For God’s sake get off my porch shouted Jermyn "The Vermin" Silva at the mangy old canine that had curled itself under his hansiputuwa. That chair had seen better days before finally ending up in his Longdon Place home having been passed down from generation to generation of Silvas.

The poor dog had been deposited at the wrong address by those who had collected the lot of strays from near BMICH, days before the SAARC Summit to prove to regional leaders who are dogged by their own problems that we in Paradise haven’t gone to the dogs as claimed by some Western canines whose pedigree (unlike Mervin Silva’s) cannot be traced beyond their shaggy, drooping tails.

In his day Jermyn Silva had been a 24-carat balu dostera, a genuine veterinarian, not one who does balu weda if you chaps get the drift.

As you also know there are many dozens of boru dosteras (fake doctors) that inhabit this fair isle of ours and prefix their names (most of which should not be mentioned in public lest mothers lock up their daughters and children have nightmares even in daylight) with the word ‘doctor.’

There it was that sunny morning when the denizens of Longden Place were rudely awakened from their slumber by Jermym Silva’s shriek that shook the chandeliers at the newly refurbished BMICH. They were indeed shocked when God’s name was mentioned in a voice that was several decibels higher than the bells of the nearby places of worship and certainly threatened a mutiny on the high Cs.

Not too many minutes later the inhabitants of this C-7 address, many of whom were of the female gender with their saree potas firmly tucked into their bulging waists and other places of accommodation, came marching in like the 59th brigade armed with kathy, polu and mole gus and halted near Jermyn the Vermin’s forward defence line which was a barbed wire fence.

The hesitation was probably because this assorted army that looked like the rag-tag hoi polloi that stormed the bastille during the French Revolution was wondering whether to attack in strength or keep the men in reserve just in case the women failed to take the Silva bunker which was well fortified.

Who was to know, given the fact that the BMICH now and then becomes a high security area, that Jermyn Silva had not laid a minefield in his spacious lawn that more than competed in size with the nearby CR & FC rugby grounds.

Jermyn having spent many years in the world’s trouble spots and learnt the canny instincts at the heart of the canine culture, was known to adopt measures that in some quarters would be considered unpatriotic like, barking at passing vendors or turning away spurious relatives looking for a free weekend or two.

Jermyn never tired of telling his neighbours and others who would stop for a while outside his gates after a rugby match, there are Silvas and Silvas and never the twain should be confused, not unless you desire a thundering clip on the ear.

So he just could not understand the gathered horde by his fence armed with implements that should remain firmly inside a house and not in the hands of what seemed like an enraged mob.

Jermyn the Vermin was still contemplating this unexpected turn of events when a uniformed officer of the law (now let’s not get into that for now) attired in the traditional khaki approached him, having walked gingerly across the neatly manicured lawn and stood on the bottom step at the porch.

Having proceeded to the scene ( as any Information Book at a police station would faithfully record) SI Bahubootha of the Borella police who, while on foot patrol, had noticed the unlawful assembly clutching such dangerous weapons as hiramane and mole gus, inquired from Jermyn what had caused the disturbance amounting to a public commotion.

Having scratched his head and tugged at the last few strands of hair left on his balding pate, the former balu dostera confessed that he could offer no explanation for this sudden eruption of public anger except that he had shouted at the dog which had assumed some kind of prescriptive right to his porch.

Getting no response from Silva which he could write down in his notebook which had this uncanny habit of losing pages, the member of the khaki-clad fraternity sworn to uphold the law as long as he knew which side of the law to uphold and who laid down the law, SI Bahubootha proceeded towards the gathered assembly.

"Why have you come here with kathy and porawe to attack that gentleman?" asked the twisted arm of the law.

"That is no gentleman," retorted Harry Haramanis, president of the All Island Dogs Federation and universally acclaimed animal rights protector (why, he even filed a citizen’s action against the Ministry of Kunu Karola over some fishy deal but that’s another story). "Do you know that he threatened to kick that poor dog out of the porch in the name of Mervin Silva?"

The uniformed man was now getting extremely nervous and agitated. The name of Mervin Silva was enough warning for him to disappear from the scene and ‘put’ half a day’s sick leave.

Still there were too many people around for him to ignore the remark. So he proceeded with great caution.

"Did he mention the name of the amathi thuma," he asked.

"Oh indeed he did. Several of us heard it," said Harry Haramanis.

"What exactly did he say?" asked the khakied type.

"Why he shouted at the dog to get out for God’s sake."

"But the amathithuma is not God," protested SI Bahubootha.

"Those are precisely our sentiments too. This is a terrible insult to the dog, I mean the four-legged one of course."

"So then why do you people say that he asked the dog to leave in the amathithuma’s name?" persisted the policeman.

"Don’t you police fellows know anything. All you fellows do is lock up somebody for months calling them this and that or baton-charge some innocent people. Didn’t you know that Mervin Silva has now been elevated from Minister to God?" said Harry getting visibly angrier.

"Who did that, the Janadhipathi thuma? That just cannot be. He would not do something like that."

"Not the Janadhipathi you jackass. It was the chosen few."

"Who chose them?" asked the policeman.

"Why Mervin Silva, who else."

"So what did they do?"

"Why they came in a few busloads and shouted at some TV network. There was this woman built like a Russian T54 battle tank who should actually have been deployed in the battle front and other Amazonian types holding placards announcing that Mervin Silva had just been elevated to the ranks of the deity and that he was the ‘Kelaniya Deiyo.’ Buddhist legend has it that the Buddha visited Kelaniya. Is this what Kelaniya has descended to, from a sacred place to a place of scum and rubbish?"

"If he is a descendant of Dutugemunu as he claims he must keep to the traditions of the great king. He should engage in single handed combat instead of surrounding himself with thugs and the like and letting them loose on unsuspecting people. But he will not dare do that because he is a coward. Even the police know that. He apparently ran along the beach for miles after seeing someone shot somewhere in the south," added Kesara Kasalagoda, a long time resident of Longden Place.

"This puts that Maithripala Sirisena fellow in some difficulty doesn’t it?" asked Daisy Boru Epa of the Save the Victims of Boru Dostera Fund.

"How so?" asked Harry, sometimes called Dirty Harry because of his nursing of stray dogs — four legged ones only.

"Why after that last incident where Mervin Silva and his gang manhandled a Sirasa TV crew, this Sirisena fellow kicked the whole thing upstairs — I mean he said Silva will be punished by God. But a handful of Silva supporters from Kelaniya has made him a god. So will one god punish another even if the second god is self appointed?"

"Well I heard that Maithripala Sirisena has now consulted a clutch of kattadiyas and assorted hooniyan karayas to see whether there is a greater god so that this affair could be kicked up still higher," said Felix Kattepittu, a former diplomat and resident of the place.

"Now don’t quote me on this," said a government official who wanted no mention of his name or position for obvious reasons, "but I hear they are going to abolish the judiciary and retire all the judges."

"But then who is going to decide all the cases," asked a retired justice — of the peace, that is.