Flowers make a beautiful testament
 Chandra
Selliah is a wizard with flowers. Six years award winner at the Annual
Flower Show, Nuwara Eliya, he waltzed away with the 1997 award too at ''April
Blooms'', the most popular flower show in the country. Flower arrangement,
he says, is ''in his blood''.
His mother, father, sisters all have this eye for floral art and decor.
"I took to it because I was fascinated at the way my family could
take a bunch of flowers and make of them a sort of beautiful testament,''
he said. He also followed a course in Floral Decor.
As Executive Housekeeper at the Queens, Kandy, Chandra handles all floral
arrangements there, but his art is also sought after by other hotels.
He prepares the floral decor for many hotels in the district, for weddings
and other events. He also lectures on Floral Art and Housekeeping, for
he carries with him a world of experience, having served in seventeen hotels
including the Muscat Inter-Continental, Oman.
 A
product of the Ceylon Hotel School, Chandra's first hotel posting was at
Ceylon Inns. He's done his stint in many beach resorts (Brown's Beach,
Sea Sands, Palm Gardens, Hotel Swanee) and found his stay at the Grand,
Nuwara Eliya particularly conducive to his talent with flowers.
"Nuwara Eliya gave me all that I needed to really produce my finest
pieces,'' he said, but added that he was quite happy being in Kandy where
he can still utilise the finest Nuwara Eliya flowers as well as the riot
of blooms Kandy offers. As Executive Housekeeper, he is making his domain
a thing of pure art, and when it comes to rooms, to comfort, he's an all-rounder
- even to laundry services.
"Housekeeping is vitally important to the image of a hotel,'' he
says. His wife, Ajanta Manel, is also in the industry, working in a southern
hotel. He's been at the Queen's for 18 months and is known not only for
his wonderful way with flowers but also for his keen interest in sports.
He is a keen sports promoter and especially of football which he is particularly
anxious to advance in the district.
Executive Club
An Executive Club, now in formation at the Queen's Hotel, Kandy, plans
to gather a select 100 members who will be in the ranks of the hill country's
finest professionals.
The hotel offers this Executive Club a raft-load of incentives with
heavily discounted rates for rooms and services and the exclusive use of
the pool-side bar. Membership is for one year at a time, and a special
committee intends to also lay out monthly dinners and get-togethers, trips
and excursions.
Stained glass window
The Cultural Triangle is determined to bring back the unique stained
glass window of St. Paul's, Kandy, to its pristine glory. You will remember
that this beautiful stained glass window, the only one of its kind in the
country, was shattered in the Maligawa bomb blast.
I have been told that the Cultural Triangle has given the job of restoration
to experts. It will be a long and very tedious process, since as far as
possible, the original glass needs to be used. At present, experts in stained
glass are working on it, piece by piece. At this stage it cannot be said
when the job will be completed.
I am also told by the Cultural Triangle that they were in no way connected
with any of the misunderstandings concerning the opening of the Garrison
Cemetery. "Certain people seem to have taken the name of the Triangle
in vain,'' a spokesman said.
"When the issue of the Garrison Cemetery came up, we told those
interested to obtain the clearance of the Archaeological Department and
discuss any matters of importance with the Department since the Department
is the proper authority.'' Funny, it was also told to me that everybody
keeps slinging brickbats at the Cultural Triangle.
"We seem to be the whipping boys all the time, and are being blamed
whenever people get this bee in their bonnets about antiquities or artefacts.
Well, it's time the Cultural Triangle laid down, for everybody's edification,
what it is doing and what it is responsible for and explain its aims and
motives. In this way, at least, there'll be less mud-slinging, don't you
think?
Fear of assault doubles the tragedy
Too often, vehicles that run over pedestrians or cause other sorts of
mayhem on the roads, do not stop. Drivers are not partial, they say, to
being dragged out, assaulted and made to watch their vehicles being torched
by mobs.
In Sri Lanka we seem to have this great social peculiarity. Suddenly,
like the measles, an ill-assorted bunch of people, each about their own
business, becomes a furious, brutal-minded mob. Naturally, the law steps
in after the worst is done. This has happened in Kandy only too often.
When a bus killed a Kingswood student, the driver ran for his life, the
bus was burnt. It is not uncommon. The public, it seems, is given to great
outrage. The public, it seems, believes that two wrongs always make a right.
So it was that a Gampola lorry, proceeding past Alawatugoda, ran into
dire trouble recently. The driver ran over two men outside a wayside boutique.
Did he stop? Oh no. He dared not. He decided to hare off to the police
station. At least they would toss him into a cell and he would not be torn
limb from limb by furious villagers.
While speeding away, he saw in his mirror, two men giving chase on a
motorcycle. He panicked. Putting the lorry into neutral, he leaped off,
streaked into the bush and leaping fences and annoying many dogs, dashed
for the police station the best way he knew.
The lorry sped on driverless, then left the road, ploughed into a house
where a man, his wife and child were. Both man and woman were killed, the
child so badly injured that it is now touch and go at the Kandy hospital.
Two deaths plus two deaths. This fear of assault caused the deaths of a
family as well. The small house is wrecked.
The lorry turned on its side at impact. There's a lesson in this somewhere.
You see, nobody has bothered to seize any of these "citizens"
who simply get very cross and wish to demonstrate how "public-spirited"
they are. Such good citizens too. Ready to manhandle and destroy at the
screech of a brake. Aren't they also guilty of all manner of misdemeanours?
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