The Sri Lankan GrapeWine

In sri lankan we have two types of home made wine. One is thambili wine the other is the  "Aunty Grapevine". Everything about everyone can  be unearthed and publish via the Aunty Grapevine. As the name suggest the core that forms and sustains the vine, forever keeping it plush and fed is the iconic sri lankan 'aunty'.

The Sri Lankan aunty is usually a middle aged married woman who has recently married of her nasty little offspring to a unsuspecting 'respectable' family. Thus now she has ample amount of time to spy on the comings and goings of  her neighbours young , her extended family and generally everyone within a 10 k radius!

You will usually bump into her on Sundays at the super market buying her fair and lovely, henna hair colour and chicken drumsticks. Head held high, a 'siri' bag in hand and decked out in the most eye catching  floral top ( Obviously bought from ODEL), adorned in all her gold jewellery, mouthing  ' aiyoo' and ' terrible no' into a mobile phone.

These aunties know everyone’s business, specially in Sri Lanka. Everything ranging from the maids illicit affair with the bakery boy, how many times the neighbours husband goes to the toilet and what actress is the new mistress of what politician is all within her sphere of knowledge. She knows everything! A specialist in everyones crimes and is the supreme judge of t virtue of all women/girls that cross her path. Like the wicked queen in snow white she has many little spies that bring her  tid bits of juicy information and others that aid her in spreading her word to all the forlorn nooks and crannies of the sir Lanka society.

When you live in Sri Lanka these aunties are a hazard of every day life. She is faster than lightning and wider than the Internet, or any social media. Before you have time to finish reading the love letter from  the boy from the bus stop ( which you obviously took after much reluctance!!), auntie already knows and has informed your parents of the content. Nothing remains a secret long in Sri Lanka.

The aunties constantly condemned for there practices by the youth and women of the Sri lankan diaspora. The  diaspora aunties frequently distinguish them selves as having higher morals than the grapevine aunties back home. The youth incessantly speak about the nosy curry aunties and how great the white fellows are for not engaging in such behaviour.  So in  Melbourne which is highly populated by Sri lankans, most lankan youth are well aware about the hazards of walking around with the opposite sex or in short shorts in areas frequented by all aunties; Grapevine and Diaspora. I my self have  mastered the art of nodding and smiling when I want to slap the fuck out of them and learned to avoid aunty hot spots. Luckily for me I  have flown under the radar due to my parents self imposed social solitary confinement. So, I was aghast to learn that recently the grapevine has been ripe with rumour about me.

After making few phone calls I was to learn that the people talking about me were not the dreaded aunties but lankans who were of similar age as my self!! Most of it stems from few intoxicated incidents at clubs, few guys dated , and beach festival attended almost two years ago. None of the behaviour talked can be considered out of the ordinary from that of everyone else at the same events. However, I have been informed that standard practice is that if your not acting like a ' good little Sri lankan girl' then you have given authority to be spoken about. So it appears that after shunning the aunties for their nosy behaviour most of my contemporaries have taken up the habit.

Sadly, its looks like I am now at an age where everyone around me are slowly morphing into grapevine aunties. More interesting is that men, who I have always viewed as being above such behaviours are now freely indulging in bitching about girls. It seems that no matter how much the Sri lankan boys value their sudden white freedoms, they still cant embraced the idea that this freedom should be extended to females. Guys can party but girl that parties are still considers to be lacking in morals. Morals that they have no problem throwing to the wind if they get chance to sleep with a white girl, or any girl for that matter. Sadly, you dont need to even have sex just being friendly, smoking, drinking, or acting in anyway as a equal to a guy is pre requisite enough to be labelled a a slut. Don’t get me wrong,I’m not saying all Sri lankan guys think in such terms. I definitely have some wonderfully open minded male friends who respect me while, being entertained by my dancing on tables!!

A strong believer in the saying ' what is good for the goose is good for the gander', I was long expecting the talk that is now rife. However, what is interesting is the perpetrators are not those dreaded aunties but fellow freedom loving aunty hating lankans. While, the grapevine aunties are usually motivated by boredom, need for drama, a need to be pillar of morality and saviour of society, their followers a driven by a different need. In my opinion the intentions of the modern grapevine is two folds. Firstly, that talking about others behaviours relives them of the need to face their own conduct, sri lankans are famous of their hypocrisy! So, its reasonable to assume that their judgement is based on the fact that deep down they believe that their own conduct to be wrong. So, focusing on how absolutely 'terrible' others are they take the stance that they do not condone such behaviour and thus by default are ' good wholesome sri lankan boys and girls'. It further seems that there is underlying level of jealousy that must motivate someone to dog on someone else. The need to feel superior would drive them to bring down the other and thereby pacifying their psyche.

Anyway now hailed as official party girl, I feel the  increasing pressure not to disappoint these poor souls. So, I have vowed that from next weekend onwards I shall stop sitting around the house reading ' Tamil Tigress' or watching cartoons with my young brother and instead aim to get shit faced in true lankan bebba style!