What's in a topic? You'll see
The other day, there was this televised discussion about the interim administration proposals of the LTTE. Somehow, this was like watching the school percussion band while there was a national orchestra in concert. Or like listening to two nuns talking about sexual intimacy in marriage.

At one point, that old war horse Vasudeva Nanayakkara got totally wound up about an insinuation made by the JVP participant about leftists being in the pay of foreign NGOs. From then on, he launched into the JVP as if there was no tomorrow, forgetting topic, context and everything else, or so the moderator was telling him.

Large chunks of time meant for discussing the issue was lost or so the moderator also said. But they would have been consoling themselves after the event in the Studio lobby that there was no topic under discussion anyway.

The Tiger ISGA proposal (the topic) is so remote to Sri Lankan political reality today that it's a non starter - as remote as Mano Tittawella is from Malik Samarawickreme. Even Mr Raviraj was not talking about the interim administration proposals. He was talking of the EPDP, in loud staccato tones. Mr Mahinda Yapa Abeywardene was trying in a statesmanlike way to remember the topic, but midway he forgot about it too, and started talking about humane vision and that kind of philosophical doggerel.

They might as well have been talking about cricket. On another channel they were doing just that - and the topic was so loose that they could have just as well said "anything about cricket including cheering squads, pavilions and scandals.'' But when they organize political sitcoms -- sorry discussions -- they do get very serious and self conscious about themselves and narrow down the topic considerably.

They are so self consciously serious that they might not be serious enough for their liking. Next time, if they are to be considered serious and patriotic television anchors they might consider some of the following topics, which are narrow enough in their scope to be considered politically correct:

A) Can Vasudeva Nanayakkara and Bimal Ratnayake exist in one room, and talk about a given topic without hurling abuse at each other and making the topic irrelevant -- including this topic? B) If Mr Raviraj can participate in Sinhalese discussions without being able to sound better than a Sea Street merchant losing his shirt, then what's wrong in having Tiger television? C) when a Buddhist monk participates in a television discussion and uses phrases like "compassion to all other human beings,'' does he always have to qualify that by saying that Ven Soma Thera may have been murdered despite a coroner's report to the contrary? D) how many Buddhist monks does it take to remove a light bulb -- or cause a breach of the peace (and perhaps a breakdown of the ceasefire to boot?)

These topics are not only narrow enough, they place the moderator in the enviable position of not having to pretend that the topic is important and relevant when nobody in Sri Lanka is worried about it. Like the ISGA. When Ranil is fighting Chandrika, the ISGA stands for Irrelevance. Now, if Rupavahini really wants an excuse for two people to come and bash their heads to make their channel popular, they might want to consider getting two moderators to have a discussion on how they can really keep Vasudeva Nanayakkara and any JVPer from getting into a loud-mouth polemical slugging match on screen.

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