A view from the hills

Soon, it’s Hanoi Hans

Affable head of the Regional Rural Development Project (RRDP) Kandy, is moving on. Dr.Helmrich Hans can look back with satisfaction on what he, as RRDP Team Leader, has achieved in the Central Province - the most noteworthy being the tie-in with the Chamber of Commerce & Industry where he brought into being the Provincial Enterprise Promotion Centre for the fostering of small and medium-scale enterprises.

Hans moves to Vietnam in a short while where he will be in charge of the Sustainable Management of Resources in the Lower Mekong Delta. He is excited at the prospect. Vietnam, he told me, has undergone a lot. Apart from huge internal strife, the country has seen French rule, border skirmishes with China, Japanese incursions and the ugly war fought there by the US. “But the will to succeed and emerge as a strong South-east Asian nation is remarkable. Repressions, hardships, poverty and strife have not destroyed the will of the people. In fact, they have emerged stronger than ever.”

Hans will be based in Hanoi. Our loss, indeed, and Vietnam’s obvious gain.

No chicken feed

Small poultry farmers throughout the Central Province find the Goods and Services Tax nothing to crow about. Poultry feed dealers and distributors simply shrug and say, “GST”, the price of a 50 kg. Bag of Prima Ordinary Layers mash used to be Rs. 675. The better quality, most winningly called “Farmer’s Choice” was Rs. 740 or thereabouts. Now, Prima Layers is R.s 760, and Farmer’s Choice has soared past the Rs. 850 mark. All this will undoubtedly affect the price of eggs and the market will be most unhappy. If one hundred birds consume 100 kg mash a week, the farmer has an additional Rs. 680 to pay for feed per month. And that’s no chicken feed!

Writing the Nation

“Writing the Nation” is the theme of the Sri L.anka Association of Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies Conference to be held from October 3 to 5 at the University of Peradeniya. Professor Ashley Halpe will receive abstracts, and the deadline is August 1. He says that papers could focus on any issue or issues in relation to the theme - the media, censorship, the writer and the state, caste, race, class, gender, language, etc.

Dambulla takes over as vegetable market centre

Talk about shifting markets, Dambulla is the new vegetable marketing centre of the country. Those in the know tell me it took time coming, but it was bound to happen, ever since the massive farmer colonisation in the area following the Mahaweli diversion. Today, one sees lorries from places such as Killinochchi, Matara, and Galle loading vegetables at the sprawling vegetable centre which is simply a large cadjan-roofed “pola” style station where vegetables are offered wholesale as well as to eager retail customers. The vegetable belt from Nalanda to Dambulla is well known to those on the road, but previously this consisted of individual roadside stalls. Now Dambulla has organised itself and the country comes knocking at its door.

Wedding, coat and honeymoon trousers

Daya is one of Kandy’s best-known tailors. He’s a true satorialist but, unassuming man, he scorns the word. Wedding suits are a speciality and both the rich and the famous come to him. Daya lives on the premises in Colombo Street and was rudely disturbed one morning last week when a customer, who was getting married in the morning, banged on his door. Daya had, somehow, switched orders. He had given the man his coat. .and someone else’s trousers.

Daya let the man in and said. ‘What, what, what?”

The bridegroom-to-be goggled. “Hui” he said, ‘Hui, hui, hui!”

Delightful, these seven a.m. conversations.

Things were sorted out. The correct trousers were given and the customer mollified, was ready to accept that a ‘Bona Fide’ had been made

“You know,” said Daya chattily. “It is not such a tragedy when you come to think of it. Many people wear two-tone these days. Coat one colour, trousers another colour.”

This was not accepted. The customer goggled again and roared. “Hui. How to wear those trousers? Went to put them on and couldn’t pull them over my knees! What do you think? Can go to the wedding with trousers round my knees’’ Honeymoon never mind, but for wedding Hui!”

Luckily, Daya said, the other customer had not collected ‘All’s well that ends well.’

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