Features
Cynicism; new tricks by petty criminals
“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice.”
If you, reader, did not discern a change in the words used previously and those of the most recent Cry-s. Cass will point out the difference to you. Previously her Cry-s were bitter and full of rancour, disappointment, shock, dismay; words often used were corruption, breaking rules and laws, self-centeredness; epithets for those in power: dishonest, swindlers, chain snatchers and worse. Her language changed: softened, became decent and delicate. The pleasing word ‘hope’ came into her vocabulary with the ascent of AKD, Harini and Vijitha. She hopes others of the ruling party who joined this triumvirate and those posted to important positions will allow her to use the softer words of approval and not the harsh words of opprobrium used during previous regimes. Even on this score she harbours hope.
Please no cynicism
Cassandra spent time this early part of the week reading on Dr Manmohan Singh, statesman and twice PM of India. Having earned his BA, MA and Doctorate in economics in an Indian university and then from Cambridge and Oxford Universities, he turned India around in the late 1990s from economic difficulty to solvency and thus on its path of economic recovery and advancement in every sphere. India being among the developed countries in many aspects is due in large measure to Dr Manmohan Singh’s policies and guidance of the government.
Cass read his speech delivered at the University of Oxford, July 8, 2005, when awarded an honorary doctorate. He mentions at the beginning of his speech that he arrived in the UK after a terrorist protest had been quelled in India to find Britain at the tail end of a terrorist attack. He started his address thus: “It is clear that terrorism is a global threat. Terrorism anywhere is a threat to peace, freedom, human dignity and civilisation everywhere. Terrorism is cowardice aimed at innocent people. It is fed on hatred and cynicism.”
Cass logged onto the final sentence. We in Sri Lanka have had more than our fair share of hatred and cynicism. I need not spell instances. Cynicism being a forerunner of negativity and misunderstanding came to me forcefully at a dinner when one person jeered at the pictures that appeared in the press of Dr Harini marketing with a carrier in her hand and President AKD visiting his mother in the Anuradhapura General Hospital. To the diehard sceptic and cynic, these pictures were manipulated; a photographer of each of the two had accompanied each and then released photographs to the press.
Congratulations due to our PM and Prez. They go about like ordinary people. No heavy escorts; no panjandrum belief of being powerful personages or pretentious officials. They come across as ordinary persons but holding competently the two most powerful positions in SL. We recollect that First Lady Shiranthi Rajapaksa went on her daily walk with a posse of service men and women. No danger of even a dog barking at her, but an armed escort seemed to be a mark of prestige. It unnecessarily drew attention to her. Also remembered is Maitripala Sirisena as new Common Candidate Prez doing his calisthenics in Independence Square with uniformed guards around. But power went to his head and eroded his original simplicity.
And another very favourable comment: Our First Mother (Cass proudly coins a sobriquet) opted to humbly ward herself in the closest hospital when ill. This demonstrates not only simplicity but also faith in our health services. We remember how previous ministers and relatives of VIPs flew to Singapore with retinue at the first sign of even a minor malady. Millions spent on an acrobatic balcony walker from the President’s Fund for months in an Australian hospital.
We need to appreciate genuineness and honesty as shown by present VVIPs. No sarcastic twists to true simplicity shown, please.
New forms of duping
We suffered the menace of more than one well-dressed impressionable young man claiming to be a close friend of the son of the woman he visited, asking for a loan of Rs 15,000, to buy a life-saving injection for his hospitalised grandmother. He gave details of the son he claimed to know and even phoned him (boruwata) that he was with his mother. Two of my friends fell for the wicked ruse.
Cass was greeted by a woman at a chocolate shop and she said her husband was at Durdans and she was admitting him to the general hospital but needed white clothes for him. “I find I have no petrol in my car parked over there.” Cass was ensnared though she could not remember this person at all. She asked the woman to accompany her home in the three-wheeler she was in. and when they reached home, she got suspicious. She had promised Rs 2000 but gave her Rs 1,000. The dame left hurriedly and Cass went after her. A security guard said a woman of the description she gave had driven off in a red car. Cass swears that these criminals have hypnotic or other powers over those they ensnare.
Cass’ weekly help, Rupa, related an incident she had faced a week before. Near the Fort Railway Station, a well-dressed dame with tears in her eyes held onto her arm and told her it was her mother’s third death anniversary and she wanted to donate a big bag of groceries to her as she resembled her mother. Rupa was wary. Then she heard the woman answering a man’s call that she had found the person to give charity to. Rupa flung aside the woman’s restraining arm and fled. Maybe, it was the sight of her huge gold earrings that prompted the charity offer.
A friend sent a clip of a recent gimmick: wanting to spray women drivers’ wrists with a perfume he/she was peddling in underground car parks. Cass thought it was a ruse enacted in a foreign country. No, said the friend, it happens in Colombo.
A domestic Cass knew felt a pin prick in the back of her neck and the next thing she knew was this man befriending her. This while she was awaiting her employer’s car to pick her up at the Pettah bus stand. She followed the man in a drugged state. He seated her in a kiosk and asked her to hand over her thick gold necklace to him for safe keeping. By now, she later narrated, she was seeing bright patterns on the walls of the kiosk. When she regained her senses, she took a three-wheeler to her employer’s home and was examined by a doctor. Her life’s savings invested in gold was gone.
With so many policemen released from no-work security duty to out-of-importance VVIPs, such cunning fraudsters could be caught and duly punished. Fraud even in a bus stand must be stamped out.
As Cass ended her Cry, she noticed that only good had been said about politicians and her anecdotal comments were on petty thieves and their ruses. What a change from how her Cry-s read when previous governments were in power. Then it was about this Minister causing death to patients; that asking a donor government for a santhosam to consent to a project; and the third flying overseas to supervise illegal lucre stashed away. Also, her diatribes regarding workers marching in protest, from medics and university lecturers to farmers and teachers. Thankfully an absent sight today. How? Instigators of protests in power now! Hence no destabilisation.
Cass wishes all her readers a good 2025 in a country firmly on the path to economic and social stability.