by Nan
If you haven't done so already, please read Arundhathi Roy's 8000 word essay protesting the nuclear weaponi-sation of India and Pakistan in Frontline, Vol. 15 (16) August 14. It is strong and succinct, yet poetic; a plea from the heart and from a heart that beats for India and South Asia and all humanity. A sensitive, clever writer writes on a topic she feels almost fanatic about. She strikes chords that we ehco; she's put into words what many of us feel and have not so far given voice to.

Arundhathi Roy says
Roy starkly starts her piece thus: "May 1998. It'll go down in history books, provided of course, we have history books to go down in. Provided of course, we have a future."

She ends her anguished cry against possible annihilation thus, "The nuclear bomb is the most anti-democratic, anti-national, anti-human outright evil thing that man has ever made. If you are religious, then remember that this bomb is Man's challenge to God..... If you're not (religious), then look at it his way. This world of ours is four thousand six hundred million years old. It could end in an afternoon."

One cannot imagine how such weapons are made and tested and stored with national pride after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Pictures document the horrendous nuclear holocaust, survivors recount their horrible experiences, yet nations make and stock nuclear weapons to deter others' first strike, and these others make their own to protect themselves.

In the wrong hands: a mentally aberated leader directing the finger on the button, we could all be blown to kingdom come. If we are unlucky enough to survive, we'll burn forever till merciful death takes us. We'll wander around scarred, bald and blind wondering what we could eat, what we could drink, what we could breathe.

Roy puns on the term Third World War meaning WW III started by the poor ones.

Parallels
Some of what Roy writes is particularly pertinent to this country I love. Sri Lanka is far from developing or testing a bomb but what we've been doing lately and not doing makes what Roy writes, taken slightly out of context, descriptive of our antics.

Roy speaks of the advice of the Head of the Health, Environment and Safety Group of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Bombay: in the face of a nuclear explosion eat plenty of iodine and go live in the basement!!

Its like one of our Ministers telling us that we in Sri Lanka are eating better, dressing better, looking better and living better after the PA government successfully saved us from the 17 year scourge. I cannot think of a better time than 1977 onwards till insurrections accelerated. There was money in hand, plenty of food to eat, goods to buy and a zip to living since if one worked hard enough one could most definitely improve one's lot. Smiles were exchanged and there were good things to dip into.

Now life gets more and more dismal, frustrating and disappointing. I find my month's salary disappears during the first ten days. What I do in the next twenty is near starve and worry to death. So how can even a cocooned minister of state say we are better off now?

Lunacy at the top
Roy asks: "What do we do with these levels of lunacy. What do you do if you're trapped in an asylum and the doctors are all dangerously deranged": referring to the Indian government sanctioned bomb and jubilation at the success of the tests. Admittedly it's not so bad here but the 'doctors' are not doing anything much except promoting their pet causes and avenging their pet aversions. And so the hospital, meaning the nation, drifts with the patients becoming ill and the doctors having a better time, ready and able to quit to greener pastures across the seas if the going goes sour.

What happens, Roy questions, if others develop their own bombs like Iraq, Israel.... Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. Sri Lanka will never make a bomb of her own but some of her nationals may steal or buy a couple and gleefully explode them suicidally as is their wont, since when they strike the south, the north will suffer through fallout.

I place a bet that the FBI and whoever else is investigating the bomb blasts in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam have added our 'boys' to the list of suspects to be considered. We are clever and have made our mark in the world arena of terrorism.

Other madness there are a-plenty enacted by the 'doctors'. Due to personal reasons (matters of the heart? The razor's edge between love and hate?) Sri Lanka's Olympic hope has been defused. The silver girl once feted and favoured is tested, faulted, terrorised, traumatised, side lined and even abused through ugly comparisons. Isn't that a form of lunacy?

Mr. Thackeray of Shiv Sena boasted after India's bomb test in the Pokhram desert: "We have proved that we are not eunuchs anymore". Roy, tongue in cheek, brings in Viagra alongside the bomb to make clearer the Minister of Defence's boast: "We have superior strength and potency."

When her friends got to know that Arundhathi Roy was writing an article of protest they cautioned her. "Make sure your papers are in order, Make sure your taxes are paid."

We suffered here without even the hint of a bomb. A mere idea that one could get the better of the then Head, even though democratically, had the person being eliminated. Even becoming popular with subordinates or crushed communities was sufficient reason for elimination. Such wonderful people — brave soldiers, gifted young writers, rising lawyers — were lost to the country due to megalomania of the one person. Could it happen again? Of course it could!

Dead and gone
"My world has died and I write to mourn its passing." That's Roy Nan echoes the thought: "The Sri Lanka I knew is dying, most dead already. Kindness is gone, politeness wiped out, decency destroyed. Rudeness and madness for money have taken over. Frown has to be met with glower; shove with violent push; rudeness with vituperation.

If a seat is offered you in a bus or a sales person smiles and says thank you or a kindness is shown you, you tend to fall in a faint of utter surprise. These were the norms say fifteen years ago. Not now. The worst is you too get bristly and brittle with a frowning face and stoned heart. Your normal politeness is swallowed making room for rudeness.

You need to be always on guard, suspicious of being taken for a ride, For instance, I sent a local fax at a basement place in the heart of Bambalapitiya. One page; duration 01/21 minutes; cost Rs. 50. I said that was a rip off and muttered loud and clear that such things should be made known to all and sundry. I needed to send a longer one but feared that I would not have enough to cover the bill, my purse having only Rs. 200.

Deciding to borrow from a friend in the locality I did get the other fact sent. Imagine my surprise at five pages costing me only Rs. 75. Here the recorded time was 07/24. My bluster served its purpose!

Strong words, deeply felt anger in Roy's article. She blames Mrs. Indira Gandhi for the rot she perceives in India. "It was Indira Gandhi who started the real slide. It is she who made the genie a permanent State Guest. She injected the venom into our political veins. She invented our particularly vile local brand of political expediency."

Do you hear chords of resonance? I do!

Officials are ordered to give a front seat to a beloved son while those legitimately due for VIP seating are pushed to the back. We were horrified to read in a newspaper that the premiership was to he handed down according to the wish of the present incumbent. How ever can that be? It's an important post to be occupied by the one considered most able; the choice of the President and Cabinet. I recollect the voicing of a sentiment about a realm belonging to the first family. (It could be a term other than 'realm' but the idea was kingdom). I had thought the days of fiefdoms and feudalism were long dead.

Please benevolent gods, let sanity prevail!