• Morning Spice by Ginger
  Jayasuriya back in form

• 'Waga Lanka' - Waga Sangramaya

What a come back! Sanath Jayasuriya was fast becoming a write off. Many of us were really saddened by the fact that he would have to bow out of international cricket either due to some minor eye defect or his loss of confidence in himself. Then came the test at the Oval. He had decided to put that chapter well behind him and steeled himself to approach the game as he did had been doing since he went to Australia a couple of years ago. What a come back it was. He had the entire crowd standing on its feet when he walked back to the pavilion. It would be an innings long remembered by the crowd that came to the Oval and the millions who saw it on the screen.

It not only silenced his own critics but also those who were more than a little patronizing about our cricket as a whole. One commentator said that it was a pity we had no bowlers other than Murali when England knocked up that formidable 445 runs in the first innings. Going on that same premise England's talent scouts will have to scour the country to find even one bowler of test class. If their bowlers were tired due to a hectic summer so were ours after a fairly crowded year with a whole heap of test matches and one dayers. The point I am trying to stress is that England can no longer write us off as a team that won't draw the crowds. After Sanath's demonstration of power hitting the stands are going to be full every time we make an appearance on any grounds.

Hope for AIDS patients
The other day Ginger was talking about new hope for AIDS patients and possibility of those having HIV developing their own anti bodies that could fight the disease if they took the drugs now available to halt the progress of the disease. Now there is a down side to it that has worried the medical world.

They feel that sooner or later the HIV will find a way to fight protease inhibitors which is the key to the combination treatment. They have found a virus that is resistant to all these inhibitors. If this strain multiplies it means that scientists will have to find another method to inhibit the new strain.

Sarah Balabagan
It may be a good thing to kill your boss - If you are a female. Remember Sarah Balabagan the Philippine girl who narrowly escaped being hanged for killing her employer in the UAE for raping her. She returned home and the talk was that she was so broke that she wanted to be a housemaid to a senator.

The story was not true. She did not want to be a housemaid. She wanted to be a lawyer. She followed a high school course and far from being broke she received about 75,000 US dollars from a sympathetic public and this money which is held in an education trust fund gives her a monthly income of 350 dollars. She was quite a heroine among women's rights activists as well.

'Ethul Owita Kumburu Yaya' is a vast stretch of paddy fields about 200 acres in extent at Seeduwa South, Seeduwa in the Katana Electorate. From time immemorial, the owner cultivators and 'Anda' cultivators used to bring their harvested paddy to this common threshing ground known as 'Kongaha Kamatha' which is less than 1/4 acre in extent, even though this Kamatha was hardly sufficient for them to do threshing etc.

During the latter part of March, this year, a PA supporter who is neither an owner nor a cultivator started putting up a semi permanent atructure about 30' X 20' for a house, right in the centre of the Kamatha, obstructing access to the paddy fields and use of the Kamatha. Those who used this Kamatha promptly brought this to the notice of the local police through the President, 'Seeduwe Govi Sanvidhanaya'. The police took it very lightly and did not even visit the scene.

The matter was then brought to the notice of the Assistant Commissioner, Agrarian Services, Gampaha District on whose instructions the Pradeshiya Niladharee of Agrarian Services Centre, Andiambalama visited the scene and asked the trespasser to stop building the house, but inspite of all that he continued to build.

On 28.3.98 the Pradeshiya Niladharee made a complaint to the local police against the trespasser. After allowing sufficient time to complete the atructure the OIC Seeduwa police sent for the parties and held an inquiry on 29.3.98. At the inquiry, the complainant, president of the Seeduwa Govi Sanvidhanaya, Pradeshiya Niladharee, Agrarian Services Centre, Andiambalama and president Rural Development Society, Seeduwa have been told that he (O.I.C. Seeduwa Police) was helpless and could not do anything as politics was involved in the matter.

Now the trespasser is threatening the cultivators with bodily harm and they have been compelled to stop going to their fields, through the Kamatha. Once he goes into occupation of the house he will be the owner of the kamatha which will become his private property, and will obstruct its use as well as access to the fields.

In future the cultivators will neither be able to cultivate nor sell their fields of this yaya, because no one will buy fields without a kamatha. The 'Waga Sangramaya' is now against goviyas, and the new slogan should be 'Waga Bangawewa' and not 'Waga Lanka' - Waga Sangramaya.

Owner Cultivator,
Ethul Owita Kumburu Yaya.