Be a traffic cop now and then; it’s a lot of fun!
 Majority of Traffic Policemen eventually
succumb to lung-infections. They breathe the poison that is belched out
by vehicles that carry us to work, to school, to parties, to friends,
family and lovers. We are imperfect but we will not suffer one sign of
imperfection from a Traffic Policeman do we?
A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege of taking my children to a
concert put together by the students and instructors of the Ranwala
Foundation. For those who may be unfamiliar with the name, the
Foundation functions as the main institute that celebrates and promotes
the thinking of the late Lionel Ranwala, a man who dedicated his life
and work to searching out music-root and rhythm-root elements of our
heritage.
Two and a half hours. About a 100 children, between six and 20 years
of age and a few young adults. The Elphinstone Theatre was packed. Sahan
Ranwala and his team of instructors had done a splendid job. The
children in the audience were highly entertained. Indeed, us adults were
turned into children. For a while. What more need one say by way of
salutation?
There is a lot more actually. One could write a lot about the Ranwala
Foundation, the apekama that was the lifelong quest of Lionel Ranwala
(that elusive thing which like love is recognized but never owned or
amenable to commercial transaction), the fact that it is not dead as
some would wish it were, but indeed alive and thriving and recognized to
be thus by significant sections of our population, and of course the
immense reservoir of talent that Sahan’s team works with or, to put it
another way, the latent talent in the child that they coax out and make
bloom. That’s another article, though.
 There were many little sub plots strung together around the story of
an uncle-nephew team on a mission to capture a yaka, all informative,
topical, and crafted with melody, rhythm and dance that celebrated
tradition and embraced modernity and did both this without guilt or
shame but in fact with a tasteful dash of cynicism that makes for great
entertainment. One episode was dedicated to the matter of road safety,
what should be done and what should not, and of course the possible
consequences of error and carelessness.
It reminded me of a jingle that was played quite frequently in the
late seventies. The pay off line was ‘Your thought for the day from the
City Police’. It was in Sinhala and English and perhaps Tamil too. The
English version went like this: ‘When you step on the accelerator, set
out on the road, keep in mind road safety signs, follow the Highway
Code...’ I forget what followed, but remember how the Sinhala version
took off from this point: ‘riyadurange noselakillen bihisunu anathuru ve..’
We hear about accidents all the time, don’t we? We even see a lot of
accidents on the roads; serious ones where lives are lost, minor
accidents that don’t yield even a scratch and all kinds of accidents in
between. They horrify us at times. In my case whenever I hear of
child-victims, I am thoroughly shaken because I immediately think of my
children. I think about the parents too. It is not difficult to
empathize, but the exercise is pretty traumatic.
On Sunday, for instance, an 11 year old schoolboy was knocked down by
a speeding private bus while crossing a road. The boy, Thilina Saranga,
had got down from the school bus and was crossing the road when a
private bus bound for Thunukkai overtaking the school bus had knocked
him down. He died on the spot.
I don’t know if this happened at a pedestrian crossing. I don’t know
who is at fault. All that counts now is that Thilina Saranga is dead and
that nothing can console his parents.
To be continued
|
