Esala Perahera from July 29

Then Diyawadana Nilame has confirmed that the Kandy Esala Perahera will start on July 29. The Kumbal Perahera will start on that day and will be held nightly up to August 2, with Randoli Perehera from August 3-7. The day Perahera will be conducted on August 8

Samurdhi Street

I ask you. What’s this business of Samurdhi all about? These are people who, we are told, show care and concern for the rural poor, give the peasantry that feeling of courage and initiative and encourage them to stand on their own feet. Uplifting the masses.These Samurdhi boys are the animators. They are here to breathe new life into the rural areas, boost small entrepreneurship and be the peoples’ friends. Suddenly, the animators became most animated and took to the streets of Kandy shouting themselves hoarse and cavorting like crazy. Seems they are first concerned with caring for themselves and let the rural poor learn to be just as demanding. Nothing like setting an example. Animated, agitated animators. Like a cartoon strip come alive!

A Sooty Banda bash

If you did not see “The Foreign Expert” pre sented by the Kandy Players at the Children’s’ Library, Kandy, don’t gripe. Director Ashley Halpe intends staging the play at the British Council, Colombo, soon. Also, in Gampaha and at the Sabaragamuwa University.

The play is a joyous and satirical comedy that looks most caustically at the political scene. Paying pooja to foreign “experts” is the theme, where everything is claimed to be shenika this and instant that and how the benefits to the country will be all up and down the social and economic scale, well larded with dollops of political chicanery. E.M.W. Joseph (who teamed up with de Lanerolle to give us this rollicking play) is better remembered as Sooty Banda, and we all know how well he cracked his whip as he laughed at the social asininities that we are mired in. This play is a riot and, what is more, accommodates every conceivable variety of Lankan English!

The Kandy Players, who put on the performance, are now “adopted” as the official theatre group of the Kandy Municipal Council and Public Library with the city having this far-sighted programme to foster the arts in Kandy “The Foreign Expert” was staged before a capacity audience on June 12, 13 and 14.

Rustling the rustlers

Akurana people will tell you that the market for beef is positively frantic. You lose a bull in Kandy or Matale...and it’s sure to have made its unwilling way to Akurana where certain people make much on the hoof. Two such characters brought in a fat young heifer last week. They work at night, naturally, and know the unfrequented roads they must take. They secured the heifer in their garden and went to bed, well satisfied. They would sell the beef, enjoy the gravy. Most disconcerting to find, the next morning, that the bull had done the bunk. Or rather, it had been hauled away. They searched the village. A local butcher seemed more pleased than usual. He had prime beef to sell. Our desperados decided to nab the rogue. They tied one of their own bulls in their garden and lay in wait. As far as I know, they are still waiting. They cannot report the theft, naturally. But for the past six nights, equipped with torches, stout rope and stouter clubs they skulk in their garden, much to the delight of every mosquito in the district. . . and they are given to the darkest thoughts. Naturally.

New institution of higher education

There’s a new Company now in place in the hills — the Trinity Tertiary Institute (Private) Limited, which will launch The Trinity Western Michigan Institution of Higher Education at Pallekelle. The Institution will be a twin project of Trinity and the Western Michigan university of Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA. It will be owned and operated by the Trinity Tertiary Institute (Pvt.) Limited. More news as it comes in.

Minions of the lawyers

We hear of the minions of the Law, but what about the minions of the Lawyers? Met the Secretary of the Kandy lawyers’ and Notary clerks’ Union, and brother, are these people a sad-faced lot! Seems this Union was formed because these lawyers’ and notaries clerks face a bleak future. They have no EPF or ETF benefits, no pensions, not even fixed salaries. Indeed, no labour regulations govern their duties. Many do not even have letters of appointment. “Law firms may look after their clerks, but a great many of us simply face the prospect of working sometimes on a mere daily-paid basis which is nothing to write home about.”

After the union was formed, a 1973 circular from the Ministry of Justice gave to its members recognition. They were given the privilege of registering themselves at the respective High Courts and also identity cards. Also, the privilege of seats in the open courts, especially applicable to lawyers’ clerks. This latter privilege is no more. “Since 1985 we found that the seats in open courts were no more,” the Secretary said, -’and what is more, all other privileges too, don’t seem to count for much.”

In Kandy, the union approached the President of the Bar Association, Mr. Nissanka Wijesundera, who took up the matter with District Judge, Mr. Kalawila. The good judge insisted that Lawyers’ clerks be duly recognised. He insisted that clerks carry their identity cards and they be allowed to enter open courts to speak to lawyers when necessary. The union also made representations to the Bar Association on the matter of EPF, etc., “but this was not considered favourably” the Secretary said. The question here is why aren’t lawyers’ and notary clerks covered by the Wages Board? These men have nothing to look forward to. “If we die, our families will have nothing.” The union is now pressing for each lawyer to insure his clerk. “Even this will be a great help and a consolation — to know that there is a Life Cover that our families can hope to cash in on, in the event of our deaths.” Seems so weird, actually, that in this day and age here is one body of men who continue to work and grow old with nothing to look forward to.

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