SIGN for the Rights of Minorities

There is a dire need to speak out against the recent uprising of hate speech and hate acts against minorities in Sri Lanka.
It is our collective silence that allowed our nation's past crimes against innocents of minority groups to prevail.

Don't let it happen again.

Click Here To Sign The Petition demanding from the Government of Sri Lanka the rightful protection of minorities and their rights. 

We need a large number of signatures to be able to take this petition to the Office of the President's Secretary and have our voices heard, and make them acknowledge that as citizens of Sri Lanka, we demand that Government action be taken against perpetrators of hate acts and hate speech, and Government action be taken to protect the rights of minorities.

So Forward The Petition NOW: via Email, Facebook, Twitter and your Blogs. 

A Modest Proposal

The number of unmarried women in South and East Asia has been gradually but surely rising at a worrying rate, and it has become the cause of much justified perplexity and angst of the older womenfolk (see Aunties) of our communities. And who could blame them? Indeed they have the right to be concerned, for unmarried women only become burdens on their families, disrupt the social order held together by the family unit, and cause general discomfort for everyone with their 'liberal' dismissal of traditional culture. One might suggest that we solve this big problem by re-thinking certain conventions of ours: the tedious arranged-marriage process of forced unions and dowry, the intense pressure placed on women to marry within a limited time-span, patriarchal culture that keeps many married women socially, financially and mentally stunted, the many ridiculous trivialities and superficialities involved in the act of the 'marriage proposal' -- but then let us be realistic, re-thinking and re-structuring these conventions would require a tremendous amount of effort and ruffling-of-feathers, not to mention it would be highly counter-productive in the greater scheme of a family's earning of wealth via dowry.

- which is what, ladies and gentlemen, brings me to my modest proposal.

To make the process of arranging marriages for the South or East Asian woman all the more befitting, transparent, and efficient - for this will probably oil the system and make it run smoother - we need to package it better. Advertising is key. Why do we stick to just tepid newspaper advertisements in the Classifieds that ask for a 'good, fair, pious girl with xxx acres of property'? We need to be more specific, judging from the concerns that Aunties have regarding these women they are considering for their sons. It would not be too much then, to expect a more detailed and accurate advertisement: 'We want a good, pure girl (i.e. hasn't had sex before or at the very least hasn't told  anyone about it if she has), who can cook and clean, who will obey her mother-in-law, and who has at least a bungalow or a 50 acre plot to her name because we plan on taking that shit and using it. We are willing to buy her for a compensation of no less than 2 lakhs worth of gold, preferably in the form of jewelry, clothing and dinner-sets, plus a cow or two as a security deposit.We want only a girl of our race, class and caste, so please don't kid yourself by imagining that your wealth alone can get you into our family (unless of course, you want to add another cow to the deal, then we can negotiate).We don't want any fatties or blackies, and we don't like plumpy faces or crooked noses or bad teeth, so please send five photographs of your skinny, tall, fair daughter taken at different angles, to our email address ASAP and we'll get back to you after reviewing; please also attach her dental records, blood test results for any disorders or hereditary problems (because we require her uterus for baby production), and any other relevant documents. Send copies of certificates declaring her qualifications as well, because if it works out we need to xerox those and send it to all the neighborhood Aunties to rub it in their faces.' 

Surely, with such detailed specifics included in the advertisements, the unmarried women who seem to fit the extensive preferences of certain families stated in these ads, may contact them immediately with little chances of failure. Such explicit demands made of women will also encourage the women with plumpy faces or crooked noses or bad teeth to fix themselves, for their own good - to bleach their skin and stop eating so much and look prettier, and then get married for it too - it's a win-win situation!

The second stage of the traditional marriage arrangement involves that of the meeting of the man and the woman - the woman is made to dress up for the boy and bring him tea and biscuits as he and his family survey her and judge whether she is good enough to enter the family. Many a family waste so much time at each of these proposals, as they go to one woman's house and it doesn't work out (because the woman's skin wasn't fair enough - the photograph in her email was Photoshopped) and they are forced to visit another woman's house, and so on. To lessen the tediousness of this process, the man's family may simply make a list of the women who fit the criteria, from the emails received - send out a mass email to the families of these women, and call them to what I shall term a Live Bride Picking Contest. Yes, it is as exciting as it sounds. All the women who have passed the basic tests - that is, the virginity test, the caste test, the blood tests etc. - will arrive at the scene, and be placed in a long line. Each woman, dressed to the nines, may be surveyed by the man and his family as they walk from one end of the hall to the next - while also studying the sign-board held in each woman's hands, which shall specify the following: Price (in Rs.), Property to my name, Number of cows you'll get, Shelf-life,Special talent (this can be a convincing tagline that adds a touch of distinct allure to each woman's appealing qualities - for example one woman's board may say 'I can make amazing biriyani for you' while another says 'Mad ironing skills').

The second round of the Live Bride Picking Contest (the first being, surveying of face, teeth, feet, sign boards etc.) shall involve the talent round. Here, the contestants will have to display their talents of worth: for example, one woman will offer the man's family a sample of her cooking, another will show skill at engaging in conversation with the Aunties of the man's family ("yes, Aunty, of course, Aunty, you are so right, yes the price of vegetables is so high these days"), while another who is perhaps more inclined towards theatre may enact a moving dramatic skit that features her skills at taking care of many babies, her husband's needs and her face and body at the same time, while still making time to engage in conversation with her Aunties about the price of vegetables. The judging panel will consist of the man, his mother, and some Aunties whose relationship with the man is a bit obscure (his mother's cousin's father's cousin's daughter's something something..).

The final contestants that get through will enter the final interview round, where they will be subject to the grueling interrogation and scrutiny of the Aunties of the panel. Here, she will be psychoanalyzed, everything from the tip of her hair to the mole on her neck will be questioned, and she will be poked and prodded too as they check her specs i.e. if the Bride is supple, her hips are wide enough for child bearing, etc. They may even throw surprise questions at her, to throw her off guard, and discover her weak points (such as, 'What is the name of the fourth cow that your family is offering us to get us to marry you!' - and it will be likely that the correct answer is 'But we gave you only three cows!' but the less clever Brides will be flustered by the directness of this question and probably burst out in desperation 'Betsy!' or 'Kusuma!' and be disqualified from the round).

I do concede that my proposal is indeed perhaps too ahead of its time, and that we must wait for an epoch during which men and women realize the futility of the civility and dignity that they attempt to wrap around their traditional conventions - and that it is time to embrace the brutal market forces that truly determine our very holy matrimony. However, should we decide to put my suggestions into motion, I would imagine it evolving into a gigantic, invincible industry, perhaps if we expanded it through the use of TV, radio adverts and billboards (I can see it now - a picture of Kareena Kapoor smiling demurely in a wedding choli as the words next to her burn in neon: "Get Brides now at Brides R Us - pure and fair, brand new, ranging in all prices; buy one, get a cow free! Discounts available this Valentines.")

Some may confuse my explicitness with cruelty and inhumanity, but my dear reader, nothing could be further from the truth. I have only taken what we respectfully and reverently put into practice today and I have extended it further, fleshed it out to its full extent and glory, and I can assure you that our interests as a society today will only be maintained in the propagation of my proposal. Indeed, Aunties shall receive their wish of so easily and conveniently finding beautiful and appropriate Brides for their sons, women will no longer have a choice but to give into a mass commercial industry screaming for their participation, mothers will have a new occupation of perfecting and training their daughters at an early age so as to put them ahead in a competitive market, and girls will no longer be a burden but a boon to the wealth of families! And to think I could not have dreamed up this magnificent plan without nurturing it from the foundation of our oldest and most respected traditions? 

Comedy Central In Delhi: A Review

It's been a long time since I donned by Judgey-Cap and judged a band or artist or event. I like how people sometimes leave heated comments on my blog-reviews of things, as though I'm obliged to answer to some mighty Review-Overlord before posting my views; this is a personal blog, people, if you find my criticism totally biased or wildly inappropriate, please mail your complaints to P.O. BOX 921-NOBODY-CARES. As per usual, if you have been following the typical trajectory of my blog post reviews, I shall begin with a riveting prologue.

It was a warm Saturday afternoon. It had been one of those slow humid weeks during which one desires to do nothing but spend time in the most offensively unproductive ways. I had impulsively booked a ticket at the beginning of the month for this Saturday to Comedy Central's first show in Delhi - Sugar Sammy Live. I didn't know who Sugar Sammy was, or why he had such a dodgy stage name, but I love stand-up comedy, and I love Comedy Central, so that was that.

Decided I had to do two things before leaving: 1. buy some stationery for college work 2. get my email-ticket for the show printed for entry. I had one hour. I got the first part done but the second task proved tedious: my landlord's computer had chosen today of all days to be an unresponsive piece of shit and shut down on its own (because we all know how electronic things secretly hate me).

So I took a rickshaw to the market to find a cyber cafe. Today also happened to be special-flea-market day, so there's lots of traffic and the roads are teeming with people. It's already 6 - I was supposed to be at the metro station on my way to the show at 6. I stop every five minutes and ask for directions to a cyber cafe, to no avail. I finally find one, it's almost 6.30. I sit down and try to log on, and Gmail suddenly goes all 'SECURITY CHECK' on me and asks me to enter my recovery email address. Simple enough right? I enter my email address, and it rejects it, and I can't access my ticket.

F U, GMAIL. F U.

It's 6.30. I finally type out my email address with a typo, and it accepts. I don't even-

So I print it out and I'm finally on the way to the metro station in my rickshaw. It's a little past 6.30, ok maybe I can still make it on time. Suddenly I hear a loud thwack in the rickshaw. I don't pay much attention to it, because I live in India, and things on the road here make unpleasant noises all the time. But I look down and I find YELLOW GOO all over my seat. WHAT IS THIS MADNESS.

It finally dawns on me as I see a motorbike speed away that some evil spawn of satan had thrown an egg into my rickshaw and it had exploded an inch away from me and the back of my dress was all eggy now. I'm mumbling 'Are you fucking kidding me' as I try to extract the eggshell from my clothes. A friend had warned me about the people with the eggs - it's an old Holi custom here - so this whole week is going to be war, and I need to make a trip to the egg section of the supermarket myself. At the station, there's another mix-up as I take the wrong metro train to somewhere else, and have to run back and take the other one, and all along I'm like, this day just keeps getting better and better. I finally get to my destination's station and hop into an auto and tell him 'the FICCI Auditorium' and we're driving and he doesn't know where it is, and I'm all, NNNNNGGGGGG, until finally he figures out where I'm supposed to go. 'Oh don't you know anything, madam, it is not F-I-C-C-I,' he corrects me, smugly, 'it is Fikki auditorium!' (it seems auto guys aren't big on abbreviations.)

Anyway, screw-ups and egg attacks and all, I arrive at the venue at 7.45pm. The show was meant to start at 7.30. But for some awesome reason they decided to postpone it to 8, and I have time to make a detour to the washroom and get the egg out of my clothes. Before Samir Khullar (Canadian-bred Sugar Sammy's real name) took the stage, we were treated to the extremely likable not to mention hilarious Mumbai based comedian Tanmay Bhat. I tried to recreate some of his jokes on this post but really, you cannot do justice to good comic material in a review, it's like trying to type out a tune of a song. Suffice it to say that he was outrageously funny, and I would love to attend a show of his own.

I have to say, though, I was perhaps expecting too much when I went to watch Sugar Sammy - firstly, because Comedy Central, the people who brought us Jon Stewart of the Daily Show (aka the love of my life), were literally hosting his act, and secondly, he's got a series of impressive accolades to his name. You could see he was nervous in the first half of the show. He started warming up with some jokes that he'd already used, word for word, in previous acts, which annoyed me because I'd already heard them on YouTube. I remember chuckling appreciatively at the most, and then not really laughing at all as he rehashed the geographical-significance-of-the-penis joke that should have been patented by Russell Peters.

But the show was for two hours, so I was hopeful. There were some good moments, like that time he picked on Valerie from the audience, from Kentucky, who Sammy thought seemed outraged at having been picked on. 'I'm an American citizen goddammit!' he mimicked. And that time he made a reference to Boyz 2 Men and that one guy in the band whose job it was to say 'hey, baby, you've hurt me real bad, now listen to this song...' at the beginning of the song and we'd never hear from him again. He picked on audience members a lot, about their names, the places they came from - and it seemed that that was mostly what his comic material was made of, he had nothing else. When he didn't have that, he'd revert to a random race or sex joke that was a paler construct of a Russell Peters joke.

'Anybody from outside the country here?' he asked. I clapped at him, bracing myself for some rich humour at my expense. 'Oh Sri Lanka! That's great.. and what's your name? Shifani? That's a beautiful name,' and he made a joke about there being no electricity in Sri Lanka, stalled a bit, realized he didn't have anything else, and quickly switched gears and moved on to some anecdote about South Africa and AIDS. He asked for any Muslims in the audience later on, and I clapped again, and he made a light joke about how I'm probably *in secret voice* not allowed to be here, and how Muslim girls think you're married to them after talking to you for five minutes, then one about the 'talaq-talaq-talaq' custom and then how he could never date a Muslim girl because they want you to raise their kids Muslim - and he'd be damn suspicious of his son if his name was Mohamed, 'daddy I want batteries!' 'what the fuck for? show me your passport!' Save for the last joke, which was pretty funny, I was disappointed. I was looking forward to being made fun of by some bigshot comedian, but then to be fair, 'Sri Lankan Muslim girl in Delhi' was perhaps way too obscure a demographic to easily poke fun at.

Sammy picks on race and sex, and those are the ideal topics to pick on when you're a comedian because everyone in your audience can relate - and laugh - but where Russell Peters has creatively-constructed original material, Sammy falls short (at least today). We've already heard enough penis jokes and jokes about Indian parents and arranged marriages - we want to hear new material now. I also felt like he wasn't self-deprecating enough, because self-deprecating humour, something Tanmay and Russell had enough of in their acts, is what makes a comedian instantly likable on stage. At some point in the second half of the act, I got bored and my mind wandered, as in, there were little gaps of stagnancy in the act as opposed to consecutive hit-after-hit, which would have been ideal. Where Russell has more material, more structure for that material and therefore hits the nail straight on the head, Sammy seemed to be searching for material, almost seeming to have not prepared anything solid beforehand and picking random anecdotes from here and there the way an ordinary funny guy would do around the water cooler at work - which though is still funny, lacks the heightened humour and precision of the ideal stand-up act.  He could also benefit from making more use of his impressions - for example, one thing that is so freaking hilarious about Russell's acts, are his impressions of Indian parents, the pure comedy in his facial expression alone. I feel like Sammy could be really, really funny - if only he put some effort into it. Also, I keep comparing him to Russell Peters. Why? Probably because Sammy is yet to carve out a niche distinctly his own, to create his own unique trademark as a comedian, the same way that certain Indian marriage/parents jokes are Russell's trademark.

Anyway, Sugar Sammy's a comedian, and I have only love and support for all comedians, mediocre or not. Plus one would assume they only get funnier with age and experience. Here's to hoping this is the first of many Comedy Central stand-ups I have the honour of attending and lol'ing at. And hopefully next time I won't have eggshell on my clothes on arrival. 

I'm Just A Little Unwell

Just got back from the doctor's, folks, it seems I've been diagnosed with chronic Lethargycitis, an ambiguous disease whose source and symptoms are being explored yet. 

Commonly enough, the disease shows itself in its extreme form in people after periods of vacation, as the body reacts negatively to being thrown back into mundane work routine. Symptoms so far, in my case, include the following. You may want to check yourself as well (before you wreck yourself, homeslice). 

1. Lying in bed and staring at the ceiling for hours, contemplating all kinds of fascinating things, such as, I wonder how that misshapen splotch on the ceiling appeared, when I turn my head to this angle and look at it, it kind of looks like Winnie the Pooh dancing with Piglet. 

2. A distaste for even the most menial manual chores, including that of cooking, and therefore a relentless penchant for dialing the KFC hotline and ordering burgers, fries and the occasional chocolate pie. 

3. Restlessness from boredom, often resulting in finding oneself seated on the sofa and incessantly flipping through cable TV channels, and then finding nothing to watch but 'Packed to the Rafters' and thus curling up into a ball and mumbling expletives about the stupid plot and about why there are no black people on the show. 

4. Showing a sudden enthusiasm to start working, making a list of pending assignments on the white-board, making markings on the calendar, mentally setting out deadlines, staring at the list happily, and then collapsing in a heap on the sofa five minutes later whilst dialing KFC. 

5. Spending hours online pressing Like on stupid pictures and watching a very amusing YouTube video on loop of a baby monkey being given a bath. 

6. Getting a call from a friend to come hang out at this awesome new place, telling them you're sorry but you're really busy - hang up and go back to lying in bed and staring at the ceiling. 

7. Contemplating doing something at least remotely productive. Contemplating this. While doodling on your hands with a ballpoint pen.  

8. Leaving aside six assignments to write a blogpost about a fictional disease to justify your behaving like a useless fat shit. 

So yeah. It's chronic. Doc recommended a lot of bed-rest, said I don't have much longer to live. In case you feel bad about that and stuff, you know where to send your sympathy food. And your YouTube links featuring ridiculously adorable animals. 

Sri Lankan Terrorism

If you have not been living under a rock at the bottom of the ocean for the past couple of months, you've probably already heard about the recent tension growing in Sri Lanka over an official movement rising against Muslims. I'm not going to talk about what it might mean for the country, or go on a tirade against the government or against Sinhalese supremacists, because honestly I don't know enough yet about politics or our country's history for such an impressive critique.

What I will say is that I am genuinely frightened. 

At first, I thought it was nothing, or rather that's what I wanted to believe, that it was just a small group of radical extremists who would soon be quelled by the majority of rational minded individuals that I wanted to believe make up most of Sri Lanka. Then I heard about a mosque or two being attacked. Then I heard about 'secret meetings' attended by about 500-1000 'true Buddhists' who believed Muslims were a threat to the country. Then I heard about friends of my friends who were posting anti-Muslim hate speech on their Facebook and starting up online groups against Muslims. 

All along, I could hear my mind expressing its denial about it, saying 'no, it's fine, they're still a minority, if the rest of us are just vocal about our resistance and use the right amount of media, this thing will die out and we can forget it ever happened.' This is probably because all along I've been buffered by a circle of friends, online and off, Muslims and non-Muslims, who have been constantly expressing their revulsion and intolerance towards these anti-Muslim sentiments. While so many people around me were complaining about how their Sinhalese friends had suddenly 'turned' into intolerant racists, especially on Facebook, I (fortunately) could not say the same about a single friend of mine. But there is a whole other world outside my little social bubble. 

Every day I hear about someone getting a new chainmail forward, someone starting up a new group, someone receiving a racial slur on the street - little tidbits of anti-Muslim feelings, only tidbits but together they form a big ominous shadow of some scary monster inside my head whose growl is getting louder and louder. Is the fear from my imagination or is it reality? I can't tell for sure. Right now, parallel to this is a counter-movement of people writing features in the newspapers, starting up online campaigns, setting up real life projects, to bring the communities together and to try and fight this thing. The numbers on either side are vague - nobody knows who is 'winning'. The government meanwhile has said that it is 'looking into it' and Muslim representatives in the government are 'in talks' with the Prezzy who himself has allegedly asked Bodu Bala Sena who is supposedly behind all this to put an end to it - not that any of that, at the end of the day, sounds very reassuring at all. 

What are they so mad about? That the Muslims want to eat Halal meat? I've heard that a lot of this has its roots in false education - a lot of people, for example, don't even know what Halal means. It isn't a code name for some big bad plot to take over the country, it's just a simple religious ritual that takes place when  an animal is killed for food, where a prayer to God is said and it is killed in as painless and as fast a way possible. If the problem is the fact that the animal is killed itself, then take it up with all the meat-eaters in the country, not just Muslims, but Burghers, Tamils and Sinhalese too. What bothers me is that we have not really done much to deserve such an anti-Muslim panic - some say Muslims are 'demanding' Halal certificates from certain restaurants or that they are labelling everything 'Halal' and unjustly taking control of the market by catering to Muslim customers - but these sound like such poor, ambiguous reasons for such an extreme movement as one that is spewing hate and intolerance and extolling racial supremacy.  

I want to believe that Sri Lankans as a whole will not allow anything bad to happen to the Muslim community - that there will be enough media pressure, protest and hopefully some semblance of government intervention that can keep this at bay. But for the first time in my life, I'm terrified. A friend of mine said to me, 'There were countless innocent Tamils who faced extreme racism, were killed and displaced for years now - nobody spoke for them, so what makes you think anyone is going to stand up for you?' A friend got a chain-forward today that was supposed to be a dumb joke - it was an advertisement (nice Photoshop job I might add) of a 'Halal condom', that was 'dipped in Zam Zam' and 'would keep Satan away during intercourse', and the package was titled by an Arabic 'In the name of Allah the most Gracious the most Merciful' which I have been so accustomed to seeing on the covers of the Qur'aans we grew up reading from. I don't even know if this is part of the anti-Muslim hostility spreading in the country, it very well could just be a teenager's random prank in bad taste and could have nothing to do with it at all, but it scared me. I asked my friend if he said anything to the person who sent him the email, my friend told me he didn't and that it wouldn't make a difference anyway. 

What I am afraid of is - if this does turn into a thing, and there is an active group walking through the streets and asking Muslims to leave their homes or else - will anybody stand by us and defend us? I know so many Sri Lankans do not approve of this thing, but none of us 'approved' of the cruelty that the Tamil community has had to face either, did that stop them from receiving it? 

When I'm back home in May I want to be an active part of the movement that is removing misconceptions about the Muslim community and trying to battle this thing by promoting national togetherness, maybe even try to convert it into a strong collective media program that can rally the masses against it. A lot of people say I'm just being naive though. I get 'Racial conflict is an awkward thing to talk about on a mass media level, nobody's going to allow you, it's bad for the country's image' (exhibit A: I hear Ras Ceylon's pop song about Sri Lanka 'healing' after its civil war 'Heal Lanka' has been banned from the airwaves). or 'The government isn't doing anything to actively put an end to these racist groups and their meetings so they are probably complacent about it, they're not going to intervene and stop the shit from hitting the fan.' or 'This animosity has been going on since ever, a sequel to our last civil war that has been a long time coming, they won't stop till Sri Lanka is a pure Sinhalese nation.' 

But then if I'm being naive, what's Plan B? Sit and wait and hope for the best? Terrorism to me has always been this thing on TV, with the soldiers with the guns and the dramatic pictures of children crying and homes half destroyed, even in our last civil war it barely touched me in my little suburban Colombo bubble of comfort, save for the checkpoints and reading in the papers about a bus that exploded. For the first time I feel like it has crossed into my house, because as we sit here and wait to see how this will unfold, I can sense in me and my family a vague feeling of foreboding, and terror.