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 Words,
words, words!
Met Sarath P. Sikurajapathi in town last
week. He is the honourable Speaker, Central Provincial Council, and I'd
like to devote some space to him. A sincere man and a politician who has
a head on his shoulders (which is saying a lot).
Actually we were on the horns of an allegory, if you can envisage such
a thing, and he was drawing comparisons — the Caesarian way and the natural
way! The present spasmodic gyrations and pyrotechnics of our politicians,
he says, are typical of the times that precede an election, whether it's
to be or not to be. It's a "Caesarian" affair, far from "natural".
When it comes to a run-up to the polls, he says, politicians must simply
shut up! What the people see and hear and have to put up with is a circus
of sorts with all sorts of people mounting platforms and screaming their
heads off in this frantic race to be elected.
People, he said, must be free and at peace to make their choice and
not be pressganged by hordes of candidates who go around with their supporters,
infest private homes, use "by force" tactics and, above all,
make raft loads of empty promises. Even nominations bring out the bad elements
who think it their duty to misbehave and cause disruptions in everyday
public life.
"What has politics descended to?" he asks, "when it seems
that the person who can make the biggest noise, the biggest promises and
tell the biggest lies, imagines that he or she has made an impression.
I think that the people must be allowed to make their own decisions without
this type of coercion, and without this amplified circus we call rallies
and election meetings with all the attendant mudslinging that goes on.
And who goes house to house after the elections are over? When do the people
have that dubious honour of welcoming a politician into their parlours
once the power is given?"
He said: "These are Caesarian elections, not natural ones, and
it is time that politicians began to act like mature, caring people who
really have the best interests of their electorates at heart."
Phew! Talk about empty vessels! But the sound that is inflicted on us
is, as he says, a pollution of all that is good sense and political sensibility.
Keep mum, is his advice. Actions speak volumes. Words, especially those
that tumble from a political platform, are meaningless. They are — what
did Elton John say? — simply candles in the wind!
It's a miracle
lt will be a soft opening, and, as everybody
in Kandy agrees, it's a 60-day miracle! In this time not only has an unbelievable
amount of work been accomplished, but also, like a butterfly emerging from
its chrysalis, a completely refurbished hotel throws open its doors. Besides
foyer, lobby, ballroom, main restaurant, lounge bar, the entire kitchen
and a new shopping arcade, 30 bedrooms have been totally renewed, all air-conditioned
and each with television and mini-bar.
To let a few cats out of the bag, the main banquet hall will be the
"Queen of Hearts" with, you guessed it, a tribute to Princess
Diana; and the lounge bar dedicated to Lord Mountbatten. I learn that the
new shopping arcade, too, has attracted many. For one thing, the National
Development Bank will have its offices at the city end of the line of shops,
and that the Colombo Stock Exchange has also evinced interest as well as
Vanik Incorporation. A grand opening will follow, but the date is still
to be decided on.
Yet another dump
The Mahaweli looks most picturesque seen
from the Peradeniya bridge, but that bird's eye view can be most deceiving.
There's this very popular Sunday Fair at Peradeniya and the stall holders
have even become real estate agents, judging from the hastily written notices
they display announcing land and houses for sale. The problem is that this
Sunday Fair is held alongside the Peradeniya-Gampola road on a site that
backs down to the river bank and it is so convenient to toss all the garbage
down the slope.
The river is being polluted with a small mountain of garbage, bags of
rotting matter, empty king coconuts, banana leaves, old mat baskets and
all the debris of each crowded Sunday morning. It has even become the practice
of some dump trucks to spill their loads of trash down the bank. And we
claim that we are an educated nation We must be. We know a thing or two
when it comes to getting rid of our rubbish!
Bravo
Back to Mr. Sikurajapathi, I learn that
he has been instrumental in helping many poor cataract sufferers in the
Kandy district through the good offices of the Central Province Social
Services Department. It was a recommendation he made, actually, and which
is willingly followed. Today, any poor person who is unable to meet the
expenses of a cataract operation can apply to the Social Services Department
with a medical prescription that advises such operation.
The Department then officially refers the patient to the hospital where
the operation is performed, the fee being paid by the Department. A wonderful
system indeed and just the sort of thing that is expected of a caring administration.
Bravo!
Matale Regional Information System installed
A fully computerised da tabase has been
installed at the Computer Centre of the Matale District Planning Secretariat.
The system developed by the Regional Rural Development Project, Kandy allows
the presentation and analysis of statistical data in the form of maps.
As such, the system can store a large amount of Grama Niladhari-based
socio-economic data on population, livelihood, infrastructure and employment
and contain addresses of micro, small, medium and large enterprises based
on Trade Application records. The Regional Information System package was
installed at Matale District Planning Secretariat by Ms. Varunika Kiribamune
and demonstrated before District Secretary Mr. D.P. Amerasinghe by Mr.
H.M.T.B. Kanatiwela, the RRDP's Development Officer who has been detailed
to operate the Matale Regional Information System until the Matale Planning
staff can take over the operation.
Betel leaf cultivation
Mr.S.A.Tennakoon, Agricultural Officer of the Regional Rural Development
Project, Kandy informs me that betel cultivation has been introduced in
Madapola and Gangasirigama, two rural areas in the Medadumbara District
Secretariat Division, at a cost of Rs 63,520 and involving 20 farmers.
Plants are being cultivated at 50 per acre and within the first year
of planting a farmer could earn Rs.1,800 increasing to Rs. 2,250 in the
following year. In some areas, betel leaf is grown among pepper as well.
HFAC sounds warning on gelatin
The Halal Food Aware- ness Committee, a
Colombo-based NGO has warned hill country consumers of food manufacturers
who continue to sell gelatin which is made of pork. The NGO, in its circular
states: "We have found that gelatin made of pork is widely used in
many food products such as ice cream, jelly, chocolate, sweet whipped cream,
yoghurt, drinking yoghurt, sausages, jams, sherbets custards, meat loaves,
chocolate flavoured beverages, cheese, marshmallows, jellied meats, soups,
salads, etc."
The NGO states that "it is sacrilegious for food manufacturers
to sell such products to Muslim consumers, knowing well that the gelatin
used in their products are of pork origin." The HFAC has now organised
21 consumer societies and appeals to Muslim institutions to help organise
more societies that would serve as watchdogs to keep Muslims from eating
what is "haram".
The Committee has also asked that the State Pharmaceutical Corporation
to help Muslim diabetic patients with Bovine Insulin. The cheapest insulin
now available in the market is Porcine which is prescribed by doctors because
many poor patients cannot afford the Bovine or bacterial insulin. Actually,
I am told, the bacterial insulin is the only one acceptable by Muslims
but this is prohibitively expensive. The HFAC is now appealing to Muslim
organisations to purchase stocks of Bovine insulin from Pakistan or any
other Muslim country and give this free to patients on doctor's prescriptions.
Boars by night
Everybody's aware that there are wild boars
a-plenty in these parts. In Nilambe they are a menace. They come out at
night to destroy crops and, as farmers tell me, all they can do is poison
the brutes. The boars love ripe jak and it is simple to chop up a ripe
jak, daub it with any handy poison and bingo, one boar bites the dust.
What else can one do? There are no guns to be used. In Hantane, my friend
Para lives in a house bordering the Forest Reserve. He keeps his van outside
and has this blood pressure problem in the mornings when he finds that
the wild boar has used his vehicle as a scratching post. But what happened
at Akurana recently needs to be told.
Somehow, the strangest things happen in Akurana. Here, it seems, the
wild boars like to visit the town in the small hours. They come window
shopping. They snuffle up and down the streets and, in this instance, a
brace of them had to get a closer look at the goods behind the glass windows.
Terribly outraged shopkeepers found that their emporiums had been ravished
by night. One was a furniture shop. The boars had simply charged through
the doors and trotted around the shop, no doubt inspecting the furniture.
Maybe they wished to redecorate their homes. Who knows? The other establishment
was a "kukul kade," although it has raised the issue: do wild
boars like chicken? Here, too, the boars had simply broken and entered,
caused much consternation among the old stringy fowls in their makeshift
coops, and retired in a barrage of indignant cackles. Oh, by the way, despite
all that is said or left unsaid, one can still buy wild boar flesh in Kandy.
Seems that some people have devised ingenious traps to bring these marauding
boars down.
Sale of such flesh is illegal, I am told, but isn't it time the authorities
took notice of this wild boar menace and did something about it? Furniture
and chickens today. Will they wish to break into a bank next, or do some
night shopping in a supermarket?
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