I never thought i’d actually say this but i’ve been enjoying being dropped off, being picked up and mostly just cruising around in public transport. It’s not bad really. Once the metro has a few more stations up and running, i could pretty much cover up the convertible for the summer and hop along my merry way from station to station.

This morning, I drove in to work (unfortunately) but giving me surprisingly pleasant company was entertaining radio. It seemed odd at first, but on 99.3 they were playing an original 1968 track called ‘Those were the days’ by Mary Hopkins. It was on a show called time machine (or something sounding like that). I can’t stop humming it now, but thats besides the point. I did some trotting around and found a few interesting renditions of what was originally a russian folk song. So pay attention, here goes…

The tune of “Those were the Days” is originally credited to the russian song “Dorogoi dlinnoyu” (Lit by the long road”) written by Boris Fomin with words by the poet Konstantin Podrevskii.

The tune however is best remembered for Mary Hopkin’s 1968 recording, which was a top-ten hit in both the U.S. and the U.K.

In 2005, Dolly Parton released a cover of “Those Were the Days,” which featured backing vocals by Mary Hopkin. I couldn’t find a video for this one but am curious to hear what a country rendition of the track would sound like. Let me know if you find it somewhere.

All said and done, the most outstanding rendition in my books has got to be the one by the Leningrad Cowboys and the Red Russian Army choir. (i am infinitely intrigued by this bunch and i must dedicate an entire post to them sometime this weekend). This is their cover (music video) followed by the live performance which is just so awesome at so many levels!!!!!!! It’s a must watch!

So on that note, you remember those never ending days my friends and i’m going to try and sneak out of my cub hole and make it back to my desk.

Next Post: The Leningrad Cowboys and their secret to a long lasting stiffy.

It’s begun to rain now and thats the view from the room. I’m tucked into this really huge, comfy bed watching a ridiculous movie called ‘The Fools Fist Way‘. The movie seems to go in and out of spoof and serious. Oddly strange schizo movie! Perhaps, i only think its strange because my mind is a little preoccupied trying to figure out how i can steal one (or two) of these pillows!!

It’s back to Colombo tomorrow and then back to Dubai. Since my Ceylon Soliloquy’s will most probably end with this post, thought i’d sprinkle all the other stuff i wanted to share, on my facebook album. Alternatively, i have uploaded all the images that i want to show off onto Blame the Blog’s dedicated Ceylon page – http://www.artraj.com/blog/photos/ceylon-soliloquy/ (Forward this link to 20 people or you will suffer from a nasty case of supernumary nipple syndrome in ten days from today)

Just kidding

Finally arrived at Bentota!! and am sitting here on the pool writing this post. so it just made sense to start off this entry with a little sightseeing.

This hotel is awesome. Did i say awesome? Wait! i meant AWESOME!!! The Taj Exotica lives up to its name every bit. Perfect location on the beach, really nice pool, wi-fi everywhere, the rooms are huge, the food is better than anything that i’ve tasted anywhere so far in Sri Lanka and i think i even spotted the endangered Sri Lankan beauty which i feared was extinct.

Infact, the hotel’s awesome’o'meter has made us reconsider our sightseeing plans and we have now decided to spend the next two days entirely in the hotel. Let me check my diary for the day now.. hmmm.. run on the beach, laze around at the poolside, scribble doodles, scribble on my blog, watch HBO, order room service, run on the treadmill whilst watching HBO, go back to the pool and sip vodka from a coconut and fall asleep under the shade of a palm tree.

Ok! i clearly have a busy schedule to keep up with.. off i go. Will blog again in the evening.

I have awakened from slumber and my shoulder hurts like a bad Daniel Beddingfield song. Anyway, i’m going to continue apostrophizing myself because lets face it no one ever really reads this stuff except me and i’m really enjoying all this writing-to-myself kinda thing. It’s been a while since i’ve had time to do this nonsense.

So the view outside looks a little like this:

Global warming my ass!

Anyway, where was i? Nuwara Eliya’s only attraction seemed to be the temple of Sita. Interestingly enough, this temple is known to be built at the spot where… get this… the place where Ravana had kept Sita captive!!! Not being overly religious but being absolutely head over heels in awe with the mysticism surrouding Hindu Mythology, i always find myself at the strange crossroads of scepticism and faith when i am confronted with such documented evidence that could perhaps have a possible grain of truth.

This temple was extremely low-key. No tourists and hardly even a priest. Having been to quite a few hindu pilgrim sites in my life so far, i always find that the ones that bear the most spiritual significance are usually the ones with the lowest hype. I noticed this at the Kunja Devi temple in Haridwar and a couple of other places. Anyway, things got even more significant when i was told that the yellow spot was claimed to be Lord Hanuman’s footprints as he landed on that very spot to rescue Goddess Sita from the clutches of the Rakshas Lord Ravana.

I googled this up a little and i found some really interesting stuff that debate the legitimacy of this place. It does very little to distinguish the realm of factuality from the realm of imagination and i suppose that can never be possible until god itself shows up at our front door.

I found this article after much digging, so i’m going to post it all here

Lush greenery and huge mountains greet a visitor to the town of Nuwara Elia in Sri Lanka, famous for its distinctively flavoured export-quality tea. An Indian tourist entering this commercially vibrant town, about 150 km from Colombo, would be happy to k now that it is home to a Sita temple, built on the spot where she was imprisoned by Ravana.

Naturally, expectations are high. A devout Indian visitor would expect thousands of pilgrims lined up for a darshan of Sita and Lord Rama. More so, when one considers that Hindus are the second-largest community in the country. But there are not many vis itors. Perhaps, its potential as a tourist spot has not been fully exploited. Apart from the local Tamilians, it is estimated that only about 100 people from India visit the temple every month.

The temple itself is a small isolated edifice, housing the idols of Sita, Rama and Lakshmana. Besides modern wood-crafted idols of the three deities, the temple also has three stone idols depicting Sita, Rama and Lakshman in their old age, which are beli eved to have been discovered there itself. The formal structure that represents the temple is just a few months old — it was inaugurated only on January 26, 2000. About 1,000 religious leaders from India took part in the proceedings.

According to the epic Ramayana, the demon king Ravana, ruler of Lanka (not Sri Lanka), abducted Sita, wife of Rama, during their 14-year banishment and confined her to his Ashoka Vana. Rama rescued Sita after a fierce battle in which the 10-headed Ravana was killed.

Every Indian visitor to the Sita Elia temple asks the question: Where is Ashoka Vana? G.T. Prabhakaran, in-charge of the temple, points to the surrounding hills and says, “This entire place is the Ashoka Vana. They say there were a lot of Ashoka trees h ere, which is why it was called Ashoka Vana.” `Vana’ in Sanskrit means `forest’ or `woods’. And a small place nearby known as Streepura is believed to have been where women attending on Sita lived.

A waterfall and some of the caves in the vicinity are named after Ravana. According to a local story, water from the falls has no taste and flowers in the area have no smell because Sita had cursed them.

A project report is now being prepared by the Sri Lankan Government to convert the temple into a full-fledged tourist centre. The expectation is to attract as many as two lakh Indians to this place annually.(i spoke too soon)

According to some reports, the Government wants to develop various facilities on a 32-acre plot of land. According to V. Radha Krishnan, Trade and Industries Minister in the Central Province, boating, horse-riding and motorcycle racing would be introduce d, besides boarding and lodging facilities.

In fact, the Government had proposed to develop the site as a major tourist centre even in 1988, but the locals, fearing displacement, opposed the idea. Radha Krishnan says that now people are convinced that only a few families may have to be rehabilitated as it was mainly the forest lands that the Government wanted to acquire.A Delhi-based firm has offered to join hands with the Government in developing Nuwara Elia. According to Government sources, many Indian companies have come forward to invest.

That is just so amazing!!!!!. What makes this place even more intriguing was the fact that i was unable to get a clear google earth satellite image of this spot. It seemed to stop short of the mountains and dense forest within which the temple is nested.

I’ll be posting more pictures of the temple and the intricate designs on my flickr album later. An hour away from the beaches of Bentota. Can’t wait to get out of this bus and get my feet wet.

It’s been a year and a half since the last time i spelt the word v.a.c.a.t.i.o.n and considering the fact that ‘ 09 has been one of those years with an unfair pain:gain ratio, it was time that i packed my bags and hopped onto a jetplane else i was about to go apeshit crazy!

Sri Lanka seemed like a workable, cheap option and so heck! why not?. Its day four and i’m writing this post whilst on a bumpy six hour drive from Nuwaraeliya to Bentoba. God bless technology and iphone’s internet tethering. This is what’s on my widescreen right now.

Before Nuwaraeliya, my other sojourns were Pinnawala, Dambulla, Sigriya and Kandy, so i’ll just scatter my Ceylon soliloquy’s here and there as i remember them.

Apart from sharing names with the likes of a lolipoplickingblonde stripper, the city of Kandy has absolutely no quantity of saccharine whatsoever. I say this because I couldn’t help but notice the obvious dearth of feminine eye candy here. Ok, so maybe i’m  letting my superficial side show a little too much (don’t judge me, you’d be thinking the same if you were here too). Whatever happened?? The sense of fashion too is hideous. Pupil torchering colors paired in the strangest combinations that challenge the logic of the colorcycle. Think Mr. Alexander Mcqueen (R.I.P) would be tossing in his grave if he saw such blasphemy. But all said and done,  credit does go to the Sri Lankan saree. It’s kinda pleated interesting but seems only skinny-friendly.

An epiphany of sorts to me was that Sri Lanka is  a Buddhist country! Seriously!? According to our incomprehensible yet over-zealous guide, Sri Lanka is 70% Buddhist and the large statues of Lord Buddha at every street corner and wikipedia only backed up this claim.

Dambulla was an interesting spot. It’s this vast isolated rock mass about 500feet high with about 500 steps leading upto it. (that was my cardio for the day, btw). The place is in’fff’ested with monkeys and i had my own scruffle with one of them scampy primates. He appeared behind me from nowhere and tugged on the lotus offerings that i bought. He gripped so hard that when i turned around to look, he had swung out half way the other side whilst still holding on. All throughout while he hung midair grasping onto the petals and my index finger he gave me a look of disbelief almost as if to say‘WHAT?? THESE ARE MINE!! BITCH!!!’ Unbelievable!! i had a good mind not to let go but then i remembered Ma saying that when a monkey gets angry, it slaps you in the face. Guess i was a little scared of getting a walloping from one of these vicious bastards, so i let go. I managed to save one flower, which i suppose in some small way was my statement of evolutionary supremacy. I wish someone had taken a picture of the encounter because in my head, it still seems really amusing. I managed to scribble down a little sketch of my encounter with the monkey thief later in the car. Enjoy!

<<oops! having a little trouble uploading the sketch – think it’ll have to wait till i get to Bentota>>

Anyhow, the Dambulla caves was quite a walk up. The guide showing us around was useless! He made everything sound like he was stating the obvious. His facts were all over the place and almost incomprehensible, so i had to do my own research on wikipedia after. (i should have put him onto it as well). You can read the entire wiki article here, but i’ve pulled out a little excerpt for some informative reading.

The caves in the city provided refuge to King Valagamba (also called Vattagamini Abhaya) in his 14 year long exile from the Anuradapura kingdom. Buddhist monks meditating in the caves of Dambulla at that time provided the exiled king protection from his enemies. When King Valagamba returned to the throne at Anuradapura kingdom in the 1st century BC, he had a magnificent rock temple built at Dambulla as a gratitude to the monks in Dambulla.

This road is getting a little too bumpy for me to focus and i feel a little like napping. Four more hours to go till i reach the beaches of Bentota. More from me in a bit.

So i come home today and settle my butt down on the couch thinking i’d spend some quality time with the idiotbox. Let’s see now -

Channel 4 – P.S I Love You: Good movie but no thanks!
MBC Max – Legally Blonde: Nope!!!
Fox Movie – Mean Girls: Arabic subtitles on American teeny boppers just ain’t funny
TCM – Zebra Head: Interesting and i would have stuck to this address on the tube, had it not been for the slaphappy punchdrunk ridiculous programme on the next channel Zee Aflam.

The movie was called ‘Parvarish’. It’s actually still on the tele as i write this. It stars Amitabh Bachan, Vinod Khanna, Shabana Azmi and Neetu Singh. It’s a 1977 film that is so unbelievably cheesy that i cannot help but love it and hate it at the same time!!!

Now, the storylines in these retro bollywood flicks are usually very easy to catch onto because of their extremely formulaic approach. What is not easy to understand however are these song and dance sequences. So, i’m sending a big ‘WTF!’ back to 1977 folks!!

I mean, wasn’t there a single person back then who could have seen this in a script and said that this makes no sense!?!?!? guess not and thankfully an entire generation’s undersight, brings me the much needed comic relief on this Thursday night!

The work hours have been a little off the scale lately and If it wasn’t for an awesome iphone app i’ve downloaded called ‘Sleep Cycle’, i would have been more groggy than ‘David after a dentist’! I am serious though!! lately i’ve put the trusty iPhone standing at my gates of slumber. The app analyzes sleep patterns and wakes you when you are in the lightest sleep phase so you are out of bed without that feeling of being in a boxing tournament with buxom heavyweight champ Roxie Cotton all night long.

I can’t be damned to give you all the details on how it works, because i have to go and save the world now, but here are a few snapshots and my personal thumbsup! So go download here!

So there you have it! My click to fame.

Here is the rest of it -

See you in helven ladies and gentlemen! i have a harp with your name on it!

The beautiful thing about insights is that it makes you realize how much we all have in common with the person sitting next to us and irrespective of the many differences that we may have, there are a few not-so-different things that still make us both feel familiar to each other.

DEEEP!!!!

No but seriously… I’m not just talking about the fluffy way we advertising folks use insights to make ‘unsuspecting’ consumers smile in exchange to snatch away some estate in their already over-populated skyline of brand choice. I’m talking about pure insights that simply makes us go ‘i know what you mean!’

It’s said that my line of work and my ethinicity are both supposed to make me overtly philosophical about these insights and i’m not about to shy away from that fact. I’ve been keeping a close watch over life’s small pleasures all week long and i found this awesome compilation to which i’ve added a few of my life’s little joys.

Walking barefoot in grass.

Listening to good music in the car.

Taking a long, relaxing shower

Hot coffee.

Watching grains of sugar sink into the

A good novel.

Popcorn and an old movie on DVD.

The smell of fresh-cut grass.

Watching the sunrise.

Walking on the beach.

A gentle morning run.

Yoga or stretching or meditation.

Snuggling in bed with your partner.

Watching the sunset.

Good wine.

Dancing like you’re crazy.

Laughing till your sides ache.

A long conversation with a good friend.

Kissing in the rain.

Being lazy on a Friday.

Waking to a clean house.

An uncluttered room.

Fries

Singing in the shower, loudly.

Dancing in the rain

Stomping in puddles.

Watching a child play.

Fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies.

Making someone smile.

A nature hike.

Laying back and watching the stars.

Making a sandcastle.

Floating in the water.

Taking an afternoon nap.

Laying back and looking up at clouds.

Watching the horizon curve on the ocean

Getting a massage.

Playing footsie.

Acting crazy in public.

Seeing your savings account grow.

Seeing your debt shrink.

Taking a hot bath.

Blowing bubbles.

A gentle breeze.

The feeling after a good workout.

Checking something off your to-do list.

Snuggling together under the covers on a stormy day.

The smell of a new Moleskine notebook.

Writing on good paper with a good pen.

A clear desk.

Catching fresh snow with your tongue.

Swinging on a swing.

Watching animals in nature.

A very slow and sensual night with your partner.

Staying up all night talking.

Having a picnic.

Swimming at night.

Watching a child chasing waves on the beach.

Watching the same child being chased by the waves.

Popping bubble wrap.

Skimming stones on a pond/puddle of rain water.

Blowing off soap suds from your hand while washing dishes.

Letting the wind play with your hands as you hold it out of the car.

Seeing her smile as she unsuspectingly looks into the camera and you go ‘click!’

Licking cream off your finger tips.

Jumping to touch the top of the door/gate.

A hug.

To top it all off, i had my simply pleasurable moment of staying at home and watching a movie with my folks today as the dogs snoozed away comfortably on my lap. Director Ayan Mukerji’s ‘Wakeup Sid’ was a treasure trove of sweet insightful moments.

Life’s good..