'Cause Pigs can Fly

I don’t read a lot of Sinhala novels and it’s mostly because the language can get super confusing. I know Sinhala, I can read it without any issue but dialect plays a huge role in novels. If we talk about English novels for a second, novels by Irvine Welsh, for instance, can’t be easily understood if you aren’t familiar with accents. The same applies to Sinhala novels, to an extent. Words and phrases depend on what the author is used to or the region or era the story is based on. This puts me off Sinhala novels because I quite honestly don’t have the patience to dissect language. This is perhaps why I found Appachchi Awith to be an easy read and also a hard to put down book. The storyline had a lot to do with it too, and it’s a book I would recommend to anyone. I was talking about the book with a friend and they mentioned something along the lines of people not liking the book because the psychological elements may have put them off. And in a way, I get it. The book can...

We taught our boys and men that women are not only the fairer sex but also the weaker sex. We taught them that women are playthings to look at, stare at, and ogle. We taught them that they had a right to inspect every inch of a woman’s body and shout from across the street about every unspeakable act they’d like to use this woman’s body for. We taught them that they can hit their sisters, wives and daughters. Their hand across a woman’s cheek was a favour done to the woman. To discipline them. Teach them a lesson. “She’s too young to have a boyfriend,” he says, pulling her by her hair. “But you were out there having sex when you were younger than I am,” she thinks. We taught our men to measure our value. A good wife is one that obeys her husband. Is at his beck and call. Looks away when he sleeps with other women. A good wife is one that keeps the food warm for when he staggers home at 2 in the morning. Brought with her a good dowry. Is a virgin until her wedding night. We ta...

If you know me, you will know that I hate weddings and don’t understand why people get married in this day and age. I could go on for hours about marriage, but yesterday, I forgot about all that and attended a wedding of a classmate. I hate admitting this sort of this but I am glad I went. The wedding was wonderful and I got to spend time with classmates I hadn’t seen since we left school in 2012. Excuse any incorrect words used in this paragraph but I’m not familiar with what’s what in a church. The service was held in a beautiful church and the sermon was quite good and pretty funny. But then he said something like, “*bride’s name* you have to now be a mother to your husband.” And I thought, “no, fuck that shit.” If you are a woman, you will be all too familiar with your lifelong role as a caretaker of men. From your father to brothers to husband to sons to grandsons, a woman is expected to take care of the men in her life. Women aren’t taught (mostly by their own mother...

Whenever people ask me about work and I tell them I work from home, their response is some variation of, ‘omg you are so lucky!’ And when I first started working from home, in September 2016, I was over the moon about it. I was discovering the joys of working in my PJs, from bed, while stuffing my face with unhealthy snacks. I haven’t asked people who have never worked from home what they think it’s like, but I’m assuming these are included in the package Not having to wake up at some ungodly hour to go to work Not having to sit in traffic for hours Not having to deal with annoying coworkers Not getting tangled in office politics Working in the nude and not having anyone know At first, it worked a bit like this. The magazine we were working on was new so we were still figuring out deadlines and how to get things done. We were used to working at an office. We couldn’t wrap our heads around how to get the same work done without ever meeting the people we ...

Lipstick Under My Burkha is a film I wanted to watch but found no immediate need to. So despite having liked the trailer and read a few articles about the film, I never got around to watching it until today. And I’m glad I waited until now to watch it because it’s one of those films you need to focus all your attention on (also because I needed subtitles to understand what was being said). If you haven’t watched the film or even heard about it, this isn’t the best place to be if you want the storyline. I’m not very good at remembering names or timelines. And this isn’t exactly a review of the film. But of course, major spoilers ahead. SPOILERS AHEAD As the movie came to an end, I realized that what made Lipstick Under My Burkha different was both its theme and how that theme was set in motion/portrayed. I haven’t watched a lot of films but this is one of those films that sheds light on women as they are without any of the subtlety. The film talks about female sexuali...