5th Column

My Dear Mahinda Maama,

I thought I must write to you again because these days, everyone seems to be blaming you for everything and maybe you need to be aware of that-because those close to you may not be telling you the whole truth.

Why, Mahinda maama, they even blamed you for Sri Lanka losing that cricket match to the West Indies. That is because they believed that by being present at the finals, you brought bad luck to the team.

Surely, that shouldn’t prevent you from watching an important game that is being played in your own country-even if we all know that you graced two previous finals in the West Indies and India and we lost them both!

Of course, the man who benefited most from your presence that day was Malinga. If you hadn’t been watching the game, everyone would have blamed the loss on him but since you happened to be there, they blamed Mahinda instead of Malinga!
I heard that people are also blaming you for that incident involving Mervyn’s son, not so much for what happened in that assault of an Army officer under questionable circumstances but for retaining Mervyn in your cabinet of ministers.

That is very unfair, isn’t it, when we now know that Mervyn’s son did nothing wrong? In fact, we now realise that it was the Army officer who was at a place he was not supposed to be-and he himself says he made those claims because he was in ‘shock’!
The latest I heard was that the Army officer has been punished for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And all this time, we were blaming Mervyn and his son! You, of course, in your wisdom knew all along that they were innocent which is why you retained Mervyn in your Cabinet!

Then, Mahinda maama, I was very disturbed to hear that they are even blaming the attack on that Judicial Services Commission chap on you. Everyone is talking about a clash between the ‘Executive’ and the ‘Judiciary” or some such thing!
But you must be glad that there is at least one minister in your Cabinet who is able to see through such nonsense. I am referring to young Wimal, of course. He was pointing out that this story about the attack was highly suspicious.

As Wimal so intelligently observes, this JSC chap should never have undertaken an activity as risky as reading the Sunday newspapers in his car! Given the degree of media freedom that you have allowed-and considering what Sunday newspapers publish these days-that is extremely risky business indeed!

It is quite possible, is it not, that he read something that was written about him which was extremely distressing and went in to ‘shock’ and bashed his own head against the windscreen and sustained injuries?

Of course, because he was in ‘shock’, he would have claimed that some people assaulted him-just like that army officer did-but I’m almost sure that in the days and weeks to come, he will tell us that he was in ‘shock’ when all of this happened and this would end in much the same way that the previous incident did!

Then, Mahinda maama, there is this long drawn out strike by university lecturers, for which some people are also blaming you. They say that as Finance Minister, you promised them a wage hike in the Budget but you didn’t keep your promise, so they started a strike that went on for more than four months.

Now, people are blaming you for allowing SB to handle the strike for so long without taking charge. As we all know, SB is like a fish: his mouth is his downfall. And there he was, for months on end, letting the world know what he thought of university lecturers. He called them ‘rogues and scoundrels’. Being a politician, he should know what he is talking about.
When you finally asked Basil maama to solve the problem, within days the matter was settled and we now hear that the lecturers will be back at work this week, with nothing to show for their efforts except a few assurances. So, it was all much ado about nothing.

If Basil maama helped solve that problem, Chamal maama helped create another. This week, he was making statements in Parliament, saying that the highest courts in the land had got it wrong because it sent its decisions to an official instead of sending it to him.

Mahinda maama, the next thing we know, people will be blaming you for that as well, saying again that there is a conflict between the ‘Legislature’ and the ‘Judiciary’. Of course, we all know that what Chamal maama was saying was for the courts to write the proper address when sending letters to Parliament-because he knows how terrible our postal service is, its only achievement of note being producing our current Prime Minister.

So, take care, Mahinda maama. Being the seasoned politician that you are, I am sure you will be able to “keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you”!

Yours truly,
Punchi Putha

PS-You need to be careful about how you deal with SB, though. No, I don’t mean the SB who dealt with the university crisis-he is now as docile as a trained pussy cat, despite his constant meowing. I am thinking about the other SB, of course!

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