Avurudu Thel Keliya

We have moved from sugar sweetness to an oily slipperiness.

Will this season be remembered as the ‘Pol Thel Avurudda’ or the ‘Thel Pilika Avurudda’?

Those who celebrate Easter, will have a hard and painful time, with memories of those bloody blasts in churches, the failure to find the brains behind that carnage, and the incompetence of the State apparatus that enabled that huge tragedy to take place. 

Is there any difference in the state apparatus today? Is it any less corrupt, less politically structured and managed? Are we really in need of divine intervention to bring those responsible for that carnage, to book, and not the legal and judicial process that is meant to fight and put down crime?

Those who celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, even wearing the mournful black, must certainly remember the role of Judas, and the pieces of silver, that enabled the Crucifixion. How much of such silver is moving around these days; and how many business, administrative, and legal Judases are around, to ensure the success of Saubhagyaye Dekma, the flow of corrupt sugar sweetness and oily slithery?

The debate today is about Pol Thel – not much about the carcinogen in the imports, but on how best to get rid of it. The big and official call is to re-export it. Some voices of the people, including a few members of the Sangha, are against such re-exports. If it is dangerous to the health of the people of Sri Lanka, will it have no danger for people in the country it was exported from? 

That is not all. Why take it away before all stocks, in whatever godowns, Customs or private, are checked and the real carcinogen level identified, and the importers and/or distributors are brought before the law? There should be public cry to keep those stocks here, and prevent the oil importers and distributors slithering away from the law. Or is this the new meaning of  Saubhagya Thinking? 

We are moving to a really slippery Avurudda. There is Covid with its own problems, the sudden halt to  vaccinations with a Chinese vaccine being waved around, a rise in Covid infections in India – with a pause in vaccine imports from there, and clash of thinking among professionals and politicians on what vaccine to use. 

Is this confusion the stuff  of the new Avurudu season?

Minister Bandula Gunawardena has given the people an Avurudu Malla. Celebrate avurudu with this thousand rupee benefit. If you don’t have a thousand rupees, just drink some Pol Thel and let your worries slip down your throat. Hold on, what is the connection between cancer and Pilika Pol Thel? That is the avurudu query this season., 

What about all the kavun, kokis, mung kavum, and all those other layers of sweetness that comes from the frying pan and with even small amounts of coconut oil? Has the import of coconut oil taken away the traditional taste of the Aluth Avurudda?

What can the Saubhagya thinkers have in mind to meet this situation in the avurudu games. Will there be a new Thel Keliya where two persons with bodies covered with coconut oil – with or without carcinogen – have a fight with each other? Will any chief guest invited for an avurudu event have to walk on a special Pol Thel layered slippery path to the stage? 

Thel, Thel

and not Pol Thel is the new reality in governance in Sri Lanka. It is the slippery drive in corruption and political manipulation that is the substance of power today. Will there be a loud call for the ban on coconut oil imports? Not likely, because from what else is one to bring cancer threats to our people? Is it from dried chillies or the posible rice imports? 

Amidst all this pol thel fears and dangers, this avurudu season is one that has a much bigger show than the village festivities. It is a China-India competition. The Sino-Indo clash for control of official thinking and the policies in the coming months and years. Our President had a long phone chat with President Xi Jinping of China. There must have been much more  than coconut oil discussed there. This is  the follow up from Geneva. India had better be on the watch. Sino-Lanka connect, with the promise of a single party governance is the new Avurudu Promise for Sri Lanka.

The Pol Thel Keliya of today will soon take us to a Cheena Thel Keliya in politics and governance. What is mentioned as Saubhagye Dekma is in reality an Abhagye Sathya.Lets keep slipping down the path of national disaster, with enough carcinogenic oil to help us down the way.