Ten Rupees go the way of the Dodo

I just got my hands on one of those fresh new 20 rupee bank notes. This will be the lowest denominated bank note in Sri Lanka, since the 10 rupee note hasn’t got a revival with this batch of notes. This got me thinking about the legacy of the 10 rupee note. About thirty years ago, 10 rupees would buy enough biriyani for a large crowd at the ever famous Pilawoos Hotel. Nowadays 10 rupees would only buy you a minute serving of biriyani from whichever of Pilawoos you go to (there are so many). But the 10 rupee note reminds us me of an era in which I lived my childhood. It was an era which was ravaged by war. Towards the end of this period, the war finally came to a close and there was hope once again. Towards the end of this era, the value of 10 rupees had fallen to rock bottom. My parents had to spend most of their life in this era. I believe I am fortunate to be born sometime towards the end of this era; I am only 17 years old and I will hopefully live the next 17 years without having to think about a war back home. But in my next 17 years, the 10 rupee note will disappear from circulation, and there will be little need for so little money anyway.

Anonymous?

I have a friend who says that people who use pseudonyms to post on the internet are cowards, since they are too afraid to use their real names when expressing their thoughts. It can be deduced even by a 5 year old that I am therefore a coward myself. Would you agree?

Around the internet I see so many online avatars with names that aren’t real. (On the other hand I also hear names of real people which would be much more suitable for an online avatar.) I never thought twice about the fact that I wanted to follow this trend. There are a million plausible risks of revealing who I am to the billions of people on the internet, the most scary probably being that my parents realise that I am on publishing the internet (they will be informed soon though). You see, they are old fashioned. Concepts such as Facebook and blogging are new to them, and quite predictably they would rather not dip their toes into such foreign territory. They also don’t want me to do so.

My Facebook problem was solved about two years ago due to the fact that I changed schools, which gave me a good excuse to stay on Facebook to keep in touch. After all, many of my school activities are organized online, and the best and most hassle-free way of keeping in touch with my old friends is to chat on Facebook. It’s fun and it is safe, as long as you are careful and you know what you are doing. It took a lot of convincing to get my parents to realise this.

Blogging was something I didn’t bother trying to get past my parents. I have an urge to write stuff and share with the world, something which I could not explain to my parents. But I took the middle path and made a blog under a false name, back in 2007. As I have probably mentioned before, this died out after a year. I felt the urge again soon, but I held back until last year when I made this blog. Just 20-something posts later I got bored again. But this time round I have decided to be back for good.

I don’t really feel like revealing my real self right now. I don’t feel a need to do so. My friend does though. And this has got me wondering about how people view aliases. Do a lot of blog readers have a preference for bloggers who are honest about themselves? Does it feel more personal or trustable to read a blog post when you know that you can get in contact with its author after a simple directory search? Usually when I read a blog I don’t mind whether its author uses a real name or not. Most blog posts are about personal views, so if I don’t like it I can put in a comment giving my view, or else I can just ignore it. I have no intention of having a personal chat with the author, either for good or bad reasons. So I don’t really care about it. But do other people care if I am just a “Young Lankan Blogger” and not “_____ _______”?

Freedom? From the Frying Pan into the Fire

The Egyptian protesters have won. Sort of. Mubarak has been pushed out of his chair as President of Egypt. The “pro-democracy” protesters have being working towards this for weeks now, and finally it has happened. It’s all tears of joy for them. However, another problem lies in the way. Now the military is in control of the country, which is not really known as a good solution.

Revival

It takes a lot of brainpower to run a blog like this. You need to have a lot of ideas, and need to be able to express these ideas. You need to find a constant motivator to keep updating the blog. I should have been doing all that. I didn’t. Now I will try again.

I started this blog in February last year. I managed to keep going until April. And then I forgot about it. I believed that my exams would be a good excuse to stop blogging, but I found that I did have lots of free time to do other stuff even while studying hard.

So this year I start anew. I just found out that the person running Crazylanka.com had commented on the post about his blog, but unfortunately I hadn’t seen it for almost a year. The comment has been accepted, so you can see it in that post now. Looking back at last year’s posts, I find that my style of writing isn’t too bad. In fact it was much better than in my first blog (back in 2007).

Let’s see how long I can keep going now. This time I am relying on friends to help me out with ideas, so perhaps I will be able to persevere for some time. I should have some interesting stuff to say once I get to university. Perhaps the preparation and the journey to university will be interesting as well.

Here’s to the future of this blog!

Analysing the Results

General Election 2010. In fact, so general that around 1/3 of the country didn’t bother to turn up at the polls. The remaining 2/3 who did turn up almost made sure that the UPFA would reach its target complex majority of 2/3 (it’s better than the simple majority of 113 seats). But unfortunately (for them), the UPFA will not be getting more than around 140 seats. The UNF suffered a crushing blow, unfortunately (for them). The DNA also failed to regain more that around 2/13 of their seats from 2004. Enough numbers! Lets discuss the names that we saw decorating the walls of our beloved country.

Elections Once Again

Once again, it’s your turn to select a new batch of rogues and cheats to run our country. Or should I say, ruin our country. But frankly, we have had universal franchise since the Donoughmore Commission (or was it Soulbury) about 70 years ago. Every election since then, somebody has complained that the to-be-winner was going to ruin the country. Yet the country is still here, isn’t it? After all, our country survived 30 years of a brutal war with most of the international community (considered to include Western countries only) seeming to support the terrorists. Sri Lanka can definitely survive another bunch of misfits in parliament.

My Own British Political Posters

With the British General Elections coming up in May this year, the two major parties there have been releasing posters to throw mud at each other, and occasionally at themselves. Bloggers have taken a great deal of interest in doctoring these photos, and now even the computer illiterate can doctor posters on their own, using online applications such as this one. You can view several such doctored posters on this website.

Indian Premier League for Me

The IPL is the pride and joy of the BCCI and Lalit Modi. And also of SET Max, DLF, Karbonn Mobile and hundreds of other sponsors. It’s the ultimate money making scheme, utilizing cricket and harnessing the viewership of one billion Indians (at the very minimum) to attract sponsors.

I too have been partially pulled into this scheme. Or scam, depending on how you look at it. I regularly tune in and watch the matches after I finish studying at around 10.00 pm. This year I have abandoned my usual system of supporting the team that is batting when I tune in. Now I am a fixed supporter of Kolkata Knight Riders, regardless of the fact that they are the one step from being at the bottom of the points table.

Akon Not Coming to SL?

Looks like Akon (real name: Allianz Bandaralage Acorn Thiam**) is not coming to Sri Lanka. But the show will go on without him, since there are other performers whose names I am not aware of. Akon will surely be missed, but at least the organizers don’t have to refund the tickets. I’m not sure if people will actually come for the show without Akon. Not that I’m too worried, because I didn’t even know about the show until the stone fight at Capital Maharaja.

Invictus

I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

This is a quote from the poem Invictus, by British poet William Ernest Henley. I am usually not a fan of poems, but I came across this one when watching the recently released film, Invictus.