I have worn mehendi and pirith-nool with equal passion

Dear Mr. President,

Cartoon by Awantha Artigala

 

I do not have to touch my husband’s feet every morning to prove my loyalty to him. What you have not understood is the fact that this is not about liquor. It is about the equal status that this country ought to be ensuring its women – the country that produced a female prime minister, president and a chief justice, with the former two being part of your own political party. If the respective majorities proved with their suffrage that they were fit enough to rule, perhaps you are of the opinion that buying liquor is even more serious than governing a country.

Your notion of ideal wife or ideal woman is not the ideal notion. If a woman can have an employment and can earn a salary, what disclaimer in democracy prevents her from spending her money? One would not be surprised if your next move would be to station cops at liquor stores to monitor whether women buy liquor. What is your good governance if it discriminates a person due to his/her gender?

For God’s sake this is not about buying liquor. I don’t even drink.

If you wanted to show your cabinet that you are still the boss, you should have resorted to a more assertive tactic. Drinking or not drinking is a personal choice. If you thought that by resorting to such theatrics-- something one would expect from your dramatic predecessor not from you-- that you would retain the favor of the Buddhist clergy and the Sinhala Buddhist nationalistic people- you never had it, to begin with.

This is not about liquor.

Increasing female political representation or the look of it alone cannot address the fundament loopholes in the empowerment of women in this country. How can you let justice take its due course when justice is not made fierce enough to punish the perpetrators? A teenage rape-victim had to hang herself and the rapists would only have to serve a jail term and come out to plunder another innocent from her future and here you are, only worried about women buying liquor.

Where is your hunger to do right by the people when the more pressing issues are brought to the table?

You do not have to harp on how Buddhist you are or quote all the ‘pitakas’ you seem to know when you cannot practice what you have been preaching. What does ‘thanha’ mean to you when you who abjured the supreme powers of the executive presidency and brought in the 19^th amendment as one of the first pieces of legislation with you at the helm, expected others to follow the laws brought in by you and needed another party to clarify whether it applies to you?

What were you thinking?

Hypocrisy has marred good statesmen and now you are in the muck. You need to appease the disgruntled party members threatening to break-free. You need to pacify the angry cabinet who reports to someone else. Safeguard thieves and drape criminals in white. When you work for that pat on the back from all of them, you forget those ought not to be forgotten. The people—those who voted or not voted for you. When a citizenry adopts you, you become their president—this you have forgotten too soon.

When you were appointed, people thought you were a breath of fresh air and now they deny in the open that they voted for you.

How can you get away with the hackneyed excuse of not knowing until reading it on the following day’s paper? For a head of state your information research teams should be shown the nearest door. It goes without saying that the country has had better-informed heads of state, far better informed that they knew where the injuries were even before the crime was committed.

No, we do not forget that era that easily. And it shouldn’t be your black backdrop to prove how very white you are.

Like the regimes before you, you walked over coffins and cadavers to reach the helm. Disentombed and reburied, their skeletons are in your election-time spooky-house, displayed as reminders and still shamelessly buying time to do justice to the dead.

Perhaps, when all is said and done, you will apologize from the nation for this betrayal—not like a cry baby who often forgets that he is the executive president of the country—but like a mature human being, for not delivering what was promised, for yielding to pressure and for being too distracted by bras and liquor to see your country marching to its ruin.

And, no Mr. President, this is not about liquor.

 

When the last man leaves the crease

It was too much to gulp down; a tear emerging in an unexpected moment. After his emotional alter ago had made his exit a few months back, the fans would have wanted the shrewd strategist and the stern diplomat to make an eloquent speech before waving his final goodbye. After all, it is not every day that Kumar Choksanada Sangakkara wears his heart on his sleeve—but when he does, it tugs at the nation’s heartstrings more than his double centuries, stumpings and the World Cup win that the country was long starving for.

It was no easy holding a nation in awe, and that too for such a long time.

He did not have as elaborate a start as his buddy did. Having arrived in the dressing room almost two years after Mahela Jayewardene was officially named the heir to the helm of Sri Lankan cricket, he did not look as if he was in a haste to prove himself either.

Thus began the bumpy carrier of Kumar Sangakkara; he was not always as sure-footed behind the wicket as he became of late. It is hard to escape the picture of him giving a lost look when a ball escapes past between his legs, or the childish wave of amber gloves when he missed out a stumping.

As much as he has been accurate to the last letter of the book in his batting, we have cheered when an opponent drops him off, consequent to a careless stroke.

His first test hundred in Galle against India on a one fine August day, was all I can remember of a school holiday fourteen years ago. Even then, his square cuts were worth dying for; the cover-drives not as perfected and patented as they are now, could make one yearn to see more. The Country was passing a dry spell and hence the scheduled power cuts to ration hydro-power electricity would sometimes mar the fun; until the long abandoned battery powered radio received new batteries and tuned to the live broadcast of the match.

In Sri Lanka the popular cricket myth is that, in order to make it rain in Kandy, hold a cricket match at Asgiriya—Sangakkara’s school ground and the only international venue in the world owned by a school. The second match was a fluff—spoiled by the much expected rain and the lack of heroics from the home side-- but the concluding one at the SSC, ended with a series win.

The following test series with Windies saw him scoring another ton of 140, getting Mahela Jayewardene run out at 99 in the process. He caused the same havoc to his Skipper Jayasuriya, when the latter was toiling with a match saving knot of 99 in Adelaide in 2003—the ugliest waltz the critics saw and that too on a cricket pitch.

Ironically, the first test match that was not telecast in Sri Lanka was the Asian Test Championship final played against Pakistan in Lahore in 2002—a venue that invoke mixed feelings among Sri Lankan fans—for its world cup victory in 1996 and that of the deadly terror attack on the Sri Lankan team. Fans will remember it for one more reason—the first double hundred of Kumar —a worthy 230 that made Sri Lanka the test champions in Asia.

Sangakkara took time to score his first ODI hundred. Having concluded a fruitless World Cup Tour in South Africa, which nearly cost him his place in the team, Shajah Cup 2003 saw him scoring his maiden hundred against Pakistan, and another in the very next match against Zimbabwe.

Much has been written about his long standing partnership with Mahela Jayewardene; some analytical and others bordering somewhat on the emotional lines. Google is over-brimming with images of the two of them complimenting each other in the middle. They even faced the ice-bucket challenge together.

The most fascinating picture I carry in my heart of the two of them is, when Angelo Mathews (who was not even the captain then) was helping young Chandimal to score an ODI hundred at the Lord’s with what seemed to be a comfortable win inclusive of the impeding century—how, behind the angry-faced Skipper Dilshan—Mahela and Kumar were smilingly looking at the two youngsters in the middle.

Their prophetic smiles have been proven true!

 A record keeper’s memory would do more justice, but a fan would only remember the quirks and the limited doses of glory that game had for those who lived the moment to the fullest.

The Sangakkara I saw and saw through was not the finest to the last line of the script. Since of late, he allowed the liberty to have his face painted on every other hording.  At times he was subject to scorn of others when he started endorsing one mobile connection partner after another.

He is not a paragon of perfection as the media would hype him to be; but a human being, beauteously flawed to the last fibre. Yet he had carried a nation home safely, more often than any other ambassador has ever done, which makes one forget quite easily his dropped catches and careless shots played direct to the hands of fielders.

Oscar Wilde had a wicked wit, and any ardent reader of his, needs to have the wickedness somewhere imbibed into his charm. And Kumar Sangakkara is no exception.

 (--which makes him all the more qualified to become the Sri Lankan High Commissioner to the United Kingdom!)

The second send-off of Denagamage Prabod Mahela de Silva Jayewardene

At a night, the Lankans will never forget, in Dhaka under the floodlights, two buddies in their sweat-sodden shirts hugged each other; probably for the four hundredth time. They were as thrilled as two school boys after winning a much-hyped about big match. They would have walked many grounds before, fist-punched and patted each other for a thousandth time; after every boundary, half a ton and a double ton scored between them.

Long before that night, they would have realized that this duet will one day come to an end—with no secrets of the game between them, they would have even scripted and disputed as to who would make the exit first; and whom to follow.  

Ashqui-2, Aditya Roy Kapur and Ab Tum Hi Ho

Amidst the run-a-round B-town productions, Ashqui looks like slow food.

It starts with a song; and ends with one.

Star-crossed lovers, who are willing to die for each other; but failing to be together.

Showers to bless the divine occasions.

 And the right dose of drama. Ashqui carries the element of Indian-ness that the contemporary productions seem to have dumped for the convenient and invasive western-ness. Its fragile frame does not try to contain anything that is too heavy or cinematically complicated. Ashqui is easy to read, but hard to gulp down.

Ab Tum Hi Ho

A musical would have looked ill-timed in the rush. Yet, this nails it right on the head. From the first no. till the curtain pulls, music enthralls the viewer. There is a reason why movies are supposed to be viewed in theatres; and for Ashqui- it is the score.

The melodies are those that keep replaying in the mind. They were the very type that has musical notoriety to become a rage. And, then there are lyrics that, if one cares to read between the lines, could give away the entire story in a condensed version.

More than the title no. it is the opening song that carries the viewer through the rest. There would have even been an acoustic version of it, sung by Mr. Roy Kapur himself. (why? Why not?)

Ashiqui

The Kapoors, despite their different marks in the cinema, are truly a couple. No one else could have brought out that much, in a company other than what the viewer witnesses. Shraddha moves through the plot swiftly; untainted and feather-weight. Only her quirkiness would have had more space amidst the slots.

Aditya Roy Kapur

He drugs the viewer. This is an intoxication which leaves a hangover that lasts for months or perhaps years. As much as his character gets addicted to booze, the viewer gets addicted to Aditya; a kind of an addiction that keeps one awake at the dead of the night.

He only has to shed that smile of his that reaches all the way to his eyes; the rest falls into place. Yet, he is way more than a pretty face. He struggles to stay in character. It is no easy acting the drunkard—specially in the first solo lead. After all, many of his predecessors with lengthy years of experience have got it wrong. After all, not everyone can be a Devdas. Even the Shah of the Kingdom had a tinge of over-acting in his award-winning role.

No doubt, Shraddha is a gem, well-cut and constantly polished. Yet it is Aditya who steals the show. It was no exaggeration when he conceded that he felt he was the heroine of the movie. With the punch and verve he brings in, he doesn’t deserve to be anything less.

Sadly, his sense of humour had gone waste. Yet, the transformation from the food-prodding VJ to crazy curls to a pop-sensation, which became half-truth in the wake of the movie, is truly heart-stopping.

The point is moot whether Aditya would still have the limelight if the the story was a happily-ever-after. Probably, he would have still aced through it; there would be no lacking of praise that is showered over him. The critics of course would have shown a little bit more sharpness of fangs, in the apparent absence of the need to sympathise.

Probably it is high time he sheds his immunity to romantics. For in time to come, he is going to be tied up and be identified with it.

He clearly knows how to hold a guitar, a bottle and the woman!

A poetic line or two would have made him the archetype. Whether he would have liked it or not, is entirely another matter.

For, when it comes to Aditya Roy Kapur, he is the purest form of poetry!

Bas yun hi....