Gamini Sumanasekera barks at Ashoka Serasinghe: Pot calling the kettle black

All eyes are now at Killinochchi, or Oddusudan – but a war elsewhere, perhaps for its hilarity distracts me. This weekend Gamini Sumanasekera, the ultra racist Sunday Divaina editor amused us by releasing his verbal diarrhea against a former colleague at Public Performance Board (Censor Board) Ashoka Serasinghe. His ranting to the rag-sheet he edits had everything – mud, stones, backstabbing and of course jokes – just short of filth. (If we have two more jokers of the ilk of Gamini Sumanasekera surely the Tennyson Cooreys of our times will go jobless.)

To unprofessional Gamini Sumanasekera prostituting media for personal favors is nothing new. This time he comes to save his buddy Prof. Sunil Ariyaratne. Interestingly, Ashoka Serasinghe, Chairman of the Censor Board had questioned the new CD released by Sunil Ariyaratne and Co. with Jayamangala gatha and some other copyright free Buddhist chanting. The law mandates every artistic material issued for public consumption to be first filtered by the Censor Board. Apparently Sunil Ariyaratne, a key political supporter of the President has not obtained prior permission. After all, Wimal Weerawansa is not the only character that shows us his political strength.

No sensible person believes that every literary work should be pre-screened – let alone that done by philistines like Asoka Serasinghe. We do not need Gamini Sumanasekeras to tell that.

Then why Gamini Sumanasekera waited for so long to react? Wasn’t he aware about previous tyrannies of Serasinghe? What this new found free thinker had done when Ashoka Serasinghe banned Ashoka Handagama’s ‘Aksharaya’ and cut several important scenes from Ranjan Ramanayake’s ‘Leader’? Was Gamini Sumanasekera deaf and dumb then? Does his seat get warmed only when Asoka Serasinghe hits his friend?

To make the matters more interesting Asoka Serasinghe was the very lawyer of Sunil Ariyaratne some time back. It surely looks like the client has not paid him for some work.

The best part of the drama is Gamini Sumanasekera’s prepossessed solution. He wants President Mahinda Rajapakse to take the Censor Board under his control. Ho Ho Ho. Please forgive me if you fallen from chair hearing that…There is a Sinhalese saying about assigning a fox to look after chicken. (Nariyata kukullu baara denava)

No secret that all three actors of this drama, Gamini Sumanasekera, Asoka Serasinghe and Sunil Ariyaratne are just pawns in the bigger chess board of our Kurakkan uncle. Still it is amusing to see such pawns fighting with each other.