u/Z_Master123

Found this in a Damro showroom lol. It's in the dehiwala branch, ground floor.

(Where's my money, Damro? Jk ofc)

First of all, Eid Mubarak.

(And no, I don't got watalappam. It ran away on a—I finished it.)

Ok let's get on with it. This is gonna be a long one so buckle up.

Since my childhood, I've been surrounded by/exposed to all three languages.

I'm sure a lot/numerous/many/few can relate to this.

Naturally that's how a person has the opportunity to become a trilingual.

For me, I spoke, thought and dreamt in English. And usually for the people who didn't live in areas where English is widely spoken like Colombo, most of the times it ended up leaving them in shock or they start inquiring on what languages are spoken at home once they find out about it.

I mean, I'd be taken by surprise if a guy who spoke mostly in Sinhala or Tamil around me says that their mothertongue is English. And when people act surprised on how I talk fluently, I would be left confused since that's the language I grew up in.

It's like how people be asking the grammar rules with English when I can't remember almost half of them. I just usually say a sentence and go;

"Yeah, that doesn't sound right."

And keep trying until it feels right. This happens a lot when I'm writing something.

(But yeah,I still got the Sri Lankan accent with me lol)

But there of course comes the challenge when you gotta go outside and communicate with non-english speakers.

Not everyone understands English and it also feels nice to be able to talk using another person's mothertongue and communicate with them.

Sometimes it either ends up coming out broken and ends up being mocked for messing up the language they grew with OR you just end up leaving people giving you confused looks, trying to figure out what you're trying to say.

The latter group is one of the best people out there since they'd sometimes correct you with best intentions or won't point it out and interrupt the flow since they piece together what you're trying to say instead of making it a joke.

It even recently warmed my heart when a few adults that I knew from my childhood were amazed when I spoke to them recently cuz of how much better I've gotten with my Sinhala. Honestly, I am not that good. I still make silly mistakes and can't use or understand some heavy words but I can carry a normal day to day conversation fluently. Even do grocery shopping without much hassle.

I've gotten better with Tamil but it almost gets nothing said about it because it's almost expected of since most Muslims in Sri Lanka speak in Tamil.

But yeah, the sense of achievement had its reasons. And of course the primary reason was grocery. Yes, you read that right. GROCERY.

xxxxcx

One of my worst nightmares (figure of speech lol) started around 10 years back when I was a kid where I was supposed to buy some salt and something else from a grocery shop in my parent's hometown. FYI, almost no one speaks English there.

I understood Sinhala and Tamil fairly well. I spoke decent in both of them languages (but a bit slow and lacked the vocabulary, holding me back from coming up with arguments on the spot back then).

Also, I wasn't the best with numbers in either of those languages, except for English. And something told me English wasn't gonna save me here.

Normally I have this habit of asking the Sinhala names of what I'm supposed to buy, before I go out. And then I keep repeating them till I reach the shop just so I don't forget and end up doing charades in front of the shop owner.

So, back to the nightmare (again, figure of speech), I go into the shop and once I ask for the salt and the other stuff, he says the total amount I have to pay in Sinhala.

I assumed it was less than 500 by going with the way the Sinhala number sounded and also doing a rough calculation in my head (salt and some thing weighed in grams, idk the price). When I handed him the 500 note, he said it wasn't enough.

He realized that I didn't understand him and then THIS GUY proceeded to say the amount in Tamil. And I still failed to understand him, but when I handed him another 100, he fell silent and started to search for the balance.

I stood there, not knowing how much the balance while he searched for the balance, the sound of coins rattling in the cash drawer. He hadn't said how much the balance was (which normally no one does) nor could I rely on my own mind calculation so I assumed it was a very small amount since I've been standing there for what almost felt like a minute while he kept searching for coins.

I grew impatient. Remembering how my dad used to let people keep the change when they don't got the balance to give back, especially when it's a small amount, I decided to do just that. It's like a good deed too, right?

When I said that it's okay, he looked at me like he was offended. And then he said how I must think that I'm so rich that I don't care about 15 rupees. (And for some reason, I understood that when he said it in Sinhala)

And in my head, I was like "so this guy was taking so long for 15 rupees??"

Then a customer came into the shop and the shopkeeper goes on to say to the customer how I tried to leave the 15 rupee balance and how I must be feeling like I'm wealthy and all that since I don't care about money much. And he also asked what do I even know since I don't know Sinhala and Tamil. But I just stood there, watching In silence as he and the customer shook their heads in disappointment. I grabbed my stuff and got out of there, obviously pissed off at him since I didn't even mean it in that way. I was also mad at myself since I didn't know enough words to explain myself.

Since that day, I made sure to practice my numbers when it comes to grocery shopping especially.

I still can mess up on rare occasions which usually occurs due to me mishearing what they said. Or just me making a silly mistake when it comes to speaking.

Like the time where I went to buy some eggs and I had initially said "desiya wissa ta biththara oone". I rechecked the 250 rupees I had and decided to use it all. So I said, "desiya panahak denna".

The shop employee and an old lady looked at me in an amused manner. He asked me "koken da geniyanne"

I was confused. Wasn't it obvious?

"Shopping bag eken." I replied.

He chuckled, pointing at the crate of eggs.

"mn ahuwe Eka kohomoda oya geniyanne kyla. Desiya panahak thiyanawa oke"

That's when it hit me. I should have said "desiya panahata." Not "desiya panahak". I knew something felt wrong when I had said it earlier but I ignored it.

Yeah, sometimes the languages all mix together and it becomes a kottu. Like a cheese dolphin kottu. It's either Tinglish or Singlish nowadays also, which makes things easier to be honest but also makes things puzzling at times lol.

So yeah, languages. They can be a blessing and a curse at times fr.

​

Since many of you guys loved the previous post, I decided to let y'all have this too.

In almost every bus, we have rows of three seats on the side. In those three, I personally like to think that the middle one has gotta be the best and the worst one out of the three.

Hear me out.

Pros;

When the bus takes curves, you can transfer the weight and lean on another person. But if you sat on either the right of left side, you're gonna have to be squeezed between a hard surface and soft flesh/mattress/human.

But if you had sat in the middle seat, you'd be in between two soft mattresses/humans.

And let's not forgot that they are warm.

I personally find it easier to sleep that way compared to being thrown from side to side or having two people's weight fall onto me.

But of course there are down sides to this.

(This might get a bit insensitive, so apologies in advance)

Cons;

If the people on your sides are fat/big/wide/round/horizontally dominant and you're in the middle seat, you might not have enough space to fit your arms.

OR if you're fat/big/wide/horizontally dominant you're gonna either make it difficult for the people on your sides. Maybe that way the two people will stand up and you will get more space, but then you'd be called inconsiderate and selfish.

(Ok Imma cut down the fat jokes. My bad.)

There are moments where you'd be sitting between two sweaty people, so that's there too.

Or where you'd be sitting in between two people of the OPPOSITE gender 😭

I once got onto a bus where I had to travel for a few hours. And when I found a seat, it was two girls who left a seat empty in between them. Now what I'd usually expect is for them to do is for one of the girls to take over the middle seat and let me sit in the corner. That is what usually or normally happens.

But NO ☠️. They didn't even budge. Like bro. And neither did I want to stand for hours till I get a seat so I sat down in the middle.

Let's just say I ended up getting mentally drained trying to avoid getting physical contact with them since I knew it was impossible with the way the bus kept moving (since I didn't want to get my face slapped nor cause any of them to be uncomfortable) and just accepted defeat once the bus started gaining speed.

Also, not to mention, less privacy when you use your phone since you got people in your left and right. (Wouldn't be really smart to really expect privacy when you're in a public transport with a crowd in it either lol)

So yeah, these are the reason why I'd say that the middle seat is probably the best and the worst seat in the bus.

And yes, I typed this whole thing while I'm sitting in one of the middle seats in the bus. Not sure but It almost felt like the guy next to me craned his neck to check what I was working on 😂

(edited:- Also, I chose this seat cuz I wanted to select one seat which falls under both the "best" and the "worst". There are better seats out there but yeah, I wanted to check and consider whether they got a higher degree of cons too, so I could apply that title lol)

​

Well, it depends though. If you don't got people squeezing into your space, then it's fine. Or else, it can get messy.

So, I got on to a long distance bus, which travels around 6-7 hours (intentional but true lol). I needed to travel only 2 hours, and when I got on it while it was mid-journey, the bus was already packed like crazy. 

I didn't want to get on it first but I had a group presentation in a few hours so I had to.

You guys know how the conductor goes?

"Athulta yanna. Madata. Madata. Ochara Ida thiyanawa."

And I didn't wanna get caught into that and get squeezed there like a freaking scooby doo sandwich. Which is why I chose to stand in front of the first row seat, on the side of the steps. It's the spot right on top of where the left front tyre is located.

It was fine for like half an hour, until the conductor decided to take in even more people on the bus. Suddenly a group of girls got onto the bus.

This could also mean that I won't be getting any seats any time soon. My chances was slim anyway due to the place I've chosen to stand on.

I was feeling sleepy as hell, my eyes feeling droopy. I closed my eyes, and I'm in this state where I feel so comfortable.

And then my knees suddenly buckle, and I jolt up, standing straight. I open my eyes to see a short girl staring at me, her hands placed beside the sides of my head, not touching me, just a couple inches apart. For your information, she was around my shoulder height. She was trying to keep herself steady, while also awkwardly staring at my sudden reaction.

I stood there, shocked by the close proximity. For a third person it might look like a scene out of a Kdrama. But I stood there trying hard not to fall asleep again cuz the next time I do, it might end up with an accidental kiss and a slap on my face.

I've accidentally hit people by falling asleep while standing, where my hand, which was holding the top bar of the bus comes swinging down and hitting the person on the shoulder or head ☠️

She continued to switch the positions between having me in between her arms or either keeping them away from me every 30 seconds (her arms must have hurt). Thankfully, she got off the bus a couple kilometers after. 

Also had a girl lend me her seat after that interaction for a brief while, which was actually really nice of her. Those function pointy elf shoes had started to hurt my feet from all that standing, so that was a great timing.

But yeah, choose this spot with your own risk. Hopefully you don't get wall pinned by a girl or something, unless you're into that of course. You do you ☠️👍