Visible Voices 4

I first ran into these guys way back in 2009, when I joined the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Moratuwa, as an instructor. We scattered (and grew old) when 2012 came!

Visible Voices 3

Srimal (my colleague at work) explains his master plan of buying a car from the UK. It goes something like this....

Visible Voices 2

The local universities came down to a standstill when the academic staff decided to go on strike, demanding a hike in fund allocation for education. It has been 3+ months of an unofficial vacation for the kids until today. My department, Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) has been defying the strike with gusto!

Visible Voices 1

My colleague Sujith, learnt the acerbic side of waiting until the last moment, when he had to come to work 10 hours before his flight to get his visa ready!

Miss Muffet

And so we had a blast bidding farewell to March & sending the welcome wagon to April, the month of festivities. The Onions' Get-together got off to an extremely delayed yet as-happening-as-Sri-Lankan-weather start. However, the writer feels the get-together missed the icing on the cake because of Miss Muffet's absence.

Since, Miss Muffet bought her motor bike, as warned by many concerned, her life has been extremely accident prone. Although to normal folk wheels provide infinite freedom, Miss Muffet finds herself a little too pressed for time and riding her scooter all over the streets of Colombo. Being the good Samaritan she is, Miss Muffet heart goes out to every living creature, which usually results in her riding off to adventure after adventure. However, the writer feels Miss Muffets problem is trying to juggle more balls than her small hands can accommodate.

Miss Muffet has been happening for the past couple of years, since the cosmic powers at her workplace shifted in her favor. Although her progress had been slightly marred by a few stumbles in her way, one often sees Miss Muffet sitting at a corner waiting for the next earthquake to hit. The writer's recommendation is that Miss Muffet is the BEST sidekick one can ever ask for. As the writer herself has accompanied Miss Muffet on many of her own cut-throat-assignments and actually manged to come out in one piece, Miss Muffet's dependability can be 100% guaranteed.




Nowadays, Miss Muffet is wanted by many at her workplace, perhaps more wanted than the HoD himself. However, Miss Muffet wants one person. A dependable man who moves her like her motor bike. Miss Muffet has had a few shots with regard to that aspect, according to the news the writer has received from Miss Muffet herself. Nevertheless, the man who moves her still remains elusive. For all goodness she had bestowed upon many around her, the writer hopes the man who moves her arrives sooner than later, preferably riding a Mini! :)


Helping people has always been Miss Muffet's strong trait. It is indeed very rare to see somebody who selflessly helps those around, and Miss Muffet is the best example of a person possessing that rare feature. Often subtitled as Goalee among her peers (for maintaining the solid record of catching all "balls passed" at her direction), Miss Muffet is a silent complainer who gets the job done regardless the piece of crap for whom she is doing the job.

Rumor has it that Miss Muffet is soon to leave the place she had so laboriously held together. Like her compatriot, who left before her in search of pretty village divas, Miss Muffet has too grown weary of her surroundings and is now on the lookout for a change. The place will never be the same without Miss Muffet sitting at her corner or riding her scooter down the winding roads. For her sake, the writer dearly hopes the change will not only affect Miss Muffet's location but also her relationship status.

We are sorry, she couldn't make it to the get-together, which rolled on nicely despite the limited turn out. Likewise, Miss Muffet's life will roll on, hopefully as nice as the person Miss Muffet is!

Why Do We Love You?

For me, farewells always ignite an aura of boredom; one reason because after the farewell you find yourself wondering how to adjust to the change. The other reason for this aura of boredom is the fact that you end up remembering all the good times, which will be hard, if not impossible to come by from now onwards.

This note salutes, a friend we all love and will dearly miss. Although it is possible the man has gone in search of greener pastures and possibly better looking village divas, having given us the excuse of finding a better job, we all wish him well and very best of luck in either upgrading his status or his bank account balance!

“We are all travellers in the wilderness of this world, and the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend” , said Robert Louis Stevenson a Scottish Essayist, Poet and Author. It hardly matters if you have read any of RLS's work or not, for the point of this script is to highlight a remarkable individual who breezed into few of our groupies' lives and breezed out just as swiftly.

For someone who has been in many soups other people just pushed toward me, a dependable person is quite hunky dory. I am indeed very grateful for this high priced individual to have been the salt, the pepper, the carrots and the leaks of all my soups, which not only ended up tasting great, but also made them other folks want it more! (yes this soup is vegetable because I don't eat meat!) If you ever have found yourself in a situation, where you would desperately want a person to say yes, you know the relief you feel when somebody pops up out of nowhere and says yes! This note is dedicated to such an individual who resisted the butterflies, the threats and most importantly the risks of failure just to stand up and say yes when needed.

Deliverance is a strange thing! We often see deliverance loafing around places where it is redundant. The past few years has been a time which deliverance did not fail the few of us who needed it the most. If you ever wanted to see deliverance, packed in a spectacle-d, brown, fat belly package, our subject will be that package!

People around the place I spend most of my time, have a lousy sense of humor. This is probably due the fact that most of them have spent 2/3s of their lives being geeks. Sadly, the few times one manages to strike a funny chord, us the normal folk actually feel sorry for the fellow for his/her tepid efforts. Our subject in discussion however, was never short of smiles and madness, which added the much needed life and color to a seemingly gloomy environment.

During his time, this individual has got accustomed to this strange habit of hibernation. Unfortunately for him, his choice of hibernation location was as lousy as some of the decisions he has made in his life! We hope for his sake he finds a better hibernation joint than a data communication lab when he moves on to the brand new terrain. The fellow inhabitants of his designated work area, (especially Miss Muffet) was quite annoyed of this hibernation habit. Having witnessed the constant mid-hibernation interruptions, I am not sure our subject got the sleep he was looking for! Let Deliverance be upon him to bless him with a brand new hibernation joint, with comfortable chairs and air-conditioning and less of Miss Muffets.

We hope the adventures ahead of him will be exciting. If he is lucky, those adventures will be as exciting as the adventures he is leaving behind. He leaves in the terminator style; with a loud flash and a "I-will-be-back". Having seen the predicament of his predecessors, we highly doubt if he will be able to keep up with this promise.

The man hopes to fall into some track once he settles down in his new environment. Sometimes I wonder if this track is visible only to his type, for he has been falling into this track for ages and never seemed to finish falling into it. For all goodness he possesses and he shared with all his friends, let's pray he finds this track or the track finds him, which ever comes first! :)

Adios friend. We shall not draw the curtains nor close doors. You are loved and will always be loved by more than just one person.

Why Do I Need Money

Loot, regardless the form and the source of its origin is a treasured commodity. People usually complain about big numbers if the numbers are about hip size, waist, or weight. Fortunately for loot, bigger is most definitely better. It is one of the few phenomenons in this world that one can not have enough of! Let's pick an everyday mortal and ask if he/she has money. I think I have a better chance shedding 20 kilos than that person giving a yes to that question! Loot requires respect and a whole lot of it! One would speculate, looking at the seemingly neutral bills and coins that its relatively harmless and is ready to execute whatever you demand. This is wrong! As far as loot is concerned, going from hero to zero is not decided on how many zeros are added where, but WHO adds how many zeros where.



According to social norms, the one possessing loot is a respected person. Now I see most of you jumping up and down vehemently trying to deny this statement. This denial is usually accompanied by philosophical outbursts such as "it is not money, it is the virtues that value", "people with money are usually morons and thieves" etc. Sadly for us, we are not governed by philosophy. One fine thing to note however is, neither is money! :)



So, why do I need money?



I need money to be a geek.

Sure! To travel all over the world, attending this meeting, that convention, this presentation, that workshop, start a geeky business, spread the geeky love... the list is endless. Exhibiting geeky grandeur is a favorable trait, for many of us can not do that. I don't think geeks will rule, but I am sure with the truckload of money they own (doing similar geeky things), they are pretty close to ruling at some point in future.



I need money to be fun(ny).

Entertaining people is hard work. The worst is entertaining old people. I think with age, like the other 206 bones we possess, the fun(ny) bone too turns brittle! Entertaining old folk, therefore is a costly adventure, which usually returns more complains than complements. It is an accepted fact that fun people spend to remain fun. Funny people on the other hand earn to remain funny!



I need money to be rich

Loot brings riches. Unfortunately, the inflow of loot paves way to unthinkable out flows. Such is the bizarre properties of loot! It takes more than luck to be rich and remain rich. What do you need? More loot.



I need money to be in debt

There is this friend of mine, who earns a salary, pays the debtors and still manages to be in debt. It is amazing how that person does that, and that specimen certainly is study-worthy. One hopes, one day that person will find the balance of loot as the Avatar found the balance of the four elements and defeated Fire Lord Ozai.



Come the day loot loses this talent to make us want to be one thing and the opposite of that thing at the same time, we will all lose interest, literally. Regardless, its loose ends, I love loot. I am not sure loot loves me, because it never seems to stick with me. Despite the rejection, my door is always open... for loot!