'Cause Pigs can Fly

At the beginning of 2016, I was a firm believer that you do get to pick your friends. Sure, they never stand in a row and you never get to pick whoever you like the most. Friendship doesn’t, and shouldn’t, work that way. But that’s not what I thought at the beginning of the year. You do choose your friends. That’s what I thought. And at the beginning of the year, I wasn’t in the best of places. I didn’t have a job. I didn’t have any money. I had nothing to do or keep me occupied. But I had friends. Some that I still love dearly. And at that time I felt lucky for having made quite a few wise decisions with regard to the people I had picked as friends. By then, I had already lost touch with most of my school friends. Only one of them remains someone I keep in touch with. And I thought this was a smart move. I realized that in school, at that age, thanks to the system, you don’t really meet people you have a lot in common with. Friends are people you sit next to or have the s...

(Before-post notes #1: There are spoilers here and there. Marked by SPOILER ALERT! and SPOILER ALERT!- OVER #2: I’m really, really bad at names. So if I’ve got any of the character names wrong, please forgive and correct me. #3: These are my personal opinions. Maybe the director didn’t intend any of this. But I feel art is open to interpretation.)   Sometime back a friend told me about Frangipani, I watched the trailer and had a feeling it was a must-watch film. It tackled issues that Sri Lankan cinema is hesitant or afraid of even acknowledging and more than that, it seemed like a nice film. But of course, back then there seemed to be no way I could watch the film unless I found it online, which I couldn’t, so imagine my happiness when I heard it was coming to local cinemas. Then came the next problem. A friend and I wanted to watch it but where could we watch it? Very few cinemas were showing the film, which really is a bummer because people ne...

(Warning: This is more like a personal blog post but I’m posting it here because it sort of explains why I rarely reply to anything on time –which is right at the end so maybe just scroll down? If you are my parents, then reading this may make you realize your daughter isn’t who you think she is, and I would appreciate it if you treat this post as a diary entry and (other people’s) diaries shouldn’t be read :) )   When you are more like a grumpy cat lady and less like the 22 year old you actually are, there are few things that annoy you more than lovey dovey posts. You know how there are a bazillion emojis? None of them reflect my facial expression when I come across a lovey dovey post. Sometimes, while scrolling down Facebook, I fear that I will basically roll my eyes out of my head. Some posts are so cringe-worthy that all I can do is stare at them, speechless. I know that you’re now thinking that this is going to be one of those whiny ‘I’m single posts.’...

There have been a number of discussions on nudes recently. Incidents of leaked nudes occur quite frequently and Sri Lanka too, has had quite a few such incidents. What is interesting however is that nudes usually refer to female nudes. It isn’t just nude pictures of people that are a problem, but female nudity that causes such an uproar.   This applies to ordinary people like you and I, and also celebrities. When a male celebrity has nudes published online, even if he wasn’t aware of it, little to no negative attention is given to them. Further, male celebrities can post nudes online without gossip magazines picking them up and having the stories spread like wildfire. The same can’t be said of female celebrities, who often can’t just brush it off as a mistake or a joke. They can’t even admit to publishing the pictures online or not having a problem with it as that will earn them the label of slut or whore. What ordinary women go through when their nudes are leaked is m...