Only between us:

Now that spring is in the air

Aditha DISSANAYAKE in New York

Spring is in the air. Red, yellow and pink buds adorn the trees on the side walks. The first lilies of the year have begun to sprout their tiny heads through the frozen earth in the park round the corner. The sun too lingers longer on the horizon reluctant to go home. It is hard to believe it was not so long ago that he too cuddled under heavy blankets and refused to make an appearance as though he had decided to take his annual leave like the rest of us.

But now...ah...spring is in the air. Life has begun anew. Betty, my neighbour's poodle no longer wears her thick woolen coat when she is taken for her daily walk.

The chipmunks have stopped searching for the acorns they buried last autumn. Even the wind has changed... changed her tune. She no longer howls but hums soothing lullabies making new born babies smile in their sleep as she wafts through half open windows and caresses their cheeks.

Yet, most New Yorkers hardly have time to notice the signs of nature's rejuvenation around them.

The talk in the town these days is the Madoff scandal.

And as fate would have it three days a week, for two months, I happened to walk past the $7 million pent house Bernard Madoff shared with his wife Ruth on 64th street and again, as fate would have it, I happened to see him as he left his home for the last time to appear at the Manhattan Federal Court on March 12.

He seemed not to hear the insult shouted by a passing motorist as he got into a silver SUV.

"Give him the electric chair".

A few hours later, driven by our thirst for all things unusual which is perhaps the sole reason that drew us to New York, the city where you are free to do your own thing, my partner and I managed to find our way to the Federal Courts on lower Manhattan inside which, as we later learned, Madoff pleaded guilty to eleven counts of fraud involving $ 65 billion.

The number of cameramen and reporters gathered in front of the entrance was in sharp contrast to the handful who watched the solitary figure of Angelina Jolie inching her way around the ninth floor of a building on West 156th street doing a stunt for an upcoming spy thriller called "Salt". Though Madoff and his fate as an ex-swindler supreme, had little interest for me I stood and stared at the TV crews and the reporters, longing to have a Lake House note book in my hands with the press ID round my neck, imagining the headline I would give my article.

As Judge Denny Chin ordered a court official to handcuff Madoff and escort him into the federal prison system where he would remain probably for the rest of his life a lady in front of us rejoiced, jumping in glee with her arms outstretched. She was immediately surrounded by several reporters. Inching my way towards them I got the chance to hear her say "Bye, Bye, Baby". Joining her, another lady, introducing herself as Helen who lost her lifetime's savings of $ 3 million was surprised Madoff looked human.

"He's got two arms, two legs, one head, and yet he's done all of this to so many people".

Another gentleman added he did not believe in Madoff's apology. "I don't think he feels remorse. He is the embodiment of all evil".

A victim talking to the New York Daily News said "Our nest eggs are gone. The money was for our nine grandchildren's education".

Another said "I felt very happy when I saw the handcuffs go on." Near her stood a lady with her hands covered in red paint which she explained was the "symbolic blood of hundreds of wiped out investors".

Yet, even though the air was thick with vengeance no one thought of the biblical punishment as Madoff headed for the 60 square foot cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Centre on Park Row. Perhaps now that spring is in the air, now that hope for better things has been rekindled it was not worth the effort to cast the first stone.

At any rate they say Madoff positively smirked even as he pleaded guilty and was assigned a number by which he would be known in prison, Inmate 617... Could it be he was thinking of Genghis Khan's saying "I am the punishment of God... If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you." I wonder.