cat’S eye

Hybrid!!

Goodness me! Meow, meow! Wasn’t this feline delighted to see Minister Ajith P. Perera, (handsome as can be), lambasting an ex-Minister who seems to think he is the cat’s whiskers and cynosure of all eyes to boot, sending this cat’s whiskers bristling with scorn and derision.

This person is on the top of a list of politicians Menika cannot bear to see or hear on TV. What could she do to show her derision? Nothing! Only switch channels when he starts pontificating in that loud voice of his, aiming at being suave but coming across as empty.

The lambasting was in Parliament after the night of the drama at the Katunayake Airport where Wimal Weerawansa was mired in a mix up of passports and visas and would have tried to bulldoze himself past immigration and board his plane to Dubai en route to Europe.

If the two Rajapaksa brothers were still Prez and Defence Secy, he surely would have gone through immigration and probably been given red carpet treatment too, with a passport said to be lost but mysteriously in hand.

Rules are rules

Rules are rules now, thank heavens. So Minister Ajith P Perera gave a fine performance of oratory, arms flaying and voice rising to say that Wimal W is hybrid: he has two passports hence his travel doc is hybrid; behaviour is hybrid; and other matters too are hybrid, leaving us listeners to surmise what the ‘other matters’ are. Menika’s dictionary defines ‘hybrid’ as “a plant or animal that has been produced from two different types of plant or animal, especially to get better characteristics or anything that is a mixture of two very different things.”

The Dpl passport was hybrid and the owner too conforms to the connotations of the word: not what he really is; strives to look better; in short a poseur.

The Prime Minister, much more conciliatory, said he would see what could be done to help Wimal W go on his jaunt. Why help a man who does not check his passport when setting out to travel abroad? This carelessness indicates how they travelled during the previous regime, sure of kowtowing airport officials and proudly slithering along VIP red carpets to the VIP lounge to travel First Class and all free, for what you and I pay as taxes on even the plain cuppa we drink. Menika did not read the news on what happened next.

Did he go or did he not? Of course Dubai is a transit point on many routes westward, but the very name conjures up stashed money, money stolen from old pensioners and babes in arms. You may wonder at that. But isn’t it true that the money is the people’s money. So when a politician steals and stashes away money in a bank abroad he is robbing the people.

With the money stolen, amenities could have been given to people in need. So was Weerawansa going to check on a bank account that everyone is talking about and even writing about that belongs to the son of a VVIP, groaning under the weight of millions of dollars and multi-billions of rupees?

Costly opening ceremony

The next stunner to Menika was the questioning of Channa and Upuli Wijewardena of dancing fame to check the veracity of Rs 14 million being credited to the Performing Arts Foundation that carries their names. This was for a dance item during the opening of the Magama Port in Hambantota.

Not only was it a far too costly harbour where no ships call but just one item at its inauguration costs so many millions. Channa W said they received Rs. 6.8 million. Too much even then. On Tuesday, October 27, a news item further revealed that Jackson Anthony who organized the event was being questioned. He must have made a mint too – so no wonder he is prepared to change the recent recorded history of the country. Is it he who traced Mahinda Rajapaksa’s lineage to the Buddha? What sacrilege in the name of filthy lucre! VIPs during the last regime thought only of money and that in only millions, forgetting that a bridge in a remote area that would save lives and make hard lives just a mite easier would cost a mere couple of lakhs.

Lightning smote

I was reminded of my maternal grandmother in her village near Kandy when I received an email about the tragic deaths in Mecca. She, my grandma was the matriarch of the village. I well remember the deiyo saaki-s that emerged from her stern mouth in such a distinctive manner.

When cheated or angered beyond endurance she would verbally whiplash the curse Hena hathak gahapan oota! and she wasn’t here meaning an animal by the term oota but an embezzling son or another who married a girl he loved out of race. So to her, one lightning strike was not enough; she demanded seven, yes, seven at one blow. It happened in the holy of holies, Mecca, on 9/11 in 2015 right on the day of the 14th anniversary of that terrible, terrible day in the US of America when the Twin Towers collapsed driven into by commercial planes hijacked by Al Qaeda.

What happened in Mecca on September 11 this year? A crane owned by the Bin Laden family and deployed to a construction project at Mecca, the holiest site for all followers of Islam, was struck by lightning and fell through the roof of the Grand Mosque, killing at least 700 devout Muslims, 14 years to the day of the Twin Towers terrorism act orchestrated by Osama Bin Laden. Investigators have described the crane collapse at Mecca as an ‘Act of God’.

Menika thinks it’s an act of natural retribution - hena gahanawa. Bin Laden got his due desserts from a clever group of intrepid American Navy persons. Some protested that he was unarmed when shot at and thus the elimination of this most evil religious fanatic was not justified.What utter nonsense; to give a man a clean and instantaneous death; one who almost single-handedly killed just within an hour or two on one single day – September 11, 2002 - 2,996 which included 19 hijackers, 246 in the four planes, 2,606 in the World Trade Centre and in the neighbourhood, and 125 in the Pentagon.

So retribution does come to evil people. We can forgive but we must not forget.

Menika