my dj name would be classic asian beach holiday

So, I pretty much suck, but I've also been travelling, so whatever. Buckle up for highlights from the last couple of weeks.

Before I left, we were watching my new favorite Hindi film, Neal n’ Nikki, and discovered that it came with director’s commentary. "What… what could he possibly have to say?" Andrew wondered aloud, as my eyes glazed over with excitement. At first we were hoping that this man could possibly explain why he had given the role of Nikki’s ex-boyfriend "Trish", who had broken her heart and was now dating a buxom Canadian woman, to a flamboyantly gay French man who is costumed for much of his screen-time in nothing but cut-offs, literally wriggling his way around the pool party he’s throwing. Mr. Sablok did not clue us in to the rationale behind his choice to us, but did, through his tireless description of the directing "process" that sounded like it was straight out of his notes from the one directing class he took when he was 19, reveal that at least in some cases Bollywood directors are depressingly unaware when they are making utter crap. At one point he says to us "now, some of you might be asking me why I cast Uday Chopra as Neal, and I think if you watch him improvise in this scene, your questions will be answered." This, followed by Uday singing an underwear ad and bouncing up and down. We know why you cast Uday, Bollywood’s biggest butterface with his ridiculously steroid-ridden body and reptilian head that looks as though it was completely constructed out of plastic and wax—his father is the producer of the film and of one of the biggest production families in the industry. The film begins with Neal going off to enjoy the last 21 days of his unmarried life in the wild and crazy city of… Vancouver! As the opening credits roll to a song that begins in English, "Right here in Vancouver/ I’m gonna’ get a lover," we learn that Vancouver is full of "aspiring actresses" who like to skinny dip and give unsolicited lap dances.

Kali Puja was just wrapping up as I left for Sri Lanka. Kali Puja is the sort of holiday that, if you didn’t know it was coming, would make you think that the entire city was under attack. The idea is basically to scare ghosts away with lights, which has for whatever reason evolved into the practice of setting off small bombs, or as they are called here, "fireworks," at all hours of the day and night. Also, a lot of men appear to be wandering around drunk, at least more than usual. "Safety" is not really a part of the whole concept, which I’m sure adds to the fun until somebody loses a hand, and just about everything you can imagine happening with lots of fireworks in a densely populated city can and does. Andrew told me that he saw a three-year-old and a six-year-old, respectively brandishing a lit sparkler and a roman candle, running around relatively unsupervised. Kali Puja is apparently the holiday of "antisocials," and the pandals for the goddess, tongue out, face covered in blood, with her awesome, crazy eyes, are built mostly using extortion money.

Speaking of "awesome" and "crazy" and "Hinduism," my friend Seema (hi Seema!) linked me to a picture of this, which is probably old news to many of you:

Oh, Heidi. You've combined 3 different gods and goddesses from the pantheon. But look at you. Who can't love that face. Even you are madly in love with you.

My flight in the general direction of Colombo left early on the morning of Halloween. I had intended to sleep at least a little bit before I left, but frequent explosive vestiges of Kali Puja, my anxiety about whether I’d wake up to my 3am alarm, and what I’m pretty positive were the sounds of a cat being beaten to death made me just power through the night with Step Up 2 The Streets as my only fuel. Ah, the fondest of memories. To celebrate Halloween the night before Andrew and I tried to watch a Paul Schrader movie called Cat People, which was heavily edited by the Indian Censory Board. As the general crux of the plot is that Malcom McDowell and Nastassja Kinski are brother and sister who, if they ever have sex with anyone other than each other, will immediately turn into "black leopards who need to kill," so much was cut from the movie that I’m still not sure what the second half of the plot is. The censors did allow us to see many nipples and Ed Begley, Jr. get his arm very graphically torn off by one of the leopards and bleed to death.

I took about 8 million flights to get down to Colombo, but my transfer in Chennai was definitely the high point, as I'm pretty sure the female security guard who frisked me behind the curtain was hitting on me. "What's your name?" she asked as she slid the wand up the inside of my thigh, looking for knives. "Where are you from? You are very cute." I never expected a woman to hit on me in India, so it's entirely possible that I misread the whole thing, but she was making eyes at me and was totally hot, so I'm chalking this one up as a boo-ya.

Here's the lowdown on Sri Lanka: it's great. It's really effing expensive compared to Kolkata, but the sheer availability of goods blew my mind. Wine! Sushi! Coffee beans! Lea lives in a way posh area (like, the "embassy" district or something) so there are bunches of expat families running about, which is weird, but nice, since unlike Kolkata people don't see a non-Sri Lankan and assume they're an asshole backpacker and therefore are much less excited by your presence. Also king coconuts! Mangoes year-round! Legit thai food! I was smitten. Lea's living in a huuuge house with a righteous lady and dude, and overall we spent more time watching Star Trek: The Next Generation than I'd care to admit. What up vacation.

I was struck most by the seemingly complete lack of dudes all over Colombo, until I realized that they're there, just unlike all the unemployed dudes in India the ones in Sri Lanka are in the army. Especially in Lea's high-security neighborhood, there are soldiers on the sidewalk every couple hundred feet and checkpoints everywhere. It's a little surprising how comfortable you can get around guns so quickly. And a strange experience for a soldier to be chatting you up while you're trying to hail a tuk-tuk, the rifle slung lazily over his shoulder pointed right at your face.

We watched the election results from a party thrown by the American Embassy at the Hilton that started at 6am. I realized today that the only pictures I took in Sri Lanka were of Lea, her roommates, and me standing with the cardboard cutouts of the candidates. That's probably a shame. We drank coffee, hung with the Ambassador, and were filmed crying during speeches by practically every member of the media in Sri Lanka. We didn't stop celebrating the election with random expats all day and night, and found ourselves in the evening at a trivia night where the scores were kept on an Excel spreadsheed projected onto a screen and where the questions, shouted by a man into a microphone in an effort to drown out some of the more enthusiastic drunk people at our table, included "WHAT IS THIS OBJECT. THIS OBJECT. WHAT IS IT." Lea and I made friends with a Swedish dude named Andreas, who won us over when he filled a lull in the conversation by resolutely pounding his fists on the table and saying "let's talk about relationships." The three of us ended up going dancing at a club that played nothing but music from the eighties, which made for some pretty high highs and low lows, including a dance mix of R.E.M.'s "Losing my Religion." Lea and I voted to leave after an hour or so, and as we were getting into the tuk-tuk Andreas bellowed with rage as he could hear the song he had requested finally being played. The song was "Mamma Mia" by Abba. He sang it the whole way home.