Brothers’ battle for limelight: Basil’s advent or Gota’s book?

No one can say for sure whether Basil’s return to Lanka’s sun-kissed shores to spend another brief stint to stir up SLPP hopes of a polls triumph was eclipsed by brother Gota’s new book, ‘Conspiracy’, his explosive damp squib?

Compared to Gota’s book, ‘Conspiracy’ -- released two days later -- which could well have been ghostwritten by famed ‘ international conspiracy’ theoretician Weerawansa, and may possibly make Booker’s best work of fiction list this year, the bets had all been on Basil’s return with a new miracle stashed in his hand carried luggage. In SLPP’s starstruck eyes, he was the sure winner.

After all, nothing like the prospect of a miracle for all downhearted souls to add a funky stride to their step and put a pep to their pulse. Miracles do not die nor do they fade with passing years but eternally spring evergreen, even in Mahinda Rajapaksa’s breast.

He went early next morn to brother Basil’s home, anxious, no doubt, to discover what magic elixir the returning hero had brought this time from the United States to sprinkle on the party’s bud that obstinately refuses to bloom.

With the nectar elsewhere, Gota sat with his book alone at home, sulking. No party members made a beeline to his door nor did the Rajapaksa family publicly call. To be fair by them, let’s admit it, his book was as interesting as yesterday’s fishwrapped newspaper, and he was bad news. The jinx in the family pack of cards, who had brought the house down.

At best, his book is nothing more than a paranoid account of how a gaggle of international conspiratorial geese had laid siege outside his door and quacked to oust him from presidential office; and how he had succumbed. He saw conspiracies hidden everywhere and, short of nature’s calls to the loo, in everything and everyone.

He saw an international conspiratorial hand in the confusion that reigned throughout police and army ranks, he saw the same hand behind the teachers' strike for pay increases whilst Covid still raged; and says he saw, ‘strange things happen in the county’. In short, he was a victim of an international conspiracy. The spectre dogged his whole brief reign until at last, in despair, he caved in. But he did so only, as he, in humble modesty, explains, ‘to end the oppression of the people.’

As he writes in a press statement to plug his book: ‘What this book explains is the firsthand experience of an internationally sponsored regime change operation. As such I believe this book will be of interest not only to Sri Lankans but also to foreigners.’

It would have had, indeed. Had it contained names, venues, dates and facts to give credibility to his claims, it may have possessed some value and may even have become an international eye-opener. But, alas, bereft of all those essentials, it’s no better than a book by Weerawansa on the many international conspiracies he found lurking down Alice’s Wonderland.

At worst, his book is nothing but the confessions of a failure, who shabbily attempts to cover his palpable weaknesses by shifting the blame to unnamed powers and airily holds them as the anonymous architects of his downfall.

If discretion had been the better part of his valour or diplomatic niceties had forbidden him from exposing the whole truth or imagined threats of foreign conspiratorial white vans coming at night for him, should he completely blow the lid, had made him cringe in fear to hold his peace, far better if he had taken his secret to his grave than spinning in print a fantastic yarn to become the laughing stock of the world.

Had his book been titled ‘Mea Culpa’ or ‘through my fault’ and contained an honest account of the mistakes he made, and how he miserably failed, at least it would have been of some useful value to those wishing to avoid the same errors of judgement. Instead, by calling it ‘Conspiracy’ and filling the pages with unsubstantiated claims, he had added another pig’s breakfast to his already full plate of follies. Poor him.

By contrast, take brother Basil. There he sits in his own gold lounge, peddling his miracles to all SLPP comers in the manner of a second-hand car salesman in the US selling life insurance as well. As he said in a TV interview on Thursday, ‘I’ll prefer a general election first for I can help many unlike a presidential poll where I can help only one.’ No wonder they are all at Basil’s door to sip from his fount of vote-restoring waters.

One question though: Will his exit from the island be as grand as his arrival?