Chairman of Selectors

When I first heard Sanath Jayasuriya was appointed as the chairman of selectors of Sri Lankan cricket, I shook my head partly in disbelief and partly in disappointment. Sanath was a great cricketer (in his day). But he seems to have now turned into this horrible politician who is intend on meddling in the one sport we are good at. What if he selects himself into the team?

But then I read this wonderful blog by Andrew Hughes on cricinfo.

http://blogs.espncricinfo.com/thelonghandle/archives/2013/01/dont_give_up_the_day_job_sanat.php

Andrew is right. Perhaps it is a blessing in disguise. Better to screw-up cricket than the country's economy.

Crates or Sacks?

If you are living in Sri Lanka, you would definitely be aware of the major commotion related to the change in laws for transporting vegetables. Most seem to think the intention behind enforcing such a law is good, but the process of planning and implementing is poor.

On one side, the farming community (including the middle-man, or should I say middle-person?) are trying to save every cent to maximize profit. On the other side we seem to have a minister who is not willing to compromise having being frustrated by delays in enforcing the law and also smarting from a slightly bruised ego.

I quite like the article below (if you ignore the political brownie points it seems to be trying to score). Looks like this Harsha dude knows what he is talking about (at least in this instance).

http://www.lbo.lk/fullstory.php?nid=1755694470

So what is your take on this? A country like India seems to be wasting as much as 40% of veggies during transportation and storage. I believe it is much less here in Sri Lanka. Nevertheless, will crates save a considerable amount of wastage as indicated by the minister? Or is he just trying to get rid of some plastic items probably offloaded to us by our big brother China? Do the farmers have solid reasons to oppose such a law? Or are they just resisting change just for the sake of it?

Let's have your say friends....

Colombo Election

I can almost hear all the Sri Lankans out there sighing with disgust at the mention of the word “election”. But why don’t we like them? Is it because they are more frequent in Sri Lanka than the chances of garbage collecting man turning up? Or perhaps there are more candidates than the number of bees in a bee-hive? Or even maybe because none of the candidates come up with a proper election manifesto? Not to forget the likelihood of selected candidate swapping sides soon after the result,… I am sure you get my point here.

But to me, this election is slightly different. At least I see it in a different perspective - mainly because I got some insights into some of the candidates. It made it a wee bit interesting.

• For one thing, most candidates seem to be online these days. They promote their campaigns on facebook, twitter and through their own websites and blogs. Perhaps the election laws prohibiting the usual “election poster” has resulted in this exodus to the internet.
• Banning the election poster is one thing, but enforcing it is another. Although the posters are being taken down by police, more new ones get pasted at the same places by the next morning. I reckon what you need is the ability to financially penalize or even disqualify a candidate instead of merely tearing down their poster.
• Then there are these crafty ways to get around the advertising ban. Y’see, apparently the ban is on advertising “Vote for this number”. So some candidates advertise websites that include their number and the “cross” (sign for voting). There are also candidates who organize events (like musical shows) on the day that match their number (ie. someone with number 20 would organize a musical show on the 20th of the month). And advertise in bold letter the organizer’s name (which happens to be the candidate) and the date of the event (which is their number). Too bad if your number is greater than 31.
• Just got to know about a certain candidate who had come out with a poster indicating that he was rubbing shoulders with the president at a certain prestigious international event. But the truth of the matter seems to be that he was neither with the president nor at this event – it was a hoax with a bit of photoshop involved.
• Out of all the people, the “mudalali” at my local grocery shop is also a candidate this time. It takes him a considerable amount of time to figure out the change when I purchase anything from that shop. So he is not the brightest I have met. But then again, level of intellect or qualifications doesn’t seem to be a prerequisite for this job.

Few days back the postman delivered my voting documents together with a large sheet of paper. The paper listed out all the candidates. There were 11 groups and 26 candidates in every group. Making it 286 candidates in total. Last time I checked, population of Colombo city was less than 650,000. That is one candidate for every 2,200. To put it in perspective, my school (which had 5,000 students) would have produced 2 election candidates.

All this may be interesting but doesn’t encourage me to get off the sofa and go to the polling booth. After all there will be two interesting world cup (rugby) matches on the 8th.

Conspiracy Theory

If you are the sort who tends to look for a conspiracy in everything, then you’d love to live in Sri Lanka these days. One recent incident in particular jumps up like a cat in heat. The ICC word cup!

Team Selection : Sana and Vaas were included in the preliminary squad. Now my 10 year old girl could have told you how stupid that was – and she does not even follow cricket! Why have them included? Well I reckon they wanted everyone to start taking about cricket – y’know, any publicity is good publicity right?

Venues : They created a whole new ground in Hamba just for the world cup instead of spending 0.0001 of that money on getting floodlights fitted in to SSC. There are two theories here. One is that MR wanted to show off – reminds me of Asterix and Cleopatra story where Cleopatra bets good ol’ Julius that she can build a great palace in 3 months… or something like that. Secondly, some big-wig(s) would have thought “What a great opportunity to get some decent commission?”. I don’t even want to discuss “Pallekele”.

Tickets Fiasco : I tried to find out how I can secure some tickets since early January. I was given a different date to call every time I called the cricket board. After three unsuccessful attempts I gave up. My previous unsavory encounter with the cricket board didn’t help me to summon up my courage to try one more time. I later heard that out of the 30,000 capacity at Premedasa stadium, only 8,000 tickets are available for sale to the general public. WTF? My theory is that MR, Ministers and Cricket Board Officials must have friends, relatives and debtors who collectively make up the rest of the 22,000.

Banned Items : I agree that one should not bring knives and even glass bottles to a cricket ground, but what about the humble Beer and Papare? Who on their right mind would spend one full day outdoor in blistering heat and 90% humidity without cold beer available like running water? And Papare? When did Sri Lanka ever play a single cricket match without the unmistakable Papare music in the background? I remember carrying a banner which in bold letters announced “Warne is a Wimp!” when we played against Aussies at the Premadasa in 1996 – how can you deprive a teenager that privilege? The theory? They wanted to create an outrage so huge that subsequently when they lift the ban, the fellow who lifted the ban can become a household name instantly. That works out well especially when there is yet another election around the corner.

Jeez, my head is spinning just by thinking about other possibilities. Time to have a cold beer and enjoy the re-runs of Lions crushing hapless Canada. Oh how I wish I had a Papare CD. Cheers!

D-Day

It's 26th already and I am still not sure who to vote for.

Apart from winning the war (which was a great feat) MR really hasn't done anything extraordinary. And the fact that he called the election early shows that he wanted to secure more number of years as the president while the proverbial iron is hot.

On the other side, SF is a strange fellow - mysterious, bitter and with a shady past. To me, his intentions are purely to take revenge from the Rajapaksa's family. And I don't care much for his bedfellows (JVP) either. Although I sympathise with him for how he was treated by the government in the recent past, I can't risk the country's future on a personal vendetta between him and MR.

So I will probably end up voting for MR. I guess the known devil is better than the unknown one. Then again, there are 18 other candidates too...

MR or SF?

Are there any policy statements issued by Sri Lankan presidential candidates? Or is that a stupid question to ask?

Are we related?

What would you do if you find out that you are related to Obama? Especially if you are Bin Laden? Think about it. Kinda funny isn't it?

I'm sure most people on facebook would have received this message by now (at least I hope they did). It seems that I am related to Obama. How nice!

Grade four Independence

Picture this.

My seven year old is almost falling asleep on the toilet seat. The time is barely 5.45am. Still pitch dark outside. It was my turn to get her ready for school this morning. She is supposed to leave home by 6.30am.

“Thaththi..” she says,..”I don’t feel so good this morning…”
I know this routine,.. “Ok darling, what did you forget this time?”
She sobs quietly and says,…”Teacher asked us to read up on the National Day,.. but I completely forgot thaaaaththiiii……”.

Did she say “read”? Not “write”?… no problem,.. I can handle this on my own,.. no need to wake the general I thought.

“Ok darling,.. no need to be upset, this is what you do,.. while you are brushing your teeth, try memorising a few sentences”. Sure, I can handle this, no sweat! But in my peripheral vision, I could see her giving me a puzzeled look.

“We celebrate independence day on the 4th of February”
“Independence day marks the end of British rule over Sri Lanka and handing over the control of the country to it’s people” (let’s not go there)
“This year we celebrated the 61st independence day”
“We watched the military parade on the TV on our independence day”
“Our president gave a speech on the independence day”

“Thaththi,.. why does the president have to talk? Band music is much better”.

“That’ll do darling, let’s memorise the first four sentences only”. It was already 6.05am. Chop Chop!!!