Elected!

Hegemony and racism are just two of the concepts set to be explored by the latest Forum Theatre from Beyond Borders. Set amidst a university setting the drama tells of two candidates running for student president. What should be a straightforward election soon turns in to something else entirely.

For those of you who are not aware, forum theatre is a slight different form of stage play where the audience first watch a performance of a small play. The actors then proceed to repeat the performance for a second time while the audience is allowed to intervene and even come on stage in order to attempt to change the outcome of the play. Those brought on stage can suggest or do anything provided that it's not unbelievable or completely out of character for the person that they are replacing.

The Forum Theatre will be taking place on Saturday the 22nd at Punchi Theatre in Borella. For registrations and more details please visit http://beyondborders.lk/ft/ .

The Sanath Saga

The semifinals are tonight! Fingers crossed that we have it in us to sail through to the finals. Despite the OKish performance of our boys in the Caribbean, this T20 world cup will be remembered as the one where Sanath Jayasuriya really shouldn't have played.

Its almost ironic, just 3 years ago Sana boy was setting the Caribbean on fire with his destructive batting in the 50 over World Cup, the headlines then were about Atapattu not being played in the team. Now it seems that the tables have turned and to rub more salt in to his wounds: while most of us think that Marvan should have been in the team,how many of us harbour the same sentiment toward Sanath?

Sanath Jayasuriya had a meteoric rise to fame, first being included as a leggie and a useful middle order batsmen. His success at pinch-hitting prompted a promotion up the batting order and the rest as we all know was history in the making.

His batting record speaks for itself. He was one of the most feared and destructive batsmen in any form of the game, be it test, one day or T20's. But enough is enough, it time to say goodbye and let your legend live on Sanath. Time to head back to Matara and attend the funerals in your electorate as any self-respecting Lankan MP would do.


(Time's up...start hanging with people your own age)

It's sad to see the slow humiliation of this once great batsmen, but on the flipside one wonders why he does it? I am sure its not for the money, having earned millions and millions over the years that could sustain the Jayasuriya's for a few generations.

I think he does it because he loves the game. He loves playing for his country, he loves going out to the middle with a willow in hand and he loves his slow left arm bowling.

It's almost as if he were obsessing after an ex-girlfriend that has left him. Your time's up Sanath, IF YOU TRULY LOVE SOMETHING YOU"LL LET IT GO.

I dont believe in God

Is religion antiquated? Is it? As far as i am concerned it has been for a long time. Religion as we all memorized in school is a collection of beliefs with associated rituals. Don't get me wrong here, there was a time when i held religion and philosophy in high regard...just thought that i should say that.. lest the blogosphere think that i am one of those moronic atheists that say they don't believe in religion and go on to say that they are die hard fans of Scandinavian satanic death metal. :p

AS far as i am concerned religion, philosophy. morality etc etc. all stem from a certain evolutionary necessity. Neither are true nor accurate in an absolute sense. Its all just made up, in an attempt to make sense of the chaos that we live in day in, day out.

Am not trying to say that all of this is a load of worthless crap either, believe in your religions if you want to... you'll probably be better off for it. But believe for the right reasons. Do not believe because you think that it is the absolute truth.

When i was a 11 year old in grade six, i remember asking the monk that was teaching us Buddhism, if Buddhists, Christians and Muslims all went to the same hell? I remember that he said no.. there can only be one truth. This puzzled me, if everyone didn't believe in the same thing, then inadvertently some us are believing in something that is wrong. Who are we to decide who is right and who is wrong? For this reason i became disillusioned with religion at the very tender age of 11.

Later on after reading through my father's stash of philosophy books i began realize, that religion is the subtle art of making things up and getting people to believe it. Not that i am opposed to it, i don't believe for a second that those that made things up did so with any degree of malice.

They probably did so for the greater good, whether or not it actually achieved the goodness it was intended for is debatable. Anyhow departing from that detached tangent, the crux of the matter is whether humanity as out-grown the fantastical bedtime tale that is religion.

Religion and philosophy all try to explain things that we cannot understand. The difference between the two is that while religion concots stories that are reassuring to the faithful, philosophy leaves you hanging like a date that never showed up at the restaurant.

Be what it may, it is all permeated by our desire to explain, an evolutionary by product of having a larger brain maybe. The truth is that neither is absolute and well in my best david duchovny voice - the truth is still out there.

ARISE - The Sri Lankan Metal Documentary Screening Date Confirmed!

Finally! managed to book a place for the screening of ARISE, the documentary we worked on for quite some time. It was much more easier to do the documentary than getting these kindda work done. We actually finished the movie close to five months back but had to figure out annoying DVD formats, TV/Computer compatibilities, aspect ratios and all the dreading issues with regards to compatibility!!

And then came the mammoth task of finding a proper place to do the screening, after searching through many venues, which were carefully filtered depending on the budget and availability we thought of moving ahead with Alliance Francaise de Colombo. The place is ok, and could accommodate around 100 people, we are planning to have two screenings depending on how many would turn up.

There’s lot to be done, we are still finalizing the DVD prints, tickets and all the promotional material. But hopefully planning to have a good screening on the 15th of May 2010.

This is a cordial invitation to all of you for the Premiere of ARISE- The Sri Lankan Metal Music Documentary. Its an amateur documentary about local metal scene which features four local bands who talk about their experiences as well as about Metal community in Sri Lanka. If you think its worth watching and planning to be there please RSVP on our events page as it would be of great help to us to see how many would attend. :D

Date   - 15th May 2010
Venue - Alliance Francaise de Colombo

You can RSVP for the Screening by visiting the following link
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=119055218124283&ref=mf

For more information what documentary is about please visit
http://www.arisethemetaldoc.com/

Check out the YouTube channel for additional interview materials and trailers
http://www.youtube.com/mathawaada

I AM THE LAW!

Quite some time ago I found myself in a class at ACBT. The student population in that class was all Sri Lankans and one Chinese girl. During the casual idle moments of the class where people would just chit chat, the conversation amidst the group I was in went to what I felt was an inappropriate place.

They started saying all this stuff about Chinese people and calling out 'Chinaman' and having conversation saying that all Chinese women are prostitutes. Worst of all that person could hear all of that, sitting only a single row in front. The group of people was both male and female and they were having a good laugh. The Chinese person stayed still like nothing was happening.

It took me a few seconds before I turned on those guys with an outburst and told them to stop. 'It's not funny' I said. They all went in to a quiet mumble mumble and stopped. But I ended up being the 'fun' killer. I have my rules and according to those what they were doing was wrong. All moral play. Yay!

But you see come the next class they were at it again and under the same setting. But you know what? I didn't say anything after that. Why? Well quite simply I felt odd. Like I was the lone guy who actually cared. I mean who the heck am I to go about 'enforcing' things? At the end of the day all I ended up becoming was the buzz kill. By doing that I was alienating myself from everyone else which wasn't something I wanted to do... and hell I didn't even know this Chinese person. So what was the point? There was a class full of people in there... what were they doing?

Looking back, what I did the first time was the right thing. If I was in that same situation today I'd keep doing what I did. I guess that would put me at odds with the mob, but I wouldn't really want to be part of the mob.

The question is, can you really do the right thing when everyone doesn't want to? I've always found you'll be on loose ground if you do and ultimately heading for trouble. All those guys had to do was throw a big "APOOOOO" my way or "Who Cares?" and then what am I supposed to say? "I am the law?"