A sandwich shy of a picnic

Half my life I have been a guy who’s a sandwich shy of a picnic. The other half has been one big picnic. It mutates life into one phenomenal contradiction. An ad man of the Pimpernel mould, shy of the cocktail circuit, has to be a first in the showbiz of the biz world. But the other half has been on a thrill-a-minute ride, pushing boundaries dangling from airborne helicopters, exposing conspiracies and daring the wilds.

So over the years I have mastered the art of living on the edge while pulling off a 180° into near oblivion, all in the blink of an eye. What all this means is that there’s two of me and you might just happen to meet the wrong guy.

So when a caller asked me why I keep on muckraking VVIPs, all I had to do was say that he got the wrong guy. And as for the other, I said that he was on a picnic. He was! Relishing high-tea at the Galle Face Hotel. I’ll wait for him to write the rest of the column. (Listen to some music while you wait)

Right then, here we go! Checked mail while waiting for a friend to turn up. “Why do men’s clothes have buttons on the left while women have them on the left?” Mihiri Karunarathne, a reader, posed an intriguing question. I had a sneaky feeling that she was going to tell me why. When buttons were invented they were very expensive and worn mostly by the rich. Since most people are right-handed, it is easier to push buttons on the right through holes on the left. As wealthy women were dressed by maids, dressmakers put the buttons on the maid’s right! And that’s where women’s buttons have remained since.

Sat on the balmy terrace of the colonial edifice and imagined myself sipping tea, setting myself back a hundred years. Women of Edwardian splendour were strolling along the corridors, with their corsets lending a titillating lift to their bosoms. Regardless of age, it was no picnic picking out one without the hourglass replica. I scanned their…buttons with great interest and was spellbound by their beauty, until I was rudely badgered by my friend who asked why I was staring at the upper echelons of passing women.

On a weekday night I was a reluctant diner at The Taj by the Samudra. My two young sons and their friend wanted autographs of the cricketers staying there. Nothing seemed amiss when my eight-year-old walked up to Yuvraj Singh, prodded on by his mom, and held up his little book. But then he stopped in his stride and spoke to the superstar, “Excuse me, but who are you?” he said, looking right into the cricketer’s eyes. He wanted to make sure the autograph was worth it. Since then Yuvraj is said to be ruminating his retirement from all forms of cricket.

Meanwhile, the Conspiracy Desk has unmasked the biggest traffic offender in the world: two signal lights at the Kanatte Roundabout, standing just a few feet apart and facing opposite directions. The lights turn green to two lanes of traffic approaching from two different directions, causing many a near-miss. The Police have control over the lights for only a length of time and not over actual timings, calling for a recalibration of the entire circuit by the manufacturer.

Phew, you can’t even trust a traffic light these days!

(Dinesh Watawana is a former foreign correspondent and military analyst. He is a brand consultant and heads The 7th Frontier, an integrated communications agency which masterminded the globally-acclaimed eco tourism hotspot KumbukRiver. Email him at [email protected].)