Letters to the Editor
View(s):Why stop the telegram service?
We understand that telegrams are to be done away with. The dispatch of a telegram in urgent situations was a facility enjoyed mostly by the common people. Public servants, when unable to go to work because of illness or unforeseen circumstances, dispatched a telegram, which also provided documentary proof. You could send a telegram at the nearest post office, sub-post office, or even an agency post office. A telegram was convenient and it cost very little.
We sent condolence and congratulatory telegrams whenever there was a death or a marriage among relatives and friends. This has been a traditional practice for more than a century.
You did not have to go to a post office to send a telegram. You could send your telegram text through a third party, such as a domestic helper, and the post office staff would take care of the rest. I have used this method umpteen times myself.
Why stop the telegram service?
There are many elderly people who would like to make use of the telegram to communicate in a traditional way. Not all of us use the internet to send e-mails or mobile phones to send text messages. There are a lot of old-school citizens in this country who would like the telegram service to continue.
Nanda Nanayakkara, Matara
Name boards on wrong side of the lane
Who decided where to put up the street signs in Colombo? Obviously, this has been done by people who have never gone looking for a street or a lane!
When you drive along a main road, you expect to see the names of the lanes on your left. But all the name boards in Colombo are placed in a way that you have to pass the lane and look back in order to see the name of the lane. Often, you have to reverse on the main road in order to turn into the lane.
Some time back a couple of private companies undertook the job of re-painting the name boards in many lanes. Would they please place these signs on the right side of the lanes, so drivers can see the board as they approach the lane?
Some of the name boards have been translated into Tamil and some have not been translated. Others have the Tamil badly misspelt.
Dr. Mrs. Mareena Thaha Reffai, Dehiwela
Uncovered drainage pits on Bloemendhal Road
Two large uncovered pits in front of No. 344 and No. 346 Bloemendhal Road (alias K. Cyril C. Perera Mawatha), Kotahena, have been left open for more than four months. Drainage passes through these pits. Waste paper, tins and waste matter have collected in these pits, blocking the entire drainage pathway.
These pits could become deathtraps for elderly people and children who use the pavement. At a cost of millions, this busy street was reconstructed with pavements two years ago.
How come the Colombo Municipal Council and environment authorities are not doing something? They should be cleaning out these pits and sealing them with proper concrete covering. This should be a priority concern for the authorities.
Sivasoorya
Awake, awake, my Lanka!
Scene from this year’s Independence Day celebrations that were held in Trincomalee
Awake to the Truth, My Lanka
Hide not thy fears behind thy veiled curtain of tears
Or shield your eyes from damning horrors
Committed senseless in thy name.
Awake to the Truth, My Lanka
Look not askance at the terrible deeds
Or turn away from grotesque works of warped acts
Wrought brazen in thy lambent flame
Doth thou not feel
The blood flow from thy aggrieved breast
That shrieks not in pain but seeks protect
Truth’s deflowerers;
And bids save them from all moral blame
Whilst pinning upon their pure snow white fleece
The rare red rose of righteousness
Where a rose never bled so red
In shame defiled.
Let long denied dawn break, My Lanka
Upon an Age of Wisdom and Truth
And, with the rising sun, stiffen thy resolve
To make stern Laws reign and sweet Justice prevail
Akin to the days when Enlightenment held sway
And Freedom breathed in this land once Devas graced
Awake to the Truth, My Lanka
And cleanse away with thy pristine tears
Time’s ignoble stain
That marks us all with the same tarred brush sans blush
As children of the soil where innocence bled
When inviolate purity perverse lust beheld;
Or forever sleep and be raped
Without a murmur of protest
Though the abomination resounds raising sacrilege
And makes the divine throne rumble with unbridled rage.
Awake to Reality, My Lanka
Arise to the challenge that waits,
That calls thee this hour to vitiate
And triumph accursed twilight’s grim fate
For thy sons’ and daughters’ sake
Turn the tide and hate’s hell fires slake
Before it’s late, Awake 0 Mother
Awake to the Truth, My Lanka
Don Juan
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