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The date: 15th March. The time: Between 8 and 8.05 AM. That’s the auspicious date and nakath time the Deputy Minister for Agriculture, JVP’s Namal Karunaratna, has preordained for the people to step out to their garden plots and to agricultural fields and participate in the great national endeavour of gathering firsthand data for an islandwide census of the usual wildlife suspects of crop devastators.

On this auspicious Ides of March, at the nakath time of 8 in the morning, farmers will put down their ploughs and pick up pen and paper to carefully record the number of rilaw, peacocks, giant squirrels, monkeys, and other specified crop invaders that land on their agricultural fields. Simultaneously nationwide, millions of home dwellers will be stepping out to inspect their garden plots and engage in the same duty as the farmers. At sharp 8:05, the nakath expires, and so does the solemn duty of each and every one who took part in conducting this scientific census, come to an end.

And what of the auspicious day and time chosen for this unifying moment? Similar only to the unifying moment on April 13th or 14th, when the entire nation lights the ‘Aluth Avurudhu lamp, in the same breath, with the same thought, prays at the same moment in time, a thousand heavenly blessings to dawn upon the land?

According to astrology, a better auspicious day and time couldn’t have been chosen to conduct such a hallowed enterprise. Though it’s being done in the ‘kona maase’—a month-long period that stars on March 14th, generally frowned on by astrologers as inauspicious, and though it is during the waning moon, the nakathtime of 8am stands resplendent with the Sun in Pisces, with three more planets, namely, Rahu, Mercury and Venus conjoined in the House of Jupiter.

THE QUICKIE SAFARI EXPEDITION: 5-minute jaunt to track, spot, count and jot down the usual wildlife suspects in your garden patch

Furthermore, the specific time of five minutes, during which the counting of rilaws and whatnot is scheduled to begin and end, happens within the beneficent hour of Jupiter, the planet most beneficial in the whole zodiac. The astrological take for enterprises begun while Jupiter’s hour reigns is, not surprisingly, beneficial.

With astrology’s positive take on the date and hour on the government’s side, the much-vaunted launch of the rilaw-counting public venture looks set for a successful start. It is also creditable and deserves praise that the Rilaw Census, though not promised in the list of promises in the JVP manifesto, “A Rich Nation, A Beautiful Life,’ is finally being implemented, a promise to which all past governments only paid lip service.

Wildlife Conservation’s Wildlife Health Director, Dr. Tharaka Prasad, told the media on Wednesday that a host of wild animals were on the ‘wanted’ menu to be marked on sight and diligently recorded as being present on their land within the specified 5-minute duration. The offending creatures to look out for, he said, were rilaws, peacocks and giant squirrels’.

Dr. Prasad declared, ‘This census, the first of this kind in the history of Sri Lanka, will take place on March 15, with the public and officials tasked with counting the animals within a five-minute timeframe from 8.00 to 8.05 am.’

It’s, indeed, praiseworthy of Deputy Agriculture Minister Namal Karunarathna to be the progenitor of such a vast and ambitious rilaw project, involving the participation of millions of people and an army of public officials, all possessed with twenty-twenty vision to spot each and every jumping monkey or rilawa, the secretive peacock, flying from land to land in search of a quickie breakfast, not to mention the wild’s giant squirrel, dashing up and down trees; and counting them all in one casual glance plus jotting them down on paper with one stroke of the pen is no mean feat for any mortal man to even dare to attempt.

Due praise ought to lie at the befitting altar of Namal Karunarathna, the rising star in the nation’s gallery of Malima heroes, who, intrepid as they come, has undertaken an enterprise of great pith and moment, an enterprise never undertaken in the whole gamut of Sri Lanka’s 2500-year annals.

ON THE WANTED LIST: Peacocks

Despite a move early this week by Cabinet spokesman Minister Nalinda Jayatissa to deny him the credit and claim that it was a JVP’s special committee of unnamed seers who had first inspired the rilaw survey this Ides of March, then Namal is its messiah and the enveloping glory belongs to him alone.

Of course, all public ventures often begin with great ridicule. And the diligent counting of rilaw and other wildlife pests proved no exception to the rule. Even though a senior lecturer of the Agriculture faculty at the Ruhunu Campus, invited the people to participate in what she described as ‘a national exercise.’

Despite such appeals to regard the counting of rilaw as a patriotic duty, made by a member of the intelligentsia of today, the general prevalent mood existing in the land seems to be to give the whole rilaw exercise the thumbs down and to treat it as a national joke.

But note. The Lankan Rilawa is no laughing matter. It made international headlines when it singlehandedly attacked a power station in Panadura and plunged the whole country into darkness, in the manner the varans king, Hanuman, left Ravana’s Lanka burning in flames.

It should not be underestimated. Neither should the peacock. Nor should the monkey, and nor should the giant squirrel, as they strive to live off the land as farmers do. Though rilaw, peacocks, monkeys, and giant squirrels compete with man in their battle to survive on this one planet.

What’s the useful purpose of this national endeavour? The government asserts it will collect useful data on rilaw, peacocks, monkeys, and giant squirrels. It will form the basis on which a solution will be developed to end this wildlife menace.

JVP MP NAMAL: Bright idea to count wild pest

Is this realistic or mere wishful thinking?

Asking millions of people to stir from homes and make haste to their plots or fields at sharp 8 in the morn, and start spotting, counting, remembering, and writing down the numbers of not only one species but 4—all within 5 minutes—may, indeed, be a stupendous task to practically achieve. Some may swear on their unborn children that they had seen more than 50 rilaws. Some may give their word of honour they’d seen none. Some may simply exaggerate the numbers to impress their neighbour that their plot or field attracts more birds and beasts since it’s more fertile than the neighbour’s barren patch.

Some may opt to enjoy an extended lie-in on bed and may start counting sheep to fall asleep faster, and, upon waking up, write down the number of the sheep they counted in their dreams. What of the untold thousands of rilaw, peacocks, monkeys and giant squirrels that fail to make a grand appearance to be counted on the appointed day, at the anointed time, but remain in their forest lair?

Can this ludicrous ad hoc manner in which data is collected form the rational basis on which solutions are devised? Can anything worthwhile emerge from distorted figures other than a grotesque, distorted solution?

Furthermore, what’s the role the grama sevaka is expected to play? They seem to be clueless.

Jagath Chandralal, General Secretary of the All Island Free Grama Niladhari Union, complained that a census, which should be done by the combined efforts of the Ministry of Wildlife, Ministry of Agriculture, Forest Department, and Department of Census and Statistics, was forced upon them.

Neither have they been given any directive nor a guideline on how to instruct people to carry out the wildlife census. He said, “This activity will not work since it lacks direction. We ask the government not to blame us should this census fail.”

And how much is this much-trumpeted exercise costing the public purse? The Government Printer has completed printing 7 million of these ‘rilaw marking’ sheets. Its distribution began on March 6th.

Anurada Tennakoon, Chairman of the Jathika Govi Jana Ekamuthuwa, alleged on national TV, “According to information we received, 7.3 million forms have been printed, each at Rs. 10, costing a total of Rs. 73 million.”

Rome’s Julius Caesar paid
no heed to a soothsayer’s warning, ‘Beware the Ides of March, beware the Ides of March,’ only to enter the Senate and get stabbed in the back by the friend closest
to his heart.

PS: At last year’s general election, nearly 7 million cast their votes to the JVP. It is reported that 7 million rilaw survey sheets have been printed. By any chance, is participation in this rilaw survey confined to the optimistic wave of Malima supports?

Trump’s bid to make America speak King’s English ‘proper’  It’s OFFICIAL: At long last, America has realised the importance of English and has decided to accord official status to the universal language spoken by billions in the world. Addressing the US Congress this week, the president declared, Two days ago I signed an order making English the official language of the United States of America.” And high time too. The Executive Order he had signed at the Oval Office was to bring about greater understanding by improving communication skills. The order said, “Establishing English as the official language will not only streamline communication but also reinforce shared national values and create a more cohesive and efficient society.” Far removed from their English origins and far removed in time, their progeny, the first settlers that had come aboard the Mayflower, had lost their natural ability to speak in the tongue of the King’s English like a long, flightless bird loses its wings in time. TRUMP AND ZELENSKY WORLD’S APART: Did language divide lead to bust up at White House? By the time descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers arrived at the last Wild West frontier, their English had gone through a metamorphosis. With a new lexicon, giving a new distorted twist to the meaning and a new mannerism adopted in their pidgin English speech, American white skin natives’ new dialect had become decipherable only to themselves and rendered incomprehensible to the rest of the civilised world. Perhaps that explains last week’s explosive blow-up at the Oval Office between President Trump and Zelensky and further explains why England’s Starmer hugged Zelensky in support on his arrival at No. 10 to cry upon Starmer’s sympathetic shoulder, like a spoilt brat used to receiving everything asked for rushes to mama when dad denies his fancy. Perhaps Starmer may have fathomed what Trump had truly said when it was decoded by English translators and spelt out to him that Britain might end up carrying the Ukraine baby with British taxpayers paying billions of pounds for the infant’s diapers. The following day, a more realistic Starmer backtracked and announced, “We must do the heavy lifting, but to support peace in our continent and to succeed, this effort must have strong American backing.” Perhaps Zelensky, too, understood Trump’s wrap-up lines far better and felt the gravity of the Oval Office blowup sink in when it was explained to him in Ukrainian by translators. That explains why a more realistic Zelensky offered to crawl back to the White House with an olive branch of a mineral deal and accept peace on Trump’s terms. Perhaps it will now improve the quality of English in America and teach its population to talk in the King’s language instead of drawling in sort of native pidgin gibberish. Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw observed in his Pygmalion play, and later lyricised in the film, “My Fair Lady,’ “There even are places where English completely disappears. In America, they haven’t used it for years!”