Here a shot, there a shot everywhere a shot

Darling Ma-hinder

For a man who had been walking about all this time with bowed head as if pacing behind the coffin of a dear and valued friend, the reappearance of Sonna boy on the political scene was nothing less than disconcerting darling. And I may as well tell you dear that I glanced listlessly at him while he took his place next to you on a Sabaragamuwa stage just last week. 

It is not so much that you brought Satty's blue eyed boy from oblivion back into obscurity dear. Neither is it because you felt you too could meet fire with fire, heated glance with more heated glance, muscle sinew with muscle sinew, powdered nose with severely powdered nose, by bringing back Sonna Goo to fight One Shot Rama.

Not even the most dyspeptic silver screen critic would not cavil at the inclusion of Sonna boy on your stage. One is entitled to observe that it was no sudden outbreak of foppishness and frivolity on your part that you dragged the man out of his afternoon slumber, made him drape himself inside of a Barbara Sansoni sarong and got him to clamber on to your campaign stage.

It was, one may observe, a hastily thought of plan to drag the female eye off the one shot body and on to your stage. Mahipala being a poor substitute for sheer muscle sinew and the six pack effect.     

And from all reports poor Sonna boy had been rather shy and retiring in your presence as he stood on his left leg and coyly drew patterns on the wooden platform with his right toe. "I.I ..I always meant to appear with you on your political stage but I have not been able to so far." the one time high riding star of the Satty show said, powder peeling off the tip of his quivering nose. Sonna indeed had never before stood with you as you so rightly realised.

Heard you were having a laugh a minute at Sonna's expense dearie as you shot back, "ouw ithing gedera geni geng issalla ahanda onai ne?" quickly translated to read as 'yes you have to ask the lady at home first.' Hmm! One wonders who you could have meant by that?

All Thellie can say is Tch Tch. Naughty, naughty. My defence for such brevity of wit which as anyone who knows anything will tell you is the soul of speech is today rather impaired by a feistiness of spirit. The colourless kind that comes in quarts m'dear. Though I am pleased you are able to take time off your busy schedule to crack a joke or two in the best traditions of politics.

And while Sonna boy was on your stage with his hair in a braid, One Shot Rama was on an opposing stage fending off the ladies. One recalls a time when Satty was willing to risk the lives of young children on stage for political purposes as she accoutered some youthful unfortunates in costumes depicting  the four ethnicities in ole Paradise and walked on stage with them like in a pre school production of Gypsy Gay. This mind you even as she was well aware how dangerous it would be for those kids to appear on her stage. Thellie remembers thinking at the time that she might as well have recruited the tiny tots as child soldiers.

You too have had a habit of squeezing the chins off small persons at various politically motivated functions in an attempt of course at demonstrating your avuncular qualities to the martyred proletariat.

Be that as it may it is at One Shot Rama campaign rallies that the tiny tot is being used nay misused as a telephone pad and note book dear. And mind you not by Rama not by Sita but by their own young starry eyed mummies. Only the other day, a large number of little folk who had been cheering and shouting at a One Shot Rama meeting, prompted by their young mummies no doubt, were asked to step on stage.

Cheering and shouting the little fellows had scrambled up clutching pen and paper falling over themselves for autographs from Ranjan 'One Shot' R. One intrepid young boy however was not only brave but also truthful. Mummy also wanted your phone number he whispered in Rama's flapping ear. Thellie has no information as to whether the brave little boy's mummy was given the phone number or not.

But if ever there was a time a tiny tot of Paradise was used in a more diabolical way by mummies then this time is that time. 

I mean to say the tiny fellow would find himself running to the boutique of a morning to get a teaspoonful of Nespray milk. The little chap would probably be running around dragging a kite in the afternoon and before he knows it there he is of an early evening scuttling up on a one shot stage and getting Ranjan Rama to write his telephone number on his palm on behalf of his mummy.

Tch Tch dear and to think it was this very darling of the village mummy that your chaps dared to attack the other day. Little wonder I saw the fellow a band aid on his left temple, a limp on his right leg and a bend on his left ear talking it over with Rakneel.

As Thellie sits in her rocking chair pondering about the world in general and the reason for living in particular gulping down a tequila shot, I am reminded that on the one hand the green camp had at this election 'One Shot' Rama. On the other hand and in the ruined city the greens had 'Gun Shot' Janaka who later claimed he was 'Sure Shot' Perera.

But darling One Shot, Gun Shot or Sure Shot with you in the driving seat, for Paradise at least it will always be a kanay shot.

Ta ra for now