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A singular modern Lankan mentor – Part II

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Prof. Obeyesekere

by Laleen Jayamanne and Namika Raby
(Part I of this article appeared in The Island on Friday (31 Jan.)

Women’s Mental Health: Trance/Dance in Folk Rituals

The lecture Namika heard on ‘pregnancy cravings’ (dola duka) among peasant women in a particular village, is one of Gananath’s earliest pieces of research which shows his turn of mind, originality, in taking seriously a compelling female desire which may not have been treated in the scholarly arena with the gravity and seriousness that it warranted. I associate a certain sense of cultural embarrassment on hearing the term ‘dola duka’ in Sinhala back in the day when a pregnant relative of mine craved to eat pieces from a freshly baked (navun) clay pot with its special fragrance. The film shows Gananath’s empathetic ability to pay careful ethnographic attention to a variety of gendered states of mental distress and trauma and their traditional ritualised ecstatic expressions, especially with regard to women, well before some feminist scholars in the West began to be interested in the topic of ‘Women and Madness’ from a Freudian psychoanalytic perspective. Psychoanalytic theory became methodologically important for Feminist Film Theory, which I used in my doctoral thesis on ‘Female Representation in the Lankan cinema’.

A sequence in Dimuthu’s film focuses on the subject of Gananath’s book Medusa’s Hair: An Essay on Personal Symbols and Religious Experience, which is a case history of an old woman called Karunawathi Maniyo (mother). She appears with her thickly matted, long snake-like grey locks which, we are told, were created by her as a mode of existence, entailing a ritualised daily practice of puja at an altar, with images of the fierce Kali with fangs and Durga Ashuramardani (a divine figure of combat capable of violence and great power), to express and assuage her mental distress. However, I did not see an image of Pattini, the ‘good mother’, on her altar.

It is worth noting that both Kali and Durga are not maternal figures and though they were incorporated into the Brahminical Hinduism, they have no consorts and were in origin folk goddesses, according to the historian of ancient India, D. D. Kosambi. It is worth remembering that the first feminist press in English, in India was called ‘Kali for Women’! There is here an evident externalisation of an unusual desire, intelligible within Karunawathi Manio’s social class/group and as such, acceptance of her idiosyncratic behaviour and appearance. It is impossible to imagine such a Medusa-like scary treatment of hair in a middle-class milieu.

Again, there are images of a possessed young woman, Nawala Maniyo, who participates in an exorcist ritual in a trance, eyes glistening between strands of her long tresses masking her face. This reminds me of Gananath’s extraordinarily gripping Case Study, ‘Psycho-Cultural Exegesis of a Case of Spirit Possession in Sri Lanka,’ which we dramatised for the soundtrack of my film A Song of Ceylon (Australian Film Commission, Sydney: 1985). Again, as an ethnographer he demonstrates how the Sinhala-Buddhist folk culture provided symbolic means of collective, public, theatricalised, somatic, expression of profound individual trauma registered in the unconscious of the young possessed woman, Somawathi, and the therapeutic value of these public, social forms of physical expression.

In the early 20th Century Vienna, the Neurologist Sigmund Freud treated young bourgeoise female patients suffering from a new pathology named ‘Hysteria,’ which in turn led him to postulate a theory of the Unconscious and to develop his ‘Talking Cure’ through ‘free-association’, to assuage mental pain. This however was in a privatised and personalised setting in his study; the female patient lying down on a couch speaking in a ‘stream of consciousness’ mode, with Dr Freud as the silent listener, his gaze averted. Freud’s case studies of these patients are also gripping reading, like a 19th Century novel, and they are also ‘ethnographic’ psychoanalytic interpretations of the pathology named Hysteria, a new medical category which entered the Diagnostic Manual.

A portrait sculpture of Prof. Gananath Obeysekera by Prof. Sarath Chandrajueewa

In contrast, while deeply interested and trained in psychoanalytic theory and methodology at the University of Washington, Seattle, by European specialists, Gananath appreciated and powerfully theorised the public, social nature of Exorcist Rituals (Bali Thovil) and other such therapeutic practices.

Further, he showed how the rituals, based on folk beliefs, were imaginative, performative public events with an ‘audience’ participating in them and their importance as witnesses, for the cure. In these, the female ‘patient’ or woman possessed of demons danced to drum beats in ecstatic trance, resisting through spirited dialogue, the Exorcist (Kattadirala), who embodied patriarchal authority and even physical violence. In these rituals the possessed woman is given a public arena to play (dance) in, and while the ritual has a familiar cultural ‘script’ so to speak, the possessed woman has every chance to improvise and play as she desires or as the demons (all male) possessing her desire.

It is clear through this work that, contra psychoanalysis, the unconscious is not structured like a language and the repressed is insighted to find expression through trance-dance and vocal expression which go against traditional notions of femininity. In ecstatic states the patient is animated by drum beats that touch her nervous system directly and thus the entire body, revealing deep registers of affective trauma, that a purely static, talking cure (while lying down on, what became, that famous couch, now preserved in the Freud Museum in London) could not possibly do.

Dimuthu brings all this out lucidly, not only with the questions he poses to Gananath but also by placing the relevant photographs or clips within the interview sequences themselves. This montage technique of placing carefully chosen stills and clips from Gananath’s very extensive ethnographic archive, interspersed with the ‘Talking Heads’ interviews, makes the film very lively and watchable. It also teaches us something about the complex theoretical ideas Gananath worked with in an accessible way because of his powers of ‘scientific’ rigorous ethnographic observation, tempered by a Buddhist Humanist empathy and engaging style of writing so rare in scholarship.

Perhaps the film would encourage young scholars to read Gananath’s writing as Dimuthu did even before he entered the University. And I hope it encourages the translation of at least some of his major work. The film is significant in this sense, too, because Gananath did not accept the orthodoxy in his field and questioned received methodologies and theories. His critical mind is truly dazzling in its generosity of spirit and sense of curiosity even so late in his retirement. We hear him say, ‘Even now (then in his 80s, soon to be 95!), I am learning something new every day in the Uva-Wellassa area’ and exhorts us also to make that a goal. Yes, let’s!

Gananath’s use of the idea of the unconscious, via Freudian Psychoanalysis, in his ethnographic theorisation of rituals was enabling methodologically. It provided a key theoretical concept for understanding the actions performed by men and women under immense mental and physical duress, which went against the mandated gender norms of the traditional culture. I remember in the 1980s how Gananath was severely criticised by Marxists for ‘indulging in and validating superstitious folk beliefs and practices’ among the so called, ‘ignorant peasantry’.

The whole nexus of folk beliefs and cultural practices, including aspects of Hinduism, and their integral articulation with Buddhism, practiced as a popular religion with rituals and dramatic enactments by these rural communities was dismissed in a simplistic rationalist critique, as myth, hence false. But what has survived time, as an anthropologically cogent theoretical analysis based on meticulous, imaginative ethnographic work, is Gananath’s central argument about the hybrid, generous, inclusive nature of Buddhism as a religion, practiced in the robust, open folk traditions, by the peasantry. Dinidu gives considerable time to Dr Kumudu Kusum Kumara, who explains Gananath’s very detailed, complex argument and research with clarity and imagination in the film.

Buddhist Humanism or ‘Protestant Buddhism’

Kumudu explains the significance of Gananath’s formulation of the concept of ‘Protestant Buddhism’ introduced by the Theosophist Colonel Olcott in the 19th Century, who schooled the Buddhist revivalist Anagarika Dharmapala in constituting a Sinhala-Buddhist Catechism based on the Thripitakaya (the canonical Buddhist text), fit for school children in Daham Pasal modelled on Sunday School for Christian kids. He explains how this was a rationalising, westernising move, following Max Weber’s thinking here. Gananath’s brilliant coinage ‘Protestant Buddhism’, which was also strongly aligned with the Nationalist Anti-Colonial Movement, rationalised religious practices making them exclusive. A Victorian-English-Protestant-Puritanism thus entered Buddhism in Lanka, making it more akin to Protestantism in Europe which had a very severe moral code. Thereby the inclusive flexibility of the Buddhist folk tradition with its humour and sense of play, is lost along with, crucially, the story-telling tradition based on the Jataka Tales of the Buddha’s many rebirths, parables about ethical behaviour towards all living beings.

With this loss, we are told, the tradition of Buddhist Humanism, with its values of compassion as exemplified in these stories teaming with natural life and animals, too, also disappeared. Further, through this loss the ethical values nurturing and sustaining ‘a Buddhist Conscience’ were also lost, he argues. We are shown (via images), how the painterly folk tradition in Temple Murals and the literary sources, song, poetry (kavi), trance-dance, drumming, dramatic enactments within the folk traditions (as distinct from the official chronicles of the Mahavamsa and Deepawams), offered an alternative vision of Buddhism as practiced by the peasantry.

We learn that in the folk tradition Dutthagamini repented killing Elare the Tamil king and conscience struck, he attempted reparation and contrition, unlike the patricidal king Kashyapa who escaped into a hedonist life in the rock fortress of Sigiriya. Kumudu says that Gananath argued his case by reading the folk archive, of images on Temple walls and anonymous folk texts (Panthis Kolmura, a large corpus of 35 long poems, some of which he translated and also sang, Kadaym poth or Boundry texts and Vitti poth or Event books), which were authorless and title less work of the people, for the people and by the people. The film helps us to understand that it is this folk tradition, cultivating empathy and an ethical conscience, a capacity to be contrite, that has been lost within the post-independent ethno-nationalist version of official Protestant-Sinhala-Buddhism, with state patronage. This imported ideology of the English speaking coloniser is then presented as the ‘pure original Buddhism’ shorn of local superstition, hybrid folk tales and beliefs and rituals, rejected as ‘unBuddhist’. Indologists in turn supported this rationalising move of creating a ‘pure, original Buddhism’.

A Case Study

Kareem, a young Muslim man hangs on hooks (attached to a swing-like structure on wheels in a religious procession), as penance at the Kataragama Hindu festival and is also seen dancing in a trance. Gananath explains in his Case Study of Kareem that he was imprisoned in 1961 for assisting in the Army Coup against the Government. One wonders how a humble young Muslim cook got caught up in and imprisoned for a foolish Coup staged by a select group of English-speaking bourgeois gentlemen of Colombo, who were all high up in the armed forces of that era. Daughters of three of these officials who were arrested and served sentences were close friends of mine in school during this time, which heightens a sense of the absurdity of this poor man’s plight. Gananath’s case study of his childhood revealed an authoritarian paternal figure who instilled fear in him. However, he seemed serene and happy in the photographs taken with Gananath after the ritual and even when swinging from the ritual hooks.

Here, I would like to cite Arjun Appadurai’s review of Gananath’s magnum opus, The Cult of the Goddess Pattini because it is not readily available to those outside the academy.

“This is a book of unusual scope, quality, and scholarly significance. Ostensibly a description and analysis of a single cult in Sri Lanka, it is in fact a major symbolic, psychological, and ethno-historical study of practical religion in Sri Lanka, and of the relationship of that island to Indic culture and society. It is the product of two decades of field research by Sri Lanka’s most distinguished anthropological interpreter, and its combination of textual analysis, ethnographic sensitivity, and methodological catholicity makes it something of a blockbuster”.

Dimuthu informed me that Gananath studied six different traditions of the Pattini Cult, starting in the 1950s. Dimuthu and his research team went looking for the priests of each of these traditions named in his book and found that they had died but they did meet a student of Yahonis Pattini Mahattaya of the Rabaliya tradition and of Podi Mahaththaya, H. D. Edwin Pattini Mahatthaya, who is now the only living informant of Gananath’s Pattini research. Edwin Pattini Mahattaya performed aspects of the Pattini Cult for Gananath at his request for the sake of photo documenting it for his book. His son Tilak is seen dancing as Pattini in the Dimuthu’s film. Seeing him becoming Pattini (after his ritual investiture), even in an all too short clip, is among the high points of this film for me, because we see a profound metamorphosis of this young male ritual dancer into a female archetype, Pattini, the only Mother goddess of Lanka, in an inspired rhythmic play with codes of gender and beyond to reach an ecstatic body and spirit – words fail me. What we can also see is the profound gestural, rhythmic, spiritual transmission of this syncretic tradition across generations, across the abyss of death itself.

Pattini’s origins are in Kannagi, a heroic human figure from the Tamil Epic Silappadikaram, who is worshiped as a mother goddess, Kannagi-Amman, in India and in the East coast of Lanka by Tamils who still observe matrilineal descent (a system of tracing kinship through a person’s female ancestors), according to Gananath. The significance of this for gender and family relationships would be of particular interest to feminists. There is a large modern Bronze statue celebrating Kannagi in Chennai, India and colourful plaster ones and paintings in Hindu temples in Lanka, seen carrying her iconic anklet. (To be concluded)


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Features

Shame! Ragging raises its cowardly head again

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2025/05/9

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Ragging at Sabaragamuwa university has resulted in the loss of another student’s life and there is another incident of barbaric attack on an anti-rag student of J’pura university by some students from the same university. Whether the bullies are backed by political parties or not, they show their undeveloped and conformist minds that need urgent refinement; if they are connected to political parties and student unions, the latter show only their vulgarity and duplicity when they wax eloquent about modern education, culture, decadent politics, human rights, corruption and all that jazz. That this barbarous practice continues in broad daylight and under the very nose of university and law enforcement authorities is deplorable and puzzling to say the least. It is ironic that the best minds, the superstars in academia, the leading lights in education and the guardians of all that is progressive have become helpless spectators of this bullying happening in their universities. The ignominious records of rag victims in our country are a crying shame as all those perpetrators have been from that somewhat musty and largely conservative ‘cream of intelligence’ as they are called at all inauguration ceremonies where their egos are pampered.

Ragging in our universities is a sure sign of the backwardness of our culture and education, in comparison with that of civilized societies. The brutal practice of ragging shows that education in our country, both in schools and universities, has a lot of room for improvement about making the undergraduate population sensitive and sensible, more than ‘educated’. Of course, we can understand torture if it is something which happens in the underworld or in any place where the new recruits must be brutaliesed before they are admitted to their circles, but how can one understand when it happens in the highest seats of academia? Professor O. A. Ileperuma has, in his article “Ragging and loss of life” published in The Island of 5 May 2025, stated that some academics turn a blind eye to ragging perhaps “because they themselves were raggers in the past and see nothing harmful in such sordid instances of ragging”. This is pathetic and may perhaps prove some of the accusations that have been made ad nauseum about the lack of a wholesome education in our university system, which is said to be obsessed with mass producing ‘employable graduates’.

As they say, desperate times call for desperate measures. As far as the ragging culture in our universities is concerned, desperate measures are long overdue. In the highest institutes of learning where knowledge is produced and all the progressive and advanced ideas are supposed to be generated, there has been unfathomable brutality, crudeness and conventionality in the name of an acquired beastliness which they call ‘ragging’ to give it a quasi-academic smell when all it amounts to is lack of refinement which can be linked to numerous reasons.

Most of the culprits are the victims of a system which esteems hierarchy where it is accepted that superiority is synonymous with repressive power and inferiority is another term for meekness and passive acceptance of all commands coming from above. It is a mentality which is based on the warped logic that superiority is absurd if the seniors have no right to snub the juniors. Those who have tasted humiliation in one form or another for long due to reasons inherent in society can grow up to be vengeful. Most of these diehard raggers often show signs of this mentality in the way they behave the minute they have been automatically lifted to their pathetic superiority after one year in the university where they enjoy a mistaken sense of immunity from the law. The widely publicised idea of ‘freedom’ associated with universities and their relative aloofness from the rest of society and the aura they have acquired have made them safe havens for the raggers if the unmitigated brutality in ragging over the long years is any indication. The question is why (oh why?) these learned bullies despise civilised behaviour so much in their enclaves of power merely on the strength of one year’s seniority. If it is their one year’s accumulated knowledge which makes them feel superior to the newcomers in an aggressive way, surely, such knowledge is questionable, which must intrigue educationists, psychologists, sociologists and all academics interested in the role of education in character building.

Raggers have been saying ad nauseam that ragging is given to make the new entrants tough enough for academic work. As we know their methods include using foul language, humiliation, intimidation, physical and psychological abuse, torture, beating and forcing rigorous exercises even leading to death. The resultant trauma has led some to commit suicide. All this is done to help the new students with a proven capacity for hard work in the academic field!

However, there are some pertinent questions to be asked. Is this method of building resilience of potential academics backed by research? Should this ‘programme’ be conducted by senior students (who are apparently mentally unsound)? Aren’t there better qualified people to conduct a civilised programme which would help make the newcomers ready to face the trials of academic life? Do they believe that no refined programme can be as ‘effective’ as their ragging? Why should they spend their valuable time doing it when it can be done by experts in a more organised and civilised manner? Have they ever been cultured enough to discuss this so-called ‘personality development’ programme with the relevant authorities and academics, with any reliable evidence to prove its effectiveness?

As we know, these raggers who are self-appointed ‘experts’ in character building of sorts expect total submission from the juniors they try to brutalise, and those who dare resist this bullying are viciously suppressed. To what extent does this compulsory compliance expected from the new students at the beginning of their academic career help them to be better undergrads?

How much more brutality in ragging is to be endured by the new university entrants for “desperate measures” to be called for?

by Susantha Hewa

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80th Anniversary of Second World War

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2025/05/9

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The beginning of World War II: German warplanes attacking Poland in Sept. 1939.

One of the most important dates in World War II, is May 9, 1945, when the Soviet red flag with the hammer and sickle emblem was raised over the Reichstag building, the German parliament. This confirmed Germany’s unconditional surrender to the Soviet Union. Since then, 80 years have passed upto May 9, 2025. It is very timely to look back on the past 80 years of history, and to briefly discuss some of the current issues and the future.

Beginning and End of the 2nd World War

World War II began on September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany attacked Poland. Within a year of the war, the world’s imperialist powers had divided into two camps. Germany was on one side, targeting Europe, Italy Africa, and Japan Asia, while Great Britain, the United States, and France were on the other side of the war.

Within a short time from the start of the war, Germany had conquered many countries in Europe, and on June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union joined the anti- Nazi Allies and launched the “Great Patriotic War” to defend the world’s first socialist state, and progressive forces around the world acted in a way that supported the Soviet Union.

Three major battles known as the Battles of Moscow, Stalingrad, and Kursk turned the tide of World War II, shattering Hitler’s dream of capturing Moscow in a few months (4 months) through Operation “Barbarossa” and celebrating the victory from Red Square. By the beginning of 1945, the entire Soviet Union had been liberated from Nazi Germany, and by March 1945, the Soviet Red Army had surrounded Berlin from the east, south, and north, and then surrounded the entire city, surrendering the German forces, ending the European War of World War II on May 9.

World War II was a major war in which 61 countries, representing 89% of the world’s population participated, and the total number of deaths in this war was 50 million, of which 25-30 million were Soviet citizens. The Soviet Red Army, which ended the Great War for the Liberation of Europe on May 9, 1945, entered the Battle of Manchuria three months later on August 9, 1945, and defeated imperialist Japan. By then, the United States had dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (on August 6 and 9). Thus, the Soviet Union played the major role in defeating the fascist military coalition, including Nazi Germany, during World War II.

Post-World War order

Negotiations, to shape the post-war world order, began while World War II was still ongoing. In talks held in Washington in January-February 1942, in Canada in 1943, later in Moscow, and in Tehran, Iran in November-December 1943, the Soviet Union, the United States, Great Britain, and China agreed to establish an international organisation with the aim of preserving world peace. Later, the Soviet, American and British leaders who met in Yalta in Crimea agreed on the structure of the United Nations, the Security Council, and the veto power, and the United Nations Charter, signed by 50 countries in San Francisco in 1945, came into force on October 24, 1945.

Rise of Socialist world and collapse of colonialism

With the Soviet victory in World War II, the world underwent unprecedented changes. Although Mongolia was the only socialist state other than the Soviet Union at the start of World War II, after that war, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Albania in Eastern Europe also became socialist countries. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam was established in 1945, and in 1947 a socialist state was established in East Germany under the name of the German Democratic Republic. The Chinese Revolution triumphed in 1949, and the Cuban Revolution triumphed in 1959. Thus, the socialist system established in a single country by the October Revolution in 1917 developed into a world system against the backdrop of the unique victory of the Soviet Union in World War II.

Another direct result of the victory in World War II was the collapse of the colonial system. National liberation struggles intensified in Asia, Africa and Latin America, and new independent countries emerged one after another on these continents. In the 25-30 years that followed the end of World War II, the colonial system almost completely collapsed. The United Nations, which began with 50 member states, now has 193 members.

With the end of World War II, working class struggles intensified. Communist parties were formed all over the world. Although the Sri Lankan working people’s movement was in a state of truce during World War II, the war ended in May 1945 and by August it had gone on a general strike. The 8-hour workday, wage boards, holiday systems and monthly salary systems were won through that struggle. The working class movement in this country was able to win many rights, including pension rights, overtime pay, and other rights, through the general strike held in 1946. Although the general strike of 1947 was suppressed, there is no doubt that the British government was shocked by this great struggle. In the elections held in 1947, leftist and progressive groups were elected to parliament in large numbers, and independence with Dominion status was achieved in 1948.

World is in turmoil

Until this era, which is 80 years after the end of World War II, the world has so far managed to prevent another world war. Although there have been no world wars, there have been several major conflicts around the world. The ongoing Middle East conflict over the forced displacement of the Palestinian people, the conflict created by Western powers around Iran, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and the recently escalating Indo-Pakistan conflict are among them. The limited military operation launched by Russia to prevent the NATO organization reaching its borders, has transformed into a battle between Russia and the collective West. But the conflict now seems to have entered a certain path of resolution.

Several parties have launched trade wars that are destabilising the world, perhaps even escalating into a state of war. Thousands of trade sanctions have been imposed against Russia, and the US President has declared a trade war by imposing tariffs on dozens of countries around the world.

Meanwhile, the world has not yet been able to provide a satisfactory solution to the problem of global warming, which has threatened the existence of the entire human race.

The Bretton Woods Organizations (International Monetary Fund and World Bank), which were economic operating institutions established after World War II, have not only failed to lead the world’s economic development, but there is a strong allegation that the guidance of those institutions has exacerbated the economic problems of newly independent countries.

At this time of commemoration of the 80th anniversary of World War II, it is our responsibility to resolve the above problems facing the people of the world and to dedicate ourselves to the future of humanity.

Way forward

Accordingly, a futuristic, new economic order is emerging, and a multipolar world has been formed. The most important point to emphasise here is that the world order that was established after World War II, which encompasses various fields, is a system jointly developed by the great powers that won that war, and the reforms that need to be made in accordance with the demands to change this world order to suit the current reality must be identified collectively. No single country can change these world structures.

People are rallying all over the world for issues related to the survival of the entire human race, such as controlling global warming. New programmes that contribute to the economic development of most countries in the world have been or are being developed. The New Silk Road projects, the BRICS organisation, the New Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization are such programs/new institutions. A global process has been launched to prevent a nuclear war and maintain world peace.

Many of the above-mentioned issues and problems have arisen through imperialist military and economic planning and operations, and therefore, the contradiction between imperialism and the people has become the main contradiction of this era. Therefore, it must be emphasized on the 80th anniversary of the Second World War that the way forward in the world will be through the people’s struggle against imperialism.

by Dr. G. Weerasinghe
General Secretary, Communist
Party of Sri Lanka

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New Mayors; 80th Anniversary of VE Day; Prince Harry missteps yet again

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This week’s Cry is put together as the voting goes on for mayors of Municipal Councils. Cass is rather confused about this second tier of government, so she googled and here is what she got: “There are currently 29 municipal councils in Sri Lanka. These councils govern the largest cities and first tier municipalities in the country. The local government system also includes 36 urban councils and 276 Pradeshiya Sabhas.” Not that this has made matters clearer to Cass.

She believes that for a small country of 22 m people, we are too heavily governed from above, with a central government and then all these councils and sabhas below.  Consider the number employed in them; most underworked and underworking. Another matter is that if you want a matter seen to, regarding property rates, etc., you are most often sent from this Sabha to that council.

This came about with the 13th Amendment to the Sri Lanka Constitution introduced on November 14, 1987, following the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord, which aimed to address the ethnic conflict by granting some autonomy to provincial councils.  As Cass believes it was imposed on us by India after the threat expressed by India, instigated by Tamil Nadu, when Prabhakaran in his military childhood, was cornered and almost captured in Vadamarachchi.

India rained parippu on the northern peninsular, demanded no arrests of LTTE; and it was rumoured Indian forces were poised on the southern and south eastern coasts of the subcontinent ready to sail to war to the island below them. PM Rajiv Gandhi came instead; Prez JRJ was constrained to meet, greet and honour him. One rating in a guard of honour which handsome Rajiv inspected, expressed the majority people’s opinion; “We don’t want you here!”  After which guards of honour worldwide are kept strictly at a safe distance from the VVIP honoured.

To Cass the most important fact of the election progressing now and its outcome is that she hopes newly elected mayors will insist on the Municipal Councils’ employees doing the work allotted to them: mostly garbage collectors; sprayers against mosquitoes; PHIs inspecting kitchens of eating houses and those in charge of general cleanliness of cities keeping s clean.

Complaints are numerous that roads are dirty, garbage piled up and drains and small waterways clogged so water remains stagnant and thus the rapid spread of most debilitating chikungunya.

May 8 1945 – VE Day

This date marked Victory in Europe. “… after Britain and its allies formally accepted Nazi Germany’s surrender after almost six years of war. At 15.00, the then Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced World War Two in Europe had come to an end.” Allied Forces marched into Germany from west and South and the Russians entered from the north. Hitler committed suicide and the Nazi so far invincible forces were shattered, battered and splintered. It was Emperor Hirohito who surrendered Japan and himself on August 15, 1945, after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings (Aug 6,9).

Thus, this year is the  80th anniversary of the end of World War II and Britain brought out its Palace Guards, forces and cheering crowds to celebrate the event, and more to pay homage  to veterans still living and extend gratitude to those soldiers, sailors and airmen and women who laid down their lives to save their country. King Charles III was present in a special seating area which had other members of the royal family; politicians and veterans and their families, while some of those who had served in the war rode in open cars to the cheers of the spectators.

The Netherlands and Canada too mounted celebrations. Canada made it a point to pay allegiance to the British Monarch as their head, and Cass feels sure King Charles III reciprocated with acknowledgement. Commented on were video statements Cass heard that this reiteration was for the benefit of Prez Trump with his plans to annex Canada as the 51st State of the US.

Prince of groans and complaints 

In the midst of this pageantry and show of British royal family’s unity was Prince Harry cutting a very poor figure of himself, most in an interview given to the BBC after he lost his British Court of Appeal challenge over his security arrangements. “The Duke of Essex, who attended both days of the hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice last month, was appealing a ruling dismissing his challenge to the level of police protection he receives in the UK” He was demanding  armed security for himself and his family if and when they visit England. This was refused because of his own withdrawal from royal duties, opting not to be a working member of the British Royal Family; and moving to the US to live.  Videos Cass watched tore him to pieces on several counts. He said he could not bring his wife and children to Britain. He said he wanted reconciliation but his father would not speak with him. Then the blunder of adding the sentiment that King Charles’ days on earth were numbered. “We don’t know how long he has to live.”

He was very annoyed with a compere of a British late-night show for referring to him as Harry with no Prince or Duke salutation.  He and his wife are not allowed to use HRH by King Charles’ orders, but it was said Meghan loves using the title. Here is a straightforward case of wanting and not wanting something, of utter selfishness and gross grasping.

Local news in English

Cass bemoans the fact she is no longer able to watch MTV News First at 6.30 of a morning. MTV late news in English is at 9.00 pm but it was repeated the next morning. Served lots, I am sure. In Cass’ case the TV set is monopolised by the two helpers she has with her. They watch teledramas on various channels all through the late evening almost to midnight. Can she butt in? Never! They need entertainment. So, no local news for her these days until she goes to another TV channel for news in English – few available. She hopes TV One will resume its news relay in English at 6.30 am after the welcome chanting of pirith. 

Cassandra wishes everyone and our much-loved country a continuation of the peace of Vesak. Oneness of the people as good persons was demonstrated in the crowds in Kandy recently. Mosques opened their doors wide to let in anyone and everyone come in and sleep. All races supplied food and water. Such unity was not seen before. A propitious sign for the future.

 

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