White Tiger

On the 9th anniversary of the September 11th attacks, Ghostface Buddha was treated like a terrorist. Granted, as a distinguished member of the Bush-era "TerrorWatch List", this happens to me quite a bit, but I certainly did not anticipate the blossoming feud I now have with the Sri Lankan armed forces.

It had been my plan to leave the center-north of Sri Lanka and its limitless supply of crumbling Sinhalese ruins behind me by heading into the far north of the country to Jaffna, the heart of Tamil Sri Lanka. Now, it bears reminding the reader that from 1983 until 2009, Sri Lanka was convulsed in a civil war in which the Sri Lankan Army and the Tamil Tigers fought bitterly for control of the northern end of the country. None of the tourist information in print has been updated since the end of the war (which came to its conclusion with remarkable suddenness and violence), and is thus spectacularly out of date. So, I asked the locals, and everything they told me about getting to Jaffna was absolutely correct... for Sri Lankan people.

As it turns out, the army checkpost at the former Army/Tigers border still exists, and though Sri Lankan citizens can go straight through after a baggage inspection, this is not true of foreigners, because as all government beaurocrats know, Foreigners Can't Do Shit Without Stamps. So here I am at this bleak-ass army checkpost, weaseling my way out of confrontation with whichever soldier is holding my passport by playing dumb, until finally the demands of communicating the depths of their displeasure with me compells them to kick me higher and higher up the ranks until I become the personal problem of the Major-in-Command. He informs me, in a very jovial manner, that because I am a foreign dunce I cannot enter the northern zone (never mind that the final Tiger bastions were in the east...) without doing a song and dance to get some silly little stamp from the Ministry of Defence in Colombo. I remarked that this was stupid, and that the Army knew damn well foreigners are infinitely less of a security concern than, say, Sri Lankan citizens such as the ones that actually fought in the rebel/terrorist armies in aforementioned war. The Major responded that nevertheless, I needed to be accounted for. My wise-ass impulses seized control of me at yet another critical moment. "Oh, so I must be one of the White Tigers!" I exclaimed. This, I immediately realized, was massively, massively foolish. The Major gave me a look which showed my feline-subspecies witticism had flown right over his head with a dreadful whooshing sound, and as far as he was concerned I had just made a crude and somewhat nonsensical racist joke, completely devoid of zoological humor, while simultaneously identifying myself with the murderous bands of ultra-hardline guerillas that he had been fighting his entire career. The outcome, needless to say, was not to my advantage. Within a very short span of time my ass was deposited on the first bus heading in the opposite direction, with no inquiries made as to its destination.

After various peregrinations involving a fair deal of standing around in the rain at unpronounceable Tamil village intersections, I finally returned to Anuradhapura where I had started the day. Lacking anything more productive to do, I came to this very internet cafe. Much to my surprise, I ran into a fine young lady, who we shall call Deelipa, with whom I recently had a perfectly enjoyable evening of light romance. She was much more surprised to see me, given that I was supposed to be 200 kilometers away, but nevertheless informed me that she was glad I was here, and that furthermore she had sent me an email in my brief absence. This email, I discovered while she monitored my reactions, contained a considerable number of floral/botanical similes, and also discussed with remarkable certainty our meetings in past and future lives.

That, at least, was something I could work with. I now have another dinner date this evening, and another in the year 7503 A.D.

Sri Lanka is fucking weird.