Portrait

It is so surreal - this whole death-bed business. In the last hours, as he is lying there, thinner than I have ever seen him before, I can almost see the life leaving him. I can sense it. I had never thought of him as an old person, nor had it occurred to me that he was an old, sick person. Now it’s obvious to me that he is both - and has been for awhile, too. How could I have missed it? But perhaps, that was the essence of knowing him - to forget, to not really notice that he is old and sick and only know who he is beyond both those things that in some people, are undeniable, inescapable.

I’ve never had a loved one ‘dying’ before. They’ve all just been sudden and random deaths. And yet, as he lay there, I couldn’t quite decide whether I was glad for the prior warning, or miserable that he had to be in pain. Knowing that he didn’t have much longer, that last week gave us all the chance to see him, hold his hands and whisper whatever words we could muster up in an un-trembling voice. It gave us the chance to light incense and play quiet music and set him up for the next phase. It gave us the chance to say our goodbyes and our respective prayers and see him one last time. And yet, I wonder whether if things could have somehow ended sooner and with less warning, it might have been better for him. I learned that somehow, to watch someone die is harder in its own way than to be one day told, without warning, that they are gone.

And so he embarked on what I know to him was just another adventure, another point of transition. He went fearlessly, perhaps he was even looking forward to it. And yet to me, his passing on was initially wrought with sadness and constantly being reminded of the void that he has left in the world and in my life - it grew with every passing moment. And yet, I realised that if he was ready, then I shouldn’t worry. And I think I can be quite certain that he was ready.

He was a raconteur - always full of stories that were told with quiet sarcasm, he was a presence - always lurking, never intruding, but carefully observing everything before him, providing an oasis of calm, far from the madding crowd. More than anything, in a world of inconsistencies, he was a consistent person. You knew what he was about. You knew, instantly, that there would be no bullshit allowed beyond a certain point. His world was one that was free from pretense, free from hypocrisy, free from false and superficial judgments, and everyone that entered could darn well abide by the same rules. I could count on him, in the way that I’m sure many did - to always be solid, true and sincere. I could count on him to be unaffected by the trivialities that plague many of our lives. I could count on him to not care about so much stuff that is totally irrelevant and yet that we spend so much time caring about - and I could count on him to remain that way, day in, day out.

Death is such a strange thing, inherently - it invovles so many more than just the person to whom it’s happening. And it’s two very different experiences for those on either side - for the one who is passing, how it feels we may never know, and for those who are left to deal with an absence and a loss that is solely their very own, it is an event of sadness, always coupled with hints of regrets. We write eulogies and have memorials and funerals at which we cry and reminisce - and all this is for ourselves, for our own anguish, our own desire to achieve closure and get together and help each other through it. To make ourselves feel better. But there is no shame in this - it is no less necessary or noble to fulfill our own emotional needs, to fill our own voids and gaps with funerals and wakes and feel as though we’ve done something for them. It is all part of being this crazy, wonderful, complicated species.

And if nothing, he was a testament to just how crazy and wonderful human beings can be, and he lead a life that was a good example of how incredible and fulfilling a human life can be.

I think I did my bit for him - and for myself. I think I can safely say I have no regrets, no ‘what if’s and ‘if only’s. I have to myself the certainty that I was lucky enough to have had time with him in his best days, and I hope I was able to give of myself to him in his worst.

Bon Voyage, Mo. And good luck.

The Travelling Circus at Nuga Sevana.
Photograph by Twiggy.

Ten years ago, Mind Adventures Theatre was created by three wonderful young women - one of whom I am honoured to say I know and love very dearly. They did this with the intention of ’shaking things up a little’, and boy, did they manage that. They brought to the Colombo stage something quite different from the productions that dominated the Sri Lankan English theatre scene at the time - something quite different from the large-scale, big-budget performances of West End and Broadway musicals and the drawing room comedies that drew theatre-goers to the Lionel Wendt. And indeed, their mission was to experiment with theatrical genres, new trends and alternate venues. All Mind Adventures’ little ‘experiments’ thus far have turned out rather well, as you all know.

Its Artistic Director Tracy Holsinger is a well-known name now - a name synonymous with thought-provoking and cutting-edge theatre. Mind Adventures has always worked with the best actors on the Sri Lankan stage, while constantly looking for, finding, honing and finally introducing undiscovered talent to the theatre lovers of the day.

It has been my privilege to know and work with Tracy - she has taught me nearly every important thing I know about acting and many other important things about life in general - further more, working with her has brought me into contact with some of the most intelligent, talented young people I know - all of whom I love and admire endlessly.

So when we all sat down together to figure out what to do for Mind Adventures’ 10th Anniversary Production, needless to say, I knew even then that the results were bound to be interesting, to say the least.

And so The Travelling Circus is coming to town.

This show to me is the epitome of everything we are as a group and perfectly summarizes how we like to work - it will showcase for you perfectly all the madness, the crazy ideas, the fantasies, the fears and above all, the singular vision of a group of people who want to produce something that is more than just OK. It will display all the quirks, the idiosyncrasies, the hard-work and all the absolute, unadulterated fun we have had doing this for you, with each other, all under the keen watch of The Great Dictator Director.

Come and see The Travelling Circus from the 26th - 30th of November 2009 at Nuga Sevana - located on the Cathedral Grounds, Bauddhaloka Mawatha. Watch as the creatures of the night crawl out of the trees, and fantastical birds take flight, and talking animals and non-speaking humans make the stage their own. Watch as the results of all our slightly insane, totally unhinged, completely hilarious experiments are revealed for all to see.

Visit our blog for more information, or email us at daytripperinfo@gmail.com.

Click here for all the photographic evidence.

During my school life, my mother’s constant absence from home first sparked off interest, then sympathy, and later, it was to blame for all the mischief I was responsible for. It was whispered, then shouted, accusations flung at me - I was ‘bad’ because my mother was ‘never there’. She was different in a whole range of other ways, too, wildly different. And of course, to top it all off, she was a single mother.

Other children found it hard to understand what exactly it was that she did, and I found it even harder to explain. Even as I grew, and met others that were in the same field as she is – I still never thought of her being a part of that ‘field’, or any other, I never saw her as doing the same thing they were doing, or vice versa. I still don’t. She was always a world apart, in my eyes, an island unto herself – she has always been doing what she is doing, -her work innately intertwined with her life, her personality, so much more than just a job.

Our relationship was also always intensely difficult to explain to my classmates. Their relationships with their mothers were typical of the kind of relationship that children have with parents – on the surface, wrought strictly with authority on one side, obedience on the other, and within, with lies and formality, mistrusts and half-truths. It seemed silly – and ironic. Here I was, with the single mother who was ‘never there’ and yet I never lied to her. And yet, she never lied to me. We spoke openly to each other about many things; any things and thus the mistakes I made in life were always much smaller, much less damaging, than those of my peers. We fought – yes, but they were fights between two equal people, not fights between a parent and a child, and therefore we were able to come out of them not hating each other. She trusted me and I never did anything to break that trust. She gave me freedom and I was responsible with it. When people worried about me – she never worried. She believed in me right through all the confused teenage years, when everyone’s faith wavered at some point or another. She believed in me through any chaos at school. She stood by me when I was right and taught me to deal with the consequences of being wrong.

My mother has always been there. If not physically, then ‘there’ in whatever way she could be there – and maybe this way is the more important one.

Her work has taken her away from us during countless points in our lives. My life has been frequently land marked by her departures to other countries for work – so frequently that they cannot even act as landmarks anymore. My life is strewn with the memories of days where she would leave home before we were up and be back after we had gone to sleep, of times when she’d miss a prize giving, a swimming meet, a drama competition, a performance. The memories of sleeping on newspapers until late at night in her office, waiting for her to finish, standing in the hot sun at protests with her, sitting under the table, right at the back of conference rooms in hotels are too many and too varied. The memories of her leaving from when I was very young are much more vivid and associated with a powerful sense of loss and hopelessness. And yet, through all these memories of her being absent, of me missing her so deeply and terribly, is another kind of memories altogether: the memories of her being there, of us together. And these are so much stronger, so much more powerful – they are so wonderful and full of life – just as she was, and is.

I grew to become more accustomed to it – I grew to appreciate how important her work is, not just important to her, but important. And thus, I grew to become more patient with her constant absence. And yet, it’s one of those things you never really get used to, maybe.

Ironically, today she is away from home not for work but due to the nature of her work. I have not seen her for months. And do I wish I had a normal mother with a normal job? Do I wish so much did not depend on her and what she does? Do I wish she had a job which began at 9 am and ended at 5 pm? Do I wish she did the kind of work that she could walk away from, that she was not emotionally and principally committed to? Yes, I used to. Sometimes, I still do. I am not going to say I have never had that thought. I am not going to pretend that it didn’t use to break my heart to be without her when I was small – and it still does, a lot. I am not going to pretend that I do not live in fear and worry about her safety. But today I am more able to understand why.

So she didn’t always comb my hair and help me pack my bags. She did not get up at 4 am to cook our lunch. She didn’t always take me to school and pick me up from school on time. She wasn’t always there when I was onstage. And yet, she has been the most marvelous mother, the most incredible person, the best mentor I could hope for. She has taught me strength, and love, and friendship. She has taught me kindness and generosity and human decency. She has taught me to say more than just ‘thank you’ and ‘please’. She has taught me to appreciate life and all I have and to always say ‘I love you’ without fear or hesitation. She has taught me Virginia Woolf, T.S Eliot, and Pedro Almodovar. She has taught me to be true to myself. Most importantly, she has taught me about truth and justice – and for a better, more important lesson, I couldn’t have asked.

There is a story that Nelson Mandela told Gillian Slovo, daughter of Joe Slovo and Ruth First – both eminent personalities in the anti-apartheid struggle. The story is about a day when he went to hug his own grown daughter, and she flinched, saying, “You are the father to all our people, but you have never had the time to be a father to me.” I do not wish this feeling on anyone – I cannot imagine how terrible it must be to feel this way about your own father or mother. I have struggled with my own resentments, my own fears – and yet I am so fortunate that I have a mother who so carefully maintained the balance of dedicating herself utterly to her work, and always having the time and energy to be a good mother. I don’t think just anyone is capable of this. I think it takes a very special kind of human being. And yet we must ask – what about less strong mothers and fathers who may not have found this balance? What about less strong children who don’t see why? As Aida Edemariam asks, in this interview with Gillian Slovo, ‘What is the cost of trying to change the world, and who exactly pays it?’

The life of the children of activists is not an easy one. We all pay that price, bit by bit, day by day. This life is to sometimes deal with feelings of abandonment, resentment, bitterness. It is to sometimes feel unloved and unimportant. It is to sometimes feel ignored and neglected. It is to be constantly afraid of losing them. And we are not all of us always equipped to understand. And yet – what about the lives of activists themselves? What about those whose lives they are working for, risking everything for, trying to uplift?

I do not recommend it to anyone, but for myself, I could not think of a better life, or a better parent. I could not wish for her to be anything other than who she is. I could not wish for her to have any different values, or care any less about the world and about people.

I know now that her work is an intrinsic part of who she is. And who she is, is an intrinsic part of who I am. And she may not have always been ‘there’, but she was, she has been, and she is.

If nothing else, I am the evidence that she was, in fact, very much ‘there’. You can look at me, listen to me, and tell that I have a mother whom I love very much, and who loves me back. You can tell, easily, that I have a mother who cares. You can tell that I have a mother who has carefully helped construct every, tiny thing about who I am – and yet, has let me grow independently.

The ant and the mosquito.
Image by Alefiya Akbarally.

Kumbi Kathawa, which was a production staged by the Chitrasena-Vajira Dance Foundation last weekend at the Bishop’s College Auditorium was a family story, in more ways than one.

Firstly, it was a story about family: it was about a family of ants, who despite obstacles both natural and not, persevere with determination and courage to rebuild their homes and their lives. It was a touching tale, the kind of tale that you really want your kids to know - the kind of story that is both beautifully simple and obvious, and deeply meaningful and profound. Its timeless lessons about courage, hard work, never losing hope, and most importantly perhaps forgiveness, all seem like ‘messages’ that we’ve heard so many countless times before. But I look around me today, at my surroundings, at my country and finally at the world, and I see that these are lessons we still haven’t learned, and that maybe we’ll never hear it enough. But the story it tells about family is the one that resonates most deeply within me. It is, simply, a story about a family who stick together through thick and thin, work hard and work together to stay together.

Secondly, it was a story for families. Each night, the auditorium was filled with audiences of all age groups: young parents with their children, older siblings with younger siblings, aunts with nieces, godparents with godchildren, young adults with parents and elderly grandparents, friends with friends’ children. It was a heartwarming variety of all members of family with each other, escorting each other, bringing each other, sharing with each other this one evening. It was touching, some of the people I met and their stories of whom they came with and who they brought - it was a weird kind of nostalgia, watching all of these different people enjoy this one show.

Thirdly, and this is what this post is really about - it was a story created by a family. A very special family that I have known almost all my life - through boyfriends, and triumphs and failures and indecisions and certainties, and though corny, literally tears and laughter . A family who are not only a family in themselves, but have absorbed many other families, and have made so many others a part of a bigger, extended family. The Ant Family in Kumbi Kathawa mirrors the Chitrasena family almost exactly, in their dedication to each other, as well as to their cause.

I don’t need to say that Chitrasena’s and Vajira’s hard work is being kept alive by their family - everyone knows how their legacy of perfectionism, greatness and innovation has been kept alive with a great deal of dedication from their children, and today, their children’s children. But what everyone may not know, is that working with them is, in ever sense of the term a ‘family affair’.

Take Guru Pooja, for example - the show last December that celebrated Upeka’s 50th year in Dance. There was their family, naturally, holding the fort. The last section of the show, in which there was a lady and two young girls singing, accompanied by a gentleman - they were a family, too. Mother, father and two children, artists who have been collaborating with the Chitrasena-Vajira Company for many years. Backstage too we had two brothers, absolutely hard-working and committed. This is of course besides all the students who are children of old students, all the mothers who help backstage and provide us with food and drink through rehearsals and shows - and an array of other ways in which this operation functions with family.

And then there’s my family - who’s never quite been able to get enough of the Chitrasena family. In Guru Pooja, I danced and my brother edited the A/V about Upeka. Just before I sat down to interview Upeka, on the anniversary of her 50th year in dance, I flipped open the programme brochure from the show that was staged to celebrate Vajira’s 50th year in Dance, some years ago. And there it was - a great, touching interview with Vajira, done by none other than my own mother. It reminded me why I was there - it reminded me that we go way back, to when I was a wee baby, that my life with this family was pre-destined before I was even born.

They are a true testament to family, and the things that are best about it. Because this feeling of family stretches to enfold everyone within its warm and loving confines. This feeling moves you, motivates you, energises you. And therefore, everything always works like clockwork. Kumbi Kathawa was no different.

All major theatre and dance practitioners in Colombo can take a page out of the book of all those children, some small, some only a little older, who made Kumbi Kathawa come alive. They are already true followers of the holistic approach that the Chitrasena-Vajira Dance School inculcates in its students: ironing their own costumes, mending their own props, carefully folding every article, caring for each other, and for themselves. Even the smallest of small fireflies were exemplary in their level discipline and carefulness. I have seen much older children, young adults, who have a lot more ego and not half the discipline or integrity that these children displayed. And this is what it takes to produce perfection: discipline, love, and hard work.

Kumbi Kathawa took five years to create and almost a year to rehearse this time around. People always ask me why they take so long - and I always say, ‘because that’s how long it takes’. That time, and that level of dedication and discipline is what it really takes to create something that is flawless. You can go to a theatre on almost any weekend and see slip-shod, half hearted, half-baked attempts at drama or dance. You can see professional directors and actors, grown men and women, producing things that aren’t worth a minute of your time, leave alone the huge amount of money they charge you to watch it. You can see meaningless, insipid, soul-less things all the time.

But for this - for this it takes time, it takes patience, and it takes soul. Try doing anything for 11 months with a bunch of people who don’t absolutely love and believe in what they are doing - you can’t do it. And this is a cast of children rehearsing a ballet.

It’s hard. But its worth it - because it’s good, and it’s true.

J. S. Tissainayagam was arrested on March 7, 2008 by the Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) of the Sri Lanka Police under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. He has since been charged with attempting to cause the commission of acts of violence or racial or communal disharmony relating to articles he published in a North Eastern Monthly magazine in 2006 and 2007. He was also charged with collecting and obtaining information for the purpose of terrorism and for donating funds for the purpose of terrorism through the collection of funds for the magazine. The magazine has since been closed down.

During his trial, Tissanayagam claimed that he was harassed and threatened by the TID while under detention. He has also filed a Fundamental Rights Petition with the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka. The TID have produced a confession allegedly signed by Tissanayagam, although he claimed it was dictated to him, and he was pressured to write it in his own handwriting. He spent more than a year languishing in prison. He was a well-known journalist who frequently addressed displacement of civilians and other humanitarian issues stemming from Sri Lanka’s war in weekly columns for the Sunday Times, and was charged more than five months after he was detained.

He was convicted by Colombo High court and sentenced to 20 years Rigorous Imprisonment on August 31, 2009.

We have all shouted about media freedom and injustice. We have all said that there is a bigger war at hand, a less controllable one: the war against journalists and the right of free expression. But what now? All the protest and rallying in the world is rendered useless with one swiftly delivered verdict. One sentence, and a man is imprisoned for 20 long years. All the energy to fight has diminished.

Why couldn’t we save him from the cell? Will our children ask us this, 20 years from now? Why couldn’t we stop it, somehow? I will squirm with shame at the idea that we, with all our placards and megaphones, shouting for hours in the sun, marching coffins all the way to the Kanatta, and standing outside Courthouses, couldn’t stop it - for how can I explain, how will we ever explain to anyone about this time that we lived in, in which we couldn’t do a thing?

How will we ever make them understand that everything we did, anything we did - it didn’t matter? That whatever we did was useless, and that these things happened unaffected by criticism or fear of a tarnished reputation? That this wheel continued to turn, unafraid of how it looked to the world? That it placed itself above all else, high and mighty upon its self constructed throne of arrogance, intimidation and violence, holding its position of power through the spreading of fear and threat? How will we ever tell them that we were all powerless against this thing that didn’t care about seeming just or good - this thing that just didn’t care at all?

I’m afraid of what it makes me. Does it make me a part of a time that stood back and let these things happen - a part of the generation that didn’t have any power to stand up for what they thought was right? Will anyone believe us when we say that we didn’t really have a choice? That we were all helpless? I don’t know.

I have been angry and enraged and furious - but today all I feel is a deep, melancholy sadness. I am truly sad for Tissainayagam, and everyone else, who like him paid the price for being better than me - stronger than me, braver than me, actually saying the things I don’t have the guts to say. I am sad for us all, because one day we’ll all have to answer to the next generation when they ask us what we were doing when all this happened. We’ll all have to say, ‘We couldn’t help it’, and wait quietly while they judge us with their idealistic, young eyes, through which they see only the weak as they look at us.

I am sad for my country - a great, beautiful, abundant country, that has been forced to lose its way.

I have only one rule with art: it has to speak to me. Salvador Dali speaks to me, Andy Warhol just doesn’t. Akram Khan speaks to me, Matthew Bourne just doesn’t. Radiohead speaks to me, Coldplay just doesn’t. If it doesn’t speak to you, if it doesn’t move you, then I think you can safely say it’s not doing its job. But then the age-old question arises: do we believe in taste? Or do good and bad exist? As Kant says, it’s aestheticism vs. subjective taste. Do we believe in taste/opinion, or are there standards?

I honestly don’t know. I’m a snob, so to a large extent, I believe there are some standards. Good and bad is a delicate subject, one hard to grasp. If you are someone who does believe in good and bad, then the good is indeed very hard to achieve. Grappling with this distinction can be a wild goose chase. Instead - I was taught from a very young age - be truthful, and you will never fail.

Truthfulness - maybe that’s my other rule.

At a dance student at the age of 6 1/2, I only saw passion around me. I saw those who were wholeheartedly committed to what they were doing. They truly believed it, believed in it, and therefore, they made you believe it too. They loved it, they embraced it, they treated the dance with such care and tenderness, with such love and dedication, with such respect and reverence. And they taught me to love it. They taught me, along with posture and precision and discipline, to love it and embody it. To bow down to it, to become it. To conquer it, but also to let it conquer you. To this day, onstage and off, this is what shines through all else when you see these people; the love for what they are doing. The simple, pure, wholesome love. And even if they make mistakes, or the lighting is wrong, or the costumes are not just so (and they always are, anyway) you don’t see anything but this complete and total absorption in what they are doing. This is truthfulness. And this is what draws me to them, time after time.

Once older, I met Tracy. She’s taught me a lot of things; all of them important. But the most important lesson I learned from her is to tell the truth. She taught me that to ‘act’ is not to become a character, but to find that part of you that is that character. It’s about searching within yourself to reveal all the parts of you that are good, evil, pathetic, strong, ugly, beautiful. It’s about discovering that you have the capacity to be anyone. You are that person, somewhere, in some small corner of your being, you are. Let it out. This is easy theoretically, but difficult to achieve. And this what we’re always trying to do: to reveal those lesser explored parts of ourselves. To achieve authenticity, emotional truth - she calls it. To not ‘act’, but be. And this is truthfulness.

So I don’t know if there is good and bad in art. But I do know that if you are truthful, then it will naturally do its job in speaking to its audience. If you are honest, it will draw them in. If you tell the truth, then they will relate to it. Because those truths are universal. And in the end, that’s what art is for: to tell stories that are universal, that cross boundaries of time, gender, race, ethnicity, even reality. If you mean it, really, really mean it: then your audience will get it, they will feel it. Dali meant it, Akram Kham means it every time, Radiohead meant every word, every chord. If your intention is honest, then your message will be clear.

Sometimes, there are certain ideas which seem almost too predictable, too much of a stereotype, to be real. Pro-life ideas, for example: I have never really thought that there are people in this day and age who actually think that abortion is a sin and those who undergo abortions are heartless murderers. But there are. I have never really thought, for example, that there are people who actually thinks homosexuals are perverts. But there are. You never really think that there are still men that want to tell their wives what to wear; but there are! Some things never cease to surprise. Human beings can be stupid like that.

I found this on a status update on the Facebook profile of someone I know: “Let the walls inside the abortion clinics be filled with forgiveness, let the cries of innocent LIFE be heard, Let redemption and vindication take place through LOVE LOVE LOVE. That the God indwelt spirit of motherhood would arise in the women that go through those doors so that they would turn around and would walk out because of a convicted heart that would be REVEALED to them…Forgive..Forgive…Forgive.” Leaving aside the more than slightly hysterical obsession with God, what makes me shudder is the not one, but three ‘forgive’s at the end of it. So women who undergo abortion, sinful heathens that they are, need three times the forgiveness.

What always irritates me is that pro-life types seem to get more than the basics wrong. They always think it’s an argument about whether abortion is good or bad, about its moral, or rather immoral, status. They think they need to convince us that abortion is bad. Er, I think any fool can understand why it is bad. Abortion is a sad, terrible thing that should always be absolute the last resort: and I don’t think anyone knows that as much as the women who have had undergone it. The argument of the pro-legalisation section of society is never that it is good. The argument is that it is necessary to give women the choice.

I can be naive and say ‘oh the poor unborn’. But what about the already living? What about the life of the woman, for whom life is about to be eternally changed drastically? Would you rather a baby was born to she who does not want it? Or cannot afford it? Would you rather it was strangled at birth and dumped in a toilet? Would you rather it was brought up by a mother that couldn’t bear to feed it because it was the child of her own grandfather?

So I’m sorry - I’ve seen teenage mothers, victims of rape, mostly of incest, who cannot even go near their children. Both mother and child spend the rest of their lives in trauma. I’ve seen families who have one too many children and can’t afford to look after either one. I’ve seen families who just aren’t ready for a child: which, I assure you, is much much worse for the child than being aborted at a stage where it is a barely formed group of cells.

So I’m sorry - No, I don’t believe that life begins at conception; who does, really? How can it? Life begins when a child is born, when it breathes its first breath and cries its first cry. Until then, I think it’s fair to take the mother’s rights into account before those of a barely formed group of cells.

Of course contraception is the first choice. We know. I doubt any woman ever goes in for an abortion without it being the only choice she has; I doubt any woman likes abortion, or thinks it’s good, or does it lightly, or for fun. Women who undergo abortions do so for the lack of choice, not because they like the idea of terminating their pregnancy. Not because they are irresponsible, immoral, bloodthirsty fiends. But because they simply do not want a child at that moment in their lives, for whatever reason it may be. States who legalise it do it so that women can have safe and hygienic abortions performed. Not because it is an evil state.

Anyway, there is no place in state law for morality. That’s what religious institutions are there for. By all means, they should go ahead and educate the congregation on the horrors of abortion and teach them about ways not to get pregnant if you don’t want to. BUT NO, of course they wouldn’t do this either. Some religious institutions are even against contraception.

And so they give you this spiel about the ‘blessing of motherhood’ - it’s a blessing for those who want it. It’s a choice.

Maybe if all these people shouting about the sin of abortion spent that much time and effort talking about contraception to their friends and children, there wouldn’t be so much abortion. Maybe if we spent time and and money educating our societies about birth control, there wouldn’t be so much abortion. These pro-life types would be far more useful, and effective no doubt, if they focused their energies on being pro-contraception types.

If you’re genuinely concerned about the rising rates of abortion, start a campaign to educate on safe sex. Don’t go around passing moral judgment on those who have had abortions. Don’t go around thinking you’re better than someone else.

Suddenly you’re in a new place, with no identity, where no one really cares who you are or what you think. And all those special things about you, your talents, your ways, your character, cease to exist: because of course, if no one knows, leave alone loves or appreciates those very things about you, then how much do they matter? Or how little?

Suddenly you’re not special, you’re nothing much, really. You can be anybody, but you can also be nobody. And this is the best and worst thing about being away. Just like the best and worst thing about being home, especially when home is Sri Lanka, is that your business is everyone’s business and everyone wants to know where you’ve been and who you’ve been with. We are all suffocated by this sense of community, family, networks: but it’s also what assures you, time after time, that you will never, ever be out on the street starving. Someone will care enough. Out there, in the big bad city, you’re anonymous. And it’s this anonymity that is liberating to me; this sense that no one cares what you’re wearing or what you’re doing, or how ‘different’ you are. Nothing is ‘different’. Certainly, nothing is worth staring at. But with the anonymity, comes the isolation. It’s no one’s business to help you.

The trip to London was a revelation to how much I’m anchored by context, how much I depend on those who love me, how much they create part of who I am by simply appreciating me. It was also a good, swift kick to that part of my ego which has told me ‘You’re so special and interesting and no matter where you go, everyone will love you’.

It was also a revelation to find that nothing is necessarily better there, only maybe easier. The buses are late, the streets are dirty, people litter. Most people are emotionally distant and isolated from each other, and exist in this cocoon of never risking getting too close. It’s a country of over-analysis and labels, where everything is a mental illness with a name, and the system has a way to solve any problem, telling you that they are there you help you, while actually what they are telling you is that you have a ‘problem’ which is ‘abnormal’: but of course the government is there to help you, you need the government. They make a big deal about everything, creating a society which doesn’t function without queues or carefully built systems, a society in which things like drugs are much of a taboo than here. There is CCTV everywhere, apparently they are watching out ‘for’ you, and they tell you things like ‘We’re here to give you emotional support if you’ve drunk too much or taken drugs’ and (on the bus) ‘Relax and breathe normally. If you feel sick or stiff, immediately tell our staff. Exercise your upper body and do relaxation exercises. Carry water with you at all times’. I just wanted to shake them sometimes.

The great thing about London is that you never feel like you’re in a white country. But drive 40 minutes out of London, and it’s almost as if they’re forcing the stereotype down your throat. White families with farms and thatched roofed houses, with sheep and cows dotting the meadows and the green pastures.

My week at the Laban Centre, on the other hand, made me not only optimistic about the UK and the West, but about life and the human race in general; that’s how amazing it was. It was exactly what I’ve been searching for and thinking about for a long time, and what I always felt we sorely lacked, doing Dance and Dance Theatre in Sri Lanka. It taught me the ‘how’ and most importantly, the ‘why’, which has changed the way I see movement forever. Laban’s work is so interesting and radical, and it fills a lot of gaps that have arisen in my mind over the years. The perfect balance between the spiritual and the scientific is exactly what I think anyone needs to achieve to be a truly good artist.

So I’m back. In my comfort zone, in my country. Far from the madding crowd.

At the airport this morning, dreading the long flight alone, and dreading leaving people; some of whom I am slowly getting accustomed to being apart from, and some of whom I have never really been apart from. Either way, being apart is so hard. I realised that more than ever in the last week, as loved ones descended down on Sri Lanka from all over the world for a too-brief holiday. It never gets easier, and if it does, that actually sucks, because that means you’re slowly forgetting how good it is to be together. And just as you’re forgetting, a.k.a getting used to being apart, suddenly you’re back together, and it hurts all over again.

In the BIA, Poya Day Buddhist sermons on TV were inescapable, and all the announcements were in Sinhalese and English only.

I flew over a desert for the first time in my life, swooping down on the Dubai airport, looking down on sand dunes, stretching for miles, as far as the eye could see.

I’m stuck in Dubai for another two hours, and then on another plane for another 6 hours.

I’m lonely already. I’m bored already.

I wish they would hurry up and discover teleporting already.

Michael Jackson has died. It’s pretty surreal. This was the star of my generation. The legend. By the time we came around John Lennon, Bob Marley and Bob Dylan were already gone. We would only grow up hearing stories of the enigma that surrounded each of those people, and the phenomenal effect they had on the world. We would, in turn, learn to love their music, their personas, basking in the glory of that curious thing that happens post-mortem: where something takes on a rosy hue in memory. We lived in a world where they became hugely sensationalised, glamourised, romanticised and possibly overrated, simply because they were dead. I barely remember the passing of Kurt Cobain.

But M.J was ours. He was all ours. And now he’s dead.

I grew up singing ‘bidet, bidet’ for Beat It. I grew up pissing myself in fear watching Thriller. I grew up owning the CDs and a video tape of all the Number One videos. I grew up in a world that liked Michael Jackson, that treated him like a star, a king. I watched it fast turning into a world which wanted to crucify him, for his eccentricities, his alleged sicknesses. But by that time, I had already made up my mind about how I felt about him. I liked him. And that wasn’t about to change, regardless of the increasingly weird behaviour, the exceedingly bizarre face or the return trips to courtrooms. By that time, luckily, I was old enough to separate the career from the personal life.

More than anything, I grew up wanting to dance. And anyone who grew up wanting to dance hasn’t escaped the Michael Jackson fever. At some point in all our lives, as dancers or aspiring dancers, we have all admired him, looked to him, imitated him. Even the great Akram Khan, British-Indian dancer and choreographer, whom I love endlessly, once said something to the effect of, “I grew up seeing white people onstage, in the movies. And then Michael Jackson came out with Thriller, and I saw that there was a possibility that brown people could do great things, too”. Michael Jackson gave a lot of people hope, he was the poster boy for dreams of dancing, hidden away in our minds. For people dancing in the privacy of their bedrooms and showers, little boys and girls who dreamed of enormous stages. An entire generation of black and brown people, to whom he inadvertently reached out, but also the masses of white people, who had found their King of Pop.

He affected a lot of different people. From Akram Khan to Elizabeth Taylor. From me, to the children playing cricket down the street. He reached out to this side of the world, a lot, too. From the West, to the East. He was a man that literally touched the world. His career reached out across borders of age, race and more importantly, artistic tastes. He achieved both mainstream and critical acclaim for his music and performances, and all the things he pioneered as an artist. He had fans who listened to all kinds of music. Those who listened to Pop liked him, those who listened to Rock liked him, even those of us who have a penchant for the more obscure liked him. He was respected, truly respected.

No popular artist working today can even come close to matching that kind of success. Today, all mainstream artists are lost in a sea of mediocrity, to be forgotten after a single or two. He, on the other hand, worked hard to stay put. He revolutionsed pop music in the ’80s, using rock instruments, heavy electronic lead and bass guitars in dance music. He revolutionised the music video, turning it into an epic extravaganza of plots, characters and special effects, much like a film. He revolutionised live performances for pop artist, making them an action and energy packed all-round experience for the audience, with unbelievable dancing, gimmicks, and expensive stage sets.

Another characteristic of his career, unusual for artists from the crazy ’80s and ’90s, is that he is timeless. I can listen to the albums Bad, Dangerous or Thriller today and it seems current, not outdated. It’s interesting. It’s certainly better than a lot of the shit people churn out these days. It seems even more current and intrinsic than music that is actually currently popular in the mainstream.

His performances were skillful, amazing, perfect. That level of expertise and energy, seldom have I seen others bring to a live stage. Today, I see all these popular new artists performing live, and it’s a true test of how good they really are. And mostly, they all fail miserably. They are boring, and mostly, they are lazy.

Michael Jackson, live, was never lazy. Every second of every song, he is working, he is there, a 100% and he is giving it to you. He made up in glamour for what he didn’t have in vocals, he made up in dancing for what he lacked in lyrical profundity. He always came through for the people who came to see him. He always lived up to the reputation that preceded him.

And now he’s dead. We have lost not only a singer, not only a dancer, but a man who worked hard and earned respect and admiration the good old fashioned way. And that’s what the industry will miss the most. An example of how simple, pure hard work can produce magical results. An example of a true professional, who was willing to do what it takes to become what he did. An example of skill and expertise earned through endless commitment to achieving perfection, and an example of how tireless perfectionism pays off. He was a pro, and, in short, that’s all needs to be said about the man.

This is not a generic loss I feel. I actually liked this guy. It’s not me acknowledging this loss for the rest of the world. I was a fan. It’s my loss, too. And in the years to come, I will remember him for myself. I won’t be living with stories of greatness anymore, I will have known myself this man who was larger, and weirder, than life itself.