Features
Aiyo ‘Knew it all’. Convoys ahoy! Criminal water wasters
On Friday March 22, Sirisena made the stunning statement in Kandy that he knew who masterminded the 2019 Easter Sunday terror attacks. The fact that there was a master mind or hidden hand in that awful tragedy that killed nearly 300 persons, injured 500 and shattered so many families was an accepted fact after His Holiness Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith first gave public voice to it. Then the question ‘Who was it?’ hung over our island for nearly three years since it happened five years ago. Many knew the answer but did not divulge it, until up trotted Sirisena and said he knew who the culprit is. Whether single or many, he did not say, along with not naming names. Aiyo Sirisena, aney appoi!
A damp squib?
Shakespeare’s tragic hero Macbeth, contemplating life towards the end of his own, condemned it as “a tale told by an idiot signifying nothing.” Are we to class Sirisena’s hinted at top story as Macbeth did life itself? Is what Sirisena divulged as an explosive secret, hoping it would electrify everyone, actually signify nothing? A mere damp squib; a pus vedilla?
Was Sirisena seeking publicity; the glare of the limelight; votes; when he said he knew the answer to the paramount question that has been hoisted by many and has dodged the Cardinal and the public for so long? Did he think people would consider him honourable in knowing the identity of the culprit but not divulging his/her name yet humbly paying the hundred million fine imposed on him? (Has he done so – meaning paid his fine?)
He definitely drew attention to himself from the public by saying what he said in Kandy, but unforeseen by him probably, other bodies too like the Minister of Public Security, police and lawyers took note of his declaration. He changed his bold declaration from “I know” to cowardly “I was told” when the air around him heated up. But to know and not tell can be taken to be a crime.
Aiyo Sirisena! What have you done? This time to yourself and not to the country as you did when you took no note of warnings relayed to you but shopped at Mustapha’s in Singapore when the destruction occurred in churches and hotels. Also when you sacked PM Ranil as if wielding a ‘off with your head’ sword and made your previous arch enemy PM instead. Mercifully the judges saw right and brought Ranil W to his rightful place. Poor upright Speaker Karu J had to bear the brunt of your impulsive folly.
However Cassandra goes into her forecasting mode and declares: “The drama will go on; people are after your blood, Sirisena. They’ve seen through you well and truly.”
Travelling VVIPs
Soo Buddhistic, ahem, sorry, soo Sinhala Buddhistic! Two R brethren, both Ex Prezs, journeyed to the most Buddhistic holy places a week or two ago: one to Anuradhapura and the other to visit the highest of the Sangha in Kandy. Both with spouses and retinues of retainers or loyalists. In Anuradhapura elder brother and cohorts were conducted to the highest level where the sacred bo tree grows and needs maximum protection from even human presence and human exhalation; so sensitive and precarious is this 2500 year old tree.
The influx up must have been to accommodate MR’s vow making. GR sped to Kandy and visited Mahanayakes and Anunayakas of both Chapters. Along with huge baskets of fruit he gifted the several monks, on bended knee, his book. Wonder whether they read it and created answers to the question asked: who were the conspirators who prized Prez Gota off the presidential seat.
They surely were heavily escorted with two large convoys of vehicles and security personnel. Proves they know the general public is no longer enamored of them: charisma or no charisma, nor of their saving the country for the majority Sinhala Buddhists as thy say from the Tamils. Muslims were favoured. No one can dispute that these two Ex Prezs were the ones who principally drove this country to bankruptcy.
Was it us, the heavily burdened taxpayers, who paid the bill for the convoy accompanying jaunts? They have necessarily to get out and about, but not with large security back-ups. Security because they are afraid of the people who have turned from worshippers to critics. They should just take off incognito. They will be safer then.
Apathetic public servants
Most of those who are employed in government offices in the lower and mid-level ranks are filled with inertia to the point of idleness. Inertia is defined as “a feeling of unwillingness to do anything.” Isn’t that absolutely spot on? This curse is met with in any government office among clerical staff and higher, teachers, even nurses. Recently a visitor to the Colombo museum said there were four people in the booth at the entrance: one selling tickets; one reading a newspaper, another on his cell phone, the third nodding. They were all museum employees since they wore that badge of identification.
Many are the complaints from people who seek some service. Long ago a coat was draped on his chair and occupant thereof was off having tea or gone on some business of his. Now they sit tight in their seats and do not attend to those waiting for service.
This is due to overloading offices with employees, mostly by politicians to thank voters.
But then serendipitously, out of the blue, an officer shines forth in an office like a diamond among bits of coal and grit. Cassandra has got excellent service from one of these rare gems. She meant to phone her to get her permission to mention her name but Cass did not do the needful so the good officer remains anonymous. She works in the Grama Niladhari office that serves the Bamba Kollupitiya areas.
She is available on phone as she gives her number to those who seek it. You know the penance that pensioners suffer in January each year. They have to present themselves in person to prove they are alive and are eligible for pension payment. If you are a lucky pensioner who has to report to this woman Grama Sevaka, you will have a seat to sit on, even in her office. You are met with courtesy and a smile and your matter attended to in double quick time. She is a superb, committed government servant.
Cassandra’s preamble is to ask the very relevant question as to what the water supplying boards and their employees are doing to conserve water as the drought continues and water levels in reservoirs would be decreasing rapidly. They do nothing. They warm their office chairs, warn the public mildly, and then they will impose water cuts getting more drastic as the rains avoid Sri Lanka.
Why cannot they go around or in some other way monitor those who wantonly waste water on daily bathing cars and gardens, and hold hoses to wash outsides of homes and offices until streams of water flow down roads. Some even deliberately drench road fronts to keep dust out of bungalows. These crimes may be committed by chauffeurs, gardeners and ayahs. But householders or office managers are ultimately responsible.
Water supply officers and/or police should go around mornings to monitor over-use of tap water which is treated water. If a house has a tube well, OK. Otherwise water wasters should have their water supply cut and the fact advertised. Only way to get idiots to be civic minded. Why should we who are so careful, nay niggardly, in use of water that comes to us have to suffer water cuts due to the wanton waste by selfish idiots?
Cassandra pleads with her readers to be vigilantes and rebuke or report water wasting neighbours wherever they may live. Cass has reprimanded a couple of these as she goes on her morning walk.
Another despicable Sri Lankan national trait: never nip a problem in the bud, but eventually get inundated by the minor trouble turned disastrous. Then probably run around like headless chicken querying who caused the trouble? Who the conspirators are, who’s the hidden hand?