New Udurawana Jokes

There is a set of popular Sri Lankan jokes known as Udurawana Jokes, which are about a Sri Lankan

who doesn’t know English well. I had made reference to Udurawana Jokes previously on this blog

where I said they could be presented in comic book form in my article “The Potential of Sri Lankan

English Comics”. I decided to write my own set of Udurawana Jokes to add to the existing ones. As

Udurawana was a real person, I thought I’d mention that I intend no disrespect to him. I’m using the

name Udurawana due to the iconic nature of these jokes in Sri Lankan society.

Threw in the Towel

Udurawana was talking with his office colleagues about someone who left their workplace.

Colleague: “He really threw in the towel.”

Udurawana: “No wonder he’s gone! He must have thrown in his towel at work leading to him getting

fired.”

Web Designer 

Udurawana was drawing spider webs on paper. His friend asked him “Why are you drawing spider

webs?” Udurawana replied “I’m studying to be a web designer.” 

All Greek to Me

Udurawana’s friend Rukshan was reading a document which he was finding hard and said “It’s all

Greek to me.” Udurawana responded with “No Rukshan. This is English.”  

Farther

Udurawana was in conversation with an acquaintance Nilakshi who asked him “How farther away are

you?”

Udurawana: “My father lives 15 minutes walking distance from my house.”

Maldives

Udurawana was reading that the capital of Sri Lanka’s neighbour the Maldives is Malé so he thought

“Why do the Maldives have all the males in their capital and all the females elsewhere?”

Chairman

Udurawana met a company chairman. He remarked “So you’re responsible for buying and dealing with

your company’s chairs.” 

Candy 

Udurawana was travelling overseas and he saw Candy in a shop. He got excited and bought four

packs as he believed it was the food of his hometown Kandy, Sri Lanka that he was missing.

Sighted 

Udurawana was at a dinner when an acquaintance said “I sighted you at the University.”

Udurawana: “You couldn’t have cited me in your University assignment. I haven’t written any articles.”

Book

Udurawana was calling a restaurant that he was considering going out for dinner that day and was

asking questions about the food.

Restaurant Staff: “Shall I book you in?”

Udurawana: “I don’t want to buy a book. I want to find a place to eat out for dinner.” 

Let’s Eat and Meet

Udurawana was chatting online with his friend Rukshan who proposed “Let’s eat and meet.”

Udurawana responded with “What type of meat?”

Tweet

Udurawana’s friend said “I’ve been tweeting my excitement about this new film.” Udurawana not

knowing that a tweet relates to social media site Twitter said “Stop acting like a fool making bird

noises. That’s the wrong way to express excitement.”

Cruise

Udurawana’s friend was talking about a cruise ship that arrived in Sri Lanka. Udurawana responded

“What’s special about that? We get ships with crews all the time.”

Dust

Udurawana was involved in setting up a big event. He was dusting a food dish with pepper. Following

that, he was asked to dust the room. Udurawana got dust and sprinkled dust all over the place making

it more messy than it already was.

Bigger Fish to Fry

Udurawana was visiting his parents in the afternoon and offered to take them out to dinner that night.

Udurawana’s mother said “We’ve got bigger fish to fry.” Udurawana then went to the supermarket,

bought some big fish and came back to his parents home to fry this fish as a meal for dinner. 

Cut the Mustard

Udurawana was attending cooking school and was instructed to make a fish curry. Udurawana’s

instructor tasted Udurawana’s curry and wasn’t pleased with it saying “This doesn’t cut

the mustard.” Udurawana responded “But sir. There is no mustard.”

Udurawana’s Definitions 

Manslaughter: Man’s laughter 

Facebook: A book with people’s faces.

Postmaster: Company boss in the future.

Copywriter: A person who copyrights things.

Blackmail: Mail used for illegal purposes. 

Brainwash: An operation where a surgeon washes your brain.

Wears Many Hats

Udurawana was at a party and his friend Rukshan was introducing him to someone.

Rukshan: “This is Thilan. He is a very talented person who wears many hats.”

Udurawana: “Hi Thilan! How many hats do you own?” 

So that was my collection of Udurawana Jokes. I hope to write more Udurawana Jokes on this blog. If you enjoyed this, you might be interested in my previous blog post “Humorous and Interesting AI Talk on Sri Lanka”.

Humorous & Interesting AI Talk on Sri Lanka

There is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) website Talk to Transformer which had been in existence until it got discontinued this week. Despite the sad news, this blog post is paying tribute to this bot. The user types in some text and presses the ‘Complete Text’ button which generates additional material. The button changes to ‘Generate Another’ once it has been generated. It gets its content ideas from going through the Internet. It is created by Canadian machine learning engineer Adam King. The material it gives is often funny and sometimes even true. I decided to post a collection of Talk to Transformer content that I initiated relating to my country Sri Lanka. As my hometown is Colombo, I did make many references to the city. I will give my thoughts alongside them.

The Country

I’m starting with topics about the country itself. The first one relates to Colombo, Sri Lanka with it

giving a fictional account of Colombo & Sri Lanka from someone married to a Sri Lankan. I’d like to

point out that I didn’t specify the wife's perspective. It came up with that on its own.

This one relates to the issue of bribery & corruption with a fictional person talking about it.

This one is about Colombo. It obviously doesn’t contain 25% of the world’s urban population. The

city names for Colombo aren’t real. I really like “The City of Night” as I think Colombo looks its best

at nighttime. I don’t think the statistics in the second paragraph are accurate.

Here’s something positive about Sri Lanka from an imaginary traveller. The places mentioned don’t

really exist in Sri Lanka.

Music

This section deals with music. I’m going to feature content about two types of Sri Lankan music,

being the Portuguese influenced baila and sinhala pop. These are false, and as a result of it, it’s

quite funny. 

My favourite instrument is piano. So I put in a question about piano in Sri Lankan music. I’m pleased

that it mentioned rock music, as I like piano in rock music. A Sri Lankan classic rock song I love is

“Api Kawruda” by Senaka Batagoda. I wrote a blog post about it. It features great piano by Janath

Kulathilake. 

Sci-Fi/The Future

I’m beginning this section featuring Sri Lanka involved in sci-fi hollywood films. It’s imagining

Christopher Nolan shooting a sci-fi action film in Sri Lanka, which I’d like to see. When it comes to

his sci-fi action films, I love “Inception” and am looking forward to his upcoming film “Tenet”. It seems

that in this fiction below, he’s trying to attract politicians with the reference to luxury vehicles. 

I’m now featuring Sri Lankan sci-fi content. The following two topics deal with points I mentioned in

my article “The Potential of Sri Lankan English Comics”, with this one dealing with time travel. I

wonder what it means how this time traveller “warps”. 

Here’s a story of aliens landing in Sri Lanka in Viharamahadevi Park.

The last one is asking what Sri Lanka will be like in 2050. It’s false, with it giving a contradictory

argument about size and population. The figure it mentions of 8 million square kilometres is roughly

the size of Brazil which is in stark contrast to Sri Lanka’s 65, 610 square kilometres. A population of

4 million people in 8 million square kilometres is the exact opposite of density. This one is so funny.

I hope you enjoyed this. I’d be interested to hear people’s interpretations of content featured here

and/or expansions of them. This is an example of the funny side of AI. 

The Potential of Sri Lankan English Comics

Comic books are a popular form of entertainment throughout the world offering stories in a variety of

styles and genres. As a Sri Lankan who enjoys comic books, I would like to see Sri Lankan English

comics. Sri Lanka has had comics for some time, but there are only a few comics in English. Sri

Lankan English comics are slowly starting to emerge. In this article I am listing types of English

comics I’d like to see Sri Lanka produce.

Social Commentary

There could be social commentary on issues facing Sri Lanka. Examples of this include both the

good & bad of social media, the problems of crime, the cost of living problems, bribery & corruption,

issues of discrimination, the rule of law or the lack of it, the lack of road discipline among others.  

History

Stories of Sri Lankan history could be featured in graphic novel form. History could range from
prehistoric stories such as tales of Sri Lankan Kings to 20th century events such as the story of Sri

Lanka’s independence. There also could be fictional stories set in the past.

Politics

When it comes to political stories, one story I’d like to see is a political hero. It would be a story of a

minister who is one of the good politicians with integrity. This politician is not pleased with the

existing political culture Sri Lanka has and takes steps to improve it discreetly in order to protect his

or her job. This character would prevent corrupt persons comprising politicians, public servants,

business people or ordinary people from carrying out their plans. Another thing this hero would do is

expose corrupt politicians and public servants resulting in them getting out of office.

Humour

Sri Lankan comics offer potential for humorous stories showcasing Sri Lankan humour. A famous

brand of Sri Lankan jokes are Udurawana jokes. These jokes are about a Sri Lankan who doesn’t

know English very well. Udurawana jokes could be presented in comic strip form.   

Graphic Novel Adaptations

When it comes to graphic novels, there could be graphic novel adaptations of successful Sri Lankan

novels, including those which originated in Sinhalese, Tamil and English.

Superheroes

As superheroes are popular, I think Sri Lankan English comics have an opportunity to feature Sri

Lankan superheroes. I think villains superheroes could take on include the underworld and corrupt

politicians, businessmen & public servants.

As a sci-fi fan, I would love to see Sri Lankan sci-fi superheroes. Sci-Fi superheroes could be those

without superpowers who become superheroes with a tech-supersuit that does amazing things.
Another type of sci-fi superheroes are those who obtained superpowers via contact with technology or alien life forms. This goes into my next type of comic, that being sci-fi.

Sci-Fi

Sci-Fi is the type of comic I’d most like to see. Sci-Fi is perfect for comic form as it allows the

comic artists to draw creative and enjoyable imagery. Sci-Fi is at its best when it discusses the human condition. Sri Lankan sci-fi comics could discuss the human condition and of course Sri Lanka & its society.

There could be stories set in the future offering two possibilities which are:

• A dark future showing us where we as a country do not want to go to.

• An optimistic future showing us where we as a country wish to be. 

Another option is an alternate version of the present which could go in all sorts of different ways.

• An alternate universe Sri Lanka which is worse than our current setup. This would show us where we as a country do not want to go to.

• An alternate universe Sri Lanka which is better than our current setup. This would show us where we as a country wish to be. 

• An alternate universe Sri Lanka which is neither better nor worse but simply different.

Some Sri Lankan sci-fi stories which could be featured are aliens landing in Sri Lanka (It could be in

an open way or where only a small number of people get into contact with the aliens), a Sri Lankan

inventor inventing a new piece of technology and its implications for Sri Lanka (and possibly the

world), time travel stories which go to the past and/or future, a Sri Lankan or group of Sri Lankans

travelling into space set in the present or the future.

International Themes

There a number of international themes which could be featured. Some stories could deal with Sri

Lanka’s relationship with the outside world. An example of this is a story about a Sri Lankan

Ambassador to the United Nations. There also could be adventure stories with heroes based in Sri

Lanka who travel the world and also have adventures where their friends from overseas come to

visit them.

Many Sri Lankans have good knowledge of the world, so we can use our international knowledge to

write stories set in other countries. This would be examples of comics made in Sri Lanka appealing

to a global readership.

Export Product

When it comes to comics printed and/or published in Sri Lanka, they could be an export product that

generates revenue for the country. They would be read by Sri Lankans around the world as well as

people native to other countries.

Unity

English speaking comics would have an opportunity for unity. These would be Sri Lankan stories in

English showing Sri Lankan characters dealing with both common Sri Lankan and universal themes

enabling it to appeal to Sri Lankans of different ethnicities.

Final Thoughts

We can look to both American and European comics as influences. It’s worth noting that comics

could also have combinations of some of the different types I mentioned above. An example is the

Belgian comic The Adventures of Tintin. Tintin is an adventure comic that is also a comedy which

goes around the world. It has also delved into other genres throughout its course which include

mysteries, spy stories and sci-fi. I would like to see a Sri Lankan version of The Adventures of Tintin.

We should also create some comics that are unlike any comics created elsewhere in the world.

I hope you enjoyed my thoughts on the potential of Sri Lankan English comics where I gave different

types of Sri Lankan English comics that can be created. I would enjoy hearing others give their

thoughts on Sri Lankan comics they’d like to see.