Rugby anyone?

Saturday was the famous Royal-Trinity Bradby Shield Rugy match. Pops played in this legendary rivaled match as captain of the Royal team back in his hey day. Sadly royal got whooped but it was a neat experience to see the energy in the crowd... firecrackers thrown onto the field whenever someone scored. Pops was saying it's one of the most watched sporting events in the whole country, broadcast on national television... After the game, there was an adorable children's marching band... but it was kids dressed as Kandian drummers! Great! The whole event was a lovely last memory to have with pops. He left that night.

The 2005 Royal-Trinity Brady Shield Rugby Match

Mini-Kandian Drummers

Weep weep... sniff sniff... ah... memories...

Pop's Going Away Party

Saturday night I saw more drumming... jeez... Went to Galle Face Green, and it was an amazing sight... the whole place packed... audience standing... near midnight, there was this awesome fusion thing where the tabla player, buruni drummers, iranian drummers, jamaicans, cote d'ivorie guys, singaporians, japanese... all the drummers of the whole concert where jamming together... amazing to see the universality of rythm... The tabla guy was sort of conducting everthing, and so he'd come up the the african drummer and say "ge tereketetake teretere ke te take ge terekete take TUN na ke te take"... or whatever, and then the african guy would bang out that rythm... then the tabla guy would point to the jaimaican guy and yell out some other tabla beat, and the jamaican would play it... i was on top of the world... jumping up and down and dancing...

Drum Fusion with Burundi Boys

Went out with mirak and friends and wasted at a bar with a cover band that I think played Summer of 69 twice in the same evening... chatted with Mirak until some god forsaken hour... got up... we were both hurting... went to The Cricket Club to some greasy fight-the-hangover food.

Ragin' With Cousin Mirak and Friends

Then one last last session of the drumming thing with Mirak and Delini Maami that afternoon... this was on the little island in the lake near Ry Maami's house... it was a "workshop" so more informal... could mingle with the guys, the bands talked to the audience, explained all the instruments, had everyone clapping and dancing... there was an interesting Singapoean fusion band... they had all Brazinian jazz instruments and played mixes of latin, malay, bhangara and african rythms... also a great Cuban band came...

Drumming Ses on the Ile

Dearest Rookie Maami came to give me one last hug that night... I was off to Bangkok at 4am on Monday... Thus closes the Sri Lanka leg... I'm thinkin I might consider heading back to SL for Christmas/New Years... not sure though... Maybe the whole Sri Lanka family wants to come up to Dhaka for winter break... I hear Banani throws a mean New Years purdy...

Raheema Hotel... yeah... Raheem...

Buddist flag hanging over road