Colombo: Three Days Two Nights

Saturday stated with dinner and it was so good to see my two cousins again. I met with yet another Anudhi catastrophe when I wore a cotton blinggy top ruchie had given me for my birthday, along with my new hot denim pants. Anyways right after we went to cricket club and sat down my halter strap snapped on the right side!!! It was from the front attachment to the body part and it kept falling off exposing my famously sexy right boob! *grin* [Thank god I decided to wear a bra at the last minute, or else I would’ve done a Janet Jackson on the people at the cricket club!]

So at CC I decided to be bold and asked one of the nice waiters if I could borrow a safety pin while holding up my boob bit and strap with one had. He went to the cashier and got me – you’ll never guess – a PAPER CLIP!!! So telling myself - and Char [ my cuz bro] who was seated next to me and was finding the whole thing rather hilarious, - “beggars cant be choosers”, I decide to get imaginative with the paper clip.

It held the over stressed/stretched material of the top just for a few minutes and when I was least expecting it, the bloody strap snapped again sending the paperclip somersaulting in to my cleavage.

By this time the waiters were openly laughing. So I decided to come up with another idea and asked for a stapler from the captain and was trying hard to staple the bloody strap when Gaya [ my cuz sis] pointed out that the whole restaurant had gotten quite interested in my situation by this time. Oh bugger! So I sweetly smiled at all the old aunties who looked scandalized and uncles who tried hard to cover up the glint of glee in their eyes, and fished the paperclip back from my cleavage and clipped it on.


Now an over stressed captain – after listening to my glowing reviews on boobs and what I might be doing to the men at the restaurant [and not so quietly at that!] - combed the whole of CC and got me a safety pin I SWEAR he had removed from his own underpants! It looked very old and worn and it had been so obviously twisted by hand. But as I told you, beggars can’t be choosers. I was so happy to see that corroded piece of junk that I didn’t wait to ask him how he intended to hold up his underpants. I just grabbed it and pinned it asking them if they were going to charge me for that, the paper clip and the stapler pins. Well I actually went to the loo to pin it this time. After all Sri Lankan girls are very modest no?? *wink* I wonder if that captain tied a knot in his underpants … hhmmmmmhhhh?

Then we went to Tramps. Neeli wanted to go there. The moment we walked in we had the five people there – all sleezy looking Arabic men- leering at us. Gaya and I did a fast “U” turn and headed out with My sister following close behind and Neeli coming out complaining that tramps WAS after all a happening place. I told her “yeah! In Arab maybe!”. So anyways we ended up at R&B, and there I just grabbed Char and started dancing while Neeli went shaking hands of all the people she had come in to contact within her life time [You know – brand manager of unilever and all …. ] while My sister and Gaya joined me and Char on the dance floor. Some where within the 1st hour we were there, I managed to dance with a drunk strange man called Abdullah or Mohomad. I forget! It was fun cos when his beat was going left, mine went right. And it was a challenge to keep up AND try to move to the beat!
Just when I managed to tell Abdullah Mohomed that I have had enough, and went to dance with Char again, the moron DJ switched to trance music. Who in his or her right mind can dance to THAT shit? Now some sushi loving, cold shoulder wearing, regular Thursday beauty appointment setting, cosmopolitan reading, maguerita drinking wanna be malakada women would’ve gone “hoorayyyy” over this. Not me. I told the DJ to switch the music. He said no. I signaled him again to cut it when he moved to the third trance track and he ignored, so I left the floor. Followed by a very dazed and drunk Abdullah Mohomed [how the hell did he become a member of our club???], Char, Akki, Gayani and a complaining Neeli. The DJ got pissed and said “well for those of you who have no taste in music, not only hip hop and disco is music, trance is good too” so I turned around, raised my arm right up and gave him the finger in front of all those people right there at the edge of the dance floor and walked away.

On Sunday I was honest to a person. Told him a secret I rarely share with anyone. A very personal secret that no one understood except for Pawan. This other person assured it didn’t matter. He said it made no difference and that he understood.

On Monday he wanted space.

Why?

One night in March 2005 the heavens and the club hoppers of Colombo found a girl and a boy lying close on the bonnet of a small Toyota in front of a popular night club, with their arms wrapped around each other laughing and smiling and talking in to the wee hours of the morning.

Though it might have seemed romantic and wishfully lovely, little did anyone know that the boy was telling the girl he couldn’t be with her.

There, on that bonnet that night, as he pointed out the belt of Orion to her – Maybe to impress, we’ll never know, and as she silently accepted pretending to be impressed that he was pointing to the dagger and not the belt, she snuggled close to him and laid her head on her best friend’s shoulder. The guy she had loved for so long without even knowing it. She listened while he gently told her how he just had too much to work on and therefore couldn’t give her a commitment. She smiled when he said “you are perfect. You deserve a lot. And I can’t give that to you right now. I won’t ask you to wait either, because I don’t know how long it will take”

Half crying, half angry, and consumed by the love she had for him, she just wrapped her arms around this man she had known for years. A boy she watched grow. A friend who she fell in love with.

Now two years later, she is saying good bye to him. She is half angry, half crying and still consumed by the love for him. She knows how much she will miss knowing he was around. But how can she hold some one else’s husband in her arms and cry?

Some loves don’t change. They just grow and mature and settle deep in our hearts. That kind of love can surpass any hard moment. That is the love that comes with a lot of sharing and respect. A pure love that has never taken advantage of its power or hold on some one else.

The woman sits today and wonders about how she should react. Had she managed to get the tears out of the way over the past few nights?

She sits surprised in her world to find out that through the years and changes her feelings had remained constant. She is surprised that the love a girl found ten years ago is still very much strong in a woman who is about to say good bye to her best friend.

She plasters a smile on her face as she leaves to face her parallel existence. One last time before she lets him go for ever, leave her and move far away, she wonders how amazingly safe she felt in his arms one night that long time ago.

Inspired by Shehal, this is my 1st attempt at “Blogging”. Just like cold shoulder Saree Jackets [worn by all the wannabe Sri Lankan women at the “Chilies”] and re-bonded hair, I wonder if fun blogging too would be a “must do or die” thing in the high flying posh society of Colombo’s malakada ladies!

That will be the day I leave this blog!

Until then, I hope you enjoy my life and my thoughts just as much as I have enjoyed Shehals!