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This fuel crisis is not a new thing to talk so much by various
Ministers of the Government and also by the UNP, Opposition.
Our Opposition is trying to fish in troubled waters.
That is the nature of all the politicians when they are in the
Opposition.
This fuel issue came up when late Sirimavo Bandaranaike was the Prime
Minister and she took a quick and bold decision to make it a five-day
week for Government servants and to scrap Saturday (half working day) in
order to save fuel. I forget the exact year when she took this quick
bold decision without much contemplating.
At that time fuel prices in the World Market did not go up to the
present day high level, what I want to stress here is she being a lady
was very quick in her decisions.
Six-day week (Saturday, half day) was reduced to a five-day week by
her Government on account of fuel crisis during her period without much
talk.
D.E. ABEYWEERA
- Kelaniya
Sanath is a true professional. I have seen that in his performance on
TV and the fact that I have not yet seen a youngster emulate him makes
his inclusion vital.
It is time our young men ask him how he has maintained such a high
level of fitness, and focused on producing such scintillating cricket.
He should be invited by the SLC and the Ministry of Education to
visit schools to inspire children to emulate his feats in cricket.
A true all rounder he is.
It was in Dubai and the year was 1986 when four veteran cricketers,
namely: Guy De Alwis, Athula Samarasekera, Brendon Kuruppu and Graham
Labrooy told me that the young lad in shorts playing on my children’s
hand held video games can ‘smash’ the cricket ball with such power and
timing and that he will one day be a force to reckon within batting.
I saw him in action in the next few days in one match at Sharjah and
he did hit with power to clear the fence and was caught on the midwicket
line trying to repeat the feat.
Their prediction was 22 years ago before he had actually played in an
ODI on what they saw in practice or on the domestic circuit. They were
absolutely right. It is 22 years since and Sanath Jayasuriya is a
legend.
I am very proud of him and so would be all of Sri Lanka.
NOEL GOONESEKERA
This is a teledrama telecast on Sundays at 8 p.m. over the ITN
channel. This depicts a story in the early part of the 20th. Century,
appearing in the book Kaluwara Gedara by our respected author Martin
Wickramasinghe.
This story starts with a fish Mudalali in a coastal area in the South
who lives with his wife.
As life goes on, they continue with the coppra business after buying
a Chekku for their trade. When he finds that his wife is barren, he
consults her to bring a mistress intending to have a child.
With the blessing of the legal wife the Mudalali brings the mistress
he expected, to his house, with the pomp and pageantry organised by the
legal wife. When the mistress conceives, the message is conveyed to the
husband through the legal wife.
As the story is proceeding, the things to come are not known. Eka Gei
Kema had been a custom in having one woman among two or more brothers in
a family. This customary behaviour had been existing among some families
in the Kandyan areas till the middle of the last century.
This mode of living is supposed to have been prevalent to avoid the
ancestral lands being divided among the brothers. How the habits of this
nature are ethically or hygienically appropriate may not have been
thought of then.
However, I remember a Buddhist story how a certain person’s wife
(mistress) killing the children of the first wife by being reborn as a
demon and this woman kept on killing the children of the same woman on
several births due to jealousy.
In this scenario, why Martin Wickramasinghe depicted a story with
such a behavioural manner as no evidence of such customs among the
Southerners are spoken of.
When Eka Gei Kema is looked down as an unethical behaviour among the
Sinhala community, would it be appropriate in depicting a story of two
women under one roof with one man.
When illicit behaviour of married men and women are shown on most of
the channels, why do we look at this story in a different angle, is an
arguable question.
It has now come to a stage that the things are now gradually
happening the other way about, why try to be sanctimonious? When writing
on such behaviours, most of the people supposed to be not appreciative,
as it would be only an egg on the face.
TIKIRI BANDARA EKANAYAKE
- Ampitiya
Today I read with sadness in your newspaper about the bomb explosion
in a bus at Moratuwa for I have a special fondness to the city for
several reasons.
I was at St. Sebastian College in my early years and also lived in
Katubedda and Mortumulla and finally my US/Minnesota based foundation
rebuilt almost a whole tsunami devastated village in Modera Moratuwa in
2005.
It is important to have bomb sniffer dogs and even the US is
importing several hundreds dogs per year from Europe. I strongly believe
if Governtment imports several thousand bomb sniffing dogs from Europe
it will be money well spent and it will reduce the rate of bomb
explosions in the country to a minimum, mainly due to the huge deterent
factor.
Moreover, most trained dogs have the ability to identify and or sniff
bombs from several hundred meters away and just the sight of the trained
or even untrained dogs will create a fierce and scary environment to
keep even suicidal bombers away.
A couple of bomb sniffer dogs would have for certain prevented
Jeyaraj’s ill fated destiny.
I believe all bus stands and railway stations must have bomb sniffer
dogs with their handlers walking 24/7 and in big cities too the
Government should have dogs walking every two hundred meters or so to
nullify the claymore mines being hidden on way side roads.
Again the total cost would be less than one modern jet fighter but
the long term effect could be a hundred times better.
EVAN BALASURIYA
A certain milk powder company has started a draw for a free milk
promotion campaign which is supposed to aim at alleviating some of the
hardships of the poor.
Paradoxically it requests two ‘tops’ from 400 gram packets of this
milk packs. It is very unlikely that a family living in difficulty could
afford to buy two milk packs in order to enter the competition.
If the multinational is keen to help the deserving poor it could call
for the income of these families and thereafter draw from their entries
if they are genuinely interested in helping families facing hardships.
T. WICKREMASINGHE
- Colombo 9
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