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| Sunday, 6 November 2005 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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When car
keys were always in the car
Solemn Thoughts by Wendell Solomons This story reached me, thanks to Sri Lanka's overseas diaspora. The story was shared with relish on the Internet. Philosopher Heraclitus pointed out, "It is impossible to bathe in the same river twice." Yet, this story persists in recollecting for this generation and the next a world that was real enough before a disproportion shook it. The author's name is not placed in the note that reflects the memory of a subculture whose homeland rapidly changed. Besides this introduction, for my part I have supplied minor edits and an Afterward. When the worst thing you could do at school was smoke in the bathrooms, fail a test or munch chewing gum in class.. And we `banqueted' in the tuck shop, grew up to dance to a gramophone, and the girls dressed in fluffy pastel-coloured gowns and the boys wore `Longs' for the first time, and we were allowed to stay out and watch a 9.30 p.m. show at the Liberty, the Majestic and the Savoy cinemas... ! And the biggest thrill was holding hands... ! When a Sunbeam Alpine or a MG was everyone's dream car, to cruise, clamber out, and watch the road races... And couples went steady and it was a great weekend to go to the Galle Face Hotel's Coconut Grove with the Jetliners, or to Ceylinco with the Spitfires or to the Little Hut with the Amazing Grace or to the Akasa Kade with Sam the Man! And no one ever asked where the car keys were because they were always in the car, in the ignition, and the doors were never locked, and you got into big trouble if you accidentally locked it since no one knew where the spare keys were placed. Remember lying on your back on the grass with friends and saying things like "That cloud seems like a ..." and playing cricket with no adults to help kids with the rules of the game. Back then, cricket was not a psychological group learning experience - it was a game! When you were the local hero if you owned a cricket bat or ball. When there were few cars on the street and we played street cricket with a home-made wooden bat with a dustbin as wicket. Remember how the street filled with these budding cricketers suddenly became deserted when the ball smashed through the glass of a neighbour's window? Remember when stuff from the shop came without safety caps and hermetic seals because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger? And don't you just wish... just once... you could slip back in time and savour the slower pace... and share it with the children of the 80's and 90's... So, send this on to someone who can still remember Bill Haley and the Comets, The Hardy Boys, Laurel and Hardy, Roy Rogers and Trigger, Famous Five, the Galle Face Green, the Lone Ranger, Kinross, Otters, the Piccadilly Cafe at Wellawatte, 'house-dances', jam sessions, Zellers at Bambalapitya, 'Sunday Choice' on Radio Ceylon, that even Indians in Bombay, etc., still talk about! Jimmy Barucha and Chris Greet, Donavan Andree and Vijaya Corea, 'The Blue Leopard' and of course Sirisanda... Bill Forbes and the Jay Cee. Shows at Mount Lavinia Hotel and evenings filled with bike rides, playing cowboy, and visits to the pool... and the Bambalapitiya Flats... eating fish & chips and sundaes with that special chocolate sauce at the `Fountain Cafe' (I still remember the mouth-watering "Knicker Bocker Glory", and the Jaggery Sundae) Then there was buriyani at Pilawoos... and, of course thosai at Saras and hoppers at Mayfair! When being sent to the Principal's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited a misbehaving student at home. Basically, we were in fear for our lives, but it wasn't because of terrorism... drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, alcohol and road rage... Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat! But we all survived... because their love was greater than their threat. Didn't that make you feel good?. Just to go back and say, `Yeah, I remember that!' And was it really that long ago? Afterward: Purchasing power, rural and urban, dropped drastically in living memory. That story may be briefly told via exchange rates. The US dollar exchanged for Rs. 3.50 in 1950 and for Rs. 8 in 1977. It then fell rapidly to Rs. 100 in 2004 during the new rules of dominion of the IMF. In the second same 27 year period, the existing IMF rules saw the currency fall sharply by as much as Rs. 92.00. You might ask. How did the population survive economic holocaust? In 1950 the island enjoyed tangible currency reserves. Then, visiting World Bank experts threw at the county their bulky report of 1952 so as to divert the country's currency reserves and energy into cutting tropical rainforest and perpetuate farming using cattle harnessed to wooden plough (incepted in the Gal Oya scheme). In Colombo in 2005 Mahathir Mohamed said that in Malaysia he had based policy on the idea that one acre of land could provide an income to one farmer but if manufacturing industry was chosen, the same acre would provide incomes to 500 workers. Response invited at:
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