Thank You Please

I recently met a friend in London living in the UK for the past 35 years. He asked me why I like Sri Lanka that much, referring to my frequent visits to Colombo. Even though I know the answer, it is difficult to reply immediately when the question is being thrown at you at an unexpected time and manner.

I explained as much as I could. Then I asked him the same question the other way round.

"Why do you like London this much? Aren't you fed up of living here this long. Don't you have an intention of returning to Sri Lanka for good?".

My friend made a very serious face. "I have to tell you this. I don't want to destroy the values and manners I learnt from here for the last 35 years."

As he has lived in London only six years more than I have, I was curious to know the reasons, values, habits he liked and I didn't like. Our discussion turned in to a very loud argument at the end.

When we arrived in the UK sometime back, there were no multitude of multicultural faces around; no bigger traffic blocks; no leaflets in 40 odd languages; no sardine packed tube trains; no homeless people sleeping rough and so on. I asked him what has not changed all this time.

"Discipline. The unchanged discipline and courtesy. Saying please and thank you to everything is still in me," he said. "Even when I sneeze, the word "excuse me" comes out automatically," he said.

I remember what a doctor friend who had his training in London once said.

"It is funny here that in an operating theatre you hear 10 'pleases' and 20 'thank yous' being uttered. He laughed at the way surgeons in theatres request scissors and other tools during an operation.

I assume that surgeons like my friend still use those words like please and thank you during operation sessions in Sri Lanka.

My friend is correct. I still hear please and thank you when paying for a bus ticket or getting off of a bus. Some men and women even say goodbye to the bus driver.

I do not know but there may be girls in Sri Lanka who say bye to the bus driver by waving. Even though it happens, I do not think that the bus driver will stalk her or anyone will say "ah that's the girl who waved at the bus driver". Sri Lankan society has moved on.

There is another good manner which my friend was fascinated about the British. It is the habit of the British not putting their heads in other people's businesses or lives. They do not care what happens next door. They are not concerned about cars of others nor try to copy a friend or the next door neighbour. There are no gates here which open automatically for Mercedes, Pajeros or Defenders.

"Oh! The other thing is how difficult it is to get something done from a government office in Sri Lanka," my friend said with a sarcastic smile. I know he hasn't been to Sri Lanka lately. Therefore, I had to open my mouth with some anger.

"What are you talking about? Now it takes only 30 minutes to get a copy of a birth or death certificate at a secretariat in Colombo.

"The car road tax certificate takes only five minutes. It is like driving through McDonalds drive through. You can get it without getting out of the car. You can get a passport or the national ID in few hours." I gave his smile back to him.

"The roads in Sri Lanka are not good. Lots of potholes. There is no proper transport system," my friend didn't let it go.

"No good roads? When did you go to Sri Lanka last. Was it about five years ago? Go back to Colombo in another two or three months. You will be able to go to Colombo from Katunayake in half an hour. The highway is almost complete. It takes only about an hour to go to Galle in the expressway.

"We know the CTB is a mess. It is because some conductors steal. Why don't you go there and make them right," I said and stopped the conversation there.

Later my friend has told another friend that "Anura is going kade."

It is a true fact that there are a few Sri Lankans living in the UK who haven't been to Sri Lanka for 20 or 30 years. That's their choice. Some of them have the same picture in their minds when they left Katunayake three decades ago.

They hear about the present developments and the reinvented beauty of Colombo and suburbs but have their reservations.

There was a recent newspaper article in a London tabloid where the writer worries about the fading culture of thank you, please, excuse me in the United Kingdom. But still a Sri Lankan smile says it all.