On ties and no-neckties... and boat-eka and gate-eka

by S. Pathiravitana

The national dress of the Bolivian President, Evo Morales, has raised a few eyebrows in diplomatic circles. Some detractors have rushed to point out that the national dress of the President is not national at all, but something devised by the Jesuits to cover the nudity of the Bolivians whom they were shocked to see living like Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden before Satan came up with that tempting apple.

That may be the origin of the Bolivian poncho and if it has been adopted by the Bolivians that only shows the adaptability of the Bolivians who have now made it their very own dress, something that Evo Morales is proud about and happy to show it to all the world.

Adaptability is a virtue not a vice. Just as the Spanish conquerors gave the Bolivians the poncho, our invaders like the Portuguese gave us a number of words that we have made them our very own. We took their poeira and made it our puyara (face powder), their pepino and made it our pippinna (cucumber).

We had no pimps and cads but the Portuguese seem to have brought them along and we used their words like al coviteiro and cupido to insult those who had become alukuththeruwas and kupadiyas. The Dutch in turn brought a host of words and we have succeeded in transforming them into original Sinhala sounding names. Kakkussiya is our very own now having converted it from the Dutch kakhuis. So is karakoppuva from the Dutch kirkhof.

From Holland with love

Bonchi, kokis, arthapal they all came from Holland although most of us have come to believe that the two vegetables are native to us and the kokis, magically surfacing at the Sinhala New Year as a national ikon. Strangely enough our adaptability suffered a big blow when the British invaders took over. Some seem to think that this was a crushing blow on the Sinhala language. From being highly successful adaptors we suddenly turned mimics.

For a while we seem to have carried on the old style of adding an ending like a-ya or a -va to the nouns that started flowing from England and we turned the boat into a boattuva, a gate into a gatettuva and a hospital ward into a vaattuva.

It appeared to the rising class of anglophiles that to add the -ya and the -va to the English nouns was 'godayatik.' So they became a bit snooty and started calling the gatettuva, gate eka , the boattuva, boat eka and the vaattuva, ward eka. Intrigued by these additions my late colleague and friend, Herbert Keuneman, when I was working with him in the Daily News Features room, told me that Sinhala was a very easy language to learn. I asked him how.

Why, he said, all that you need to know is how to use two simple words - eka and karanava. And he went on to prove it by repeating an Eddie Jayamana joke which went like this, "Park ekay walk ekkak karana kota shoes ekay lace eka loose vuna." I got his point. The English influence compared to our adaptability with the Dutch and Portuguese languages was pretty putrid. The English have left our shores but they have left behind a strain of Anglophilia which now comes not from the privileged class but from an underprivileged class which is trying to be privileged.

About how a privileged class came to be in Ceylon is an interesting bit of history. T. B. Macaulay, who was an administrator in India, never came to Ceylon. But he laid down a minute on Indian education that seems to have been carried to the letter, not so much by the Indians, as by the Ceylonese.

This is what he laid down: "We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect." Macaulay entrusted this class to "refine the vernacular dialects of the country" and how this class refined it was to turn the boat into a boat eka and the gate into a gate eka

Now the underprivileged have taken over this role. If you wish to have a taste of this all that you have to do is to tune in any day to some of the local FM stations to hear a language, which is a kind of hybrid, mixing English and Sinhala and annoying to both languages. I seem to have strayed from what I was saying at the beginning when I was referring to the national dress of President Evo Morales.

The national dress as such is an entirely modern idea like the National Anthem and the National flag..

The first things we wanted soon after our independence were National Anthems, a National Air Force, a National Dress. It must be said, however, that we were preparing to adopt a National Dress even before we got independence. The Indian struggle for independence may have had some bearing on it.

The people who gave the lead were those like G.P Malalasekara, P de S, Kularatna and L.H, Mettananda, the last two being principals of Ananda College. But there were hardly any boys taking after their role model principals. While there were some teachers taking after the principals there were almost none among the boys. Again, in 1956 there were more politicians taking up the national dress but only a minuscule few who voted for them.

The National dress chosen by Nehru for his staff seems to have influenced more people in the West than in India. The Betels sported it for a while and Sammy Davies set the style for the Americans where Nehru's Sherwani was widely known as Nehru's Jacket.

As far as I can see, the English suit, which is England's post industrial contribution to the world, has become the international dress of the world's politicians. This suit by no means is something that the world can admire as a colourful spectacle. Designed by God knows who and lacking in grace and nobility, the suit makes them look, as a discerning Western observer once said, "In this incredible age, all men look like lackeys"

Wear a tie

All our Presidents have chosen to wear the National Dress. There was one President, however, who seemed to be in two minds about this. He seemed to think that it was suitable for him and for his efficiency, but not for the minions who carried out his orders. His thinking was that efficiency came by wearing a tie and the order went out that administrative officers should come to office wearing a tie.

And they still do with very little efficiency to show for it. The story goes that once there was a railway accident and that the President came to see what had happened. He summoned the engineer responsible for maintenance and when a tie-less man came before him he told him, "You can see why this happened because you are not wearing a tie."

There are some who believe it is the necktie that is throttling a developing country's efficiency, mostly in Sri Lanka. The good news from Japan for them is that the administrators have decided to relax the rule about neckties.

It is said that the cooler atmosphere that prevails in a necktie-less office leads to greater efficiency and that may be the reason for relaxing the rule. It may even be due to reports that have appeared in the press recently like this: "Wearing a tight necktie can raise your intraocular pressure and thereby increase your risk for glaucoma according to a recent study. It can also cause your doctor to diagnose you with ocular hypertension or even glaucoma when you don't actually have it,"

Whether it is due to this or not the Japanese who are scheduled to meet the Koreans shortly are already talking of having necktie-less discussions. But Evo Morales has already shown the world where the tie gets off. At his inauguration as President he did the unbelievable thing for Latin Americans, he appeared before them without a necktie. Our President who ordered the necktie for his assistants may be rather cross with the news of what is happening to the necktie, if the Sunday Observer is reaching him in his Valhalla.