Lanka’s great ‘Carry on Corruption’

Long-running, record-breaking tragi-com smashes the box office

Rife is not the word to describe the state of corruption in Lanka. Like a fish stinks from head to tail, it has seeped into every nook and cranny, smelled from each and every human pore.

Though once it was thought to have been marooned on Diyawanna’s isle, Corruption had survived isolation, become a law unto itself, and resurfaced, and crossed the waters to reach land where, in the saintly guise of those whose moral rectitude was held unquestionable and above suspicion, it fed on the suppressed primordial desires and greed and targeted its prime victims at the top of the social scale.

Starting from those who bear the uncrowned head and those who wear the hermits’ robe, a judge’s wig, a pastor’s cape, until it ensnared all it met, until it wasn’t uncommon to see their crowns, their robes, their wigs, their capes in moral taint but rare, indeed, to see unstained; it has succeeded in its aim to conquer all it met; and laid a vicious stranglehold on this once hailed resplendent isle.

But it could not succeed alone. For that, it needed kindred help. And where best to seek and where best to find than within the bosom of the family?

Whilst its brother Hypocrisy, who preached from Parliament’s pulpit of the need to combat it, who brought new laws, set up new anti-corruption institutions and staffed these sinecure posts with retired judges and sycophants, declared war on corruption and approved the necessary funds and kept its peers enthralled, Corruption, aided and abetted thus, peacefully went on its way, gathering the scalps it had seduced.

While Hypocrisy did its devilish work in saintly fashion and convincing style, Corruption went on its infection spree, it vented its mutated seed and spawned its offspring at its will, inside the mansions of the rich and powerful, within highrise apartments of the affluent well to do and in echelon aisles of top officials of State; and, winding through scores of suburban middle-class homes, reached the last and lowly village hamlets of the poor, so that all would be made equal in their much hailed corruption’s dust.

With almost the entire landscape under Corruption’s siege, infections turned alarming and rose to pandemic peaks and many who could have resisted the disease, soon found out that the most expedient way to resist temptation was – in Wilde’s words – to simply yield to it.

The strong, the weak, the rich, the poor, the powerful and the mild, one by one, they all fell in, in line with Corruption’s stern command to obey the diktat of his evil reign. Those who once had in plenty sworn that they would never steal, now thieved aplenty from the State, without a single qualm, to thus deny the Government of its expected store. Those who had once professed their mettle to be of sterling gold or strongest steel, found out before their very eyes, when tested in the fiery furnace proved decisively, their boasted mettle had failed to withstand the flaming heat, and turned out to be but nothing more than flexible base copper that could be bent, twisted or shaped into any form or style desired.

As the contagion swept through the land, through every field and niche, all fell before the raging storm like a bowling alley’s ten pins. Age-old customs and traditional values, the entrenched precepts of faith, took to their heels to flee to cellars to escape the swirling hurricane’s cyclonic winds.

Amidst converts who had betrayed their long-instilled ancestral faith, there were but few who raised their heads above the parapet, to stand exposed to face the blast alone and willing to die for a cause they hold.

But those few braves stood out like sore red thumbs exposed to ridicule and scorn, despised for not embracing the satanic gospel which denounced all virtues as sin and extolled all sin as the highest good, denied the people of their honour and exalted those who plundered state coffers to enrich themselves.

These braves were now the new untouchables whose moral values had made them outcasts. With most in mass conversion trance, these few brave souls, in congregation’s pen, became the black sheep of the flock. But they fought on although they knew the battle was lost, they would not see through this nightmare of the dark at which the dogs of Lanka bark. Yet they determined to remain true and retain integrity until the last.

Where once they had been praised for stoic austerities, they were beheld now in utmost disdain for their peculiarities. With values of old scorned and sneered, wherever they went the mock laughs didn’t veer. Met face to face the old society’s peers were paid due deference; but as they passed, behind their rears, they were accorded most abusive reference. They were shunned and shamed, cast aside as old redundant knaves that yet refused to join corruption’s net where all the joys of wealth unearned reside.

With such lure and bait did corruption tempt the masses to its side, each one besmirched by the taint of collective guilt beside. In their blind state of ignorance, they could not see nor tell but deep within they knew somehow that one day soon the bubble will burst and explode their world. And when it did they cursed and blamed corruption sins. But when the begging bowl did fill by world sympathy’s open till, they let corruption take the bigger load. And carry on enjoying still beyond their means, until, perhaps, all begging bowls implode.

How long before the final curtain ring for it to fall without a call, how long before all freedoms hear the last death knell sound in its ear; how soon before will people realise, extravagance undue comes at a heavy price? How long before they’ll surely feel the spiked jackboots on the dictatorial feet? How long more will it take for all in Lanka to become enslaved?

If each and everyone does not awake, does not arise, and fails to raise their heads above the parapet to stand against the dissolute, the decadent, then Lanka’s final pyre will soon await the dawn.

These braves were now the new untouchables whose moral values had made them outcasts. With most in mass conversion trance, these few brave souls, in congregation’s pen, became the black sheep of the flock

How long before the final curtain ring for it to fall without a call, how long before all freedoms hear the last death knell sound in its ear; how soon before will people realise, extravagance undue comes at a heavy price?