POLITICAL SKETCHBOOK

POLITICAL SKETCHBOOK by Rajpal Abeynayaka

Lots of fun and 'deiyyo sake' in Japan
When the JVP aimed their barbs at the Prime Minister last week at a temple called Lankaji, for the first time in his life the Prime Minister seemed to take the JVP seriously.

Bad place, bad time. He sent all the shaven headed Japanese Buddhist nuns into a state of confusion. They were seen looking as if the Prime Minister was being hailed by his countrymen. What loud and lusty cheers - - never happens in Japan, where the bows are about as robust as last months sushi taken out from the refrigerator.

But the nuns were getting jostled, and that's when they thought the Sri Lankans were really something. The Prime Minister turned back and made a speech. He took on his hecklers - - and of course only the Sri Lankans knew they were hecklers. He took them on in his usually wry impish manner, the way he likes to do it. His usual fashion of banter with journalists and the like, where he says something, and looks up and smirks and smiles at the punch-line so that everybody around him can laugh and clap on cue…..

But didn't work this time. When he turned back and told his tormentors at Lankaji that so many were killed in the South too, in the insurgency, he raised his hands and was speaking in the manner of a trained Japanese conductor taking his bow before the audience. Bow on cue and they cheer -- quip on cue and they laugh and clap with you. As they say, when you are Prime Minister, you are smart, you are good looking -- and you can sing well too……

Didn't work this time. The Japanese nuns got so badly jostled, that they seemed to go into disaster preparedness mode. Certainly not a time for an earthquake to hit -- but anything can happen in Tokyo with the Richter.

So the press releases began coming - - that the Japanese will deprive all illegal Sri Lankans of their visas because of the affront to the Prime Minister. Even JR Jayenswardene didn't promise to send all illegal Indians out after Rajiv Gandhi got hit with a rifle butt at an honour guard.

The Prime Minister's quipping, joking style may be misplaced on some occasions though it may be working some of the time -- therefore perhaps he should develop a bunch of handlers. Now, “handlers’’ is an Americanism. Those who get top politicians to interact with crowds are called handlers.

The Sri Lankans eminently misunderstood this term - - Sri Lankan politicians have handlers too, but they handle others, not their bosses. They give the others the works -- and bounce them all over the place, so they give new meaning to the term handlers. Apparently, the Prime Minister was not too bad in his political ability in Tokyo also - - he had his own handlers.

They handled the Tokyo protestors, some so badly that they are said to have ended up in hospital, and the nuns thought earthquakes were bad. It was a rumble in the temple - - and afterwards, instead of the planned sake everybody except the PM's handlers were heard to say 'aiiyo - deiyyo sake...."

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