Chilli will save the day

Jagath took out a half-full chilli powder packet from the pocket, undid the rubber band, and sprinkled a generous amount on his omelette. Seeing the bright red powder dotting the blandness of the beige egg instantly made his mouth water.

“Ado, don’t you have gastritis?”, shouted Hilmi, his bar mate, from across the table. Six men—all religiously present for their wife-pardoned weekly bar banter—joined in chorus, cautioning Jagath on the dangers of chilli powder as they soaked their livers in double distilled arrack with 66% alcohol content.

Jagath dismissed them with a wave of his left hand while its right counterpart got busy attempting to cut up the chillied omelette with the fork edge. His tongue prickled alive with the burning red thrill of chilli.

“You know gastritis is a disease of doing it halfway. If you eat chilli, you’ve also got to cool your gut after with some curd. I don’t do halfways… I go all the way…” he picked up a piece of egg-tinged flaming chilli red and shook it in front of Hilmi’s face with an obnoxious smirk.

Hilmi laughed and reached over into Jagath’s pocket asking “Do you actually carry around a chilli packet?”

Jagath swatted Hilmi’s hand with his, leaving an oily chilli splatter on his skin. All the tipsy men around the table laughed like a chorus of Sunday crows.

“You laugh. But, do you know, one of our buggers saved his life and escaped slavery because he had a packet of chilli handy?” asked Jagath from the table.

“What tall story you have there?” laughed Alles.

“Tall? This is a true story, son. Straight from the news. You buggers don’t watch the news, noh? So, listen to your old Jaga now. I’ll tell you what’s happening in this world and how a packet of chilli will save you,” Jagath assured.

Hilmi, Alles, Devro, Lalith, Punchi and Ranjith all turned their heads to listen.

The only thing that Jagath loved more than chilli and arrack was telling a good story. He drank deeply from his arrack and smacked his lips in preparation for the delivery.

“So, one of our young buggers thought he was doing the right thing, flying off to Thailand for a job. But, it was a scam..and he was sold to some Myanmar terrorist group…and got put in a slave camp with some hundred-odd more prisoners where everyone was being forced to scam people online…imagine…they were given nine days to secure a target, otherwise beaten until blue…”

“This is for real?” asked Ranjith.

“Yes machan, yes. News, noh? And you know who they were forced to target? Lonely old men who chat up girls on the internet…” Jagath said, looking pointedly at Punchi (who avoided his eyes and returned to the glass of arrack).

“Yeah…,” Jagath continued; “so these buggers had to pretend to be some young girl and lure men in, and then, these scammed old men who bit the bait were passed onto the actual women in the slave camp for the second step…calls with videos…when they would ask for some thousands of dollars for a plane ticket to visit those old men…and you know the rest, noh?”

Six bloodshot eyes around the table stared transfixed at Jagath, who shook his head and devoured another piece of omelette.

“One of these old men that our local bugger had lured into the scam, lost everything to it and took his own life…tsk…damn shame… This was the turning point for our bugger, who thought he couldn't do this anymore, collecting bad karma for the benefit of terrorists, and planned to escape. But, you can’t just escape a terrorist camp, you know?”

Jagath savoured having all eyes and ears hung on him for a few seconds before continuing.

“So, the next time their location was being routinely switched—small groups of prisoners being shuffled around in a van—our bugger tried to bribe the driver…but the driver refused. So, you know what our bugger did? He reached for the packet of chilli powder that his Ma gave him when he left the country—something this poor bugger kept at hand to remind him of home—and threw it in the driver’s eyes. The prisoners got together and beat the driver up, snatched their passports and ran into the jungle. After walking for miles, they met some monk who connected them to the embassy, and this bugger came back home alive to tell the tale.”

Alles shook his head in disbelief, others drank or sighed deeply, finding themselves momentarily sobered from the story.

“And that my friends, is why you always carry a packet of chilli around, eh? It’ll save your life from slavery; whether it’s to terrorists or bland food…” Jagath chuckled at his own joke, but no one else did.

“Son, bring me a curd to appease my gut, will you?” Jagath shouted at a disgruntled waiter.

This fictional story was based on the true accounts of a Sri Lankan man who escaped the Myanmar terrorist-operated cyber crime enslavement camp, in November 2023. Read another story about Jagath from our shadow series.

When creativity is more of a condition than a profession

I'm Shamalee—one of the two minds behind Public Works. I have a strong resonance with the Creator archetype and it's the first archetype of Public Works too. These thoughts were penned in response to the series of stories we put together celebrating the Creator archetype.

I write because I must. Because words spill out of me. As I walk, as I eat, as I shower and order groceries… Words keep weaving threads in my brain, in my wake. Sometimes, I wake up with sentences forming in my sleep. Even as people talk to me and I get lost between the words they say (especially what they didn’t say); words keep spilling out of me. 

I write because if I don’t, they haunt my days and preoccupy my thoughts, and weigh down my mind. They slow me down until life begins to feel like the act of going up the stairs with a cup too full to the brim; slow, tedious, and just plain ridiculous. I have to stop everything else and take a sip, or risk spilling it and never tasting it.

I write because I’m afraid of forgetting. Losing an idea—a perfectly articulated string of thought—is such a goddamn shame, isn’t it? I just can’t bear it.

Writing is just the way I unfold into this world; the only way I know to be. I just write, and sometimes people read those things. 

This compulsive nature of creativity is probably something all creators can relate to. It’s interesting to note how this approach changes in commercial creative work. Personally, when I create for commercial outcomes, there is an obvious difference; there is a calculated deliberation that sets it apart from what I create compulsively. In commercial creativity, there is more aiming than conducting; but, the thrill of searching for the perfect word is common to both situations. A large part of my early career was in figuring out these differences, similarities and the processes that allow me to make the best of both approaches; and, I’m still learning.

Public Works is where my writing condition transcends from a self-indulgent artform to commercial writing. When I create for clients through Public Works, I notice a stark difference to my approach. I’m less of a vessel to what I cannot contain, and more of a deliberate archer aiming for a specific outcome that makes business for the client.

I find that creativity is a compulsion as much as an artform that can be mastered with the creator’s methodology and processes. Some creators are more compulsive while others are more method-driven; it depends on what your art lends to and what kind of creator you are or want to be. Whichever it is, what matters is that if you are a creator, you keep creating. Because creativity is an act that springs from loving life. Creativity is our mind’s rebellion against death; our refusal to be laid to rest without having bettered this world, even if it’s by a morsel.

Richard de Zoysa's other Eden

The murder of Richard de Zoysa was a turning point in the gruesome story of how the Sri Lankan government handled nationwide civil disobedience which grew into dangerous armed rebellion in the 1980s and early 1990s. Marking a dark period in the history of the sunny island, the official figures of the dead and the disappeared from this era cross 75,000 while it’s widely speculated to cross well into six figures. In this terrifying picture, Richard is one of the most visible figures. 

Belonging to a family of influential artists, educated at one of the most prestigious private schools in Colombo and a gifted poet, playwright and journalist, Richard had all the right networks and access. Like most people from his background, Richard could have remained above and beyond the chaos that ravaged the lives of rural and lower middle class youth in the island. Like many with connections abroad, he could’ve left as soon as possible. But, he didn’t. Well aware of his privilege, Richard de Zoysa used his education, talent and connections to speak about the injustices that gripped the lives of young Sri Lankans, the ugliness of strategically propagated racial tensions and the growing anger towards oppressive governance. His poetry, plays and writing resonated the significant mind shifts of the time, questioning the machinery at work to maintain the class and race gaps. He did this in a way that broke linguistic and ethnic barriers to extents that even more directly political figures could not. Of course, this charismatic, creative, and eloquent man with leftist leanings meant danger to many powers. 

Richard’s body was found on a beach, not too far from where he went to school as a child. It was discovered by a fisherman who recognised the face of this well-known actor. The records mention that it was beaten, broken, mutilated and shot at point blank. His mother and other eyewitnesses identified the abductors as high ranking police officers reporting directly to the President, making it one of the most strongly evidenced and widely publicised cases of rumoured government death squads. But, all identified suspects were never sentenced; instead, the leads were ignored by the police and the two main officers identified by eyewitnesses were allowed to walk free while two only got interdicted as punishment after the trial. None were even imprisoned. The two high ranking officers involved in Richard’s murder ended up dying in a bomb attack, along with the President, in an incident that many deemed karmic. Sri Lanka’s current President Ranil Wickremasinghe was one of the youngest ministers of the government at the time of Richard de Zoysa’s murder, and is said to have brushed off the death as ‘suicide or something else.’ 

Not failing to leave a mark even in his death, Richard triggered many significant milestones in the common citizen’s fight against a corrupt regime. Local and international media flooded with tributes, excerpts of his work and most importantly, questions that demanded answers. Time magazine published a piece on his death—that particular issue is still banned in Sri Lanka. The BBC did a tribute play for him many years later. Richard’s incredibly courageous mother—Dr. Manorani Sarvanamuttu— started the Mothers Front amidst death threats. It remains an active voice for families of the forcibly disappeared in the North and the South.

Richard's work—articles, plays, acting and writing remain, changing minds and telling the story of how people get played by governments to stay divided and fighting, for the benefit of a few. His poetry is particularly powerful; some pierce, shake, mock, and prophesy powers and their players as much as the played; others give views into his loves, encounters and lend us glimpses into intricacies of being a queer human in a conservative society. 

This book is a small volume of poems by Richard de Zoysa. It’s a treasured part of our library, reminding how even the most difficult questions can be asked with beauty, grace and wit. It’s an essential collection that carries the very essence of Richard; his daring to ask the hard questions, the strength to remain someone that isn’t the expectation, and most importantly, the beauty of being a human who loves the world and embraces all its experiences—the terrible and the blessed. 

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