Hero And The Wannabe Hero

He came, he conquered and yes, he retired. Quite not in keeping with what is now the national tradition of hanging on when the going is good or by marketing past performance. For this reason in particular and his stupendous achievements in general Muttiah Muralitharan will be long remembered as the Sri Lankan who was ‘different.’

In a country where cricketers who become politicians play well into their 40s, in a country where presidents who promise to go home after one term indulge in constitutional skull-drudgery to remain in office forever, and in a country where the opposition leader wants to keep that post forever, Murali has brought in a breath of fresh air showing all those who do not wish to see that one must go when the going is good and not when one has no other option – disgraced and humiliated in the process.

Murali has become a hero for all the right reasons – not quite the usual Sri Lankan story. Having long been the flag bearer of Sri Lanka cricket, it is his personality as much as his cricketing skills that have brought an adoring world to his feet, and his place in history is assured.

His personality has essentially been his humility – from his school days as St. Anthony’s Katugastota to last Thursday afternoon when he reached the pinnacle of the cricket world, Murali has, is and we can wager without doubt will be, a humble man with no bloated ego or airs about him – truly a one of a kind.
However what struck us at noon last Thursday as Murali went about his destructive business on the Galle cricket field was the presence of a visitor who had come to see him play – President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s new found tail-piece, Wimalasiri Gamlath better known as Wimal Weerawansa.

Weerawansa now apparently fit as a fiddle showing no unhealthy signs of his three day farce unto death on a drip, was seen following the President around as he arrived at the Galle Stadium to witness Murali create history. But history had other ideas and would not let Murali get his milestone until Weerawansa was safely back aboard the air force chopper he came in with the President.

The pompous Weerawansa who clearly looked at sea like the adjoining Indian Ocean at Galle while watching the cricket is nothing but the exact opposite of Murali and it is this contradiction that struck us as we all watched the cricket and of course the VIP visitors.

Weerawansa has always wanted to be what he clearly is not – and now post death farce will not be, ever – a hero. Let’s start with his name. His real name. Wimalasiri Gamlath. For the self-proclaimed patriot from the south, it is about a name as good as it gets in those parts. But then for our wannabe hero his name itself had to scream it out so what does he do, he changes it to ‘hero’ – ‘weera’ – wansa, and we suppose he expects the rest of the world to treat him like one. But he is learning – learning that name board heroes are out of fashion. Just two weeks ago he learned the hard way that lying on a mattress for three days certainly didn’t make one a hero and we can only presume the many envious thoughts that would have crossed his mind as he watched a real hero for a change, create history in Galle.

In little over five years, from the days of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s first presidential election campaign in 2005 to now, Wimal Weerawansa has metamorphosed from a raging Marxist revolutionary of the JVP, to cardboard Marxist leader of the JVP breakaway party the NFF, to a presidential poodle, who loves nothing more in this world than to be seen hanging around the President. His finest moment in life would surely have been when the President of the country kneeled down before him and offered him a glass of what looked like water.

The ascension to his present position has been on the backs of the many JVP/NFF cadres who toiled hard to create a false aura about a man who clearly was but a bag of hot air, with nothing to show by way of achievement or substance. As a minister, so far he has been a dismal failure and an embarrassment to the government — the high profile UN fiasco that drew worldwide attention – his pièce de résistance in what has been a potty political career. His only achievement from the time he has held some form of power has been personal aggrandizement.

These very pages have documented this over the years.
It is about time that if not the President of this country, who surely can do with better company, the people of this country saw through this hero-acting-humbug.
How he must be longing to be the Muttiah Muralitharan of the Rajapaksa Government!