Rugby at Royal

My alma mater – which I believe is the greatest school on earth based on its tradition, history, talent (both sports & academics) and the caliber of its present and past students, is the Royal College.

Centrally situated in Colombo but only accessible to the best from Colombo and outstations, Royal College is part of the history of Colombo as well as of Sri Lanka. More than a few fathers of the nation as well as of the city hv been proud students of this great institution.

Now, something that goes hand in had with Royal is sports – in fact, Royal devotes as much effort to sports as academics, if not more. And one sport that is invariably liked with Royal (and with much success as well) is Rugby.

At Royal, rugby is practiced and followed with much reverence and vengeance, that it is more than a passion. And it is expected of the Royal team of each year, to be the best.

And there are two bests: The best in the island (which is optional, so to speak) and the better than Trinity College (i.e. win the Bradby Shield). Which brings us to the interesting scenario being played out this year …. (to be continued)

The Empire Strikes back - with a vengeance

Ahhhh … I could kill myself. In fact I want to. Discipline is something I really want to instill in myself, yet time and again I hv found out that it can be the most elusive thing in my life.

I’m an impromptu guy – easily exited, easily bored – passionate yet lazy and with all these paradoxes, my discipline to do something right, constantly and with vigor goes for a six.

So I hv been neglecting Colombo-Days again. Reason? I’ve been bloody busy, of course. I hv been going for this training program for the past two months on Fridays and Saturdays and it invariably adds more pressure to the other five days.

My job is a mean bitch – it’s not hard but you need to be on your toes to handle contingencies and above all you need to be present to provide answers – I’m an MIS personified!

My woman, while not being a ‘mean bitch’ (LOL, sorry ‘i’), is extremely demanding and she doesn’t like it one bit when I take the Saturday for the training and Sunday off to rest.

WTF? If a man has to work 4 days and train (for the same work) two days, he’s entitled to a day of rest, ain’t he? Well not if he’s with a woman – women they just don’t care, they want their day of affection no matter what. And it’s not a bad thing really, except that it takes away the last bit of personal time – which I highly value.

Week before last we went to Kalutara (abt 50 km away from Colombo and its explosions) for a specific part of the training. We had the most excruciating one day OBT session in the ‘jungles’ of inland Kalutara but the place we stayed – the Kani Lanka Resort & Spa was indeed a pleasant place to be. I’m not abt to publish any pics of the training but here’s a few of the hotel and surrounds – ideal for a quick getaway.

Rumor and Lies out of Colombo

Well, well, with the advent of the war (yeah it's war, despite many quips to the contrary) the rumor mills and propaganda machines hv started on full steam.

There are two basic such camps operating out of Colombo;

1. The pro-tamil/pro-ltte lobby - comprising of tamil journo's, businessmen, NGO's, the Scandinavian countries - predominantly Norway (who actually fund the NGO's, journo's and to a great extent the LTTE) and communists. For the last few years, the media giant BBC also seems to hv aligned itself to this lobby and has been effective in diffusing the GOSL stand on the war front.

2. The pro-Sinhalese/patriotic lobby - comprising of nationalist political parties of JHU and JVP, Sinhalese expats/journo's and of course the military propaganda machine. Unfortunately these are not as fortunate as the other lobby to be funded by rich sources yet they to now command a massive presence, especially on the web which used to be free territory for Tamils up to now.

There is a minor but rapidly emerging third force of a tamil/muslim protest against terrorism but currently this voice is not heard much over the prevailing noise.

Well ... that covers the ground situation - will get back on how and why the lies are ingeniously incorporated in to the message by some of these institutions.

8/16 - Colombo

Colombo - at WAR!!!

Days, weeks and years hv lapsed and I apologize ... Times were not so conducive for blogging - I barely managed to check my mails (there is still a lot of 'unwanted' porn in my inboxes, unread and forgotten).

However, Colombo is coming back with a bang! Literarily .. ! Just a few hours back a bomb exploded in the heart of the city (Kolpetty - near Liberty Cinema) - the third or fourth one of a series.

7-8 casualties as usual and death toll increases logarithmically.

Interesting ... makes the city a much more exiting place to live around.

So with this blast - I'll jump start the blog and hopefully add more stuff on the 'dark side' which was dark before the bombs (if you know what I mean!)

So long then, till next time.