Each time I go to buy a Milo or a milkshake from my school canteen, I receive change in the form of a 10 rupee note and a 5 rupee coin. Once the small, green and often badly damaged note goes out of circulation, I will have to suffer with a 10 rupee coin instead. I don’t like coins. I hate it when they jingle in my pocket. Often I resort to putting one coin into each of my four pockets. This means that every time I bend down, at least one coin ends up on the ground. This annoys me to no end, and sometimes I contemplate throwing the coins into the nearest trash ban. Unfortunately my school hasn’t allocated any bins for metal waste.

Joking aside, the non-renewal of a 10 rupee note means that the Central Bank (or the President) believes that 10 rupees aren’t integral to the working of our country. Of course the 10 rupee coin will still be around, but most coins find little use in the modern, inflated economy. How long will it be before the 20 rupee note is phased out as well. What about 50 rupees? Actually, what is the purpose of worrying about this?

Another notable exclusion from the new batch of notes is the 2000 rupee note. Rather, there is a new 5000 rupee note. The actual purpose of this note is unknown, but I guess it will be useful for large transactions. There must be a lot of very large transactions going on, because evidently the Central Bank (or President, once again) found that 2000 rupee notes weren’t very useful. Of course we don’t know yet whether this note will disappear from circulation soon. But the chances are that people would still use two 1000 rupee notes anyway.

Now please excuse me as my thoughts turn away from money. India has just won a warm-up cricket match against the Aussies, which seemed quite improbable an hour ago. Let me go investigate how that happened.

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 “_____ _______”?

Remember Thailand and Pakistan. Both countries were taken over by military uprising. Perhaps in the Egyptian “revolution”, the military is seen as a friend of the people. While I cannot say for sure that they aren’t, they probably are not. If power is not completely handed over to someone else soon, it can be predicted that the military will be running Egypt for some time. It could end worse than Mubarak’s 30 year reign.

This so called “revolution” could spark more similar uprisings in other Middle Eastern nations. Iran has already had it’s uprising a while back, and it was brutally halted. Worse yet, it could give ideas to Asian politicians, like those in Sri Lanka. An uprising against the Sri Lankan government is not a good idea right now. Or any time in the near future.

With so much instability instilled in Egypt, it is clear that their tourism industry will be in tatters for years to come. The way that the journalists were treated means that the country will be viewed in a negative light by people around the world, regardless of whether the trouble dies down now. If such an uprising happens in Sri Lanka, the whole country will go to the dumps and all the progress of the last few years, even though some may believe it was hardly any at all, would be erased in a matter of days. Recovery from such a situation is very difficult. As a country that had barely woken up from its war-induced coma, it is not at all suitable to cause instability in the government.

I don’t believe that the current government is the best for everyone. Of course there are so many improvements that can be done, and so many errors that should be corrected. Many of those problems will never be solved by this government; indeed the government is the cause of quite a number of them. But at least the country is stable. Journalists aren’t as oppressed as much as some say. If you are bothered to tune into at least two television news segments, you can get easily two sides of the story.

The tourism industry in Sri Lanka is booming, and we have to accept that there are indeed some good developments in the country. While these things could have been done by another ruling party, it was done by the current government, and we have to accept it. Just because you don’t like the people running the country does not mean you should blacklist everything they do. As I have said before, politicians do good things on occasion, and we must make the most use of this hidden function of politicians.

Trying to get rid of the current government will only undo all the development and put the country on reverse gear. Introducing another new government with completely different people will mean that the country will stagnate, at least until all the government institutions are purged of all the people who aren’t supportive of the new government. As usual, journalists supporting the non-government parties will be oppressed, which isn’t anything new. Bribery and corruption will continue as usual, albeit with different people doing the dirty work. Perhaps things will be better eventually, but that is a high risk to take, and it will be at a massive cost to the country.

At least be happy that we still have a country. We can travel around without fear of bombs, and even a lot of the army seems to have disappeared from the streets of Colombo. The country is actually running now, perhaps not great. Things look bright if you look at the good stuff that’s happening. If you concentrate on only the negative things, then the country will obviously look to be on the wrong track. But maybe we should just wear our filtered glasses and be optimistic. Don’t go out and make a fuss just yet.

Wait and see what will happen to Egypt. There is always a possibility that they will come out of this better off. But history suggests otherwise. After all, whatever changes you push for, at the end they may not turn out to be what you need, and they will always sound revolting to some segment of the population. You can’t please everyone. Keep in mind that you might be the one who isn’t pleased, and be aware that someone else will feel exactly the same way if there are changes. You probably won’t convince that someone to change his attitude. But you can convince yourself to change your attitude. A revolution is not the best way to deal with the problems in Sri Lanka, but it will be a good way for other countries to destabilize us. Please don’t let that happen.

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!

The highest manape in the island, or the highest preferential votes, have been obtained by 23-year old Namal Rajapakse. He breaks one record set by his father, and comes quite close to beating another. He entered parliament at an age one year younger than his father. He also happened to win the election two days before his birthday, but his father won the 2005 Presidential just one day before his birthday. Congratulations Namal ayya!

Then there is Wimal Weerawamsa who contested with the UPFA and got more preferential votes that Ranil Wickremasinghe. I believed that Ranil would get all the votes of green blooded Colombo elite, but evidently not. Or the Colombo 7 people have diminished (highly unlikely). I don’t know what happened to his once-mega voter base. Meanwhile, the UNP voter base does not seem to have lost much to the DNA. The DNA has also not lost much to the UNP. But both parties have lost greatly to the UPFA, giving them the Raja-pakshaya the overall victory in Colombo and (I think) all areas outside of the North.

The North is swept up by the BLU-TACK. Sorry, I meant ITAK. Last time they won the North with over 90% of the votes in each district. This time the UPFA has been victorious in cutting down the ITAK to around 50-60% in each area. But the UPFA has to thank Prabhakaran for dying and hence denying the ITAK of it’s vote rigging, or else they wouldn’t even be competing in the North.

The people of Kandy and Trincomalee are forced to vote again on the 20th because their first votes were cancelled. This is the work of a DNA member to protect the people’s right to elect their leader. I assume that he was genuine in his intentions, since the DNA stands no chance of getting a seat there anyway. Then again, they were the ones convinced that SF would win the presidential election.

That reminds me, General Fonny won a seat in Colombo under the DNA. His wife did not win though, from wherever she participated. Wow, the UPFA has really cut down the vote rigging… by anyone but themselves.

Cricket Superstar Sanath Jayasuriya is now Member Of Parliament Sanath Jayasuriya. But Olympic Silver Medalist Susanthika Jayasinghe will not be an MP. Other newcomers include Duminda Silva (media giant), Thilanga Sumathipala (telephone giant) and One Shot (actor). Older, more experienced and potentially more useful MPs such as Rohitha Bogollagama and Milinda Moragonda have been pushed out to make room. New generation of politicians and new era of politics?

I’ve been finding it pretty difficult to find proper listings of the candidates voted in. I compiled this post with the names I could remember, which aren’t much. But I do remember, gladly, that the circus is over and I won’t have to hear much about the politicians till the next round. I’m thinking that a lot of other Sri Lankans are with me on this.

Too much politics. Better change to some other subject.

Not to say that there isn’t the occasional good person in parliament. And also not to say that there isn’t the occasional good deed by bad MPs. But often the bad outweighs the good by a large margin, and the good MPs don’t last long in parliament (at least not as “good” MPs).

There is also the stupidity factor to consider when voting in the parliamentary elections. Many of the candidates are pretty stupid. Or they are not fit to be in parliament, which means they are stupid enough to run for election. They range from actors and singers to cricketers and athletes. And because of their popularity, they will actually get voted in tomorrow. Not that they will do much more that the previous generation.

Meanwhile, the parties’ real politicians would have had major problems deciding whom to nominate for each area, which means there may be plenty of disgruntled candidates appointed to the wrong district, perhaps hoping to jump ship after the election. The SLFP leaders would have had trouble because there are way too many new members in the party, waiting for a place in parliament. The UNP would have had trouble because they want all their top politicians to get seats in an election they will most definitely loose. The DNA/NDF/JVP/SF party wouldn’t have trouble yet since their hero Sarath Fonseka is almost guaranteed a seat. Their problem will come later when they realise that Sarath Fonseka cannot attend parliament from prison.

Maybe this year the SLFP will destroy the Manape system that has screwed the country for so long, and introduce something that stops members of the same party from killing each other. The system was originally introduced during J.R. Jayawardane’s presidency to ensure that UNP stays in power. This would have worked fine if not for the mess up after Premadasa’s death, which led to people realising that the UNP’s decade of rule was long enough. Chandrika was subsequently voted in and the SLFP has been in power ever since, thanks to J.R.’s Manape system. If the SLFP is now willing to remove the system, with a two-thirds majority in parliament of course, I wonder how it will give the ultimate benefit to their party? Would it backfire like J.R.’s plan?

Not that I should be worried. I managed well for the last 13 years, and I will keep doing well whatever party or person is in power. After all, I am not old enough to vote yet, and I don’t study in a national school anymore to be affected by changes in the Ministry of Education. But regardless of my feelings for this circus called the election, people must exercise their right by choosing the most suitable idiots to run our country, and possibly our lives. It is your democratic right, right?

I took the time to make some posters of my own, representing my views of British politics. Of course I am not too knowledgeable of British politics, but I’m sure I can comment about it better than CNN. CNN is notorious for uninformed reporting, especially involving elections in Asian countries. They were 100% sure that Sarath Fonseka would win the Sri Lankan election in January, but that only made me more sure that Rajapakse would be victorious. I wonder what trash they will spew about our general elections.

Anyway, here are my posters. Repost them if you wish, but please accompany them with a link to this article.

And finally, a very very Sri Lankan poster.

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.

I won’t go into the team politics of the KKR. Instead, I base my support on two things. The team is owned by Shah Rukh Khan, one of my favourite bollywood actors, and also Angelo Matthews, my favourite Sri Lankan cricketer, is in the team. And also, partially, because the KKR has being one of the unluckiest teams in the last two seasons. I didn’t really have time to go through everything and choose a team based on statistics, so instead I chose what I believed was the weakest team in the tournament.

But according to the current standings, KKR is not the worst (King XI Punjab is), so it seems to be working out for me. Hopefully the team will climb up a bit more before the end of the tournament. KKR winning the tournament is a bit too far fetched even for me.

Meanwhile, I’ve been wondering about the IPL advertisements on SET Max where there are two scarcely dressed women posing. Today, I noticed that only the tops of the women were shown, unlike the previous ads where the women would sometimes stretch their miniskirt clad legs so the camera was given a full view of their underwear. If there happened to be a Buddha statue in the vicinity, broadcasting the IPL would have been banned in Sri Lanka (and possibly in parts on India too). It would have also been banned in 95% Buddhist Myanmar, but they have bigger problems to worry about. However, I’m not very happy about this.

I’m also not happy about the cheer leaders who are ever present and dancing at the edge of the field. That’s an American thing, and it fits in with college basketball games. It’s not Asian and definitely not Indian. It’s as if the IPL organizers want to draw the people’s attention away from cricket as much as possible. Surely there must be some people who go to the match just to observe those women. At least the camera doesn’t keep turning to them all the time, unlike last time as I remember.

I don’t know whose fault it was that Akon was denied visa. Or even if it was a fault at all. The people who protested did have a point, if their point was that Akon would damage our culture. But it is too likely that most of the protesters were actually there under the guidance of political enemies of Sirasa TV, not specifically because they cared about the Sri Lankan culture. Some say that the Maharaja guards tried to force the protesters away, and hence set off the defensive stone attack. Sirasa TV says that the protesters were there solely to destroy the property and possibly kill some people. As usual, it is impossible to believe anyone.

The fact is that Akon did release a music video in which bikini girls danced in front of a Buddha statue. I don’t like it much. For me, it shows the level of cultural ignorance of Akon and the people around me. I could generalise this to say that a lot of Americans are totally ignorant about other countries and cultures, but then again that is probably the image given by the comments on CNN.com.

Ultimately the government was faced with a major problem. If the situation was ignored, the opposition would complain that the President is ruining the younger generation. If Akon was not allowed into the country, the opposition would complain that the President was ruining the freedom of the people. They had to contend with the public as well, not just the opposition. So the government did the best thing, and essentially the same thing they always do. They ignored the opposition and did the thing that would look good in the eyes of the older (possibly wiser) generation. They denied visa for Akon.

End of story.  **Akon’s real name is actually Aliaune Badara Akon Thiam.

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.


Invictus, the movie, is about how Nelson Mandela used the South African rugby team (the Springboks) to unite his people after the fall of the apartheid. It is a great movie, but what hit me was the above poem. Whilst imprisoned for his fighting against the racial discrimination, he wrote this poem on a piece of paper. According to the film, Mandela handed a copy of the same poem to the captain of the Springboks, François Pineaar, before the finals of the 1995 Rugby World Cup. (In reality the captain was given The Man In The Arena by Theodore Roosevelt.)

The movie is quite touching and will probably have you singing to the tune of World in Union at the end. I assume that it is accurate for the most part, except for the dramatisations and the above inaccuracy. At one point, a jet flies low over the stadium before the beginning of the finals. This actually did hapen, and the security was notified well ahead, but according to the film the presidential security had no idea about it. That’s hollywood for you. There were many such dramatised situations, from the very start of the film, just to give a sense of fear to the viewer, but nothing actually happens to Mandela or the people around him.

Nelson Mandela is potrayed by Morgan Freeman, and the Springboks captain François Pineaar by Matt Damon, whom I feel are quite well suited for the roles. Please watch the film if you have the chance, because it will have you on the edge of your seat to watch the finals of the 1995 Rugby World Cup (of course South Africa won).