Lies, lies and more lies

by Padma Edirisinghe

The central character in a story that ran around in circles in my childhood was the “Great Liar.” His renown for weaving the biggest of lies spread far and wide and reached the ears of another liar in a neighbouring village. Let us call him the Big Liar. One fine day he decided to visit the Great Liar and summon him to a Lie Contest in order that he may win the coveted title of ‘Maha Pachaya.’

But fortunately or unfortunately the man was out and only his little son was at home. On being asked where the appachchi is, the son without batting an eyelid came out with this piece.

“For days appachchi sat making a drum skin out of the ears of about a million insects.

“Then he went to heaven to beat this drum and wake up all the gods and goddesses there who are deep in slumber after eating all the fatty food, while everything is becoming so horrible on earth.”

All the gods, thought Maha Pachaya, if this little brat can weave such a big lie in a minute or two the father’s prowess can well be imagined and he withdrew into his own village.

When Loku Pachaya returned he asked whether there had been any visitors and the son reported matters including the lie he had made up.

“What a sorry lie that is for the son of Loku Pachaya!” exclaimed the man and was about to throw the little fellow into the sea when God Sakra intervened. Then he went in search of Maha Pachaya, but found only the wife drying clothes out in the sun. These clothes were all rich ones and were shimmering under the bright sun. In fact, they had been robbed off a Moor man peddling in the area.

“From where did you get such rich clothes?” asked Loku Pachaya.

“Ah, my man, Maha Pachaya went to heaven for a holiday and he was gifted with these.”

“All the gods in heaven! Lies come natural to this whole family. I better vanish,” exclaimed the man and left.

I had heard the story at time phase of a decade short of a quarter of a century... But suddenly I was reminded of this story when watching a certain foreign channel. It often runs a series of episodes under international terrorism and the war in Sri Lanka figures as a prominent one among the episodes. To be fair, in the later stages of this mini bioscope the atrocities committed by the Tamil Tigers are presented in all the horrendous detail.

Worst disaster in aviation history

The attack on 26 planes at Katunayake is described as the worst disaster in aviation history in the world and again Serendipitiy gains another superlative when the attack on the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic in Mahanuwara is described as the first attack in the world by terrorists on a hallowed religious site.

The attacks on trains, buses and banks are very expansively dealt with. The expectant mother is one of the most revered figures in any society but the terrorists use her or one disguised so to manipulate their worst crimes, setting the most sinful precedent to all the evil - minded in the world. Sri Lanka should apologise to the whole world for this horrible export, recently used in Russia too inside a train.

Tele feature

The above tele feature flaunts on the screen the murder of such illustrious figures as Rajiv Gandhi and President Premadasa by the evil ones. White flags flutter all over the skies of Lanka almost everyday for hundreds of those killed on highways and in vehicles, all hapless victims who paid the prize for the dream of Eelam while engaged in day-to-day activities.

Victims include babes suckling at the mothers’ breasts and the maimed and the old and schoolboys on their way to matches and knots of school girls and bus loads of bhikkhus en route to religious festivals to bless all mankind and hundreds of devotees in mosques of the East.

The blood flows freely and in torrents throughout the grisly bioscope, a flow of blood that ran for 27 long years and only ended with the perpetrator sleeping his last sleep on the banks of Nandi Kadal.

But there is something absolutely wrong with the first section of the commentary accompanying the film. It runs somewhat as follows i.e. in the island of Sri Lanka formerly Ceylon, there lived peacefully two communities. the Sinhalese in the South and the Tamils in the North (poor Moslems, Malays and Burghers forgotten)... Then one fine or dreadful day, minus any provocation perhaps bored by the monotony of peaceful co-existence or triggered by a ferocious instinct, the Sinhalese decide to attack the Tamils. Then they go on to destroy the Jaffna library, one of the most famous libraries in the East.

Now here is presented blandly the idea to the whole world that it was the Sinhala community in Lanka who really provoked that bloody war that went on for three decades taking a toll of thousands of precious human lives...

A lie, they say, when repeated often has a way of perpetuating itself as a truth. We just cannot get rid of lies. They have come to stay. Our folk tales are based on a lot of lies.

Even the great Chronicle of Lanka, some learned ones say, go on to chronicle many lies due to the distance in time and absence of written records.

In both Eastern and Western cultures lies play a prominent role. There are even kings noted for their savvy in this field. King Chetiya was one such.

He went on making up so many lies that once he had let out his biggest lie he was swallowed by the earth and disappeared for good. That is an outstanding punishment.

Maybe he mouthed a lie that could spell evil for some one or some group. Then the lie loses its innocence and it is nothing to laugh about.

This commentary on the Sri Lankan episode in the series on “International terrorism” also ceases to be a joke for it has serious undertones of condemnation. It may have already set the seal on the Sri Lankan Sinhalese as a highly aggressive group who brooks no other ethnic clan in the island. If its splash on the screen continues for decades the future generation would be certainly ashamed of their ancestors.

It is a surprise that this bioscope has so far not riveted the attention of those responsible.

This essay is just a small eye opener.