By Ranil Mendis
Evin has some strange friends. One of these odd badges is Hiwalani. He is the number one panthan karaya in Sri Lanka. Panthan Karaya is the vernacular for bum sucker. He holds panthans to politicians, police and customs officers. He is a beady-eyed, dimwitted man of no use to anyone but himself. He holds panthans morning, noon and night. He has to light so many candles that he buys them by the crate at wholesale prices from the CWE. He also sings Karaoke whenever these dignitaries have parties and speaks a lot of blooming rubbish at the Royal-Thomian to cultivate a friendship with the PM by the gentle art of bumming. Sometimes I wonder who is worse? The panthan karaya or the politicians.

The PM, Thonda and Rauf Hakeem are the chief recipients of these panthans. Madam in the palace also received these in abundance when she had executive power. But now that she is more ceremonial, she is ignored. Due to the amount of panthans that this man lights at Temple Trees, it is said that the residence is not affected by power cuts. The place has enough light from Hiwalani’s candle power.

Hiwalani by bumming the right people for ill-gotten gain, managed to obtain the contract to operate the canteen in Parliament. The project was to be under the BoI scheme in order to obtain tax concessions, loans and duty free cars. Initially, the BoI rejected the project. The hiccup was overcome by sending the former Director News of SLBC Dayananda de Silva in shorts and tie to the BoI office and approval was obtained.

Evin as consultant to the project asked me to prepare a business plan and gave me detailed instructions on how I should proceed. While driving to Parliament to obtain the required data on the food and beverage consumption of our parliamentarians, I reflected upon our much maligned politicians. In the words of Mark Anthony, they are honourable men. They promised to reduce the cost of living and increase incomes. They have done so admirably for themselves, at other people’s expense.

They have voted unto themselves duty free vehicles paid for with a song. Preposterous pension schemes, subsidised food in the canteen etc. Now according to the Sunday Times of last week the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Hon. Azwer is going to dish out Rs. 295,000 worth of office equipment free of charge to 75 MPs but paid for by the suffering people of this country. In the near future you will see 75 new communication centres serving the people for a profit that accrues to the MP. They have fulfilled their extravagant promises.

In the task at hand of gathering this data I had an advantage. Tasil, an old schoolmate of mine was working in a key position in the parliamentary complex and had a bird’s eye view of all activity. Tasil a man about town and a nosey parker was well aware of all the habits of our MPs.

"Make sure you buy crates of Beaujolais, Chablis and Chardonnay vintage 1956, 1970 and 1994 respectively," advised Tasil "It is for Anura the Patrician. Adam’s Ale is not good enough for him."

I thought that this man might have found mother’s milk not good enough for him as an infant. He would have had a premium brand of Cow and Gate. That is probably why he behaves like a bull in a China shop.

"What about SB?", I asked. "SB really does not know the difference between wine and vinegar," replied Tasil. "He shows that he has made a great leap upwards in the social ladder by drinking gin and tonic."

"What about PM?", I asked, as I was very inquisitive to know the preferences of the man of the moment.

"PM is a very quiet, courteous gentleman of high integrity. He is not a bumptious fellow. He likes mostly vegetable salad," replied Tasil.

"Any particular vegetable?", I asked.

"He loves cabbages," replied Tasil.

Come to think of it I am informed that the inner ruling elite of this government loves this vegetable. Therefore cabbage can be the defining emblem of this government. Then, in the cohabitation that we have with the Presidency, we have a government of "Cabbages and Poodles."

A note by the writer. I was informed by Professor Carlo Fonseka that a quotation I had attributed to George Bernard Shaw in last week’s article regarding "feeding a starving dog..." is not accurate. He said that I had conveyed the meaning of it but the actual words and the author were different. I appreciate his intervention and would equally appreciate if a reader could provide us with the exact quote and author.

I myself searched the internet to obtain the answer without success, but came across two interesting quotes, which I would like to share with the reader.

"If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons." - James Thurbur

"My assistant has every characteristic of a dog, except loyalty." - Sir Winston Churchill