5th Column

My dear Namal baby,

It has been a while since I wrote to you last, but I thought I must do so again after seeing you being summoned to the CID last week, along with your mother who was asked to report to the FCID. Cousin Shamindra was also issued a ‘Red Notice’. It was not a great week for the ‘R’ family, was it?

Your visits to the CID are not new. They have happened before during the ‘yahapalanaya’ era, when you casually dropped in to their offices wearing a pair of shorts. At the time, though, you had friends in high places even within the ‘yahapalanaya’ team who could push your file to the bottom of the pile.

I hope you realise that it is a bit different now. The survival of the ‘maalimaawa’ at the next election may well depend, not so much on how they manage the economy, but on how they punish the corrupt and the criminal. The surname they really want to see behind bars is not Aluthgamage or Ranjith.

Namal baby, that is why you should be sensible. It seems as if you are not. At first, you challenged them saying, ‘catch me if you can’ prompting Anura sahodaraya to say, ‘don’t whimper when we do’. Then, when they summoned you to the CID, you organise a mob of slogan shouting supporters.

What a pathetic show of strength it was. Many of those who came to support you, didn’t know why they were there. Some said you were being persecuted for being the son of the ‘leader who saved the nation’. Others said they had come just to see you. Clearly, they were all from that 2.5 per cent!

Then, you return from questioning to tell the media that you are being harassed by the government to cover up their inefficiency. You are right, in a sense. Many were blaming the ‘maalimaawa’ for not expediting investigations. Now they seem to be doing that. That is exactly what people wish to see.

So, instead of complaining about being questioned, you should have welcomed it, because if you are innocent, you need not worry. Only a day earlier, Kappam Prasanna was summoned to the CID for just the same reason: to ask about links to Padmey. He came and went with no mob to support him!

I know that, with support for the ‘pohottuwa’ being what it is at the moment, you must have found it difficult to muster crowds at two separate places, one for you and another for your mother. That is exactly why both of you should have come and gone in a dignified manner with no crowds at all.

The mob supporting your mother was a disaster. Leading them was the comedian known for his television role as ‘Ping Pong’ years ago. So, the main artiste defending the ‘pohottuwa’ has changed from Jackson to ‘Ping Pong’. Is there a better example of going from the sublime to the ridiculous?

Ping Pong wanted to make headlines. So, he called your mother Vihara Maha Devi and said King Dutugumenu’s Ten Great Giants were defending her. Mahinda maama has been called the modern Dutugemunu. So, it was more awkward than Jackson saying the ‘R’ family is related to Lord Buddha!

This is why, Namal baby, sometimes no publicity is better than any publicity. If your mother arrived at the FCID and left without a fuss, there wouldn’t be so much attention on her. Now, she finds herself at the centre of a scandal and making history as our first First Lady to be interrogated by the Police.

First Ladies engaging in social service and being in the news is nothing new. JR’s spouse Elina began the Seva Vanitha movement. Hema was in the news even before she was First Lady. Maithree now finds herself in the midst of an unwanted controversy but no one, not even Ayoma, was interrogated.

As a result, stories about that infamous identity card number are resurfacing. Your rivals are having a great time making unkind remarks. With such a number, she would be male and be 104 years old, they claim. Even that won’t make her old enough to be Vihara Maha Devi, they say!

It is a far cry from when the same ‘Siriliya’ issue was probed 11 years ago during ‘yahapalanaya’. Then, Mahinda maama used his friendship with Uncle Ranil to have her statement taken at Chamal’s official residence. Now, Chamal has his own problems with young Shamindra and his Airbuses.

It is high time you realise that times have changed. I think you are dealing with it the wrong way. Your tactics tell us that the ‘pohottuwa’ hasn’t changed its attitude about its leaders being above the law. Think about it, Namal baby, or else you could be in deeper trouble before you can say ‘Krrish’!

Yours truly,

Punchi Putha

PS – They used to say that ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going’. In your family though, it seems that when the going gets tough, they have already gone. I am referring to Basil baappa who hasn’t dared to make it to these shores, probably because he knows very well what is in store for him!