Lament of the UNP constitution

I’ve always thought he was bright.  He was and is his uncle’s nephew.  I saw him first as a cub and I saw the fox he would eventually grow up to become.  There are situations that are bigger than the man and he was a victim of bigger things.  That’s all. 

He is vilified at every turn but then again those who vilify him are not exactly saints. They have their ambitions and for all claims about grave concern for the party for each and every one of them the party is but a vehicle for personal advancement.  Not that he is not ambitious (who is not, after all?), but this holier-than-thou postulations really give me more cramps than those who authored me and amended me have burdened me with.

Yes, vehicles.  He spoke of the 1977 model during the ceremony to felicitate Ranjith Maddumabandara upon completing 25 years in politics. He spoke of vehicles.  Sorry, he spoke of a vehicle.   He said that it is in pretty bad shape. Spot on.  He pointed out that parts have had to be replaced.  The vehicle continues to stagger along, falling into potholes, getting stuck in the mud and so on.  He is right. A new vehicle is required.  Ok, if you didn’t get it, he was talking about the 1977 Constitution,

True, it was his uncle that gave it to us.  True, his uncle came up with it so that the UNP could remain in power forever. True, his uncle envisaged that one day his nephew would benefit from it.  True, things didn’t pan out the way everyone thought they would.  True, instead of benefiting from it, he is suffering from it.  Ranil Wickremesinghe has ample reason to see flaw in the 1977 vehicle.  Naturally, the beneficiaries of that document who for decades called it draconian and used all kinds of unkind words to describe its author are of the view that the vehicle is anything but imperfect. It works fine.  For them. 

All this is true.  What is also true is that he, Ranil Wickremesinghe that is, is absolutely correct if he was speaking for the people.  That car might be called any number of names but ‘Democratic’ is not one of them.  Whether or not a new vehicle benefits my main man, the people of this country need a new one.  

Non-negotiable.

I applaud him, this now-not-so-young fox.  He deserves much praise.  He speaks the truth.  Even if he turns out to be the main beneficiary of a new vehicle (for example, getting to be in the driver’s seat), he has to say it simply because it is the truth. We need a new vehicle. We need a new constitution! 

What I am sad about is the fact that while he went on and on and on about a new vehicle for the country, he didn’t utter a single word about the fact that the party vehicle (that’s me, by the way), is on the verge of being sold for scrap. I am in such a poor condition but he hasn’t had the eyes to notice the fact.  I’ve had parts replaced.  There’s been a lot of tinkering done over the years.  ‘Beyond Repair’ is a town I will be visiting pretty soon. 

He didn’t see me. Has hasn’t seen me. He will never have eyes for me.  It’s almost like a man who has eyes only for some other woman.  I don’t want to live forever. I know I’ve outlived my usefulness.  I want to die.  He is not letting me die an honorable death.  I want to be replaced too!  So kill me, Ranil!  Now!

*In a parallel universe of course

Read more

If there's 'Mankaading' then there's 'Buttlering'

'Buttlering' gives a batsman an edge of a couple of yards while a bowler who errs by a fraction of an inch is no-balled.

These days batsmen who get out don’t always walk back to the pavilion.  No, I am not talking about batsmen who having snicked a ball to the keeper pretending they have not, hoping that the umpire would have missed it.  The rules have changed and sometimes the umpires ‘go upstairs’ to see if the delivery was legit. They let the cameras decide if the bowler has overstepped and therefore delivered a ‘no ball’, in which case the batsman stays.

What this means is that a fraction of an inch is all it takes for a wicket taking delivery to be penalized with a run to the opposition.   It’s all good.  There’s a popping crease marked on the wicket for a reason. 

Still, it appears that the laws and traditions are very strict for the bowler but go easy on the batsmen and nothing shows this up better than what might be called ‘Buttlering’.

During the 5^th ODI between England and Sri Lanka Jos Buttler, the English batsman was declared out after Sri Lankan spinner Sachitra Senanayake ‘Mankaaded’ him; i.e. whipped the bails off at the non-striker’s end before he got into his delivery stride after finding Buttler out of the crease.  Ravi Bopara, with whom Buttler put together a partnership that almost brought England a victory in the 4^th ODI said ‘it was the done thing’.  The ‘done thing’, let’s call it ‘Buttlering’ turned some twenty plus singles into ‘twos’ in that 4^th ODI.  ‘Buttlering’ did not go unnoticed. Warnings were issued.  Buttlering in the 5^th ODI prompted further warnings and was put to a stop by Sachitra ‘Mankaading’ Jos. 

Now since batsmen often get ‘run out by a whisker’, an advantage of even an inch or two can make a massive difference.  While a fraction ‘off’ can deny a bowler a wicket because it would be called a ‘no ball’, a fraction ‘extra’ secures safety for a batsman.  In the former case, the bowler is penalized and in the latter the batsman is rewarded.  Is this cricket, as the saying goes? Sadly, it is.

That’s a batsman vs bowler affair.  But there’s inconsistency for batsmen too.  If a lead of a few feet at the beginning of a run is fair (i.e. ‘the done thing’), why should a few inches short in the event of a batsman not touching the crease when turning for a second run be called ‘one short’ by the umpire? 

The umpire is alert to where the bowler’s foot lands when he delivers. That’s part of his job. The umpire is not required to check if the non-striker is behind the crease (i.e. either a foot or the grounded bat) at the same moment.  It can’t be too difficult to write something into the law to deter Buttlering, which is nothing but blatant gamesmanship and a deliberate abuse of a lacuna in the law.  The umpire can take note and if a single (or two or three) is taken, declare ‘one short’. 

As things stand, however, the bowler gets shortchanged while the batsman has the opportunity to steal a few coins.  They add up, as the 4^th ODI clearly showed.  If Buttlering is sanctioned then checking for no-balls after a wicket is taken must be done away with.  Indeed, if the transgression is similar (in length) to done-thing-length or Buttler-Length, then no-ball should not be called.  If someone really wants clarity, consistency and hard line rules, then an adjustment should be made to the length of the track, say 24 yards instead of 22.  Don’t like it?  Well then, let’s not treat Buttlering in international cricket as though it was something that happens in the village greens where coconut tree is a fielder and a ‘six’ into the grumpy neighbor’s garden is ‘out’. 

Technology has invaded cricket.  Rules have been fine-tuned.  Players are required to show greater degrees of professionalism.  Buttlerism persists though and is played down and even applauded by fellow cheats like Ravi Bopara while Mankaading is booed. 

Something is wrong here and the ICC must do what’s necessary to correct it. 

P.S. For an analogy in politics please read 'Doing the done thing'

Read more

More cuts on the 'sudda within'*

My article, 'On the "sudda" resident within us' generated a lot of comments. Among them was one from a retired senior Police Officer (of a different generation and most definitely a different calibre), Gamini Gunawardena, a Sanskrit scholar and a batch-mate of my parents at Peradeniya.

Gamini Maama shared some thoughts with me. He observed that most of our conversations on the ‘sudda problem’ were in the sudda language, English.

He wrote, wittily, ‘incidentally, why do we write the address on the envelopes always in English? Because our postal peon is a sudda? Or are we testing his English knowledge?’ More pertinently, he asked why the work of the private sector is conducted in English and not in Sinhala/Tamil.

He remembered Anagarika Dharmapala: ‘In order to kill this sudda, Anagarika Dharmapala Thuma advised us to make a dummy of the sudda and spit at him every day. I think it should be done as a national exercise every morning like singing the national anthem. And particularly at the commencement of every English class!’

He also opined, ruefully, that when he left the University he had thought the next generation of undergraduates with a completely Sinhala education would be able to be rid of the inferiority complex that his, the last generation of the Ivor Jennings model, suffered from. He observed: they turned out to be worse.

The issue I think is not so much that we use English (I see nothing wrong in using the enemy’s weapons against him/her, especially if it is done effectively). It all depends on what we do with English. The Kaduwa (sword) can be used to keep at bay the enemy or it can be used to castrate ourselves. It can be used, as it is, to demarcate social status and acquire a superiority that is not in tune with intellect or skill. This can be done, let me hasten to add, only to the extent that we have allowed the sudda to inhabit our minds, our sensibilities.

I am not sure of the efficacy of the Anagarika’s proposal. It cannot be a matter of spitting on the sudda (literally and/or metaphorically) or else giving the sudda permanent residency in our minds and thereby submitting to ideological servility. Not choosing the former is not necessarily an embrace of the latter.

That would be a dialectic way of approaching issues and quite un-Buddhist. The alternative way is to engage the sudda without fear and without hatred (both of which inhibit fruitful exchange) with full awareness. Gamini Maama himself offers a possible ‘location’ of English by referring to a Raj Kapoor song in the 1951 classic movie, ‘Shree 420’:

Mera joota hai japani
Yeh patloon inglisthani
Sar pe laal topi roosi
Phir bhi dil hai hindustani

My shoes may be from Japan. My clothes may be from England and my hat may be from Russia but my heart remains Indian!

It is not in the trappings, then. I had heard this song quoted before and it always reminds me of a conversation that took place in Peradeniya about 17 years ago.

This was when I was called a jathika chinthana kaaraya by my political opponents. Someone had made this comment: ‘Malinda Aiya kathakaranne jathika chinthanaya, e unata yaaluwela inne lansi kellek ekka’ (Malinda talks jathika chinthanaya but is going out with a Burgher girl). My response: ‘honda sinhala bauddha kollo, honda Sinhala bauddha kello ekka yaalu wela innava, e unata eyalage chinthana lansi’. (There are good Sinhala Buddhist boys going out with good Sinhala Buddhist girls but their ideology is ‘Burgher’; ‘lansi’ being used as proxy for what I have been referring to as ‘sudda’ in the cultural colonization context).

The way out is not cultural isolation but active and informed inter-cultural association without operating from the extreme that vilifies the sudda or that which worships the sudda. To put it in a different way, we need to be proud of who we are, where we came from etc., celebrate that which is and which was good in our history, heritage and culture without falling into the trap of romanticizing the past.

The Buddha advocated the employment of reason. Makes a lot of sense.

A nation must cultivate its collective intellect so that it can separate grain from chaff, the inconsequential from the abiding, that which is worthy of acquiring and that which should be dismissed.

We have shown a marked inability to be selective and this flows from a wishy-washy approach to the task of self-exploration.

Since cricket is in the news and since Sri Lanka is to play England in the Champions Trophy before this piece gets published, let me use a cricketing example.

What is cricket? It is not home-grown. It is a sudda game. Does it not belong to us, though? A simple illustration would suffice to answer this question: the ‘Dil-scoop’, Tilakaratne Dilshan’s innovation, the audacious lifting of a delivery over the keeper’s head and to the boundary.

I like to think that in that stroke, in that innovation, there is ‘Sri Lankan heart’, even though the helmet is not Sri Lankan the game is not Sri Lankan.

As for the sudda within us, that creature is not un-tamable.

And there is nothing to stop us from visiting and taking up residence in the sudda’s head either. We need to be alert though. And we are not alert enough. 

*This was first published in the 'Daily News' in September 2009.  A Facebook status update posted by Pubudu Shiran

Read more

On the 'Suddha' resident within us*

It was Alvis in Wonderland who got me going about white-ness, or the 'acting the suddha' thing and of course the whole black-and-white business of condescension and viceroy-posturing on the part of certain white people holding obscure posts in UN agencies, INGOs etc. Alvis had a response to my piece titled 'The black and white of the (mis) information industry'. I will get to it presently.

That article also elicited a comment (via email) regarding the issue of post-coloniality. The following question was put to me: 'Can ever we rid ourselves of the baggage of a colonial past in continuance to be 'post colonials'; can we ever be rid of that linkage which can transfigure as a form of mental bondage?' A possible answer followed:

Retired supreme court judge and once acting CJ, R.S Wanasundera who is a close friend of the family once said in the course of a conversation with my father that we should completely forget that we were ever under them (the Brits and the rest of the european bandits) and that even the Independence Day is a reminder which is structured in our polity to remind us of our former colonial past.'

Is it possible? I am not sure. The past is never packed up and 'disappeared' in some irretrievable archive. It is present and it is alive, one-way or another, sometimes in perverse ways. The 'solution' (in so far as this is a problem, and I believe it is one) is probably located in how we relate to that past, that very violent past of plundering resources, killing hundreds of thousands of people, forcible conversion, destruction of Buddhist and Hindu places of worship and other forms of attempted culture-erasure. All in the name of 'civilization' and 'civilizing', of cleansing the 'heathens' etc.

Unnecessary attachment to things, tangible and otherwise, is a recipe for discontent. This is what Siddhartha Gauthama taught. If we look back at the colonial era with awe and reverence (as some do even today) we are being toady, a bunch of no-good imitators at best or, more commonly, a nation of slaves. This is an inhibiting condition.

What of the opposite, the looking-back-in-anger option, so to speak? That too is an Upadana, an inevitable grasping of the act of rejection as well as the object rejected that inhibits clarity of thought, prevents concrete and meaningful unfettering of that past, its violence and its baggage.

It is something that has to be dealt with and not wished away, I believe. We have to look at the past, in what it did and what it does, we have to look at its articulation in this moment in time and we have to look it in the eye without flinching, without blinking. Here's where the irreverent Alvis comes in;

'It is rather very apparent here, where whites talk as if they live in paradise in the West (aka NATO land) and were hard put to come by here, the moment you ask them where they are from in the US or Canada and Australia and EXACTLY who lived on that land a hundred years ago, or if they had any black or 'Native Indian neighbours, mates or peers - they deflate...but its not their fault...it is our fault...'cos we let them...our ruling class lets them...and that class there (and here, though more covert) has long benefited from being their 'jobbers, 'and in the end, a loan here and a preference there, is all they need...to wipe out generations of people...'

The key qualifier here, to me, is 'we let them'. Yes, it is our fault. My friend Udayasiri Wickramaratne said it beautifully in one of his 'Arthika Vihilu' columns for the Irida Divaina: 'Some have cats as pets, some have rabbits and some have parrots; not 'some' but all of us, however, have a Suddha in our minds as a pet'.

There is most certainly a whole gang of such Suddhas that Alvis speaks of inhibiting our emergence as a proud and independent people without any unnecessary baggage, true.

There is the Suddha and the Kalu-Suddha. There are the innumerable structures that 'independence' failed to dismantle and which still keep us 'colonized' and 'beholden', make us cringe and grovel and ask for crumbs from tables laden with that which was robbed from us.

However, as long as we don't recognize that colonialism exists both outside us and within us, we will be clutching at straws in terms of trying to drop our colonial baggage. We have to look within, seek out all the Suddhas resident therein (in various disguises, colours and shapes) and tell them all 'get out!' if we are to move forward. This is a necessary prerequisite for getting the Suddha outside out of our hair.

*Written almost five years ago and published in the 'Daily News'.  A Facebook status update about the 'crime' of 'writing in English' reminded me of this.  So I dug it up.  There's a follow-up piece as well.

Read more

The greening of the blue-n-gold

There was a time, way back in the early 70s when Sri Lanka, then Ceylon, had a Milk Board that provided fresh milk and yoghurt far superior in quality and taste to anything that wealthy milk companies offer today with all the technology and additives at their disposal.  There was a Kiri Hala or milk outlet at the Royal Junior School.  Children could order milk – unflavored, chocolate or vanilla – and it would be delivered to the class at the interval.  One pint of total goodness a day for those who wanted it. 

Time passed.  The local milk industry was destroyed by the ‘robber barons’ that J R Jayewardene opened the country’s doors to without any qualms.  Out went fresh milk. In came powdered milk.  There were soft drinks too back then.  Lanka Lime, Necto, Orange Barley, Cream Soda and Ginger Beer.  These gave way to Coca Cola and Fanta.  Things changed and it’s hard to say if it was all for the better. 

Today it looks like powdered milk is no longer chic.  It’s the fresh stuff that is demanded.  Maybe the consumer is getting wise.  The problem is that there just isn’t enough fresh milk to meet the demand – part real and part artificial of course.  Maybe this is why Royal College has started to go green.  Maybe it has nothing to do with the relevant political economy, but just a good plan by a good man.  Whatever the reason, if there’s one drink for which there is a big demand and a demand that’s growing day by day in Royal College, it’s something that Royalists did not really talk about, let alone enjoy in the canteen, during the 70s, 80s, 90s or even in the first decade of the new millennium.  Kola Kenda. 

If you go to the West Wing Lobby of the main building of the school you will see a process that school has not witnessed in all of the 178 years of its existence.  It all begins around 3.00 am.  

It begins, as has been the tradition in this country for millennia among the vast majority of the people, with solemnity.  Five men gather at a small shrine, hands clasped, reciting the five precepts.  Malinda Niranjan, H.M. Kelum, W.P. Rajindra, Anura Chaminda, Badhawa Raju and Suresh Dep make the kola kenda team. 

It’s not just rice and some leaves as one would find in kiosks in all parts of the main cities and along main roads these days (again, that’s not something that was in vogue in the past).  It’s made of traditional varieties of rice.  That’s incomplete.  It’s made of traditional varieties of rice that are organically grown. No chemical pesticides or weedicides, no chemical fertilizers.  There’s madathavaalu, paccaperumal, kahavanu and kalu heeneti.   The mix is flavored by an ingredient mix that includes rare herbs of immense curative value boiled with gotukola, pumpkin and radish. It’s thick. Wholesome. It has a flavor that is very addictive.

When the Principal of Royal College Upali Gunasekera began his kola kenda project some six months ago, it was a first for Royal.  The Principal recalls those early days: ‘We made just one large pot of kenda; there are just 25 servings’.  Now, on average, approximately 800 children come for kola kenda, some in the morning before school starts and some during the interval.  It’s just 15 rupees per cup and that’s about half the ‘market price’. ‘We do this as a service and don’t make any profit,’ the Principal explained. 

They are finding it hard to meet the demand, apparently.  Malinda Niranjan said that the work is all done by 6.15 am but lamented that there were days they just don’t have enough to give to all those who come.  But there are days when they make a second batch, he said.  Apparently it’s not just the children. Some parents, come with their children to have a cup of kola kenda.

‘We also have roti made of traditional rice varieties.  For most of the non-teaching staff breakfast consists of roti and kola kenda.  That’s Rs 15 for the kenda and Rs25 for a roti.  They say it’s their favorite breakfast meal.’

The idea has caught on.  Children in the first three grades get a weekly cup of green goodness.  There are plans to expand this so that children in grades four and five will also benefit.

‘They love it.  Parents tell me that their sons show unusual enthusiasm about getting up and going to school on their particular kola kenda day of the week.  If a child falls in and a parent offers to make some kola kenda, the child would ask if it’s going to be like what he gets at school or so I am told,’ Mr Gunasekera says with undisguised pride. 

There’s a story here that goes beyond providing a health drink for school children.  Theoretically, 10 years down the line Royal would have produced thousands of students who not only love kola kenda but know its value as a drink that gives energy and enhances immune systems.  From there to wean the nation of its powdered milk dependency would be far less difficult.   After all, even in this relatively early stage there are children in the primary school and there are very senior boys too who wouldn’t miss their daily dose of kola kenda.  ‘The Deputy Head Prefect is one of them,’ the Principal said. 

The teachers are part of the story too.  Renuka Vidyaratne is one of them. 

‘I’ve suffered from migraine and gastritis.  I found it difficult even to climb the staircase.  Everyone morning, when I woke up, I would ask myself whether or not I should go to school.  Kola kenda changed all that.  Now I have four cups a day.  I don’t feel fatigue.  I stopped all the medicines I’ve been taking for so many years now.’

The cure of course is in the packet of ingredients -- the rice and the particular vegetables.  Those who produce the kola kenda ‘packets’, Mr Gunasekera says, have agreed to provide enough to feed close to 100,000 students in areas in the North Western Province that have been hit by CKDu (Chronic Kidney Disease of Unknown Causes).  ‘Unknown’ of course is qualified designed to facilitate the continued poisoning by agro-chemicals.  The ‘project’ if you want to call it that is therefore ‘national’ in both potential and logic. 

If Royal is ‘greening’ these days it is not only because of the kola kenda.  Upali Gunasekera has made quite a name for himself as an advocate of hands-on learning with children getting involved in school-gardening.  Chemical-free gardening that is.  There’s a comprehensive solid waste recycling program in place.  Lighting will pay for itself in a few years time courtesy solar power. 

It is unlikely that the Blue-Gold-Blue of the flag will change with one blue stripe being replaced by green.  The school, however, is slowly but surely being encased in a ‘green’ frame in thinking as well as practice.  It is not hard to replicate.  It’s not, after all, as bit a challenge as getting dubious powdered milk multinationals replaced by local dairy farmers organized into cooperatives. 

Royal has taken a ‘greening lead’.  Other prominent schools lose nothing but would benefit much if they too went green.  Who knows, there might come a day when that pernicious habit-changing putting-down-the-local question ‘thamuse kenda beelada inne?’ (have you had kenda?) would be replaced as it should be (and as Prof Nalin De Silva recommends) by the far more pertinent dismissive, ‘Why do you look as though you’ve just had powdered milk?’  It would amount to a (healthy) greening of the mind and indeed, one might say, ‘a healthy greening of the nation’ –an unshackling from incapacitating and subjugating colonial ideologies.

Royal is going green. Will Ananda, Nalanda,Viskha, Sirimavo Bandaranaike,  Dharmaraja, Mahinda, Maliyadeva and other prominent schools remain ‘mis-colored’ as it were? 

Read more

"PB" of Alutwela, Haldummulla: Farmer, king and shaman

Nestled below the Haputale hills, cradled by the rocky outcrops characteristic of the Uva-Wellassa, is a farm where the trees and the vegetable plots are tinged with a green uncharacteristic for a region in the throes of one of the harshest droughts in years. If the dismal browns of a dusty August is the signature of that region steeped in history and folklore and home to a tradition of unrelenting struggles for freedom, both against foreign invasion as well as hunger, then this particular place, even to the casual passer-by, would appear to have been touched by divinity. For water is the parent of any verdant landscape and water is the god that seems to have failed the people that populate that territory.

Alutwela, is a village made up of solitary families eking out a living through chena cultivation and, when the monsoons do arrive, paddy cultivation. It is situated about 6 kilometres off a place called Veherayaya, a bit north of Kuda Oya on the Thanamalvila-Wellawaya road. The dry winds of the South East Dry Zone relentlessly brush over this place. These fires are countered by the coolness that floats down from the central hills and through the waters of the Kuda Oya, the blending of the two producing a distinct ecology where literally anything can be grown.

The particular plot of land I referred to belongs to one Dissanayake Mudiyanselage Punchi Banda, "PB" to all the people in the area. I got to know about his through an old friend, Wasantha. Wasantha is a wanderer, a searcher, a deeply spiritual young man who has dedicated his life to understand those eternal verities that occupy the minds of the true shamans of this world. We ran into each other after a gathering of what our confused modernist social scientists call "native intellectuals". We talked about the state of the nation, the problems of "development" and discussed the pertinent issues associated with the eternal question which Lenin presented as a directive, "What is to be done". He suggested that it might be worthwhile visiting his friend PB.

PB is a man in his late fifties hailing from a farming family in Diyatalawa. He had been attracted by the revolutionary rhetoric of the JVP and had spent a year in prison after the insurrection failed in 1971. Whereas other JVPers chose to do their A/L exams while in prison, moving on to university careers, NGOs and newspapers, PB had learnt English. After being released, he had, together with 73 other young men, formed a farmer company and obtained land in Alutwela, two acres each. What they had moved into was a thick jungle, infested with wildlife.

Clearing the jungle, asweddumizing, dealing with disease, isolation and other hardships had not been easy. Many gave up and returned to their original lives. Some struggled on for longer. In any event, by 1977, only one person remained from the original 73 who had come to blaze new paths in that forbidding region. PB.

When we got there in the late afternoon, PB was on a hill with his family, his wife, three daughters and son. They were breaking pieces of rock to be used in the foundation of a new house he was planning to build. Recognising Wasantha, he stopped his work and started chatting, moving from subject to subject, interspersed with attentive silences as we asked questioned or expressed an opinion. Over the next two days he filled out many of the gaps in the deliberately sketchy story that Wasantha had related to me before we went to see PB.

He attributed his adhishtanaya to remain there while his comrades abandoned the place to the hard experience that is prison life. Endowed with a natural propensity to learn things quickly and to adapt, PB has, over the past quarter century turned the place into a veritable Eden.

Wasantha once told me that it is because people don’t understand the forest that they fear it, and because they fear it, they cut it down. According to him, the forest is actually a benevolent, living thing which protects and nurtures those who seek to understand it. PB’s ganudenuwa has been like that. He has walked every inch of the region. He has discovered caves with ancient rock inscriptions and archaeological remains, discovered the ways of wild life and how to live in harmony with the flora and fauna, how to give and take without hurting.

Hidden in the jungle, he found the remains of the hydraulic civilisation that had thrived in the area in the form of abandoned tanks, canals etc. He has renovated one weva and built another two small ponds in order to irrigate his fields and vegetable plots. The Kuda Oya, which carries the water that cascades down the Diyaluma to the Kirindi Oya, passes close to his piece of land. With great determination, PB had organised the villagers, lobbied local politicians and government officials, brushed aside red tape by offering to do the designing and the construction, and built a canal to take the water from the river to the paddy fields of their village and a couple of others as well. He has put in place over 9000 feet of pipes to divert water into his fields and his tanks. Even in the harshest period of the dry season, there is enough water to irrigate his vegetables and enough in the weva for the cattle belonging to the villagers and the wild life in the forest.

His homestead, is a lush green patch, shaded by a grove of coconut trees, Tamarind, Jak, and Kohomba. The well still has water. His wattle and daub hut, with its iluk laid roof is cool and comfortable. He has put up a solar panel which allows him to light three bulbs and watch TV.

"Some of those who came with me are now successful politicians. The boy who made tea in our wadiya is a big mudalali now. Had I too gone back, I might have ended up like that.

I am happy I stayed back." He was smiling as he explained. He was smiling most of the time. I have not met a more relaxed man in my life.

And yet, this relaxed man is also hard working. One morning Wasantha and I took a walk into the jungle. After walking along a jungle path for about an hour, we stumbled on to the river. We walked up until we came to place where a weir of sticks and stones had been put up so that water could be diverted along an irrigation canal. There were three men in the river bed just below the pool that the "dam" produced. They called us and wanted us to help them shift a large rock. Apparently they were looking for an illama. Gem mining is done in the area, but not extensively. When inquiries revealed that we were friends of PB, they treated us with tea, offered us ganja and told us not to tell him that we met them. On the way back we ran into PB, his son and another young boy. Apparently someone had accidentally cut the pipe that carried the water to his fields. The entire morning was spent repairing the damage and attending to other repairs.

The respect that the gem miners had for PB is understandable. Wasantha told me that PB is a king for all practical purposes, not in the arrogant way of the modern day monarch who is badly named as President or Prime Minister, but in the mould of trustee which was the original role for the leader. A couple of years ago, the government had sanctioned a German company to grow babycorn in 5000 acres of land in the area. The villagers protested, arguing that it would cause irreparable damage to the environment, producing a tragedy the same proportions of that which resulted from the ill-fated and still ongoing disaster that is sugar cane cultivation. PB was the natural leader of the struggle. He went around to all the politicians in the area, all the relevant officials, produced reports, did an inventory of the flora and fauna in the area and made a comprehensive argument against the project. He remembers with gratitude the help he got from Krishna Wijebandara of that newspaper who helped champion his cause in that newspaper. Together they stopped the Germans.

"Just look at the Kuda Oya, it is almost dry. If they had sunk tube wells, it would have destroyed the water table. This drought we are witnessing would have been thousand times worse."

Even today, PB is busy gathering relief for the most seriously affected drought victims, running around talking to people, organising relief and making sure that racketeers don’t hijack the contributions of good hearted people.

PB is an unassuming man, but well versed in the rough and tumble of power politics. He is courteous to every politician who passes by, and everyone with any ambition in these things makes it a point to visit him regularly. He never commits himself one way or the other. During the UNP-JVP bheeshanaya time, a group of young men had come to ascertain his loyalties. They had chastised him for having given up on the revolutionary idea. He has said "Ithin umbala mava marapalla. Mamath me inne merenna one vela" (So you can kill me, after all I am waiting to die).

"One day a Buddhist priest came by and I took him around, explaining to him the dharma of this region. He told me that he is convinced that in a previous life he had been a monk or a king in the area. I am convinced that I used to rule this land." He still does, clearly.

Over the years PB has taught himself the secrets of curing snake bite victims. He is also an accomplished eye specialist. He has devoured countless Ayurvedic texts and tested their worth in practise, making his own medicines from the herbs that abound in his garden and in the surrounding jungle. While I was there I was suddenly seized by a stomach ailment. I complained about the malady and he first suggested coffee as a remedy. A few more questions and he diagnosed my discomfort as a kidney ailment resulting from the different density of the water. He brought me some red onions and a glass of water. "Peel these and chew on them while we talk" he said. Within 10 minutes, I was cured.

"I have treated over 300 snake bite victims. In a couple of instances they were brought to me late and the victims died. Sometimes they are beyond my help and I ask the relatives to take them to the hospital as soon as possible." In addition to this, PB also lectures the commando trainees at the Kuda Oya camp about survival in the jungle. These lectures are not just about survival but speak of a broader logic of the natural world and the appropriate engagement with it.

In his garden there are all kinds of vegetables, some of which have not taken root as "natural" vegetation. Thus for the most part he engages in "Do-nothing" farming, the technique that was perfected in many parts of Asia and popularised in Japan in recent times. In addition, due to the particular climatic conditions, he is able to grow beetroot, cabbage and other upcountry crops as well as the traditional Dry Zone crops. Recently, he had decided to grow katuwelbatu, a plant used in a lot of Ayurvedic medicines. 

Katuwelbatu is imported from India and PB might well be the first large scale cultivator of this important plant. Through Wasantha’s contacts he has arranged to supply the Ayurvedic "shop" at the Mt. Lavinia Hotel, and together they have already transported some 40 kilograms and made arrangements to supply a further 200 kilos, all at 80 rupees per kilo. But perhaps his success as a farmer is best demonstrated by the fact that PB has enough stocks to last his family for over 5 years!

Amidst all these engagements with the physical world, PB is a deeply spiritual human being. In fact his farming, his medication and everything he does, is coloured by a deep understanding of the Dharma of this world, a logic that is heavily laden with Buddhist philosophy. He has practised meditation, attends to all the religious matters of the village with the same intensity that he gives his time and energy to make the local farmer organisation work. His dream is to establish an aranyaya for bikkhus and lay persons who need the peace and tranquillity to engage in meditation. "There are enough caves in this area. I can clean it up. I believe this place used to be a aranyaya for such people. All the signs tell me this. Who knows, maybe one day I will also give all this up and devote myself to such pursuits."

As is his custom he treated us lavishly with food and conversation and invited us to visit him again. I have read a lot about sustainable agriculture, traditional knowledge systems and a different kind of world view that is less arrogant and less damaging to the natural cycles. I have met experts and other advocates of such doctrines. I have also heard tell that an ounce of practise is worth a ton of theory. In PB’s case the practise comes in tons. And typical of such people, it is written only his smile and his gentle eyes.

Read more

Doing the ‘done thing’

Sachithra Senanayake was booed each time he came up to bowl, each time he touched the ball.  This is after he ‘Mankaded’ Jos Buttler.  A lot has been said and written about the incident.  There has been self-righteous indignation, there’s been ‘titting-for-tatting’ arguments and there has been sober reference to ICC laws. 

Ravi Bopara said ‘It is definitely not within the spirit of the game. I wouldn’t say Jos was stealing yards, he was just casually leaving the crease. It is just the done thing.’  He adds, ‘if that’s the way Mathews and Sri Lanka want to play their cricket then it’s up to them; hopefully we don’t step to that level.’

Oh! Wow!

Now Bopara and Buttler had almost brought England a hard-to-imagine win in the 4^th ODI.  There were some 20 plus occasions when ones were converted into twos.  ‘Good running,’ the commentators said.  They weren’t watching Buttler doing the ‘done thing’ though. However, the only difference between this ‘done thing’ and running in a manner that compels the umpire to signal ‘one short’ is that the former happens at delivery point and the latter post-delivery and post-stroke.  If one is the ‘done thing’ then the other is too. 

According to Bopara, though, stepping out early is morally superior to being punished for doing so after being warned more than once.  Should we not say ‘fiddlesticks!’? 

The last word on the issue, to my mind, came from my colleague Callistus Davy: ‘It is not something that players should sort out. It’s for the umpires to decide.’  True.  The ‘spirit of the game,’ frequently alluded to with reference to this incident is way too subjective to come to any conclusion one way or another.  ‘Laws’ are more robust and they are pretty clear on this matter.  If you are deliberately taking cover under ‘spirit of the game’ to steal a few singles and with it a game, that’s the worst kind of violation of this ‘spirit of the game’. 

The warning should have come from the umpire, not the players.  The umpire watched for no-balls and is required to ascertain if a run has been completed.  People get run out by fractions of an inch and therefore gaining a couple of yards by ‘doing the done thing’ is cheating.  What Bopara is therefore saying is ‘We cheat and that’s the “done thing” as far as England is concerned’.  In this instance Senanayake, by warning, was being kind.  Rightfully, though, Sri Lanka need not refer to the warning to buttress justification.  Mankaading is legal.  That’s it.

The ‘booing point’ however is that Senanayake’s action was brought into question before the final game began.  He was the most successful Sri Lankan bowler in the series. His action has been cleared by many on many occasions.  This of course doesn’t mean that he cannot or would never again err, but the timing of the complaint is significant.  It coincides with England facing a decider. 

Is this cricket?  Is it politics (as usual)?  Here’s an analogy. Sri Lankan security forces were about to vanquish the LTTE in the first few months of 2009.  ‘War crimes!’ was the word for ‘Mankaading’ in that context.  ‘Not in the spirit of the game’, was the argument, the relevant reference being the Geneva Convention, never mind that the said document is like used toilet paper if the USA and its allies (the UK included) are involved.  That match was won, but the Bopara-like whines didn’t stop.  In that instance, apart from ‘tokenist’ objection to LTTE’s preferred methodologies of ‘playing the game,’ there was largely silence on what the other side was doing.  Like holding some 300,000 civilians hostage, for example.  That was the equivalent of doing Buttler’s ‘done thing’.  Calling a probe on bowling action, then, is also the ‘done thing’, as ‘done’ as trying to steal a single and as ‘done’ as being horrified when the thief is caught napping. 

One thing is certain.  The call to hang Sachithra Senanayake will continue.  There are Navi Pillays in the cricketing world too, after all.  Obamas and Camerons too.    It’s called ‘doing the done thing’.  That’s polite-speak for getting away with cheating and what better way than to pass the cheat-buck back to the enemy, huh?  

Read more

The 0.001% chance of something happening

Yes, we went to 'Thanamalwila' and had a lot of 'curd'

There’s an anecdote I’ve heard tell of Ajith Fernando, who along with a dozen others, ‘went around the pearl’ not too long ago.  This had happened several decades ago.  Ajith and a couple of friends, probably just out of school at the time, had decided to go to some random destination. 

The story went thus:  ‘They had got into a bus with the strangest sounding destination they could imagine.  They picked Thanamalwila.’

Tales, when told and re-told, invariably gather story-strains which make narratives richer even as it robs.  I don’t know if Ajith and Co. actually thought ‘Thanamalwila’ sounded strange.  When I heard about it, I laughed.  The narrator just said ‘they found that the only thing to eat in Thanamalwila was curd and so they camped somewhere eating nothing but curd for three days’. 

It could not have been that way.  I’ve never asked Ajith but I am pretty sure that there were other things to do and eat in Thanamalwila, if indeed that’s where they went and indeed if Ajith and his friend actually did take a trip to a random destination.

Some people travel like that though.  They are very different from what could called ‘checklist travelers’.  There’s obviously many benefits that flow from checklists.  You cover a lot of ground when there’s meticulous planning, there’s no doubt about that.  Sometimes, if traveling with many people, it makes absolute sense to plan ahead.  You can’t after all have twenty people on Day Two of a trip suggesting 20 different places to visit or 20 different things to do.  And if you want to bring down overall costs planning is what you should do if it involves a whole bunch of people.  Add to this the fact that some people like to do things with friends and you get a compelling argument for checklist traveling.

There are other kinds of travelers.   Like Ajith who may have not done that Thanamalwila number but knowing him might very well have gone there or somewhere else and consumed a lot of curd just for the heck of it, ‘curd’ of course being metaphor for ‘whatever goes’. 

I remembered the Ajith-Thanamalwila story a short while ago when I saw a Facebook post.  It was a Lao Tzu quote: ‘A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving’.  And immediately I was transported back to April 14, 2014 and another Ajith-Thanamalwila type journey.  I wrote about it not too long afterwards in an article titled ‘The true location of Kala Wewa’.

To recap, I picked up my friend and self-proclaimed ‘professional rastiyaadukaaraya’ Wasantha Wijewardena from Thalawathugoda around noon that day and suggested we go somewhere far away from Colombo.  We picked Kala Wewa.  I told him that I had friends in Galgamuwa I would like to see, so he suggested we first go there and then decide what to do next.

I didn’t quite remember where my friend lived.  I didn’t have his phone number.   I knew that he travels a lot and the chances were that he would have chosen to spend Aluth Avurudda with friends or family rather than staying alone in his house (he’s a bachelor, a teacher and quite a good singer).  I told Wasantha (in Sinhala) ‘the chances of actually hooking up with this guy are about 0.001%’.  Wasantha said ‘don’t you think that things which have a 0.001% chance of happening are exactly the things that do happen’?  I agreed, subject to the caveat ‘certain kinds of things’.  This was ‘that’ kind of thing. 

We couldn’t find the house.  It took several calls to get a number where we could reach him – a mutual friend’s niece was married to our friend’s youngest brother.  We had to call the mutual friend, get his sister’s number, get from her the niece’s number and finally our friend’s brother’s number. It was not as confusing when we actually did it, because all we had to worry about was writing a singled number down on each occasion.  He was not home. He was far away.  Partying, he said.  We laughed.

Wasantha and I didn’t go to Kala Wewa that evening. The Kala Wewa came to us. It came to us in Madadombe, a small village about 9kms from Galgamuwa.  We were greeted as brothers greet brothers by my friend’s brother who I hadn’t seen in many years and who had never set his eyes on Wasantha.  My friend called several hours later and said he would come to Madadombe – he had arranged for someone to give him a ride to a place close enough for us to go pick him up.  

We bathed in the Maha Wewa in Madadombe.  Then we picked him up.  We took shelter in a random house (naturally a distant relative of my friend) until a herd of elephants prowling near his house had wandered back into the shrub jungle.  We had dinner, we talked.  Some might say we were both crazy.  We had no plans.  We had a vague idea of destination but we didn’t have a clue where we would end up that night.  We were not unduly worried.  But we ended up in Madadombe, sorry, ‘Thanamalwila’.  We consumed a lot of curd too.  ‘Curd’ that is.  Ajith would understand, even if he never went to Thanamalwila and even if he’s never had curd in his life.

Read more