Cat’S eye

Jumbo Cabinet with less real Jumbos:

Not done! Not done at all!!

Oh my goodness! What has been done to the likes of Dr Harsha de Silva (super economist/financier), Eran Wickramaratna (brimming with ideas for the development of the city and nation too), Sujeewa Senasinghe (hard hittingly outspoken and clever), Ranjan Ramanayake (spoke so vociferously for good governance and against corruption)?

They have been lumped together with a whole gaggle (or herd if you like, even gang or gallery) of SLFPers. When those mentioned above were not made Cabinet Ministers, this feline who had been purring so much about yahapalanaya, stopped purring. She consoled herself by presuming they would be made Deputy Ministers, being young and all that.

Also mitigating the thought was that this massive Cabinet of 48 plus and an almost equal number of State and Deputy Ministers was for two years since originally this cohabitative government was for two years, people were told. Now that hope is dashed too.

A daily of Thursday sub-headlines on page one the President’s announcement: “My government cannot be toppled. We will run our full term until 2020.”

Instead of purring, Menika sat like a wet cat reading and re-reading the list of Cabinet Ministers and then on Thursday morning the list of new State Ministers and Deputies. Her disappointment she had already expressed to which was added the fact that Rosy lost and was not included in the nominated list. Fair enough since Ranil W was not going back on his word. But then shockingly so many blue losers were sent to Parliament. That was an earthquake shock.

But rising right up the Richter scale was the seismic blow of having to accept as Ministers of State the likes of As Bee who was roundly rejected by the voters. Then came the second seismic upheaval in poor Menika’s insides – body and mind combined. Members of the second tier included Nishantha Muthuhettigama and Dilan Perera who shouted hosannas so very loudly to Mahinda Rajapaksa, as many others did, are now on the ministerial list.

Marbles and poison

Has Muthuhettigama, the new Deputy Minister of Ports and Shipping, got his marbles in place and Dilan Perera, State Minister of Highways, his bottles of poison in his briefcase? T. B. Ekanayake heads the list of Deputies and State Ministers.

Hope he will enter Parliament with soleful shoes and not soleless ones as detected by a camera and shown to all. That incident carried a message, didn’t it? He was trying to emphasise the contrast between poor him and a minister in the previous government whose footwear cost a fortune and was commented on by the then Prez.

Menika had people explaining matters to her – need for expediency and all that. But she could not come to terms with the fact that people spoken about in the same breath as the term ‘corruption’ were included in the huge Cabinet that had more blues than greens. Menika whispers that she voted green because she wanted change, a continuation of the change brought about on January 9. But the change has not been to an acceptable level, leave alone an exciting level. Many of the old faces grin at you as Ministers and Deputies; faces that one made to disappear when watching TV by using the remote control to switch channels. Felines like Menika squall and bawl out its not done, not done at all.

And then on Friday, September 11, a further body blow was dealt by the President. The ex PM’s son from Kandy, Anuradha Jayaratne, was appointed a Deputy Minister. Wasn’t the gossip vine full of the fact that his Provincial Council election campaign was funded by a Pakistani who was alleged to be a drug baron? Menika saves her skin by saying she reports what she heard.

Menika wonders how Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe takes all this.

Feeling let down

Voters, Menika included, who went early to their respective voting centres to cast their vote for change, feel let down and justifiably so. The starry eyed are developing glazed looks; the optimists turning pessimistic; and the glass in front definitely half empty and clouded too.

The only consolations, or rather the strongest, are the new Speaker and the Leader of the Opposition and his Deputy – the JVP firebrand.

Dear ole Sri Lanka may be holding again the record for the largest Cabinet in proportion to population, but it has mercifully given up a another record it held: highest rate of suicide and then being very near the top.

Thursday, September 10 being World Suicide Prevention Day, Menika’s thoughts went thataways. She was pleased to read that from having the highest number of suicides in the world in 1995: 47 per 100,000, the number had decreased to 20 per 100,000. Still far too high. Well known, and lamented is the fact that the rate of suicide is highest in the age group 19 – 25.

Surprising it was to read that more men took their own lives; surprising because women are far more emotional, vulnerable to instabilities in life and lead, at least in Sri Lanka, far less privileged lives than males.

Maybe the fact more young men commit suicide is their lack of a sense of responsibility. Women invariable suffer and take on much for the sake of their children. Also men are easier with firearms and quicker to violence.

Time was when ‘jumping into the well’ aka lindata panna was a much favoured way of taking one’s life. Along the coasts it was ‘jumping into a train’ or sinking in the sea – mude giluna. Shooting oneself was the sophisticate’s way of killing himself until the armed forces expanded almost exponentially and guns lost their strangeness and horror.

Very common then and now is dying by hanging. There is a song about this by the famous Eranga and Priyanga - the Officer’s daughter ‘hangéd and died’ - ellila maruna. Village women were wont to eat the yam of the niyagala with its exotic blossoms. Menika however, considers, after hearing village gossip that the gloriosa superba yam eating woman wanted to draw attention to herself, or more often than not, the concern of her husband, so she merely nibbled at the yam but made a public show of her act.

Well, the suicide rate is down but the Cabinet is blown up disproportionately. Let’s live and wait and see.

Menika