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Light Refractions by Lucien Rajakarunanayake

When recalling the era of Parakramabahu the Great what strikes one most is his great work in building tanks for irrigation, which made this country known as the granary of the East. There are no records of Parakramabahu's special interest in the clothes the cultivator wore on the field.

NPE

However, the UNP's new plans to establish a New Perakum Era (NPE) show more emphasis on the sartorial habits of the cultivator than his work in the field. To go by what Rajitha Senaratne has said about the rice cultivator and his traditional dress, at appears that, like his leader too has a pathological hatred for what the cultivator wears at work in the field. This is no new message; it's the same old tripe the UNP gave us in 2001 and 2004, when it also promised youth with gold bracelets and necklaces. Many believe the poster showing a young cultivator in a green paddy field clad in jeans and stylish shirt caused more damage to the UNP's image in April 2004 than the blundering words of its leader.

Rajitha Senaratne scorned the paddy cultivator who toils in the field in clad in the very practical span cloth, and his betel chewing habit. Come the promised Ranil Perakum Era, they will no more be clad in the span cloth, which to Senaratne's shame even exposes the man's buttocks. How we never noticed that all these years, while the eyes of UNP leaders are now mesmerized by it.

He will not be bare-bodied either. It will be a totally new cultivator, who will step into the muddy fields for plowing, sowing and harvesting. The span cloth will give way to good designer jeans; his top will be covered with the trendiest of shirts, and he will no more be chewing betel but as the great leader Ranil once promised it will be chewing gum instead. The local turban will be replaced with the latest style in US baseball caps.

Branded cultivator

This will create problems for marketer's of the best branded styles in jeans and shirts for the executive class, who will still not wish to be associated with the clothes of infra-dig cultivators. That is a problem for the UNP and its big business promoters. The promised NPE will lead to a total change in the traditional paddy field nurtured culture of our people.

What Rajitha Senaratne has revealed is only a very small part of a major change in the paddy field culture already planned. He was showing a proclivity towards his own sex when speaking of the man in the field. Yet, women too play a major role in paddy cultivation, from the nursery to harvesting, and later in threshing and winnowing. No more ambula

Having transformed the man in the field, the UNP not will stop at that. The fashion houses giving their input into the manifesto of the NPE have already thought about the woman in the field too. In the NPE, the woman will no more bring the ambula to the field dressed in rustic cloth jacket of an era to be replaced. She too will come well made up with the most alluring of lip shades, a fancy hairdo, clad in the latest trend in skimpy skirts, and revealing designer tops. Bathed in the best of branded perfumes she will wear some Gucci shoes and a shimmering adornment on the belly-button, too.

With all this change she will look damn foolish if she has to carry the ambula to the field, which is home cooked rice and tasty curry. Instead she will bring KFC briyani or pizzas of various flavours. The lotus leaf will have to give way to paper plates to pollute the field. At the time of threshing, the ambula at the kamatha will be replaced with a buffet with the widest of spreads to give the cultivator a real treat.

Come harvest time the women too join in the work, which involves the singing of traditional nelun gee or nelun kavi. Such old practices will have no place. There will be specially designed, daringly revealing women's wear for planting and harvesting. The songs one hears from the field will be the latest in western pop and rap with short breaks in the work for some dancing on the field swaying and rocking to the rhythms of a pop group sponsored by a fashion house.

Harvest time will be a real fun time both for the men and women, who will take turns singing and dancing on the field. When it comes to the threshing, the old traditions of the kamatha will be discarded with the first threshing preceded by singing in and dancing night club style complete with karaoke too.

Whatever all these NPE trends will do to the cultivators and their productivity in the field, one can be sure that all those who profit by the NPE will rush to do business in the remotest of towns, luring men and women more to the fashions of the day than to the work in the field. Enter the New Perakum Era.

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