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| Sunday, 27 February 2005 |
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Features |  |
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Thus have I heard We Sri Lankans are noted for our creativity. This does not mean we have our Picassos, our Nerudas, and our Hemingways aplenty. What I mean is something much simpler, much more mundane. Certainly it is nothing sublime. No, I am not referring to procreation either. It is more in the realm of consciousness than matter but not independent of matter. To tell you more, it is an intellectual exercise that we take pride in. It is our ability to cook up stories, to fantasise. It is our imagination running wild. The end result of this exercise is what you and I identify as gossip. Yes, we are good at producing gossip. We produce them every minute, every hour, every day. Gossip was always frowned upon by the authorities. It never found official recognition until late. Yet, despite official taboos, it survived millennia. It still survives, thanks to the imagination of our people. As I said earlier, gossip is gaining some official status. The Fourth Estate has been always flirting with it. It all began with celebrity gossip. Now its horizons have been widened to include lesser mortals. Gossip blurs the dividing line between fact and fiction. Sometimes it is more fact than fiction. At other times it is the other way round. One could argue that it rests on facts, as there is no fire without smoke. In this world of technological marvels, however, there could be smoke without fire. Yes smokeless fire! The devastating tsunami also produced a rich crop of gossip. Some even graduated to lead news in the media. Take for example the death and resurrection of Velupillai Prabhakaran. Beginning with stories about ultra-expensive coffins the story retained its currency even after Prabha appeared live at meetings with the Norwegians. No it's a dummy, the gossip masters said unwilling to take a humiliating defeat. Tsunami gossip is a vast field for research and investigation. It is sad none had so far ventured to explore this rich source of information. A visit to the affected areas would provide enough clues to follow on. Recently it was such gossip that led this writer to see for himself the enormous quantities of foreign and local aid - food, clothing, utility articles that lie stored in an office of an Assistant Government Agent without being distributed to the needy. Whether truth or fiction, there was also a story about how the Police sent the underworld hoodlums to loot the deceased in the ill-fated train before clearing the bodies and evacuating the dying. There were also stories of political bickering that have left tsunami victims destitute even up to now. Gossip also would provide some clues to the still undiscovered bodies left buried in watery graves as for example those of the honeymoon couple and the passengers in a private coach who were swept into the Madampe River off Ambalangoda. - the Sceptic |
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