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Sri Lankan Customs

These are some excerpts from a great old article by a brave journalist from Sri Lanka who ventured into the cave of the thieves.

As I watched the proceedings, my attention was immediately diverted by the outstretched hand of a Customs officer at the counter, who casually took a one hundred rupee note from a clearing agent, before attending to his Customs Declaration. My eyes lit up. I was not too sure whether my eyes were playing tricks on me. As I coolly watched the proceedings at the counter, every single clearing agent was oiling the palm of the Customs officer with a hundred rupee note, which was carefully put away in the officer’s drawer before he paid any attention to the job at hand. I found it hard to believe that such practices were the norm at the Customs. The clearing agents in the queue had fistfuls of 100 rupee notes.

I happened to overhear a telephone conversation in where a high ranking Customs official was making arrangements with a friend to hire a van to transport a Chinese vase, which he had taken as a sample. He went on to explain to his friend, that usually he managed to put all these samples in his car, but the vase was unfortunately too large. Clearing agents told me that a sample, once given to the Customs can never be retrieved, unless an importer demands that it be given back, which then means that the clearing agent has to once again allow money to do the talking.

At the final point of departure, each container is halted for approximately eight minutes, at which point Customs verify the delivery document for the umpteenth time, as to whether the container is carrying the correct consignment. Given the impracticality and the absurdity of the endless questioning, the clearing agent has to bribe the officer, and the eight minutes is spent on negotiating the amount the officer should receive.

A rough estimate done by an industrialist states that Sri Lanka Customs earns Rs.900,000 in total overtime, and “speed money” amounts to another Rs 1,100,000 a day alone, which roughly amounts to five billion rupees a year. Sri Lanka is a nation that is heavily dependent on imports, be it food and clothing or industrial raw materials. This means that every single citizen in this country is paying a price for corruption!

[http://sundaytimes.lk/021222/ft/srilanka.html]

At the gates of hell there is a red channel specially for Sri Lanka Customs officers to walk in straight to eternal damnation.

Teachings From the Silent Mind

Now we are prone to having blind attachments, aren’t we? For example, say you’re locked up in a foul, stinking prison cell and the Buddha comes and says, ‘Here’s the key. All you have to do is take it and put it in the hole there underneath the door handle, turn it to the right, turn the handle, open the door, walk out, and you’re free.’… But you might be so used to being locked up in prison that you didn’t quite understand the directions and you say, ‘Oh, the Lord has given me this key’ – and you hang it on the wall and pray to it every day. It might make your stay in prison a little more happy; you might be able to endure all the hardships and the stench of your foul-smelling cell a little better, but you’re still in the cell because you haven’t understood that it wasn’t the key in itself that was going to save you. Due to lack of intelligence and understanding, you just grasped the key blindly. That’s what happens in all religion: we just grasp the key, to worship it, pray to it … but we don’t actually learn to use it.

So then the next time the Buddha comes and says, ‘Here’s the key’, you might be disillusioned and say, ‘I don’t believe any of this. I’ve been praying for years to that key and not a thing has happened! That Buddha is a liar!’ And you take the key and throw it out of the window. That’s the other extreme, isn’t it? But you’re still in the prison cell – so that hasn’t solved the problem either.

Anyway, a few years later the Buddha comes again and says, ‘Here’s the key,’ and this time you’re a little more wise and you recognise the possibility of using it effectively, so you listen a little more closely, do the right thing and get out.

– Cittaviveka, Teachings from the Silent Mind, Ajahn Sumedho

I have read this book some time back. You can read the book in here. You can find other publications in here.

My Third Book Reader: Sony Pocket Edition

I was looking for a smaller book reader which I can carry around. That’s why I got a Sony book reader pocket edition. Although it’s called the pocket edition it won’t fit in my pocket but it is small enough to carry around and the screen is big enough to read comfortably. It’s about the size of a paperback. Surprisingly it’s a bit heavy compared to its size. But it looks sturdy and well constructed. And it has a good design. It feels like a book.

There’s a lot of hype around Kindle and they have an edge over having the book distribution network. But Sony has been designing great book readers for quiet sometime. Thanks to the Amazon’s recent price slash their prices have also gone down a bit.

Although the screen is five inches it shows almost the same content as a Kindle’s six inch screen because the pocket edition uses the screen space more efficiently and economically. The margins are minimized and text is more condensed but it is quiet readable. It’s a good replacement for my Kindle original.

Pay It Forward

Is the world just shit? That is what Trevor thought who lived in Las Vegas with his mother who did two jobs to make ends meet. His social studies teacher asked the class to come up with something that could change the world and put that into action. Pay it forward was the project Trevor came up with. It’s a pyramid scheme. Not the bad kind. You help three people. Not  in just ordinary things but in special and extraordinary ways. Instead of paying it back, you do good deeds to three other people. So the pyramid grows. Trevor thought he failed the project because from his point of view all the three people he tried to help were not successful. The homeless drug addict who he took home and gave his savings to buy clothes for going to a job interview was back in the streets injecting drugs himself. But that wasn’t the end. A journalist was tracking down the chain of extraordinary events that were happening in the faraway cities back to its originator.

Pay it Forward is a movie based on the book with the same name by Catherine Ryan Hyde. The concept has been there since the ancient times. I’ve just watched it for the third time on TV. It’s one of the best movies I have ever seen. And the story ends with Trevor fulfilling his three deeds. It’s not a happy ending. Pay It Forward Foundation is an organization that has been setup to inspire people to realize that they can change the world.

Some people are too scared or something to think things can be different. The world’s not exactly… shit. I guess it’s hard or some people who are so use to things the way they are — even if they’re bad — to change and they kinda give up and when they do, everybody loses.
– Trevor

The Lottery

The Lottery, a short story by Shirley Jackson is something to read.