Plus

Plus

Celebrations can be made easier
Recently, we were told we are celebrating the President’s ten years in office. Now, we have Prabhakran’s birthday, ‘Mahaveerar day’ coming along according to newspaper reports. Both events are definitely not of the quality that the press will deign to ignore.

But there are more celebrations coming, and the shops are already celebrating. So, very soon we will need to declare a holiday from celebrations, or suffer celebration fatigue.

Or, the other alternative is to capsule two celebrations into one. But we cannot have Christmas and the President’s ten years celebrated together - - that won’t do, it will be too rigorous a combination of church and state.

Nor can we celebrate New Year along with Prabhakaran’s birthday. If nothing else, the calendar cannot be stretched to such elasticity. But to celebrate the President’s ten years with Prabhakran’s birthday? It would be a signal accomplishment. The very thought should invite a celebration by itself.

On several counts, a joint celebration will relieve the people, and imbue both events with a more celebratory air. The President granting a television interview last week when asked something about Ranil Wickremesinghe said ‘its clean rubbish.’’

That about sums up her feelings for Ranil Wickremesinghe. Even dirty rubbish will not do as a way of name-calling when it comes to Wickremesinghe. It has to be qualified. It has to be demoted to clean-rubbish.

Finally, she has now developed things into a kind of rivalry without which she cannot survive. It has taken the tone and trimmings of a school big match. S. Thomas’ cannot survive without Royal. Royal is nothing if there was no big match with STC. Therefore the attacks on Ranil which those days took on the characteristic of an inspired salvo are now more like routine airdrops. She has to constantly wipe her eyebrows too when making these attacks. It was something of a nervous tick, this habit. But now, it is part of her regular routine -- after all she has been doing this for ten years.

So ditto with Prabhakaan. While she attacked Ranil it has always been Prabhakaran who has stood with her in a peculiar sort of solidarity by default. He has been the consistent man out there whom she could rely on to divert to when attacks on Ranil are getting to be too much for the viewers.

Therefore there is a ten-year bond between Chandrika Kumaratunga and Prabhakaran which only merits a joint celebration. They can do whatever they like for formality’s sake - - have His and Hers monogrammed towels at Janadipathi Mandiraya and all of that, but the celebration can be joint. Like a wedding anniversary, it could be a celebration not just of all the triumphs and the togetherness, but also of tragedies and the trials. A ‘till death do us part’ kind of a rejoicing..

Both also enjoy about an equal amount of power. The President has the enormous aand obscene powers of the Presidency. Prabhakaran has the enormous and obscene powers of an armed group with a cult following, cult worshippers ranging from those in Killiniochi to those in Oslo. Such powers call for joint rewards. For instance India never celebrates Ghandi without saying at least a word about Nehru.

Besides both are growing old in their offices. It’s as if the people have taken for granted that they are going to stay around forever. Prabhakaran probably cannot imagine himself now without Chandrika Kumaratunga. In her absence he will only have Ranil Wickremesinghe to compare himself to - - and his consenting to be compared to Ranil Wickremesinghe will be like George W. Bush consenting to be compared with the President of the Dehiwela Kiwanis Club. How much a stretch of the imagination could even Prabhakaran, the long-suffering, suffer?

So all things in all, we can have one big bash for both Him and Her, the President and her long shadow in the Wanni. Else, it will almost be like the husband celebrating the wedding anniversary on one day - - and the wife on another. A decidedly queer practise, and also way too much bother for well-wishers…

Back to Plus