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Much ado about bibikkan

By Henry Holdenbottle 

Darling Satellite,

Without a doubt, m'darling,the image of you as a retired police constable conjured up by the furious imagination and somewhat more furious speaking style of that rotten-egg-in-the-making media secretary of the red tunics, was I thought the ripest I had heard.....

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Knight in shining armour!

The little red brood is getting increasingly unruly indeed. It was not so long ago that controversy erupted about Agriculture Minister Anura Dissanayake making public statements about..... 

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Much ado about bibikkan

By Henry Holdenbottle

Dear Satellite,  

Without a doubt, m'darling,the image of you as a retired police constable conjured up by the furious imagination and somewhat more furious speaking style of that rotten-egg-in-the-making media secretary of the red tunics, was I thought the ripest I had heard.

This was before he described you as a bibikkama. That fairly made me swallow my own tongue. Or was it that he called the state you were in a bibikkama. Hard to say with these red chaps. Suffice it to say that Sinhala rasa kavili were used extensively to make his point. When one recalls that the Sinhalaya  is nothing but a kavun eating yodaya, one realises that rhetorical metaphor drawn from Sinhala sweet meats is more or less appropriate to the southern stage.

As passionately indignant as a slave runner who had lost his cargo, Wimal Wee or Wee Wee if you prefer, frothed at the mouth and scoffed at the President. In a word, You. The constitution gave you no powers he said, with the easy confidence only of a man who has not been blessed with a brain. It was the Patriotic Front, the JVP and other chauvinistic extremists who gave blood to your clenched wrist he claimed or words to that effect.

There is not much that Wee Wee can say that will surprise moi. But of the fact that he had a large and veritable knowledge of the various goings on in your boudoir, I was ignorant. Thus his bold assertion that you only sleep perchance to dream... and then dream so intensely of Ravi Kay and of handbags fitted with voice recorders and camera equipment... made me uncomfortably curious as to his methods of investigation and information. When he said you were in the habit of keeping awake at nights and sleeping in the day, while always tossing and turning in your bed, I began to be alarmed. Was this man a Peeping Tom of the worst kind I asked my self, gasping. But when he swore on Das Kapital that your sleeping routine had not changed and that in fact you still kept up in the nights and snoozed by day, I was positively at boiling point. Bubbling dear. Bubbling with curiosity and not too worried about the cat in the adage either.

How the Dickens does this man know so much about your nightly revels? First it was Lalkantha who accused you and yours of living it up and bringing him down. With the brash language of a man unaccustomed to the epicurean lifestyle he was to rant and rave that while the blues ate, drank and made merry it was the reds who toiled and moiled in the soil and foiled the treacherous efforts of the greens to bring about peace and hoisted you blokes to victory.

Given that the reds are largely and variously drawn, from the proletariat it is but fitting that the working classes do all the work. If they do not toil and moil then they have no business being members of the working class. I mean to say darling that only stands to reason.

While I disagree with their choice of language never having been a big fan of kavun and bibikkan, I am inclined to agree darling with the red blots on your blue escutcheon that if not for them the SLFP would be nowhere. The party leadership needs an extreme makeover darling and you know it. A face lift will not do. It must be total overhaul or nothing.

All this bickering within your alliance bothers me just a tad dear. Japanese, American and Norwegian big wigs may set foot in Paradise. They may sip tea with Hakeem or smile ingratiatingly at you. But in the final analysis if you do not find some pesticide for those parasitic red germs infesting your alliance's small intestines you won't get anywhere. Where will you get I ask you, ifevery sentence the JVP speaks is saturated with invective against you. What is your role in the alliance do tell, if the very members of the alliance liken you to a retired police constable who derives powers from chauvinistic elements? Pray how will you reach your goals such as they are if every donkey in the harness is pulling in a different direction?

Meanwhile Mangy is as flamboyant in speech as he is in his dress. Without batting an eyelid the dear chap said the battiest thing I have ever heard. We shall remove the speaker he said in that outspoken way of his. We shall remove him when we have a majority in parliament. Pray and when will you have a majority in parliament? Pardon me if I don't hold my breath. Mangy nonchalantly adds that the presidential election will be in November 2006.

Ichabod m'dear,there is not much I can tell a woman who insists on hanging on like an unset jelly in a dish. Like a mistake made in indelible ink on a term paper. Like a blood patch on the back pleat of a white uniform that just will not go. Like an inoperable tumour in the brain...

Toodle oo m'dear, until next time.

Knight in shining armour!

The little red brood is getting increasingly unruly indeed. It was not so long ago that controversy erupted about Agriculture Minister Anura Dissanayake making public statements about 'Loku Nona' and her brat pack, but now it appears Wimal Weerawansa, much maligned among his own party cadre who believe that the Propaganda Sec is striking deals with the Loku Nona herself, thereby betraying party principles, has decided to join in the fray. In a widely publicised speech last Sunday (24) at one of his many Desha Hitaishi shindigs, Weerawansa decided to take potshots at President Chandrika Kumaratunga, claiming that she had been as weak as a kitten before the JVP and its umbrella groups came along to save the day. Weerawansa alleged that President Kumaratunga even suffered from insomnia reminiscing about her horrific cabinet meetings during the tenure of the UNF government, where she was heckled non-stop by the then ministers and likened her to a pensioned police constable during his speech.  

"Back then, she was harping on the fact that she cannot use her presidential powers. Once she goes to the cabinet meeting, the Ravi Karunanayakes question her about handbags and vehicles. They began to rag her in all sorts of ways. She couldn't sleep at night because she was reminded of being ragged by Ravi. The President's power had been condemned with so much pressure.

"Now certain people think that the executive power was given by the constitution, But there was a time when this power could not be wielded, could not be rejuvenated. It was at this moment that these national movements emerged and took the people out on to the streets. They began to reactivate the executive powers that were condemned and were deemed ineffective. If this did not happen she would still be awake at night and asleep during the day. Certain people cannot remember these things. You can remember, but the people who should keep these things in mind, cannot remember.

"It was during those days that letters were being written to Ranil. Some of them were not even published. It couldn't be fought out in the open. The international community also pouted at the President. It had reached the state of a retired policeman, only with an uniform. At least a policeman only reaches this stage following retirement. In this case, it was reached even before retirement."

- JVP Propaganda Secretary, Wimal Weerawansa at a National Patriotic Movement rally on October 24.

Rumour has it that Loku Nona is none too impressed with Weerawansa's tirade and is demanding a public apology from the chappie forthwith. Tee-hee, it isn't going to be easy for this errant knight to swallow his words, that's for sure!