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The lucky adopted Presidential daugter
TIMES POSTCARD
By Rajpal Abeynayake
The President will be adopting a pretty Tamil girl orphaned in Trincomalee by the Tsunami disaster. We are trying to construct in detail the scene that took place when Presidential advisors met to discuss the impending adoption. One of the more smug among the advisors had this to say: "Maam this will solve this whole Tamil-Sinhala crisis for sure.''

"Do not refer to it as a Tamil-Sinhala crisis, it is a North East crisis,'' interjected another advisor.
The first advisor said "never mind, call it what you will, but this adoption business will solve it.''
"How so?''.

The first advisor was so smug that he could have blown his top off. But he said "just imagine, the international papers will have it -- she has beaten the other side hollow no? Prabhakran never dreamed of adopting a Sinhala orphan did he?''

The discussion then devolved on how the child will be named. She will of course have to be named a Bandaranaike-Kumaratunge, that's for sure.
The first advisor now got clever. He said: "After all it will not make a hell of a lot of difference to that girl either. Bandaranaike's are originally Pandaranayagams from the Coromandel coast.''

"What the hell does that mean,'' said the second advisor, now quite livid. "Are you trying to say that Madam was… well Madam was….. from a South Indian, you know, Dravidian lineage?''
The first advisor was now between the devil and the deep blue sea. He was not sure whether he had offended or commended Madam though his first intention of course was the latter.

So he said: "I am only saying the theoretical thing, no. Bandaranaike's are Pandaranayagams from the Coramandel coast, Madam's relative Yasmine Gooneratne says so in her novel -- so a Trincomalee girl if she is pretty particularly, can come into the Bandaraniake dynasty as if she is going home.''
'What has pretty got to do with it?'' asked the first advisor.
"Well I do not know, but it was Madam who said at the first press conference after the Tsunami that she is going to adopt a very pretty Tamil girl.''

This had the first advisor thinking about his schooldays. During his schooldays he had always been bullied by the other boys for being ugly, so this is why he overcompensated, studied furiously like a medical student, and at least ended up as a Presidential advisor. So he had something against people who do things for others just because they are pretty. But now here the President says she is adopting a pretty Tamil girl?

So very diffidently he ventured. "How about the other ugly Tamil girls in the camp Madam President?''
"So what about them?'' she asked.
"Any chance you are going to adopt any of them also?''
"What you think I'm an adoption agency?'' she glared, and said that that nature always doesn't favour the pretty, which is why she thought she should adopt the pretty one.. "Now look at my sister. I was called 'the political daughter' by my father, and my sister was called the 'pretty daughter' by everyone, but look who became the President?''

The second advisor's fears were allayed. He thought "it took me so long to learn this lesson.'' Pretty things were rarely powerful. The tsunami was very powerful for instance, but it was never a pretty thing. In fact the tsunami made a pretty Tamil girl destitute. And it was the pretty Tamil girl that the most powerful person in the country had chosen for adoption.

Today, he had had learned a lesson about the relation between power and beauty that will stand him in good stead for the rest of his days. He secretly bowed, and with a knowing smile paid his respects to the wisdom of his President.

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