The randy Sri Lankan politician

Cyril Wimalasurendre reporting in a daily on Monday, January 18, headlined his news item thus: ‘A pleasure trip to Singapore turns sour for PC member of Central Provincial Council’. He says the said PC Member was arrested and detained by the police following a complaint lodged by a woman that he groped her.

The groping politician was of a party of 30 Provincial Councillors who went to Singapore and while the others returned, he was in prison. The headline clearly states they were on a pleasure trip - sightseeing, shopping, eating-drinking and perhaps indulging in other pleasures of the flesh, with one getting nabbed for not containing his baser desires in public.

And did they pay for themselves? Not on your life. Expenses of the tour were met by the Central Provincial Council. Will the Central Province have to pay extra for his return to the island and probably a fine imposed? He should have been whipped for what he did; whipping being done in Singapore.

Remember some years ago a teenager was whipped for using a can of spray paint on cars. The title I quote says the trip to Singapore turned sour for the PC member. Think of what his kunu act does to the reputation of the country. The Prez and PM are doing much to regain lost ground in the international arena and bring back Sri Lanka’s good name. And see what these odd bods do. The skate whip is needed here, Mr President!!

Groping publicly in

It looks as if the PC member did not waste any time giving into his randy nature. The ‘pleasure’ started for him within hours of arrival, it seems to be. We really don’t know what he was planning to do later, but we can guess.

Would the people of the Central Province have paid for his fun and games too, which he surely would have indulged in? If he could not control his sensual hand for just 24 hours after landing in Singapore we could surmise how his thoughts and plans were for the nights of his stay in the Lion City.

It was bad enough a Sri Lankan worker in Saudi Arabia, not knowing or forgetting the draconian laws of the country, committed adultery. Pity is what we felt for her. Mercifully our government politicians saved her life. But to have a politician misbehaving sexually in public is completely detestable. One or two have been nabbed for shoplifting too. That’s because the scum of Sri Lanka win elections.

To make matters worse, Chief Minister Sarath Ekanayake told the media on January 17 that the Singaporean police after inquiry into the complaint against the Councillor had released him. “The allegation against the Provincial Councillor was not very serious.” (!) The Chief Minister said he would inquire into the incident on the return of the Councillor. That too gives us ideas of how the questioning will go.

This is deplorable. Don’t these officials who go abroad on public money know they have to behave decently? We thought that with yahapalanaya being installed, Provincial Councillors would contain themselves. During the last regime, if there were two serious crimes committed a day like extorting kappan, kidnapping, raping and even murdering, you could bet that one at least of the two was committed by a Provincial Councillor. Is it their backgrounds including their upbringing that is to blame, or is it that the newly endowed power goes to the head? One from the deep south who murdered a Britisher and raped his girlfriend while she was injured got punished after being protected for a considerable period of time by the powers that were. We don’t believe he got his due desserts for two heinous crimes.

Randy Members of Parliament

The newspapers on Tuesday, January 19 carried a news item that the Minister of Women’s and Children’s Affairs, Ms Chandrani Bandara, has gone on record calling her women colleagues in the August House to report to her any instances of sexual harassment within Parliament.

She has taken up the matter with the Speaker too. It goes to show that some at least of our male MPs cannot control their eyes, tongues and hands when they see a woman. No smoke without fire. Why otherwise would this Minister make this pronouncement? Menika would give anything to see Rosy flare up on being harassed. Oh! Gosh! She is no MP now. More’s the pity!

General accusation

Men in Sri Lanka seem to be oversexed. This cat realizes she is making a wide general statement but ask women who travel in buses what happens to them. Ask working girls how they fare. This feline remembers what an ordeal it was to shop in the Pettah long ago; go watch the Kandy Perahera standing by the side of a road; stand in a queue; go singly or with a female friend to a cinema. This last is OK now.

Menika remembers a trip to Manila where she befriended a beautiful Indian delegate. The delegate and her group would tour the market shopping areas late in the evening and not once were they shoved, pushed into, nudged or stared at. The men were not frustrated was the opinion shared. India is bad like Sri Lanka; worse considering the terrible rapes that have occurred even after the Asian Spring uprising of protest when a student was gang raped and tortured in a moving bus and then flung out with her boyfriend.

One positive of the ubiquitous presence of police personnel is that those base creatures who exhibit themselves are no more, or not seen like they were say two decades ago. Old Menika remembers with a shudder how harassed she and other schoolgirls were with men on bicycles, in cars, even gentlemen in verandahs of their homes frightening them. Bambalapitiya it was. A much older Menika recalls an incident which gives her a mite of pride. She was on her morning walk and espied when passing a girls’ school a three-wheeler karaya doing what even animals do not.

Seeing a tiny tot going towards the gate and having to pass the exposing guy, this cat bared her fangs, maddened with anger. She instinctively strode right up to the fellow and let him have some choice rude words like tho and balla with a qualifier in front and threatened the police on him. He vanished. Such scums of society are actually scared and thus could be dealt with.

But the shock experienced by a young innocent is searing. When strutting politicians get down to low down behaviour, it isn’t easy to reprimand them. Party leaders have to deal strictly with them and forget a vote they may lose.

- Menika