Mudalalis are the most condemned lot. The ordinary women and men in the country, the peasants, working class, public and private sector employees, white collar workers, professionals, intellectuals, and the so-called ‘old rich’ seem to dislike the Mudalalis so intensely, that the Press can condemn them without getting a backlash. As a Mudalali’s daughter, I find the criticisms so unjustified and sometimes it boils down to a kind of racism.
It is very interesting to find the definition of a Mudalali and the reasons for his condemnation. Is he the boutique keeper down the lane who makes money without a conscience?
Could it be extended to doctors, lawyers, teachers, intellectuals and even the human rights specialists who also make money unscrupulously. Anyway when the Press speaks disparagingly about the Mudalali clan they seem to refer to very rich persons, mostly persons who have not had a formal education and from humble beginnings. When a son of such a person is involved in fatal accidents, he is not only condemned for the killing but also because he is a Mudalali’s son. It is only when a Mudalali’s son is involved that the Press becomes racist. For instance when a Mudalali uses a cellular phone, it is considered a status symbol, but when the professional uses it, it is excused.
I have heard in elite circles the condemnations that the Mudalali gets. Somehow these elite seem to believe that I am of their class so they discuss such issues in my presence.
At a party in Nuwra Eliya, the high society crowd was very angry that Mudalalis had usurped the hotel rooms in Nuwara Eliya, as if they have no right to be there. Again I have heard some old boys in leading schools highly perturbed that Mudalalis’ children were entering leading schools and spoiling the atmosphere in the schools.
The old rich want to keep the privileges exclusively to themselves by consciously preventing the “new rich” getting access.
I would like to recall an incident when my sister entered a leading private Convent in Colombo from a Maha Vidyalaya. Her classmates happened to be children of leading professionals and children of past pupils of the school. She needed private tuition in science subjects. Her friends denied that they go for tuition.
So my sister looked around and located a very good tuition master. When she went for the first lesson, she found all her friends in the class there. Guiltily they admitted that their parents did not want them to tell others.
My nephews who are the grand children of a Mudalali complained that if they miss school for a day none of the children (most of them are sons of professionals) will share their notes. So we are beginning to wonder about the so-called value systems that the old rich preach. Rich is also a relative concept. It varies according to space and time.
We all know the leading families of today had humble origins not so long ago. The teledrama Kadulla portrayed this beautifully. I do hope the old rich and the Press will not speak so disparagingly of the Mudalalis and and their children. Commercialism and consumerism has seeped into the entire society and not only to the Mudalali race.
With reference to a contribution in the letters page of The Sunday Times of April 20, titled ‘Freedom is being what you are’ by Contented Woman, all I could think of was just how strongly entrenched in us our traditional value systems are. Other than the fact the Contented Woman has grossly mis-interpreted the humour and wit in the fanciful video about women overtaking the world, did she stop to think that the whole purpose of the video could have been to caricature “manhood”? Her reaction to women’s lib is typical of an increasingly anti-feminist Sri Lanka.
I do agree with her that the guise of a man and doing what men do isn’t women’s liberation, but we women do need liberation, specially from our self-belittling thoughts, to go by Contented Woman’s statements. Why can’t Contented Woman and others of her frame of mind see that “to be loving and caring” to have whims and fancies, to be a parent and to want to look good, are as much the rights/duties of a man as it is the right of a woman to be brainy, witty and intelligent? And how come women are supposed to have both these aspects to their lives and men, by implication, only the latter, if Contented Woman’s letter is anything to go by? Your limiting definitions of “Woman” and “Man” is ultimately very favourable and pleasurable for those vulgar men you so contemptuously write about.
Has Contented Woman also stopped to think that those women who totally give themselves up to “loving and caring” (by which she must mostly mean domestic work and child care) have done so at the expense of other facets in their lives that they would have also liked to filfil just like their men folk, and that it is not always easy to combine the tasks of being both caring and brainy without the support of others, specially within the traditional family? Doesn’t Contented Woman wonder whether “Being what you are” could be easier if men also shared in the business of loving and caring” (i.e. domestic work).
Wake up! Women are only as loving and caring as men. History has plenty of evidence of this. It is simply convenient to rant about “caring women” so that they can safely be assigned the home chores (even after the baby is weaned!) while hubby works towards professional laurels. All Contented Woman’s notions are ideological constructs, not “reality” at all.
And if men want to grow their hair, and look like women, and if women want to look like men, those are the least of our problems (if they are problems at all) right now.
Yes, Contented Woman, to be free is to be what you are. But to be what you are, for most of us, means transgressing those artificial boundaries set up for women and men that are only limiting if you think about it a little. You have very little to be content about, after all.
While congratulating the new Mayor of the Dehiwela-Mt. Lavinia Municipal Council, I wish to request him, on behalf of the suffering rate-payers, to clean up as early as possible the following Augean stables left by the previous administration:-
(1) The 3-day rule of replying to letters from ratepayers or at least sending an acknowledgement within three days is as dead as the dodo in the office of the Council.
It is suggested that a Circular be sent to all officers warning them that in future severe disciplinary action would be taken for any breach of this rule.
(2) Prompt action should be taken to replace fused bulbs of street lamps, remove garbage daily, clean up drains and pavements, re-paint pedestrian crossings, spread malathion and fumigate private houses against mosquitoes.
(3) The Overseer should see that the labourers do an honest job of work instead of working for a few hours and then getting together and chat.
Some labourers sign the attendance register and then disappear for private work.
(4) The Valuation Department is creating havoc in these times of un- precedented cost of living by raising the valuation of the properties every five years thereby making the Council to double, treble and even quadruple the rates. The relevant clause in the Local Authorities (Special Provisions) Act of 1971 should be amended to read “every ten years” instead of “every five years”.
Zindabad, Zindabad, they yelled, a section of the crowd at the R. Premadasa Cricket Stadium during the current test series between Sri Lanka and Pakistan. They had Pakistan national flags waving and were urging Pak cricketers to do well. By the manner they were dressed, and their looks, one could be quite certain that they were not Pakistanis. In fact, Sri Lankans! It is very unfortunate, and shameful, to see our own brethren having been educated and fed by Mother Lanka turning their backs to her.
Muslims all over the world have the religion factor in common. However, this cannot be given as an excuse to anybody here to turn villain. If that’s the case when our rugby team plays against Japan there would be no harm in Sri Lankan Buddhists supporting Japan, for it is a Buddhist country.
At a time like this when the country is threatened by fragmentation, sanity should previl over extremism and in this context, the role required to be played by the Muslims, just like the other ethnic groups, is tremendous. Sad to say, however, behaviour by even a very small fraction of Muslims as we saw at the R. P. , Stadium would not help in any way in the cause for ethnic harmony we are striving to achieve.
As much as cricket victories, what we want most in our country is peace and understanding. In this aspect we look to the Muslim leaders to put especially its younger generation in the right perspective so the misguided elements too will fall in the right path of understanding and give and take.
As an avid reader of special reports in the Newspapers, it was my good fortune to have gone through a report of an inspiring speech by Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar - delivered at the launch of a programme for national reconciliation sponsored by the Sudu Nelum Movement.
The enlightening indepth analysis of the human condition - the innate goodness of human nature in its pristine purity - before its contamination by extraneous aberrations - the vengeful attitudinal changes caused by social and economic inequalities and insecurities - so succinctly presented by Mr. Kadirgamar is almost identical to a philosophic/religious treatise expounded by our great religious teachers.
Mr. Kadirgamar’s unerring understanding of the human mind with its reservoir of goodwill and also the misdirected mindset of incorrigible fanatic miscreants and other foibles of ordinary human beings - so clearly put across - seems to instil in us an almost ineffaceable spell of admiration as to his nobility of mind and perceptions.
We are so struck by the clarity of his exposition of the origins, the vicissitudes and the current situation of our national problem, we cannot cast aside his viewpoints into oblivion. It behoves us to express our appreciation of the sympathetic stand taken by Mr. Kadirgamar in his evaluation and advisory direction in relation not only to the national problem, but also to the earnest necessity of eschewing of political animosity with a view to cultivating and strengthening consensus and reconciliation at national level - in all our dealings with all segments of our society.
It is however a matter for regret that inspite of our having in the ruling hierarchy a greatly learned and cultured man of Mr. Kadirgamar’s calibre he has not been able yet to influence and direct some of the erring obdurate and at times vengeful members of the ruling outfit to traverse the correct path of fairness and justice and to acquire a conciliatory conduct in political dealings devoid of arrogance and revenge so as to set up a peaceful and secure society where all of us could breathe and move freely - in an untrammelled social order.
All human beings, of course, cannot be paragons of virtue or perfection but we could strive our best to achieve some degree of amity and harmony as peaceful citizens, if our rulers and administrators too decide to cultivate and foster ennobling values and humane perceptions in their activities of governance.
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