend u?
NO.

One guy about a year ago would call almost daily and say ‘I lau you’ – just like that. I’m sure I wasn’t being trolled either, he sounded very serious and english was very obviously a second fourth language. And when I asked who he was or how he got my number he would just dismiss all questions expressing in broken english that he couldn’t answer my questions and would conclude with an inappropriate ‘it’s ok, I lau you.’

I reiterate. CLINICALLY INSANE.

A friend of mine today gets calls several times a day, from someone who has never met her in his life, insisting that they be together forever before asking her earnestly ‘will I call later today?’ My friend, confused, realizes she has no crystal ball that will help her answer this question, but then it hits her that the idiot actually means to ask ‘shall I call later today?’ No you will not call later today.

Honestly, what is this even?
My friend JB is being hit on by a creepy co-worker who just says really inappropriate things like ‘u r sexy’ before obliviously stalking her around the office,  so she whines to me, why is it that the hotties don’t stalk me? Why is it always the really, really weird disturbing people?!

Srsly. Why can’t a really awesomely charming gentleman for once send the FB-message containing (grammatically correct) ridiculous flattery? Or call repeatedly and say I LAU YOU, or do the perpetual stalking. It’s always gotta be the creepy bastards. Sigh.

Needless to say, I was kind of star-struck. Though I’m not really the type to get all hyper over getting writers’ autographs, I was still pretty much all, I can’t believe I’m going to meet Michael Ondaatje and Oprah Winfrey.. for free. O_O

Anyway, let’s start at the beginning.

A room of one’s own!

After sharing an apartment with six teenagers — getting my own hotel room at a snazzy little inn was nothing short of heaven. Also, I’d never really had my own hotel room all to myself before, let alone with cable TV and room service and a fancy swipey-card thingy.. the possibilities buzzed through my brain.. ordering craploads of lasagna to my room, standing under the hot shower forever (without the interruption of roommates knocking on the door!), lying in bed watching The Simpsons reruns for hours while eating a packet of Oreos, hell, I could dance around in my underwear! All these things may or may not have been committed, I cannot specify on grounds of Too Much Information.

I really savoured the peace and quiet and just coming back at the end of the day to my absolute own personal space. Also the privacy conducive to the act of flailing around like a happy little lunatic.

The Indian Literati

I met five of my Sri Lankan friends at the Fest and we did our secret Sri Lankan handshake. The place was decorated in loud primary colours, and the presentations much like in Galle were scheduled at separate locations and you had to pick and choose which to attend. But unlike in Galle, there was a togetherness about the JLF locations, since they were all inside a sort of compact Diggi House (something like Park Street Mews minus ugly warehouses) which was essentially a massive outdoorsy area divided only by gates and tents — as opposed to the locations at the Galle Fort which are so far apart that I get distracted and lost on the way to the program. Ticketing and all that jazz was surprisingly organized for an event that was FREE to the public. And the crowd? — You know, there’s this particular Colombo crowd that goes to Galle for the GLF, in their best shades, best shoes, all fashioned up, going all oh my, I’m going to the GLF, are you? Everyone who’s anyone is going to be there! I haven’t read a goddamn book since ninth grade but hanging out at the Fest makes me feel like an intellectual! ..? Well, news flash, this species is most probably universal. The same fashion, the same pretentious ‘I’m going to get my book signed by this awesome writer though I’ve never heard of him or his book before today in my life! yay!’, the same English intelligentsia accents, the same everything — at the Jaipur Lit Fest. You even found the Hipster, the Cross-Dressing Guy and the Flamboyantly Coloured Hippy making their appearance as part of the ‘liberal minded literati.’ I have nothing against them though,  the ones in Galle or the ones in Jaipur, just that it was hilarious to find out they were common to ‘literature festivals’ in general.

However, you don’t notice any of these silly things at the JLF all that much because your mind is too busy being befuddled by the fact that all this is free (as opposed to the ridiculous cost of the GLF). I listened to writers tell me about how they overcame natural obstacles that writers face in this century, to Booker Prize judges tell me how to write prize winning fiction, to world renowned gurus tell me how to earn big bucks as a writer without having to sell your soul, and to useful anecdotes, advice and discussion — about everything and anything to do with the art of literature — for the price of nothing. Michael Ondaatje talked to us about writing historical fiction, Samit Basu discussed ‘creating imaginary worlds’ when writing, Alastair Niven explained the things that factor into writing something of ‘literary excellence,’ Katherine Boo talked passionately about journalistic literature and how the issues written are more important than the writer himself. The music concerts at the end of each day, though, was at the cost of only 500 Sri Lankan rupees, and featured epic indigenous music styles, some Hindustani vocals, some Rajasthani dancing, and even some world fusion. I made some good buys at the Fest’s bookstore, including a book of poetry by Rumi — whose work I have never seen in a bookshop before.

The Oprah Mob

So on my last day in Jaipur, Oprah Winfrey was going to descend upon us mortals at the Fest. I am a huge fan of Oprah and her work. Getting there about twenty minutes before her presentation, all excited, I found myself right at the front of a big mob that had gathered outside the gate of the location Oprah was gonna be at; the gate was closed, and the security guys said ‘no entry, too crowded.’ We peeped through the gate and saw that the security guys were lying! There was loads of space to stand though the seats were taken up — ‘Oprah would not approve, Security Guy!’ I protested. Huge ruckus as we all fussed and fretted out loud outside the gate, only a few minutes before Oprah begins, we pleaded, an old lady next to me got a bit hysterical and screamed ‘kutta!’ (you dog!’) at the security guy for not opening the gate for her. I was almost to tears when I heard Oprah receive applause and still the guards wouldn’t let us in. The angry mob and I really bonded.

Random mob guy: They can’t do this, this is a free event!
Me: Totally, what a bunch of douches.
Random mob girl: I mean can you believe these guards? I’m going to report them!
Me: Yeah I should write about them..
Random mob girl: DO IT and send it to a paper too. Nice bag by the way.
Me: lol thx.

Suddenly I found myself rubbing shoulders with the Bhutanese Queen and Princess and some other members of their court — and by rubbing shoulders, I don’t mean we went to a tea party together, but they were literally standing next to me and brushed past me in the crowd to get through the gate. They floated past all majestically in long silk robes, porcelain skin framed by long straight dark hair, before disappearing behind the gate.

Finally a policeman came and flung open the gates and we stampeded into the venue. Oprah — in an orange shalwar kameez — was about twenty feet away from me, and talked to us hundreds about her life, about literature, about what she thinks of India, and all that, nothing short of inspirational as usual, and I got some relatively good shots from where I was standing (mostly because I yelled ‘media! media!’ and trudged through the crowd to a good spot with  my camera like a sneaky weasel).

Deepak Chopra thinks hard work is for luzrs

‘I don’t believe in hard work… Do nothing and accomplish everything!’ said the spiritual guru, and I was like, HMMM sounds like my kind of job description. So at the very end of his seminar — which was totally fascinating cuz he related quantum physics to everything which made everything seem cooler than it actually was (and I quote, ‘we are all essentially stardust’) — I waved my hand frantically in the air and he picked me as his last question. Um, how exactly do you do nothing and accomplish everything? I asked, getting my notebook out to write a step-by-step procedure.

By being, thinking, feeling and doing — he said, all profound like, before exiting the stage. Wow. Way to be specific, Deepak.

Palaces & camels

Jaipur is a beautiful, beautiful city! It had perfect weather this time of year, cool enough to have to wear two layers, but still with fresh hot sun streaming through the windows. Pink, yellow, orange powdery walls for miles and miles, decorated with shapely arches and intricate trellis work.

A friend and I spent our second day in Jaipur at the Ameer Palace, where the movie Jodha Akbar was filmed. It’s this seriously epic palace that looks straight out of some arabian-nights-esque movie, built by some ancient king, featuring amazing Islamic architecture — all inclusive of those faded orange/yellow walls, vast courtyards, lush oases and mini-palaces — some with corridors and ceilings covered in mirror work, some with innovative roofs, some with dark long narrow passages that carry you to some other mystical part of the place. Before exploring the place we visited the zillions of pigeons perched on the floor outside the palace, and three of them sat on my arm eating birdseed from my palm. After leaving the palace we rode a camel in traffic — and damn, camels are tall as hell, I felt like I was 10 feet above ground.’I am camel driver, give me tip!’ demanded the little boy pulling the camel. So I did.

The case of the missing shoes

I had half an hour to get packed and be at the railway station on my last day in Jaipur — I threw things into my bags and made a run for it, I was going to be late. Idiot that I am, I always, as tradition, leave something behind when I’m leaving some place from vacation. When I got to the railway station, barely fifteen minutes from my train’s arrival, I realize I’d left my beautiful turquoise blue sneakers in the hotel room. I looked at the railway station clock — do I, don’t I, do I, don’t I, what’s wrong with you? Who runs back to their hotel just minutes before their train arrives?! I’m going to miss it and I’ll have to stay in Jaipur another day, don’t be stupid, yeah I’ll just forget about the shoes and get on the train.

A minute later I was in a tuk-tuk speeding to my hotel.
Grabbed the shoes and sped back, barely in time, jumped into the train a few minutes before it took off.

Mad skillz, bruh.

The four-hour train ride was peaceful. Except for this weird little child who kept walking around and staring into people’s faces. She literally had her face an inch away from mine, staring into the pores of my skin. ‘You’re weird,’ I told her.

I took a lot away from the JLF, and it was extremely memorable; but to be honest, of my memories of going to the GLF twice, I hardly remember anything of the Fest in itself. The JLF, though welcomes celebrities from all over the world, I feel is overflowing with celebrated Indian writers. But I feel like Sri Lankan literature is not celebrated enough at the GLF — too many books written by our Sinhalese and Tamil writers remain untranslated and so less attention to this vast library we’ve got full of rich old indigenous literature and more to our modern written-in-English literature- which is okay, but I feel makes the event so much less than it could be. Maybe we’re getting there though? People back home, how’d it go this year?

Sigh. Anyhoo, all in all, epic weekend. Sucks to be back.

And I’m looking into the faces of all these Indians behind our rickshaw.

What do I do? They’re looking right at me.
Do I smile?
*smiles*
Oh shit that old lady looks pissed off, I’m sorry old lady my smile was not meant to scorn you.
Okay I’ma stop smiling. Urgh that guy in the car is grinning creepily at me, look away.
*looks away*
I can’t keep my head turned to the trees for this long, it’s too weird.
Wow that guy’s turban is so tall and green. Like a tall green anthill.
Haha a tall green anthill.. that’s funny.. omg stop laughing to yourself, they’ll just stare even more.
Oh my, this motorbike man is literally a foot away from me. It’s like we’re in the same room.
I feel obliged to say hi to someone who’s a foot away from me for this long. Should I say hi? Maybe ‘good morning, rough traffic huh?’
No, what if he’s a rapist. Delhi has rapists everywhere. Look away.
*clears throat*
Wow these people don’t blink.
Um..

You know that feeling after you watch a super scary movie and you’re so scared you don’t want to even go to the bathroom cuz of the newly realized probability of ghosts lurking in the darkness outside the bathroom window? Ahhhh I miss that.

I haven’t been able to find a single movie in years that’s given me that feeling. I suspect this is another one on the Reasons Why Growing Up Is Such A Kakki list. A side effect of growing up I guess, for most people, is skepticism about things that aren’t tangible completely proven fact (eg. santa, ghosts, god etc.) and a consequent decrease in irrational fears, all inclusive of contemplating ghosts in the bathroomy darkness and the chance that the girl from The Exorcist will sneak up behind you as you look in the mirror. Scary movies just aren’t believable anymore when you grow up and learn that the boogyman’s existence is not, in fact, fact.

Why couldn’t my parents just let me believe ghosts are real the way some parents let their kids believe santa is real! Can somebody please say killjoy!

However, I must admit, that my relationship with reality – as part and parcel of being a creative writer – is not a very stable one, so sometimes, yes, I do get that feeling in the darkness that ‘oh shit there’s a spooky pedo demon hiding in that shady spot next to the closet.’ Of course it may or may not turn out to be the clothes rack when I switch the lights on but this is irrelevant.

So with my imagination’s feet in running shoes, there have been one or two movies that have managed to get me all-

and then all-

dilemma!

That mitten in front of my face is my hand by the way. And no I don’t actually wear mittens, I just suck at drawing fingers. My fingers always come out looking like squiggly little worms. The ones I draw I mean, not my real fingers, that would be weird.

But I digress.

Little boys are not scary. I don’t get these horror movies that feature small ghost boys. The Grudge for example, which was lame in Japanese and intolerable in English (though many people claimed LIED TO ME prior to watching it that it would be scary, including my brother who is a stupid little girl for thinking this), features a small boy (dead by tragic circumstances of course) with white skin and big eyes who makes this sound before he kills you (or something) which I thought sounded hilarious. If a kid turned up in my room making that noise, I’d just pull him by the collar and kick him out with a ‘don’t gargle your spit, it sounds disgusting and it’s very rude.’ I mean they’re short and they have babyfaces, how can this be scary even?

Haunted houses are not scary either. Neither are literal red-colour demons with tails and horns. Because these just aren’t credible – nobody can make that red-colour demon not look like a man in plastic covering, and the chandelier swaying and objects floating around just fail at being convincing (unless Nicole Kidman’s in the movie, a la The Others) because of the generally lousy actors made to act in haunted-house-movies, who just get all ‘Oh kevin! I can’t live in this house anymore! It’s tearing us apart!’ WELL BOO HOO, LADY.

Immobile people are scary. Like that one scene in Paranormal Activity where she just stands there for hours. Immobile people who are little girls or women in white dresses with long hair are scarier.

Exhibit A, The Ring or its Japanese original Ringu. The Ring 2 scared me somewhat, and one scene in the Ringu was pretty damn creepy. There’s something about damp long hair falling over the face of a dead girl you know?

Clowns are scary. They’re always laughing and they wear too much make up and big shoes. It’s just very suspicious. But for me, scary in real life and not so much in movies like It.

On the top of my list is The Exorcist – I watched it when I was only about 10. Satan possesses girl, girl’s voice is that of an angry black man, green vomit and swear words, based on true story – it’s got all the stuff of a classically successful horror movie. Needless to say, I slept in my parents’ room for a whole week afterwards.

The possessed face of the girl in the movie still freaks me out. I guess it was extra special scary for me because as someone who believes in a religion, I actually did believe in satan too, so it was that much more real. The countless records of so-called ‘demon possessions’ and ‘exorcisms’ across the world add to the effect.

REC 2, a Spanish movie (original of the english Quarantine–which sucks) was pretty scary in one main scene featuring a demon-possessed man. Mostly because he was laughing madly.

Possessed people laughing, man. That is the killer right there.

However today similar demon-possession movies like remakes of The Exorcist and this year’s The Rite just fail at giving audiences anything new (though I felt Anthony Hopkins in the latter channeled a bit of creepyass Hannibal Lecter). Horror-movie/scary-movie makers just aren’t trying hard enough at churning out fresh new plots and special effects. It’s all in the plot. Get a convincing plot and feature a cackling possessed person and you’ve got a box office success.

I’ll end this post with a story.

When my aunt was about 9 years old, she came home to my grandma’s house and sat next to her while my grandma kindled some soup on the fire. ‘What’s for lunch, umma?’ she asked my grandmother in Tamil. Her mother replied, ‘What do you want for lunch?’ without looking away from the stove. Then she heard her 9 year old daughter babble nonsense words to herself. She turned around to tell her off – when she saw her daughter, my aunt, sitting on the floor, her eyes rolling back into their sockets, and her voice deepened into baritone like an adult man’s as she said ‘enakku pachcha erachchi vaynum, umma!’ (I want raw meat). My grandmother was fixed to the spot in horror. Her daughter then started scraping the floor with her nails, and then started scraping her own face, hard, making marks on her skin, repeating ‘pachcha erachchi thaa!’ (give me raw meat!) the masculine voice getting louder and angrier. My grandmother — instead of getting the hell out of that kitchen like I would have done — picked up her child and ran outside, yelling for help; her daughter scratched and clawed and screamed and twisted, as the people in their village carried her off to the local mosque. The priest there recited over her as she lashed out and yelled and swore and spoke unfamiliar words, and allegedly she was exorcised. When she woke up the next morning in her house, scratch marks on her body healing, she couldn’t remember a thing about the previous day.

True story, I shit you not. Ask my grandma.
Oh and the best part, when I tell this story in person, is this – everyone says that I’m a splitting image of my aunt (at this point in the story in real life, I cackle maniacally and such).

LOOK BEHIND YOU IT’S A CLOWN

lol jk. He’s hiding in the bathroom behind the door.

If you’ve watched any scary movies that you think are a must-watch, recommend here please!

In real life I surround myself with people too, and I look like an extrovert, but secretly I’m an introvert. Yes I am a secret ninja introvert. And our kind, I think, has benefited most from social networking. Facebook and Twitter and thoseotheronesthatpaleincomparison are alternate avenues of socializing, which do not require dressing up and putting yourself out there especially at the risk of having to rub shoulders with people you don’t even like (I mean, can I have a Block and Delete option in real life please?).

What with unlimited WiFi (both back home and here), I used to spend so much time online. I’d log onto Facebook, Twitter and Gmail, by default, and open a Google tab on the side to browse other random things, such as Bradley Cooper’s face and ridiculously cool words like ‘schism.’ Twitter, to me still felt pointless, basically for a little chatting and saying things that you’re almost completely sure nobody gives a rat’s ass about, but I thought I’d join after leaving to Indyaar in a bid to spy on my homies; Facebook, though, I love. There is something so addictive about the illusion of walking into a place constantly inhabited by all your friends. Every status and picture I put up was for this ardent audience of friends, wallposts with the people I know were always a fun chat, and not to mention the albums and notes made of some of my best creative output. It is the haven of the narcissists, and the idle lazybutts – and if you’re a narcissistic idle lazybutt, oh you’ve got it bad. Farmville, however, I never understood. Why would you want a virtual farm on the internet? Why would you want to plant virtual carrots? Why would anyone want to do anything with planting carrots online or off?

Anyway, all in all, idle times would have me switching on my beloved laptop (who is my best friend now, in an apartment where everyone is constantly chattering in Hindi), and somehow, end up spending hours on it. Doing not much else than ‘networking’ (stalking the updates on my newsfeed) and Googling Bradley Cooper’s face. Okay maybe the latter is an exaggeration, but seriously just look at that face. Needless to say, productivity was not my strongest suit.

Some time around last week, I deactivated my accounts, just to see if it would make much of a difference on how I spend my day. Especially since my semester exams are coming up. I got a barrage of emails and sms’s asking me if I was alright (by barrage I mean four). I am alright, people, disappearing from Facebook and Twitter does not mean I died. Anyway, good god, it really, really made a difference. Now when I’m bored and have nothing in particular on my agenda, all that’s on my laptop are movies and Gmail. I’m never in the mood to watch a movie in the middle of the day, so I find myself taking a walk around the block with my earphones on, reading a good book, and even studying. I’m almost all done with revision for my exams, and am currently simultaneously reading Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Siri Gunasinghe’s Hevanälla and Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake.

I feel much better about myself now when I go to sleep at night. Not to diss those of you who treat ordinary social networking as a hobby or anything. But with all its epic advantages, I feel like there’s still something really fluffy-nothing about it.. like the accomplishmentfail at the end of walking for five blocks on the embossed edge of a pavement, which is still all fun (this is a bad metaphor because as far as I know I’m probably the only one who enjoys doing this). To zone out a la stuff that doesn’t require thinking, instead of going online I watch something, and if you ask me, some pretty awesome literature comes in the form of some movies and series. Some of the nice ones I’ve watched of late are Catch Me If You Can, Devdas, Vanity Fair, Frida, and the series Pan Am.

I’ll probably return for a dose of incessant and fruitless networking during the vacation. For I do miss the *like*s and the *poke*s and the *RT*s (ok maybe not so much the pokes, I just got pokes from creepy muslim boys who weren’t even on my list) not to mention everyone on Facebook and Twitter; in a way it was my only portal to the world back home. If you guys are reading this, HI. If I was there now my status would be, I’ll be back home in two weeks! Nangila mallila sellankaranna lasthivenna!

Soon I found myself on an eight-hour bus ride with other Sri Lankans to Rishikesh, a trip organized by the Sri Lankan High Commission in India for Sri Lankan students and employees here.

Rishikesh is beautiful; it is all that mysticism and ethnic allure that you imagine when you visualize the spiritual side of India that they sell to tourists in brochures. It is a land of ashrams and meditation, and dark-skinned men in white robes and thick braids, and beautiful women in colour and gold piercings, and those white guys in the cotton pants who travel the world to ‘find themselves.’ It is a vegetarian city by law, an alcohol-free city, and has banned the use of plastic bags by shopkeepers.

The place is now famous for white water rafting – and lately, bungee jumping. The former I sampled yesterday, it was epic – more on that later – and I suggest every aspiring adrenaline junkie try it out even back home in Kithulgala. For the hijabis who want to conquer the rapids, I suggest wearing a swim-cap beneath the helmet and a turtleneck-swimwear top beneath the lumpy lifevest, cuz the regulations and the crazy waters are not shawl-friendly.

I was too busy having fun to take as many pictures as I would have liked to.

Camping By The Ganges
The place we set up camp at was a nice quiet spot next to the Ganges River. Tents were set up at length all along the bank – which, by the way, was made of white sand – so when the water of the Ganges slowly receded and then lapped up the bank and receded again, it felt like we were camping at the beach, our toes wiggling in cool sand. Except at this beach, if you strolled about 10 feet into water you’d find yourself 50 feet below the surface, plus it was circled by a mane of huge monster mountains.

Had my meals in an open tent next to the river, and spent my time either skipping barefoot over the mix of big and small rocks on the bank or sitting in a bamboo chair under this nice white canopy they’d set up in the sun where I’d bury my feet in the sand which had turned super cold under the shade, or sitting close to the bank and skipping pebbles over the water. Occasionally I’d prance around and yell stuff at the mountains in a bid to make conversation.

Me: HEY!
Mountains: HEY!
Me: What’s up?
Mountains: What’s up?
Me: I asked you first!
Mountains: I asked you first!
Me: No you didn’t!
Mountains: No you didn’t!
Me: Oh I see what you’re doing!
Mountains: Oh I see what you’re doing!
Me: Goddammit.

Clearly the mountains around the Ganges have the maturity level of an annoying preteen.

In the night, the temperature dropped. We wore sweaters and sat around a bonfire under a billion stars, with the faint sounds of firecrackers in the distance and the rapids roaring far away.

Defying Death On The Rapids
We wore ridiculous pink helmets and puffy orange lifevests and got into blue inflated rafts, each of us armed with a bright yellow paddle. The guide was fun, yelling commands like we were some spartans going out to battle. FORWARD! he yelled. And we’d paddle forward. LEFT BACKWARD! and we’d perform a reverse. ATTACK! and we’d attack the team in the other raft by paddling water into their faces. Good times.

The rapids are so much fun! I wished we’d gone through more. Altogether we passed through about six rapids – only three of which were fierce, and only one in which I was whispering to myself the last prayer you say before you die. Basically, you’re travelling over large waves which– wait, this calls for a Paint illustration.

All along, we’ve got to paddle forward really fast so that we don’t get carried away by the rapids. Adrenaline pumping action right there, bruh.

During the long flat pauses between rapids, the guides said to get into the water. At first I was like, BUT WHAY? Because this water was damn well frigid. Also, sea monsters. But eventually I was like, when will I ever again get to float around in a 60-something feet deep river? So I got in – albeit, life jacket is on, so no fear of death (except by the sea monsters possibly grabbing my foot and pulling me into the dark abyss below) – and it was literally like sitting inside a freezer! Must have been close to zero degrees or something. Two minutes was enough for me and the guide pulled me back in. Pulling people in from the water is funny, they looked like big floppity fish as they were dragged back onto the raft.

Jumping Off A Motherflipping Cliff
We stopped by this spot halfway through, that had a natural miniature waterfall and cliffs hanging out onto the river and such. Some people chilled, had some namkeen (i.e. murukku with some onions and chilli), while few others contemplated leaping off the cliffs. One cliff was about 15 feet over the water and the other some feet taller. Only three grown men dared jump off the 15 foot one. I don’t know what it was – whether it was the altitude or the madness that had crept into my brain after flying around over wild waters – but I found myself climbing towards that cliff. I looked down, and the cliff-guide-man said ‘don’t look down, look over there, otherwise you’ll get scared.’

Actually, when I looked down, I wasn’t that scared at all. It’s just jumping, what’s the big deal? I have a poofy floaty lifevest to save me from drowning also.  In my head I was thinking of it like all those times I used to play that staircase-jumping game at my grandma’s where I’d jump from the 4th step of the staircase to the bottom and slowly work myself up to the 8th. So he said one, two, three.. and I paused for a four, and jumped. I think the first few feet (the eight steps on my grandma’s staircase) felt like ‘oh okay, whatever’ and then beyond that point — you know that feeling, just before your car is about to crash into something, just before you’re about to trip and fall on your face, just before receiving a hard punch — that feeling of total dread filling you up — where you’re like ‘oh no, this isn’t right!’ — it hit me. The feeling of helplessly falling! It’s indescribable! ‘OH NO THIS ISN’T RIGHT AT ALL.’

And then a few helpless moments later, I crashed into the ice cold Ganges and re-emerged two seconds later which felt like ten seconds. I think the fact that I didn’t see it coming was what did it – I was in the water, my heart pounding and I could feel panic taking over, and I closed my eyes and said breathe, breathe, breathe, and finally opened them and it was over. Swum back to shore, and I was shaking slightly, I’m not sure whether from the cold or that feeling of dread. I don’t know why I absolutely loved it! It sounds awful in words! The second time was much nicer since I knew what to expect – but that feeling of your limbs flailing to the mercy of gravity was still chilling. I can barely imagine what bungee jumping through 80 meters must feel like! But after doing something like that, it does something to you; I felt much more reckless and entirely cocky as we paddled over angry rapids afterwards.

Back To Camp
After the rapids and all that jazz, we slowly paddled our way back – passing a scenic masterpiece. Huge ashrams and temples, bells being tolled for prayer, bridges overhead with curious stares from pedestrians, children bathing by the rocks, men and women descending stairways to get to the river below, to make offerings and set afloat their dead in handmade caskets (unfortunately we didn’t really see the latter, though some fool claimed he saw a skull floating over the river’s surface), kids back-flipping into the water, and mountains, magnificent mountains, towering over everything and everyone.

I felt sick on the way back to camp, teeth chattering for a whole fourty minutes I think, SO very nauseatingly cold. But after getting back to the bank and our tents, donning a furry sweater, eating some warm rajma chaawal and digging my feet into hot sand, it was all good.

We drove back home in a big bus, watching the multi-coloured bulbs and the mad fireworks of Diwali – which feels like the Vesak of India – light up the streets on the way.

And now all of a sudden I have to go back to normal life. For some reason, after camping next to mountains by the Ganges, after surviving treacherous waters, after jumping off a freaking cliff – sitting here and having to do a shitty college assignment and making french toast and eggs for lunch just feels wrong. I should be standing atop a building, red cape fluttering in the wind, staring into the horizon with dramatic music playing in the background. Sigh.

Rishikesh is known for its strong Hindu identity

Water rafting over the sparkly Ganges

The campsite

The place, in Rithala, claims to have imported stuff from the same people who supply rides to Disneyworld and Universal. It’s got about 26 rides in total, and the ticket for people below 17 is 350 Indian rupees and for adults, 450 Indian rupees. Once you get that ticket and the band wrapped around your wrist – you get unlimited access to the rides, and can ride them as many times as you want.

The best part about Adventure Island is that – the lines actually move. Compared to my experience at Sathutuyana and Excel World (back when they had that cool twister ride that spun you around like crazy) – the fast movement of lines was just tear-inducingly beautiful to witness. But Delhi is full of serial line-jumpers – they literally jump over the railing and try to get into the line – mostly school boys who’d come on a paid school trip in our case. But I’d point them out like a snitch – cuz damn I been waiting in this line to be thrown in the air by a machine for the last twenty minutes, GTFO – and Sergeant Crackpot would hear none of it, and with harsh Hindi words would make them retreat with deep feelings of shame and fear. Every now and then some fool boy would try to jump past me in the line, but then I’d just look at him and be all,

Diva was constantly complaining about how she’s going to die. How she doesn’t want to die today. How she doesn’t want to die in these ugly pants she chose to wear today. Basically, that the rides of Adventure Island were out to extract the soul from her body like the spawn of satan. Despite her mortal fear of heights and water and all the stuff awesome rides are made of, we dragged her along and made her go through it all (well except for the Twister in the end – she looked like she was going to cry when we said she had no say in the matter so we let that one slide) – with convincing exclamations of ‘Come on, THINK OF WHAT YOU CAN TELL THE WORLD after it’s all over! I looked death in the face and I said, HA! HA, DEATH! HAAAA!’ Yeah. I didn’t think that would actually work, but well.

We started with the Cyclone – a warm-up. It carried us in the air and spun us around like horses in a merry-go-round, except it was pretty fast and slanted this way and that – so yeah, I was like, whoo! Okay this is cool, I can handle shit like this, it’s fun.

And then we walked over to the Side Winder. Shit. I wasn’t expecting that. It’s this giant thing that swings you in the air – swing to the left, then comes back to the middle, and swing to the right – like, well, a swing – except when it swings to the left and right, it swings a bit more than 90 degrees. So there were moments when my feet were straight up in the air and I was face to the face with the sun in the sky, and next I would be face to face with the ground, my body hanging down on the supports. And I’m thinking, if this support accidentally unclips I am GOING TO DIE.

Suffice it to say, I screamed like a little girl.

The next major ride was the Flip Out. Now by this time, I was like, I was thrown 90 degrees in the air, bitches, I can handle ANYTHING. Even Rajinikanth and his ominous moustache. But the Flip Out is something different altogether, it’s sort of a scrambler – you get strapped in, and it carries you in the air, and then you get spun around on a pivot – so you’re not only getting spun sideways but up and diagonally and on all other axes. Basically it scrambles you and your brainz. Again there was that feeling of having defied death. And also like a weird, hands-shaking-a-bit, slightly-queasy feeling. We had to sit down a few minutes to feel normal again.

Just before getting into the next ride, we came across this vast space next to it, with water coming out of fountain-ey things in the ground – and PUNJABI MUSIC on full blast – while randomass people randomly danced around in the fountain-ey-water place, punjabi style. I’m telling you, it was like something out of a Bollywood musical. These Indians. But I have to admit, punjabi music is growing on me, and I kind of love it. It’s like the Indian equivalent of Sri Lankan baila.

The Twister came next – oh god. Diva sat this one out, and thank god because I’m sure it would have just killed her via heart attack. We were carried in the air and then SPUN AROUND 360 DEGREES, super fast, repeatedly. This should be illegal or something, because, WHAT. I don’t even know. It’s just madness. PURE MADNEZZ.

Just when I thought this place couldn’t get any more insanely awesome – while we were waiting in the line for the Splash Down, Diva and Sergeant Crackpot went to get ice cream cones – and when they got back – I got a cone that seemingly looked like a nice big heap of vanilla atop a nice big heap of chocolate, on a cone. But then I bit into it and THERE WAS A BROWNIE INSIDE. Like a beautiful fucking surprise. There was a chocolate brownie, inside my ice cream, people. Needless to say, I was just standing there dancing around like an idiot.

Finally we got on the Splash Down, which is a miniature-rollercoaster ride that slowly climbs up coaster railways and then plunges down a big height, splashing into rails that are set in water. I think we have something like this in Leisure Land in Sri Lanka? I never got on the water ride at LL, but it looked like that. Nevertheless, it was an awesome balm to all that standing in the sun before.

These are the cool rides. If you ever go to Adventure Island, don’t bother with the other stuff – they’re basically trains meandering slowly around fake rhinos and fake elephants in the grass (though that rhino looked like a badass mofo), and a bus going up and down like a fool, and other stuff for stupid babies. Diva who is scared of scary rides suggested we get on the meandering train, and I just told her she could sit in a bucket and I would push her around and it would practically be the same thing.

I wanted to go on the Side Winder and look death in the eye a couple hundred times more (adrenaline partay in my brainz!), but the other two wanted to get home on time. So we just wound up the day at McD’s at the mall that surrounds Adventure Island. I had a tasty McSpicy Paneer Burger and some Fanta. Ahhh.

Then we took the metro home, our throats sore from screaming, tired as hell – watching the sunset through the train’s glass, while we propped our feet up on the seats because the train was almost totally empty. When I got home, there was a loudass punjabi wedding happening in the same neighborhood, which meant crazy punjabi drums and shizz pounding through the walls of our apartment. The roomies and I got on the rooftop terrace and they taught me to dance like a punjabi; it’s pretty easy stuff actually – most moves imitate either screwing light bulbs or riding a horse.

All in all, good day. Adventure Island, man. We need to get one of those all up in Colombo. Or else I’ve made it my new goal in life to get really rich, so I can have me some Side Winder in the backyard. Oh yeah.

Pics from Kyazoonga.

So just to get back in the flow of it, I’m going to try as much as I can to post a little story every day here. Completely off the top of my head.

Once there was a peanut butter jelly sandwich monster. Yes, he was a sandwich made of peanut butter and jelly, and was thus monstrous, in his jellyness and consequent odious nature, due to the fact that such sandwiches smell weird after the first two days of shelf life. He was very bored and lonely, because nobody liked to play with him because he was smelly and inadvertently oozed purple and yellow all over the place.

“It’s not my fault I’m so oozy!” he cried one day, sitting on the kitchen table by himself, talking to nobody in particular. “y u no love me?”

The sad peanut butter jelly sandwich monster sat there for days. Not that he had a choice in the matter, since who ever heard of a sandwich that could walk around? That would be ridiculous. Till one day, someone wandered by. “Hello, peanut butter jelly sandwich monster!” said this someone, from the darkness behind the spice cabinet.

“Why are you talking to me? Leave me alone, or I’ll squirt peanut jelly in your face!” muttered the sandwich, bitter and angry, as do more sandwich monsters get after being left to rot all alone. “Chill, man, I’ve got a proposition for you,” said the voice, and from behind the bottles of coreander and turmuric scuttled out a cockroach, wearing a tiny cockroach hat.

Peanut butter jelly sandwich monster wasn’t sure about this. It seemed dodgy. Why was the cockroach talking to him? And more importantly why was it wearing a hat? It seemed dodgy indeed. “What do you want?” cried the sandwich.

“Well, Pea.. Can I call you that? Pea?”

“Depends. Can I call you cock?”

“Touchè!”

The sandwich murmured profanities under its breath and went bank to sulking.

The cockroach straightened its hat and sat down on its back inside the soap holder, tiny cockroach arms tucked behind its head. The edge of the sink glistened next to them; it was sunny outside. Not that the peanut butter jelly sandwich monster knew what sunny felt like. He’d never known the outside of this wretched abandoned kitchen and its chasm of despair.

“I can get you out of here,” said the cockroach. “I can make it stop.”

“Are you going to kill me? Is that what you’re implying, asshole? Just get it over with. I knew this day would come. Eaten by a fucking cockroach with a tiny cockroach hat,” cried the sandwich.

The cockroach laughed. It was a silent laugh, because everyone knows cockroaches laugh silently.

“Okay, yes, you got me,” said the cockroach with a grin, its antennae twitching through the antennae-holes in its hat. “I mean, you’re weeks old and you’re oozing jellies.. can you blame me?”

The peanut butter jelly sandwich monster’s life flashed before its eyes. What he saw in his inner mind in that moment was.. well I can’t tell you what he saw, because how would I know what a peanut butter jelly sandwich monster saw in what he thought were his last moments? I’m not fucking psychic.

Suddenly, there was a crash. Pots and pans hit the tiled floor a few feet away from the odious pair, and as the cockroach was distracted, the peanut butter jelly sandwich thought, as he looked out at the sunny lawn outside, This is my chance! I’ll make a run for it! I mean.. all this happened for a reason! It was a test all along, since my beginning and through my torturous lonely existence in this hellhole. This is finally my time, to rise from the ashes and look beyond the horizon and-
“Shit, I don’t have legs,” the sandwich mumbled. “Nevermind, I am screwed.”

“What the hell was that?” said the cockroach, looking at the mess on the floor, where the pots and pans lay.

“Whoopsie! Sorry bout that,” said a fat furry creature sitting happily on its butt at the other end of the kitchen table. “Sometimes I don’t realize how fat I am from eating so much and I walk around and trip over things and they fall on the floor and make noise and interrupt climax scenes between characters in fantasy stories because I’m fat.”

Silence passed through the kitchen for a few moments. Some may even call it a silence that was awkward.

“Sometimes I talk too much,” concluded the fat rat. He grabbed his long tail and nibbled it nervously. Then he let out a loud giggle, and went silent again.

“Wow, and I thought I had issues,” remarked the peanut butter jelly sandwich monster to the cockroach.

“ANYhoo,” said the cockroach, turning to the sandwich, “Where were we? Oh yes..”

“Hey whatchu guys doin? Cuz from what I was listening when I was sitting here before I tripped over the pots and pans because I’m fat is that you were gonna eat the peanut butter jelly sandwich monster and I don’t think that’s very nice coz the sandwich is so sad and stuff and I don’t like seeing sandwiches be sad coz that’s not very nice,” interrupted the fat rat.

“What’s it to you, fattie?” spat the cockroach, taking its hat off.

“Hey don’t call me fattie, well yes I’m fat but that’s only coz my metabolism is really low and also maybe perhaps coz I eat a lot, I eat many things, sometimes, sometimes-” and here he giggled again- “I eat vegetables and sometimes I eat, I eat chicken and sometimes, sometimes I even eat cockroaches, yes.. yes indeedley doo,” the fat rat nibbled on its tail again, watching the sandwich and the cockroach from across the room, its chubby cheeks puffed up as the end of its mouth turned up in mad glee.

Before the cockroach could react, the fat rat had bounded across the wooden platform and gulped it down, its big belly now jiggling as it sat there next to the sandwich, nibbling its tail again. “Hey, hi there peanut butter jelly sandwich monster, hi, I didn’t like the way that cockroach was treating you coz yeah, coz that wasn’t very nice, he was a bad cockroach, and what’s with that hat, what kind of cockroach wears  a hat, I think that was dodgy, very dodgy, and yessum, tasty, tasty hat.. yes,” jabbered the rat.

“Wow thanks, fat rat.. nobody’s ever done anything that nice for me my whole life. I- I don’t know how to thank you. I’m just, so overwhelmed. I thought I was a goner for sure back there,” cried the sandwich.

“Hey, sandwich, hi, you’re oozing. See, there, there is jelly coming out of your insides, it’s coming out, and it’s all over the table. You’re an oozy sandwich, peanut butter jelly sandwich monster, oh look, I’ve got the peanut butter on my feets,” said the rat, staring at the sandwich.

“Yeah, sorry about-”

“Okay,” said the rat, before letting out a giggle. It giggled again.

The peanut butter jelly sandwich monster laughed too. The rat’s belly jiggled again as it giggled heartily. Neither of them could stop laughing. But they did eventually.

The peanut butter jelly sandwich monster smiled, thinking to himself. Here he’d been, dying slowly at the hands of abandon and fate’s cruelty, and then helplessly watching the end drawn nearer, when for no rhyme or reason, his life had been unexpectedly rescued. And now he was sitting here laughing, with a chance at a new life, next to his new friend. It’s funny how life-

“I’m hungry, yessum, I’m real hungry, coz I like to eat and that’s why my belly’s so big, and I like food coz I’m fat,” said the rat, and gulped down the peanut butter jelly sandwich monster. He then sniffed the soap holder, and sat inside it, and thought it very comfy, very comfy indeed, so he went to sleep.

The end.

Oh, by the way, guys, I’m really on the look out for English translations of Sinhala or Tamil novels, preferably pre-millenium. Do any of you have? I’m in Delhi so I can’t go hunting for them at second hand bookshops in Colombo right now. Miss Vandytoopten was nice enough to offer to post to me Siri Gunasinghe’s acclaimed Hevanalla! Please let me know if you’ve got anything of the sort – mail me on grandioseidea@gmail.com – and I shall repay you via chocolates and anything you like from India (but, no, I’m afraid asking me to bring you John Abraham alive in a bag may be asking too much).