Author Archive
July 1, 2010 at 6:30 am · Categories: Fiction / Creative Writing, Peace and Conflict, Post-War, Vavuniya | by Gypsy Bohemia
He was a filmstar, they said. But she had never much cared for films. She had heard of schoolgirls hoarding dog-eared posters; giggling over provocative poses; singing the songs the stars sang; dancing the dances the stars danced; wishing for the same clothes and hair styles. She had heard stories of the glitz and glamour of that faraway world. But they meant nothing to her. Her school days hadn’t lasted long. She hadn’t the time to grow up, watching films and singing songs.
Time was snatched from her and replaced by a gun in her hands. A gun could stop time, she was told. And it had. She knows it has been years since she’d pulled a trigger for the first …
May 22, 2010 at 2:00 pm · Categories: Colombo, End of war special edition, Human Rights, Identity, Jaffna, Peace and Conflict, Politics and Governance, Post-War, Reconciliation | by Gypsy Bohemia
I often have to remind myself that I live with a Tamil.
My housemate, Vanessa is a Tamil, married to a Sinhalese and I have been living with her and her husband for almost a year and working with her for over two. She is also one of my closest friends.
She is Tamil; I am Sinhalese. But even as I write, it’s hard to think of the two of us along those lines, because I can’t figure out what defines our identities. Even if I can define what makes her Tamil, I still can’t define what makes her different from me.
Is it colour? She is darker than I am, but we are both brown skinned.
Is it accent? She sounds no different …
February 21, 2010 at 10:30 pm · Categories: Colombo, Fiction / Creative Writing, Media and Communications, Peace and Conflict | by Gypsy Bohemia
A solitary lamp perched on a desk top lights a room. A man scribbles feverishly on paper, hunched over the light as if he’s jealously guarding what little he has. His desk is cluttered with cartoons and drawings – some of a President, others of two small children. He holds down his paper with one hand and writes with the other, so violently that other loose papers and articles shuffle with his movements.
He is breathing hard, as if he’s run to his desk from sleep, taken by wild inspiration. He has forgotten to switch on the fan, and the heat of that December night hangs in the air, thickening like spoiling milk. Small explosions of sweat begin to burst from …
February 8, 2010 at 7:46 am · Categories: Colombo, Elections, Identity, Politics and Governance | by Gypsy Bohemia
Note from author: For someone who is not in the least interested in politics – and is more often than not bored by it – my reaction to the 2010 Presidential Elections was surprising, even to me. Strangely enough though, I found that a lot of people felt much the same way. We were repulsed by constant news of violence; inescapable hoardings with their proclamations that our politicians loved us; posters that made the city walls disappear beneath them; partisan media stuffing propaganda down our unwilling throats; the promises of candidates that we knew to be false.
Yet, despite all this, we cared – albeit, rather reluctantly and in spite of ourselves. We still wanted to be in the know; we …
January 18, 2010 at 1:19 pm · Categories: Colombo, Elections, Politics and Governance, Post-War | by Gypsy Bohemia
In 2005, I didn’t vote. Being 21, I was eligible to vote, but I didn’t – and if you asked me why, I would ashamedly admit I simply didn’t care. I was in University abroad, my mind preoccupied with the Arts, my arms wrapped around my glossy new textbooks, my life an adventure waiting to happen. Voting, politics and presidents didn’t register on my radar: the picture they represented was too big for me to fathom and it all seemed so removed from the microcosm of my life. In 2005, my parents were the presidents of my world and I the rebellious citizen, rioting for my right to certain freedoms.
After my university career, I moved back home and joined a …
November 9, 2009 at 7:00 am · Categories: Colombo, Jaffna, Politics and Governance | by Gypsy Bohemia
I’ve tried to understand this war, and failed.
It’s made me feel rather stupid – this inability to wrap my head around 30 years of horror, why it all started and who is to blame. Everyone seems to talk about it with such ease – like it’s the simplest thing to understand. As if it’s effortless to take one particular view and stick to it. I listen to the sophisticated talk of politicians, of family, of friends and marvel at the sureness of their convictions with frustrated envy.
It could be my limited understanding of politics and history that’s to blame. I have tried to remedy this over the past year or so, and despite accusations to the contrary, I hope I …
August 15, 2009 at 7:00 am · Categories: Fiction / Creative Writing, Peace and Conflict, Post-War, Vavuniya | by Gypsy Bohemia
Barbed, by Valimar
A little boy stares through barbed wire, wondering which direction his home is. He reaches out to rest his fingers between the rusted knots of wire but his watchful mother calls out to him to be careful. At the same time, a soldier patrolling nearby walks briskly up to him and pushes him back. “Listen to your mother” the soldier tells him not unkindly in shaky Tamil. The boy looks up along yards of camouflage material and searches the soldier’s face. “I want to go home” he says miserably. “I don’t like it here”
The soldier’s expression softens. He looks around awkwardly to see if anyone is watching and then quickly bends towards …
July 10, 2009 at 2:58 pm · Categories: Colombo, Gender | by Gypsy Bohemia
As a journalist, there is almost no end to the diversity of people I meet on a day-to-day basis. I was covering an event this morning with a colleague and was accosted by a lady who asked to speak to me in private to which I agreed, thinking that maybe I could ask her for an interview after the event. She introduced herself as a counselor who worked with children and then proceeded to ask me a series of invasive questions – first, what my age was and then, if I was married.
I answered her truthfully and politely wondering where this would lead when she hit me with it: “Darling”, she said sweetly, patting my arm, “I counsel young children on …
