The Chronicles of PETTI Peruma & AAPA Dorei

It seems that my previous entry has been misunderstood by some of my readers. Now when i talk about everyday bodily extensions such as slippers, i do not mean to universalize my claims in any way. For to claim that all those wearing helth slippers are sri lankans would be problematic. Firstly health slippers may be worn by tourists 'patronizing' the beaches of Hikkaduwa or the more remote beaches near Galle! Secondly, what about those not wearing the hybrid slippers? Well, as I alluded to last time around, no need to feel any frustration...You too are Lankan--in your non-healthy slippery way ;)

All that talk about McDonalds, got me hungry and thinking.

Which is when i remembered my childhood friend by the name of 'petti'. Yes Yes, the ‘petti pan’, with its brown, and at times teeth cracking crust, semi-soft interior and half-burnt under layer!

The story of petti paan, from the fragmented social memory that i can muster, is interestingly a political and social one. My generation of readers may recall the year 1994! Someone by the name of KBC came to the realm of bread making supremacy on promises of a solution to the bread-makers problems. O those days, when the petti paan costed just 3 stones and 50 pebbles! To quote a newspaper report gone awry: Lankans sell bread for country, Only Tunai Panahai! Did the journalist ever stop to consider that the bread actually tastes good?

Apart from the politics of it, we should also recall the narratives of bread-making itself. The yuppies of Ko-lerm-bow would say, “have you ever been inside one of those bakeries? i prefer sandwich bread” Yes i have been inside those bakeries! And frankly, they smell good and the bread tastes even better!

Now apart from the parody of food and consumption regimes in SL, much remains to be said about the bread itself in the diasporic context. As Lankans living abroad, apart from the family, friends and significant loved ones that we miss; we also crave for that authentic lankan taste of crackling petti pan, dhall and pol sambol... to taste lanka!

Of course this notion of ‘authentic’ needs to be problematized a bit. Let me demostrate this by calling upon, the well-known cousin of petti, Aapa! Aapa, many would claim is a Sri Lankan construct, born and bre(a)d. I would phrase my claim differently by asking, how much of it is a Sri Lankan construct?

If we are to ask the genealogist, he/she would state something entirely different. As a good friend once exclaimed, “I dont think Aapa was born in SL, didn't he migrate from South India many many years ago?” And anyways, does it even matter where he came from? He is here now, lets eat him!

I would like to make two points in this regard. First, there is no such thing as “authentic” lankan or “watever” cuisine. Second, (and i claim the first because of the second) is that there is no way to find out the “origins” of Aapa or petti. For the more you dig, the deeper the whole gets, we discover more and more Aapa's of a kind. But no true Adam or Eve of Aapa’s. So then who indeed own Aapa? No-one, Aapa is not a slave! Aapa is free! Maybe thats why he chose to make SL his “home”.

Maybe (and this is where i openly celebrate my biases), we should stop “looking” for whats authentic about 'us' or 'them' and just appreciate the 'actual' for what is. For after all, does this not make us hybrid creatures? Lets celebrate how “messed up” Aapa is, and not let it be a fault line like the one which lies between KBC and Prada! Maybe, and this is a big maybe mind you, its time we all stop worrying about who made Petti first or where Aapa came from and just eat them!

Oh hold on, i think Petti is at the door, but am i not in Singapore...? He just got himself a new passport! Petti's going global! See what i mean?

Hybrid Slippers!

I have to say, I have always made fun of people who seem to "blog away" their lives on this "space" we commonly refer to as the internet. However, given the sort of experiences that "life" as we know it, has chosen to throw at me this past year, I can’t help but think--maybe it is a good idea to express thoughts into a wilderness, which seems oh so untamable. Call me a hypocrite, for seeking the very medium that I rejected for so long?

As I sit down to write this first and entry, nothing seems to come to mind. And I am not a fan of publishing my personal life on the net (that is, assuming I actually have one). Maybe I should start with something that I am currently working on in terms of my honors year thesis, which is on the Internally Displaced Persons in Sri Lanka due to the ethnic conflict. So what about them? well, for starters, its amazing how, when most people think of Sri Lanka, they either imagine stereotypical images of clear blue beaches or a "bloody" war. Of course, and to tell you the truth (if there is such a thing), Sri Lanka has been on the news for all the wrong things of late. And by "of late" I mean the past twenty years or so. Emerging from the colonial construct of the "model colony", it seems to have gone to the "model case study" when it comes to understanding "ethnic conflict" in modernity. Yet, and running the risk of sounding truistic, the picture of warred bodies is more complicated than that. But that is a topic best left for another day.

The aim of this blogspace or blog or whatever it is that you may choose to call it, is to actually produce a "systematic" (but in no ways hegemonic) critique of the "Sri Lanka story". For after all, what is this idea of Sri Lanka that we all have? And as this blog seeks to highlight, we must look to explore alternative conceptions and understandings of "Sri Lanka" that don’t seem to make it into the news. Let me address, first of all, the idea of Sri Lanka by moving away from its territorial boundaries. In other words, what does Sri Lanka mean to those living abroad?

The notions of "Diaspora" and its related theme "Identity" have been explored heavily by academic discourse; and intellectual constructions of such problematic categorizations is far from complete. For instance, one postcolonial critic by the name of Rey Chow asks the question: Where have all the natives gone? By this Chow is referring to the idea of 'how', for instance, people in the Diaspora produce an imagined and at times romanticized idea of the "nation" which seems to await them back home. Whether such an imagined homeland is true or not, is anybodies guess. Yet, until they return home, certain other mediums and bodily extensions begin to emerge, so this sense of longing can be quenched. Temporarily at least.

Now why am I talking about such amorphous theories? Are you bored? Hold on, it just gets interesting here--I think.

Well, let’s take Slippers as an example to explicate my point. Yes Slippers, the rubbery things which you and I wear and walk around when we go about our business. As I choose to label them, slippers represent the true "wretched of the earth". So here is the story of a slipper called Health... Two friends and I were seated sipping on our "cuppsa tea" (excuse the expression--postcolonial hangover :p) couple of weeks ago, and we noticed, that for many Sri Lankans living abroad, the idea of wearing HEALTH SLIPPERS is very appealing. Personally, I admit buying a couple of pairs every time I go back, and it would be very hard for you to spot me around campus or Singapore without them. (Now at this point, some of my readers may just reject this stupid nonsensical observation and claim that it just means "nothing"--or by the most convenient question--SO WHAT?) But hold on just yet!

This is what I think---Why most Sri Lankans do wear this particular brand of slippers is that, even though they are living away from home, they would still like to "think", to rationalize, and to "imagine", that they are "grounded" in Sri Lanka. Let me make this clearer. The tingle one gets, when those little spikes prick away--is Sri Lanka! The comfortable numbness is a sense of "psychological identification", helping the person wearing the HEALTH SLIPPER "feel closer to home"! In other words, I am Sri Lankan, hear me step!

The most amazing thing about these slippers is their "hybrid" identities. Yes! Yes! These slippers are "alive" in the most liveliest of ways. Despite what’s going on in Sri Lanka today, the slippers are worn by every Sri Lankan. No racial or ethnic boundaries seem to matter. It seems to me, the slippers have enabled us to transcend petty ideas of primordial ethnic bonds! Now don’t deny it, but how many times have you spotted a "Lankan" by his slippers? These slippers, to use a most apt Backstreet Boys quote, are: Larger Than Life!

As such, this roaring of Health Slipper Fans all around the world, I suppose, is a reconcilation of some form of a Freudian frustration of "identification"; that we all, as Sri Lankans living abroad attempt to negotiate at one time or another. For after all, we are all, in some sort of an "exile", and the longing to go back home is ever present. Right?

Until then, health slippers, where are you?