5th Column

My dear Pavithra Devi,

I thought I must write to you when I heard you say in Parliament that you would even sacrifice yourself to the sea if that will rid Paradise of this deadly pandemic. I felt so proud, uplifted and relieved about having such a patriotic and selfless minister in charge of our health issues!

You must see yourself like the great Viharamaha Devi who did something similar to appease the gods in ancient times, when Paradise was ravaged by floods – although your colleague in Parliament, Ranjan, did say that you could be charged with environmental pollution!

In this day and age, with drones monitoring our movements, there was a good chance you would have been rescued even if you ‘sacrificed’ yourself. Besides, that would have looked really great on your poster for the next election and like Viharamaha Devi, you could at least have a park named after you!

All this hullabaloo about you sacrificing yourself began because you took time off from fighting the pandemic to throw a pot of water into the Kalu Ganga. We are being told that the pot contained a special kind of water ‘blessed’ by that White chap who claims he has some special powers of healing.

We saw you emerge from your vehicle without a mask, perhaps believing the magic pot will protect you from the virus, and then throw the pot with its plastic cover still intact in to the waters of the Kalu Ganga. Then you stood there, hands clasped as if in prayer for some time before being driven away.

What was even more intriguing to us is that two more of your ministerial colleagues were also spotted doing what you did. There was the garrulous Udaya and the querulous Prasanna also throwing pots into the Kelani River, so this couldn’t have all been a strange co-incidence, could it?

Tell me, Pavithra Devi, did Gota maama call a Cabinet meeting and give each minister a large pot of water to be thrown into a river to combat the Covid-19 pandemic and the three of you were the only people caught on camera doing so? Or were you one of the chosen few who were given the task?

I am asking that question because, when Cabinet ministers do some work of even the slightest importance, they make it a point to invite the media and get all the publicity they can. So, if this would have enabled us to get rid of the coronavirus, why wasn’t the media there to record the event?

The reason we are confused about all this is because we have so many briefings about the pandemic every day. There is Shavendra the military man, Ajith the Policeman and last, and perhaps the least important, that epidemiologist who talks to us daily -  and none of them mentioned magic pots!

I think you are missing a trick here, Pavithra Devi. If this White chap really knows what he is doing, he could put Sri Lanka on the map, couldn’t he? Just imagine how famous you will be when you tell the world – which is struggling to find a vaccine – that you already have the cure in a simple clay pot?

Why do we need to bother with clusters in Minuwangoda or Peliyagoda when all we need to do is to get this White chap to produce his miracle cure, pack them in clay pots and get your colleagues in Parliament to scatter these pots in waterways around the country – and we will soon be corona free!

Maybe Gota maama saw all this coming which is why he appointed a separate minister for pottery. What’s more, the man he chose for the job is none other than ‘Miris Kudu’ Prasanna who is from Kelaniya – so I am sure he can be put in charge of despatching the clay pots on the Kelani River.

People do ask why you had to rely on this White chap for this expert advice. After all, you are not short of specialist doctors in your team. There is Sudarshani, that Jayasumana chap who talks not of Sudarshani but of ‘Sudarshana’ and of course Seetha whose umbrella is more famous than her.

Some people are even questioning the credentials of this chap White who calls himself a doctor. I am not sure what his qualifications are exactly, but what I do know is that there are many who keep an eagle eye over the qualifications of doctors who practise medicine here in Paradise.

Why, there is the GMOA which protests at the drop of a hat and also the Medical Council which is keeping hundreds of foreign qualified doctors out of work because qualifying exams haven’t been held, so I am sure no one can masquerade as a doctor and fool the Health Minister, of all people!

I am sure this chap White is right. There is no doubt the pots you threw will have their effect, we will soon be rid of Covid-19 and who knows, you and White will be awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine next year. Ah, what would we have done without a Health minister like you, Pavithra Devi?

Yours truly,

Punchi Putha

PS: Come to think of it, we in Paradise have a rich tradition of appointing the fairer sex as Health ministers. SWRD had Vimala, Sirima appointed Siva, Sunethra was JR’s choice and Preme chose Renuka. Needless to say, you surpass them all – and I don’t need to tell you why!