Columns

That is all we wanted. All these months the Sri Lanka people have suffered from this global menace called the coronavirus. Most often they have been confined to their homes, their movements restricted, their necessities curtailed and even their elections postponed as the medical fraternity fought a rear-guard action to halt the spread of the pandemic.

For many their lives and finances were a shambles even for a few months — offices closed, schools shut and everything that they would consider their orderly lives turned on their heads.

The only means of communication with family and friends was by electronic means and that too for those who could afford it for many workers have been sent home, no pay or just half or less.

The Colombo 7 glitterati, several of whom are commercial moneybags who do not keep their earnings under mattresses, would still be in high spirits even if their regular wateringholes would have run dry because of closed door.

Only the arrack drinking fraternity or those able to afford the Dankotuwa Special have now been freed from their accumulated thirst and would be celebrating.

In fact I thought they were still celebrating their release from the medico/military diktats when I received a message that there are vacancies for researchers who can trace any historical documents pertaining into an ancient story.

At first I thought it was an inebriated individual who was yet to recover from a weekend of booze trying to inject some humour into days of dreary living at home.

So I turned to the Indian media for proof that this was no leg pull, as some might say. After all any complimentary reference to an ancient king that ruled Sri Lanka must surely raise the hackles of some of our brethren across the Palk Strait. Especially if the Lankan Royal pinched a few things (including Sita) from the other side and did a quick journey back across the narrow straits carrying his treasures in his aerial chariot which some proud Sri Lankans say is the first of its kind.

As I thought (Indo-Sri Lanka relations being what they right now over Colombo habour’s east terminal etc) some Indian media did not spare their sarcasm. An Indian channel called WION said curtly: “When populist strongmen have little else to offer, they offer pride and try to influence the way the past is perceived and use these manufactured perceptions to consolidate their grip on power.”

In a more sober report, The Hindu’s Colombo correspondent Meera Srinivasan started by saying “Sri Lanka’s aviation authority has said it will lead a research project to study the mythological character Ravana’s “aviation routes”.

The person who sent me this remarkable story was insistent that it was no joke and that Ravana memorabilia will be up for grabs now that an advertisement by the Civil Aviation Authority has asked the public for “any relevant documents and literature.”

Apparently the project intends to bring out an authoritative narrative of King Ravana “as there are many stories” reports Srinivasan. Now if I was Srinivasan, I would have pursued the matter further and asked why the hurry to nail King Ravana, unless it is part of an Indian rope trick to denigrate Ravana who some Indian’s call “demon king”.

After all, he has been around for 5,000 years and more. Cannot the poor chap be given a decade or two to stay around without might be called his corpus delicti of sorts being disturbed by those who dig up graves and holy premises looking for buried jewellery and ancient artifacts.

Perhaps we might have learnt more about Ravana and sooner too had this proposed research project been handed over to a task force. One gathers this is a five-year project and that is quite a task, if you ask me.

One might have thought that this could have waited till the election was over in less than two weeks. I cannot see Ravana taking his Dandu Monara and flying off for a quiet holiday in the Maldives or the Seychelles and let the 16 million registered voters do what they want with those new health requirements at election time which some claim have been bent or omitted from the original June list.

I doubt whether Ravana would have been able to do what the King of Thailand King Maha Vajiralongkorn did when he was Crown Prince. Being a licensed pilot he would have his aircraft readied and fly off to the
blue yonder.

A Sri Lankan official had told Meera Srinivasan that there are many stories about Ravana. Their job would be like separating the wheat from the chaff,
as the saying goes. That is if they can find wheat.

In this process of separation, might somebody tell us technologically backward people what Ravana used as fuel for him to fly so many different routes. And if they started on this job earlier and made a few dandu monaras to ferry back home some of the stranded Sri Lankans in various cities round the world without taxing Sri Lankan Airlines which is in a bad shape anyway from what I hear. Why we could have saved a dollar here and a dollar there without exerting all this pressure on our external reserves as economists keep on telling the country.

I don’t mean economists whose tales of economic boom in the past instead of economic gloom had knowledgeable Sri Lankans at home and abroad scratching their balding pates.

What is more important right now to rescue Sri Lanka from economic degradation? To search for remnants of Ravana’s flying peacock or how to plug the country’s diminishing external reserves when $299 billion is due by the end of the year?

Is Ravana to go to international donor agencies and aid givers and, like Oliver Twist, ask for more or bury himself still deeper before he is discovered and told to take his flying machine and do some aerial acrobatics to collect some money before the new parliament meets? But then, to judge by those who are likely to return to Diyawanna Oya many of them will be of little value to kick the economy back into place.