Prep

 Image credit: br

 It’s repetitive, like a meditation,

Following favourite recipes.

Particularly the ones which require the individual preparation of certain ingredients, one set at a time.

 

The onions must be pre-caramellized. The chicken pieces seasoned and grilled. The garlic pieces infused with hot water, to soften and sweeten. The eggplant blotted and salted. The tomatoes sliced into joyful rounds. Each item prepared, and set aside.

 

Then the layering takes place, and you know how to do it, what feels right, what goes where, and in what order. The optimal sequence is inside your awareness, you have tried and tested it, and given your assent. It’s instinct now. No need to consult the recipe. You can measure the amounts by eye, and by touch. You can sense the time each step takes.

 

The vegetables and pieces of meat, all cut to the same approximate size, are set out in a pattern as ornate as mirror work, the colours bejewelled and the shapes harmonious, at the bottom of the heavy, round pan. Then the fragrant, saffron-stained spiced rice is packed on top, and all is cooked on high heat till the rice boils and softens. For as long as it takes to clear the kitchen surfaces, and lay the table with clean plates and assemble small vases of fresh flowers, and to make a cucumber and yoghurt accompaniment, and put flatware and drinking glasses around each setting, and stand back and see if everything is right.

 

As you finish, the dish is complete. One pot, with everything in it. A feast, where the guests are favoured. No empty chairs at the table where this meal will be shared. Full plates. The chaos of the world outside recedes, against the onslaught of this domestic radiance. The completeness of the feeling helps to heal the brokenness the human race daily experiences.

View video - https://youtu.be/inE0BM2-ZYA

Death Defying

 There was a king whose son

Immobilized him. Literally.

Walled him in, to a living tomb.

The old man was standing in his way.

 

But the son, the parricide, did not know love, although he thought he was so smart: he was born without a heart.

 

So he did not realise for some time

that when his mother, the queen,

was graciously allowed to visit the incarcerated king, by decree of their son, she was recreating their honeymoon days with a man she loved.

 

She kept him alive for months by bathing

in honey and subtle, nutritious seeds

and letting her husband take sustenance

from her body, during conjugal visits, by ingesting and savouring her.

It was not just the protein and the glucose, we conjecture, that rejuvenated the heartbroken man, in the
face of the cruelty of their son. (They had had such hopes for him, and that was now gone.)

It was the love, the offering, the generosity. The way even now, as their family was tainted and the lines threadbare, this woman invited him

to undo the clasps and ties on her clothes, and take what he required from her, until his need was satisfied. Her gestures gentle and eloquent, her arms extended, her face open to his eye.

Sustenance and Austerity

We can’t believe our ears.

 

The well fed spokesman for politicians is actually telling the ordinary citizens to tighten their belts and reduce their fictional three meals to two meals a day. In fact, many are already at one, and belts can’t get much tighter. 

 

Aerial shots from security drones show queues winding like mazes around the large grocery stores, as people line up for what they hope will sustain them.

 

Store cupboards are not full in this land. Despite so many consecutive disasters, people do not plan ahead. Or perhaps it’s because of the many things that go wrong, all the time, that derail the plans to provide for whatever could happen, to shore up the cracks, and seal the apertures, to hope to survive this more or less upright, and intact.

 

I think people are resorting to the snacks they used to have as children: comfort food to sustain their hope, and nourish whatever joy has remained for each of them.

 

Those with the simplest needs will not only survive, but thrive. And those of us who are generously drawn with ample curvature will sigh with regret, but positively bloom as a result of the mandated reductions, as our hoarded stores get utilized at last.

Life Support

 Image Credit: Pixar Films

The unfolding pandemic has made us all re-evaluate our thoughts and actions. For many of us, it feels like we are living in a transforming world: one in which our focus on ourselves, and the economic survival and fulfillment of our own families, has been challenged. We cannot read or listen to the news without realizing that the pandemic is affecting the global community differentially. 

The COVID-19 crisis has exposed social class differences: in terms of access to PCR tests, preferred vaccines and 24 hour health care. The economically disadvantaged are more vulnerable, have no safety net, and no back up resources. This is where community organizations with their infrastructure and relationships built over many years can positively intervene, in life changing and life supporting ways. 

Some of the most vulnerable members of our community are the elderly. As in many societies around the world, Sri Lanka’s traditional social structures are changing, as industrialization and a more materialistic value system challenges the family-based focus of the past, where our elders were respected, honored and cared for as they became physically less robust and more frail. 

A mindset which values wealth creation, and honors only those individuals whose work creates net worth and property portfolios, inevitably creates disrespect for retirees, who are of course no longer gainfully employed in the private or public sectors. Measuring a person solely by their income will result in our undervaluing those citizens who are perceived as no longer having anything to contribute, and who need to be supported at this stage of their life. 

In Sri Lanka, respect for our elders is ingrained, as one of the most important aspects of our culture, and thus it is a natural outcome that good work is being done by community organizations to support our senior citizens. This work often goes unrecognized, and is therefore not sufficiently supported.

In the past two decades, the traditional extended family structure has been disrupted, by internal and external migration, as the younger generation leave their homes in search of better job prospects. Those who remain behind often do not have the skill, patience or time to care for their elders. 

It is important that this shortfall should be addressed at this juncture, as our elderly citizens are among the most vulnerable in our community, both financially and in terms of their physical age and diminished health conditions, which make them especially vulnerable in this pandemic. 

The HelpAge Sri Lanka (HASL) Organisation operates through grass roots Senior Citizen Committees to raise awareness of older people’s specific rights and needs. These include access to ID cards and pensions, and access to shelter and food, necessary for survival, and to medical care, as many elderly citizens are home bound or less mobile, and need home care services which are administered by volunteers. 

Sri Lanka has one of the largest ageing populations in the world, and HASL is the only charity organization working in the country which has been created solely to address the needs of our elderly citizens. Fundamental to their vision is the upholding of human dignity, and an awareness of the ways age and infirmity result in increased vulnerability and dependency in the elderly. 

To be able to support vulnerable people without disrespecting their dignity, requires sensitivity training, dedication and commitment. The training of the staff is crucial to this service and support, and fulfil an essential humanitarian role in this sphere. HASL trains staff to offer everyday home care to elderly citizens, within their family environment. 

‘There needs to be more acceptance and better management of people in their old age’, said a colleague of mine, recently. ‘When you get older, you can't expect your kids to look after you - it's not fair by them. This is a very South Asian attitude. Putting your parent in a well tended elders home is better than living dysfunctionally with each other. Also many old people suffer from conditions like Dementia and Alzheimers, and you need professional care for that. 

Also people with mental illness cannot live on their own - they need constant supervision by a trained professional. You cannot expect your children to do that.’

The HASL organisation provides support for vision challenged elders through a dedicated Eye Hospital in Wellawatte, providing medical assistance for those who cannot afford cataract surgery and the associated expenses of purchasing lenses. They have also created a Mobile Medical Unit: a clinic-on-wheels which is equipped to offer medical diagnosis and treatment to elders in remote or inaccessible places in the country, free of charge. 

HASL has also prepared for the ongoing future recognition and upholding of the rights and dignities of the elderly, by implementing Youth Education  Programmes, to create awareness in the younger generation of the community responsibilities we must face and take on as we all deal with the inevitable ageing process. Empathy, compassion and kindness are values which can effectively remedy the estrangement and objectification many elderly citizens are met with, in an increasingly materialistic global society. 

Elderly citizens, due to their lack of mobility, also require special assistance during seasonal emergencies such as floods, which render many homeless. This is where community based enterprises are most useful, as the staff  are vigilant and aware of the most vulnerable members of each village, and able to assist with essential medical supplies and care where it is most needed. 

With this clear and robust organizational structure, and supported by donations from both corporate investors and private individuals, HASL has been in a good position to assist the elderly during the COVID-19 crisis. Nearly 10,000 vulnerable citizens have been assisted by the Give2Asia Project, in the period May to September 2021; with essential PPE and hand washing units being provided, and vaccination awareness programmes being conducted. 

Senior citizens are also provided with access to traditional medicine treatments via the provision of a dedicated Ayurvedha Treatment Centre in Boralesgamuwa, which is affiliated with the Faculty of Ayurvedic Medicine in Colombo University. 

Above all, this organisation focuses on the emotional and psychological well being of our elders, not treating them as people with just physical needs. They are seen as people who have contributed to the community throughout their lives, and so deserve our respect and support in their later years. 

These ongoing supportive activities and acts of commitment are needed in our society. As age takes away our privilege, embodied generosity, and dedicated care and concern as shown in these initiatives, can restore our faith in humanity, especially our own. 

Community Service

‘No man is an island, entire of itself.

Each is a piece of the continent

A part of the main...

Each man’s death diminishes me,

For I am involved in mankind.’

              - John Donne 

The months of September and October are likely to be the most challenging of the entire pandemic. Now the population are being vaccinated at a rapid rate, with many vaccination centres operating long hours, and reports are coming in of how efficient and stress free the process is, with the younger citizens aged between 18 and 30 being able to book their vaccines through an online portal, and being assured that there are enough vaccines to go around, and no shortages. 

There is now enough data available, 20 months into the pandemic, to make it clear that vaccination is what makes the difference between getting this illness so seriously that you cannot breathe without help; and getting a milder version of it which does not inevitably result in hospitalization and death. It is also clear that all the different kinds of vaccine available are effective in lessening the severity of the impact of the virus on the human body. 

It is important to note that the double dose of every vaccine appears to provide far better protection against hospitalization than one dose alone, and that it is important to wait the optimal length of time after the vaccine is given (3-5 weeks, depending on which vaccine you get), for best results. It is also important that people who have been vaccinated understand the need to continue to practise social distancing, mask wearing and hand hygiene protocols, even within their own homes to protect vulnerable family members, whose immunity levels are lower, for many months to come. 

I say September and October are the danger zone because although the current vaccination rates are excellent, it will take that amount of time for immunity to develop in the whole community. The current lockdown, although difficult for many, economically, and socially frustrating for everyone, will definitely help to incrementally decrease the numbers of infected people, in conjunction with the vaccinations. 

By October/November, the terrible news reports will decrease in volume and intensity. By Christmas and New Year, we may be able to meet in small groups, our vaccination cards laminated for ease of use, because no more booster shots will be required. 

The huge burden on our doctors and nurses and health care professionals will ease. They are currently working extremely long hours, and putting themselves at risk every day to assist the community, despite having family and loved ones of their own. This is a battle. This is why where they work is called a front line. 

Our health care heroes, as they are called on social media, are extremely dedicated and skilled. But they are, while dealing with this unprecedented global crisis, like health care professionals all over the world, under resourced and under equipped. 

It’s easy to feel helpless in this crisis situation. But even though we are not medically qualified, we as a community can help our medical professionals in their task, in effective and timely ways, through targeted donations. We can equip them to do their optimal work, in the frontline of this battle against this transmissible disease. 

Community groups like the Rotary Clubs of Sri Lanka have effective organizational infrastructure, and strong relationships across different social sectors which have been developed over collaborations through many years, and their members are therefore in a good position to mobilize and help support the country’s public hospitals. 

A fine example of this embodiment of the Rotary ideals of ‘service above self’ is the dedicated efforts of the Rotary Club of Colombo Regency, who collaborated with the SEALA (South East Asia Leadership Academy) global network, to raise thousands  in US currency to donate much needed and expensive equipment such as Multipara monitors, syringe pumps and pulse oximeters, to Panadura, Kegalle and Diyatalawa Hospitals, as part of their Covid Relief Initiative. This is a humanitarian campaign which is structured in phases. 

This has involved strategic planning and co-operation with multiple local and overseas partners, as well as fund raising. To be an effective donor you must be financially organized enough to be able to give donations to a particular hospital over a period of several months, as the need for medical resources and equipment is very great in the regional areas of the country, and giving must be sustained as well as generous, in order for the hospital facilities to be developed to optimally support incoming patients. 

Other voluntary community service organizations have also raised substantial funds, and have done so using the powerful instrument of social and personal connections, going back to school and college days, in ways that directly reach the people who are in most need of them, with ventilators, oxygen flow regulators and other vital respiratory facilitation equipment. Hospitals serving large numbers of people, have been enabled to build dedicated Covid wards with full facilities, through the auxiliary  assistance of community groups. 

Private individuals and families are responding to the challenges presented by the pandemic by giving large amounts to uplift the local hospitals throughout the country. Outside the hospitals, Good Samaritan projects are raising money to be able to give essential food and basic items to people who are facing hunger due to lack of paid work over the past several months. People with credibility in the community and with a track record of personal integrity are entrusted by their friends and colleagues to collect funds in an accountable and transparent way, and to distribute these essential items to those in need, the most vulnerable. 

Social media has played a significant role in conveying the requests for assistance from hospitals and medical personnel, and via WhatsApp groups and FB posts and Tweets by people with large followings the links between those in need and those with funds to offer are effectively made. Social media’s stated objective, to foster and facilitate community connections and bonds, has come into operation in actual fact. Equipment which saves lives is being sourced, paid for and delivered to the patients within 72 hours. 

Credibility and a reputation not as a do gooder or a virtue signaller, but as a person who is motivated to ease the suffering of others in a time of crisis, anxiety and real physical, economic and social need, is the best currency in this era. Recognition of how inter-connected we all are is vital. These organisations are effective in doing the needful because people all over the world place trust in service organizations like this, who have long term track records in supporting those in need, most often anonymously, which perfectly illustrates the advice of the Lord Buddha: ‘To give generously, give happily, and give in silence’. 

Each human life is valuable. Each human being has dignity. Most especially, let us support, at this time, and incrementally, the dedicated efforts of our health care professionals, and the patients whose lives they work so hard to save. 

Let us not send to ask for whom the bell tolls. Whether we know the names of those suffering and succumbing in this crisis or not, their loss is our loss. 

Link to article - https://ceylontoday.lk/news/community-service?fbclid=IwAR1zwn3ckTp35u3sCkgkWPYk79PsyGHqeD1O1w81x0wQwlHhbl9rl3uuU5g

The Hills Are Alive

Image credit: Hotelier Academy

The worst weeks of the pandemic crisis have now begun: the period before the vaccinations start to take effect, as it  takes 3-5 weeks to create immune response protection in those who are vaccinated; and the aftermath of the holiday season at New Year, in which the highly transmissible Delta strain started making its devastating impact felt. 

Pandemics are relatively easy to understand, if you are good with numbers. The more densely populated an area is, the more closely people live in communal households and inter- generational living arrangements, the more people physically go in to a workplace rather than work from home, the more quickly the illness will spread. 

The safest way to operate if you can is to avoid people. A person to person transmission event cannot take place if one of the persons is not present. 

This also applies to group activities such as holiday getaways of the kind that people locked in their city homes and apartments understandably yearn for. The pandemic has thrived in conditions of communal congeniality - religious functions, festivals to mark auspicious occasions, weddings, funerals, parties, pot luck dinners with shared food platters, and feasts of all kinds, particularly those held in air-conditioned rooms. 

It is understandable that many people cannot change their homes and living arrangements, and can only do their best via partitions and increased social distancing to diminish transmission to those they live with. But what I will never understand is the mania shown by some people to continue to organize group outings to the cool, misty hill country in the midst of the worst pandemic in a century. 

Boutique hotels offering group discounts and ‘two for the price of one’ deals can be seen advertising their high end and high priced rooms on Instagram, with an array of glorious views of green hills and  glistening swimming pools and sumptuous dining platters, accompanied by swim suited or bath robed European models in alluring poses offering many kinds of prompts and provocations to viewers to do what they are doing, and have what they are having. 

These hotels have not been legally permitted to operate during lockdowns, and intermittent inter-provincial travel restrictions have made it difficult for them to attract guests, since last March. They have maintenance and repairs to fund, and staff salaries to pay, and their economic loss must have been significant. 

It’s a volatile situation, as the tourism industry needs to open up, but in a well managed way that minimizes risk to the citizens of the country who have not yet been double vaccinated. This is where vaccine politics comes into play: there may come a time soon, when overseas visitors who can prove they have been double vaccinated, and who test negative for Covid on arrival in Sri Lanka, can readily access express 24 hour quarantine processing, and are permitted to freely go anywhere in the island, while the local population are forced to stay restricted in their homes. 

This is privilege in action, as global access to vaccines has not been equitable, anywhere in the world. 

The so-called local elite, whose sense of being special, blessed and set apart in comparison to the ordinary citizens of this country has been fed by every affirming experience and monetized event in their lives, will not stay locked down long. Those who have acquired the vaccines accepted by the U.K., the U.S., Europe and Australia will seek to gather their cliques together and go and take poses and filtered selfies in every infinity pool in sight, and justify it to themselves as a well-earned break. 

The exhausting task of keeping the kids (the generation in whose hands our future will be placed!) entertained, with online school, and so regrettably few inner resources, will be remedied with cocktails and mocktails and sunrise all-you-can-eat breakfasts by the pool, and evening sunset pre-BBQ bites and delectable snacks, while the dedicated chefs in their pristine, perfect, puffy white hats labour to fulfill these insatiable appetites. Yum Yum. 

I observed with incredulity one of these getaway weekends being arranged via WhatsApp last week. Person after person spoke on the chat about how much they missed meeting up, how they couldn’t breathe in the pollution and dust of the City, and how heavenly it would be to just escape this ongoing nightmare for just a few days. 

People like this don’t think about the impact they have, unless it’s the impact of a new trend in clothing, accessories or winged eyeliner that they have acquired to impress each other. All is vanity. 

The numbers of deaths in the hill country have so far been consistently far fewer statistically than those in the densely populated Western Province. This is despite the large and economically vulnerable community of plantation workers and their families living in crowded conditions in housing built decades ago, and not modernized and upgraded, who have no other home but this region. 

If monied tourists and self indulgent, privileged elites come swarming upcountry like birds of paradise or super models at a location shoot, treating the region as a backdrop for their Instagram Story and reels, complete with beauty spots and quaint locals, these upcountry communities will be sharply, adversely and disproportionally affected. 

The ordinary citizens have no safety net, they have no ability to work from home, they have no insurance cover, they have no financial or health protection. Those working in the plantation sector are still fighting for a wage of 1000 LKR a day, the price of a creaming soda ordered on room service at one of these luxury boutique hotels. 

Can the gratification of the rich be delayed just 6 to 8 weeks? Can they put a limit on their excesses for even that space of time? We cannot appeal to their conscience or sense of what is morally right, because they have long lost the habit of considering the needs of anyone other than themselves. 

‘Life in the fast lane, slowly makes you lose your mind’, as the Eagles sang. And the fast lane looks like it is about to become super crowded with super rich people trying to compensate themselves for lost time.