How to dress like a fat Kandyan prince
My brother gets married in beautiful Kandy. I mall hop in Colombo with some geeks.
This is a travel journal of our adventures in South East Asia. Trust a bunch of Newfoundlanders to find trouble no matter where they go! You can read the entries as we climb Mt. Kinabalu and explore some parts of Thailand. A month after we left, this entire region was devastated by the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004. We were very lucky to have witnessed life and adventure before that and our hearts go out to everyone in this journal who might have been affected. A gallery of photos from this trip is available on my photos site.
9am December 4, 2004 Colombo, Sri Lanka
The unthinkable has happened. I’ve lost one of the camera memory cards. Thankfully, it’s the card with the descent and the photos from the Grand Palace in Bangkok. At least Keli has photos of all that, and I’m not too worried about the ones from Poring. If it had been Phang Nga, I would have been devastated—or worse, from Mt. Kinabalu.
Oh well, shit happens.
So, the wedding. I arrived in Colombo and attempted to buy a washing machine.
To my surprise, I couldn’t find a duty-free shop with this at first. Wandering around the arrival terminal, I finally discovered an amazing warehouse with everything under the sun. I found the machine my mum had described and—oops—not allowed because I don’t hold a Sri Lankan passport anymore.
"Sir, I understand, and you seem like a nice person, and we would let you go through, but they are checking outside now because of a new government budget. Oh, and it’s just as cheap outside," said the lovely customs official.
Probably a good thing—no delivery anyway!
The driver and van I had requested were waiting for me—his name was Ranjith. As I talked to him, my Sinhalese started improving. It was quite comical trying to communicate at first. He was a nice guy and drove fairly carefully. Finally, at 2 a.m., I arrived at my parents' house. After an extended homecoming, I fell asleep to millions of mosquitoes draining my blood.
Yay. Good to be in muggy Sri Lanka again.
In the morning, we drove to Kandy in the central hill country. As with all our trips in the past, after driving a short way, my mum decided she couldn’t remember what we did with the dogs, so back we went to check. This always happens.
Traffic was unbelievable. My dad and my oldest brother, Harsha—he’s the one getting married—had gone on ahead in my brother’s car. Seemed like an odd thing for the groom to drive his own car to his own wedding. I mean, his mind must be on other things! But they said they would drive slow and carefully. As I said, the traffic was unbelievable. I felt like I was inside a computer game, a combination of Frogger and Smash Up Derby.
Hmm, I wonder if we could make a game called "Asian Taxi." As the levels increase, the drivers get more annoying and incomprehensible, and then the traffic gets more insane. The task? Get from one area to another in an Asian city. Could be a number one seller!
My other brother, Miuru, said that with the new government budget, they had increased all traffic fines, including one for "careless driving," from Rs. 200 to Rs. 1,500. In response, the bus drivers, instead of driving more carefully and reducing the fines, increased the fares to cope with the fines.
Gotta love Sri Lankans!
The drive was fairly uneventful, and we arrived in Kandy six hours later—note that this was a 110 km drive, so you can imagine the pace and traffic from just that. We checked into the Earl’s Regency Hotel, where the wedding was to be held, visited the Temple of the Sacred Tooth, and bought all sorts of clothes and things that I needed. It was sweet—my brother was all stressed. He didn’t say it, but he was. It was a 5 a.m. start the next morning, and I was already feeling slightly sick from traveling.
My brother was up at 4:30 a.m. (at least)—mind you, I did wake up a couple of times in the night thinking wild animals were attacking, only to discover that it was him snoring. By 6 a.m., we were ready, and breakfast was here. Soon, the dress-up guy arrived with the clothes. I chivalrously allowed my brother to get dressed first (well, because I’m evil and wanted to take photos).
The costume was layers upon layers of clothes designed to make you look fat (not jolly) and basically like a Kandyan prince from the 18th or 19th century. It was pretty cumbersome and quite heavy to wear.
At 7:45, we went to meet the bride and the bridal party for photos—my brother had chosen well. Shalika was very lovely; she would be very good for him. Some of the photos made no bloody sense—there was a lot of acting involved, e.g., the bride looking to the heavens. Oh yes, and the bridal bouquet had started fermenting, which lent a lovely fragrance to the proceedings.
By 9:30, we were all tiring of photos. Shalika plaintively said, "I think this is enough now!" Her three cousins, the youngest bridesmaids, were very cute (all under 9 years old, I think), and I shamelessly teased them that the gel used in their hair wouldn’t wash away. I am evil; they were shocked.
At 10 a.m., the groom and his party were downstairs with the drummers and dancers, and the procession headed to the ballroom. As my brother entered, his feet were washed according to tradition, and then we all stood next to a Poruwa, a traditional wedding stand. Finally, at the appointed time, the bridal party was also ushered in by dancers and drummers.
Did I mention that the costume I was wearing made breathing a little difficult? Oh, and going to the bathroom would have been impossible. I’m sure this must have made the kings and princes quite irritable.
Anyway, back to the ceremony.
The bridal party stood on the other side of the Poruwa. The entire proceeding was blessed with prayers, and finally, at the proper time—to the second, and my father, the time fanatic, was keeping track of it—the couple stood on the Poruwa and carried out some traditional rituals, which I had no clue about.
These appointed times, by the way, were dictated by the star alignments. Pretty, ummm, complicated. And again, at the right time, they descended, lit a ceremonial lamp (and almost set hundreds of flowers on fire by mistake), and then signed the marriage certificates.
That was it—my brother was officially married!
After a few more photos, I made a beeline to get out of the costume. My poor brother had to wear it until lunch. Poor guy. Hope he didn’t have to go to the bathroom.
Later in the afternoon, the couple "went away" on their honeymoon. Actually, they just came through a back entrance and returned to the hotel. Anyway, that was that—my brother was married off.
Now, for god’s sake, have some children so that I can get off the hook for grandchildren!
The next ceremony was the "Homecoming", when the couple would return to their (my parents') house. That was on Monday. We returned to Colombo later that evening.
Plan for Saturday—today—go shopping and meet a pen-pal, the journalist I’ve been corresponding with, and her friends.
7pm December 4, 2004 Colombo, Sri Lanka
Disaster has been averted. Mum found the missing memory card. A big, sad weight has been lifted from my shoulders!
I made plans to meet a Sri Lankan friend at Liberty Plaza in Colombo, a place she described as “dead”—in other words, no longer the “happening” place in Colombo. While waiting at the designated Pizza Hut at the agreed time, she messaged saying, "Be there ASAP." I later discovered that we needed to make two more additions to Asian English:
"ASAP" — As soon as possible, which may include navigating miles of heavy traffic.
"In two seconds..." — It’s close, if you consider ten minutes of traffic as "two seconds."
This is not just a Sri Lankan phenomenon, as these two phrases also came up while waiting for various things in Phuket and elsewhere.
Finally, I met my friend, who is a journalist for a leading newspaper in Sri Lanka. She had been my Sri Lankan pen pal ever since she read my article on arranged marriages online. It was good to put a face to the emails.
We quickly caught a Bajaj (a three-wheeler) to Majestic City—apparently, the happening mall of Colombo.
Majestic City is a big mall. No more, no less. I picked up the necessary shirts, trousers, books, and CDs while waiting for my journalist friend’s friend Shaun to join us. Shaun works for a tech firm, and they set about showing this wayward former child of Lanka around their city.
It soon became apparent that this tour was certainly unique. It involved several malls ("Department stores,"_ corrected my pen pal), IT exhibitions, and bizarre conversations about blood drinking.
I was beginning to wonder if I had unknowingly joined some secret Sri Lankan cult of blood-drinking, mall-hopping geeks.
Nevertheless, they did not throw me out of the car for my dry, sarcastic humor (which was a good thing, as I had no idea which way was home). All in all, a good time with non-relatives for an afternoon in the city of my birth.
Hopefully, they (and more) will keep in touch with me when I return to Canada.