How come the pelican becoming a Flying Trainer?

The pelican was his annual pilgrimage to Ceylon to avoid harsh winter and got trapped in the Batticoloa floods and was waiting to devour some unfortunate sea fish that have come ashore. When he was about to partake the first mouthful of fish in came the Tortoised Chief Minister (TCM) from nowhere and warned him not to do so.

He was puzzled.

I have been eating fish all my life how dare you intervene in my cuisine.

Brother do not be annoyed.

Be calm.

I will tell you the reason.

They are poisoned by accident and not by purpose or design.

We got a consignment of food for flood victims from UNO and in the transport of it on a vehicle with fertilizer by some strange coincidence the bags' label changed from UNO to USA and a certain politician in Colombo decided that they were no good for human consumption and not even for animals.

Then the local politician requested that they were to be dumped into sea.

The transport man designed a coup.

The food items were quickly changed hands with a label UREA and UREA was changed to USA by substituting S for EA. Then only a few UREA bags that contained deadly cadmium were dumped with political acumen to the sea in front of starving residents and they were asked to go fishing in troubled waters!

So you may now go fishing in troubled waters!

The pelican was visibly annoyed.

I traveled over 8000 miles to land hear on my holidays and you guys spoil it for me.

Don't you people advertise come here and tither?

Sorry for the misadventure it would have been a different story if the weather gods did not intervene.

The TCM said in a quiet voice.

You may go down further and find another island he suggested.

There are no islands till Antarctica and I haven't got the strength to fly that far.

Then he asked are you good in navigation.

Yes of course and if I may ask you why you raised that question?

Even though I am here I still have some connection with the Air Force Top Brass and I can fix you a job with them till spring with full on board service.

He was not happy but picked the crab instead and took to flight and landed on a tree top.

He tried hard to pierce the shell bone but could not and in with anger dumped the fellow down but it landed with a thud and turned upside up downside down and side tracked safely to water.

This he has never seen before and went back to the now friendly TCM and asked how come the shell of a Sir-Lankan crab is so hard?

Elementary my dear!

He was in charge of my armed car when in service.

He was also in charge of making service to my vehicle with three quotation which is the usual practice.

He was given the bullet proof metal sample for verification.

He without my knowledge changed the specification to inferior quality metal and hid the real metal sample under his helmet and pocketed out the contract extras.

Then in the final blast of which we all died in an unfortunate accident the metal got stuck to his skin.

He is a hard nut in any case and difficult even for me to pierce his intentions!

In that case I say yes to your offer with some reservation.

That was how the pelican was made a the flying trainer for healthy remuneration.

You have to wait why he quit and deserted the post for my next edition on web.

Keep counting the SiRs please.

Good bye!

Please note even though these stories are quite akin to Buddhist stories and anthology, they are not designed for Dhamma sermons and any recitals without my implied consent will be strictly prohibited.

PS.

The chief minister who took over from the TCM was mildly hurt when in a routine test a bullet pierced the serviced part of the vehicle and went inside. It was an indirect hit; that is why the injuries were minimal.

He quickly dumped the vehicle to junk and bought a new one from the fresh quota allocated to him. He did not forget to send a telegram to the ex-officer thanking him for his service acumen.

I had to deliver it through my special courier service in conjunction with Apaya International.

Flying Officer Grounded

You may think that the war efforts are accomplished that most of the flying officers are grounded and not flying any more.

Nothing of that kind but a flight record of a blackbox conversation of the final 5 to 7 minutes of ill fated flight of SL (UL-Usually Late) named P.P.P.

Thank god it is not a civil flight but a training flight with only two involved one surviving and the other succumbing to injuries ending at Mahabrahma for another round of life cycle.

I have to put the middle of the story first (but the beginning will related briefly in the flight record.) to make brief and interesting and I may have to go for another record for how Mahabrama (his assistant-that part would be interesting) dealt with the emerging crisis.

Flying is a pastime for some (politicians on our money and government coffers) and fantasy for many Sir-Lankans. Many Sir-Lankan young blood want to become a flying officer but never get a chance to get there. I remember I wanted to become a volunteer officer many moons ago but even though I had all the qualifications and the paper work my application never got to the scrutiny table when Public Service in operation.

It is a different story now that the Chief Minister decides the fate of everybody.

In this story chief Minister also has a fair share of involvement.

Sit tight and listen to the flight recorded data.

The conversation is between a pelican and the flying officer in training.

You may wonder what the hell the pelican doing in the cockpit. He was not trapped in air but he was the trainer in white suit with beautiful avian stripes to adorn.

Yes he was the trainer.
Then who was the trainee?

The trainee was a typical Sir-Lankan man who went up the ladder by being a yes man all his life without any decoration or qualification to boast about

He was somewhat similar to Bun Ki Moon who is a yes man for the big nations and red bully for small nations.

I hope you got the picture.

If he say yes to big shots he will be sure of another term in UNO.

Our man of course did not have applied mathematics but a forged certificate to say he passed the “O” Level in mathematics.

The conversation went like this.

Hello Sir!
You are my trainer?
Yes is there any problem?
No Sir have I got to Sir you.
It depends!

If you end up passing with flying colours yes but not otherwise.

He was bit confused but continued to say SiR to which the pelican with good senses did not object.

He was wanting to count how many times he Sirs him during the first flight.

Sir, you have a big beak but no hands.

So Sir, how are you going to help me with the joystick?

I have good eyes and a small brain and that were enough to navigate from Europe to Sir-Lanka to escape from harsh winter believe me I can navigate you if you listen to me carefully instead of saying Sir.

He firmly ascertained his navigation skills.

Now nose up, flaps up and raise off the ground.

Yes Sir.

Now they were in flight in the first few seconds and the flying officer was inquisitive and want to find the loop holes in his flight instructors credibility to get some bonus in the first flight itself.

Sir how you come to become a trainer in Ceylon.

It is easy any foreign joker or a bird can get a job in Sri-Lanka even in supermarkets without knowing food habits of locals. You just put a label for export and that works.

I had a export label tagged from my childhood he said.

Sir who appointed you and turned his head around and the plane two seater veered to the left?
Look what are doing get the nose straight.

OK Sir!

It is your chief minister who appointed me and it is a long story.

But Sir, I would like to hear more, thinking one day he might become a trainer himself by getting in good books with the Chief Minister and twisting his arms.

But your ex-chief Minister is a tortoise now.

How come Sir, I thought he went to heaven by the celebration we had after his death.

He never got a chance. The way he abused official vehicles and the way he drove with the entourage annoyed the Maha and he decided to pace him down to earth and made him a tortoise.

Sir my goodness will the Maha makes me also a tortoise in my next birth Sir!

In the first place you have to die!
Are you ready for that.

Yes Sir!

This answer pleased the pelican very much since he knew he did not have to train this guy for long.

Where did you meet this Tortoised Chief Minister, SiR?

Near a lake flooded in Batticoloa with a water crab with him.

The water crab was his escort Police Officer. on entourage who could always bend the law of the country for his master's favour in real life in Sir-Lanka.

But he could not prevent the premature death of the entourage who met with a fatal accident.

SiR why he was made a crab

Two reasons.
It is a delicacy in Sir-Lanka.
This officer could never walk straight with the law he always side stepped and went horizontally instead of straight.

By birth right he had to be a crab in next life.

SiR will I become a crab in next life.
This was too distracting for the pelican that the plane was in full speed now.

He said autopilot now!

My friend in excitement put the nose down.
He was only educated in Sinhala and could not read the English word autopilot and he pressed the button right under his nose without reading it in the first place.

Pelican was very happy now that his flying lesson would end abruptly.

Pelican opened the cockpit door and before making a nose dive himself said, your first and the last flying lesson are over.

Good bye and slammed the door closed.

To which our yes man said.
Yes Sir!

The rest is history and the blackbox is the only evidence we have now.

Incidentally this plane was taxied from Hambantota and landed nose down in the newly build port at Hambantota.

The blackbox was traced within minutes since the water level of the harbour is deep enough to see even a blackbox from above and our pelican friend hovered around it as if he was looking for a dead body of fish that helped the Navy very much.

Unfortunately the body of the victim was never found and the air force is still looking for the deserted officer in flight training and the flight trainer.

Our flying officer trainer, the pelican disappeared from his post.

I will tell you the rest of the story if you could count correctly the number of times this unfortunately grounded officer said Sirs in his first flight lesson instead of concentrating on flying and why the pelican deserted his post!
Flight P.P.P stands for Paksheta Pashsha Pora and I hear even the Pakshaya is having a nose dive now!

Please note even though these stories are quite akin to Buddhist stories and anthology, they are not designed for Dhamma sermons and any recitals without my implied consent will be strictly prohibited.

Banana Watching and Banana Logic

I gave up banana watching few years ago when the price of a single banana (not a bunch) went up beyond my purse but kept on practicing Banana Logic to the core which I learned from the politicians of this Banana Republic.

It is a very simple logic.

Take no responsibility of the events and consequences and tame the masses with slippery excuses and logic.
Latest is the flood in Batti'coloa and the government's inability to provide relief and not even believing that the masses are suffering untold hardships. Not only they slip the responsibility to weather gods but exaggerate the loss to the vegetation (not people) especially with very accurate number of paddy fields lost from air conditioned offices in Colombo without ever visiting the flood victims or the area under floods. They release statistics by the minute and they appear on Media and TV as Gullible Truths of the this century, which everybody knows even with aerial shot it is hard to estimate.

The devastation was more than the tsunami and it outlasted it by many weeks.
The tsunami was matter of hours but flood was a matter of weeks not days.
We of course capitalized on the political and economic fronts and the monetary benefit some got by promoting the disaster was fabulous to say the least.

Some by standers got rich leaps and bounds.

That is history.

But this time the paucity of the response and the inability to get even UNO involved was stark reminder that we cannot change the minds of the UNO officers trapped in glasshouses and in real frozen state to change their goals of undermining the underdogs in diplomacy since our antic delivering MPs spoiled soup of even the banana logic too much.

This essay is not on that banana logic spoiled by our own efforts and less said about it is better for our body politics which is in downward trend anyway.

This is about the mega bananas one sees in the supermarkets.

They are big and weight for weight expensive and I cannot believe that our soil has become rich in spite of overuse and the floods washing the top soil away.

I was very inquisitive in a scientific way.

It took few months to discover the truths that also did not come from the agrarian officers but from vendors.
It is a truth that one cannot harvest plantain vegetation for for than two years.
The soil gets absolutely drained off and one cannot grow anything else afterward.

In years gone by in Kandy bucket latrines were the vogue (now one has to pay 10 rupees for a piss in a city mall) the the contents of the buckets were loaded in Guhagoda (near Isolation Hospital) and covered with at least 4 feet of soil and were allowed to season out for 4 years and then leased out for growing banana.

The banana yield was the best in Kandy and they were of healthy size but not of the elephantine of today.

There is something amiss.

Not only they are big but the skin of the banana splits before ripening.
That is quite abnormal as if somebody has injected water (this can be done) under the skin.

My investigation reveal stark reality of that banana logic.

The bigger the size bigger the price and the economic weight.

What the growers do is that they inject UREA (contaminated with cadmium that causes kidney failure) into the flower stem to get them bigger.

Now I believe after the last UREA dose they even inject plain water dose to make them plump. With drug abusers are increasing in number in the country the thrown away plastic syringes are readily available anywhere including hospital dumps. I think even bizarre epidemics may emerge from eating these elephantine bananas. The water injected and the UREA injected are not sterilized.

They are raw contaminated water.

We were healthy eating bananas that came off nutritious from the nourishing off bucket latrines in Kandy yesteryear and not anymore.

My recommendation are
1. Do not pay for big bananas
2. If the skin is split do not buy them (sure sign of overdose)
3. Even supermarkets are suspicious of their dealing with the vendors
4. Buy a reputable product
5. Visit a banana plantation and see it for yourself
6. Taste before buying
7. Make pressure groups of customers
8. Invest on home garden
9. Invest on a bio-degrader container
10. Wash them thoroughly before eating (applies to all vegetables and fruits)
11. Do not put them in the fridge (many reasons including watching what happens to them)
12. Be vigilant
13. Do not buy cheap stuff (paw paw at 10 rupee/kg)
14. These are my observations and I can add many more but all of them are common sense practices.

In a country with chain of corrupt practices from grower to vendor to super markets chains we are eating colossal amount of poisons everyday. 

The idea is to become rich and the poor customer is of no value to the Mudhalali and the Government (except just prior to an election).

90% of the fruits and vegetables are poisoned at various levels.

There is only perpetuation.

No remedy is available in sight or distant future.
It is only a money matter.

There is no controlling authority but corruption at all levels including food inspectors.

If one is eating poisons it is ones own responsibility and that is the the way the officials and government operate and look at the problem.

Good example is that government would not provide free medicine to drunkards (all of us are drunkards politically) and does not look at the root problem of drinking beahaviour.

If you look at the the liqueur bill of House of Parliament we can see where the root cause is.

This is somewhat similar to how we handled and handling ethnic issue.

 
There is absolutely no difference.

Testicular Question of Transplant

The organ transplant is now big money and in vogue and I am perturbed that nobody talks about testicular transplant.

We have so many in this country without good testicular function with ball games vogue in male fraternity, I am surprised why politicians are not talking about testicles.


Is it a banned subject among politicians?


Or is it if they talk about it and if real nuts and bolts and secrets about the testicular functions come out in the public domain and is there a fear among politicians revealing their actual self hidden behind political power?


I do not know.

I am not a politician.


But in our fraternity we are quite adept and amused by this organ so much so that if we want to be cock sure that somebody is stone dead we make sure that we squeeze them to our heart content and confirm our judgmental capacity of death and heaven afterward.


There is only organ in the body which has two arteries (you have to guess) but testicle has only one and would like to be in cold compartment in freezing condition until it is call for duty unlike the ovary which is in warm compartment and function only according to lunar cycles.


Its anatomy is simple but it's associated ductal and tubular systems are so complex that even the heart surgeons who are paid lot of money have not figured out how to preserve them in the first place let alone transplant them in a live subjects.


If you are young and a budding doc and want to win the Nobel Prize and want to make lot of money, it is high time you invest sometime and figure out a way of transplanting testicles not one but several to some avirile and aged politicians so that they can get back to active life instead of siting in the Senate House lumbering or waiting for the coronary bypass or eventual heavenward migration with merit acquired in this life.


For me and my generation we were happy ligating the ductal systems so that they are no longer able to procreate that we were more concerned about population explosion rather than procreation. We were willing to remove them at any moment especially if they happened to be of political organs and put some artifact inside so that they can feel better and if they really like squeeze them for pleasure without any pain.


But things are changing people want to live long into next century even if the health is failing by all known parameters. The only limitation is availability of organs or parts of organs which are becoming very expensive now that the war is inactive and casualties are down to minimal levels.


Are we going to sit and wait or invent the wheel or the testicular cycles?


That is my pertinent testicular question.


Without any gesticulations young blood and budding doctors should find a way to transplant real testicles not dud ones like our times. It is going to be real money spinner at a time of stock market downturn. I hear lot of surgeons are thinking of committing suicide in USA.

They should not.

They should invest their time on testicular transplantation and become the real heroes or testicular tranplanters among the male fraternity before considering going to heaven like Micheal Jackson.


By the way one might win even Nobel Prize for real inventions!


If we can cut each to two halves and other half is filled with dud coins we might even make twice the money in one go!


Think about my ploy young blood.

Twitter News-02

What if, a Baby Elephant finds a food consignment hoarded by a AGA?
The mother elephant will mete out the elephant justice.

Twitter News-01

What if, Sri-Lankan Army manages to transport a food convoy to B'Coloa?

The food will be soon converted to gold by open market forces!

Thinking afterward

It is unfortunate that man is the biggest polluter on the planet earth and he thinks only after the fact or afterward.

This is very relevant today with flash floods in different parts of the world.

He thinks the rivers and sea are dumping places for his economic activity.

He does not care for the river basin or its management and install industries upstream and discharge all the waste to the river and its basin around.

This is seen in India, China, USA and all European countries.

It is true of Sri-Lanka too.

From the time of Portuguese this has been happening in this land. They started with a port called Colombo and the Kalani river is the most polluted of all.

Then he invents filters and the like to purify water.

We might even invent nanotechnology but is it worth if we continue to pollute our soil and water?

We have water cutting ceremony every year and it is time to rethink and revisit our heritage.

Pure drinking water we had 100 years ago.The need to purify was not matter of concern.

More development more pollution that is the equation which we cannot understand with the big brains we have.

We need not have to filter if we do not pollute it in the first place.

Is there a single river or stream in this country which hails for over 40 rivers and streams that we can sip some water for thirst without any treatment?

If we cannot drink it does not matter.

We can filter or boil it.

What about the animals who try to live with us.

Can a stray dog drink a bit of pristine water on a Poya Day!

When we see the sorry stage of our stray dogs I begin to wonder is it a Buddhist country in practice anymore?

We had Kings who cared for animals but can we say the same thing about the elected elite!

That is my message for the first Poya Day. of year 2011.

Majestic Elephants

This is a country run with Mega Mania Memorabilia (3 Ms) but unable to look after our majestic elephants.

Three years ago one of the tuskers was dead due to negligence and dehydration after a so called majestic pageant that paraded the hill country.

Then recently a giant tusker was dead in captivity and the popular story circulating round is he was let to die to get the tusks for ornamentation in high office.

Then comes the floods in the East.

A young dead elephant is trapped in a tree. First of a kind of news item and quite relevant in context.

That tells the sorry story of our majestic heritage and how we care.

It is an eye opener for the world if not for this blessed country.

We had 90% forest cover at the beginning of the last century and had over 60,000 elephants.

By mid last century the estimate was 6000 in the wild.

I do not believe we have 600 left in the wild now and the the forest cover is less that 20% now not enough to sustain vegetation let alone elephants.

We are going to commission two mega coal power units in the near future.

The forest cover will be reduced to 10% within a decade of their operation due to acid rain and the environmentalist are hiding behind the saffron clothed M.P.s.

Very soon we won't have a place in the jungle to meditate in quiet solitude.

Mega mania development will sacrifice the rest of the trees in the name of development efforts.

Very soon we have to import coconut timber with coconuts on top.

Last tsunami a few people survived by climbing on top of coconut trees.

We have mega floods after 53 years in the East and there are no coconut (palms) trees grown for 6 years after the tsunami to climb onto.

But we have election after election to elect representative who ruin this country.

Mega Mania Memorabilia at its best!

The carnival goes on!

Two Brothers of Contrast

When I was young

Working abroad

In a country down under

I met two sweet elderly

Gentlemen in their

Early sixties

They used to

Visit their mum

In her eighties

In a frozen state

Of mind and physique

In a clockwork

Precision

Their encounter

With their mum

Unable to express

Any feelings

Was a very sorry

State of affairs

Which

I could not bear myself

Or manage

Yet they did come

Day after day

In clockwise precision

To hold her hands

In frozen state

I always wished

I could be

Like one of them

If the need arises

But one day

She said good bye

And I did my part

And promptly

Attended to the formal

Paper work

I was very

Happy

That they could

Now

Attend to their

Own life

But for 20 odd years

They were coming and going

In untold pain

How could they forget

Their mum?

Yet,

I come to this

So called Buddhist State

I knew of a brother

Who wised his mother dead

Sooner than late

So he could get on

With his life

In private

That was a country

Under Christian Faith

But this is

A country

Of wonderful

Buddhist Compassion

Quite a contrast

To my likings

Would I go back

To my roots

Here

Or there

Is my dilemma?

Tribute to my Mother

Tribute to my Mother

The hands that

Took care of

Me and the rest

Of the filial

Relationships

Equally well

Tended the jasmine

The floral and fragrant

Plant

They in turn

Sprouted

Bloomed

Blossomed

Radiating

The fragrance

In the still and

Cold air

The clock

Stopped ticking

But the

The fragrance

The brilliance

The Jasmines

She cared for

Still dominate

The ambiance

Telling me

The story

Of tender loving care

Which she was

Able to radiate

In abundance

She was strong

At 91 in 2010

But she was

Very very feeble

In the cold frosty 2011,

So cold we had

To say Good Bye

For good!

GnuGitarinux-Linux 100

Gnuguitarinux is a ubuntu based Live CD under 500 MiB that provives all the needs of a guitarist.

This is something that did not come during my Linux 100 search. Just 405 MiB and provides all the audio that a electric gutarist needs. I am not a music man so you better downlod the live image and vidit their web site and get further information.

Good One.

Thanks Guys and Girls and keep the good work going.