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 Rambo style one monkey attack on substation hits world headlines

Hanuman had risen from the pages of the Ramayana to stage a Rambo-style pre-noon attack on a single power grid to plunge Lanka into total blackout that lasted for several hours.

The Power Minister in the court of Vibeeshana, the Rama-appointed successor to defeated Ravana, blamed the monkey for the national disaster. ‘The monkey has returned. He held the nation’s electricity trip in his hands.’

As a shocked people heard the news that Hanuman had returned to wreak his unfinished vengeance on a Lanka, he had set aflame on his first advent to destroy Ravana.

National Power Grid Engineers issued their scientific report some hours later. In it they did not refer to any Hanuman attack but stated, “Sunday morning was a hot and bright day. Many people had gone to sunbathe on the beach. As a result, power consumption was extremely low. The sun’s bright rays heating glass sundials atop home caves to trap solar energy increased the load on the national grid before they could be dissipated or deflected elsewhere. The imbalance this caused tripped the entire national power grid.”

The report promised a further probe and stated, “State Engineers and the Energy Ministry are working together to take long-term steps to prevent the recurrence of such situations.”

SUPERMONKEY: Hanuman rises from Ramayana for a repeat performance

Vibeeshana’s energy minister appeared again on TV and blamed the ‘monkey-triggered’ blackout on Vibeeshana’s predecessor, Ravana. “It’s all Ravana’s fault,” the energy minister declared. “He flew to India on Air Force One, the ‘Dadhu Monera,’ on public funds to God King Rama’s stronghold to kidnap his wife Seetha. It was to extract personal revenge from Rama for letting his brother Luxman cut off the ear of Ravana’s sister with his sword. For that minor insult, he stole the virtuous Seetha as his hostage.”

“It brought Rama out of exile to land on Lanka’s island shores, with Hanuman and his Varana Army to embroil this country in a bloody long-drawn 30-year war. To settle a personal score with Rama, Ravana drained the country’s public coffers. It left Lanka’s economy bankrupt with Hanuman torching the landscape with his tail. The national power grid hadn’t been updated throughout these years, leaving Hanuman or another monkey from his Varana Brigade to set off the trip switch of the entire national grid.”

Critics pointed out that, not even during the 30-year war, when certain terrorist elements had destroyed local power grids, had they succeeded in knocking off the national grid and thus a nationwide blackout. How come a single monkey succeeded when a terrorist group could not?

A large group of small industrialists also joined the chorus of protest and berated the energy minister for raising fears among the natives of Hanuman returning to complete the job he had left unfinished. They said, “This is the seventh major blackout recorded by Lanka’s Electricity Board for the last 15 years. Most industrialists rely on electricity as their primary source of power. Due to this six-to-seven-hour outage, our businesses have suffered massive losses.” They demanded that the CEB and the Energy Ministry calculate the financial impact on industrialists and provide compensation. He also noted that despite similar incidents in the past, authorities have failed to take measures to minimise damages.

Their demand was not without justification. Their industry is already facing the Damocles sword with their mortgaged assets under the bank auctioneer’s hammer. They said, “Don’t put the blame on monkeys to cover up the government’s inefficiency.” Their message, which found an echo amongst the people, was clear: No monkey tricks. No monkey business. And no monkey talks.

Don’t throw a monkey in the works to excuse a blackout. And let not state engineers—with an alleged vested interest in promoting coal and oil—fool the public by alleging that a bright sunny day’s extra dose of solar red bull delivered a more forceful punch to knock out the newly upgraded automatic system worth billions, installed in the Electricity Board’s Battaramulla Headquarters within the last two years by hangers-on in defeated Ravana’s camp.

Instead of defending their ground as to why they opposed renewable solar energy and used it as a scapegoat to blame the nationwide blackout, state engineers chose to boycott a serious debate with their peers on a live TV show on Thursday night, though the programme’s moderators said they had invited them to do so.

And what did the opposing peers have to say in the absence of their TV-shy engineers? They claimed that the state engineers’ allegation that sundials soaking too much solar power was hazardous to health was patently false, a contrived lie designed to protect their vested interest in coal and oil. Input to the national grid from the coal-burning Norochchalai power plant was static and couldn’t be regulated. On the other hand, solar surges could.

It was indeed funny, if not pathetic, to see the energy minister rush in to claim it was a monkey from Hanuman’s Varana tribe that blacked out Lanka for hours. It wasn’t funny indeed but despairing to find professionally qualified engineers opportunistically promoting fossil fuels and rejecting solar power that nature freely gives in abundance. Wonder whether they’re making hay while condemning the sun that shines?

Despite the importance that electricity plays in nearly all fields of activity and the pivotal role it plays in any industrial and technological existence and development in Lanka, and in the midst of high-level talks taking place in foreign capitals with hi-tech digitalisation service providers, seven days have passed since last Sunday’s ‘Midnight at High Noon,’ and still the government has failed to come up with a conclusive answer on ‘what dunnit’? Except to say Hanuman did it.

The Electricity Board chiefs, despite promising a detailed report, remain clueless a week later. Its engineers take a week to bring some sort of stability to the system and aren’t still sure of ensuring an uninterrupted power supply but say they’ll gauge the situation on ‘a day-by-day basis’. In the meantime, industrial and home consumers are forced to suffer irregular power supply, which goes and comes at announced times, ‘give or take half an hour.’

Can any realistic hope be placed on building a prosperous Lanka on industrial growth and technological advancement if the uninterrupted electricity supply, so indispensable, is prone to an ‘always breakdown’ system or at the mercy of a Hanuman attack?

If that is the answer the government can give, then the promise of a ‘Rich Nation, a Beautiful Life’ will remain a pipe dream and, in its stead, become a nightmare of a ‘Poor Lanka, a Wretched Life’.

**But this isn’t the first time the Government has blamed the beast and fowl for Lanka’s ills or assigning to them its failures. They have pinned the rice shortage on pet dogs and cats for gobbling up rice and denying indulgent masters their staple diet. They have blamed members of Hanuma’s Varana brigade for plundering coconuts and denying the people their daily pol sambol. They have unwittingly given the kudos to a resurrected Hanuman for his daring raid on a remote, rural substation and, stealing the fuse box of the national grid, to hold the nation hostage.

The ultimate controlling switch of Lanka’s electricity is now in an Indian monkey’s hands.

Perhaps, the mastermind behind the decision to release 323 red-flagged containers, which legally required a mandatory physical inspection, from Colombo port, is no other than Hanuman, King of the Monkey tribe.

The whole monkey business remains, in the words of Churchill, a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma’.

Born free to be viewed free, not live showcased in zoos WITH LOVE FROM EMIRATE ZOOS: A couple brown bears On the eve of President Aruna Kumara’s departure to the United Arab Emirates, the host country sent, as a goodwill gesture, a stock of animals from their zoos to be showcased in Sri Lanka’s zoological gardens. Goodwill gesture, my foot? More like a convenient opportunity for Emirates’ shrewd zoo authorities to offload their unwanted stock on a goodwill pretext in view of the presidential visit. A much better way of showing goodwill would have been to offload a couple of thousand metric tonnes of liquid black gold at the Colombo Port as a token of friendship that exists between the two countries. WITH LOVE FROM EMIRATE ZOOS: Couple of laughing hyenas Instead, we received from the captive cages of Emirate zoos a couple of brown bears, a couple of hyenas and three pairs of meerkats to be held and fed at Lanka’s expense and displayed as royal gifts from the Sheikh of Arab Emirate. And what’s the fate of these 10 unfortunate animals? Will the bears and hyenas be set free in the Yala wilds? The bears to rival the Lankan sloth bear and hyenas to compete with the Lankan leopard? And the meerkats? Will they be given free run of the field, and will they be quicker than Lanka’s native ruddy mongoose in killing a snake? Nay, the Environment Ministry has announced the bears and the meerkats will be quarantined at the Dehiwela zoo. The ferocious, laughing hyenas, reportedly with the strongest jaws, will be quarantined at Ridiyagala Safari Park. Then what? It will be back from one quarantined cage to another cramped, claustrophobic cage to cramp the lifestyle of these animals, a far cry from life as found in the wilds. As the world trends towards viewing animals living in their own natural habitat imprisoned, not in zoo cages, Lanka is travelling in the opposite direction and stuffing the handouts from other zoos. It’s all done in the name of educating the public. It’s a folly to think it does. WITH LOVE FROM EMIRATE ZOOS: Three pairs of meerkats A lifetime spent in zoos studying animals held captive in cages will leave none any wiser. It’s akin to studying men behind bars in solitary confinement and concluding it’s the way men behave in society in freedom. Either living with animals in their own natural environment or keenly watching David Attenborough’s TV documentary, ‘Our Planet,’ will make one more aware as to why survival of the fittest is the name of nature’s game in the wild. It’s tough, it’s cruel and it may seem unfair, but nature always grants the weak a handicap to level the hunting fields in the jungle lair. The reason for a zoo’s existence no longer holds validity in these modern times. Once it could be justified that men had no practical access to see animals in their natural jungle environment but had to depend solely on gazing at the strange and savage beasts that explorers brought back in cages from the dark bush of Africa. Now with live action caught on film footage and safari expeditions available to most, the death knell has rung for the zoos. They exist mainly to selfishly satisfy the fleeting curiosity of some at the expense of an animal’s right to live, born free. In the poetic words of Blake: ‘A robin redbreast in a cage puts all Heaven in a rage. Every wolf’s and lion’s howl raises from hell a human soul.’

Trump’s Health Czar put live chickens and mice in blender to feed pet hawk If die-hard Republican senators had approved many of Trump’s cabinet nominees with some alarm at the Senate Committee hearings these two weeks, then approving the man to be the overlord of America’s health and its vaccine programmes, would have taxed the limits of their faith in Trump’s infallible judgement. Arise Robert Kennedy Jr. from the ashes of the Kennedy fame. Though unknown to Lankans, Robert Kennedy’s son is no stranger to the American people and is often lampooned in the media as the eccentric nephew of John F.K., the family black sheep they’ll prefer to keep closeted. But his wild and weird past antics keep popping up, along with the dead bear’s head he buried in some public park, to keep Americans constantly entertained. ATTACKER: Cousin Caroline RFK: Attacked by cousin On the day before his Senate hearings, 15,000 American doctors to the inquisitorial Senate jury declared him unfit for the demanding job. Then came the shocker that would surely flay his chance for the post of Health Secretary. Worse. It came from his own cousin, Caroline, the daughter of America’s best-loved president, John F. Kennedy. In a shocking video, cousin Caroline warned senators to reject her cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to be Health and Human Services secretary ahead of the confirmation hearing on January 29. Caroline said, “I’ve known Bobby my whole life; we grew up together. It’s no surprise that he keeps Birds of Prey as pets because Bobby himself is a predator. He’s always been charismatic, able to attract others through the strength of his personality. His basement, his garage, his dorm room were always the centre of the action where drugs were available, and he enjoyed showing off how he put baby chickens and mice in a blender to feed his hawk.’ It was indeed a last-minute stab in the back, but was the knife poisoned enough to finish him for good? It wasn’t. Robert Kennedy Jr. underwent a gruelling examination even by Republican senators. At the end of the hearings, which lasted for two weeks, he was confirmed as America’s Health Secretary on Thursday night. With the man who once fed live baby chickens and mice, minced in a blender to his pet hawk, now holding America’s health in his hands, may God bless America and her people.