'Cause Pigs can Fly

I was going through some old files and came across this document from March 2015. I don't know if I posted it here or on the personal blog I had back then. The writing is from five years ago but I want to save it here so I don't lose it. Athamma Athamma, my grandmother, passed away last week. Sunday night, we all had dinner together, we all ate well, spent time together. We went to bed. An hour later, she woke me up saying she wasn’t feeling well. Asked me to call Amma, my mother. She said she couldn’t breathe. That she was dying. She held my hand. She rested her head on Amma’s shoulder. I couldn’t be there. I couldn’t watch her. She passed away a few minutes later. I never saw her body. But Mami did, and he said that she looked like she was fast asleep. We left the coffin closed. She didn’t want people to see her body. She didn’t want people to see her once she was older and ill. The coffin was surrounded by flowers. It was beautiful. So elegant. Like the person she was. A...

I've been working from home since the beginning of October, when Sri Lanka was hit by its second wave of COVID-19. I left the house once for a work-related event but I've been blessed with a job that gives me the option of working remotely. To be honest, I don't feel like I'm doing as much work as I used to back when I did got to office. I feel guilty about this. I used to work on at least two stories a day but now I usually send in only one. I also get to work in my pajamas, from the comfort of my bedroom, and I don't spend 2 1/2 hours on the road, travelling to and from work. I feel like I'm saving money because I don't spend on transport or food. I put in less effort because I don't have office clothes added to the laundry basked every day. I take three steps at most from my bed to my laptop. I don't have to wait for tuks and trains and buses or walk from one place to another. Given all of this, I felt guilty about asking for a day off. But I also...

It was a few minutes past 3 a.m. and she woke up, drenched in sweat. The fan was blowing hot air at the bed but none of it reached her. She pulled away the mosquito net, hoping that would help, but it didn’t make much of a difference. She winced as the cramps in her stomach got worse. They weren’t painful, but the discomfort was not something she could just sleep through. She tried to ignore them, but the wetness and coldness she felt when she wiped away the sweat on her forehead using the back of her hand scared her. She rolled out of bed and switched on the light. Opened the second drawer of her dressing table and took out a pad. Rarely had periods been pain-free for her. She knew that other people had it worse, but she also knew that that did not mean her pain wasn’t real. When it was really bad, she would toss and turn in bed, cramps in her lower tummy area, pain in her back and calves. She would run to the toilet to vomit the water and painkillers she thought she could keep ...

Mornings used to be easy. Her body would force itself out of sleep somewhere between 6am and 6.30am and she always joked that she never needed to set an alarm. Even when she was on holiday, she would be awake by 6.30am, savouring those moments of quiet before the people she was sharing a room with woke up. This had changed in the last few weeks. Now she had to force her eyes open and it was always past 7am when she was finally able to focus her eyes on the clock that was only two metres away from her bed. Then she would lie there, on the bed, beads of sweat forming on her forehead and right above her upper lip. Not fully awake and not exactly asleep, she would imagine an alternative life. She didn’t know how far in the past it was but she knew it was not set during a time of phones and computers. She lived by the sea in this fantasy. A small hut, thatched roof, yellow walls. She didn’t particularly like yellow as a colour, especially not on walls, but her hut by the ocean was always ...

Remember that incident where Bhoomi Harendran wasn’t allowed into The Love Bar? Well, in the video, the bouncer mentions the word ‘rupaya’ and the word stayed in my mind. Of course, I understand that the incident was more about transphobia and less about what this post is about. I’m not taking away from the fact that the LGBT+ community continues to face a crap tonne of discrimination and hate in this country and the world. But that word rupaya and the bouncer’s use of the word made me think of how we tend to judge people and make assumptions about them based on their appearance, mostly because, a few weeks ago, I felt my rupaya or appearance being judged when the bouncers were considering if I should be let into a similar establishment. I think about a woman in a short tight dress at a high-end club being judged by one standard and a woman in similar attire standing on the pavement in the night by another. We look at people and stick so many labels on them based on how they look...

Whenever I feel lonely – and I feel this way often – I am overwhelmed by a sense of guilt because I how can I be lonely when I have amazing friends and a wonderful family? I have people who actually love me, who reach out, who are there for me without me having to ask them. And yet, it could be when I wake up or when I’m in the train or when I’m coming home after work or when I have dinner by myself or when I lie in bed, tired, but awake. It could be at some random moment. But I’ll feel this deep loneliness that sometimes feels like physical pain. And as silly and embarrassing as it is, this loneliness stems not from a lack of friends or family. It stems from a lack of romantic relationships. That’s the truth. As much as I am okay most of the time about being alone, there are moments that take me off guard and make me hate myself for not being able to be enough for anyone. And before you come at me with your plenty of fish in the sea or it will happen at the right time nonsense...

We have three stainless steel jugs at home. The smallest holds a cup of tea, the medium two, and the largest, three. I always use the biggest. Three tablespoons of tea leaves, boiling water up to an inch below the rim. Cover and let it sit for ten minutes. Add six spoons of sugar. Milk until it’s the right shade of brown. This isn’t how you make the perfect cup of tea. The tea is too strong (“Kahata wadi,” Amma would way, wincing at the bitter taste.) When Athamma was alive, she would add more sugar to it. It doesn’t taste good and I know it. But it’s the cup of tea I make. A cup of tea means a few things in life. In the morning, it helps me wake up. It makes me feel relaxed and helps me to shrug off the usual feelings of dread that accompany the act of waking up. In the evening, it’s a nice way to take a break from work or life in general. Sometimes, it would mean going back to my childhood by dipping Marie biscuits in hot tea. A few years ago, tea meant a break during work. At ...

So I’ve been cooking for a few years now and my family is used to my garlicky soup and oversalted potatoes and baking meltdowns. But like most other people, curfew/lockdown gave me the opportunity to cook more and try out more recipes. While I have always cooked, I rarely strayed away from the usual pasta, pies, and meats. My baking was usually limited to brownies and cookies and date cake. But I’ve spent the past two months at home like the rest of the world and I’ve been busy. For one, I was told to handle dinner every day. This made me realise how much effort goes into planning meals on a daily basis, especially with what you have at home. I don’t know how my mother remains sane after doing this for years. Anyway, back to the point. I’ve been cooking a lot and I’ve been posting pictures of what I make. But as I posted a picture of a pumpkin pecan pie a few days ago, I thought about how much is left unsaid in those pictures and captions. Added to this, I had a conversation with ...