It was a dimly lit bedroom. The only sound was the sound of a clock ticking. Suddenly there was a loud ringing noise.
An arm stretched out from under the expensive blanket and stopped the alarm clock. The man on the bed slowly gets up,walks into the toilet and switches on the light. Suddenly he could see everything clearly. Including his face in the mirror. The face of president Mahinda Rajapaksa.
The president looked tired. He couldn't sleep very well on the night before. He had so many things to worry about. War,poverty, debt , increasing prices of food and oil. The war was supposed to finish this year but now it looks like it is going to take longer. How much longer can the struggling economy cope with a costly war?
"There has to be a better way" he thought. As he stood there staring at his face in the mirror, something struck him. "Yes! There IS a better way"
The press conference was arranged in a hurry. "I am going to Killinochi. I am going to talk to Prabha directly. I am going to ask him if he thinks there is another way to end this conflict. Without fighting, without dividing the country into two."
"Mr President. Why did you take this decision all of a sudden?"
"I took this decision a long time ago. Remember my manifesto? I promised this years ago?"
"But why do we need to do this now? Aren't we winning the war?"
"Yes we are winning the war. And we will continue to win the ware. But as we continue to win this war for many many years,people all over our country are losing sons,daughters,fathers,brothers. Winning the war won't repair this damage."
"So are you going to surrender to the terrorists?"
"I am not going there to surrender. I am going to there to negotiate"
"But we have tried negotiating with them before! It never worked out!"
"It never worked out because we never trusted each other. We are always scared they will use the peace to trick us. And they are scared we would do the same"
"So how is it going to change this time?"
"Someone has to start trusting. And someone has to take the risks. I am going to travel to their place. It will send them a message about trust."
"How do you know they won't just kill you as soon as you get there?"
"Good point!" said the president. "I thought about that too." he continued.
(to be continued)
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8 comments:
Thank you for your comments on the blog 'unprotected thoughts' on India... In general, and by my experience so far, I used to think most Sri Lankans hate India for some reason, and that was so bewildering since here we really think quite well of you people.
Much Luck... :)
Aditi
Hello to you :)
Just to let you know I'm putting up a link from my blog to your's... hope that's alright...
Hi Aditi, Thanks so much for adding a link to my blog. It' an honour!
I am saddened that you feel most Sri Lankans hate India. Although I must admit I am not so surprised as I have come across a few misinformed Sri Lankans saying silly things about India. I think their comments only reflect their own ignorance.
But can you tell me a little bit more about your own experiences that made you feel most Sri Lankans hate India please?
Read this (http://greenlemons07.blogspot.com/2007/09/sethusamudram.html) and this (http://greenlemons07.blogspot.com/2007/09/thats-our-colour.html) post on my blog, which will tell you a bit about how and why I feel that way about SL.
So you see, when I started blogging, with a naiveté typical to me, I assumed that people in your country would also feel friendly towards India. Except, that wasn't the case.
Most blogs I read by you ppl, they all had snide remarks about my country. Some were outright accusations, and some were just generally derogatory.
I really did not understand the reason for this hostility, and actually felt let down, and even slightly shocked, since I had always been told that your's was a beautiful country full of friendly people.
I also follow cricket, and then I read that your vice captain, Kumar Sangakkara had gone and written about 'Indian fans who wish you nothing but ill'
I felt that was irresponsible, but was again surprised to hear of such a blatant statement coming from somebody who is in general so careful with his words.
And so I came to the conclusion that for some reason, your people do not like us very much.
If you couldn't get the links, those posts are called
1. Sethusamudram; and
2 That's our colour!
See you there!
:)
Cleaver writing. I bet it will be quiet challenging to find an ending to the story and keep the story interested at the same time. Main reason been this is kind of a folk story. We all know the story. You just create a new character in it call Mahinda. But I have heard the old version of this, with deferent characters like JR, Premadasa, Chandrika, Ranil.. etc.. All of those old stories had quite boring, but exactly simpler ending. You know the type of the ending, that you walk out the theater thinking..”I can’t believe I spend money to watch this crap..” and then tell all your friends.. “That movie is so crap, don’t even go closer the theater..”
I’m defiantly interested to see if you can come up with a deferent ending in this version.
mixedblessings89,
// I really did not understand the reason for this hostility, and actually felt let down, and even slightly shocked, since I had always been told that your's was a beautiful country full of friendly people.//
I think that more to do with couple of thousand years of bitter sweet experience. Sri Lankan never felt that there were been “respected”. I remember by the time Indian army was there, Sri Lankans quite pissed about foreign army entered in to Sri Lankan soil quite forcibly, but we were been school children at that time, talked about Gurkhas quite admirably and small kids played like them.
Try to put the shoe on your foot, how about if Pakistan Army invented Indian air and air drop on strategic locations when there were Hindu-Muslim riots in Surat. Doing so, forces the Indian government to allow Pakistani Army in to Indian soil. And then they march in one flight by flight to India, by thousands. Quite terrible even to think about it, Isn’t it? And top of that, think Pakistan been there for 2000 years next to India and tried to invade one way or another every couple of hundred years. I guess may be that will explain the question why.
Also I guess it is partly to do with the idea that somehow Indians and Sri Lankans are similar. And when one say, it is not the case, it become politically incorrect. And then again, every country has another country that they do not like very much to identify with – but they are so closer to each other in so many ways. Norwegians get quite upset if they were identified as Swedish. Irish get notoriously mad when you say they are British. French with British. Puerto Ricans most probably will call your mother is a prostitute, if you say they are Mexicans. So, why not? If not with our neighbors, who else we can feud with?
Thanks Sam, have you seen the other two parts in the series?(there are two more right now!) If you haven't then check them out! Please Keep commenting to let me know what you think!
Hmm Sri Lankans hate Indians because Indians are cheap, poor, smell bad and are dirty (anyone visiting India would come back to Sri Lanka with stories about violent diarreah and people shitting in the streets). Sri Lankans living in Western countries hate Indians even more, because everyone else hates Indians and Sri Lankans don't want to be hated by everyone too. I get fucking Indians trying to speak to me in Hindi sometimes, and I pretend to be really angry and ask them "what the fuck did you say to me you stupid Indian, I don't understand your stupid fucking language. This is Australia - speak English" etc. Sometimes when we're drunk, we pick on Indians on the train for fun.
I hope Aussies would beat up more Indian taxi drivers. Indians/Pakis give all brown people such a bad name. This is why Sri Lankans, Fiji-Indians, Mauritians, Malaysian-Indians etc hate Indians from India even more than the whites do.
Omg I hate Indians so much!!!!
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