5th Column

My dear Mahendran,
I thought of writing to you, although I am not sure where to send this letter to because some are saying you have taken wing to Singapore, which is your ‘home’ country anyway. I hope you do return to our shores because there is a lot of unfinished business here, as you may have heard in recent days.
Now, I am no expert on banking or economics and the only ‘bond’ I was interested in until recently was James Bond and his movies but now everyone on the street is talking about treasury bonds because of you. At least, you have done your bit to popularise financial instruments in the country!

Pardon me, Mahendran, but this ‘bond’ issue had me confused from the start. At first I thought people were objecting to you even before you had begun work only because you were a citizen of Singapore. As that country did not allow dual citizenship, you could never be Sri Lankan, your critics had argued.
The Green Man had other ideas and gave you the top job in the big bank anyway. Then, many thought that if you were as smart as they said you were, they shouldn’t deprive our big bank of having a good boss just because he carried a Singaporean passport and that you must at least be better than Cabraal.
It turns out that you were better than Cabraal – in more ways than one! Only a few months after you started on the job people smelled a rat and started making allegations against you. By the time the second big election was held in August, your conduct had become a major political issue.

Even at that time, there were many who wanted the Green Man to get rid of you but he didn’t do that. The Greens did win the election but it was only by the slimmest of margins and they didn’t win an overall majority. Many said that if not for the ‘bond’ issue, they would have got that majority.
The Green Man then appointed a committee of lawyers who looked into this ‘bond’ issue. They said you had no ‘direct’ involvement in it. I don’t know why we needed a committee to tell us that. It was obvious that you were not ‘directly’ involved – it was your son-in-law who was doing all the bidding!
The matter was then taken before the highest court in the land. You must have been quite good at what you did because even they couldn’t find fault with you. Everyone seemed to agree that although the company owned by your son-in-law was making massive profits, it was not because of you!

They tell us that the company he headed made a profit of five billion rupees in just one year. Do you realise, Mahendran, that this amounts to about two hundred and fifty rupees for every man, woman and child in the country? Why, with that money they could have kept Mihin Air afloat!
I am not sure what possessed the Green Man to try and re-appoint you as the Governor when your first term expired. Maithri seemed to have lost his marbles a bit these days but on that issue he was firm and, even with the Green Man breathing down his neck – he saw to it that Indrajith got the job.

After all that fuss, the chaps in COPE took over. You must have thought that it would be yet another of those inquiries which would be swept under the carpet, but mark my word, the rathu sahodarayas and that tenacious Sunil did a very good job of work in getting to the bottom of this, once and for all.
Finally, even the Greens seem to have deserted you, Mahendran. After making a big din at the COPE, they were all lining up this week to sign a report which recommended legal action against you. I suppose they didn’t want you to cling on to your job and reputation at the risk of losing theirs.

Looking back, Mahendran, I don’t think you should be too upset even if you may have difficulty in coping with the COPE report. In just eighteen months as Governor, you have achieved what no other Governor has done during their entire period in office and become a household name in the country!
If ‘yahapaalanaya’ is alive and well we must expect to see you being marched to the FCID. Then, you can proudly pose for the cameras, handcuffed hands held high, like many of those Diyawanna members do, before you are released on bail. Ah, hope springs eternal, doesn’t it, Mahendran?

Yours truly,
Punchi Putha
PS: I think this whole saga is worthy of the next ‘Bond’ movie. You were imported from another country and given a top job but still you felt that ‘the world is not enough’. So you decided to get to work with ‘a view to a kill (ing)’. You must have believed that what you did was ‘for your eyes only’ and you would be allowed to simply ‘live and let die’. But now, with even the Greens saying that you are at fault, it must have scared ‘the living daylights’ out of you and you must be hoping to ‘die another day’!