|
|
|
| Sunday, 02 April 2006 |
 |
|
 |
Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
The Rajpal Abeynayake Column: Its better being outside looking an outsider We all like the way the Russians do it. The Russian women stay pencil thin, while the men go to fat. This I was able to ascertain at a party on Friday night, at which there were a lot of babushkas and vodka. From there, I gravitated towards a party at the Speaker's residence, where there were a lot of bullshit_ers, and no vodka at all. This is said with apologies to the Speaker. No Speaker, however voluminous his guest list, could be expected to get it entirely right. But, since the Speaker served no alcohol at all, there is no addled thinking here; it struck me as strange that I have to be at two parties in which the hosts are both the odd ones out. It turns out this way: Russia is the odd one out of the club of capitalist conspirators. It's a nation supposed to be capitalist, and white to boot. But its peoples' behavior is reminiscent of third world banana republicans. That's the good thing too, about these Russians. I do not mean anything bad, when I say that these Russians are like third world banana republicans, for the simple reason that they gorge on food, generally drink and treat literature as if it still really existed. Their women I noticed wear a strange pointy kind of shoes that look as if they come straight out of Anna Karanina. It's a heady mix, this zeitgeist in contrast to that of the rest of the capitalist club, which is worried at the moment where its next energy ballast is coming from. Americans are so addicted to energy that even their President noticed it. The country ceases to exist until it gets its next fuel shot and to this extent the US President was entirely right when he said that America is totally addicted to oil. So Russia is definitely the odd man out. What this has got to do with Lokubandara is that he is the odd man out too. He is the only affluent member of the opposition who can flaunt his state maintained affluence because he is in opposition, and behaves as if he is in government by virtue of the fact that he is the Speaker. Looking at these odd men out, I think what was meant in the bible was not so much that the meek shall inherit the earth, but that the outsiders shall inherit it. Russia is the typical outsider of the capitalist club, but if there was a choice that's given to me with a gun aimed at my head saying that I had to choose between living in Russia and in America, I'd choose Russia not because of its creature comforts of course. But, the Russian like Lokubandara have the best of both worlds, and that is probably the essence of what was meant in that pithy Biblical line 'the meek shall inherit the earth.' They have no choice absolutely in the matter, but the meek almost by force of events, have to inherit not just the earth, but the best of both worlds. Take for instance the Russians who have just that little bit of capitalism, but have great literature, great wine and all those other things I do not want to mention here for reason of appearing to be too Russian. Lokubandara has the best of both worlds also which is that he has the perks of office while not being burdened by its demands. He wasn't meek, but he has outsider status in the United National Party. But there is danger in being the outsider, and that's the fact that insecurity can plague that condition. Russians are so insecure that I was told Russian life expectancy is abysmally low among men who have lifestyles that can be held up as text book examples of unhealthy living. Someone recently showed me the statistics for life expectancy for Russia and tricked me into thinking that it was for a sub Saharan African country. I was tricked maximally, and was quite bashful because I had never mentally associated Russia with sub Saharan African conditions. But yes, statistically some regions of Russia have the same life expectancy of the worse sub Saharan LDC's (least developing countries) due to an admixture of vodka, venereal disease and obesity. But, I decided that if one has to go, its better to do it the Russian way than the American way when one dies thinking of whether it will be possible to keep filling the fuel tank of the large SUV. Eventually, I figured out that Russian insecurity is of the terminal variety meaning that there is some anxiety whether all of this simple overindulgence is going to terminate as a result of one sudden and irreversible coronary. This is similar to Lokubandara's insecurity also. If parliament is dissolved he ceases to be Speaker. Both conditions are amply better than the condition of the insiders, respectively, the insiders of the capitalist club the Americans, who are never terminal but are continually anxious. So with the others in Lokubandara's party, who are forever anxious about being in opposition whereas Lokubandara has the best of both worlds qualified by the fact that all of it may end with one terse Presidential proclamation dissolving parliament. The morale of both stories is that if life deals you a hand, have the presence of mind to forfeit it if you have been dealt four Aces - there is no game with it. A slightly eccentric hand, with a joker in the pack may mean that you might meet with sudden death at the card table, but at least you will have fun on the way too getting there. It's a simple morale however, and I keep wondering how I should have
forgotten it until I was forced to remember by seeing an octogenarian
lecture me on a Russian Nobel prize winner for literature (whose name for
the life of me I shall not remember.) Pointy shoes and Lokubandra also
helped reinforce the resurrected message. |
|
| News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security
| Produced by Lake House |
