"Your Municipal Tax Rupees At Work"

Seriously.

It’s a tropical country. It rains a lot. We have something called ‘the monsoon’. It’s world famous, happens every year. So, you could say, heavy rain is not exactly unexpected in Sri Lanka. You would think they were prepared for it by now.

Why do we have a Drainage Board? What do they do there?Apart from scratching their peanuts, I mean.

Every year, heavy rain is used as an excuse for ruined roads, late meetings and low productivity. And now, even powercuts and shortened parliamentary sessions. I kid you not – the distribution for North Colombo’s electricity is under water, and yesterday they finished sessions at 2pm, for fear of being trapped inside parliament by the imminent flooding of the Diyawanna Oya. I wish.

If government had not approved the building of a 11-hole golf course named Water’s Edge on Colombo’s biggest flood outlet, perhaps this wouldn’t be happening with such frequency. Certainly, the flooding of Rajagiriya, at least, has become an annual event because of it, I’ll wager. Before Water’s Edge, I remember Rajagiriya flooding just once. Seriously, it’s not hard to figure out: every year, around this time, as a school kid, I used to pass by where Water’s Edge is now – twice a day – and marvel at how the entire plain turned into a lake during the rains. Surely, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist, or even an Urban Development Authority expert, to figure out that when you build something on the ground where the water used to go, thereby raising the level of the ground  much higher, then the water will find some other lower place to go to. I learnt this playing in the mud with coloured cups when I was about four. Damn it – I really should have said something.

Someone sue someone! Oh, wait: they already have, haven’t they? For a bad privatisation, though, that was. Well, sue them again! For causing flooding! Loss of property! Loss of business! Drop in land values! And, while you’re at it, sue them for plain bad taste – what’s the point in a golf course with only eleven holes anyway? It’s like a girl with one and a half tits: even if most days you play right, when you feel like a change, there’s no full game left. Off-centre? Sorry, I digress.

What I want to know is: what’s happening to all that government money saved from not buying ammo and guns, and blowing people up? The sad thing is, if we could get to work, and have some electricity, and spend a full day working, perhaps we could make more stuff, and sell more stuff, and make more profit and increase our incomes. Then you could take more of it in corporation and income taxes, and then you would have enough cash to…

Forget it. Just fix the frigging drains man, it’s getting wet in here.

For all his world records, and his popularity with Sri Lankans and cricket fans around the world, Sanath Jayasuriya is an ass – at least, according to insiders at Sri Lanka Cricket. He has been playing for far too long and is well past his sell-by date, but he just refuses to go away. When he was dropped from the team in 2006, President Mahinda Rajapaksa personally intervened to get him back on the team.

Quite apart from the precedent this set, its impact on team morale and the demotivation of other up-and-coming players, what exactly does a politician know about international cricket anyway? That was the question in 2006.

Four years on, the question is reversed: what exactly does an international cricketer know about politics? And why, in the name of the Great Khan, does Jayasuriya want to get into this mudslinging match? It seems obvious that this is an arrangment of mutual back-scratching, whereby Jayasuriya gets to retain his position in the side in return for his free ‘sponsorship’ of the ruling party. At this rate, he seems on course to set another world record; this time, for the oldest person ever to play international cricket.

I digress.

Indrajit, it appears, has also been besotted with the lovely Sita since he went over. It’s positively incestuous. I found a poem to her on his Facebook. I think it’s fresh off his keyboard, and I don’t think he’d mind if I reproduce it here.

Modern steel sculpture of Rama and Sita, Tapovan, near Nasik

FOR SITA

Sita, if you meet her,

Greet her, do beseech her

She’s unbridgeable, unmovable,

Serene

Sita, none is sweeter

Bird of paradise, Demeter

She’s slender like the ether

And tensile like the steel

Sita, be my preacher

Tell me when and how to meet a

Such a lovely doe-eyed creature

Swimming fish-eyed in the stream

But it’s a thousand miles to reach her

From her stomach to beneath her

It’s impossible to meet her,

In between

You can watch the entire film below. It looks superb. I urge you to watch. After all, how often do you get to see quality animation that is set partly (or mostly) in Sri Lanka?