'Cause Pigs can Fly

Something not many know is that Ollie’s Diary began as a way to deal with grief. For context, Ollie’s diary is a story published every other week in Little Stars, the children’s tabloid of The Sunday Morning. We published the first story three Augusts ago. We published the last story today. But four Augusts ago, Calvin passed away and I was devastated. A few years before that, Calvin’s adventures came to life through A Diary of a Mischievous Cat, also published in Little Stars. We brought it to an end when I left The Sunday Morning to join Daily FT. In it, Calvin was Kat, Gingie was Ginger. Ollie wasn’t part of the story because she was yet to join our family. Later, when I left Daily FT and joined The Daily Morning, I started writing for Little Stars again. And so, Ollie’s Diary began. I remember talking to Kusumanjalee, the editor of Little Stars and my friend, about how I wanted to write about Calvin’s illness and death in a way that children could understand. I thought that...

I don’t quite remember my first grey hair. I must have been in my early 20s, because I remember my mother (and perhaps even my grandmother) pointing it out, much to my embarrassment. At the time, grey hair didn’t mean being older. It meant being old. And there’s a huge difference between the two. I don’t blame my mother. When my brother’s first grey hair was discovered, I made fun of him too, for being old. So, a few years later, when I noticed a grey hair or two, I didn’t take it well. I yanked the first few off. I was worried my hairdresser would comment on my hair. I hated it when friends pointed it out. But then, at some point, I stopped caring. Now, I quite like seeing more and more greys on my head. It’s somewhat of a relief. Being old. And yes, I know that I’m not actually old or anywhere close to being old. But I remember when I was in my mid-20s and swore I would never get married or have kids, people would say I would 100% change my mind in a few years. “Just wait until y...

I was just thinking about how you are never ready for a wave of depression. You never know when to expect it. You never know how to handle it. And then I realised that it's been almost 10 years since my first and only attempt at actually doing something about my mental health. I don't know if that attempt was a success. Covid and a few other things complicated matters and I let go of the thought of seeking help. Professional help. I did consider it a few times since, so maybe I haven't given up hope completely, but knowing me, it's quite unlikely. And of course, I don't even have it that bad. My brain behaves for the most part. And when it doesn't, I either get moody and cry in my room or get a bit drunk and behave a bit recklessly. It's mostly okay. The recklessness isn't too bad. It's never something I regret. But you know, I'm in my 30s now. I think it's fair to ask that the universe let me be. That I'm allowed to just exist; go about ...

This morning, while checking Instagram on my way to the train station, I saw a video from a Josh Thomas standup show where he talks about how we keep comparing ourselves to the coolest people and the prettiest people, making them the standard. “Have you guys ever been on a bus?” he asks the audience, and they laugh. “That’s the standard. That’s who we are trying to beat. It’s not that hard,” he jokes. Now, the joke itself is a bit… well, I love Josh Thomas but what are we saying here? That people who take the bus aren’t cool or pretty or better than us? But that’s a whole other discussion. I saw this post in the morning and I thought about it for a moment but then I had to pay my tuk driver and buy my train ticket and walk to the correct platform and take a train to work. Work kept me busy and I lost track of time and almost missed my evening train. It was pulling into the station just as I was heading into the station and while I was buying my ticket, the railway officer asked ...

Having decided to make waffles for dinner, I found myself remembering the waffle iron we had at home when I was a kid. It was a beige and brown and made waffles shaped like a flower, each individual 'piece' a heart. I loved (and still love) slathering butter on one and enjoying the deliciousness of a waffle and the pools of golden melted butter. Understandably, this waffle iron is no longer in use. The current one gives us two rectangles at a time. The pockets in the waffle are bigger, which means they hold more butter. Yum! While making waffles for dinner, I noticed that the handle of our waffle iron had a crack in it, making it difficult to lock shut. It still did its job, but would need to be replaced soon. I told Amma that our waffle iron was entering its final few uses and she said it is quite old now. "No, it's not," I said, "Athamma got it for us." "Which means it's ten years... at least," Amma said. Ten years being the number of yea...

Last night, I met some of my closest friends – people I love; people who have made me feel loved. We talked about our new year’s resolutions: fitness, travel, meeting more frequently. We talked about more personal goals. And I don’t know if it was the wine, the setting, the general gaiety of the season, but I was just so happy. And that happiness is, to a great extent, still with me, even as I spend the afternoon by myself, my mother off having lunch with friends and our cats and dog enjoying a post-lunch nap. And this seems like the perfect time to reflect on the year that was 2025. I don’t know if this serves any purpose, but it feels like such a natural need: to look back at the year you survived as you step into another. I wanted to see what I wrote in the past few years but I seem to have skipped a recap post in 2024 and 2023. I don’t know why, but it could be because most of both years were spent being careful. They didn’t feel like real years, much like those covid years did...

A few incidents that happened recently had me wondering why people didn’t think they owe others an explanation, particularly in situations that affect both parties. If I wake up today to a message saying a friend wants nothing to do with me, do I not deserve an explanation? If I wake up to a message from an employer saying they don’t need my services anymore, do I not deserve an explanation? I say this, but when the roles are reversed, do I really give people an explanation for the decisions I make or the things I do? I’m not quite sure. I remember talking to someone a while back about the importance of communication. And yet, when it came to it, I did a pretty bad job of communicating what was on my mind. So then, as much as I love dissecting things in my mind and revisiting things in conversations with others, am I also not doing the bare minimum for someone who is affected by what I do? I remember years ago, I was complaining about something a friend did. The person who had to...

One of the perks of print media is that people tend to know each other and so interviews don't take on a very traditional form. They are casual conversations. And so, I've had to sit for only a handful of interviews in my life. That has changed now what with needing a job and all. But here's something that gets to me each time. "What are your goals? Where do you see yourself in five years?" I get that the answer to these questions will give you a sense of the kind of person you might be employing, but I find it to be such a pointless question. Do people really have goals anymore? How can they? In 2012, my 'goal' was to study law and become one of many with an LLB. But then, I ended up giving up on this goal and got drawn into the world of print media. A year into it, I was the editor of the youth tabloid, again, not something I ever saw myself doing. Three years later, I was unemployed, but following a bachelor's in social sciences. In 2016, I ended up...

Just now, I found myself googling: How to find a job. Because how does one find a job? Do you look through one of those recruitment websites? Do you spend way too much time on LinkedIn? Do you look up enough keywords so the algorithm works its magic? Or do you just hope for the best? In May, I handed in my letter of resignation knowing I would be taking a break before looking for a job. At the end of July, I ended my last day of work (for a while) looking forward to a nice holiday. In August, I was busy busy busy and now, before I even realized it, it’s the end of September and I’m realizing that I will definitely need a job by the end of October/beginning of November. This is obviously a bit overwhelming but this random little post isn’t about finding a job. It’s about how we need to market not just our goods and services now but ourselves. Most LinkedIn posts are people basically telling you why they are special or unique or what they bring to a table you didn’t know you had to b...

Sunday morning brought with it the unexpected news of a friend's death. I was so sure there was more time before I would have to attend a friend's funeral, but on Tuesday, that's where I found myself. My friends and I talked about all the visits we wanted to make to the city our friend lived in (which is just 3 or so hours away from us), visits we never ended up making. And yet, when she passed away, we somehow found the time to reserve our train tickets and make that trip. It took minimal planning. It cost us very little. It wasn't an inconvenience. And yet, it wasn't something we were able to do a month ago. A year ago. Why? Because we just couldn't find the time. I know that Covid's still around, but most pandemic restrictions have been lifted. Towards the tail end of lockdowns and social distancing, we spoke about making the most of our time: to travel, to go to all the places we wanted to visit, to dine at all the restaurants we had made a mental note o...

I was at an event recently where they spent a whole lot of time speaking about the evil LGBT+ brainwashing kids are apparently subjected to these days. The hate and misinformation they kept spewing made me leave the event midway. Since that event, I've had a couple of conversations on this topic. It's interesting, you know, because we point out that movies and books have a lot of LGBT+ content now. That we are surrounded by it. Choking on it. You can't go anywhere without having to 'deal with' something or the other that is queer. But here's what people forget or seem to not realise. We are also surrounded by a lot of straight content. And not just straight content but a very specific heterosexuality. Since I was in my teens, I've known that I don't want to get married or have kids. A lot of people think that these are things you come to accept as you get older and realise that you have no real prospects, but that's not always the case. Sometimes, yo...

One of the last dishes my grandmother made me before she died were panipol pancakes. I called her from office craving it and that evening, came home to a plate of delicious panipol pancakes. Love is about giving, right? But the asking that certain loves allow you to do? We rarely talk about it. I'm not someone who finds it easy to ask for help, for favours, for things. But Athamma wasn't someone I felt any hesitation with. I wanted panipol pancakes, so I asked for it, and I got it. Sometimes, it is that simple. Since her death, I've started making pol toffee for Avurudu. She always made them; light pink, melt-in-your-mouth pol toffee. A touch of rose essence, fresh coconut, over an hour of stirring. As kids, when she made toffee, we would gather in the kitchen, pestering her with 'is it ready yet?' questions. If we kept bothering her, she told us, the gonibilla would eat all the toffee. This was enough to keep us away from the kitchen. None of us wanted to take a ri...

Despite it being past my usual bedtime, I don't want to turn my laptop off and go to bed. I've been so tired lately that I could do with all the sleep I could get. And yet, here I am. Why? Because I feel this weird need to write something. But everything I've started writing about has felt so personal... too personal to put out there, even though I don't really share on social media a lot of my more personal writing anymore. But why not? When I was in my late teens and early 20s, I had this blog on a website called Kiwibox. It wasn't shared across social media as such, but the site itself had this community that would read each other's writing and share our thoughts with each other. Back then, I wrote about everything that crossed my mind. The good, the bad, the sad, the embarrassing, it was documented for the world to read. And I felt comfortable doing that, even when people I knew personally read it. But over the years, something changed. A friend recently con...

During a recent conversation, a friend told me that you need to love, you need to be open to love, even if that love leaves you weeping on the floor. Love, like the Hot Priest said in Fleabag, isn't for the weak, is it? Love hurts. Love makes you cruel. It's awful, he said, while we sat there, realising the Hot Priest was choosing God and not Fleabag. But love is that, isn't? Love makes you so vulnerable that you end up being afraid of it. And this love doesn't even need to be romantic. I know that we often talk about love in the context of romance, but as someone who rarely feels this kind of love (and then too, wonders if it's just attraction), I've been vulnerable within the context of other kinds of love. I've had to push myself through the absolute fear that I will wake up one day to the absence of a friend, the loss of a loved one, an unexpected goodbye. It's terrifying, but I guess, this fear is something we need to learn to live with if we want t...

Voting has always been important to me, even though, admittedly, I haven’t always put a lot of thought into the people and parties I was voting for. I don’t think I can blame this on age, although I also feel like no matter who is voted in, they always manage to screw us over, leading to those who voted for them getting criticised and ridiculed. But this post isn’t about politics or elections or voting (although if you are reading this in Sri Lanka before 4 p.m. on the 14th of November, I do urge you to vote). Okay, I lied. This is about voting. Kind of. My uncle, that’s my mother’s brother, lives next door to us. I don’t think they were extremely close growing up, because my mother spent some of her childhood with their father in Panadura while my uncle lived with their mother in Dehiwala. But it is their relationship as adults that I know about, born when my mother was 30 and my uncle 36 (I think). Anyway, most Sri Lankans aren’t affectionate. Parents don’t tell their childre...

I find myself pleading with the universe to give me one easy week. One week where I don't need to think about work and deadlines or promises and obligations or worries and anxieties. Where to-do lists don't matter. Where my phone doesn't ping or ring. A week of peace and quiet where one good thing is followed by another and I don't have to do anything. An easy week. And it feels so selfish, so self-indulgent, doesn't it? I'm one in 8 billion people. Why should the universe show me extra kindness? But I do think that there should be a limit to what a person has to go through. I've dealt with illness and death, with heartbreak of sorts, with disappointment, with anger and hate, with loss of all shapes and sizes. And I'm tired. And I need a break. And I feel like, yes, we've gotten better at talking more honestly about things like loneliness and unhappiness and being unloved or wanting love. We aren't as embarrassed about these flaws or weaknesses o...

My grandmother and I never had an easy or loving relationship. There was always some kind of tension between us, ever since I was small. And as a result, I don’t have many memories with her. I remember going to her house before heading for an elocution class in the area. I remember a few yellow rice lunches at the house that was later sold and demolished. One of my clearest, earliest memories of her is from a few years ago. I was standing outside their house (the one they moved to later on), waiting for my aunt to come to the gate so I could give her something. My grandmother, returning from someplace, stepped out of a three-wheeler. I gave her whatever it was that I had made for them. She turned to go inside the house, but turned back to me and said: “I thought you hated me.” People will tell you to not talk ill of the dead. My grandmother is now dead so I guess I should talk about more pleasant memories. But I don’t think those who are alive should have to make up pleasant memori...

Something I really miss about life is my ability to be by myself. In my 20s (which sounds ridiculous to say, because I was in my 20s just last year), I would spend hours by myself at cafes and restaurants and pubs, eating, drinking, reading, writing, people watching. It wasn't like I was good company. Not particularly liking yourself makes it a bit uncomfortable to spend long stretches of time all alone, with no one to talk to except for the occasional server. And yet, I really liked these hours I had to myself. I liked the sense of just being. Not having to prepare for a conversation. Not having to wait for someone. Not having to be some version of myself. However, somewhere along the way, things changed, and I stopped spending time with myself. Recently, I was to meet some friends and had some time to kill. And so, I went to the place we were to meet and got some reading time in. I had around two hours to myself, and the server made a comment on how my friends were late. I told h...

You know, it used to really piss me off when people said things like "you should choose happiness." It seems ridiculous that I would wallow in bloody unhappiness when I could just easily choose to be happy. I couldn't wake up in the morning and choose how to feel, now could I? But now I'm realising that maybe it's not about that daily choice, but about choosing happiness in the face of certain situations. You look at whatever has happened in your life and ask yourself how you want to feel in life... not about the situation itself, not about how certain things or people made you feel, but about what you want in life. You can choose to be unhappy, hurt, angry, whatever. And sometimes, those feelings right all those wrongs. People realise that they fucked up. That they made you feel like shit. But sometimes they don't. They think that you are being unreasonable. You are expecting too much. You are imagining shit. And in such situations, it's sometimes easier ...

You know, I've spent the past few days/weeks feeling hurt and angry, but also ashamed that I care so much about these things and about people who don't care about me. It felt rather embarrassing to be asking myself why these people didn't care about me. It felt like I had failed somehow. I hadn't been kind enough. I hadn't been nice. Or good. Or friendly. I had failed. But it's not enough to be any of these things, isn't it? Sometimes, people just don't care. And that's okay. Because there are people who are nice to me but whom I don't really care too much about. So if I can do this to others, why was I so bothered when others did it to me? Anyway, while dealing with this hurt and anger and shame, I also felt a sense of guilt. A voice in my head would say: "But what about the people who do care?" And it's true. My hurt over people who didn't care seemed to do a disservice to those who care and love and make me feel like I'm ...