5th Column

My dear Udayanga,

I thought I must write to you because you are the man of the moment: everyone is talking about you and about all those Ukrainian tourists that you have brought to the country, along with their COVID-19, of course. The powers that be say you are doing what is right, but most others are blaming you.

Whatever people say about you, Udayanga, they can’t accuse you of being uninteresting. Here you are, claiming you are trying your best to resurrect our tourism industry when it was only a short while ago that you were among the most wanted men in Paradise, with even Interpol looking for you.

Even those days, you made headlines. We were told stories about how money was allegedly paid to dummy companies by our government to buy several aircraft for our Air Force at the height of the Eelam war.  Those who made the accusations said you were allegedly involved in those transactions.

Others were also allegedly accused of being involved in those ‘deals’. They too were listed alongside you in the cases filed against you and that issue was threatening their prospects as well. We don’t need to say who they are, do we? After all, blood is thicker than water, and what are cousins for?

It was not only our government that ‘wanted’ you, even the Ukrainian government did. They claimed that when you were our envoy in Moscow, you were trying to provide arms to Ukrainian rebels. So, the Ukrainians too wanted to detain you and question you about your alleged activities there.

Our Police conducted meticulous investigations resulting in the government of the day making a request to extradite you. That took several years and when they did bring you back to Paradise from Dubai, you made history – the very first time Paradise had successfully extradited a criminal suspect.

However, you were lucky. By the time you were brought back to Paradise, there were changes over here. Your clan was back and holding the reins of power. So, even though you were arrested at the airport on arrival, you wouldn’t have been worried because, by then, you had cousins in high places.

In what must surely be a coincidence (what else could it be?) all the top officers who had investigated you for years and had put together the case against you, have now been either demoted to posts of lesser rank, transferred to remote areas or, in the case of one, sent to prison.

You can call yours a journey in overcoming adversity. Others may see it as how our criminal justice system works: those who are ‘criminals’ under one government are acquitted when the next government comes in to office – and those in the previous government become the new ‘criminals’!

However, people are not very interested in all that now, Udayanga. What they are interested about is your attempts  to take batches of Ukrainians around Paradise to revive our tourist industry. Some may question the wisdom of that when Ukraine itself is in a state of lockdown, but I’m sure you know best.

You need not worry because cousin Basil tells us this is all part of an experiment to see how we can cater to tourists during the pandemic. He says Ukraine was chosen deliberately because the virus is rampant there. A ‘safer’ country will not be a good trial for what he calls the ‘Coveen’ experiment!

Then you have Prasanna who is in charge of Tourism. He too has come to your defence saying there cannot be one law for everyone, especially for Ukrainian tourists. He justifies them being allowed to roam around the countryside, while those who came in to contact with them are asked to quarantine.

Also arguing your case was Lanza. He says Ukrainians are not ‘crazy’ to spend two weeks sleeping in a hotel room before touring the country. Not to be outdone, the GMOA’s Padeniya says that the best way forward is to let the population develop ‘herd’ immunity. Well, he must know a lot about herds!

Even if something goes horribly wrong in your Ukrainian ‘experiment’, Udayanga, I don’ think you need to worry. Given who’s who you are, I am sure Pavithra will also support you – and if the rate of infections increases suddenly, she can always market the ‘Dhammika peniya’ as a cure for the virus.

The days when you had to answer summons and evade Interpol are now over – at least for the next four years. There is no need to worry even if you are found guilty of an offence – with friends and family in such high places, you can always get a pardon, they are becoming quite the fashion these days!

Yours truly,

Punchi Putha

PS: Looking at your deeds, the happiest man must be another fellow wanted by Interpol – Arjuna, who is domiciled in Singapore now. He must be thinking that if you can return and become a tourist guide, he too can surely return one day and set up a bank or two – after all, this is Paradise for some people!