Is it Kuveni’s curse?

I’ve been looking for clues and titbits in the daily newspapers regards the conflagration at the Salawa Army depot, actually how it started. Very judiciously, one newspaper on Tuesday, June 7 said this: ‘Kosgama Camp Fire (sic)

Army in the dark: electric short circuit, lightning among possible causes’. The next day was this headline: ‘A tri-forces investigation committee was appointed and the CID too would conduct a separate investigation..’

On Thursday, June 9 it read thus: ‘Blaze doused, tempers flare up in Kosgama’

A word comes to mind

This cat’s nose quivered, she bristled as she got the word ‘sabotage’ emblazoned across her mind when she saw on TV the fire and fire-works. The word would not leave her so she asked four others whether they suspected the fire was deliberately started and was successful in the aim of causing mass destruction with ferocity and harm to surrounding areas, to families and homes. And the ultimate game? To discredit the yahapalana government and bring it down.

This cat and her four friends surmise that if a person wants to cause utter mayhem and thus destabilize the government he would do it despite the fact of resulting immense destruction to both persons and property. The selfishness of some for power is not fathomable; anything at all for power.

Reason why

The next thought that assailed this feline was why oh why Sri Lanka is suddenly the eye of the storm of a real storm, villages buried in mud and a massive fiery ball of fire with huge metal canisters blown up into the air as if they were little bits of pebble.

All this while we are down ecownomically. Is it the curse of Kuveni come back to rain trouble on this land? The jilted lover-girl of Prince Vijaya cursed not only him but the entire country when she was chased away so Vijaya could bring himself a princess from South India to start a blue-blooded progeny.

Vijaya was a skunk, no two words about that: making up to her when he landed in Lanka and realized here was a spinning queen of a civilized tribe of people. She reciprocated and like many women, gave not only herself to him but also her kingdom. The cat vision Menika has, and cats have sharp vision, is that Vijaya sidled up to Kuveni and said: “Let’s see how you rule.”

Then he criticized and advised her. Next he suggested sharing the throne so she had a man to help her hold court.

Then he pushed her off the throne and next banished her and their two children from the palace. Hence her potent curse which still holds sway, they say. So all our recent troubles could be Kuveni’s curse. With that goes the supposition that inherited characteristics, gene features are shown in the present generation.

No wonder we are such duplicitous people, especially those like Vijaya who having sinha le flowing in their arteries. They ruthlessly betray people, cut them down, stab them in the back, do anything to friend and foe alike just for filthy stolen power. Dirty lucre too comes in; anything goes, even murdering your own Ma for it. Well, this cat and her friends had better hold their horses.

Two efficient bodies are conducting investigations to determine the cause of the fire: an army high level committee and the CID. Yesterday the cat’s domestic announces that a lit cigarette caused the conflagration. That is really rich. Like as if an ant pushed an elephant so it fell.

Blocking highways

We see the latest tactic of the Sri Lankan public played out at Salawa too: mass protesting. And of course staging the protest on an important public road necessitating its closure and thus causing further inconvenience. TV pictures show enraged members of the public, mostly T-shirted beefy men, shouting against the government and demanding immediate remedial action.

And this is rebuilding damaged houses, and also building new ones to replace those irreparably bombarded by outsized falling metal canisters. You cannot do this type of rehabilitation with an ‘abracadabra zuzu’. It takes time, especially when the government is tasked.

This cat sees a new syndrome emerging: mass protests demanding immediate solutions. Maybe the protests are self combusted, meaning: catching on with one or two shouting and many more joining in, with the police unable to control the enraged crowd or, it could very well be instigated and stage managed. Some just like trouble and prefer mayhem to peaceful living; others have ulterior motives and a long term plan. To this cat this demanding is an inborn gene of of our island race: always for free handouts. Recent twist: the government is responsible and must recompense fully.

Wi Wee

Women say they lost their jewellery. We sympathise but find it difficult to understand why they did not fetch their valuables when asked to leave their homes. It would not take twenty seconds to do that, and it’s instinctive. Not many of those living near the Salawa army depot would have sealed safe deposits which take time to be opened. May be some women expect lost jewellery too to be compensated for by the government.

When this cat witnesses all this complaining and asking, she has sympathy, but with growing impatience. John F. Kennedy’s advice to his nation was: “Ask not what the government can do for you; ask what you can do for the government.”

If only more people would be made to realize the depth and validity and the immediacy of this saying. But, no, we dare not introduce Americanisms in to our way of behaviour, leave alone our thinking.

Our dear Wi Wee will see stars and stripes too. He will denounce those who quote this and pronounce “We have a 2,500-year cultural heritage with a historical /literary tome – the Mahavamsa - written by Jackson Anthony”!

Since Wi Wee knows that protests at the US Embassy gates are not taken note of by even us in Colombo, except with a sneer, he might direct his oratory at this cat for bringing up this saying, valid and famous though it may be.

So she rests her case against mass protests and great and unjust expectations loaded on the government, struggling against the wrath of gods brought on either by Kuveni or smashed coconuts, or nuts crazy for power through destabilization. Why else the recent no confidence motion against the Minister of Finance?

- Menika