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Morning Spice by Ginger Jayasuriya has smashed his way out of trouble in the last match but will it do? One year ago I would have said that our worry over an opening combination was over. There was Jayasuriya whom I rated as being one of the top five batsmen in the world and a bowlers night mare and Marvan who had at last found confidence in himself and they would have made world beaters as an opening combination. Now we seem to have gone back to the old problem. Jayasuriya seems to have struck a bad patch and for far too long. Many would agree that he is just a shadow of his former self. My personal opinion is that there is nothing wrong with his batting but there could be something wrong with his sight that could be easily corrected. I have said this before and I am repeating myself in the hope that those who are close to him give this explanation of his fading form a closer look and get a thorough check on his sight and reflexes done. If one remembers right his run of low scores started after he was knocked down. After getting a snorter from Srinath in India. It was either his confidence or his sight that was affected and I am inclined it was the latter though his confidence too could suffer at the end of it. He is too precious an asset to the whole cricketing world to lose so early in his career and I hope some one takes him to a speacialist when he is in England. There is nothing to lose by doing so is there? Remember Asanka had a similar problem and he over came it . Land of opportunities The American government has eased working restrictions in Malaysian, Philippine, South Korean and Thai Students. Working for longer hours to pay their way through their student careers. They have the option of attending school as part time students too. The only snag seems to be that they all come from ASEAN countries and few from the SAARC region. Pauline Hanson She appears to get her strongest support from Queenslands rural population. though one would have expected the urban areas to be more anti Asian. She got over twenty percent of the vote there. She is expected to win 10 out of 89 seats there. She is opposed to Asian immigration and foreign investment. This could will be the reason why over ten Asian firms have either postponed or changed plans to invest in Australia. A danger signal from President to pensioners With reference to letter under above caption by R. M. A. B. Dassanayaka, Matale which appeared in the "The Island" newspaper dated July 21,1998. I wish to submit that I am a government pensioner who have served the public for 37 years in various parts of the Island. I retired on 08-06-1984 on the Class 1 salary scale of the Station Master's Service. I am now drawning a monthly pension of Rs.3893/35 cts. This amount is hardly enough for my expenses on food. A normal meal is Rs. 30. I need atleast Rs. 100 for my food for a day. In addition I have to pay Rs. 500 monthly for my room as rent. I have not an inch of land to call my own. The parliamentarians who are also Public Servants are paid big pay packets and are entitled for pension after serving for a period of four to five years. What a contrast? In Western countries like United Kingdom, the state pensioners (senior citizens) are treated with great esteem. I remember meeting an English couple in the Year 1975 at Nanu Oya. They were both government pensioners (Senior citizens) enjoying a holiday in Sri Lanka. I am ashamed to say that I cannot afford to visit Kataragama or Anuradhapura. Whose fiasco is this. J.P. Wickremasuriya, I refer to the interesting letter of Mr. Gerry Vaidyasekera published in "The Island" recently. As far as I know Bandara or Banda is a name introduced to the Kandyan areas after the advent of the Nayakkar dynasty. It is derived from the word pandaram in Tamil which is given to a minion who served in the ceremonies in the numerous devales introduced by the Nayakkar kings in the Kandyan area. To equalise Bandara to a peer or a marquis is to say the least is far fetched. However, I stand to correction by an authority on linguistics. If you will permit me to digress, it was none other than the amiable public servant Mohottalage Dingiri Banda the villager from Panaliya, who became a Minister in the first Cabinet of Sri Lanka under Premier D.S.S. first as Minister for Labour and later as Minister for Education and subsequently in a later Cabinet as Minister for Food and Co-operatives. The older generation will perhaps remember the young graduate, a rear achievement in the mid 30s and an outstanding cricketer from St. Anthony's College, Kandy, an Advocate in later life, who brought respectability to this name in an era when the Colombo Low Country elite recruited their domestic aids from the poor Kandyan villages and every male servant was named Banda and the female of the species Menika whatever their names were. When Dr. N. M. Perera was elected to the Ruwanwella seat of the then State Council from the L.S.S.P. he brought forward a resolution seeking the abolition of the posts of Ratemahatmaya as in the Kandyan provinces, Mudaliyars in the low country and maritime provinces and Vanniyars in the Tamil areas. Most of them were not sufficiently educated and generally the son succeeded the father. There was at least one Ratemahatmaya in the backwoods of Uva who knew no English and was given special permission to correspond with the white G.A. in Sinhala. N. M. who had first hand experience of the tyranny these chief headmen perpetrated on the illiterate villagers was able to convince the Board of Ministers about the necessity of doing away with the grade of Chief Headmen. A new grade officers was recruited after a competitive examination and educated young men entered the service. Banda was one of the earliest entrants to this grade. He insisted that he should be addressed as "D. R. O. Mahatmaya" and not as "Dissahamuduruwo" as hither to done. The credit of giving respectability to this name should be given to M. D. Banda from Panaliya. In the subsequent scenario there were at least two Bandas who held high office in the state service. They were particular to have this suffix after their names. Both retired from the highest posts in the state service. I am aware of a female doctor from the N.W.P. who has Banda as a suffix to her name. In the first parliament, Premier D.S.S. addressed S.W.R.D. and M. D. Banda as Banda endearingly. The latter was soft and amiable but when provoked in debate he became outspoken. In a heated debate in parliament S.W.R.D. called M. D. Banda as a lion in sheep's clothing. S.W.R.D. was addressed as Banda by his colleagues and he took no offence. Sir John too addressed him as Banda endearingly and he in return addressed Sir John as Lionel, D.S.S. addressed the firebrand from the North as "Ponna" most endearingly. In the school on the hill at Kandy a Burgher Christian teacher addressed us village boys as Bandas and the sprinkling of Tamil boys as Thambis. There was no malice or rancour in such forms of address. In the N. W. P. Banda is a caste name proudly owned. On the other hand in the Kandyan and Sabaragamuwa area Banda is used by the hoi polloi and Bandara by a higher stratum of the same caste. However in my day to day experience I have come across a Kiri Bandiya which is said to be a name used by socially advantageous group becoming Kiri Banda overnight. He has thus climbed a higher rung in society on his own volition most unobs-trusively. In the present context there is nothing sacrosanct about Bandara, Banda or Bandiya. S. R. A. Jayasinghe, Congratulations, Kandalama Hotel Congratulations to the much maligned Kandalama Hotel for winning the pretigious award, the International Green Globe Certificate for the third year in succession. As an act of goodwill the hotel must invite all those who opposed its construction to a free lunch, and offer a "dana" to all those monks who performed "Sathyagraha" and conducted public rallies and processions at the hotel's banquet hall. A. N. Samarasinghe, Discriminatory Crop Insurance policy. Why? I thank you for publishing my letter -- no more crop insurance? -- in ‘The Island’ of 15. 7. 98 Gathering further data it transpires that what the Agriculture Insurance Board practises is a discriminatory policy of denying one set of Sri Lanka farmers what others are fortunate to enjoy. I am told the farmers in the Mahaweli systems are the privileged ones who not only enjoy tremendous government patronage with a separate ministry to boot. But the facility of insuring their crops which we are denied. May I also add that this is an insurance policy which was available to the whole of Sri Lanka ten years ago and something the writer himself had the opportunity to utilise. One is at a loss to comprehend how and why an insurance policy of all things should be decided on a geographic division. Surely a policy is paid for by someone. The institution which offers the policy bears the responsibility of payment in case of a loss but as all of us know in this country that is like picking a feather off an elephants back. Surely, discrimination is a violation of basic human-rights. Am constrained to ask whether farmers outside the Mahaweli systems are lesser individuals? Or as the Sinhala saying goes -- ‘Api Kaluda’? The minister of agriculture should be more aware of what his agriculture Insurance Board is upto. Milroy Ratwatte Down
to Earth Good news! The powers that be have at long last decided to rid the Beira Lake in Colombo of its mounting pollution and to develop it for ornamental and utilitarian purposes. No one quite knows how the Beira got its name. But there is no doubt that it was created by the Portuguese in the 16th century as a part of their fort defences. In 1521 a Portuguese army captain by the name of Lopo de Brito noticed a stream — an overflow of the Kelani river — which ran through a gap in the ridge of hills that we now call Hulftsdorf, Wolfendhal and San Sebastian. It ran along what is now the railway line and railway yards at Maradana and from there to the sea. Dammed The Dutch, who followed the Portuguese, introduced crocodiles to make the lake even more difficult for an enemy to tackle. The Dutch word for crocodile was "Cayman". They called one entrance via the lake to the city (then in the Pettah) "Cayman’s Gate". The name still stands in its anglicised form. Fully established as an integral part of the city’s fortifications, the lake became the scene of some of the bitterest encounters between the Portuguese and Dutch armies on the one hand, and on the other between the Sinhala forces and the two colonial powers during the time of kings Mayadunne and Rajasinha I. In the seize of 1587, Rajasinha I attempted to drain the lake by digging several channels. One of these channels was later developed as the San Sebastian canal. Islands Slave Island was the biggest, so called because Dutch prisoners, who were used as slaves to clean the Colombo Fort, were located there. Another island was large enough to have 600 coconut palms. And the Hindu Temple, now incongruously surrounded by railway sidings in Maradana, was also on a separate island. When the Sinhala kingdom moved to the Kandyan highlands and there was no longer a threat of invasion of the Colombo. Fort, the lake became a pleasure spot with boating as a popular sport. In British times much of the Beira lake disappeared with the extension of the city. Even the 270 acres that remained might have fallen prey to commercial interests but for the consultant town planner, Patrick Geddes. He prevailed on the government in 1920 to spare what he considered to be "the finest parkview in Colombo, only second to the totally different seascape at Galle Face." Pollution The once clear water of the Beira developed a green scum of algae, which interfered with normal photosynthetic activity. As the fish and other lake-life died out for lack of oxygen, water-birds moved away in search of other feeding grounds. The lake itself became a barren stinking eyesore. It is heartening therefore to learn that the government is now ready to clean-up the lake and take remedial measures to prevent further pollution. The restoration work will come within the purview of the Colombo Environmental Improvement Project, funded by the World Bank and handled by a Chinese company. We look forward to seeing this historic landmark restored as a part of the city’s old beauty. |
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