When yahoos trash google, all of us try not to giggle!
It was Haus Mailand Figo’s day at the 78th Championship show of the Kennel Association of Sri Lanka when the sturdy, commanding German Shepherd carried away six trophies awarded for the best categories. The show was held on March 4 at the Vihara Maha Devi Park.
Figo’s owner Manisha Wimalasekere was delighted that Figo outshone the best of the 100-odd canine competitors at the show. Figo’s loot for the day included the most coveted ‘ Best in Show’ title which he won for the second time, the first time being in 2008. He also won prizes for ‘The Champion of Champions’, ‘The Best German Shepherd’, ‘The Best Working Dog’, ‘The Best Imported Dog’ and ‘The Best Male Dog’.
Figo was well qualified to enter the ‘Champion of Champions’ category as only dogs who had already achieved championship status at previous dog shows are eligible for this segment. Championship status can be achieved by winning the Challenge Certificate thrice at dog shows under three different judges. What is required is the combination of a strong head, sturdy hind legs, hips and elbows and steady stride along with a macho anatomy and of course, discipline, intelligence and an amiable temperament.
Manisha has been devoted to dogs since the age of six when she won prizes for ‘The Junior Handler’ and ‘The Best Golden Retriever’ at the 1991 show. It was Mrs. Siva Obeyesekere, founder of the Kennel Association of Sri Lanka, who inspired her to continuously participate. With amazing dedication Manisha continues to set aside four hours daily – two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening, all seven days of the week to train her five German Shepherds. They need to be walked, cleaned and exercised which her trainer Prakash starts at 6 a.m. and once again at 5 p.m. As diet is vital, they are fed with vitamin-packed dried food with tuna fish added for taste.
Her love for German Shepherds is a family legacy. Since she was a toddler, she listened intently when her grandma Eva spoke of how in the 1950’s her grandpa, Francis Atapattu, would drive from Kandy with his German Shepherds to participate at dog shows. His German Shepherd Pasha was a constant winner at shows, which were held at the Colombo Race Course. Old albums with photos of Pasha posing with his trophies are today family treasures. Since her return from the College of Wooster in the USA with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in 2006, Manisha has taken part in every dog show. Last year, her German Shepherd Voneche Imogem or Imy was chosen as “The Best in Show”. Manisha believes that her lucky charm is her mother Kokila and her aunt Sujeewa and she is extremely fortunate that her husband Hasith and her in-laws are great dog-lovers as well. Hasith has accompanied her every year, early on Sunday mornings when dog shows are held, to lend her a hand and her friends make up the cheering squad as they know that dog shows are the closest thing to Manisha’s heart.
Asked why the dogs’ aristocratic- sounding German names are maintained, Manisha says that she keeps the dogs’ family name as only dogs of pedigree can participate at dog shows. The dogs arrive in Sri Lanka along with their export pedigree and when applications are submitted for participation at dog shows, five earlier generations of the family tree are checked with the respective overseas Kennel Clubs.manisha plans to breed only German Shepherds and is studying the genealogy of dogs, focusing on complementing the lines of Figo’s father Baru Haus Yu. Her efforts, she says, will bring good dividends as intelligence and good temperament come with good breeding.
The standard of German Shepherds, according to Manisha, is high in Europe, India, Pakistan and Malaysia. The Kennel Association of Sri Lanka, now headed by Mrs. Nela de Zoysa, a dedicated dog-lover and excellent organizer, is attempting to elevate Lankan standards to international levels. She is already in touch with the world’s main kennel body - the FCI and also the Kennel Clubs of India, Pakistan and Japan.
‘ The Sieger Show’ held in Germany is the largest German Shepherd only show in the world and it is here that the standard of German Shepherds is the highest. Stefano March, a breeder of German Shepherds from whom Manisha imports her dogs, arrived in Sri Lanka this year to watch Figo’s performance and assess and evaluate standards here. The Best Indian handler of German Shepherds – Rajiv was also amongst the visitors at this year’s Kennel Association show.
Some mavericks do have it badly. They trash the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but hanker after green cards and visits to Disneyland all the same. They use ipads and ipods, but Steve Jobs is not the apple of their eye. Google may be the god of this age, but the devil is in the detail because the world’s best-known and most widely used Internet search engine is American in origin. (And America is anathema these days.)
W-w-well, the Internet itself is American in origin – and so that well- coiffeured politico is probably singing “there G- oes my everything” webside: Wikipedia, Youtube, Yahoo. The Greeks had a word for this syndrome. They called it wearing a mask. We recognize it as hypocrisy pure and simple, though our hypocrites are rarely simple and almost never pure. Don’t stop purchasing our newspaper just because we pointed it out, Mr. Masquerader.
The same politico who’s pronounced a personal ban on Uncle Sam now was once anti- everything Indian, too – from Indian sarees and Ravi Shastri, through Bajaj tuk-tuks to Bollywood film stars. Of course the IPKF was in the land then, and behaving as if the north of Sri Lanka was India’s 25th state at the time, so some of the rest of the country also saw it his way for a while. Then, because one’s nature will out sooner than later, our poster boy for import substitution and boosting the domestic economy by eating bathala instead of Bombay onions (soon renamed ‘big’ or B- onions) botched his copybook by accepting the apparently un-turn- downable offer of a luxury vehicle imported from – wait for it – yes, you guessed it: India with a capital Y. (Why? I don’t why!)
There was another occasion, in 2005 – the quincentennial of our first colonizer’s arrival – when our proud and independent patriot put his foot in it again. Dressed in a ‘ kalisama’ and a ‘ ka
he loudly decried everything foreign and alien to the pristine purity of his native land… not minding in the process that his dress, his coiffeur, his cellphone, his everything essentially, smacked of Western-imperialist marketplace imperatives and neo- colonial consumerism. Mind you, no one thought to take the poor deluded man aside and explain to him the panoply of benefits the Portuguese brought with them…
In similar vein, other unenlightened protestors pointed to the Portuguese modus operandi in their 150 or so years of influence in the Maritime Provinces of Ceilao (as they called it); and suggested that their rule was brutal, oppressive, and rapacious. They were right. But this is the typical uncritical view of the “Good News in one hand and guns in the other” colonists that many nationalists even today have. While it is a chink in our psyche that unscrupulous propagandists exploit, it must be remembered by more balanced historians that Western Europeans of the 16th and first half of the 17th Century had a seminal influence on the island. Language, religion, politics; mores and manners, customs, rituals, and traditions; art and architecture; dance, drama, dress; not to mention a welcome change to diet… and some names which the locals of today think of as their own – all of this is a legacy that prevails to this day, albeit widely un-acknowledged by those who still enjoy its fruits.
We may have got a bit side-tracked. But so has our idealistic naysayer who trashes Google while we giggle at his inanity. In the same way that the nationalists disregard the most impressive maritime power of an age gone by (Portugal), we ignore the world’s sole superpower today (the US) at our peril – especially when it asks us to keep our word to ourselves and the world as far as lessons learned from war and peace go. Make no mistake about the Americans being hypocrites of the first water in the Machiavellian cut and thrust of international politics and enlightened self-interest. But let’s not throw their baby-boomer blessings and benefits out with the muddied bathwater.
Google good, Guantanamo bad. Patriotism of pro- Jewish lobby good, Patriot missiles sold to Israel bad. Resolution on Sri Lanka possibly a good thing in our national interest, resolution against the president and the military complex probably a bad reading of the statement by those with more love for chauvinistic countryoriented chest-thumping than common sense. See how it works?
As much as America loads the dice in its favour and those nations that guarantee it privileged access to valuable markets, they may have a point. But politicos who sing for their supper can’t see it – or won’t. What really worries me, though, is the growing number of citizens who should know better but couldn’t care less… it is in their best interests to remain blind to foreign stick because of the carrot presently being offered to them and likeminded bandwagon-jumpers by a paternalistic and patrimonial state. It has me at my wit’s end.