This cat reclined happily purring on her sofa. She decided she had vent enough wrath on the GMOA of late and even the Maha Sangha – those in so called saffron robes who are above criticism. They were pure and had gone into homelessness knowing its full implications in the time of the Buddha who brought the Sangha to being; and in days of yore when Buddhism was observed in its pristine purity and clarity in the times of our glorious past, starting from the arrival of Mahinda Thera. They were dedicated to the religion, observant of vinaya vows and exemplary in behaviour, even in our times. This cat often mentions Venerables Narada , Piyadasssi and Madihe Pannaseeha. Then, with the tentacles of politics creeping menacingly to all spheres of life, religion, especially, that practised by the majority, got clouded. The depths were reached by the rise of the Bodu Bala Sena.
In spite of the sheer force of its leader, Gnanasara Thera, it would have faded into obscurity and ineffectuality if not for the patronage given it by no less a politician than Gotabaya R who was seen at a rally of theirs. Then came very recently a court case and a punishment. A high court judge wisely acted impartial and imposed a fine. So some monks, egged on by the Economic Voice in the JO, and led by a senior monk with a doctorate in Buddhism went pinnapaaathe collecting money to pay the fine. The two for whom the money was collected have politely (and judiciously) refused the cash dropped in the begging monks’ bowls.
A 3.2 km long saripota
Oh me! Oh my! How this cat has wondered off in her written rambling. She started by saying she reclined happily, purring all the while since the GMOA and pinnapaathe Sangha seemed quiet. She wondered what she could gripe about on the Sunday that would fall on the first of October 2017. And then arose a cry, brouhaha, a gasp of surprise and to cap them all, a hopeless feeling of uselessness of the general public because of its stupidity. 250 children were made to get up at the ungodly hour of 2 a m, long before the first streak of sunlight was due in the East; scrubbed, washed and got ready for school. They travelled the usual distance to the Alawathugoda Sarath Ekanayake Junior School to have a hundred selected to be togged up in flaming red half saris as flower girls and the less pretty to stand along the road over a distance of three kilometers and more, holding a piece of material that they could see neither end of. They stood yawning and squirming and surely some fainting as the sun rose and scorched them. Did they know what they were up to? No! They were like Alfred Lord Tennyson’s hapless, charging Light Brigade.
Half a metre, half a metre, /Half a metre onward
All in the bridal procession/Of girls, maids
and teachers
All on the Kandy Road.
“Forward, the bridal pota!/ Hold it firm!” he said.
Sarath Ekanayake, Secy of CP,
patron of Junior School
Was there a child dismayed?/
Though boiled in the hot sun
And swept by strong winds?
Someone had blundered.
Theirs not to make reply,/ Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to hold the pota /
and faint or just collapse.
The aim of the cruel fiasco?
And what was this mass of little tots with parents in tow and teachers up to? A wedding with no wedding, only a Kandyan dressed couple, and here’s the crux of the matter, the bride’s sari pota being 3.2 kilometres long! It had to be held up, so a 150 girls lined to do this job and a 100 were bridesmaids. All in the name of the game of getting into the Guinness World Records 2018. This feline’s first and firmest comment: Why on earth could they not have a ten foot or five yards long sari pota? It would still have made it to the Guinness Book. Why ever three kilometres needing so many little hands to hold it up?
The dress itself and the wedding were travesties. No Kandyan bride has a train to be carried by maids as a veiled bride does, or one in a dress which could have the hemline trailing behind if the veil was short. So, culture too was maligned and distorted.
The Governor of the Central Province, another Ekanayake (far too many of them in power!) has summoned VVIPs of the Province and District for a meeting but her surname-sake was absent. The Child Protection Authority was apprised of the cruelty to the kids and they are set to inquire into the business. Punishment is called for. The Principal is guilty of allowing a school day to be used stupidly; but there must have been a higher-up who gave her the order to yield her students to a brainless, nay, damaging project.
Hissing criticism
At a lunch on Sunday 24th this cat and others of the feline kind discussed this sari pota issue. Many declaimed: “If I were a mother of a child in that school, I would never have consented to near torturing my child.” Some positively vituperated. But, sense in some intoned: “You just cannot go against such requests from political high-ups. Principals have no autonomy; teachers and parents, no choice. Just do and die and hope it will pass over with no repetition.”
My title reads ‘a penchant for mismanaging’. By whom and what? Most things by the government and mostly politicos with little upstairs. Where brains should be they have empty spaces or cells full of evil design. And poor us, we the people, suffer.
- Menika