Times Unprecedented
The past couple of weeks have been the worst ever. The cost of living has gone through the roof. It has pushed the less fortunate to a worse plight. Cooking gas, a necessity, has shot up in price and even if the money is found to purchase it, it is not available. The other option, kerosene oil, is hard to find. If found, most of the supply is adulterated, says many people. In villages people are cutting down trees for firewood defeating the purpose of saving trees and growing them, which are an absolute necessity from a climate perspective.
Buying ready to eat meals is not an option for the lowincome earner owing to the prices being beyond their reach.
The ever-popular street food, koththu roti, which sold at three to four hundred rupees a pack now costs close to a thousand or more. Milk powder is a luxury, bus and train fares have all shot up and only wages remain the same. People living on rent are also facing problems.
Proprietors are requesting higher rates from their renters or requesting them to vacate to re-rent at a higher rate.
Such rentals are not the luxury apartments rented out by the affluent in Colombo at dollar equivalent prices; these rentals are those taken by people living on a measly salary. Boarders are facing problems as the monthly fees have gone up. Most families survive on just one meal a day and, that too, is just a basic one as even the price of dhal has shot up. All this gloom and doom has brought upon depression, all sorts of illnesses and lots of malnourishment to the younger children. Costs of medicine is unaffordable when it is available. Life is tough. The general mood is depression and people taking to the streets is understandable as we are all facing severe hardships one way or the other.
Monday the 9th took an unexpected turn when the foxy foxes outfoxed the hunters at Gotagogama. Let us hope that this will be the turning point for a better future even though all of us will have to undergo some difficult times but with the knowledge that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.