I was once travelling in a van with a few others. Two girls I presume in the eleven - twelve age groups, waved a few bunches of gotukola for sale. Our vehicle stopped say about fifty yards away from them. They came running. It was a Susanthika run to get at us. "Apata mekata Rs.40 denna''(give us Rs. 40/- for this). I signalled to my friends "take it, don't bargain. These are poor children."
The
emaciated, undernourished look of these two children pierced me to the
depths menacingly, as it were. Why? Why? I asked myself. Why should reportedly
a 30% of our people Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim be so dreadfully poverty stricken.
Is it wishful thinking that I desire very much to see a new leadership in the country? Is it mere unrealistic reverie to desire for a leader and leaders who have had their formation at a village temple a pirivena an ashram or some such ego-deflating institution, who while being open to the advances of science and technology, have made a commitment to a life of "alpeichatawaya". Implicit of course is the very, very great desire that they be not from Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard or Sorbonne and not steeped in a life of 'Bahubandawadaya'. We have had and having enough of this particular tribe.
Wishful thinking is it?
I read the editorial in The Sunday Times of February 1, with mixed feelings. There were flashes of good sense amidst vast cloud formations of sentiments and confusions. The cancer that has taken hold of Sri Lanka is the failure of this highly literate nation to forge a nation from its rich Buddhist-Hindu-Christian-Moslem heritage.
It appears none of the leaders of these great religious traditions has lived up to the cherished precepts of these faiths. The ruination of the country was principally caused by its faulty educational system that encouraged obsessive individualist cut-throat competition for scarce honours, lack of pride and contempt towards traditional systems in the various sciences and in particular agriculture, and among many others, domination by a Colombo elite of professionals.
Every time an election took place in Sri Lanka, politicians and their cronies let their throats run hoarse on empty oratory and when they had nothing to offer, they went for emotional issues such as language and religion raising dirt from the sewers.
Systematically, those rare politicians who knew the grassroots better and offered programmes for the development of Sri Lanka were marginalised by communalist and racist politicians. Furthermore, on major issues it appears the two leading parties are only interested in using their deep-seated animosities to serve their own propensities leaving the nation to bleed.
It was apparent that the last wish of Fr.Marcelline Jayakody was that he be buried in a property which he had transformed into a centre for the arts Kala Lanka - close to Dankotuwa on the outskirts of Maha Oya. He wanted to be buried near a lotus pond with a statue of Our Lady standing on it.
This was not done and he was buried at Kanatte cemetry in Borella.
In 1988, when Thomas Cardinal Cooray passed away, he was interred at the Basillica at Tewatta, according to his wish at a place selected by him.
Dr.Hector Fernando was a renowned Marxist, who did not practise his religion when he was living. According to his wish in 1976 he was buried at a place selected by him in the non-Catholic section in the General Cemetry in Negombo. However the Catholic Priests in the region got together and offered a special Mass and thereby consecrated the place.
There could not have been any difficulty for our Bishops to consecrate the place where Fr.Marcelline Jayakody wanted himself to be buried.
No other Catholic prelate or priest in Sri Lanka has touched the hearts and lives of both the Catholics and non-Catholics in the present century than Fr.Marcelline Jayakody. Nevertheless no other Catholic Priest in Sri Lanka has been so harassed victimised and humiliated by the Church authorities than this humble servant of God.
It appears that Fr.Marcelline Jayakody who was victimised for his forthrightness and uprightness when he was living was so victimised at his death as well.
Occasionally I have the good fortune of receiving your valuable paper and some articles flood my memory of pleasant times I have had in that country. Of course there are other articles that make one grieve.
The article in question tree-bute appeared on the November 9 issue of your paper.
I worked in Sri Lanka and in particular as Executive Engineer Nalanda district of the then P.W.D. in the years 1967 to 1969 both inclusive. I vividly remember the tree referred to in your article. It is off the Naula-Elahera-Pallegama Road.
I also remember other trees on those roads that were under my purview. There were (and perhaps still are) several mara trees planted in the colonial past as 'shade trees'. Then there were tamarind trees, coconut trees, bo trees either sprung up by nature or planted by villagers.
The Nalanda E.E's bungalow is almost opposite the 30th mile post on the Kandy-Jaffna road. The first culvert towards Dambulla is numbered as 31/1 meaning it is the first culvert on the 31st Mile. In the vicinity of this culvert and on the east side of the road there was a family living in a semi permanent building. Almost opposite the house and on the west side of the road was a huge bo tree. The family had a small shrine under this tree and they used to light lamps, candle and worship there.
They had several children. There was one girl about 18 at that time who was working at the Naula handlooms. She normally wakes up at 5.am and proceeds to get dressed, eat and go to work. One morning in July 1969 around 4.30 I heard a deafening crash and a thud sound. That was followed immediately by wails of cries and weeping. I got out of my bed and ran out. A large branch of the bo tree had snapped and crashed on the house. The branch had fallen over the bed of this girl and she died almost instantaneously.
We could not remove the branch in a hurry. Had the branch fallen half an hour later she would have not died in vain.
On the Ambepussa Kurunegala-Trincomalee road we had another tragic death due to a tree plus the stubbornness of the victim. I do not remember the tree. A section of the road between Galewela and Dambulla was being straightened. It included a new bridge. The traffic was allowed only on the old road. Work on the new bridge had been completed, approaches done and the road and new bridge was passable, but only the construction traffic was allowed to use it. Mr.Joseph an Engineer from Ja-Ela was the site engineer and one morning he was getting the branches of a tree near the new bridge lopped off. There were signal men on either side fending off all persons to keep clear of the falling branches. By some odd bad luck a middle aged Catholic priest ignored the signalman and came over the bridge in his Vespa scooter. At the middle of the road a small branch fell on him. He was hit on the head and was bleeding. He was rushed to Matale hospital and died the next day. Fortunately, before he died, he had in his deposition to the Police indemnified Mr.Joseph and others for his calamity. Another bo tree that gave problem was near culvert No.26/3 on the Kandy-Jaffna road. It is between North Matale Rural Dispensary and Madawala Ulpotha. This was also a huge bo tree but there were none using it as a place of worship. But its girth was large and as the culvert was too narrow, we planned to widen the culvert and also lop off the tree as a whole and improve visibility. But there was strong opposition to the removal of the tree. We canvassed the support of the people through the then M.P. for Matale Alick Aluvihare. He did his best but failed. So we gave up. At a later date may be around 1970 when Maj. Gen. Udugama became the M.P. for Matale, we approched him to get the peoples' support. He won with ease. So in 1971 we widened the culvert and knocked off the tree.
Technology has so advanced now that, we can detect, without cutting down a tree, if it's being attacked by termites along its core and thus weakening the tree. But the technology may not be available in Sri Lanka.
All in all, trees unlike knives can be beneficial or deadly.
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