Elegant embroidered saries, soft tissues, crepe silks and organsas were the focus at the presentation by the Shilpika Saree Boutique at Bridal Fair '98.

• Love is not possessive - Dear Daughter
• Cannot compute - Kenny's World
• A little spice into your life
• Tee time with ladies
• 
• Causes of Excessive Hair Loss

Love is not possessive

My darling daughter,

I came across a line in one of the books I was reading which I thought I must share with you. 'Love that is willing to give up what is precious for the sake of another never really loses - it only opens a door for love to come back'. I wonder how many of us would agree with that concept. To most of us love entails possessiveness. We hold on to the objects we love, we are reluctant to let go. We act as if they should not have any other life outside our purview.

This attitude affects marriages very often. Each partner feels that the other is his or her sole possession and is suspicious of the time spent away from each other. A friendly conversation, a smile, an act of kindness is often misconstrued and jealousy enters into a marriage much to its detriment. The eventual anger generated and the unhappiness caused leads so often to the break-down we see in so many marriages today.

Possessiveness, my daughter is never an expression of love, for if you love, you seek the happiness of the other and then you must let go. Your emphasis that only you, and your opinion and companionship is all that is of importance must change, else even as a caged bird struggles to escape so too will those whom you think you love, seek to move away - not only your partner, but even your children. It is the fear that we will lose the persons whom we love that tends to make us possessive, to some it almost amounts to a phobia - this fear to let go, the fear of losing the love the other has, but by trying to constrain and control we tend to lose whatever love there is.

I wish daughter, that those who get married do not regard marriage as a contract of ownership but as one of love and sharing a love that knows when to let go, a love that understands and accepts human weakness and is able to forget and forgive. Love should beget joy and happiness and it will be so when there is no compulsion or fear, and there is no room for suspicion or jealousy. I hope daughter the day you decide to get married you will realize that the bond that ties one is that of love and the expression of that love is to realize that the other's happiness is greater than one's own.

Ammi

Kenny's World

Cannot compute

I hate electronic gadgets. Computers, cell-phones, answering machines...You name it I hate it. It's not that these things aren't useful, or that I never use them.

But I think they are getting damn too smart for their own good. Call me stuck in the Stone Age, but I don't think we really need all this technology. How can we stand being so dependent on ICs and resistors? Don't we have any pride? Or are we too busy snoozing while some machine somewhere is plotting to take over the world? I don't know about you, but I am not prepared for a world ruled by the second cousin of my toaster.

Maybe I'm just being paranoid. But still you have to admit electronic stuff play a scarily significant role in our lives. They're everywhere, watching us - waiting for us to make a mistake. And the worst thing is, some humans have joined forces with them now. These humans speak their language, convince other humans that they aren't so bad, and are responsible for their spread world-wide. These people are salesmen.

I hate salesmen too, but that's another story. If it weren't for salesmen convincing us that we need all this new technology, we wouldn't have this problem. Salesmen love selling technology because it is one of the easiest things to sell. They know that they always have the upper hand, because more often than not the person they're talking to knows zilch about technological jargon. So they bombard you with facts and figures, talk about 'Configurations', 'Multimedia' and 'Interactivity'. Then they talk about how user friendly these machines are, until you're convinced that it would be easier to understand them if you just bought one.

It's amazing how jargon can give you the upper hand. Why do you think there are so few astronauts? I don't think it's because only the most intelligent are chosen. I think because of all the jargon that they use, people think that they have to be intelligent to apply. And so, few people apply because they don't want to look stupid. I think NASA is hopelessly understaffed but they don't want to admit it, because then they would have to tell everyone what their jargon really means. And I don't think that they're ready to admit, "I've just disengaged the Dyanaport configured locking hatch" just means that he's pushed the red button on the dashboard.

The same thing happens to us when we go to buy electronic equipment - we're stumped because we don't understand what the hell the salespeople are saying, they would never volunteer to tell us, and we don't want to look stupid by asking. So lots of people end up with loads of electronic stuff they don't need or don't know how to use.

The only way around this is to make a fool of yourself. It can't be helped - you have to. But you don't want to make a fool of yourself in front of the guy you actually buy from, because if he knows you're an idiot he'll rob you blind. So you've first got to pick out a place you're pretty sure you'll never have to go to again for anything. Once you do that, all you have to do is go in there and ask the salespeople all the stupid questions you could possibly think of about what you want to buy. You remember what they say, and all the jargon that they used. Then you can go to the place that you actually want to buy from, and totally dazzle them with your knowledge and get the best deal.

I just don't get why some people have to use jargon and make electronics more complicated for the rest of us than it has to be. I mean, isn't this stuff complicated enough as it is? Of course, they will tell you that they need the jargon in order to describe features of the equipment. For example, how do you tell a customer that one computer is smarter than the other, when they both look the same from the outside?

Forget that. What I want to know is - why do you need to make computers smarter than they are anyway? I'm scared to death of them already.

A little spice into your life

As the production 'No sex please' we're British' prepares to hit the boards of the Lionel Wendt from the 2nd to the 5th of April, The Sunday Times caught up with Jith Peiris and his cast.

Jehan Aloysius was the first member of the cast to be enlisted, Jith contacted me early January, and told me about this amazing script he had. He admits to being rather apprehensive about the title at first, but says that once he had read the script he knew that this was something he wanted to do. On being asked if he thought that the Sri Lankan audiences were getting too much of the same type of farcical comedy, he remarked, "Farce is clichetic. It's comfortable for actors and directors because there is always an audience for it. But satisfaction for the actor is in doing something different. And I was attracted to this play because I found that it stood out."

Neidra Williams says that she was attracted to the play when she heard who her co-actors were going to be. Her view on how the title is likely to be greeted is that, "The word sex still makes people here do a double-take. This play has nothing in it to shock the audience. I guess we're still rather conservative when it comes to talking about the spicier side of life." Avanti Welaratne is nineteen years old and is acting in only her second production out of school. She plays the role of a, shall we say morally unconfined girl. She confesses that her decision to play such a role was not easy at all, Actually the decision was quite difficult. She was also afraid that people might identify her with the role she plays on stage, which she hastens to add is nothing like she is in real life, This is such a caricatured role that it is easy to stereotype it. It's all your fault" she turns around and says to Jith who just happens to be walking by. The ability to make someone laugh is a gift. "In these jaded times, extracting any sort of emotional response from an audience is an achievement. And theater audiences especially, can be very demanding. So the first thing one must have before even dreaming of doing a farcical comedy on the local stage," says Jith Peiris, is a good script.The script revolves around a couple of young newlyweds, Frances and Peter Hunter. They've just returned from their honeymoon and settled down in the flat above the bank where Peter works. But Frances is not happy. She wants a house and garden of her own. So she decides to do some business on the side by selling things from home.

But little does she know that the things she's agreed to sell, just happen to be loads of Swedish pornography. Understandably, there is chaos when the merchandise arrives. The plot twists and turns hilariously as Frances and Peter along with Brian, the bungling chief cashier from the bank downstairs, try to juggle a seemingly endless supply of pornography, as well as Peter's boss, his mother, a bank inspector, the police superintendent and a call-girl.Who plays Peter, who plays Frances, Susan, & er.....

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