Features
WHEN TIGER (RAY) HOLDEN MET DARA SINGH
by HUGH KARUNANAYAKE
Professional wrestling was introduced to Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon) by Donovan Andree, a prominent organiser of sporting and musical events for the middle class. An entertainment starved nation was quick to lap up the fare so diligently selected by Donovan.
For a period of about two decades after the ceasing of hostiities in World War 2, Ceylon’s middle class woke up from a long war induced slumber to find that we were living in a virtual cultural desert. For the Sinhala speaking folk there was some relief from the emergence of Sunil Santha waxing lyrical on the joys and the beauty of the rural countryside through songs like “Olu Pipeela,” “Handapane” and “Bovitiya dhang palukam waray” For the English speaking Colombo centric middle class there was only Radio Ceylon and the Western movies and associated music like Jimmy Rodgers epic “Moonlight and Skies” and Doris Day’s “Que Sera “and the like.
The knight in shining armour to come to the rescue of the English speaking middleclass craving for entertainment was Donovan Andree, a man who started life as a newspaper reporter and later as the Manager of the St Michael’s football team, a little known outfit in the still lesser known game of soccer.
The Second World war was brought to a sudden conclusion by the horrendous massacre of the inhabitants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Although the colonies backed the allies in the war effort there was an air of discomfiture about the use of weapons of mass destruction, and the US State Department through the United States Information Service sought to emphasise to the world the pleasanter side of American Culture.
That effort was actively encouraged by the local comprador bourgeoise, identified as the nascent UNP. The USIS sought to do this through a programme making available well known American musicians to appear in concerts especially in Latin America, and Asia and to a lesser extent in Africa. Top billing American musicians were made available to local audiences at affordable rates, the costs being heavily subsidised by the US Dept of State.
Donovan Andree was quick to see the opportunity in this, and struck an agreement with the USIS wherein his role was to publicise and secure as much attendance as possible. Thus, Sri Lankan audiences had the privilege of attending concerts by such world famous musicians as the Dave Brubeck Quartet, at the Regal Theatre, Red Nicols and the Five Pennies who performed at the Empire Theatre, and Jack Teagarten’s orchestra at the Colombo Racecourse.
We in Colombo was privileged to see in person the Brubeck Quartette play “Take Five” with a scintillating spot on the drums by Joe Morello. Donovan additionally brought in a variety show by the Harlem Blackbirds, Holiday on Ice, and of course the introduction of professional wrestlers from the United States. There were world famous wrestlers like Primo Carnera, Harbhan Singh, Dara Singh, Tiger “Ray” Holden to name a few. It is my belief that pro wrestling was often a sham, carefully orchestrated to emotionally involve spectators and thus increase interest.
Most of the wrestling bouts were at carnivals organised by Donovan to raise funds for sporting clubs. The premises in which the carnivals were held, also included a gambling facility which yielded additional funds. The Venues were the front yard of the house known as Caldecott, situated on the sea side of Galle Road near the Bullers Road Junction, the Gulamhussein property down Station Road, Bambalapitiya, the Colts Cricket grounds etc. There was also a venue at Slave Island where Donovan had his pro wrestlers performing.
The top billing for one evening was the encounter between Dara Singh a popular Indian wrestler, and the Australian Tiger Ray Holden who was carefully groomed as a villain. Dara Singh seemed to be winning the fight as he had Tiger snarling in his corner after a couple of “aeroplane spins.” At that point Tiger Holden was on the canvas seemingly unable to move, when suddenly he jumped up and pulled something out of his shorts and proceeded to give a vigorous face message to Dara Singh. It looked as if Dara Singh was bleeding, but I felt the Holden pulled out a plastic bottle filled with scarlet liquid that looked like blood.
The audience was infuriated and started abusing Holden who just jeered at them and made them even angrier. Suddenly a man who appeared to be the worse for the liquor he had consumed, grabbed a chair and hit Holden on the head and Holden was sent in an ambulance to hospital. All hell broke loose and everyone was looking for the chair wielding villain.
The chair wielding man was none other than Caiman, a clerk to a leading QC of the day. Caiman’s usual form of dress was a coat and sarong. After making his move, he just disappeared and we saw him later briskly heading for the Nippon for a parting shot of arrack. Fortunately Holden was not hurt, but stunned, and the mystery of the identity of the chair wielder is now no longer a secret !
With its distinctive golden crown, red throat pouch and slender black legs, the crested crane is beloved in Uganda – featuring on the East African nation’s flag and coat of arms.
All the country’s national sports teams are also nicknamed after the iconic bird, but in recent years it has gone into decline and conservationists say it may face extinction if more is not done to protect it.
The bird is protected by law – it stipulates a life sentence and/or a fine of 20bn Ugandan shillings ($5m; £4m) for those found to have killed one.
Going back centuries, local Buganda cultural superstition also protected the elegant fowl, which was seen as a symbol of wealth, good fortune and longevity.
It was believed that if one killed a crane, its kith and kin would flock to the killer’s home, hold vigil and mourn by collectively honking until the person went mad or even died.
“Such stories instilled fear, and cranes would be respected and revered and not killed,” Jimmy Muheebwa, a senior conservationist at Nature Uganda, a local non-governmental organisation (NGO), told the BBC.
But for farmers in western Uganda, where the cranes mostly hang out, that fear has dissipated and often it is only conservationists who appear to know about the ban on killing them.
“I really don’t see any value in these birds because all they do is raid our plantations and eat our crops. We are worried about food security in this area,” Tom Mucunguzi, a maize farmer from a village near Mbarara city in Western Region, told the BBC.
Another farmer near Mbarara, Fausita Aritua, agreed, saying when she goes to her maize plot she spends the whole day chasing away the cranes – and if she cannot get there, she tries to get someone else to stand guard.
“We no longer harvest as much as we used to do because these birds eat everything,” she told the BBC.
Also known as grey-crowned cranes, the birds are predominantly found in Uganda but are also in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
They are non-migratory, but make local and seasonal movements depending on food resources, nest site availability and the weather.
Standing at about 1m (3.2ft) tall, the waterfowl mostly live in wetland areas – riverbanks, around dams and open grassland – where they breed and feed on grass seeds, small toads, frogs, insects and other invertebrates.
But with the increasing human population, the high demand for food is pushing farmers to cultivate in wetlands, leaving crested cranes with diminishing areas to call home.
“In eastern Africa, the population has declined terribly by over 80% in the last 25 years,” Adalbert Ainomucunguzi, who leads the International Crane Foundation (ICF) in East Africa, told BBC.
In the1970s, Uganda boasted a population of more than 100,000 crested cranes, but today that number has dwindled to a mere 10,000, according to Nature Uganda.
This decline saw the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) put the crested crane on its red list of endangered bird species in 2012.
“Despite its serenity, beauty and popularity, the bird is facing a serious threat. It means that if no urgent measures are taken to reverse this trend, we might see the cranes pushed to extinction,” Dan Sseruge, a Ugandan ornithologist, told the BBC.
Around Mbarara we found it was difficult to track down the birds – and only saw them early in the morning just after dawn.
Conservationists say they used to be much easier to find in the landscape surrounding Mbarara.
Dozens of cranes have in recent years been found dead after they were poisoned by rice and maize farmers in Lwengo district, in south-central Uganda.
“One of the biggest threats against cranes is poisoning by the farmers. This is because the birds are causing a lot of crop damage,” Gilbert Tayebwa, a conservation officer at ICF, told BBC.
Mr Tayebwa said he has been engaging farmers to use different deterrent methods like scarecrows to protect their crops from invading cranes.
Farmers like Philip Ntare, from Lwengo, said the cranes were sometimes mistakenly poisoned after eating crops sprayed with agro-chemicals and other pesticides.
“I just chase them, because I grew up knowing the crested crane is not supposed to be killed. But government should consider compensating farmers for crop damage,” he told the BBC.
However, John Makombo, director of conservation at the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), said this was not possible.
“It is one of those precious species that have freedom to go anywhere and so unfortunately the government is not liable for any damage done by the cranes,” he told the BBC.
Sarah Kugonza, an ICF conservationist, said the cranes also face a host of other threats – not just from farmers. Without the protective cover of the wetlands, their chicks are more likely to be captured by eagles.
Cranes are finding day by day that they are living in an increasingly hostile environment.
“Sometimes breeding areas are flooded and nowadays some cranes are killed by electricity lines when flying,” Ms Kugonza told BBC.
Their exceptional beauty has also put them at risk as people are increasingly capturing them to be pets, according to Mr Ainomucunguzi.
But crested cranes, who can live for just over two decades, hardly ever breed in captivity as the birds are famously faithful.
“It is a highly monogamous bird as it pairs once, for life. This means that if one of them is killed or domesticated, the likelihood of finding a new mating partner is almost zero,” said Mr Muheebwa.
They attract a mate by dancing, bowing and jumping – and are often seen walking as couples or families. A pair will define their own territory and can be very aggressive to defend it.
Scientifically called Balearica regulorum gibbericeps, the cranes also have unique nesting patterns as they usually return to the same location annually, often laying between two and five eggs that are incubated by both sexes for anywhere between 28 and 31 days.
Any destruction to these nesting areas impacts on these breeding patterns.
Their monogamy has also attracted the unwelcome attention of local traditional healers, who claim that the parts of crested crane may bring faithfulness from a partner – or good luck.
“Some people have been caught hunting cranes to take some of their body parts to witch doctors in a belief that they will get rich. Or, if you are a woman, your husband will never leave you,” Mr Tayebwa from ICF said.
This is also something conservationists are trying to counter – as well as alerting people to the law protecting cranes.
And in an effort to reverse declining numbers, the Ugandan government and conservationist groups are now rallying communities to restore wetlands.
President Yoweri Museveni, who comes from the Western Region, has been urging encroachers to vacate wetland areas and, according to local media, has declared 2025 a year of wetland conservation.
The ICF has also recruited custodians to monitor and ensure that the cranes’ breeding grounds are protected.
Nature Uganda’s Mr Muheebwa said these efforts were slowly helping to stabilise the situation but crane numbers remained “very low”.
For Mr Makombo, the UWA’s future emphasis is going to be on setting an example when it comes to the law.
“We shall arrest and prosecute those who are poisoning the cranes,” he said.
[BBC]
by Rajan Philips
Musk behind The Resolute Desk. Who is the boss?
America has a hegemon; and the hegemon has a henchman. Americans elected Donald Trump as president by a slender majority, but the whole world has to suffer him without having any say in the matter. Both America and the world have also to suffer Elon Musk, Trump’s unelected henchman. Just who is who – between the hegemon and the henchman – seems to be the question that is deliberately being provoked in political circles, hoping to trigger Trump’s ire against Musk. Inasmuch as Musk appears to be outdoing the president. Time magazine’s cover page placing Musk behind the president’s desk is amusing even as it might be provoking Trump. CNN’s Jack Tapper has started calling Musk, the President’s “First Buddy,” arguably more significant than the traditional First Lady.
For now, Trump seems to be giving Musk the long leash as Musk and his young software interns run amok through federal government departments and their projects, in Washington and elsewhere, including far flung places throughout the world. All in the name of eradicating government ‘waste, fraud and corruption.’ And all discovered in a matter of days by teams of Musk’s X employees, some of them in their teens, and all of them with a worldview that pretty much starts and ends at their laptop and tablet screens. It is as if the old ‘revenge of the nerds’ is being played out for real in the theatre of the American state in Washington DC. With the difference that the nerds roaming Washington have a hegemon to back them up.
President Trump is all hell bent on demolishing Washington institutions even as he has taken to calling Gaza a “demolition site.” He did that without any touch of irony at a joint White House press conference with Benjamin Netanyahu, Gaza’s demolitionist-in-chief. Netanyahu had completed Gaza’s demolition before Trump started his second term, and he was rewarded for that with the honour of being the first foreign leader to be invited to the White House for presidential audience.
Trump’s description of Gaza as a demolition site is no accident, but a natural projection of his real estate mind. At the press conference, as a befuddled Netanyahu stood and stared, Trump rambled on about redeveloping Gaza into a Riviera in the Middle East, where the poor Palestinians will be allowed to work to support all the (rich) people of the world gathering for their holidays.
The horror of this scheme is the presumed eviction of the already displaced residents of Gaza to unknown desert tracts in Egypt, Jordan, and any other host country in the Arab world. These countries will have to just receive the displaced Gazans and shelter them just because Donald Trump has said so, even as the Trump Administration is rounding up ostensibly illegal but organically integrated immigrants in America and deporting them in handcuffs by military aircraft to their home countries. Even as far away as India.
The new Secreatary of State, Marco Rubio, a right wing Cuban American with more blind loyalty to Trump than any gravitas in world affairs, and other similarly inconsequential minions in the Administration, tried vainly to soften their president’s dangerous fantasy about Gaza. But Trump doubled down and summarily said that the Palestinians of Gaza will have to leave, Gaza will be redeveloped for the amusement of the rich under Israeli security, and all enabled under American laws. Whatever those laws are!
While there is little chance that a Riviera will ever be built on the Gaza waterfront, Trump’s outlandish speculations are only going to further aggravate the already turmoiled situation of the Palestinian people and rule out any possibility of a fair and durable resolution of a conflict that is as old as the UN. Trump has even worse contempt for the UN than he has for Gaza.
Imperial Illusions
President Trump’s Gaza musings are also indicative of a significant new dimension to his second term in comparison to his first. He seems to be labouring under the illusion that his second term could be the beginning of a new era of American expansionism. There were rambling allusions in the inauguration speech to a new United States that “expands our territory … and carries our flag into new and beautiful horizons … and … pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the stars and stripes on the planet Mars.”
The first step in the flight to Mars is to impose tariffs on earth. All countries of the world, no matter friend/neighbour (Canada, Mexico) or foe (China) or everyone in between (India) must pay an admission fee for the privilege of entering the coveted American market. The revenue generated by import tariffs will be used to support the massive tax cuts that Trump is determined to give the wealthiest in America. The entrepreneurs of the world are welcome to locate their businesses and factories in the US and enjoy the world’s lowest taxes, or stay where they are (that is “your prerogative,” Trump said to a virtual session in Davos) and pay the world’s highest tariffs. All of this seems to be Trump’s new economic gospel, if not philosophy.
Trump is not alone in this American economic thinking, but he is alone among America’s political classes to think that America can do this unilaterally and the rest of the world will fall in line either without political demur or under economic duress. Trump’s external thrust has surprised almost all serious political observers in America. There are overtones of 19th century imperialism in Trump’s garbled rhetoric. There are also multiple points of contradictions between his new expansionist thrust and his old isolationist insistence. Even the madman theory that he has tried to tout on his own behalf has few followers because crazy unpredictability is second nature to him and unreliability is what his fellow transactors expect of him.
Allies, Adversaries and the Rest
Then there is the peculiarity of Trumpism in configuring the positions of America’s traditional allies and adversaries in this expansionary vision. His expansionism provides for the annexation of Canada as America’s 51st state; renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America; threatening the takeover of Greenland; and taking control of the operation of Panama Canal. Turning to Europe, Trump wants to impose tariffs on EU exports to America, has no abiding interest in NATO, and just this week indicated that he would be repudiating all of Biden’s commitments to Ukraine and force Ukraine to negotiate peace with Russia on Putin’s terms.
In other words, the Trumpian vision of American expansionism has no place for America’s traditional allies and suggests the annexation of at least one of them, Canada. Trump would rather have America contending for the world with its traditional adversaries, China and Russia. That would be a contest which, presumably in his understanding, will create all the opportunities for maximizing wealth and profit within market capitalism, without any of the inconveniences of state regulations, legal hurdles and overall accountability whether at the national or global level. It will be a system of hegemons and their henchmen carving up the planet as they please.
In such a set up, there is no place for American involvement in the World Health Organization (WHO), or continuing with the Paris Climate Agreement. Trump has withdrawn America from both using two Executive Orders that were among the very early ones issued following his inauguration. He is keeping America in the UN for now, mostly to exercise the US veto at the Security Council in support of Israel, America’s only ally in the world organization. He has again pulled the US out of UNHRC in Geneva, and stopped funding to UNRWA, the UN’s relief agency among the Palestinians.
There is then the rest of the world – excluding the US, the West minus the US, China and Russia. Trump’s main interaction now ‘with the rest of the world’ countries is in the humiliating deportation of their citizens after apprehending them as illegal aliens in America. A second interaction is through the abrupt closure of the USAID agency and the myriad of programs that the agency has been conducting in hundreds of countries throughout the world.
Many of these programs help in saving lives, improving health, and avoiding starvation. The Trump Administration may legitimately question the policy premises of these programs, but there is nothing wasteful, fraudulent or corrupt about them as alleged by Musk and marauders. Unilaterally closing them has been the most unkindest act so far by the Trump Administration.
The countries where USAID presence has been insensitively terminated are now fertile grounds for Chinese engagement. Even though Trump is quite triumphant about killing BRICS with his 100% tariff threat, the membership in the organization is bound to swell as Trump tries to reorder the world, and BRICS itself is bound to emerge as a force to reckon with by post-Trump America. Equally, European countries will similarly try to strengthen their economic ties with China to make up for what Trump might deprive them through reckless tariffs. Yet there is no country in the world that seems ready to push back on Trump and call his bluff. With every country so much dependent on global trade, no government is prepared to poke the madman and risk inflicting economic pain on its people.
Columbian President Gustavo Petro tried to protest the forced deportation of Columbian immigrants from the US, but was quickly forced to retreat by Trump’s tariff threat. South Africa has been singled out for harsh treatment mostly for prosecuting Isreal at the International Court of Justice, on charges of genocide in Gaza. Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa and often uses his X platform to accuse the South African government of genocide against White South Africans, may have had a hand in this. At the same time, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has reached out to Elon Musk apparently to help address “issues of misinformation and distortions about South Africa” in Washington.
In the midst of it all, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi landed in Washington, after a stopover in Paris, to cap what had been a tumultuous first three weeks of Trump’s second presidential term. Both Trump and Modi acknowledge the good chemistry between them, and they used the meeting to highlight their mutual benefits even if the talks were more symbolic than substantive. American media picked on the protocol of Prime Minister Modi meeting with Elon Musk before arriving at the White House. For his part, Trump offered to help India and China resolve their “skirmishes on the border which are quite vicious,” and expressed the hope that “China, India, Russia and US, all of us can get along. It’s very important.” That seems to be Trump’s preferred world order. Each country has its own hegemon, and they all have their henchmen.
The 76th birthday of the Late Mr. Anura Bandaranaike fell on February 15
by Gamini Gunasekara
Mr Anura Bandaranaike, an Honours graduate in History of the University of London, was a formidable and prestigious leader who engaged himself in gentlemanly politics. He was never accused of any wrongdoing. From whatever angle one views his career, it would be fair to name him a man of unblemished character, in the fullness of the meaning of that phrase- a person who enjoyed the respect of everyone who lived in this country, be they political supporters or opponents and a leader of prestige here and abroad.
He was a rare person who had the good fortune to associate with foreign leaders at the highest level from his childhood and to enjoy their affection. It is no exaggeration to say that he was the only political leader in Sri Lanka who has had that fortune. From his childhood he was able to associate closely with the leaders of many countries such as India, Pakistan, Japan, China, America, Russia, England, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, the Middle-Eastern countries and countries of Europe. In consequence no other leader in Sri Lanka could claim the international contacts that he had.
At the same time the extreme facility with which he could handle the English language was always combined with his erudition. The knowledge that he possessed of a wide range of subjects including international politics, modern and ancient history, the world economy, classical Western literature, modern world trends etc etc is immense. He was second to none as a person who shone in debates both in Sinhala and English, in our legislature. His absence is acutely felt when one looks at the Parl iament today.
Anura Bandaranaike was born on 15th February15 , 1949 and passed away on March 16, 2008, saddening many a Sri Lankan heart. A large concourse of people converged on Horaglla Walawwa, where his body lay, in long queues from all corners of Sri Lanka, until the day of the funeral. I met that day even people who had come all the way from such far off places as Trincomalee. I recall that many such people standing in the queues were in tears. I attended that funeral along with Minister Sarath Amunugama.
I was Mr. Bandaranaike’s Media Secretary at the time. Dr. Amunugama and I associated closely with Mr. Anura Bandaranaike. Often when Mr. Bandaranaike wanted some assistance from Dr. Amunugama I acted asthe medium.When Dr. Amunugama wanted some assistance from Mr. Bandaranaike also I acted in similar fashion. My association with Mr. Bandaranaike was that close. It is the same with my association with Dr.Amunugama.
Mr. Anura Bandaranaike was a leader who always sincerely felt for the people. A significant feature of his character was that he never craved for wealth or power. We should remember that he donated to members of his household staff, portions of the commercially very valuable Horagolla Walawwe land which was his ancestral inheritance. It must also be placed on record that Anura Bandaranaike was a very distinguished Speaker of the Sri Lanka Parliament. He was also the youngest Leader of the Opposition in the Commonwealth at the time ( 1983- 1988).
The Late Gamini Dissanayake once told me that Mr Bandaranaike as the Leader of the Opposition played his role extremely competently, against a very strong Government. The degree dissertation of a female undergraduate of the Peradeniya University last year, was the role played by Mr. Anura Bandaranaike, as the Leader of the Opposition. She consulted me too on some matters. Mr Bandaranaike as the then youngest Speaker in the Commonwelth, conducted himself in international relations also preserving the prestige of Sri Lanka, by expressing his views fairly and fearlessly.
Anura wasthe only son of Prime Minister Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandararanaike and the world’s first female prime minister Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike. His family has a long history in our country’s political and social arenas. His grandfather was Sir Solomon Dias Bandaranaike, Mudaliyar of the Governor’s Gate. His mother’s father i.e. his maternal grand father was Rate Mahattaya Barnes Ratwatte Dissaswe.
At the time Anura was born his father S W R D Banadaranaike was the Minister of Health and Local Government who later became the fourth Prime Minister of Sri Lanka and was assassinated on September 26, 1959, when Anura was just 10 years old. His mother became the first woman Prime Minister of the world in July 1960 establishing a record, after assuming the leadership of the party, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, that her husband had founded.
Anura, after being appointed the leader of the youth wing of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, built up the SLFP youth wing into a formidable force in all districts including in the North and East. At that time he was the most popular youth leader in Sri Lanka. He contested Nuwara Eeliya- Maskeliya multi member
constituency as the SLFP nominee in the 1977 parliamentary general elections. While the SLFP suffered an ignominious defeat in that election, we must remember that Anura secured the Second MP position relegating Mr. Thondaman to third place.
Anura has told me that he devoted only two weeks at Nuwara Eliya-Maskeliya at that campaign. The rest of the time he was campaigning for the party all over the country. He secured more than 49,000 votes in the Nuwara Eliya – Maskeliya multi-member constituency. Gamini Dissanayake was elected the First member. These two were friends. I was also fortunate enough to be able to associate closely with Mr. Gamini Dissanayake.
Truly, the country has now been orphaned by the loss of such political leaders. Most people are unaware that Mr. Anura Banadaranaike delivered lectures on South Asian politics in foreign universities. He often quoted writers from Shakespeare and T S Eliot in his lectures. He inherited that talent from his father. People doing politics today should read the biographies of leaders like this. The lessons one can learn from such reading is immense.
(The writer is the President, Education Friendship Guild)
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