The Man, the Devil, the God and the Cook

The Man, the Devil, the God and the Cook
All beings whether man, devil or god need something for survival. 
The cook has the onerous task of preparing the food for all of them in addition to his own food requirements for his survival. 
We Sri-Lankans are known for satisfying the needs of all three of them be that may be a devil with dola pidheni after a devil dance, a god with puda pooja before an election and a man (with position) with panduru pakkudam for a favour.

What I am going to describe are three doctors all of middle age with whom I had the opportunity to live in the same cottage in Colombo. 
One doctor, I called the Deviya was a doctor who came from a very religious sect where alcohol is a taboo but started drinking with some personal reasons. 
The other is a doctor whom I called the Yakksaya who came from a habitual toddy drinking coastal town of the Western Coast. 
The third was a doctor whom I called the Manussaya who came from the hill country who had the penchant for this miracle drink for no obvious reason.

The first one I called the Deviya for the simple reason that he would religiously attend to his prayers every day in spite of his drinking problem. I believed the god had being with him all the time in spite of his drinking. With drinks he became godlier of course. 

The second one I called the Yakksaya had a deep and rough voice and even before he had high enough to call high enough would make a big racket in the garden and everybody in the neighbourhood knew that there was a drinking spree in our garden.

The third one I called the Manussaya was the one who would leave his car in the garage (which was open 24 hours) and the key in an easily accessible place so that anybody who had a driving license could drive the car away without any formal permission. Those were the days that petrol price was high and our salary was poor enough to have a juice full tank. 

A tankful was a luxury and a bellyful was a chicken feed those days.

The missing link was the cook and his driving force. When I was in charge of the chummery and took in charge of the menu, I realized that the food prepared was ordinary on most of the days but come the days the  three men in their devil or god or manly incarnation, the food was of a reasonable good taste and standard. 
The secret was the miracle drink. 
The three of them used to give him a liberal share (the taste was paid separately) and when he was high the cooking standard went up exponentially. 
So the common denominator or the virtual link was Pol Arrakku. 
Finally, I decided to give him a quarter bottle worth of money as a spare for marketing for two reasons. One reason was the food and menu was kept excellent. 
The second reason was that he would not steal money from the food menu. 
This worked well and our monthly bill was the lowest for sometime and I did not have any complaints from my colleagues. 
However, I did not disclose my secret pact with him to my colleagues. I of course gave him enough money as extras. But not surprisingly he never went home even for a holiday. He was really hooked to alcohol surprisingly enough he never got cirrhosis. We of course had the liberty of visiting all the food joints in Colombo including Union Place, Fountain Cafe and especially the seafood restaurant facing the Galle Face. 
The food was nice and not heavy on the purse but when I visit Colombo now I have second thoughts even having a glass of mineral water. 

Is this the price we pay for open economy, I wonder?

Coming back to the three men in various incarnations be that may be godly, manly or devilish, alcohol brings out best and worst of all beings. 
Blaming alcohol is a lame excuse for lapses in man's own nature. 
That is something I never buy or accept.

All of us left the shores within year and strangely enough I never met them there after. 
They were in the land of liquor with so many varieties available they probably would have found better companions than Pol Arrakku. 
When I  returned some years later, I went looking for the cook and I was told that he suddenly disappeared and never returned. 
I am sure that he must be in the company of one of the three above, since he did no have any savings for his alcohol spree.
 
This I call a form of discrimination on the  ground of the brand name of alcohol one drinks and enjoys.  

Kassippu or Whiskey and the Five Star democracy. 

The voter drinks the adulterated stuff and the winner and the champions drinks the champagne.

13th of March 2006.