Let’s look for Kekille’s sword
All Sri Lankans have presumably heard of King Kekille, in whose court trials always led to the wrongdoer being released and the innocent party punished.
One day he found a newly-built wall around his palace warped and decided to punish the builder. The poor man, hauled up before a fuming king, claimed he had been distracted by a buxom woman going past the palace hither and thither while work was in progress and she was therefore responsible for his lapse. The woman, brought before the king, pleaded not guilty as she had been compelled to do several trips to a goldsmith who failed to deliver her order on time. The king had the goldsmith hanged!
People may think King Kekille never trod this land and such stories are apocryphal, but we dare say he actually lived here and chroniclers missed him out. For, there is irrefutable evidence of his bloodline and some of his descendants are currently at the levers of power.
Investigations into a recent attack on two army intelligence officers at Hilton Colombo Residence have taken an unexpected turn. An attempt is now being made to shift the blame for the incident to the victims and let the assailants led by Minister Mervyn Silva’s son, Malaka, off the hook.
An argument is being peddled that there was no official requirement for the two officers to be where they were at the time of the attack. Well, even if that is the case, shouldn’t the attackers be brought to justice for injuring two citizens and relieving them of an official revolver, a mobile phone and a gold chain?
How could the public expect the government to catch the homicidal maniac/s terrorising the people of Kahawatte or crack down on the netherworld of crime, when the police cannot arrest even a political brat who moves about freely in public with his father’s Ministerial Security Division (MSD) guards in tow in spite of having assaulted two army officers?
The government has fired a travel advisory, warning Sri Lankans against visiting Tamil Nadu in view of mob attacks. Time magazine has reported that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, on June 27, sent a twitter message urging India’s top officials to ‘revive the animal spirit in the country’s economy’. Instead, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa has unleashed the animal spirit in racist politics in her state and no Sri Lankan is safe in that part of India regardless of his or her ethnicity and religion, unless he or she is pro-LTTE. So, the government has, after months of dillydallying, done the right thing by putting out that stinging travel advisory. We hope that it will be considerate enough to issue a similar warning to those who visit hotels and nightclubs in Colombo. Let the visitors to such places be urged to carry fags and boxes of matches in sufficient quantities so as not to offend politicians’ sons and their goons who may suddenly ask for them. Had such an advisory been issued, Minister Silva’s son would not have had to beat the two army officers for not having a box of matches to light his cigarette.
At this rate, one need not be surprised even if the army officers concerned get court-martialled and cashiered. It looks as if the ground were being prepared for a Kekille trial or miscarriage of justice.
The steep rise in incidents of treasure hunting and the March 16 museum theft which shook the country have been attributed to some politicians’ quest for a warrior king’s rapier. The government has dismissed that claim as having not a scintilla of truth in it. Never mind our brave kings and their precious swords! Let’s look for bovine King Kekille’s blade and restore it to the rightful owners in power today. And hurry up, folks!
September 16, 2012
