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| Tuesday, 24 June 2003 |
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A return to sanity The world has gone insane and is turning on its head. There are some spots like New Zealand, Switzerland, Nepal, Bhutan and a few more but they do not care about me and so I shall not care about them. Bishop Heber's lines apply to all and sundry: "Where every prospect pleases And only man is vile." Human values, family values went overboard long time ago. The new god is Mammon and his image is on the dollar bill and the ten rupee note. In the higher echelons it is the thousand dollar bill and the thousand rupee note. The highest representative of the Australian masses, Howard, condones uncouth behaviour in the gentleman's game as "a natural Australian response." Mark, the operative word is 'Australian'. Lawlessness is rampant and the indiscipline of a country can be gauged by the manner pedestrians and motorists use the roads. Battles rage even in Holy Land. The territorial imperative is imperious. It happens all the time, even on the smallest scale. My brother's neighbour didn't want him to plaster free of charge his side of the wall as half an inch would be lost. When I cut the sods for a boundary wall my neighbours and kith and kin made their presence felt and moved away only when I told the workers to cut one foot short. Gaza and Kashmir are the same on a larger canvas. Cash prizes were to be given for the most magnificent pandals. As a motorist who got trapped on the road the day after Vesak, I would like to tender a thousand rupee note towards the pandal that caused most inconvenience simply because I know that I was spared that penance on the Giritale-Kiribathgoda run. I am now brought to the core of my issue - the death penalty. When murder and mayhem are sponsored by many in the seats of power, attaining such lofty ideals would be what dreams are made of. It is of little avail if I urge the seasoned killers to visit funerals so that they will know the value of life. Everybody belongs and is not disposable like a polythene bag. Would the drop of a nuclear bomb solve the problems? Ours is an over-populated country with the attendant ugly features. With 18 million we are 15 million in excess. Maybe, I will be one of them who will go up in smoke and I haven't even prepared for my after-death. Let those dear souls who are left behind start afresh with time honoured values which were ours before the advent of tourism. The bottle lamp and the bullock cart will be once again in vogue. Martin Wickramasinghe, reminiscing on his youth wrote about a bunch of foreigners who came to Koggala on a thirsty afternoon at the turn of the Century and wanted the nectar of the gods that was in the young coconut. A hoary villager climbed the tree and fetched the fruits and given a five rupee note, humbly refused the offer. I too have had my experience in the university of life. When I walked up to two villagers who were engaged in idle conversation to ask them to attend to the replacement of a punctured tyre, both gave me deaf ears. I tried on my own and having failed went again to the two to say that the plaster cast on my broken arm had been removed only the day before. Both of them shot up from their buttocks, did the job and when offered a princely sum which in today's context would be two hundred rupees, they both politely refused the gift. The fetching fingers of lucre had not touched them. I hope they have not succumbed since. - Sharm de Alwis |
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