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TIMES POSTCARD
Children, grin and bear it
By Rajpal Abeynayake
It's true they keep a stiff upper lip at Oxford. But we didn't know they hate teddy bears over there too. Rumour was that they sometimes hate wogs -- oops, Pakis and all. But teddy bears?

Lakshman Kadirgamar's portrait now hangs there at Balliol College. His hate for teddy bears was discovered almost at the same time that it was unveiled, when he said "donors have given some useless items such as a container load of teddy bears.''

How can the same man love the JVP and hate teddy bears at the same time?? It is a question that might stymie Freud himself. Anyway, what does Kadirgamar want traumatised children in refugee camps to do?
Perhaps, in his office, a manual is being drawn up.
Recommended routines for traumatised children at tsunami refugee camps:

A) Get up early in the morning.
B) Brush your teeth
C) Hug a life size effigy of uncle Wimal Weerawansa
D) Hug a life size doll of uncle Somawansa Amarasinghe
C) If you still feel traumatised, call Uncle Kadir at the Foreign Ministry. (He might send you a book on "Regional Geopolitics'' which you can hug all you want...)

Children who are now missing teddy bears at refugee camps have been told that its uncle Lakshman Kadirgamar who sent back a whole container load of teddy bears to the country they came from.

One refugee child has a question for uncle LK. "Dear Uncle LK. What do you want us to do then -- if you think we are too big to be holding teddy bears for comfort, especially since we have lost our parents? I thought of applying to Uncle Prabhakaran to become a child soldier; it's something exciting like Harry Potter no?"

On point of fact, looks like Lakshman Kadirgamar and Velupillai Prabhakaran have finally reached a meeting of minds. They both don't want children holding teddy bears --- they don't want kids to retard their childhood doing things like cuddling or snuggling. Prabhakaran feels they should be holding AK 47s instead. And look who agrees? Why his old nemesis, Mr Kadirgamar himself -- all the way from the ivory towers in Balliol…

Kadirgamar has not said that he wants children to hold AK 47s, but what does he expect traumatised children to do when they are being already considered for adoption by the baby brigades? If the Sri Lankan state deprives them of teddy bears that are rightfully theirs, they might a well join the cuddliest-looking teddy bear of them all - Uncle Prabhakaran, who is only too ready to embrace them for life.

Perhaps uncle Kadi never owned a teddy bear himself when he was a kid. We are looking for that childhood photograph of Little Lakshman where he is seen snuggling upto a huge book titled "The Law of Intellectual Property.'' (Hardcover edition.) It was Lakshman Kadirgamar who told Shane Warne "shopping is for sissies.'' He said this to applause, but his new slogan is "take back the bears.'' Beware foreign leaders - never ever give Lakshman Kadirgamar a bear hug from now on. He is no sissie, that's for sure.

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