5th Column

My Dear Lucky,
I hope you don’t mind me writing a letter to you at a time when everyone is concerned about the kind of letters you write and the whole country is talking about them. Anyway, you haven’t been attracting this kind of attention for a while and it is high time they took notice of you now, don’t you think?

I suppose few people would have imagined that you would reach such dizzy heights when you first entered the House by the Diyawanna Oya more than twenty five years ago. And even fewer people would recall that you were then in the Blue camp, fighting against the Greens who were in charge.

You were still with the Blues when they took over under Satellite’s leadership. Satellite seemed to have a fondness for Luckys because she had four of them in her team: good old Lucky J from her mother’s team, Lucky K who became her Foreign Minister, Lucky P the professor and of course, Lucky you.

Looking back, you must be happy because Lucky J has passed away, Lucky P is down and out and desperately yearning for a return to the House by the Diyawanna Oya and Lucky K was unlucky to be killed. You, on the other hand are still in the House and leading it too. You have indeed been lucky!

Lucky, in the last twenty five years you had, in one way or another, been in charge of subjects as diverse as Foreign Affairs, Sports, Tourism, Plantations and now, Higher Education and Highways so I don’t think anyone can now question the wisdom and experience you have gained over the years.

The Green Man got it right when he entrusted you with Higher Education and Highways at the same time as you do now, though this combination baffled many. How else could you look after campus students who are, for the most part of their lives, spending their time on the roads, staging protests?

Anyway, Lucky, the current controversy seems to be all about you sending a letter to a university to ‘consider’ employing someone as a temporary lecturer because he was known to you. I really can’t understand what all this fuss is about, because isn’t that the normal way we do business in Paradise?

For decades, thousands of jobs were given to MP’s ‘chits’, weren’t they? That was how democracy flourished in this country: when you are in the opposition, your supporters work for you, your party then wins the election and you reward your supporters by giving them a ‘chit’ that will get them a job.

Misguided people will argue that such jobs are not important as that of a university lecturer but isn’t it a fact that the best jobs available are given to people who are ‘known’ to people in high places? Mrs. B didn’t advertise for the post of President before appointing William Gopallawa, did she?

They can’t argue that such things happened only in a bygone era because recently Maithri offered the post of High Commissioner to young Kumar, obviously because he was ‘known’ to him though the only ‘qualification’ he has for the job is pretending to speak the Queen’s language in a posh accent!

Lucky, I think I know why they are angry with you: it is because you had instructed the university to see whether this person was qualified. Now, if we did that in the Cabinet – or even among those howling against you in the ‘joint’ opposition – how many would have the relevant ‘qualifications’?

Then there is the little issue about how you berated a journalist who was asking you embarrassing questions calling him ‘isay’, ‘oyi’ and ‘thamuse’. I don’t think you should worry too much about that, Lucky, because no one seems to have noticed that you also referred to a Vice-Chancellor as ‘okaa’!

I heard that many people have called for your resignation and I hope you are not actively considering that. It is true that we have nearly four dozen Ministers but if one were to resign every time they wrote a letter or one of their vehicles was involved in an accident, we would soon have no Ministers left!

Yours truly,
Punchi Putha
PS-You may not realise it, Lucky, but I think you should be happy about this little incident and I will tell you why. In time to come, when all is said and done and history records your services to the nation they will no longer remember you as the person who said those famous words, ‘ona gonekuta yudda karanna puluwan’. Instead hope they will not remember you as the person who gave rise to the saying, ‘ona gonekuta liyum liyanna puluwan’!