Odds and Ends

MR, Boggles and Sobers in Japan?

During the Presidential visit to Japan, one of the most important items in MR’s agenda was the Business Forum at which the President was listed as the main speaker. The many business people who accompanied the President, paying a rather handsome amount to be in on the presidential delegation, got many of their counterparts to attend the meeting since it was important to convince the rather concerned Japanese businessmen on the positives of doing business in Sri Lanka.

But the disappointed audience could only get a dose of the business climate in Sri Lanka from the Foreign Minister while the President just sat without a murmur while displaying an array of facial expressions. In a country where loss of face is tantamount to committing suicide, many a Sri Lankan businessman were left to wonder whether the President deliberately avoided saying anything due to the then developing political eventualities back home (i.e. the Hakeem saga) or, more plausibly, whether the FM, in the absence of any other ministerial colleagues wanting to impress his boss, hijacked the proceedings by imposing himself on the large contingent of officials from his ministry.While the Japanese solemnly expressed their disappointment at not being afforded the rare privilege of listening to the Head of State, a Sri Lankan entrepreneur known for his keen interest in cricket, was seen revisiting a cricketing story adapted no doubt from the W.G. Grace era, with some of his distraught colleagues.

It was at the Oval in Colombo, he said when the great Garfield Sobers came to bat amidst enormous cheers from an enthusiastic local gathering that had come to see one of the greatest batsmen in the history of the game wield the willow. Sobers was just settling in when the local umpire turned down an appeal for what appeared to be a ‘plumb out’. At the end of that particular over, the hapless bowler, while collecting his cap, asked the umpire, “That was out, sir. Why didn’t you raise the finger?”

The umpire while glancing at the massive crowd at the venue, calmly whispered to the bowler, “I say, these people have come to see Sobers bat, not you bowl!” Some Japanese, after getting a detailed explanation of the story and its relevance to what had happened at the business forum, were seen nodding their heads profusely with the customary “Ah So…”