How obeisance to Chandrika won MR his presidential day
Sunday Punch 2
The unfailing way to a woman’s heart is not through diamonds or even through chocolates. The cheap but effective way, it seems, is through flattery or obeisance. Simply falling down at her feet in grateful thanks for her favours.
Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga in an interview published in the Daily Mirror on Thursday recalled how during her tenure as president, Mahinda Rajapaksa had been nasty to her mother Mrs. Bandaranaike. But despite that, she said, she gave him a ministerial portfolio in her cabinet. He had been so grateful that he had come and knelt before her.
She said: “I knew about his mistakes. He created many issues for our party. He caused my mother great distress with his actions. When Mahinda was given a portfolio in my cabinet and after swearing in, he came and knelt before me and said “Thank you” and when I asked him what it was all about, he said that he had never expected him to have been appointed to the Cabinet. I knew why he was saying so, because he created many problems to my mother, and I told him it was not necessary to thank me but not to get into rash activities hereafter against the party or its leadership. I never expected him to become so bad. Giving him nomination was the worst mistake I made in my life.”
But if, as Chandrika says he did, Mahinda did indeed kneel down at Chandrika’s feet and pay her due obeisance, it would have been the most successful thing Mahinda ever did. He had stooped to conquer and conquer he did. It opened the gates and set him on the road to the presidency.
Flattery wins always. Whether expressed in word or deed, it can melt the most stubborn heart and douse hell’s fury in a woman scorned.
No wonder the traditional romantic way of asking a girl to marry is for the man to kneel before the girl and make his proposal. Once granted, it’s rarely she would find him in that posture again. And make her regret giving her consent for the rest of her life.