One moment to re-live the Sri Lankan dream
I have a dream.
A friend hopes to invite Ven Narada Thera for his mother's pansakula. He goes to the temple. (Any resemblance to real persons is purely coincidental.)
The Abbithaya tells him that the Ven Narada is not available. He is negotiating a Free Trade Agreement with Pakistan.

He has no option.
He goes to the temple a few miles away - - what's considered to be the Temple that his ancestors helped re-build, I think..
With some trepidation, he asks at the door for Ven Ananda Thera. He says it is his mother's pansakula.

It's unfortunate, says the junior monk. But Ven Ananda is preparing the budget. It's not a good month to die in - - the budget month is a complete disaster, he adds.
But there is no rule that says one needs to keep going to the same temple.

There could be better alternatives in other districts, or at least in neighboring towns. So my friend gets into his faithful saffron colored Toyota and makes as fast as he could for the old but refurbished temple in a town we shall advisedly call Y.

He walks with some confidence to the Vihara premises, where a monk's acolyte is sweeping the garden. He asks for the head monk -- and says it is somewhat urgent, it is a pansakula.
No chance says the acolyte. Four of the monks are participating in the Select Committee Sessions on electoral Reform. It's going to be a long night.

Then you know how dreams are. My dream suddenly moves onto another location. There is Tilak Karunaratne making a speech, and he looks all gravitas, like he is making history with every sentence that leaves his lips. So, he gives that faraway look, and rambles on:

"I have a dream.''
Its hard to figure out who is having the dream in the end, but Tilak Karunaratne says again with a resonant voice, "I have a dream.'' "I have a dream that there will be no monks to give any pansakulas in Sri Lankan temples."And as if that was not enough, he thunders again "I have a dream!'' Martin Luther King sounds contrived in comparison.

So, that was a dream. But Wimal Weerawansa says dreams come true if you want them to --- and among a few of these people (Weerawansa, Tilak and some of the monks) my car might end up getting a saffron coat of paint, under pain of a Buddhist Fatwa? Of course they would say there are advantages. There would be no reason to get a whole phalanx of monks to chant pirith at the opening sessions of parliament. That could all be done in-House eh, if you know what I mean?

But it is unfair to lay any of these dreams at the door of these new forces, because it is Ven Baddegama Samitha Thera who first sat in parliament in a monk's garb. But soon he was a participant in television discussions, looking solid as granite in comparison with his fellow politicians.

For politicians, it was a calling. It was not a profession, Sri Lanka politicians have been saying from every waking breath - - politics was a calling to save the people. And just when they were assured in the notion that it's the noblest calling, there comes Ven Baddegama Samitha, and he says, no, he is from the noblest calling. He says he is the best of the politicians because he is from one noble calling coming into another noble calling. We don't know about Ven Baddegama Samitha, but we hear things like this have some of the other lay politicians cheesed off. It's a slick way of stealing your Manapa, they think.

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