CREDO: The festival of light that signifies an inextinguishable faith

CREDO: The festival of light that signifies an inextinguishable faith

Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Here on this gloomy day in Colombo, I’d rather wish I wrote something about getting US spousal visa – alas, the End Of The World Is Nigh people got the better of me, so here you are reading their handiwork. Now, this most certainly is a visa matter. Look at it this way. Accordingly to Australian government, the Sri Lanka boat people are coming there in hordes because they find it impossible to live here. Now that this accursed planet is going to blow up or something, we ALL need a visa from here to elsewhere. Yet despite of my knowledge on visas and immigration, I can’t think of a place to go from here. Martians are unlikely to welcome the bigoted small minded Earthlings, the Jovians find us distasteful, can’t go to Mercury as it is damn hot out there (besides Vulcan is not such a nice guy to stick around with anyways), and Venusians are too sexy for us!

As much as the situation of going elsewhere is hopeless, there is one consolation for me so far as no one had rung me up to ask if it's possible to get a consultation on going from here to another planet. If they did, they would not be disappointed as I had just negotiated with the beings at Arcturus Sector 5, who are quite happy to welcome the entire population of Earth, provided we find our own means of transportation. There is one little question that nags my conscience though, someone told me that they are having an acute shortage of edible meats up there… Oh, nevermind, it's deadmeat anyways and what’s so morally wrong in making a buck or two while the sun shines above?    

Making an excursion into ground reality, the matter does not become funny at all. One person narrated a view held by some Christian sect – Satan is very angry with the shape of things (not referring to the female kind, they are in good shape alright, Satan can go to hell if he is unhappy with that shape) and that Satan, in his anger, will hit the world with his hand so the world will break up into pieces. Fortunately for the believers of the sect, those pieces with believers will be left unharmed while those with unbelievers will perish. Good for them, except if at the time of Satan’s blow, let us say that a bus had both believers and unbelievers on it… Or, if it happens that an unbeliever is f*%#ing a believer at the time – I mean unlike in the bus scenario, these two would be a bit difficult to be separated…

Or here is a juicier bit from the local astrologers – the bastards who appear on sycophantic government sucking up local television stations -   “the world maybe destroyed, but Sri Lanka will remain intact..”. Either this stupid country exists not on this planet or people who believe these a-holes have no brains. Assuming that somehow this is possible, the Sri Lankans will have a worse fate than death in stock for them. The country does not even produce a bearing ball, let alone any form of medicine or oil or enough food for them to eat. So the unscathed sole survivors of imminent world destruction will be constantly assailed by severe tooth pains, every form of disease known to man including gonorrhea, will have no transport, no plastic, oh and no food. Have you ever had a severe tooth pain while you are dead hungry with a scratchy feeling on your privates? Let us leave that to the imagination from here onwards, yet I find it a bit difficult to recruit volunteers, even the most intrepid types to inhabit this land after the apocalypse.

What I am going to tell you is that people here are indeed scared out of their wits. There had been three confirmed meteorite falling here in last week (highest figure for recent times – mostly because people are ogling the skies), floods in uncalled for places (including yesterday), fish rains in three confirmed locations including near Ruhunu University, and to top it all, red-rain (most likely some fungal agent) in two locations, and here in Colombo it's cold and gloomy with little visibility of sun throughout the day. No, Mother nature is not helping either. You could hardly walk into a public place without having to overhear a conversation referring to end of the world, and the idiots at mass media are fuelling the fears through their own theories of the outcome. It is surely understandable why we are so worried what’s in stock for us on 21^st December.

Worried or otherwise, I too have a serious concern over this matter, and it's not the fellers at Arcturus Sector with their food problem. No kids, all that matters not. Not a single one of the pretty female variety I accosted on streets and asked “How about some fun before the end of the world babe..?” had responded positively – and that for me is a matter of grave seriousness than the planetary doom.

I hope they’d all regret their decision when the ground below them starts to give the shakes, for I alone have a visa and meal tickets for two at The Restaurant at the End of the Universe….No wonder they call girls silly, huh.

The life @ 42nd Street

Once upon a time, long before the advent of horrifying prospects of impending doom of this small minded, uncivilized planet, in a town named after an engineer, there was a night club called the 42^nd Street. Oh, there was another club there too, but that would not be advisable to go there because the Ice House was full of pre-teen schoolgirls. Well, except in the case of those seeking some bent forms of companionship that is.

I am telling you this because UK visa officers attached to Colombo have a form of perversion that prevents them from considering “other” possibilities. Someone might go to Ice House simply to get away from drunken hefty builder type in white vans, for an example. Alas, a perverted mind sees no alternative possibility bar the one that his perversion forces upon him. Having to deal with UK ECO’s as a part of my life, I get to appreciate the hurdles encountered by people who have a confused perception of reality. Schizophrenia in short.

It is important that you know how wound up these people are if you are seeking to apply for UK or Canada visa from Colombo – or from many other third world countries for that matter. A recent juicy bit from a UK ECO refusal letter reads as follows “and I note that you have not submitted any evidence of your personal and financial circumstances. The documents provided with your application are all in the name of Mr. XYZ, yet you have provided no evidence as to your relationship or why he would offer to fund this trip for you”. Sounds fine, except for the fact that the schizop@ UKHC.colombo had ignored there is £ 7,000+ of cash in her (applicant’s) bank account since about two years ago, and the guy involved in the case is her f$%@ing husband.

Actually there is a piece of evidence that the ECO at UKHC Colombo subtly demands from ladies. But it is a bit technically difficult to provide within the limits of decency, then again in these enlightened days, nothing is beyond being considered possible. How much of wife problems these people have I do not know, neither do I intend to venture to seek out – who knows, it could be a female pervert hiding behind those acronyms!

Switching back to the original discussion, in that town which was named after the engineer, the one which had two night clubs, there is this little weakness amongst the town people, or so the saying goes – at least among the people outside of that town. It says that everyone in the town with two night clubs look a bit the same. Now I am not making this up or anything, but come to think of it, they indeed do look a bit alike. One is left to wonder why. Here having a dozy first day @ 42^nd Street, enjoying the idle flow of life and wondering what it could be like at the other place (the one with little schoolgirls that is), I look at their faces and they are increasingly becoming similar to one another, facewise that is. Will an ECO consider this be a good enough reason to go about a place – to see a place where everyone looks alike? One day I’d like to write that on a visa application, under the reasons for your travel category, and wait to see the reaction. Wound up like rubber-bands, who knows if that would fit in with their altered reality.

Do you know why? Because no amount of evidence that the man funding the trip is a woman’s fu@%ing husband will cut no ice with them, and considering where these perverts are actually coming from (country of origin that is) I wonder what fate would await them little girls at the Ice House.