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| Thursday, 24 January 2002 |
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Letters | |
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Railway officials and Poya days The railway officials should be made to understand the importance of each Poya Day in the year. On 29th morning December, the power set which was scheduled to leave for Anuradhapura from Fort was fully crowded up to Maho Station being the Unduwap Poya Day, the following day. At the Maho station the passengers had to entrain a rail car with limited accommodation for such a large crowd up to Anuradhapura with the greatest difficulty and inconvenience with their belongings. Some of the passengers could not get into it and they had to take the following train. I am stating all these to educate the railway officials of the
importance of such Poya Days of the year and to provide special trains on
such important Poya Days or to couple some additional compartments. American and allied forces are pursuing Osama bin Laden and his followers who are supposed to be hiding in the cavernous Tora Bora region in mountainous Afghanistan. President Bush is all out to take him dead or alive. The allied forces have effectively ousted the Taliban rule but they have not been able to catch Al Quaeda key leaders including bin Laden. Forces are still engaged in bombing targeted hideouts. If bin Laden is hiding in a cave and allied forces are successful in bombing precise target a cave may certainly become a grave for him. Then it will be a story of a cave becoming a grave, which the brave allied forces crave for. The following has nothing to do with Tora Bora or bin Laden. It is about caves and graves. Once upon a time there lived t Barrow - on - Soar, Leicestershire in England, a person named Cave, on whose tombstone, this epitaph was found. "Here in this grave, there lies a Cave. We call a Cave, a grave; If cave be grave and grave be Cave, Then reader, Judge, I crave. Whether doth Cave here lie in grave, Or grave here lie in cave; If grave in cave here buried lie, Then, grave, where is thy victory? Go reader, and report, here lies a Cave, Who conquers Death, and buries his own grave." "Here Lies" - Being a collection of ancient and modern
humorous and Queer inscriptions from Tombstones -compiled and edited by
H.W. Howe - Printed and bound for the New Amsterdam Book Company - AD.
1902). The above caption deputises 'Ten Royal virtues' very well detailed by the Buddha in His recommendations towards good governance. The famous renowned Tamil poet Thiravuluar too enunciated and elucidated in 10 verses on 'Irai Atchchi' (Royal governance) in his widely known book 'Thirukkural'. Much awaited General Elections have concluded, in which voters voiced their verdict for a new government - UNP/UNF. The ten virtues in Jataka Text are as follows:- 1. 'Dana' - liberality, generosity or charity 2. 'Sila' - a high moral character - morality 3. 'Pariccaga' - making sacrifices for the good of the people 4. 'Ajjava' - Honesty and integrity 5. 'Maddava' - Kindness and gentleness 6. 'Tapa' -Restraint of senses and austerity in happiness 7. 'Akkodha' - Non hatred 8. 'Ahimsa' - Non violence 9. 'Khanti' - Patience and tolerance 10. 'Avirdha' - Non-opposition and non-enmity. Free funeral transport service A popular Muslim transporter from Colombo 12 has been lending a lorry for the past several years to any part of the island for Muslim funerals to be taken to the cemetery if it is far from the funeral house. Normally, a bier is carried up to the burial ground if it is less than one and half kilometres. If the poor and the middle class people cannot afford to hire a vehicle to take the bier to a distant cemetery this kind transporter helps them if requested for such a purpose which is undoubtedly meritorious. I do not know whether this transporter similarly helps the people of the other communities too realising the fact that death is common to all human beings and that it is an unbearable grief to the family concerned. I hope popular transporters of other communities too to provide such a service to the poor and middle class people. I think the Municipal Councils could start this at least by initially having a hearse or for pecuniary reason any other suitable vehicle to help the needy. Sometimes we come across a couple of funerals in the same area and in such cases time adjustments could be made if the party is really in need of the free service. I hope the new Government too would contribute some sort of assistance to the local authorities in introducing such a service. After all, if the magnates cannot help the poor even in case of a
funeral of what use will be their wealth, the wealth that would not
accompany them when moving towards their graves. Let the 'haves' die,
specially the misers, with the satisfaction that they have helped the
'have-nots'. With empty hands we came with empty hands we had to go! Sri Lankan society is suffering due to communal violence for over twenty long years without an end. This was created by corrupt politicians and extremists, pushing the entire nation into a boiling pot. Now we have suffered enough. Natural tendency in the world is to come to a stop when some action reaches its culmination. Our country has reached the highest point in violence. The present effort for bringing peace is commendable. Sinhalese and Tamils were living in harmony for a long time, enabling any person to live and travel in any part of the island without hindrance or fear, until the opportunists ruined it. Before 1958, Tamils treated Sinhalese as their own brothers and sisters and the Sinhalese entertained Tamils in good faith. After the eruption of communal violence in 1958 due to the follies of politicians every thing turned turtle. It became worse in 1983, turning the strife to a cruel civil-war. The attitude of many politicians were polite and justifiable irrespective of communal or religious difference. I like to quote an incident in Parliament in nineteen fifties in connection with a picketing parade in the Victoria Park. Mr. Phillip Gunawardene remarked "I saw a brawny man in yellow robes, having sex appeal for elegant women of roaring forties". Mr. C. Sundaralingam stood and objected saying "You have made contemptible remarks for an eminent priest of a sacred temple, please withdraw that forthwith". Such was the etiquette of decent politicians of those days, irrespective of community or religious differences. These qualities were existing among all communities, until they were tarnished by politicians. Differences are found only in the animal world. Human beings belong to one category. Differences of caste, creed and race are harmful elements created by people later and all these should have to be eradicated from the human society. Nature favours cross-pollination for better and healthy growth. It is favourable for the human beings to be one nation since the entire world is developing to an universal village. Inter-marriages are favourable to eliminate hatred, enmity and
differences of opinion among communities, to build up a healthy and
harmonised society. This is a craving need for our country, which is only
a small dot in the world map. Both parties should join hands Elections have come and gone. Forty odd people have been killed Thousands have been injured and are languishing in hospitals and perhaps maimed for life. Where do we go from here? The problems confronting our country are manifold. The foremost is the ethnic war and the state of our economy. These two problems cannot be solved unless both leaders act as statesmen and rise above petty squabbling for personal gain or glory. One such chance of getting together for the greater good of the motherland was missed just before the elections, but now with a new government in power it is possible and imperative that the two major parties get together and discuss and take steps to solve the problem of the war in the north that has dragged on for years taking its toll of human life and untold misery for thousands. The Tamil parties and the Muslim parties can make a significant contribution to achieve peace and enable all our people to live together in harmony. History has shown that we are faced with such a gigantic problem today because the question of the minority Tamil people was not faced squarely by the leaders of past generations for fear of losing favour with the Sinhala majority. I do not want to go into details of the omissions and commissions during the past as it can only end in acrimony and be counter productive. So let the two major parties rise above petty considerations and act as true statesman to bring an end to this senseless war. In the past the LTTE has gained vastly due to the divisions of the two main parties and their inability to get together. The President as head of the PA government made many abortive attempts to solve this problem. On more than one occasion she publicly announced that solving the ethnic problem was her first priority and continued in her efforts even after she narrowly escaped from an attempt on her life, by the LTTE. Unfortunately she did nor succeed mainly because the two major parties did not stand together. The newly elected Prime Minister has once again been presented with a rare opportunity to bring peace to our country. On being elected it was heartening to hear his pronouncement that he wished to hold discussion with the major political parties to find ways to settle the ethnic problem. Being an astute politician with experience he would have seen the magnitude of the problem facing his government. If this were to take place along with all sections of society who have the welfare of our country at heart he could negotiate for peace from a position of power. The only opposition will be from extremist racial minority and the vultures who profit from the sale of armaments and would like the war to go on. If the President and the Prime Minister who lead two different parties
rise to the occasion and bring about peace to our country they will both
go down in the history of our land as two great statesmen who put the
welfare of the country before all else. You will no doubt be surprised if your consultant E.N.T. Surgeon says that your infant baby should be fitted with hearing aids. Well, this is what the advanced countries are doing to their babies if hearing impairment is detected in them, to save them from becoming deaf or dumb life long. The World Health Organisation's team in Geneva, Switzerland dealing with activities for prevention of deafness and hearing impairment estimates that 5.5 million children in the Asia Pacific region are deaf or have hearing impaired. Head of the Hearing and Dizziness Centre at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila is of the view that lack of awareness among parents and some physicians about hearing impairment is a major reason for late detection in children. It is believed that normal babies hear as early as during the first three months in the mother's womb, Researchers say that if a baby does not hear people speak, the brain cells responsible for learning language must be stimulated in the first few months of his life to develop healthy nural pathways that transmit sounds to the brain, and that if this is not done in time the language acquisition will be seriously delayed and in some children linguistic skills may never develop to the full potential. A study published in the American Journal 'Paediatrics' supports the belief that children whose hearing impairment was detected before six months of age developed significantly better language skills than those whose impairment was identified later. In view of the fact that early detection and treatment is essential to normal development the US National Institutes of Health recommend that all babies undergo hearing screening by the age of three months. It is believed that babies up to six months making noises is a natural reflex, and that it is hard to distinguish between a three month old hearing baby and a three month old deaf baby and that infant hearing impairment is an invisible problem. Therefore the screening methods known as A.B.R. test and Otoacoustic Emissions (OAE) which are supposed to be - nonevasive are adopted to detect hearing impairment of babies. The expenses involved for these diagnostic instruments are supposed to
be less than the amount that has to be spent for remedial training of
hearing impairment of children detected too late. A motorist who brings a patient to this hospital cannot accompany the patient as he has no permission to park the vehicle in the hospital premises and he also has no space to park outside with a number of tri-shaws occupying the roadside when only 5 tri-shaws are enough for any time on the roadside the others can be parked on some lane close by, Also, the place on the eastern corner of the Hospital premises occupied by a transformer and now vacant can be used as a car park. The Eastern gate of the Hospital should be open as an exit, preventing
congestion at the West Gate. |
 
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