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POLITICAL SKETCHBOOK - by Rajpal Abeynayaka

‘Politicians should be entertainers’ Now he tells us!
There are prizes for guessing who said 'we should be entertainers' last week? Could it have been Sanath Jayasuriya, who having lost in Nairobi had realised that Sri Lanka should play their usual entertaining game of cricket and not be too studied in their approach? Or was the host of media people who were swarming in Colombo, for a Commonwealth Press parley? Or was it even the elephants at Gangaramaya who had realised that the elephant population was dwindling, and that the best that could be done was to get elephants to be cute, so that there will be more people campaigning for the endangered pachyderm?

The answer, in the lingo of those multiple choice question experts, has to be ' none of the above.'' It was Minister Milinda Moragoda who told participants at a seminar on ‘Confidence building and the Media’ last week that “we politicians have to be entertainers sometimes.''

Now, it was not as if he wanted to say 'politicians should be educators'' and ended up saying politicians should be entertainers, because he tripped on a word. He wasn't even saying politicians should be campaigners, or politicians should sometimes be dictators. This latter has been said by various politicians in various places, so as to give the inference that too much democracy is good for nothing.

None of that jiggery-pokey from Milinda Moragoda. He simply said that 'politicians should sometimes be entertainers.'' Period. What would he have said if he was Sanath Jayasuriya, the Sri Lankan captain, being interviewed by Michael Holding the cricket commentator who often conducts the post World Cup match interviews these days. If Milinda was Jayasuriya, the possibilities are immense. He might say 'I think Chaminda Vaas should be a good school principal. We cricketers should sometimes be school principals.''

So Minister Moragoda says politicians should sometimes be entertainers. When he was asked whether he means that he is providing comic relief, he seemed to look like a stultified Kung-Fu guru, beaming a lot and saying nothing.

But Moragoda of course may have been using one of the oldest ways of making a killing out of some acquired trait. Kiran Desai an Indian author wrote a book called 'Hullabaloo in the guava Orchard', in which a socially rather shy Indian boy by the name of Sampath climbs a guava tree in search of a life of peaceful contemplation, because he can't stand the din that his noisy family makes. Suddenly, and unexpectedly, and because he is atop a tree Sampath is seen as a hermit. News of the 'guru in the tree' spreads and as curious visitors, pilgrims and businessmen arrive, and Sampath's family makes more money than they ever dreamed of owing to the thronging crowds.

Minister Moragoda may be a different kind of Sampath, and maybe Desai can write a real bestseller about him. He is a natural born entertainer. A la, you know ' US should be a hegemon'', "the US ambassador should only say 'You come' and I go without asking questions.''

So having been born that way, now he maybe wanting to climb the guava tree, in a manner of speaking. Pronounce that politicians should be entertainers! Moragoda will be tops if politicians -- all politicians are required to be entertainers. Even Kiran Desai could not have thought of such brilliant happenstance.
So, next time Moragoda provides more comic relief, please don't think he is being a clown. He is just only doing his job okay, for goddsakes - just being a politician…

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