Jest Wits

Wijitha NAKKAWITA

Hilarity coupled with wit and funny tales sometimes even with a pathetic note

abound in the history of politics in modern or ancient times. Often politics could be described as a battle of wits. The winners of such battles were the cleverer ones.

In the old days when Abraham Lincoln was contesting the US Presidential election his rival candidate was addressing a meeting at a town hall when Abe Lincoln who happened to pass by decided to hear his rival candidate speaking. He entered the town hall and took a seat in the last row. The candidate at the end of the speech asked the audience,

"Could those among you who wish to go to heaven kindly put your hands up?"

Some people among the audience raised their hands. The candidate looked at them and saw that there was a percentage who had not put their hands up.

Then he said, "I see, there are others. So would those who wish to go to hell put up their hands please?"

All the others put up their hands though they were only a few. But Lincoln did not put up his hand that time too. The candidate then said, "I see there is one person among you who does not wish to go to heaven or hell!"

Abe Lincoln rose to his feet. He looked around for a second and said.

"Anybody who wished to go to heaven could go to heaven and anybody who wished to go to hell could go to hell. But I am going to the White House," and with that he walked away.

In the old days of India when Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru was the leader of the

Indian Congress and Prime Minister he had a cabinet colleague who did not know how to become popular. But Nehru was a very popular person and one day the cabinet colleague asked Nehru what was the secret of his popularity. Nehru said it was easy.

"When you meet someone ask whether the person was married. How many children the person had and little things like that. If it was a mother with her child you could say the child was like the mother or something like that.

President Benjamin Franklin with his army commander

The minister went to a party and was introduced to a number of people.

Among them was this pretty female who was alone.

"So how are you?" he asked and followed with a bit of small talk.

" How many children have you ?" he asked.

" Two" she said.

"Are you married?" was his next question. The reply was a thundering slap.

He returned home regretting his foolish question.

It took some more time for him to attend another social function.

In that function he was introduced to another female. They go on talking

and he asked her.

"Are you married?"

" No I am single"she said.

And his next question was, "How many children do you have?" and for the second time he got a thundering slap from the female. The man never again asked questions either from females or males. He gave up attempting to socialize.

In England when Winston Churchill was in the House of Commons one of his bitter adversaries was Lady Astor.

They were always at logger heads and often attacked each other. One day during her speech Lady Astor said, "If I had a husband like you I would give him poison!"

"If I had a wife like you I would have gladly taken it!" Churchill retorted.

Once in the House of Commons when the Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli was speaking he was referring to a calamity and misfortune. One of the opposition members queried, " What is the difference between a calamity and misfortune Mr.Prime Minister?"

Disraeli's reply was " Now, if Mr.Gladstone fell into river Thames it would be a misfortune. If someone rescued him it would be a calamity!"

During the tenure of the MEP government a roving correspondent of the Time magazine who was interviewing the Asian leaders of the times came to Colombo to interview Premier S.W.R.D.Bandaranaike.

Among the questions he put to the Premier were,

Q: "Mr. Prime Minister is it correct that you want to make Sinhalese the official language and Buddhism the state religion of Ceylon?"

A: "No it is not exactly like that. I want to make Sinhalese the official language as 76 percent of the people of this country speak that language.

But I don't wish to make Buddhism the state religion. I want to give Buddhism its pride of place lost during the British colonial rule"

Q: "How is it that you who want to make Sinhalese the official language and give Buddhism its pride of place have a name Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike?"

A: "Unfortunately Sir, when the decision to give me a name was made I had no voice in the matter!" During the days before independence we had the State Council with limited

freedom of governance. The government benches were in the front and the

opposition members sat behind. At one time there was only one opposition member Wijayananda Dahanayake the member of Bibile. At the time Francis Molamure was a back bencher who sat in front of Dahanayake. One day while Dahanayake was speaking he referred to "Some donkeys in the back benches of the government."

Francis Molamure who was to become the first Speaker of Parliament queried, "Who are the donkeys?"

"If you take a mirror you could see the donkeys'" retorted Dahanayake.

" I don't need to take a mirror I could turn back to see them!"

"Then Sir, you will see your own tail!" was Dahanayake's retort.