Jehan Mendis is a nerd and so is Navin Ratnayake. Still, in defiance of every sneering teenager, these guys actually grew up to be cool...or at the very least, unafraid of interacting with groups of raucous strangers. And you’d be surprised by just how raucous Colombo Pub Quiz Night gets. It’s on every Wednesday and it’s found its own niche as a mid-week party oasis.
The quiz is practically an institution in this town – the first one was held sometime in the early 90s, and since then the quiz has done the rounds of almost every noteworthy pub in town. “We began attending the quiz at Clancy’s as participants two weeks after 9/11, when it was still in considerably bad taste to call our team ‘Osama’s Bush’,” says Jehan. By 2005, they were running the quiz themselves.
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| The guys behind Colombo's Pub Quiz Night: Navin and Jehan. |
In their other lives, Jehan is a freelance writer and teacher of economics and Navin is a stock analyst for a reputable company – they’ve also been co-Quiz Masters for half a decade. “The two of us work well in combination because we’ve known each other for so long from school and university, so it’s easy to bounce off each other....on a good night, it’s all about set-up and punch-line.”
Charmingly modest, they’re reluctant to hog the spotlight. “Here’s an open secret: we didn’t actually start the Colombo Pub Quiz ourselves. We, er... sort of found it lying around...I think the first quizmistress was the Irish lady who ran the pub [Clancy’s], then afterwards there was a string of them - Steve Weber, Eraj, Dilshara Jayamanne, Harith Gunawardena and, of course, let’s not forget Svetlana Alavagedagova who was rumoured to be a pole-dancer.” (The quiz is on from 8:30 p.m. onwards. Its current home is the Barefoot Garden Café – all are welcome and the jokes are free.)
This week, we ask them to recommend five great Sri Lankan experiences.
What to eat where:
N: Yaal eating house which is close to where Jehan lives does a superb crab. I have always been partial to the food from Cafe on the Fifth (the former Tasty caterers).
J: The Station down Wasala Road, Dehiwala, is a great watering hole on the beach with unbeatable devilled food. For authentic Chinese (and web-surfing with Mandarin keyboards), try ‘Restau-Net’ on Walukarama Road (land side). The Chinese cabbage with seaweed is superb and the atmosphere is wonderfully dodgy. ‘Tandoori’ – the new Bangladeshi place on Havelock Road (near Vilasitha Nivasa) - is a gem. The décor is luminous green, but the food shines. If you happen to visit Ella though, please do try the Brown Onion Soup at the Nes Coffee Shop on the main street. It will change your life. Damn it, I’m hungry now.
What to see:
N: My place of peace and tranquillity in Sri Lanka has always been the beaches although of late I haven’t been to many of them for the longest time. I think the beaches on the East coast are a revelation (sunrises!) and I pray that we get to preserve them in the face of the supposed tourism boom that I’m quite dreading actually.
J: Delft, which is one of the farthest northern islands, is a strange surreal place, pristine and free of polluting tourists. It is entirely made of coral – the ground, the buildings, the boundary walls. There are deserted beaches and wild ponies. I was taken to a hole in the ground by some locals and told that it is the footprint of Adam, but I doubt it. For one thing, it was the size of a motorcycle, and for another, I don’t think Adam had only one foot.
What to read:
N: Just got started reading Chinaman by Shehan Karunatilaka, which is one of those big chunky books that have to be savoured and read at leisure to get the most out of. I think there has been more interesting English writing coming out of Sri Lankan authors over the last five years or so, and I hope the trend continues.
J: Agree, about Chinaman. I have just finished reading a really fun love-story called One Day by David Nicholls, published last year. At the moment I’m reading a history book by Dr. G.C. Mendis called Ceylon Yesterday and Today. It was published in 1962, just six years after the Sinhala Only policy was enacted, and so, it is a window into what people at the time were thinking and what they thought was going to happen. The author seems unbiased, analysing causes and events without condemnation or justification. Now that we know what happened, it is interesting to read an intelligent analysis from the perspective of a historian of that era.
What to listen to:
N: So many many things that are far too numerous to mention. I’ve given up on contemporary radio, but it doesn’t matter because it’s the golden age of access to music.
J: I am not into any particular genre, but there are a few songs with great lyrics that I come across occasionally that I like. I was recently made to listen to Jeff Buckley’s version of Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen. We spent about half an hour debating the interpretation. I enjoyed that.
What to watch:
N: The last deeply moving film I saw was Baraka at Barefoot quite some time ago. I used to be a big movie buff but I’m (disturbingly) starting to find myself reading more about movies rather than actually watching them. I managed to see Vimukthi Jayasundara’s Sulanga Enu Pinisa (The Forsaken Land) sometime ago and I am deeply saddened that we buried what is probably one of the great works of cinema produced by a Sri Lankan just because of the whims of a Government that quite obviously failed to understand what the work was trying to convey.
J: I thoroughly enjoyed Sulanga Enu Pinisa as well as Machang. Another great movie is One Shot (One), starring, written, directed, produced and extruded by Ranjan Ramanayake. There is this one scene where the hero (in white loin cloth) is tied to a cross and whipped. No, of course, it’s not Jesus Christ; it’s Ranjan Ramanayake as One Shot, a vigilante being abused by the bad guys. It is truly a transcendental film, in the sense that it transcends the realm of ‘bad’ and enters the realm of ‘if you’re in bed with a broken leg and it’s on TV and you can’t reach the remote you should watch it’. |
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