Shameful behaviour of some that bespoils the country’s image

 

2021/06/4

Cassandra sits down to word process her Friday June 4 column on Saturday May 29. Don’t misjudge her – she is no eager beaver with nothing else to do. She sat down to this writing as she puked violently on reading some news items and opinions in today’s, Saturday May 29 The Island. Writing, she hopes, may prove cathartic and eliminate her sick, disgusted feeling.

That honoured profession now disgraced by a few

Medical specialists denounce political interference with vaccination programme, announces the said newspaper. AMS President, Dr Lakkumar Fernando has come out strong in a media statement which points to total mismanagement of the vaccination programme and cites the Mayor of Moratuwa who stormed a vaccination 

centre and wanted those who carried chits from him to be given priority. The MOH (Cass takes pride in saying ‘woman doctor’) stood firm notwithstanding a subsequent fracas which she faced with the weapon of what’s right facing a barrage of bl…dy rowdies armed with political clout – very powerful during these dark days. Similar incidents took place in Galle and Kurunegala.

We know for certain the GMOA had extended families and others vaccinated out of turn. A friend of a doc, not even an amba yahaluwa, was invited to accompany her – the doc – and, gee whizz! she got an A-Z vaccine lusted after by the old and infirm who in developed countries – USA for one – were the first to be vaccinated, never mind wealth or poverty, black or white, with clout or without. Cass was advised to seek influence to get the second shot. She refused more than once. Her reason: better to die beheaded for exposing the truth or suffocate as C19 infected sufferer than break the queue and utilize the unfair advantage many are donating and receiving. It is definitely a top down gush that causes even ordinary citizens to circumvent rules and just restrictions.

The person in charge of the vaccination programme seems to have lost control of it. How about the military? Equally generous under the table? What can you expect when a Health Minister who promoted publicly a carpenter’s peniya as given him by Kali still sits on her ministerial chair? The gossip grape wine whispers her security man of a hub also doled out A-Z vaccines. But corrupt cronies seem more welcome to the present powers-that-be.

Hence Cass’ bouts of puking in utter disgust.

Change in salutation in National Anthem

We thought we would have to belt out a new name when we sang our beloved National Anthem. It would be a peon to Cheena when the Port City is a hub of casinos and money laundering overcrowded with slit eyes. Sorry, that was a slip of the fingers on the keyboard, meant to read the country subjugated to a Port City that was projected as the be-all for a sudden elevation in our economic status and all of us wealthy Sri Lankans, oops again – wealthy citizens

Descended to the lowest depths

We Ordinaries know where this Saubhagya govt, the Yahapalanaya and previous MR govt led our ‘resplendent ‘island to – the depths, nadir, hell below. Proof? We have got a loan, exchange of money or whatever from Bangladesh considered not so very monsoons ago just above disastrous banana republic status with the two Begums at each other’s throats and the multitude over there joining the fight. Now one is (or was) imprisoned and the other, the smaller Begum, has led the country to look down on us! That says enough. As Bangladeshi newspaper headlined it, Sri Lanka has been helped by China, Korea and Bangladesh to overcome economic crises. We should all hang our heads in shame.

That insistent trilingual message on phones

The voice is urgent, the message frightening: Covid-19 is more speedily spreading than previously. We are asked to abide by health protocols and save ourselves and the nation. This the government should have done – acted fast and sure in obtaining vaccines and giving it to the majority of the population, if not to all. They failed miserably. Are we Ordinaries to pick the pieces?

One bright news spark

Wooden coffins are being substituted by cardboard boxes and already done in Free Sri Lanka! Cheers!! Let’s drink to that and live longer! Cass always moaned over the cost of disposing of a dead person. The price of funerals kept rising very sharply. She had the foresight to pay for her own simple funeral. She asked then whether hardboard coffins would be available. The gentleman at the desk of an undertaking establishment said no. So now we have an even cheaper container – cardboard. That in itself is a good lesson to teach people not to be extravagant over the last journey of a loved one. Let him/her go without scraping the money barrel at home, already almost bare, often driving the bereaved to native Shylocks.

Thus, Cass ends her Friday conversation with you hoping that the situ in the country has improved so lockdown will be eased on June 7. See you liberated and well after that!