Plus

Plus

Bring out the war the henna and the coat
A UNP Deputy Minister was seen on TV recently saying that the JVP has made vast strides. He said that the other participant in the show had in fact confirmed the JVP is willing to negotiate with the Tigers and therefore it meant that the party has made vast strides.

This was about the time that Anura Dissanayake the JVP Minister was found in a front page newspaper picture in coat and tie looking askance at a guide of some sort relating to him the history of the Golden Temple in Bangkok.

In the meantime one of the participants in the above mentioned talk show also said that Prabhakaran's nakedness should be shown to one and all by the government perusing the peace process. If the LTTE does not come forward for peace talks then Prabhakaran's nakedness will be seen by one and all, he said. Prabhakran naked and Anura Dissanayake in a tie and coat and the President with henna in her hair.

All this talk of war can fade. The issue is all about how these people dress up. The question should not be whether the LTTE will declare war, but whether if the President can henna her hair, why Prabhakran cannot choose to be naked?

The Deputy Minister concerned, by the way, growled at the other participant in the TV show who is a well-known unionist. He accused him of being a "thuttu deke mihinha.'' This was in response to a rather passionate comment by the unionist that government had misled the people with two-penny policies (thuttu deke pratipatti.)

It is entirely fair to say, hypothetically, that the "President is prostituting the nation with her policies.'' But if that is said is it fair for the President's staff for instance to tell the accuser, so and so is a prostitute??

The DM equated prostituted policies to a prostitute, in effect, by saying that the unionist was a thuttu deke miniha. By this he showed amply to the public by and large what a thuttu deke miniha is and where exactly such a person was seated in the talk show podium that day.

But Anura Kumara Dissanayake wearing a coat , is in a different league in terms of political theater. Well, it did seem a little jolly seeing Anura Kuamra Dissanayake like that - and even I did a double take when I saw the papers, but I wonder what the great transformation is that everyone is going on about??

From the time I knew him Anura Kumara Dissanayake has always appeared in slacks and shirt and he had never appeared in a kapati suit or a national dress. The logical extension of slacks and a shirt of course is a tie and a coat when somebody goes to meet a King of a country with a country's President. But when Anura Kumara Dissnayake wears a coat the whole of Colombo seems to go into an apoplexy as if Anura Dissanayake should never wear a jacket, leaving that dress for the likes of Mahendra Amarasuriya and Kingsley Wickremeratne among others.

Perhaps Jathika Chinatnaya does not call for wearing a jacket and a tie but I have read no such diktat in any of Guanadasa Amerasekera's expositions on Jathika Chinthanaya or any other subject.

But the coat says just one thing and that is the one fact that the JVP has arrived.If the JVP has arrived than for the life of me I cannot understand what the Colombo gentry are losing their marbles over for the simple fact that all this time they were complaining of the JVP being an insurgent radical interfering outside element.

Now with coat and all, the JVP had arrived indeed and Gunadasa Amarasekera was right when he said that one day the village lads will rule this land . He never promised that the village lads will remain village lads when they rule this land.

All he said was that the village lads will rule this land and whether there wear a coat or nothing at all in that process, was never part of that bargain as far as anybody was concerned.

Back to Plus