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As receding storm waters reveal the frightening magnitude of devastation Cyclone Ditwah left behind, with her footprint stamped on the very heart of the island’s terrain, the people of Lanka must brace themselves to confront the massive challenge of rebuilding in brick and mortar a brave new Sri Lanka after the government fiddled while the country flooded.

After the political blame game is over, they must come to terms that the halcyon days of a nanny state are gone, that superpower states, with carnivorous eyes, which throw relief aid to Lanka, are biding their time with vulturish patience till the day a weakened nation at death’s door voluntarily pleads to be eaten alive. In the geopolitical chessboard of international politics, Sri Lanka has become a strategically valuable pawn, open for grabs.

At last year’s two elections in Lanka, the surfing majority placed their faith, despite three political parties offering mature and experienced leadership running as well, on an untried and untested party who said they will be learning while governing and governing while learning.

Whether the unique experiment is successful or disastrous is still unknown. It seems the mollycoddling people have generously given more time to the elected masters of their fate to practise and to make perfect.

But while the ‘learning, failing and blaming’ merry-go-round was endlessly turning and turning full circles, neither India nor the world waited for it to stop to answer the haunting wail of humanity to save the souls of those besieged by rising floodwaters and landslides that brought deaths mingled with mud along with grief.

If India or the world had any ulterior motives in coming so swiftly to Lanka’s aid, this certainly was not the time to search for them submerged in floodwaters or buried in mountainous mud.

DOOMSDAY DITWAH: Cyclone that made the country lie prostrate, battered beyond belief

It is genuinely welcomed, as Sri Lanka lies prostrate on the ground, battered each time it tried to rise by nature’s wind and rain. India must be doubly thanked and held with a double measure of gratitude for twice coming to the rescue to save and help the ‘Thambi’ next door when disasters storm his home.

This is the second time within three years that India has dropped a lifeline to help drag Lanka to shore. This time the line was literally dropped to save people drowning in floodwaters to lift them on board Indian Air Force choppers.

But apart from India’s magnificent saving ops and America’s token million bucks, no long-term comprehensive plan has yet emerged from any state or international lending institution to rebuild Sri Lanka from scratch.

Of course, it’s far too early to gauge the exact damage Cyclone Ditwah remorselessly wreaked on Lanka on her way out. The government had said it would take, at least, 6 months to assess the damage. At the moment, the figures touted are around 6 or 7 billion US dollars.

The hard-earned money of Sri Lankan taxpayers last year, meant to be spent on galvanising the economy, was hardly spent but a trillion proudly saved in stagnant Treasury coffers, perhaps for a rainy day, now, perforce, will have to be used to rebuild the damage wrought by cyclonic rains and landslides instead.

When Ditwah struck on the 27th of November, Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa arose in the House that very same day and demanded the government declare a state of ‘National Disaster’ in the country. His plea went unheeded by government leaders.

He said, ‘I made this request as relief could be provided to those who are affected by adverse weather conditions if a national disaster situation is declared as per the Disaster Management Act. They have not done so far. They do not even know which Acts to activate.’

Without swallowing its pride and suppressing its paranoid fears of heeding the advice and leaving the kudos pinned on Sajith’s lapel, they stayed inert for four whole days before declaring Lanka in a state of ‘National Disaster’, lest it, perhaps, appear that it was taken at Sajith’s behest and not one taken on their initiative. The number of lives that could have been saved and damage to property that could have been minimised if not for the delay are now solely matters of conjecture.

Every second counts when disaster strikes. Every delayed second can mean life or can mean death to another. To tarry and not to hasten is to play God when one is not.

The declaration was finally issued through Extraordinary Gazette No. 2465/08 on December 2, somewhat akin to breaking the glass on the fire alarm box four days after the fire and awaiting the fire brigade to arrive and douse the remaining glowing cinders.

On December 2, the Indian Express, a leading newspaper in India, reported that ‘the Indian Met Department had first predicted the formation of a depression as early as November 13 and issued an alert over the possibility of cyclogenesis on November 20. From November 23 onwards, IMD issued three-hourly and six-hourly weather updates of the system, indicating its development around November 26. All the information was shared with Sri Lanka in a routine manner.’

Germany’s Deutsche Welle reported that ‘while the storm was tracked and forecasted, the effective communication of escalating risks and timely warnings failed.’

Interviewed by Deutsche Welle, Nalaka Gunawardene, a science writer, noted that Sri Lanka’s Department of Meteorology had flagged the prospect of extreme rainfall as early as November 12, which should have triggered government preparations. However, ‘apparently, that did not happen’, he said.

With a barrage of evidence against the government’s stubborn stance of not being aware of the approaching storm, the government’s feeble excuses, dished out this Thursday at a media conference held a fortnight after Cyclone Ditwah had made landfall, seemed like an attempt to defend the indefensible.

Forget about not receiving early warnings from officials or scientific experts; didn’t the Cabinet, severally or collectively, even personally feel a strange chill in the air, a heavier rainfall than is normal for chilly December, or a terrifying bout of rockfall near the Kadugannawa Pass, killing six and crushing their makeshift shops on the A2 road to Kandy, to make them instinctively know there was something astir in the wind?

Didn’t they feel like the rest of us, a twisted nip in the December chill? Didn’t they hear, and didn’t they gather the sound and fury of wrathful gods when they unleashed demonic storms, brewed in the cauldron of sin?

Had they lost their farming or fishing ancestors’ natural gift to read the weather in advance from nature’s tell-tale drifts?

As the President admonished public officials at a meeting in Kandy this week for not coordinating with other ministries and departments to reach a common goal, why didn’t even one of these powerful cabinet ministers, mildly alarmed by the unusual hyperactivity shown in the sky, simply reach for his phone and call the meteorological chief, Athula Karunanayake, and ask, ‘What’s up, doc?’

None of them did; none of them bothered to cut through red tape and make that one call to the Met Chief and ask those three little words that may have averted the tragedy that befell this isle or softened the full force of the cyclonic blow.

If only one minister of a cabinet of 22 – including the president as its head – thinking that the vagaries of the weather were none of his business since it didn’t fall under his ministry’s purview, had made that one important call, the answer he received might have driven the president to activate the Disaster Management Act.

Perhaps, the cabinet was collectively awaiting the all-important call from the Leader of the Opposition, Sajith Premadasa, to formally inform the government that, in the face of warnings received of the approach of a hazardous cyclonic storm, he had discharged his constitutional duty of activating the relevant provisions of the Defence Management Act, including ‘a state of emergency’, and for added safety, placed the state on autopilot.

But Sajith did not do anything of that kind. In his usual guise as the Good Samaritan, he had headed off to the worst-hit villages to distribute packets of food to a hungry, destitute people and artfully extract from every receiving hand and grateful eye their vote of thanks at the next elections.

But there’s a limit to even a saint’s tolerance before he explodes in rage.

Perhaps that explains the extraordinary outburst of Deputy Minister of Education Mahinda Jayasinghe, who, perhaps, outraged at Sajith’s political deceit, blew his top before media cameras on Monday.

He vented his fury that his government had not been informed of any cyclone threat but kept in the dark for two weeks in a conspiracy of silence waged by the Opposition from November 12 until the cyclone hit Lankan shores, catching the government with its pants down.

He told the media, ‘The Opposition was elected to power by the people to warn the government when they were unaware that a cyclonic storm was heading towards Lanka.’

This statement takes the cake, doesn’t it? But to add a ripe plum to make the cake even more inviting to swallow in one whole gulp for fanatical cheer squads of their red brigade, he says with zest, ‘We will take the Opposition to court and charge them with criminal negligence for failing to save lives by warning the Government in advance.’

While defenders of the faith were shouting Hallelujah, the rest, it seemed, regarded this latest burlesque of governance as the last straw.

On Friday, the Sri Lanka Association of Meteorologists issued a press statement. It said officials at the Meteorological Department had followed proper Standard Operating Procedures when issuing alerts ahead of Cyclone Ditwah.

It gave a timeline on the depression’s development. Meteorologists first detected the atmospheric disturbances linked to Cyclone Ditwah on November 23.

The statement said, ‘By November 24, when the system was still far from the island in the central Bay of Bengal, updated marine warnings – including an amber alert – were issued based on new data.’ The public and stakeholders were also informed of the evolving weather situation on the same day.

The Indian Met Department, which serves as the Regional Specialised Meteorological Centre, officially acknowledged the system’s initial development only in a bulletin issued at 2.30 p.m. on November 23, 2025.

The statement should put paid to all the muddy resorts the government stooped to wash away its unpardonable guilt: the guilt of being clueless until Cyclone Ditwah broke in floods over Lanka’s skies.

MARIE ALLES: Flamboyant dance of Art in all its hues Starlight shines on premier night of Marie’s Art Collection 2025 It was the premier night that made a star-studded crowd of art connoisseurs stray from their regular orbits and yield to the gravitational pull of the Marie Alless 2025 Collection of Paintings to view what the renowned artist herself was to unveil at Lionel Wendt’s Gallery of Art that night, December 9th. A galaxy of stars, too many to recall, came in their droves, stranding the moon alone in heavenly skies, to turn their critical starlight on every stroke, on every shade of dark and light Marie Alless had skilfully used to make the buds she painted bloom immortal on her canvas. They stared in wonder and amazement at what magic must sleep in Marie’s brush to make figures painted to hang on ancestral halls spring out from frames and dance all night for all to watch entranced. And what’s more, to their awe, as they stared at Marie’s depiction of nature and saw lilies bloom and violets blossom in picturesque ponds and stagnant lakes, they beheld the lotus rise from the mire and unfold her petals to show the golden bud where divine prosperity incarnate resides. Soon realising that the lone blue moon whom they had briefly deserted would miss her chorus of starlight, they returned to their usual orbits, with their heads still spinning after a night on the town, traversing the artistic world of Marie Alless Fernando. As the public exhibition of the 2025 collection of her artistic works came to an end this week, Marie’s yearly rhythmic explosions of art in flamboyant colours will, no doubt, by the grace of God, explode anew next year to hold art connoisseurs once more in thrall.