Rajpal's Column

18th April 1999

Sri Lankans do a sober assessment of Karu Jayasuriya

By Rajpal Abeynayake

In this country where every arrack pulling and whiskey pulling talker talks politics for relaxation, last week was premium relaxation time.

Not only was an election over, but there was time to savour the after effects because the holidays had hit. (Liberties being taken with the lingo in keeping with the spirit.)

It's accepted the good doctor, anti- arrack crusader Dr Diyanath Samarasinghe for instance will not like the way this piece was launched. Dr Diyanath had told me on more than one occasion that there is a subtle glorification of liquor everytime a journalist alludes to liquor, even in the by the way manner that I did in beginning this post avurudu piece.

But what do you do when confronted with the conflict of drawing the correct idiom, and incurring the displeasure of Dr Samarasinghe? This politics thing in Sri Lanka is intoxicating by itself. It's the Sri Lankan way of life.

People relax and relate by talking politics. ( A friend of mine with a somewhat intellectual bent who is known to be an imbiber of amber liquids, was recently offered a cigarette at a social evening. This man said he doesn't smoke. Some others who were there were curious to know why he could drink copious quantities of liquor but eschewed the cigarette. The reply was both brilliant and quizzical. Our man said "Well, you see, I can't relate to a fag." Subsequently he allowed that the statement may have been made in a state of inebriation)

By now the good doctor, Diyanath, if he is reading this article, would probably be not just annoyed but livid. Not only have I sinned by glamourising liquor by entwining it with politics and culturising it, I have also almost made the glamourisation sexier by saying that an intellectual who made a memorable comment did it under a state of mild drunkenness.

This is difficult. But, let the digression lie for a moment. ( further liberties with the lingo and the idiom.) If their beer guts would talk, Sri Lankans would say that all that malt was imbibed when the masters were talking politics, while the wives looked akimbo and exchanged a word or two with other wives.

So did they talk of Karu Jayasuriya last week.

The Karu Jayasuriya phenomenon was being dissected top to bottom, and top among the interesting things I heard last week about him was that he "owned a political face." Apparently, the theorist explained, Karu Jayasuriya had a face that a politician should die for, because his countenance looked serious, Buddhistic and efficient ——— all at the same time.

But , among other things, some newspapers decided to mention Karu Jayasuriya in their editorials.

They diced him. But look, he made that editorial space, what? Newspapers don't trifle with bit players and nonentities in their editorials.

So with that feather in his cap, politician Karu Jayasuriya has come of age. Or he had had his coming out party/ political Barmitzvah, circumcision party, whatever.

This means he is in serious business. Now, with that, it is time to cut this impolitic obfuscation and come out with the million rupee beer drinking arrack drinking question that was doing the rounds in the country's kevun parlours and under - the - coconut - shelter discussions last week.

Will Karu Jayasuriya be a serious candidate for the UNP's leadership? Will he be foisted with the leadership, or have it thrust upon him and all that type of premium political talk.

Half the things that do the serious political talk circuit in Sri Lanka never come even close to materialising, and of course that is another fact. . But, the kernel had been laid. ( More liberties with the language, at the cost of earning the wrath of housewives who learnt at Ladies College that no sentence in the English language should start with the word but.)

But, you see, the kernel had been laid. ( Whatever that means, the kernel has been laid. ) Karu Jayasuriya is suddenly being talked of one way ( eka vidiyakata. )

That means he has got a long way to go to get at the leadership, but now, he has certainly qualified for the outside chance. This is tremendous work for a politician unborn, eight to ten years back.

He may have earned all the kudos by getting Abans to lug the garbage, but remember, he is not a kunu miniha. He has the Buddhistic visage. Everything bounces off his sheer white outer garment.

But, he "doesn't have political cunning'', I heard one wiseman say while plonking a piece of ice into his poison. Not a Gamini Dissanayake or Lalith Athulathmudali for instance who will thrust the leadership onto themselves.

So , but that's not the only way stories are meant to go. This is an unstable world, and Ranil Wickremesinghe can announce , like the Attorney General did once, that he is interested in going into a life of meditation. Anything can happen,. Then who is there? Karooo, by the grace of his face!

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