Features
The Broken Promise of the Lankan Cinema:
Asoka and Swarna’s Thrilling Melodrama – Part II
“‘Dr. Ranee Sridharan,’ you say. ‘
Nice to see you again.’
The woman in the white sari places a thumb in her ledger book, adjusts her spectacles and smiles up at you. ‘You may call me Ranee. Helping you is what I am assigned to do,’ she says. ‘You have seven moons. And you have already waisted one.’”
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida
by Shehan Karunatilaka (London: Sort of Books, 2022. p84)
(Continued from yesterday)
The Promise of a Multi-Ethnic National Cinema
The Colombo premiere of Broken Promise (1947) was a national event, attended by D. S. Senanayake and business leaders as it promised much – the possibility of a popular national cinema that addressed a multi-ethnic polity and a profitable business. People were bused into Kandy, where the film was screened in a large tent, and screened in several cinemas in Colombo and the suburbs. Certainly, from its inception the Lankan cinema was multi-ethnic in the composition of its creative artists (musicians, singers, actors, directors), technicians and producers, theatre and studio owners who provided the capital.
Sumathy Sivamohan’s 2018 film Sons and Fathers explored this multiethnic creative hybrid ecosystem of the industry during the 1983 pogrom against the Tamil citizens of Lanka. She modelled the musician in the film on the creative spirit of Rocksamy’s life and work so integral to the success of Lankan cinema. Sumathy researched the film by speaking to Mrs Rocksamy and incorporated a scene with her in the film. She spoke to impoverished old Tamil editors and the children of a musician to understand in some detail its multi-ethnic ecosystem and ethos of its lower-middle class creatives. She then crafted these ethnographic musical insights into an intricate poetic film.
Between Fact & Fiction: A Membrane/Skin
Sons and Fathers is a film that straddles the permeable boundaries between Documentary and Fiction films with a certain ease and confidence derived from its solid ethnographic research on the national film industry, its multi-ethnic artists and their lives. Sumathy does not proceed, as Asoka Handagama does, on the assumption that Documentary cinema is an entirely separate genre from Fictional genres. She is aware of the over one hundred-year history of Documentary cinema itself, its diversity, cross-cultural richness and its play between categories. For example, take the case of Basil Wright’s award winning ‘Poetic-Documentary’ The Song of Ceylon (1933). Lionel Wendt provided the research for this film and his tender voice-over poetic commentary, and took Kandyan drummer Suramba to London to record his sounds for the film’s ‘Devil dancing’ spirit possession ritual sequences which make the film catch fire. The film still has the power to haunt and vibrate us with its poetic cinematic intensity, the fictionalising power of its montage of sounds and images unchained from dogged documentary facts and realism.
Asoka Handagama surely must know this Lankan film history too, but tactically insists on the absolute separation between the genres of Documentary (reality), and Fiction (prabandaya), in defending Rani against strong criticism that it distorts the real lived experience of Manorani and Richard. Swarna laughingly dismissed this valid criticism as ‘Nephew and Niece criticism’, in an interview she gave in Australia, when the film was screened here in private screenings at multiplexes. But scorn and ignorance are not what we expect of senior artists of the calibre of Asoka and Swarna. They set a very bad example for the young, but perhaps young Lankans are cooler in their appraisal of such irresponsible behaviour and know it for what it is, ‘Neo-liberal ‘market-speak’.
The film Rani by Asoka Handagama presents the 1990 political assassination of the popular journalist-actor-poet Richard de Zoysa, (the ‘bi-racial’ child of a ‘mixed marriage’ between a Sinhala father and a Tamil mother), and ‘theatricalises’ or ‘dramatises’ its impact on his mother Dr Manorani Saravanamuttu, during an era of extreme political terror in the South of the country, between the UNP Government and the JVP. In naming the film Rani, Handagama appears to signal something because the ad tells us Sinhala folk that it means ‘Queen’. This metonymic displacement (a rhetorical strategy of taking a part for the whole), of the actual person’s proper name, ‘Manorani,’ into the dramatis-persona ‘Rani’, is further amplified and complicated by what Swarna Mallawarachchi has said about the character she played.
Swarna’s 28-year-old Promise
Swarna has said that she had met Manorani four times after her son’s assassination, beginning in 1996 and that she had promised her that she would tell her story and that of her son to the world. In this way she creates a certain gravitas, an ethic for her work on Rani, a sign of authenticity of a ‘true story’, testifying to a historical crime at the time of state terror and counter terror. True to her promise, she has said in recent interviews that she sustained her desire to play the role of Manorani for 28 years, at last realised in 2025 through the Indian production company LYCA’s capital.
Tamil Entrepreneurship and Sinhala Cinema
Subaskaran Allirajah, the CEO of LYCA films based in Chennai, is a Sri Lankan Tamil born in Jaffna and now a British citizen. LYCA film production is a subsidiary of a Telecommunication company for sim cards he runs from Britain. His film list includes Mani Ratnam and many major directors working across popular Tamil, Hindi and Telugu films in India, with an immediate global reach with the large Indian diaspora.
So, what sweet irony (after the violence levelled against Tamils who powered the Lankan film industry, burning the director Venkat in his car during July ‘83, but also later, with the assassination of Gunarathnam in his car, burning down of Tamil studios with Sinhala films stored therein and the proletarian movie theatres) that a Tamil business man from Jaffna has once again come to the rescue of the Sinhala cinema! As with Kadawunu Poronduwa in 1947, an Indian company, headed by a Lankan Tamil CEO has come to the rescue of a Sinhala film, with a Neo Liberal business model, kindling hope yet again for a national film industry, but this time with global dreams of access to streaming services such as NETFLIX and the like. It would appear that Lanka’s Sinhala language cinema cannot do without Tamil enterprise.
But it’s worth noting what S. Janaka Biyanwila says in his Polity essay:
‘Lyca has also been a major donor to the Conservative Party in the UK. In 2023, a French criminal court fined the company for tax fraud and money laundering. In 2024, the UK tax authorities demanded the company declare bankruptcy in order to pay overdue taxes. In 2018, LYCA acquired the EAP group in Sri Lanka with interests in media and entertainment, including television and radio channels and movie theatres. Last year (2024), the Sri Lankan government blocked LYCA from bidding for ownership shares in Sri Lanka Telecom and Lanka Hospitals.’
These monopolising moves of LYCA seeking ‘vertical integration’ of the film industry, should be front and centre even as some fans swoon over Rani and dream of a ‘quality’ Sinhala film industry revived by LYCA.
The Unconscious of the Sinhala Cinema Genealogy
(Vanshakathawe).
It is the Sinhala cinema’s unconscious, its ‘Other’ if you like, as expressed in Rani that I wish to render conscious in this piece. Let Rukmani Devi’s amaraneeya (undying) Shoka Gee (melancholy songs), and also that of Mohidin Baig’s Bhudu Gee once again cut through our sedimented Sinhala prejudices as we look back, both at our film history and its future at this critical moment.
Asoka’s Sovereign Right to ‘Self-Expression’
However, in contrast with Swarna’s promise to Manorani, Asoka Handgama says that as an artist (not a maker of documentary), he has exercised his ‘right to self-expression’ and has presented his own version of both Richard and his bereaved mother Manorani; in short, it is not a documentary, it’s fiction. It’s obvious that these two views, (on one hand, that of the actor keeping to a solemn promise to be true to what happened (through a ‘bio-pic,’ as the Head of Production, Janaki Wijerathna maintained in an interview), and on the other, that of the director expressing his own creative artistic-self), contradict each other. The film anticipates the criticism that it falsifies the biographical true story by providing a pre-emptive defence through a sentence, before the opening of the film, that it’s a work of fiction based on fact. This defensive move is part of its publicity, it anticipates controversy, provides the terms for it. I wish to side step this dynamic and shift the critical terrain, which is the professional task I set myself as a film theorist and scholar.
The actress and the director seem to have two different understandings of their intentions and what it is that they have done. Swarna then obfuscates matters further by saying, ‘film is a director’s medium and as an actor my work is to follow his wishes’. But Asoka has said that Swarna brought this project to him when LYCA came up with the money and he wrote it within 3 months with her in mind. It was not a film he had wanted to make, he said. He appears to have written a skeletal generic structure for Swarna to embody as she wishes, in her familiar high intensity, award winning mode of performance.
To Eat the Cake and Have It
To put it differently, they want to both ‘eat their cake and have it,’ which is of course very good PR for the box office success of the film. ‘Eating the cake’ implies maximising and gratifying their own pleasure as artists, and ‘having it’ as in keeping the cake intact, means that the names of the historical mother and son are used as a strong historical referent both within the film and in its PR, but get distorted when it gets in the way of the artists’ own ‘self-expression’ and self-gratification. That there is an ethical dilemma here, as many have pointed out, is a point I wish to explore further by theorising the aesthetics of the film. The invective one hears goes nowhere intellectually, but just feeds the publicity machine. Controversy is very good for promoting a film, creates a buzz, people want to see what all the fuss and excitement is about.
The exceptional box office success of the film is no doubt also linked to Swarna Mallawarachchi’s stature as a serious actress with a proven track record of award- winning work with some of Lanka’s main auteurs. And in being identified with Rani as Queen, at least one critic announced that Swarna is now a ‘golden super-star’. The logic of such hyperbolic marketing is of interest to me as a film scholar studying the public reception of films within the robust subfield of ‘Reception Studies’ and the kind of ‘public-spheres’ that competing discourses on a film generates, now especially, within a digitally powered virtual mediascape which is our democratic ‘commons’.
As well, importantly Asoka Handagama is one of Lanka’s major playwrights and an unusual modern filmmaker in that he has developed an idiom of his own, with a distinguished body of work which in turn has created an educated cine-literate audience who followed it keenly over a significant period of time. Therefore, Lankans are eager to see Swarna and Asoka present Dr. Manorani Saravanamuttu and Richard de Zoysa, a mother who was a Tamil professional woman and single parent and her very well-known and loved son, a journalist, actor and poet from the Lankan Anglophile upper-middle class, caught up in the extraordinary violence in the South, of the 1987-1990 era of extra-parliamentary politics of our island nation.
Political Theatre
The other draw card is the explicitly political representation of key political figures of the era represented by actors resembling the politician more or less. A thrilling novelty, it makes it structurally possible for Asoka to sketch the drama of the mother and son within the real-politic of the Premadasa era and even dramatize the bomb blast by the LTTE suicide bomber on a bicycle, which annihilated the president and others. LYCA’s Indian currency would have helped in staging the blast, as such destruction requires lots of money to execute with even a little credibility. This effort by Asoka is, in my opinion, a ‘third-world’ example because stage destruction, which cinema has perfected for profit in the genre of ‘Disaster movies’, requires much more than was available. He was pandering I feel to our desire to see President Premadasa being blown up, along with the senior cop who Manorani unequivocally identified as the one who arrived with lumpen thugs to her house, to abduct Richard, to torture and kill him according to, as widely believed, the President’s command.
This kind of violence, staged to excite and thrill, is the very stuff melodrama feeds on. The sonic ‘reverberation’ technically added to the sound of the abductors crashing into Richard’s house amplifies the melodramatic tension and suspense. In contrast, the three firm taps on the infamous heavy-wood teak Jaffna door, in Sumathy’s A Single Tumbler, chills the sensorium of the viewer, where fear and thought commingle as one quiet voice ‘signifying the boys’ announce their intent to take the son away for questioning. In contrast, Melodrama disarms our thought processes as it works with orchestrating (with loud sound and manic editing), suspense and thrilling action, its raison d’etre. This is the source of its global attraction and popularity as a genre.
(To be continued)
On the morning of May 11, 2025, the quiet hills of Ramboda were pierced by the wails of sirens and the cries of survivors. A Sri Lanka Transport Board (SLTB) bus, en route from Kataragama to Kurunegala via Nuwara Eliya, veered off the winding road and plunged down a deep precipice in the Garandiella area. At least 23 people lost their lives and more than 35 were injured—some critically.
The nation mourned. But this wasn’t merely an isolated accident. It was a brutal reminder of Sri Lanka’s long-standing and worsening road safety crisis––one where the poor pay the highest price, and systemic neglect continues to endanger thousands every day.
A national epidemic
According to the Central Bank of Sri Lanka’s 2023 Road Safety Report, buses and other passenger vehicles are involved in 60% of fatalities while motorcycles account for 35% of reported accidents. Though three-wheelers are often criticised in the media, they contribute to only 12% of all accidents. The focus, however, remains disproportionately on smaller vehicles—ignoring the real danger posed by larger, state-run and private buses.
The Ramboda incident reflects what transport experts and road safety advocates have long warned about: that Sri Lanka’s road accident problem is not primarily about vehicle type, but about systemic failure. And the victims—more often than not—are those who rely on public transport because they have no other choice.
One of the biggest contributors to the frequency and severity of road accidents is Sri Lanka’s crumbling infrastructure. A 2023 report by the Sri Lanka Road Development Authority (SLRDA) noted that nearly 40% of the country’s road network is in poor or very poor condition. In rural and hilly areas, this figure is likely higher. Potholes, broken shoulders, eroded markings, and inadequate lighting are all too common. In mountainous terrain like Ramboda, these conditions can be fatal.
Even worse, since 2015, road development has effectively stagnated. Although the Mahinda Rajapaksa administration was often criticised for its ambitious infrastructure drive, it left behind a network of wide, well-lit highways and urban improvements. The subsequent administrations not only failed to continue this momentum, but actively reversed course in some instances—most notably, with the cancellation of the Light Rail Transit (LRT) project in Colombo, which had been poised to modernise urban mobility and reduce congestion.
Instead of scaling up, Sri Lanka scaled down. Maintenance budgets were slashed, long-term projects shelved, and development planning took a back seat to short-term political calculations. Roads deteriorated, traffic congestion worsened, and safety standards eroded.
Dangerous drivers
Infrastructure is only part of the story. Human behaviour plays a significant role too—and Sri Lanka’s roads often mirror the lawlessness that prevails off them.
A 2022 survey by the Sri Lanka Road Safety Council revealed alarming patterns in driver behaviour: 45% of accidents involved drivers under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and 40% were attributed to speeding. These figures reflect not just recklessness, but a dangerous culture of impunity.
The legal blood alcohol limit for drivers in Sri Lanka is 0.08%, but enforcement remains lax, particularly in rural areas and during off-peak hours. There is no consistent system of random breath testing, and police checkpoints are often limited to high-profile holidays or urban areas.
The same lack of enforcement applies to speeding, tailgating, overtaking on blind corners, and ignoring traffic signals. While the law technically provides for penalties, in practice, enforcement is selective at best. Even SLTB bus drivers—tasked with transporting hundreds daily—are known for aggressive and erratic driving. The Ramboda bus is reported to have been speeding on a dangerously narrow bend, a pattern that has become disturbingly common.
Public buses, both state-run and private, are some of the most dangerous vehicles on the road today—not just due to their size, but because of operational cultures that prioritise speed over safety. Competition for passengers, poor driver training, minimal vehicle maintenance, and weak regulatory oversight have created a deadly combination.
Do they not deserve better?
Most people who travel in SLTB buses are from lower-income backgrounds. They rely on public transportation not by choice, but by necessity. A factory worker in Nuwara Eliya, a schoolteacher in Bandarawela, or a daily wage earner commuting between towns—all are bound to a public transport system that is increasingly unreliable and unsafe.
Sri Lanka’s social contract has failed its most vulnerable. The poor are expected to brave substandard buses on crumbling roads, driven by underpaid and undertrained drivers, often in hazardous weather and terrain. In many rural areas, buses are lifelines. When one crashes, it is not merely a tragedy—it’s a profound injustice.
Had the LRT system gone forward, had road maintenance been prioritised, had reckless drivers been reined in through strict enforcement, how many lives could have been saved?
Experts agree that the solution lies in a combination of infrastructure investment, driver education, and law enforcement reform. The Sri Lanka Road Safety Council has repeatedly called for mandatory road safety training, particularly for commercial drivers. Such training should cover not just traffic laws, but also defensive driving, fatigue management, and the dangers of DUI.
Enforcement, too, needs a dramatic overhaul. License suspensions, large fines, and jail time for repeat offenders must become the norm—not the exception. A centralised traffic violation database could prevent habitual offenders from slipping through the cracks.
And critically, investment in infrastructure must resume—not in flashy mega-projects for political gain, but in safe, functional, and equitable roads and transit systems. The re-introduction of the LRT or similar mass transit projects should be seriously reconsidered, especially in urban centers where congestion is growing and road space is limited.
The misunderstood three-wheeler
On the other hand, while three-wheelers are frequently vilified in public discourse and media narratives for reckless driving, the data tells a different story. According to the Central Bank’s 2023 Road Safety Report, they account for just 12% of all road accidents—a fraction compared to the 60% involving buses and other passenger vehicles, and the 35% attributed to motorcycles. Yet, disproportionate attention continues to be directed at three-wheelers, conveniently shifting focus away from the far greater risks posed by large, state-run and private buses.
What often goes unacknowledged is the essential role three-wheelers play in Sri Lanka’s transport ecosystem, particularly in remote and rural areas where reliable public transport is virtually nonexistent. For residents of small towns and isolated villages in the hill country, three-wheelers are not a luxury—they are a necessity. Affordable, nimble, and capable of navigating narrow, winding roads where buses cannot operate, these vehicles have become the primary mode of short-distance travel for countless Sri Lankans.
Even more importantly, in the aftermath of road accidents—especially in remote regions like Ramboda—it is often the three-wheeler drivers who are the first to respond. When tragedy strikes, they ferry the injured to hospitals, assist with rescue efforts, and offer immediate aid long before official emergency services arrive. This community-centered, grassroots role is rarely acknowledged in national conversations about road safety, yet it remains a vital, life-saving contribution.
Rather than treating three-wheelers as a problem to be blamed, the government should recognise their indispensable value and work towards integrating them more effectively and safely into the national transport framework. Regularising the sector through measures such as mandatory driver training programmes, periodic vehicle safety checks, and the enforcement of standardised operating licenses could improve safety without displacing an essential service. Additionally, designating official three-wheeler stands, particularly in high-risk or high-traffic areas, and incentivising drivers who maintain clean safety records would help create a safer, more accountable environment for both passengers and pedestrians.
Moving beyond the blame game
It is time for us to move beyond the tired narrative that blames specific vehicles—motorcycles, three-wheelers, or buses—for the carnage on Sri Lanka’s roads. The problem is not the mode of transport. It is the system that surrounds it.
When buses are poorly maintained, roads are not repaired, drivers are not trained, and laws are not enforced, tragedy becomes inevitable. Blaming a single vehicle type does nothing to address these root causes.
The real question is: Do we have the political will to fix this? Or will Sri Lanka continue to count the dead—accident after accident—while doing little more than issuing condolences?
The Ramboda accident was not the first. It won’t be the last. But it should be the turning point.Let this be the moment we stop pointing fingers—and start fixing the road.
(The writer is an Attorney-at-Law with over a decade of experience specializing in civil law, a former Board Member of the Office of Missing Persons, and a former Legal Director of the Central Cultural Fund. He holds an LLM in International Business Law and resides in Battaramulla, where he experiences the daily challenges of commuting to Hulftsdorp, providing him with a unique perspective on Sri Lanka’s road safety issues.)
By Sampath Perera
Though the government is moving more slowly on corruption than I would have liked, it is moving, which is more than can be said for its predecessors. I remember how sad I was when Yahapalanaya did very little, except for political advantage, about the corruption it had highlighted in the election campaign in which I had so foolishly joined; but the reason became clear with the bond scam, when the Ranil Wickremesinghe administration rose to heights of corruption that surpassed, in convoluted ingenuity, anything the Mahinda Rajapaksa government could have achieved. Thus far the present government is clean, and that will make its task much easier.
I hope then that the slow but steady progress of this government in investigation will bear fruit. But at the same time, I think it would also be good if it looked at instances when corruption was avoided. The horrors of the visa scam, in which the Controller General of Immigration seems to have connived with his political masters, suggest how important it is to also praise those civil servants who resist pressures.
With regard to the visa scam, I had thought Tiran Alles largely responsible, but perhaps I have done the man an injustice – if that were conceivable – and the fountainhead of the matter was the President. I now think this the more likely, having heard about a Civil Servant who did stand up against the political pressures brought upon him. If this government were to look into the matter, and recognise his integrity and courage, perhaps that would prompt the former Controller General of Immigration and Emigration too to come clean and turn Crown Witness, having accepted a compounded penalty for anything he might have done wrong.
It can be difficult to resist pressure. That must be understood though it is no reason to excuse such conduct. But it is therefore more essential to praise the virtuous, such as the former Secretary to the Ministry of Health, Dr Palitha Mahipala. I had heard of him earlier, and I am sorry he was removed, though I have also heard good things about his successor, so there is no reason to bring him back. But perhaps he could be entrusted with greater responsibilities, and awarded some sort of honour in encouragement of those with courage.
One of the notable things Dr Mahipala did was to resist pressure brought upon him to award a contract to Francis Maude, a British crony of the President. This was to design a supply chain management for pharmaceuticals. A system for this was already being designed by the Asian Development Bank, but when told about this the authorities had nevertheless insisted.
The then Secretary to the Prime Minister cannot absolve himself of the responsibility for having asked the Ministry of Health to prepare a stunningly expensive MoU that was quite unnecessary.
But his claim was that he had been introduced to the Britisher by a top aide of the President. This rings true for it was the President who first wished Maude upon the country. It was after all Ranil Wickremesinghe who, a year after he became President, announced that, to boost state revenue, Maude had been invited ‘to visit Sri Lanka and share his insights on sectoral reform’.
When he became a Minister under David Cameron, Maude’s responsibilities included ‘public service efficiency and transparency’. There seems to have been nothing about revenue generation, though the President’s statement claimed that ‘Sri Lanka must explore new avenues for increasing income tax revenues…He expressed concern over not only the neglect of public revenue but also the unrestricted spending of public funds on non-beneficial activities’.
He ‘called for an extensive media campaign to educate the public’ but this did not happen, doubtless because transparency went by the board, in his antics, including the demand, whoever prompted it, that Maude be to do something already done. Surely, this comes under the heading of unrestricted spending of public funds on non-beneficial activities, and it is difficult to believe that top government officials connived at promoting this while Ranil would have expressed concern had he known what they were up to.
Nothing further is recorded of Ranil’s original trumpeting of Maude’s virtues, and far from being there to provide advice on the basis of his experience in government, he seems to have been trawling for business for the firm he had set up on leaving politics, for it was with that private agency that the MoU was urged.
Thankfully, Dr Mahipala resisted pressure, and that plot came to nothing. But it should not be forgotten, and the government would do well to question those responsible for what happened, after speaking to Dr Mahipala and looking at the file.
Indeed, given the amount of corruption that can be traced to the President’s Office, it would make sense for the government to institute a Commission of Inquiry to look into what happened in that period of intensive corruption. It should be subject to judicial appeal, but I have no doubt that incisive questioning of those who ran that place would lead to enough information to institute prosecutions, and financial recompense for the abuses that occurred.
by Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha
In her Cry on 25 April, Cassandra wrote this in her section on Trump’s moves to Make America Great Again – MAGA. “The latest was heard on BBC news on Wednesday 16. A fluff of a blonde White House press secretary by name of Karoline Leavitt announces that President Trump expects Harvard University to apologise to him for the continuing tolerance of anti-Semitism by the university. And that little blonde fluff adds ‘And they should.’ Didn’t Cass guffaw, but bitterly. That’s Trump vs Harvard.”
Karoline Leavitt
This young blonde has been making waves ever since, so much so that night shows in the US have spoken of her, and not well. Jimmy Kimmel arranged a dialogue between Karoline and Mark Carney, PM of Canada, when he recently visited the US. She insulted him by saying he did not know what democracy was and that Canada would benefit by becoming the 51st of the US. Carney vowed Canada was not for sale and never would be. The interview which was described in a video which I watched got hotter, Carney became cooler and Karoline rattled until she shot up and left the room. The usually noisy crowd that collects to listen to Kimmel roared – disdain.
Cass had to ferret more about her, so she went to the Internet. Born in 1997, Karoline Leavitt studied politics and communication at Saint Anselm College, which she entered on a games scholarship. She interned in the White House as an apprentice press secretary and was named a press secretary in Trump‘s first term. After Trump’s loss in 2020, she became a communications director for New York. She was the Republican candidate in the US House of Reps election for New Hampshire in 2022 but lost. She was much in Trump’s campaign against Biden’s winning and then served as a spokeswoman for MAGA Inc. In November 2024, Trump named her his White House Press Secretary, the youngest to hold this post in US history. All this seems to have gone to her blonde head!
Mosquitoes making life hell in Colombo
These pests are breeding like mad in and around Colombo and other parts of the country too. We can be tolerant of nature and its creatures, but the mosquito now is deadly. She passes on the dreaded diseases of chikungunya and dengue; the former debilitating for months after the grueling ache in bones is abated as the infection recedes. Dengue can be fatal if one’s platelet count goes below the red line.
The crux of the near pandemic of these two diseases is that infection and prevalence of the two could be greatly reduced by control of the carrier of the infection – The Mosquito. And on whom rests the responsibility of controlling the breeding of mosquitoes? On You and Me. But both of these entities are often careless, and totally non-caring about keeping their premises clean and of course eliminating all breeding spots for flying pests. Does the responsibility end there? Not upon your life! The buck moves on and lands on the public health inspectors, the garbage removers, the fumigators. Their boss who sees to them working properly is the Medical Officer of Health. And he is part of the Colombo Municipal Council that has the responsibility of looking to the health of people within the MC.
The spread of the two diseases mentioned is proof that the above persons and establishments are NOT doing the work they should be doing.
It is a proven fact that just before a change in personnel in the country, or a MC or a Pradeshiya Sabha, with a general election or local government election in the near future, most work stops in government offices or in local government establishments as the case may be. Workers get the disease of ennui; do minimum work until new bosses take over.
This definitely has happened in Colombo. Cass lives in Colombo 3. Quite frequent fumigation stopped some time ago. About two weeks ago she heard the process and smelled the fumes. Then nothing and mosquitoes breeding with the infrequent rain and no repellents or cleaning of premises. She phoned the MOH’s office on Thursday last week. Was promised fumigation. Nothing.
We are in a serious situation but no Municipal Council action. Politics is to blame here too. The SJB is trying to grab control of the Colombo MC and people are falling prey to the two diseases. All politicians shout it’s all for the people they enter politics, etc. The NPP has definitely shown concern for the public and have at least to a large extent eliminated corruption in public life. They have a woman candidate for Mayor who sure seems to be able to do a very good job. Her concern seems to be the people. But no. A power struggle goes on and its root cause: selfishness and non-caring of the good of the people. And for more than a week, the personnel from the MOH are looking on as more people suffer due to dirty surroundings.
Garbage is collected from her area on Tuesdays and Saturdays with paper, etc., on Thursdays. Tuesday 13 was a holiday but garbage was put out for collection. Not done. At noon, she phoned a supervisor of the cleaning company concerned only to ask whether the workers had a day off. Garbage was removed almost immediately. That is concern, efficiency and serving the public.
As Cass said, Colombo is in near crisis with two mosquito borne diseases mowing down people drastically. And nothing is being done by the officers who are given the responsibility of seeing to the cleanliness of the city and its suburbs.
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