Hospitality is one thing, affordability is another. Often we confuse the two. In our haste to be hospitable or to be seen to be hospitable, we sometimes live beyond our means.

Of course one does not need to worry about such trifles as extravagance if somebody else is paying for it. One can afford to be generous to friend and stranger and lavish them with the best of food and drink if, at the end of the day, one does not have to foot the bill and some anonymous persons somewhere are the unsuspecting victims of such generosity.

Two items of news in the media recently showed absurdity of the situation and how ostentatiously people in authority tend to behave when they can dip into the public purse.

One was Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's televised address to the nation in which he explained the current parlous state of our economy though he did seem to see a little light at the end of a dark tunnel, though some might say this was somewhat premature.

The other was about a farewell dinner that President Chandrika Kumaratunga had given to the departing British High Commissioner to Colombo, Linda Duffield.

It has, of course, been common practice for the foreign minister or his deputy to host some kind of reception to departing heads of missions. Usually they are farewell lunches or dinners and are generally held at five-star hotels, though occasionally a foreign minister might host them at his official residence. But they are few and far between.

If the current foreign minister kept to tradition, I suppose Tyronne Fernando too would have hosted the departing diplomat to a meal at some Colombo hotel and invited several guests to it, though I must admit that I did not see any photograph or news item about it.

Though we are a developing country, our economy is in terrible shape as the prime minister himself confessed, and our public debt is running high, when it comes to entertaining some departing diplomat we seem to consider ourselves the big spender with little thought given to the state of our finances
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In the course of the address the premier reportedly said the economy of the country and the home economy- meaning no doubt the economic well-being of individual households-are interconnected. Therefore if the home economy is to be improved the economy of the country should be strengthened.

He also pointed out- and this is very important- that the country's public debt is more than what the country produces. Such is the debt crisis that each individual is in debt to the tune of Rs 77,500.

Now the president and foreign minister- if he too hosted the departing British High Commissioner- were certainly not spending their own money on fine dining. It was public money and if we are to accept that each Sri Lankan is in debt to the amount of Rs 77,500 such big spending becomes a further burden on the public.

It is important to bring these matters into public focus because our own high commissioners in Britain are not treated to such five-star treatment by the British Government.

Only the other day Prime Minister Tony Blair said that Britain was the fourth largest economy in the world and Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown has just committed several billion sterling pounds on public spending.

Despite the strong economy that Britain boasts of today when it comes to bidding farewell to departing Sri Lankan high commissioners, the British Foreign Office has been absolutely niggardly.

When High Commissioner Faisz Musthapha's predecessor Mangala Moonesinghe had informed the foreign office of his departure, he was invited to tea and requested to invite six others.

So off went the High Commissioner and six of his stalwarts- who had first to submit their bio data, heaven knows why- to tea that was not hosted by Foreign Secretary Jack Straw but by a lowly parliamentary undersecretary Ben Bradshaw overseeing parts of Asia. And so after a hearty tea of biscuits, sandwiches and cakes, the magnificent seven retired, their taste buds apparently satiated by the foreign office repast .

Mangala Moonesinghe's predecessor Lal Jayawardane at least was given a farewell lunch-but requested to invite other 10 persons.

If one juxtaposes the treatment accorded to British high commissioners in Colombo and Sri Lanka's high commissioners in London, it may appear to any reasonably minded person that it is really Sri Lanka's economy that is thriving as the fourth largest in the world and the British economy is at a lowly ebb.

Some might well argue that the treatment that Colombo extends has nothing to do with our proud claim to traditional hospitality but is really a hangover from our colonial past.

Even after more than 50 years of independence and talk of a resurgent nationalism some people are still cowed by a so-called white face. Our society has historically become so accustomed to being subservient to the so-called whites and serving them that they cannot escape from that old public service mentality of for ever being "your obedient servant".

Despite the fact that our own diplomats are being treated so cavalierly and with such condescension, we keep lavishing foreign diplomats with hospitality fit for kings.

This has nothing to do with living up to our reputation for hospitality. It has to do with our inability to divest ourselves of colonial hangovers on the one hand, and living it up at public expense on the other.

That pithy Sinhala saying sums it all: "hande thiyanakan beda ganne".

One wonders what Sri Lanka's donors think of all this extravagance. Or do some of them acquiesce in this. After all most of the food and drink served at these goings-on are imported.

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