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| Wednesday, 8 September 2004 |
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Letters | |
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In a body-politic where the brain should necessarily prevail over brawn, the citizenry would be pleased that yet democratic right of vote is to be guaranteed by a statute by making NIC mandatory to vote without allowing to be vitiated by impersonators! This being yet another 1956 aspirations, the opinion of the genuine voter will not be negated by the influential mass-impersonators. As one following the voting trends since 1947, at the 1952 General Election thousands of voters of Indian origin were expunged from Registers and electorates reduced to 2500-3500 voters in seats like Talwakelle, Maskeliya, Nuwara Eliya etc. when winning a Colombo Municipal ward like Suduwella with nearly 4000 voters was more difficult a task than winning an expunged up-country Parliamentary seat. With that phenomenon, leading business tycoons from Western belt rushed in to fill the lacuna in upcountry depleted electorates. One of special significance was Buttala electorate then with less than 5000 voters, and was contested by a bus-magnate from Panadura. Million dollar question is how Buttala a backward electorate did not have a single spoilt vote. The miracle was that the entire gang of opponent Independent candidate's agents had been bought over and it was the bus-crew who had so ably performed their duty of marking the votes faithfully in favour of their boss! How much water has flowed down the bridge since then. Votes are the swords to common man for what Bank notes are to gold-owners! Hurrah NICs. W. SAMARANAYAKE, Entrance fee for locals at Polonnaruwa I read with interest the letter of Iromi Salgado (DN Aug. 26). I am surprised that the situation with regard to admissions to archaeological sites have not changed. Three years ago I accompanied a group of visitors from Australia on a tour of Sri Lanka. We visited several places of interest around the island, including Sigiriya and Anuradhapura. Accompanying us on the tour were a couple of English speaking Sinhalese friends from Colombo. We encountered a rather unpleasant situation at Sigiriya where at the entrance, the security staff were insisting that the local visitors too should be charged the rate applicable to foreigners unless they produced their identity cards. Consequently, they had to walk back a fair distance to the car where they had left their wallets as a safety measure, to get their identity cards to satisfy the security staff. In the meantime hundreds of locals were going in, paying the local fee, and not being asked to identify themselves. The attitude of the security staff was so unfriendly and non-cooperative that I wanted to make an official complaint to the Archaeological Commissioner on our return to Colombo. I rang his office a couple of times but could not make contact within the limited time available to me in Sri Lanka. I mentioned this incident to some of our friends in Colombo, who seemed to know all about a racket that was going on in some of the Archaeological sites. Apparently some of the security staff have printed out forged tickets of admission and these are sold by their colleagues at the counter, and they are later retrieved from the visitor by security staff at the entrance, so that even a spot audit would not show up incriminating evidence. This easily explains the overzealousness of the security staff in going to great lengths to have as many people paying the higher admission tariff. The Commissioner of Archaeology should make a thorough investigation of this matter, as the attitude of his staff is likely to cause much damage to the image of Sri Lanka at a time when there is much goodwill and genuine international interest in the culture of the country. HUGH KARUNANAYAKE, Centenarian - Rev George Nallathamby In cricketing parlance Rev George M. Nallathamby of Shalom Padiwatte Kundasale scored a ton on August 30, 2004 when he completed 100. His achievements is praiseworthy and he deserves to be congratulated. He will stand alongside the few centenarians who adorn centre stage of former Ceylon with his unbeaten innings. Of course such an Innings could not have been reached without the 'sixes'. But all his sixes were in good humour. Standing upright a six footer with a lean symmetrical build George as he is popularly known among his colleagues is a selfless person with a strict sense of discipline and a Mission in Life. He walks most of his way with firm long strides. He is an educationalist as well as a lay preacher of the Gospel. He was the principal of Wesly High School, Kalumunai and Christ Church College, Wattegama. He was also a teacher at Trinity College kandy which had several stalwarts who took to teaching as a vocation and did so with dedication and fervour and earned the respect and affection of all the students of that time in the 'best school of all.' It was a pleasant association I had with Rev. Nallathamby during the sixties-seventies, when I too was residing at Padiwatte, until the monster of communal hatred raised its ugly head and went on the rampage looting, setting fire and blood letting on Friday August 18, 1977, while a curfew was on continuously for 3 days and nights and consequently I was displaced. I will always remember the Reverend genial George. He used to daily prod and keep on dinning into me to put down on paper and give publicity to the various experiences, anecdotes, amusements and hardships which I used to relate to him. Indeed he will chuckle when he reads this piece. Bat on George, send many more years over the ropes. S. THAMBYRAJAH, |
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