Guess who’s coming to damn/dance/dazzle?
View(s):Growing up, one soon got used to the excitement over people coming home to see us. Grown-ups then seemed to be the most excited about our unexpected visitors. “Get up! Get ready! Get dressed! Your grandparents will be here in five minutes!”
In hindsight, you realize that the excitement was manufactured for your benefit. Or, more precisely, for your parents’ benefit. To prevent shame, humiliation, embarrassment, etc., at their elders and betters finding their offspring unprepared, underdressed (or even undressed), and generally unfit for polite society a.k.a. grandparental company.
And, perhaps by dint of sheer energy and enervation, these rumour-mongers somehow communicated to unreceptive receivers – from tiny tots and toddlers to teens and even tweens – the need to be ready. The miracle of bright and shining children brushed and polished to be greeted by culture and civilization was wrought with worldly-wise parental acumen, and an admixture of native cunning and nicely veiled threats. Five minutes (more like five hours) passed – and we young ’uns were ready to greet granny and grandpa with a hug and a smile and a kiss…
Seems to me that the modus operandi doesn’t change when you grow up, move out of home, and start your own family. Part of the problem may be that given today’s mores and morals, the process doesn’t always proceed according to plan. The mutually agreed upon policy (whose founding is shrouded in the mists of familial time) was that kids grew up, moved out of home, got married, and had kids of their own in the fullness of time. Only problem is that they do the same today – but not necessarily in the same order.
That may be part of the reason why people who play a monitoring or supervisory role over the general populace (commonly known as the nanny state) feel the same need today for élan, éclat, and ésprit de corps when it comes to rousing the troops and rallying the citizenry to a reasonably high standard of open-armed welcome. “Get up! Get ready! Get dressed! Guess who’s coming to town?”
The visitors of the week (and the visitors in the actual week at hand) covered the gamut from the political to the phantasmagorical. A quick survey of the headlines and lead stories demonstrates that public attention is well and truly divided between the President of the People’s Republic of C. and the Phantom of the Opera. The former is a real coup de main for Sri Lanka’s professional ruling administration; setting the stage as it does for closer ties, solider investment, and lots of lucrative deals. The latter is a staged event: a real coup de grace for an amateur production company that is still ruing the day when its original showpiece crashed to the floor like some ghostly chandelier in a West End/Broadway play.
As for a slew of other visitors, there are also the pretty and the petty, equally dominating the crawlers and the column centimetres alike. DJ Da Candy – dubbed “the sexiest woman DJ alive” – is hotting up the dance floor, revving up the amplitude, pumping up the volume … you get the idea. At the other end of the spectrum, the Pope – Father of the Faith to literally billions of the faithful – is having the kaleidoscope thrown at him in the same fell swoop as the kitchen sink. While Candy – an eye-pleaser, for sure – is set to wow teeny- and not-so-teeny-boppers, il Papa may have to bow out of some public debates if the bad-boys-in-ochre make things awkward for his first official visit to the Thrice Blessed Isle. Although one ostensible purpose of the visit of the Vicar of Christ is the canonization of the Blessed Joseph Vaz into sainthood as our island’s own endemic spiritual giant, stone-throwers in the gallery may be priming themselves with unsolicited questions about solicited apologies for crimes committed during the catholic crusades. This has been suggested as an item for the agenda, by chauvinists with a cause and rebels without a pause.
The reasons for the other much hyped visits are more transparent. The hoopla over the opening of the box office for The Phantom of the Opera is understandable. Last time it – or he – was supposed to put up a showing (way back in 2002) – the show ended in a sorry débâcle to do with intellectual property rights issues and the little matter of copyright. The hysteria over the President from the Orient’s visit has brought a smile to the faces of the Mikado himself and all our Lords High Poo-bahs, even though it might all in tears for some… Let us not mention physical property rights and the large question of Cathay’s growing interest in the region (for all the talk of a ‘Silk Road’, it’s looking more like the ‘Golden Horde’ every day).
Hark, hark, the dogs do bark… The beggars are coming to town…
Except that they’re not quite beggars. The Supreme Pontiff, due in 2015, for all his embrace of poverty and simplicity, is still the spiritual head of the world’s largest corporation; private bank and worldly treasure and all. The Prez of the People’s Republic brings with him billions of dollars worth of investments in hard infrastructure, packaged in an innocuous wrapping that may not quite please our envious neighbours to the north: the world’s largest democracy and dead set on being the regional superpower. The Candied peel of a performer is not quite the Cirque du Soleil. But put Pope, President, and Pretty in one rabbit’s hat, and it’s beginning to look like a three-ring circus, all right! Bread, anyone?
At this rate, the safest bet might be the Phantom. Dyspeptic theatre critics notwithstanding, the operatic musical may be the only one that gives us a bang for our buck in the end. We have nothing to fear but fear itself – and the falling sky and chandeliers coming down on our heads like a ton of grandparental surprise-visits.