Yesterday I was honoured to be privy to one of the most entertaining conversation of 2010 thanks to my friend who provides me with ample things to blog about. And this one revolved around marriage!

Yes no surprise! I needs must blog about this topic at least once a year, so let this be the “one” for the year. ( yes “love” rings okay bells in my ears while “marriage” kind of suffocates them and provides a feeling of a clock bell rung right next to the eardrum. Surely you comprehend what I try to transmit here, but if by any chance be alien, then do the best impersonation of comprehension. Yes faking be good for your health, a times, occasionally, among many being situations where you do grasp that the truth would kill you! And no I do not plan to list down the situations where it be good!)

Any ways coming back to the conversation, this wonderful conversation was fortunately initiated due to one of my friends “blunders” in replying to an email where her “possible” bridegroom to be (yes her parents have ventured into those troubled waters of “let us find a man for our daughter”) has sent her a mail assuming she was her mum. (summary: the man thought my friend was not her, but her mum. Yes kind of twisted but we shall follow the story) Well that is what I grasped on hearing the story through her laughter, her panicking and what else.

So be wrong in all this incomprehension?

Well the fact that she is worried that she was out of decorum and had offended him by answering his mail with a “ha ha ha!” and “ my mum is already taken, so you will have to settle for me!”

She wants to know what I with the expert opinion of another colleague thought of the situation.

What did I think?

Well I thought it was plain funny and well could not think beyond that point being totally taken up with laughter that occasionally choked me on the water I was trying to gulp down.

The other party (person number 3, tall young man who deems himself to be not normal) on the other hand, was very analytical and wanted to know what be the man in contention do for a living! (Yes this was necessary to judge the status of offence caused) On getting the answer that he be a doctor, his determination on the matter “the man ‘offended’ ” ( mind you he did verify the distinction between a doctor as in doctorate and doctor as in medical practitioner.

I shall not try to analyse myself, be in reality offended or not, as I am sure my respective friend (the girl who was in question and not the one providing feedback on the analysis) would have already found out the man’s reaction to it.

But what I remember from this situation are some of the sentences that were addressed to me where I realised some people seem to have better understanding of me than I seem to have grasped on me of late.

One such sentence being “darling, you are not at all ‘normal’”! ( He did elaborate on that fact that it was a good thing and that normal humans are boring)

But yeah, the understanding or the understatement of the year being that I am not normal. Two interpretations possible a. I am abnormal, b. I am eccentric.

I decided then and there that “eccentric” be my choice, it sounds very much more sophisticated when pronounced out loud!

“Vositha is eccentric!”. “ Vositha is abnormal!”

See the difference? Of course “ Vositha is eccentric” resonates better.

The next point of that I fixation : “back up plans!” (You know those men or women we decide to live with if we do not find out soul mate! )

I always wondered if it was some stupid twist of fate, the act of consenting to be someone’s back up plan or asking someone to be our back up! Why cannot this person be the “one” when we know that we can live life with the person sans troubles and still want to find another possible creature who could create chaos! Well all being due to hormones I presume and the lack of chemistry! Chemistry, chemistry, or “no mojo” as Aruni would phrase it.

Anyhow don’t you think that it is a little troubling how we the humans think? For example you have this awesome friend who you can have the best conversation with and then get along perfectly with and of course is nice and caring and then you say to him or her “well if I do not find my soul mate let us live the rest of our lives together” ( be it within marriage or not I am not sure. My back up plan does not want to get married and has marriage phobia so we of course have come to the consensus on sharing an apartment together where we would be allowed our own space. Admittedly I am no exception to this stupidity of back up plans. I like my own share of idiocy when it comes to these subjects)

So yeah we all have back up plans with anticipation of failed “Mr or Miss Right. So when does one intend the implementation of these plans?

I pronounced aloud that I plan to get married or settle down with a man who I think is my match when I am 29 to be harshly retorted that it be too early. The elaboration being that me being a “career oriented woman” ( fact 2 of enlightenment for 2010) that if I were to marry at that age I would lose all potential in my professional life. The explanation being, a man who is Sri Lankan, who is conservative, would want you to be a housewife!

Well a. I have not decided on marrying a Sri Lankan (which means I am open for other options and not that I do eliminate Sri Lankans from the equation),

b. I will not marry a conservative man. ( He will commit suicide within 10 seconds of starting a life with me)

c. I will not be a house wife ( again my turning such would render the man suicidal due to all the tantrums which I would potentially throw at him on arriving home from work. And yes the marriage would end in divorce or the death of one party. Not the best fairytale wedding I would want to have in my life!)

To conclude on what I learnt through this conversation or enlightening discussion

a. I might get married one day, but not sure whether I will be able to get over my commitment fear or the doubt factor towards men.

b. At 29 you are too young to get married, shall not think of it till I am 40!

c. Back up plans, we all have those, some of us are lucky with them the others well not so lucky as the others.

d. Never reply to a man who is proposed to you by your parents with a “ha ha my mum is married, guess you will have to settle for me!”. Too much time wasted on figuring out whether the man be offended, not offended, whether you were out of decorum, were rude or plain abnormal!

e. I am not normal, nor am I abnormal, just good old “eccentric”.

Well people say that one has to wait for good things in life but I wonder whether the same applies to the sessions of the LLRC commission.

The public who come for the sessions on time wait, wait and wait!

Not sure for whether this wait be the best mode of behaviour.

The sessions that be scheduled for 10 am still not at its commencement by 10. 40 am and I await impatiently for the Commissioners to arrive. Not due to excitement but due to the feeling of boredom at being among the 4 or 5 people that constitute the public who having not yet given up on attending these sessions up maintain their presence at the Kadiragama Centre auditorium due to personal interest or some other god knows what reason.

My neighbour in this hearing or non- hearing updates me on the happenings since I have been absent there for the last few weeks. She tells me that the hit story of Sri Lanka these days has been the UN’s interest in the commission and being part of it as observers or as active participants.
Not sure of the accuracy of the information as I be deprived of internet right now and add to it am bored beyond measure.

I try to distract myself from the empty chairs in front of me and then that surround me by perusing through the provisions of the Ad Hoc Working Group submission for KP at COP 16 and then miserably failing at it as well.

Yes today seems to be one long day with lot of failures! (Thoughts of my poverty level rush in.)

Having no better solution and thanking the invention of ipods I turn to Eric Claption’s “Tears in Heaven”!

Have you ever had this weird feeling when you saw someone and due to that not spoken to that person for donkey’s years?

Well I have!

It was when i was back in university and this guy’s presence kind of used to rub on me. Well not rub per se, I would name him a presence that did not mean much to me yet sort of annoyed me.

I used to see him in the same classes as I was in and then sit in class with his feet posed on the chair in front of him. Me being the “goody two shoes” as one would call me to be, would look at this creature and ponder why his existence was taken into consideration in the creation of this world.

Well I know such consideration not be for my humble consideration in front of God the all mighty but then I could not help but wonder. ( I can be a little too wise for my own good at times)

I remember him trying to grow his hair long and then one day give me tips on how to maintain my hair ( those tips actually worked) and then on another occasion him talk to me about how cool it is to be wearing eyeliner. ( I never used such at that point of my life)

Of course I was thinking “ weird!”.

But the weirdness did not stop there.

It continues into years of non communication till I met him a few months ago at a commission hearing I normally attend. For some reason we struck a few lines of conversation. I remember not what we spoke of, but I think that was the longest I had spoken to him till that point in my life.

Today I find myself funnily hanging out with him often and having the most entertaining conversations I have had with a “guy” and then to my hugest surprise in life, smsing him for most part of the day! Yes I presume we are both a little jobless in our own way though employed otherwise. But then at times such waste of time puts a smile on my face.
For those who is always in search of a lesson in what you read. The inevitable question.

“What be the moral of the story?”

Nothing.

There be no moral to this story.

May be there is but my motive be not to point it out or to point out any moral. That being left for those to figure out in their own good time. I am not yet an expert of figuring out the moral of this story. Even if I did I have a feeling that I be in denial to admit that it be the “moral” of “this story”.

At this very moment, my motive be to rant! Yes just to rant!

And that being done I shall shut up!

I hate feelings of emptiness
I hate memories of good times
till the bad crash on
covering them
like waves over little pebbles.

I be a pebble.

I hate the world that reminds me of you
The memories, good, bad and old.

I hate those who ask me of you
Not knowing answer to give
Not knowing how you be!

Answer : Smile!

I hate diners over lame gossip
When mind thinks you
calls you
picture strangling you

I hate those drinks
with taste of cough syrup
those moments of bad jokes..

I hate
wishing
for hatred to leave me..

I hate being poor
I pity those poor
And I know you ain’t poor!

It takes only minutes to fall in love, to fall out of love and then also to lose respect for someone.

Funny ain’t it? The change of a second and a change of circumstance.

Change be the word of the day!

Love happens not when we want it to, but exactly when we do not want it to, at times of course. I vouch not for having fallen in love, actually vouch for the contrary.

Love has been the last thing on my mind of late, rather strangulation of suffocation would be a better wording for my mind’s thoughts.

Watching someone sleep and wanting to strangle them and yet overcoming the desire is a powerful expression of self will.
The control that I did not fathom I held within.

And then wanting to say many a word but keeping mum while silence reigns taught me what control be. Control of actions and words. Something in the process of mastering and yet to be mastered. But I be a good apprentice I hope, and certainly one that be determined.

As Aruni would say, end of year brings great change and understanding of life, well I cannot but agree with her in this case.

Life has changed for the best, and I call it “good riddance of bad rubbish”.

Let me pause there and get back to counting my pennies.

And boy am I glad that my writer’s block has vanished!