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The Manager, the Telex, and a Small Theatre Called a Bank

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  The Manager, the Telex, and a Small Theatre Called a Bank Denzil Jayasinghe 4 min read · Just now A recent story about a bank in Dubai in the seventies brought back a memory of my time with Peter Rawlings — those days when even the smallest task seemed to carry a curious weight, especially under his watchful, forward-leaning gaze. Dubai in the seventies was not the city people know today. There were no glass towers competing with the sky, no vast highways humming with restless traffic. The city was still discovering itself — half trading post, half promise. The creek was its lifeline, and along it stood a handful of buildings that seemed, at the time, important enough to hold the future together. Our bank was one of them. Inside, the world was smaller, slower, and yet, in its own way, intensely serious. Peter Rawlings was the manager — spectacles firmly in place and a permanent forward bend, as though he were always about to catch a thought before it escaped. One had the impressi...
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Mid-Air

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  Mid-Air Denzil Jayasinghe 2 min read · Just now Stuck. That’s the word that keeps circling back. Can’t change. Won’t change. Am I simply the person I’ve always been, sealed and delivered? The theorists have had a field day with personality. How to measure it, map it, sort it into tidy boxes. Whether it bends or holds firm. The debate has been running longer than most of us have been alive. My own view is mixed. There are things about me that aren’t going anywhere. The wiring runs too deep. But step changes? Those I believe in. Small pivots that quietly redefine how you move through the day. Take this one: I walked away from social media. Twitter. Facebook. Even WhatsApp. No announcement, no grand exit. Just stopped. Retirement will be another. Three months away now. Most people I know wrapped up years earlier. For me it crept up quietly and then suddenly felt very close. I’m not sure I’ll be ready. I’m not sure readiness is even the right frame. What I do know is that I’ll feel t...
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The Bathroom Roster at Two A.M

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  The Bathroom Roster at Two A.M. Denzil Jayasinghe 7 min read · Just now J ebel Ali. I could hardly believe it. Ajith was waiting when I pulled up in the white Pajero, gleaming under the Dubai sun. Even before I got out, I felt the eyes on us. An Asian man in a big four‑wheel drive was still a curiosity then, a small violation of the natural order the Gulf preferred: certain bodies in certain places, certain faces behind certain wheels. We hugged as soon as we saw each other. No ceremony. No awkwardness. Two young men in their folding, for a moment, back into the boys who had once shared beds and secrets and lateness in Colombo. Memory has its own arithmetic. Dance parties came back first. Then late nights. Borrowed sleeping space. That easy teenage understanding that my home was his, and his was mine, and that neither of us needed to ask. He stepped back, looked me up and down and said, “I like your haircut.” He paused, then added, “Now you are a big man.” I laughed, but the word...
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