LOVE FATE AND ALCOHOL

I had started on my third bottle of stout. I liked Lion Stout because its alcohol percentage was high, and because its sour-bitter flavour left a after taste of marmite in my mouth. I had a sip from my glass and lit a cigarette. I was seated next to a window on the first floor overlooking the Galle Road. A light breeze blew smoke from the cigarette into my eyes. This was my favourite watering hole, where I spent a few hours every day after work. It was patronised by most tipplers from in and around Bambalapitiya. It was about 6.30 in the evening. I stared vacantly at the people down below who were hurrying to get back home.
“Is it alright if I sit here Putha” I turned around lazily to see an old gentleman pointing towards the seat next to me. “Sure uncle, no problem,” I said and turned back towards the window. I heard the old man tell the waiter to bring him a stout and five Bristols. As he poured his stout I looked at the old man. I had seen him before seated downstairs.
“I normally sit downstairs, today being a Friday and all that, not a bloody seat to be found in this blasted place” he said to me taking a sip from his glass. I was feeling a little high as I poured the last of the stout into my glass.
“By the way son, I’m Adrian, I’m sixty years, recently divorced and starting to enjoy my freedom again.” Sixty! He looked about seventy five, with his droopy watery eyes and wrinkled face.
“Well uncle, I’m twenty two, never been married, and I’ve just lost my girlfriend” I said with a wry smile, taking a puff from my cigarette! “That explains all these bottles on the table,” he said taking another sip from his glass. “Son, do you want to tell me about her?” he asked, looking at me. I ordered another stout and poured half of it into my glass.
“Uncle it happened like this; I was twenty then and there was a library that I used visit regularly; that’s where I met Fathima. She was a Muslim and the same age as me.”
“Was she pretty?” Adrian asked me. “Yes she was,” I said taking out my purse to show him a photograph of her. “Well, as I was telling you, we used to meet at this library, and I also used to speak to her from time to time on the phone. One day her mother got wind of what was going on. She had been listening over the extension while both of us were speaking. That was the end of Fathima coming to the library. After that the only way I could contact her was to send her a letter from time to time through a friend. She was virtually under house arrest. About four or five months went by, I had started working and used to call her on the phone at night from office. That’s when she suggested that I come over to her place in the night. The risk far outweighed the fact that we would be together after all these months.”
“I went to her house at 11.30 one night. Fathima was on the balcony. She quickly came down and opened the gate for me. Taking my hand, she led me into the house. It was pitch dark and my heart beat was synchronized to the tick tock of the clock in the hall. I held onto her hand like a child holding on to it’s mother. She led me through the maze of furniture into the study. It had a table and chair and a bed next to the window. It was a big house. Her parents and two sisters slept upstairs. I spent the night with Fathima in the study. I left at four in the morning as her family woke up at 4.30am to say their prayers.”
I paused for a moment, to take a sip from my beer and have a drag from my cigarette. I was feeling quite drunk now.
“You lucky devil!.....you buggers have all the fun!” Adrian said, patting me on the back. Everybody in the bar seemed to be in high spirits. Booze was flowing and the waiters were beaming. They had a lot to be happy about, as it was a Friday and pay day for most of the customers. They were sure to get good tips while making a bit on the side by over charging some of the unsuspecting customers. We ordered another round of stout.
“So continue Putha, tell me what happened!” Adrian said, shaking my hand. “Well, I started to go to her house twice a week. This continued for s few months. It has been said that all good things come to an end. We heard someone knocking on the study room door. There were bars on the window and no way of escape, the only place to hide was under the bed. Fathima had to open the door. Her mother looked under the bed, saw me and went racing upstairs like a bat out of hell to wake her husband. I could have left right then, but decided to stay and face the music because I really loved Fathima. Her parents came down and started yelling at us. When one of them paused to take a breath, the other would start. They sounded like two tractors with mechanical trouble. I tried to reason with them, but they would not listen. The fact that I was not a Muslim and what their relatives would say, weighed heavily against me. Fathima’s father went as far as to say that if she married me, he would kill himself. I decided that now was the time to make my exit. If I didn’t leave now, I knew I wouldn’t live to fight another day, what with her father screaming blue murder and her mother wailing like a banshee. To cut a long story short, Fathima’s father emotionally blackmailed her into thinking that he would commit suicide and that is why you find me here today with all these bottles around me.”
“Well son, according to Murphy’s Law, if something has to happen, it will happen. It all comes down to fate. See how I had to put up with an old battle axe for the past twenty years. She is the spitting image of that cartoon character Andy Capps wife. Always nag! nag! nag! One day I came home after a small drink; the battle axe started up like a broken down record about my drinking. I told her Therese! I am drunk and you are ugly! Tomorrow I will be sober, but you will still be ugly!”
“Ha! Adrian! Looks like you subscribe to the Reader’s Digest,” I said taking a swig from my glass. “Well Putha don’t tell anybody!” Adrian said, winking at me. Adrian was drunk as well and kept rambling on about his former wife. “You know Putha, the ideal marriage would be between a deaf man and a blind woman. The woman can’t see what mischief her husband gets up to and the wife can nag the whole day and he wouldn’t hear a thing. You should have seen my mother-in-law; He seemed to be speaking to himself; She was a sight for sore eyes. When she came to visit, she and her daughter would get together and nag me. One day my mother-in-law told me, “Adrian! if you were my husband I would put arsenic in your tea!.” “Mother dearest, if you were my wife, I would drink it !” was my reply to her. That put a stop to her insults.
“ Looks like your mother-in-law also reads the Reader’s Digest,” I said with a grin. “Women! You can’t live with them and you can’t live without them! Drinking is not going to solve your problems! Drink if you must, to enjoy yourself, not to drown your sorrows! No woman is worth all this pain! Son, it’s getting late now, don’t you think we should leave?” Adrian said gulping down the last of his stout. We paid our bills and left.
I woke up the next morning with a massive hangover. I couldn’t remember how I had got home. I did not go to work. As I lay there on my bed, these words wafted through my head;

Oh lissome lass, remember that,

I loved you with all my heart;

You turned me head over heels with your smile,

And then you broke my heart.



In an alcoholic stupor,

Through a haze of cigarette smoke;

Your face appeared, and then you spoke,

Oh Lord! Is this a joke?



I’m bewitched by your eyes;

Haunted by your smile;

My eyes are wet, I love you yet!

Alcohol won’t help me forget!


I put my pillow over my head and went back to sleep.

Star of the day!

Thought for the day:

Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary.

Mahatma Gandhi, 'Satyagraha Leaflet No. 13,' May 3, 1919

Operation Barbarossa and how not to count your chickens before their hatched !

Germany 1941
The victory music was chosen in advance. “You’ll hear that often in the near future,” Adolf Hitler boasted to dinner guests one night in 1941 after playing on the Gramophone a passage from Liszt’s Les preludes. Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels was optimistic as well.

“The Fuhrer estimates that the operation will take four months,” he wrote in his diary. “I reckon on fewer.” At 5.30 on the morning of June 22, 1941, Goebbels had Les preludes played over the radio before announcing Germany’s surprise invasion of the Soviet Union that had begun two hours earlier. “A glorious, wonderful hour has struck, when a new empire is born,” he wrote in that day’s diary entry. “Our nation is making her way up into the light.”

The assault kicked off 129 years to the day Napoleon launched his Grande Armee toward Moscow, the Germans had amassed one of the largest strike forces ever: more than 3 million troops along a 1,600 km front, supported by 3,350 tanks, 2,000 aircraft and 7,200 artillery pieces. Stalin refused to act on clear evidence of the buildup. “You can’t believe everything Intelligence says,” he chided his top generals in mid-June.

Hitler erred as dramatically. He underestimated the Soviet Union’s resources, believing for example, that it had only 10.000 tanks, not the actual 24,000. More fatefully, Hitler’s racial delusions blinded him to the prowess of his foe. Slavs, he was convinced, were no match for Teutonic warriors, and the regime of “Jewish Bolshevism” could not withstand the coming blow. “You have only to kick in the door,” the Fuhrer explained to Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, the commander of Army Group South, “and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.”

The fight to the death with the Soviets lasted not four months but four years – through the blood-drenched ordeals of Leningrad, Moscow, Stalingrad and Berlin with the ultimate defeat of the Germans.

Sri Lanka 1995
The Sri Lankan Governments 21,000 troops entered the Jaffna town. The Tamil capital had become a ghost town. Most of the roughly 10,000 fighters of the LTTE had melted away into the jungle. The majority Sinhalese expected the war to end with the fall of Jaffna. The LTTE relocated to the Wanni jungle and continued its fight for a separate state.

In a survey taken before the Tigers broke the truce in April 1995, only 16 percent of Sri Lankans said they believed in a military solution to the country’s civil war. A follow-up poll taken by the same group, Mitofsky International after the capture of Jaffna found that 67 percent favoured a military solution.

Sri Lanka 2008
The war did not end in 1995 as predicted by Government pundits. It has raged on for more than 13 years since the capture of Jaffna. Now the Government says it is on the verge of capturing the LTTE stronghold Killinochi and ending the war. Yes, the Government might capture Killinochi in the near future, and then the Tigers will revert to hit-and-run guerrilla tactics, basing themselves in the Wanni jungle. The well known dictum of ‘War being a continuation of politics by other means,’ is been practiced to the fullest by the present government as they are unable to find a solution to the economic woes of the gullible majority. The majority, once again have been hoodwinked by the ‘War Carrot’ that the government has dangled towards them.

What I can say to the Government of Sri Lanka, and the ‘Gullible Majority’ is, “Don’t count your chickens before their hatched!”

The ‘Silent Minority’ of which I am one, believes that the only way there will be peace in Sri Lanka, is only if extensive power is devolved to the people living in the North and East.

When the ‘Prevention of Terrorism Act’ is revoked, and there are no more ‘check points,’ and the armed forces are confined to their barracks with only the police handling the day to day law enforcement in the whole of Sri Lanka will be the day that we the ‘Silent Minority’ believe that the war has finally ended!

Until then, “God help us all!”

Star of the day!

Thought for the day:

Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room. Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America—not on the battlefields of Vietnam.


Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980), Canadian sociologist. In the Montreal Gazette, 1975.

Star of the Day!

Thought for the day:

The guerrilla fights the war of the flea, and his military enemy suffers the dog's disadvantages: too much to defend; too small, ubiquitous, and agile an enemy to come to grips with.

Robert Taber (1928- ), U.S. writer. From War of the Flea (1965).

Barack and Fake Barack!

Barack Osama Bloopers!

Star of the Day!

Thought for the day:

"As long as people believe in absurdities, they will continue to commit atrocities."

-Voltaire-

Did you know?

...that ancient Greeks sent messages to dead relatives and friends by giving a message to a slave, then cutting his head off?

...that if something was forgotten, he sent another decapitated slave as a P.S.?

...that it was very dangerous to be owned by a forgetful master?

...that the Persian king, Astyages ordered Harpagus to eat the head of his own son, and Harpagus replied that whatever a king did was all right with him?

...that we have many fools like that alive today who think the authorities can do no wrong?

...that there are others who think authorities can do nothing right?

...that Mia Farrow's dog has a shrink to whom she pays $150.00 an hour to treat?

...that Mia Farrow has more dollars than sense?

...that maybe the shrink could be of more help to Mia than her dog? (Incidentally, Mia Farrow happens to be an actress)

...that four times as many people die from infections picked up in a hospital than are killed in auto accidents?

...that plain rubbing alcohol is a natural deodorant?

...that steamed carrots provide you with more beta-carotene than raw carrots?

...that the average time a patient is allowed to speak before being interrupted by his doctors is 18 seconds?

...that if you foul-up in life, it is your own fault, not your parents so accept the blame, learn from your mistakes and move on with your life?

...that a politician said, "There comes a time to put principle aside and do what's right."?

...that another one said, "Remember, if you conquer yourself, you conquer the greatest evil on Earth."?

...that another one said, "This bill is the worst misjustice of carriage I have ever seen."?

...that "politics" breaks down as "poly" (many) and "tics" (parasitic blood suckers) so does that mean politicians are "blood sucking parasites"?

...that in ancient Greece, they required any man who proposed a new law to speak with a rope around his neck, so that, if his motion failed, he might be hung with a minimum of public inconvenience?

...that the above policy might be workable in the Sri Lankan Government?

...that we have some idiots running our government?

…that some people feel that the entire government consists of idiots?

...that there is no such thing as a homosexual, only heterosexuals who practice sodomy?

...that when Columbus landed at San Salvador, he thought it was close to Japan?

...that evolutionists are like a blind man in a dark basement looking for a black cat-that isn't there?

...that mirrors don't lie, and we should be thankful they don't laugh?

...that it is better to have a true enemy than a false friend?

...that the Roman Republic considered dancing as disgraceful?

…that an island in the Indian Ocean bans the sale of meat and liquor, and expects movie theatres to be closed every full moon day?

…that very few of the Island’s inhabitants observe this rule?

...that historian Will Durant wrote that Caesar and Christ had met in the arena, and Christ had won?

...that some naive Sri Lankans think Prabahakaran is dead; a loaf of bread will be sold for five rupees again and that some day American women will work as housemaids in Sri Lanka!

...that when you feel good, your brain manufactures serotonin that is known as your body's "natural healer"?

...that in the Fourth Century Roman Empire, taxes were so high that peasant shop owners left their overtaxed shops to become hired laborers?

...that salt was traded for slaves in Greece and a good slave was "worth his salt"?

...that in Sparta, citizens under 60 were considered too immature to serve in the Senate?

...that Sparta mothers sent sons into battle saying, "Return with your shield or on it."?

...that the mothers of Sparta knew that their sons couldn't run with a heavy shield?

...that Pliny thought a man, especially if fasting, could kill a snake by spitting into its mouth? (He doesn't explain how to get into the face of a snake without being bitten.)

...that it was said by King Herod's enemies (after his death), "He stole to the throne like a fox, ruled like a tiger, and died like a dog."? (Doesn’t it remind you of a few of our politicians closer to home?)

…that according to Murphy’s Law, if something has to happen, it will happen!
(Like the recent Tsunami that devastated a few South East Asian countries).

…that there is more money being spent on breast implants and Viagra today than on Alzheimer's research. This means that by 2040, there should be a large elderly population with perky boobs and huge erections and absolutely no recollection of what to do with them.

…that there is a board coming up in every hotel in Sri Lanka that was affected by the Tsunami which says:
In case of Tsunami or tidal wave:
1. Stay Calm.
2. Pay your bill.
3. Run like hell!

When the A/Levels are over

When the A/Levels are over,

Oh!How happy I would be,

When I take my uniform off,

No more studying for me.



No more doing any home-work,

No more writing notes in class,

I can tell my class teacher,

To shove his text books up his arse!