5th Column

My Dear King Charles,

I am writing to congratulate you on your coronation as King of the British Empire (or what is left of it) yesterday. I hope you won’t take offence at not addressing you as Your Royal Highness. After all, we are a Republic now, though many of us are thinking we would have been better off as a colony!

It must be a relief to finally wear that crown after 54 years. That was how long ago it was, when you were invested as the Prince of Wales. You would have been prepared to wait for some time to become King, but 54 years is a bit much, isn’t it? Well, the wait is finally over for you now.

Yesterday was a very busy day for you, King Charles. You met hundreds of leaders and other celebrities from around the world. So, you would be excused for not remembering all of them. That is why I want to let you know that our chap, Uncle Ranil, was also among those present.

You may have heard that we in Paradise are in trouble because we are officially a bankrupt nation. You must be wondering why he turned up, when he had so many problems of his own. Don’t think too much about it, King Charles, he is a die-hard Royalist and will never miss an opportunity like this!

Why I make special mention of him is because he is so much like you. Like you, he too had strong family connections to the top job. As a result, he was introduced early and groomed for it, like you were. Like you, he too had to wait a very long time, 45 years to be precise, to get there.

Despite that long wait, King Charles, you got the top job at an unexpected time. As far as we knew, the Queen was never sick. You were all saying ‘Long live the Queen’ and she was following that to the letter. Then, suddenly, one day we were told that she had died. That came as quite a shock.

It is a similar story with our Uncle Ranil as well. Despite waiting for so many years, we had almost written him off and thought that he would never get the top job. Then one day, the chap who had that job suddenly resigned and lo and behold, Uncle Ranil was in his seat. That was quite a shock too.

Your land is a Kingdom. Therefore, you need not be elected by the people. You got the job because of whose who you are. We like to call our Paradise a democracy, so our leaders need to be elected, but guess what, our chap wasn’t elected either. He just happened to be at the right place at the right time!

You have been crowned now, King Charles, but I do not envy you. Your mother is a hard act to follow. Despite all the scandals around her from time to time, she kept a straight face and did her job, until her very last days. Inevitably, you will be compared with her. That will be quite challenging.

Though there were great scenes of celebration and jubilation yesterday, don’t count on that euphoria to last. Soon, your citizens who are, like us, bearing the brunt of an economic crisis, will be querying the enormous expenses they have to bear to sustain the monarchy and asking whether it is worthwhile.

That is the other reason why I am writing to you, King Charles. That is to suggest that you make some time to chat with our chap, Uncle Ranil, while he is over there for the coronation. It will be time well spent. He can provide you with some tips and tricks of how to be King despite not being so popular.

I know that you don’t dabble in politics and leave that to your Prime Minister, but you can still promise that you will preside over an economic recovery. Just to ensure that you are not held to your promise, you could also say that this recovery will be complete in your Silver Jubilee in 2048!

Being a democracy, you hold regular elections but you should ban any type of opinion poll which questions the need for the monarchy or asks whether people accept you as their King. You can issue a decree saying that, due to the economic crisis, no money will be released to be spent on such polls.

Then, there will be misguided people who disagree with the monarchy. They will stage protests and make various demands. You should not tolerate them because they will soon be at your gates, trying to chase you away. You should sign a law calling them ‘terrorists’ and detain them indefinitely.

These are some aspects you should consider as you officially commence your reign, King Charles. We know that you may not reign as long as your mother did, for 70 years, but it won’t hurt to behave as if you will be on the throne for that long. Believe me, that is what people in Paradise do!

Yours truly,

Punchi Putha

PS: After your coronation, you will be King Charles the Third. Our last King was Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe of Kandy, He died some 200 years ago after we became a colony of your Empire. Now some feel we have someone who acts like the first King of Colombo, Ranil Sri Wickremesinghe!